Garrett McNamara: Conquering the 100 Foot Wave and Other Nutso Acts

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I'm Guy Kawasaki and this is remarkable. People. We're on a mission to make you remarkable. Today we're diving into the awe inspiring, maybe fear inspiring, world of big wave surfing with Garrett McNamara. He is a surfer who has not just danced with the waves, but tamed the mightiest among them. He has the singular distinction of riding perhaps the largest wave ever recorded. This is an epic story immortalized in the HBO series 100 Foot Wave. Garrett is not just about surfing. His journey encompasses a profound narrative that extends beyond the ocean into family, colleagues, and his own development. His story is as deep and riveting as the gargantuan waves he surfs. I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is remarkable people. And now, as we say in surfing, it's time to turn and burn with Garrett McNamara. You're all vulnerable, right? You're all susceptible to injury or really death. And feeling vulnerable is a survival instinct. But I just want to know how do you push past feeling vulnerable and actually do it and go out there and risk your life for the, for.

The actual action of surfing and going out there? It's what we love. It's just second nature and it's my passion and I just excited like a kid in a candy store. I don't really get, ever get butterflies. I never really get nervous. I definitely get excited. That's what I have. I always have to slow myself down because I get so excited. I get so worked up that I can't wait to get on the waves, can't wait to be out there. And I'm just like a kid in Christmas, a kid in a candy store, just excited.

You're not fearful anymore. But how did you get to that point? Is it a lack of fear or you put fear in a bottle?

Fear is something we choose when we're thinking about the past or thinking about the future. Two things that don't exist. We're so conditioned. We're always thinking about the past and future. We're never really in the moment. So then fear is super easy to choose. It's super easy for us to choose to be afraid. I would just face my fear when I was 16. I wouldn't go out over 10ft. I was terrified. I got pounded on a 10 foot wave, it was only a 10 foot face. And vowed to never surf a wave over 10ft. And then at 16, my buddy forced me to go out. He gave me the right board, gave me the right advice, and I caught every wave I wanted. And then that was it. The fire was lit. I lived for big waves. The passion. I loved big wave from that day forward. But there was, there was limits. It was 10ft, then 15ft, then 20ft, then 25. Waimea. I got pounded on a solid 50 foot face. The worst you could ever get pounded came up laughing. So then I was like, I can handle anything. And then a couple weeks later, I break my back at Waimea. So it was a good lesson that no, I was losing respect for mother. You know, I had the respect, but I was kind of like, I'm stronger, I'm better, I can handle, I can conquer. So now I take the approach of complimenting and always having 100% respect. No matter if it's 2ft or 100ft respect. The fin can come out of the a 2 foot wave and cut your jugular vein and you're gone on a two foot way boom. So you have to have respect. The real reason the fear disappeared was I'd been surfing so many waves all over the world and trying to just go deep. Trying to get Barrel, trying to get Barrel, trying to get Barrel. Then I got that Barrel at Jaws. It was a sensory overload. The most rewarding spiritual feeling I've ever had on a wave. Just so beautiful and special and endorphins and adrenal and just wow, that was it. And that was 2003. And then from 2003 to 2007, I just surfed every swell I saw on the map. If I could get there, I was there. And I got the most monumental swells that happened during the year, no matter where they were. Japan, Chile, Australia, Indonesia. Wherever the swell was going, I was getting in front of it and I was going to catch the wave. Mavericks. I surfed Mavericks probably 50 times, if not more in 2003-2007. And so I was just conditioned to be used to it. I started to get very used to it. And once you do something so many times, you, you get used to it. I took Anderson Cooper out to Nazare and we went around the rocks and it was pretty big day, like 30 foot faces, maybe 40. And he said, I'll go through the rocks over there. I'm like, no, we don't do that on a big day like this. He's like, what are you, chicken? And I'm like calling me chicken. So then I did a big U turn, start to go the rocks and right where you get in front of the rocks, the most dangerous place in the world. Where Cotti was, he falls off the jet ski and the wave is coming, trying to turn around, pick him up, pluck him and then go through the rocks. And then I tell him, what's up? What's up? You're not afraid? What's going on? I don't have any fear, but I'm wondering what about you? I don't have fear in the ocean. And he's oh no. I've been through so many dangerous situations where you just get sensitized, you desensitize. And the fear, it's more of a natural thing. It's like more like a walk in the park. And I went to Alaska, the glacier wave and 2007. And when that thing was falling down and then it created this perfect, this teeny wave, three foot wave that didn't even break a more of a swell. I'm getting towed out. I let go of the rope and I'm riding under. And then I look up behind me and it's 300ft tall and it's a mile wide. And in reality, that whole thing could fall off at any time if the whole glacier wanted to move forward. But any little pinnacle anywhere along the whole mile can fall at any time. And if they fall flat, I was immediately dead. There was no question about it. I was smashed under. When you fall flat, it's called a bookshelf. When they detach and go straight in, that's what creates a good wave. But if they detach and go flat, it's a biggest shotgun in the world. And so I always envisioned positive thoughts. I always envisioned positive outcomes. But while I was on that wave, detached from the rope, looking up, thinking, oh shit, if this thing falls, I am dead. Fact. And I envisioned myself smashed at the bottom like a tomato. And that sensory overload was the heaviest rush I've ever had in surfing. Way heavier than any ocean experience. And from that day forward, there was no more rush in the ocean. So I wasn't afraid. When you're afraid, you get the rush. The endorphins release adrenaline. But if you're not afraid. It's normal. So every time I would catch a wave, it's a Chopo or Mavericks or wherever, and I would kick out, you should chopes, because everybody's right there. You catch your wave and all your friends are right here. And my friends knew what was going on with me, and I'd kick out and they'd go, well, why'd you get the rash? I'm like, not really. I couldn't get the rash anymore. So I'm like, whoa. I always surf for the rush. I surf to put food on the table and surf for the rush. And I wasn't getting the rush. I was like, what's going on here?

I'm also afraid to ask you this question, Garrett, but can you apply that lesson to people's lives? People are struggling to get past fear of a new job or fear of a new challenge in their career. Does any of what you just said translate to mere mortals?

