"It was like a lightbulb went on, finally. Just saying, "Woah, I have anxiety?" I didn't think I was even capable of having anxiety, with the way I live life. I thought, "Only weird people have anxiety or get depressed, but that's not me, that will never be me." But, I realized, no, we all deal with that stuff."
"I was adopted when I was about two days old. My biological mom, she was super young, about 17, 18 years old. At that time, it was definitely frowned upon to have children outside of wedlock. So, my biological mom was kicked out of her house, and just didn't know where to go. Some friends of the couple who became my adoptive parents started a ministry to help out young, single mothers to help them through the birth process, and then they would handle the legal aspects of the adoption. I tell people I won the adoption lottery, because I had two of the best parents in the world. They showed me nothing but unconditional love. To be blessed with parents who gave that to me, it's like, "With great power comes great responsibility." I feel like, “I've been given this, and I need to give it back.””
"For me, anxiety is ultimately the worry of not being in control. Sometimes you don't realize what anxiety is, what it feels like or why you're feeling the way you are. I was on a plane to Colorado once, and when we got up to cruising altitude, I just couldn't breathe. I thought, "This is weird, something's going on." That’s when I realized that a lot of modern medicine, unfortunately, is not the answer, in terms of doctors throwing a pill at everything. To them, everything I was experiencing, it was a disease and the remedy was to medicate me. Everything had a pill that would fix it. I tried a few, for sure, and a lot of those things had side effects. I remember taking some certain medications and it would just give me these weird side effects, and I was just like, “This doesn’t feel right. I don’t want to feel like this.” Just the things it would do to my body, like energy levels. I could tell it was something foreign in my system, and my system wasn’t agreeing with it. I think, if you listen to your body, it will tell you what it needs and what it doesn’t want. But, you gotta get to know your body and listen to it."
“Surfing was my happy place, specifically for my health. When I started learning to surf, I mainly surfed this place called Bethune Beach, which is down at the south end of New Smyrna. And then there was another place called Canaveral National Seashore - there are some good breaks in there and it’s protected lands down there. That’s where I really learned how to surf and had some of my best times as a teeneager. We just had some priceless times down there. I’m sure I skipped plenty of soccer and basketball practices to go surf. I remember my basketball coach was like, “You need to stop that surfing when we’re in season, man! You gotta stay focused!””
“A lot of things that we deal with in life, when we can get through them and get healthy enough to take twenty steps back and look at it, it’s like, “Oh, ok! That’s what was going on there. It wasn’t about me being a super clean guy, wanting everything clean, or whatever, this was more about me wanting to be in control.” I’ve taken ownership for some of the weaknesses and things that had been struggles in my life, and now I can look back and say, “That wasn’t healthy. I was doing things that way because I wanted a little piece of control in that area because maybe things were out of control in other areas.” But, that’s kind of what life’s about - reflecting, looking back and saying, “Now I see why that was the way it was, but now I want to be different." Because of that, my anxiety will be a lot less, or maybe I won’t have anxiety anymore.”
“When you’re in the right space, like mindset, when you go out into this world and interact with people, you know, you’re going to want to smile at people, you’re going to want to open the door for people. Because, we’re all here as humans on this earth and we gotta share this planet. We need to be loving each other and caring about each other. It doesn’t matter who you are - skin color, race, religion, sexual preference, all of it. For me, that’s always at the forefront. If I’m not having a positive impact on the person right in front of me, then I feel like I’m not doing what I’m supposed to be doing as a human. And you just never know, you give somebody one word of encouragement, if you only have one thing to say to them and they’re never going to see you again, what’s that interaction going to look like? Is it going