It's not mere mortal. It's going after it over and over. No matter how many times you fail, don't be afraid to fail. Just go out there, do your best. Prepare, prepare, prepare, prepare, do your best. The rest is up to the universe to allow or let you go on to another interview or let you go on to another job. But the most beautiful thing that I've found is figuring out what, what you love to do. And then make that your goal before you go out and try and get any jobs. Okay, I love playing music, or I love writing, or I love doing podcasts or whatever it is you love. And then make a roadmap. Do very detailed, but not too rigid, but detailed of exactly what you feel realistically will enable you to do that for your job, for your career, or for fun. When you're not doing your nine to five, preferably that is your nine to five. And if you make it very realistic, and it will come, it will happen. And the best way to make it long lived and enjoyable and love it for always is when you attach a selfless component to the blueprint. So somehow giving back, somehow making a difference, then everything always falls in place. And you're always happy because you're making people happy, not just trying to be a capitalist. So, okay, capitalism is okay, but do it in a good way.

So this is a theoretical. Let's say I have a friend, he's about 70 years old, intermediate surfer at best, won't go out in anything bigger than 3 or 4ft. How does that friend get past this fear of stuff? That's head high and More.

How old is he?

He's 68 years old.

You could still do it. You have to want it first and foremost. Then I would recommend training very smart. And if training hard is smart, train hard too. But more smart training than hard training. And with bands is the best. And free, you know, bands for ligaments and tendons, free weights or machines for bone mass and muscle mass and bone density and then the breath work. But you got to be able to handle where you're going to take your body. And if you're physically ready, then there's much more chance and possibility to be mentally ready. And if you're physically and mentally and you're spiritually ready, then it just falls in place. You feel good about it. The best way to get over fears in the water is proper equipment. A really nice thick leash. So the board. And not too long. Now you have to weigh it out. Do you want that board close so you can get it really quick and get around the next wave? Or do you want a little further just so there's a little more room for between you and the wave so the board doesn't hit you? Or do you want it really far away from you? But then you gotta fish. So then you're not really surfing. You're fishing for your board every time you fall. I choose the shorter leash. I'm the first guy to ride thick short leases in the world and that I know about everybody, all the big wave riders, 10 foot leashes now. Everybody else was 12 to 15. I'm like, I see everybody fishing. I'm grabbing my board and I'm getting around the next wave. I went to Taiwan and built leashes way back in the day. Custom. The thickest leash ever made. It was too thick. It would rip your hip off or maybe your knee or your ankle, but it works. I used them for the standup paddles back in the day. And how long the leash the board. Get a board that you're comfortable, that you can cruise around. And don't go too short. Everybody's going so short. And it's this big short board. Frick and Craze, they're just too short. You got to find your balance. Everything is a balance. But the main equipment that he will feel very comfortable in bigger surf is a Patagonia or whatever flotation vest. You put the flotation vest under your wetsuit. It has a nice chest plate which helps raise your chest so your neck doesn't get sore. It's really nice. I love the chest plates because you're raised up without raising up so you have room to paddle. Especially when you get older. Your neck gets sore, your shoulders, anything you can do to be more comfortable. The Patagonia vest is amazing. They're not my sponsor. They send me stuff when I need it. But I still stand that me saying, that's the one, it's the one. Because they don't pay me any money. They're not my sponsor, but they're good friends. They send me stuff when I need it. Pretty much anybody will send me things if I ask and I just look for what I feel is the best. And the Patagonia vest or spring suit or short drawn or full suit, they have all four. But the vest will make him for the waves. He's surfing. All he needs is the vest. And every experience he has in the ocean from that day puts that vest on. Forward will be comfortable. So he'll be going bigger and you'll be like, oh, shit, what did I do? My friend, he's out there. 20 foot sun, he's at sunset. 15 foot. Oh, now he's going to Waimea. Oh, my God.

Are these the vests with the canisters in them?

No, just inflate flotation.

Oh, okay.

And I highly recommend it for any surfer almost anywhere, either. Make sure you have a really good leash that's not going to break, which is the stay covered are the best. Stay covered. Big wave leashes are the best. There's no better leashes. And then the big wave leash, the medium wave leash and the small wave leash are just like everybody else's. But their big wave leash is the best. The flotation. There's a few different companies making them, and then there's a few different companies making inflation. But for what? Every average surfer can utilize. One, to be super comfortable. Two, so they guarantee pop up if they black out. Somehow, whether the board hit some or they hit the reef or hit the sand, they're gonna pop up. You don't even need a full flotation. I, back in the day before anybody cut my life jackets up, glued them into my wetsuit and everybody, like, isn't. All the guys, they, oh, Garrett, what's he doing? He's crazy. He's got flotation now. They all got it. I wasn't crazy. I felt very confident because I have flotation. I was gonna come up sooner or later. So I would go on any wave anywhere, anytime. It didn't matter if I was gonna make it or not. I was going. So that made everybody think I was Crazy.

Geez. Okay, for this theoretical 68 year old 5 foot 10, 200 pound person, what length board to surf a 10 foot wave?

A 10 foot face?

Yeah.

Arrow has a frickin 76 that he made for Jake Davy. That's thicker and wider. I wrote it at Punta Canejo and I was on top of the world. I was just so happy. I could turn, it was light, it was functional and I could catch almost any wave I wanted.

He's not Garrett McNamara.

No, but I'd have my shoulder. My shoulder doesn't work. He probably paddles better than me. I only paddle my 106 these days. I don't even paddle a shortboard ever. And that was a short board for me. 7 6, it was 710 and a 7 6. They were both really good. I want, I'm. I ordered a board just recently right in between both of them. Hopefully it's as good. It's a 7 6, but the shape is in between the 76 and the 7 10.

Just conceptually, is it 10 times harder to surf a hundred foot wave than a 10 foot wave or does it.

Go up logarithmically 10 times harder when you compound things like that. We were just with Rocco from Malibu who just moved into New Zealand and he was breaking all these mathematical equations now and it was just incredible. I was blown away that this pro skater turned skate revolutionary guy who's had all the biggest companies in skating and he went to school on his own I guess after skating and learned freaking all the way to chemistry. And he was just breaking all the stuff down about the 5G and about the hertz and the microwaves and he knew every number and every equation. I was just blown away. Now I have no idea if it's 10 times harder, but if you think about it, you're going a lot faster. There's a lot more consequence. Every wave is unique and you could get your worst beating. Like one of the worst poundies I've ever had in my life was at 25 foot faces at Waimea Bay. A 12 foot day just breaking. It took me so deep and I was touching the bottom and I had a skinny leash and I couldn't come up. Didn't have the new equipment we have these days. And it was scary and that was the most scared I've been underwater. But then I've had 50 foot, 60 foot waves and thoroughly enjoyed it. Not scared at all, just loved the pounding underwater. But when you're actually riding, I usually love my underwater rides more than above the water because they're just so exhilarating. There's so much more there. So you're at the mercy of the ocean. You have no control when you're riding away. If you have control where you're going to go and where's the exit and you can actually make the way when you're towing pretty easily if you get let off at the easy spot, or you can get let off deep but run for the shoulder. So 10 times harder, you're going faster. There's so much more water. It depends on the conditions. If it's smooth, Cortez banks and you got bumpy Nazare and If you got 100 foot wave at Cortez and it's smooth and glassy and you have a 10 foot wave in Nazarene and it's bumpy, might be harder at Nazareth. The conditions are what dictate how hard it is. The consequence of falling. Yeah, it'll be 10 times worse usually. But like I shared, that 12 foot wave gave me one of my worst pounding.

When people watch wipeouts and they see you bouncing three times at Mavericks and all that, so, you know, they play it in instant replay, they magnify you bouncing and all that, then they show you being pulled out and recovering. But I want to know, once the wave pounds you and you're off the board and you're underwater, what exactly is happening? Are you just like in a washing machine? You just thrown all over, you have no control or what's going on under the water?

First you hit. Hopefully you can prepare with a couple breaths. Most people just, just breathe in one time. If you have time, you're coming down, you see you're not going to make it. You want to do a couple dump breaths, as many as possible, more the better. Like three. Three good dump breaths is good. One works and that's squeezing all the air out. Do three dump breaths and then one full breath. Most people just go, but you got your belly, you got your chest and most people don't take the last third of the tank, throw your head back, you get another third or another quarter tank of air. You want to maximize the amount of air in your body before you go down. And you want it to be fresh air, not stale air that's just sitting in your belly. You want all that stale air out and all the fresh air in, oxygenated air. And then when you're under, if you get hit super hard right out the gas, you might get all the air knocked out of you, which happens to people, then you're really vulnerable. And it can be very challenging. But normally you can hold your breath. Normally you're underwater and you're spinning in every dirt. You're going to down around in this way, parallel to the bottom in circles around, up and down towards the bottom and above the surface and sideways every direction. Imagine you're in a washing machine on spin cycle. And then for lack of a better person, King Kong grabs the washing machine and starts shaking in all directions. And that's you under the water. And the whole time you're trying to relax. Doing your best to relax, not to use any energy, but at the same time trying to stay in a ball. Keep your body, your limbs in you retract your legs up a little bit, try not to get ripped apart because it can rip you apart and it can rip your arm apart, it can rip your leg apart, your groins, your hip, your. Yeah, it's a very, very vulnerable spot to be in. Normally it just shakes you really good and lets you go. It's been my experience.

My God, Gary. I surf two to three foot waves and I've fallen and being total disoriented and I'm like stroking and I'm trying to get to the surface and I'm actually going down and I hit my head. And this is in a two foot wave. I just cannot imagine what happens to you at Nazare or Mavericks or Piahi. It boggles my mind.

Different animal. Yeah, different monster. Everyone's so different as well.

And I know the whole thing lasted about six seconds, but it seemed like half an hour I was underwater.

It's really interesting if you can bring yourself to count one, two, you never really get over five to 15 seconds and that's easy for us. And when you count, you relax because you know, oh, someone, you're totally relaxed. But if you don't count, then you can't really judge how long it is and you just feel like it's forever if you're not relaxing. If you're relaxing, you can handle it. But if you don't relax, the funny thing is one of the small waves, that's when you get more exhausted because you trying to get up, you're on this little six foot face and you're trying to swim up. But if you relax, it's super easy. But once you try, every year at the beginning of the winter, when I was living full time here in Hawaii and I would travel a little bit in the summer, the winter would come, I'd go out, six foot swell would come and I'd go out And I'd get pounded. And I'd think to myself, how am I going to handle the big ones this year? Because I'm trying to swim up. But then when the big one hits you. Here. Ah, okay, here we go.

That's a life lesson right there. Garrett, I got to tell you, man, I feel like this is Garrett GPT, right? I can ask you all the questions I've ever wondered about surfing. You're my artificial intelligence. Okay, so can you just tell me how you physically train? Are you running laps? Are you carrying stones underwater and doing the Laird Hamilton thing? What's your physical training like?

All of the training. There's so much good training now. There's so many different techniques and so many different teachers and so many different theories and methods. And I've trained sports specific. I train to be able to stay in the water, and I don't do anything that I don't feel will enable me to stay in the water. And I don't overdo anything. And I love the bands, I love the weights. I've never was a swimmer, to be honest. I can barely swim. I can dock paddle easily to the beach, and I love dogs. I love just like cruising and I mean, if I got a sprint, I can throw in a stroke and. But I've never learned how to properly swim. Just recently, somebody shared with me a few things. Is okay, swim down the beach. I swam down the beach and she said, okay, just do this and just do that. And it was, wow, big difference. I love getting pounded. The only time I swim is when I'm swimming to the beach to go get my board, because I just wiped out. I do love cave diving. I love running with rocks. I used to do that every summer, all summer. If I wasn't traveling, I was running rocks and cave diving right in my backyard.

Wait, what does running with rocks mean?

Can you explain where we do it? You swim down 40ft with no fins, and you pick up a 50 to 100 pound rock and you run across the bottom as far as you can. We would go 30 seconds to a minute, but we would do distance and we see who could go further. My buddy Oconee, he and I were just like machines. And they had a Red Bull rock running contest on the west side. And me and Oconee, I think I used to beat him mostly, but we kind of battled each other, but I'm pretty sure I beat him most of the time. He wasn't really a surfer. He surfed a bit, but he was a badass skateboarder. Red Bull skateboarder. And they had the Red Bull thing on Makaha. And I was traveling. He went and did it. He beat everybody by 75 yards. So I was bummed I wasn't there to at least challenge him or maybe beat him.

But wait, he beat everybody by 75 yards or he got 75 yards.

75 more yards than everybody.

Holy cow.

So, like, they probably all went like 50 and he went 125, something like that.

So that's like saying he could run the length of a football field holding a 50 pound rock under the water. 40ft.

Yes.

Oh, my God.

But we would push it. We would push it so far that when you're coming up for that 40ft, you got your full breath, but you barely swimming up your couple, couple strokes and glide, and glide. And then as you're getting to the surface, I've numerous times. I saw the freaking black closing. I was almost passed out. Red as my lip. It was just like big wave riding. You see that right before you pass out, your lips come through and you get the air. Oh, my God. Yeah, we pushed it. We loved it. I just saw him recently here in the wave pool. I haven't seen him in years. He's a beautiful human, nice guy.

Okay, so that's physical training.

Okay, so more bands, weights. Get a really good trainer who's really in tune with the symmetry of your body, knows your body, preferably somebody who actually works on your body, and they know about sculpting a body with different techniques, and they can straighten you right out or they can share with you how to straighten yourself out, and they can straighten you out, but you have to do the work. They can only do so much. They can put you in place and they can set you up, and then you got to keep it going and change. And with a good trainer, everything's possible. Now. A lot of us love to do it ourselves, and a lot of us work with a lot of different trainers and then go home and do it ourselves. I really like working with a group of guys or a group of girls. I like group training. But the biggest challenge with group training is you gotta leave the ego at the door. And the hardest part about group training for me is leaving my ego at the door. And. But it's really good. One on one or two or three on one is really nice. When you know you're working out with your son or your wife or your brother or a couple people come by, big groups, the ego gets in there and all of a sudden you're Running sideways with a weight and freaking throw your back out or throwing a kettlebell around and ruin your shoulder. Yeah, you get ego, man. Just gotta leave it at the door. When you're training, you gotta train smart. Train smart. And if training hard is smart, train hard too.

Okay, so that's physical. Now what's the mental training regimen?

I have to bring my body up to par with my mind. My mind's gonna take me, I'm gonna go. So I gotta be ready physically. And if I'm not ready physically, that's when I'm a little afraid maybe, But I'm a lot more patient. Cautious. The best word to use is patient. But it might be a little more cautious, a little reserved, little like, maybe I'll go. I'm not sure. I'll put you on some waves. But if my body's feeling good and I'm feeling good and the waves are perfect, then I get. I just recently Cortez and just recently here in Hawaii, I was like back to normal, just frothing. But I didn't want to be behind the wave. I wanted to be right on the apex. I wanted to be in the perfect spot. Normally I want to be behind it. Way behind. 50, 50. Make it, get the best ride of your life. Don't make it, get a nice underwater ride. Now I just want to make the waves. I don't want the underwater rides as much. And I mean, I don't mind underwater rides, but the possibility of getting hurt is higher now. Maybe it's not higher. I just feel like it is after this darn shoulder injury.

I swear, like 20% of 100 foot wave is you doing yoga and CJ doing yoga. So what's with that? Isn't that all mental training and stuff or is that physical?

The meditation and the yoga is more for me to focus on being a good husband, being a good father, being a good human. Figuring out what to work on for personal growth and focusing on that during the meditation and my mantras and to get flexible. But the meditation is more. Yeah, meditation is just for personal growth. And with that comes spirituality and comes calmness, accomplished feeling. We're so caught up in our rat race where we all run around like fricking chickens without a head, without any real goals. We just go day by day. We have these visions or dreams or hopes or expectations, but we don't really write it on a paper. We don't really make a roadmap to achieve it. So we're aimlessly wandering all day. What's coming next? And maybe we'll plan for the next day or plan for the next week or even plan for the next month, but it's just like, day to day. It's not like, big picture. How do I become an amazing human? How do I contribute? How do I feed my family and do what I love? And then you make the plan of that and you focus on that every day. You look at that roadmap every day. Then you're like, you have a life of purpose. You know what you're doing, you know why you're doing it. You know what you can do to improve yourself, what you can do to improve your relationship, improve your parenting skills. Unfortunately, people are inspired by the show. The only reason we did it, to try and inspire people and try and make a difference. We told the producers we do not want to make a surf film. We want to make something inspirational that helps people. And it worked. And now all of a sudden, people are looking to me for answers. I'm like, oh, my God, I got so much responsibility now. I just want to go. Even people like, I don't want to drink, but I don't want caffeine. So what do I do? I want to go eat a pint of Haagen Dazs, but I don't want this belly. Oh, what do I do? How do I do it? Love my acai, but I don't want to eat sugar. I know. I want to turn back the clock. I want to biohack, get younger inside. And I just took all the tests to see where I'm actually at my age by all the tests of your internal everything, the saliva, the poop, the pee, the blood and the brain. And we did all the scans, and so they're going to give us the results on the 14th of where I am at my age, my physical age, where it seems to be right now at 55. Am I 75 or am I 35? I want to reverse it. Wherever I'm at, I know I can do a lot better than I'm doing. So I'm going to work on that for the next year.

Okay, can you take us inside the dynamics of the team of surfer and jet ski driver? Like, what's happening there? Is the jet ski driver picking the wave. What's happening? What's the interaction there?

If you have a good partner, somebody that you prefer to work with and like, working with, it's somewhat like a marriage. And maybe the guy that you want to have driving you isn't the guy you want to hang out with on the land. Maybe you have different goals, but that's not really a good way. It's better to find somebody that you have the same values and same interests and same goals and work together to achieve whatever it is you guys want to achieve. I love Cotty more than anything he's given me. My world record wave, changed my life with Nazare and was always there for me. Always. Then we went out to court Tess, and he couldn't put me on the wave, and I lost it. I was. Lost the plot. I was screaming and yelling, I'm 55, Cortez. How many times does it break a year? How many times a break every 10 years? If you're lucky, you get to surf it in a lifetime. I've been lucky. I've gone out there four times. I think I've surfed it three. That was the best waves I've ever seen. The best big waves I've ever seen in my life. Not the biggest, but the best. And he couldn't put me on the wave. The number one wave I wanted. We're towing at it, and I'm like, yeah, yeah. Some reason he drove right over it. I lost the plot. It was the one that Lucas got, the big one that Lucas got. Lucas was like, go, that's your wave. Go. And we drove over it. I lost my mind. Then we get here to Maverick, to Hawaii, to Eddie's Fall. I've never seen a swell that strong from dawn to dusk with that much power and energy. The whole day with a perfect northwest swell. Every spot was good from my house all the way to freaking Cuckoo. And we go to the biggest, best spot, log cabins. I say, okay, I want to warm up couple. So he told me, out a couple. Just tow me out a couple on the inside. Just tow me at them. He told me at the first one, lets me go tour there. Don't make it to the wait. Tows me. The second one let go too early, don't make it to the wave. So I'm like, you know what? Just tow me straight down the wave. Don't whip me at it. Just. I want a big one. Just tow me straight down the wave. So the biggest wave I've seen of the day is coming at us. And he goes full speed, towing me at it, like out behind it. And the bowl is here. Now we're behind, and I'm going full speed on the edge. And I'm, like, about to drop in to. I'm not sure what. Instead of just going straight down the wave and kicking out and Letting me go where I want. And I just kicked out. Now I'm out by myself. There's a giant wave coming. There's no Cotty. He thinks I'm riding a wave. Luckily, I didn't get caught by the second one, or that would have been really bad. And I lost the plot again. I was livid. I was so mad. I was like, this ain't no Mickey Mouse. And so that's when it's like a marriage. I hadn't been so excited to surf big waves in about since 2006, so almost 10 years. And he hadn't seen me so fired up at Cortez or here. And he said he couldn't handle the pressure of me wanting a big wave. And I'm just like, just put me on the wave. You got a Jet Ski. You got a rope drive down the way. What the. Sorry for swearing, but, man, I don't like reliving that. It was not a fun scene. I shouldn't have lost it. But I don't have a lot of these days left. How many days? I never thought about that until Twiggy. Every time I see Twiggy, oh, I only got another year left. I might only have one more year. I gotta get it. And I'm just like, bro, you got as long as you want. And then I was like, oh, Cortez, I might not ever get that again. And I'm like, log cabins, perfect. Nobody out. I might not ever get that again. Ah. And so I was like, losing it.

How do you form this team? Then you just talked about some failures. And you've been a driver, too, so, you know, this is a lesson in arguably management. How do you form this team?

Sometimes you got to put one guy a safety and another guy driving, and sometimes you got to let somebody else drive instead of you. Like, I can honestly say I didn't do the best for him either. But I asked him what wave he wanted, and he told me, yes, I'm on this one. And every time he told me yes, I put him on the wave. But then most of the time, the second wave was better. At Cortez, that day, that we missed a lot of the best waves. I put him on 30 waves. I caught like, two waves. I was done. After he missed that wave, I was just done. I'm like, I'm done. I'll just drive. I don't want any. I didn't get the wave I wanted. I don't want any. If it gets bigger, I'll consider. But it never really got bigger. It only got up to about 60ft, maybe 70, probably more like 60. But when you don't know how big they are unless you're under the way of getting ready to get pounded, other than that, you can't really tell. You choose the people you love. You choose the people you know are genuine and real and people that are like you. You definitely want to choose eagles. You want to fly with the eagles. You want to choose expanders. You want to choose people that are as good or better than you or a version of yourself or a better version. People that you can level up to, people that help you expand, people that help you grow, people help you achieve your goals and dreams. Surround yourself with eagles. Chickens are great. I love eggs. I love eating the eggs. And chickens are cool. They provide. They're running around eating worms and I'd rather be soaring with eagles. But for some people, the chicken life is great. You don't have to think too much. You don't have to do too much. You do what's expected of you and the rest of the time you don't have to think and stress. And eagles got to think about everything, got to figure everything out, got to really make things happen or nothing happens. Okay, so you're definitely an ego guy.

E G O or E A G.

L E H E L. Eagle. So you look like a, an eagle right now. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm also the guy I was describing who's 68 years old who won't go out in a wave that's six feet.

Come over, I'll take you out and find of the house.

Well, you know, listen, I was going to ask you. So someday if I come to Nazareth, will you tow me out like you towed out at 100 Nazare? Then I can say that Garrett McNamara told me out at Nazareth.

Well, we just get the right day, you know, you got to come at the right time. 100. I will tell you, you if it's small and perfect and, and, and manageable. Yeah, everything's possible. And if you want it a little bigger, I can get you a little bigger. But we just got to see how you are on the rope you wakeboard or water skiing board. Okay. We might have. If you're gonna do some wake surfing during the summer, go, go on the wake. Surfing. Super fun. You'll love it.

Okay.

You'll love it. You can even do it on your longboard. Up next on remarkable people overcoming challenges and obstacles. When doctors tell you that you can't do something doesn't mean that you can't so there was me. The story was about me, Andrew Cotton and cj. CJ had a horrific back and knee, but mainly the back, and I had the shoulder and three guys that the doctors told me shouldn't ride big waves anymore, maybe won't be able to.

If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate and review it. Even better, forward it to a friend. A big mahalo to you for doing this.

Welcome back to Remarkable People with Guy.

Kawasaki going back to 100 Foot Wave. I just love that series. Two seasons now. How did you put that together? Because there's so much footage. Were you planning that long to record all that footage and have all that? And then they have these scenes where you wouldn't think you would let a Camry go and, and Cotti's going crazy and driving along and he's all screwed up. What's the backstory channel of how that series is made?

Well, my goal and Cotti's goal was to just be able to keep surfing without doing a 9 to 5. When we aligned, we go for a long time and he was, he didn't really think it was he. We quickly had him write his goals and his blueprint, his map. He quickly quit his plumbing job and his lifeguard job and quickly became a professional big wave surfer. He struggled for a while. He would just barely make it, every make it, but the goal was just to stay in the water. The goal was to be able to train and surf and. And he succeeded mightily. I've had other friends that were on our team that I do. Write your goal, write your do it. They're both, don't want to say any names, but they're both aimlessly wandering the earth. Not professional surfers. And there could be 100%, they could be making very good money doing surfing, doing what they love right now. But was in nine, eight or nine. I was training, oh, 2007 for the Eddie. 2006 even. Oh, yeah. And was it seven maybe? No, man, I think it was eight or nine, whatever. Whenever the Eddie happened, I was training with Rob Garcia for about three months and he introduced me to this guy named Rick Solomon. I was with Rob. I said, rob, I want to do a reality show. I want to do a freaking reality show on surfing so I can keep surfing. Back then, if you had the sponsors were coming after you, you're making real money. You had a show. If you had a second season, you had a third season, you had companies just knocking on your door. This is different. With Instagram It's a weird. It's a weird. So he introduced me to Rick. Rick wants to tow. Rick wants to do a show. So I take Rick towing. Rick hires a bunch of cameramen, a producer, director. We filmed for six months, spent a lot of money, half a million filming for six months for a maybe show. I knew it was going to be a show. Knew it was going to be a show. We had buttons in there. We had Jay Adams. Yeah, those are all the guys that. They were my, my boys. And they were there during the filming. It was super fun, mainly buttons, a little bit of J, a little bit of John. John. And we pitched the show and it was basically they wanted the show discovery, I think. But then the director, producer, partner never delivered the deliverables that they go forward. He was sent to something weird. Bless his soul. He passed now and I meet Nicole. That, that six months of filming is in the can dead, not being used. But I had already visualized it, I already planned. I meet Nicole. I kind of got shut down in my previous marriage with the. In my goals and my dreams all got kind of shut down. And then we went to Sanazer. She saw the email. When she, when we met, she saw the email chain. She said, I want to get you organized. She's probably looking for emails from girls. But she didn't find any. There was, yeah, because I'm the woman, man. Like kind of weird when you go, you know, go traveling around the world and all your friends are doing whatever and I didn't. And they're. I'm the weirdo. It doesn't make sense, but whatever. A lot of local boys are pretty solid, but a lot of them like. So we go to Nazare. Well, she finds the email I've been emailing this guy first went nowhere. There was no. It wasn't going anywhere. It was interest on my end, interest on his end, but it wasn't happening. She saw the email, she said, do you want to go? I said, yes. She replied in one. And so it's because of Nicole. The whole thing is because, you know, she's my muse, she's my everything. She's the most amazing woman in the world. If only the world could see through her eyes, it would be a much better place. Just so much empathy, so much love, so much passion for thing. So we get there and they have one cameraman, his name is George Liao. He actually just had a stroke year ago and pretty should have died. They thought he was dead. He's on the freaking bed, basically dead. They're talking to the family about what are they gonna do with his organs. He's laying there. His eyes are closed. They say everything's shutting down. Action. He somehow wills his eyes open. And they look, oh, his eyes are open. Oh, it's just a reflex. Don't worry. What are we gonna do with the heart? What are we gonna do with the liver? What are we gonna do with the kid? And then he. They look. It's kind of. His eyes are moving a little. George, can you hear us? Blink once. George, can you understand everything? Blink twice. Can you hear everything we're saying? He had. 90% of the people locked in syndrome die in four months. Their body shuts down. Only one person has this. The rest of the people. Who. Very few in the world get locked in Syndrome. The rest of the people got. It didn't really regard. He's outstanding doing art. He went from frozen month or two to he's in it. We got him in an amazing facility. The reason I'm sharing this is because there's a GoFundMe page that we. We raised about a 50k or we helped him raise 130. A lot of it was through his contacts, a lot of it through ours. Regardless, he's raised 130 so far. He wants to raise 200. And it's $15,000 a month. And he's been in there, I think, about nine months. I don't quote me on that. So anybody out there who wants to donate to the man responsible for Hundred Foot Wave, the man responsible for capturing the images that made season one, the man who captured in such a special, unique way that the world was able to grab onto those images and be captivated. And he shared it with the world through his lens. Without his lens, it might not have turned out the way. Maybe nobody would still be there. Maybe I would have got there and not like. But since we clicked and we were. I told him, don't turn the camera off. Yeah, he had a still camera, but it had a video mode. I said, put it on video and don't turn it off. And here's my five GoPros. And keep them running the whole time, because this is special. So we filmed everything. Years with the. The town. And then the mayor changed. A new mayor came in. Project was dead. We were all, what are we gonna do now? He killed what we created himself. And then hopefully that comes out in one of the seasons. How terrible the politics are and how terrible mayors and politicians are. They're just terrible. It's so sad. Most of the world. I don't know if there's any good ones. Okay. I don't know anything about politics. I just know what I hear. And I don't have a TV and I don't watch anything on the computer. I just look at my Instagram once in a while and look at the surf report and check my emails. I don't look at anything else. Wait, wait. So, so where were we? We were at oh yeah. I told him, don't turn the camera off. I knew we had gold. We, the second year after filming the big TV network of Portugal put together with us, made the movie called North Canyon. And then we made Nazare Calling the second year and then we made another movie the third year that we didn't let go out because we didn't like it. But the first movie is okay. The second movie was really good and the third movie didn't make a difference. So we said, no, we're not making no freaking Mimi I I movie how to make a difference or we're not doing it. So we shut it down. And then we call. Okay. So Nicole writes a script for a movie about the human spirit, about overcoming challenges and obstacles. When doctors tell you that you can't do something, doesn't mean that you can't. So there was me, the story was me, Andrew Cotton and cj. CJ had a horrific back and knee and, but mainly the back. And I had the shoulder and three guys that the doctors told me shouldn't ride big waves anymore or maybe won't be able to. And three guys that came back. So she wrote that script for a one and a half hour movie to win an Oscar. That was her goal. No, she doesn't go for no potatoes. She was going for the Oscar, 100% getting Oscar. So she, her cousin married Joe Lewis who was a senior vice president, he co founder. And so we called her and said, hey, can you think Joe can take a listen advice? And she said, well, you know, he just stepped down from Amazon, but he's got his own production company now. I mean he could give you some advice for sure or maybe. So then we sent her the thing. He gave it to him. He instantly said, okay, let's get on call. We get on the call. He's like, this is really good. He did, he said this is, but it's her favorite cousin. It's Nicole's favorite cousin, married him. He's all, this is really good. And this can win an Oscar. And if you, if you want any advice need. He didn't like, oh, I want to do it. I want to produce it. He kind of like, if you. And if you want me to. I mean, it's really subtle, so not very direct of his excitement to be involved. And he said, but if you want me. It was just really, like, kind of strange that it wasn't like, okay, you can win Oscar. You can win Oscar. And like, Nicole's like, what? Here, take it. You produce it. Because Nicole was going to produce herself. Well, guerrilla style with some Portuguese guys and blah, blah, blah. And it was only going to be a one and a half hour movie. We have this hard drive that has the last. The first three years. We have this hard drive that has a people's in one ear and out the other. They. They. Every interview, I hear them say, oh, and then the hard drive pops up. They didn't tell us about the hard drive, bro. We took your time. And this is. This is a docu series. It's not a month and a half hour movie. And the lost it. It. She's like, no docu series. I want to win an Oscar. I want to do a movie. Then Joel was like, don't worry, we can win an Emory. She's. I don't want no Emmy. I want. There's this true story. This is how she. She's gnarly. She'll manifest whatever she wants and make it happen because she's, like, so good at knowing what to do and how to do it and when and what's important to the world. So that's the main thing. She always takes a selfless approach to everything. First and foremost, what's important. And so we said, okay, I'm gonna. Well, it's more. We can share more. We can tell more stories. But then they get involved and they start twisting it and crap. We have no control. We don't have. Legally, we can't give any input. We don't have to listen to anything we say. We gave away. All right. The season one was exactly her script, just by chance, because she knew what was there. She knew what was there. And they followed Slate. They could have done three seasons with what they had. There was so much footage, so many crazy fun out of this world situations that we see. They have an editor go through all the. They have four editors go through all the footage who have no idea what they're going through. Never watched the first two movies that we did on and send it to this other editor, Zach, and then they. They craft whatever I want to craft, and then they send it to Chris. And then Chris goes, oh, okay. That's how we make that good. I just speaking out of turn a little bit. That's how season one went. But I'm pretty. I'm like 99. That's season two. Season one. I don't know how many. It's pretty much the same. And so there's about 50amazing stories and amazing crazy dangerous love. Just so many things that just disappeared. That could have been a minimum of three seasons.

What?

And then you should see how much they film now. They shoot a thousand hours. Really use. Wow. And they're sauce. So they. They do all. They're incredible. I don't know how. How they figure this stuff out because they don't have anybody storyboarding on location. So they just get this pile of footage and they're starting to. Starting to do things a little better. Nowadays, there's. There's videographers cat tell the log what they shot, but nobody's storyboarding. Nobody's saying, okay, today, this was the monumental thing, and this was the downer, and this is the upper. And this is the good, the bad, and the ugly. They don't do that every day. They need a guy on the land writing, good, bad, ugly today, good, bad, other yesterday, good, bad. And there's so many teams and so many cameras and so many, but they just need the somebody at the end of the day. What happened? Well, here's what happened. So supposed to have a call to help help them with that, but now Joe is a scripted guy. He's not a documentarian, and. And Chris is a documentarian, but he's got 50 shows going. So he just sits back and once in a while and mastermind, he's a badass, but he's spread really thin. So he. When it's time, he gets in the trench. When it's crunch time, he gets in there and he goes to work. But until then, he's doing fifta projects. So it's. It's incredible. And without Chris Smith and Joe Lewis, it wouldn't have gone who knows where. They are the masterminds, they are the magicians. They are badass. They have the best teams. And then you got Topic Studios, who Joe Lewis brought in, and Rhea Zuckerman, who's like one of the most badass right now. And then they brought in hbo, which it was Netflix, and HBO bidding war, which is really cool. Netflix would have been better for more viewers, but HBO is a better network. More of the Mercedes, so.

And there's going to be season three. Wow. Yes.

Cortez Bell.

Wow.

And I. They don't even know what they have. So who knows if they'll use any of what I shared. Hopefully they listen to this. They might know a little bit. I should have Zach listen to this. They're all really, really good. They're all just, you know, doing their best and it's not easy. I. I wish the capture log and editing on no, man, I can't even imagine under doing that. It.

Okay, this is gonna be a silly question.

All right, so no man or women. Sorry.

Listen, I see how much you use GoPros and Garrett, I'm at the other extreme, right? So I'm using a GoPro and I'm surfing two foot waves. And I swear to God, one out of five times the GoPro crashes mid session and you lose the whole thing. You don't get any of the takes. And sometimes every day it's asking me to reset the date. So is it just me or you have all these like weird stuff happening with your GoPros? Because it's one thing for me to miss a two foot wave, it's another thing if you're on a hundred foot wave and there's not multiple takes of that. So tell me about GoPro experience you have.

Well, I try to. All the products I use, I kind of find out if they're GMAT proof or not. Yeah, I'm really hard if the stuff handles me, it's really good. And most the company as I work with don't really have me test anything. Even though I'm testing it the whole time I'm using it. They don't ask, oh, so what about this? What about that? And I'm putting the shit in the most extreme conditions and I need it to be streamlined and safe so I don't hurt myself on the equipment. When I went to Nazare the second year, putting on a contest, they didn't even put that in the, in the docu series. We made a contest. 2011, we did a trials for an event. We're going to do it. And GoPro sent me 30 GoPros, one for every ski or for 12. 12 guys in the event. I had a couple after me, three of them, half of them got lost because they had really insufficient mounting systems back then, you know, I met Nick, his first trade show, and I saw the GoPro and I'm just like, this is what's missing from surfing and action sports pov, but mainly from surfing. Now we can invite the world into what we're doing. They can be a part of what we're doing. They can feel it through that camera. I didn't stay. I didn't get in deep right away. I should have. I kind of skated on the outside. They'd send me a camera here or there. I'd try and get a camera here. They were my friends. They, they, they. If I. They would get back to me. And then they did the cameras, so. But they never asked me for any technical or any mounting or any. Anything. But they did so good. You know, they evolved so quick and numbers are so amazing. Electric, Electric technology in water. So if it works at all, I mean, it's a home run. And they do work for a long time and they last if you clean them and you take care of them. But yeah, they. Sometimes you can't. They shut off and won't turn on sometimes. Sometimes. Yeah, yeah, they malfunction a little bit. Definitely malfunction. But I believe they'll give you a new one if they do. And, and, you know, each new version. Some of them are really good. Some of them have more malfunctions. I've loved them. I love using them. My challenge has been when I was always in a rush to catch every wave and always in a rush to get it. And a lot of times I would miss the wave or blow it on the wave because of the GoPro. So it's a little frustrating towing a little easier, but paddling, you got to get up there and reach on and turn it on and leave it on. It's okay. But if you. Then you got to go through all that footage. I look for your wave. 10 minute clip. Yeah, I like to turn it off and on all the time, but I like to leave it on, but just turn it off. Record on, but leave it on. Leave it on mode, but record is off and on. Or you leave it on the mode where you just press it once and it starts recording.

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Okay. So how the hell do you balance your responsibilities as a parent and as a big wave surfer? Because it seems to me those.

Yeah, you know, I, I was always a bit. So the, the children, it was second for them. It was second nature. For me. It was normal to have kids and ride big waves that I'm gonna. Before I had children, I didn't mind dying riding big waves. I had no problem. I was like, this is what I love to do. If I die, great. Want to die. But if I do, no problem. This is. I'd like to go if. But once I had children, I felt a responsibility to be here. On the earth for them as long as possible and not die in the ocean. So then I took training really serious and surrounding myself with the right people, really. And, yeah, right now I'm not where I want to be right now. I'm definitely not in the shape that I want to be to survive giant waves. And I can. I can handle a couple here and there, and I can get pounded by two or three waves, no problem. But if it's like 10 waves in the head, I might be passing out. So I'm. My lung capacity isn't there and my strength isn't there, and my mental and physical is not where I want it to be. But there's a little bit of time left before the winter starts. And yeah, I'll be in Fiji the month of August, and if a giant swell comes, I'll definitely catch a few. I'll probably be in Mexico or I'll stay in Fiji for a month and a week, or I'll go for two weeks in Fiji for sure. And then it's either go to the mainland at Tavaro and then it's either go to the mainland or go to Mexico or Australia or Bali or. But we got work towards Portugal, so Mexico kind of Mexico, Costa Rica makes sense. Working our way towards Portugal. We're going to be in it. We're moving to Italy in September on September 7th, 15th at the latest. School starts on the 15th for the kids in Italy. And yeah, so I've take the back seat of, you know, being there for my killed kids actually moving up into the mountains in Italy for. For their school. But I do have Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, all two to five hours away. I plane. I don't know about that. My butt's not clean like his. Remember in the. In the. In the documentary, it was all about clean butts because they all lived in the van together. And you had to be clean. You had to be clean. And then the two. Two things I remember were there were the parents were having sex all night long every night, and the kids had to listen to it and you had to have a clean butt or you're not allowed in the van.

I interviewed Abraham for this podcast. I should have asked them about the.

Sex and the butts. Those are the two things that really stuck out for me. Beside, I love Doc. He's a dear friend. We would talk all the time. He would always share his. His theories and life's. Life's lessons. And we talked a lot all the way to the end. It was really sweet, special human and the whole family. Izzy Paskowicz is how I met in the. Nicole through surfers Healing. We met in Puerto Rico. My wife.

Really?

Yep.

Wow. Do you use an Isura sweatsuit?

What's that?

Do you use the Isura sweatsuit? Abraham's company?

No. I should probably call them up. They. They used to send me some back in it. Yeah. You know what? Actually, I'm using Cynthia Raleigh now. The. The New York fashion designer makes women's clothes. She makes all the Roxy wetsuits. Suits. Wow. She's making my suits in there. And I finally went for a visible suit after cod, After CJ disappearing with that white jersey. And I always, you know, didn't worry too much about the visibility of the person. I don't know why. And I had these black and white camouflage suits. I did have a silver helmet which kind of sparkles in the sun, but if it's cloudy, you're not going to see it. But now I'm going fluorescent orange and fluorescent green camouflage. And it is visible. The green you can see in the white water and the orange you see on the wave. The green you don't see on the wave as much and the orange you don't see in the white water as much. It's. It's weird. So those two colors are the best.

I'll. I'll keep that in mind if I ever go into anything over head.

Well, when are we. Where are you? You're in la? Are you in Santa Cruz or San Francisco? Where you at?

I'm in Santa Cruz. I'm one block from the beach. And right after this is over, I'm gonna go.

Go to Patagonia one to two foot way. Get your. Your flotation vest that you put under your. You can't even really see it.

You can't even really see it for two foot.

Yeah, yeah. It'll feel nice. And it will get a. Get a bigger one than you think, though. You don't want it tight, you want it looser because it's under your suit. Get like an extra double axe.

Well, I have a. I have a new goal in life, which is to be towed out by Garrett McNamara.

That's amazing. Let's do it.

You know, Garrett, I have to tell you, one of my favorite experiences ever was when you and I were in Norway for Mercedes and they were like drag racing on that airport strip. And that was a very fun day.

No, guys, that was. It was like balls to the wall. So when you're coming at those corners. Yeah, that was fun. That was super. Fun. That's where we got to know each other. I was like, wow, Hawaiian. What you doing over here? Oh, Santa Cruz. Okay. Right on.

You know, I. I never quite understood Mercedes ambassador. So there's Garrett Machner. There's Sebastian. There's Mike, the guy who walks across Antarctica. There's Roger Federer. And there's me, the little nerd. And all I did was evangelize Macintosh. Okay, Garrett, thank you so much. This has been so delightful. And that concludes our incredible episode featuring the legendary Garrett McNamara. I hope you enjoy diving into the world of big wave surfing and discovering the remarkable achievements of this extraordinary athlete. Garrett's journey serves as a testament to the power of guts, determination, and a deep connection with family and nature. Keep riding the waves of life with courage and passion. I'm Guy Kawasaki. This is Remarkable People. My thanks to the Remarkable People team. This would be Peg Fitzpatrick, Jeff C. Alexis Nishimura. Fallon Yates, Luis Magana. And the longboard surfer of Santa Cruz, Madison Knysmer. Until next time, mahalo and aloha. One last thing. If you know my wife, do not tell her that Garrett said he would tow me out at Nazareth. This is remarkable people.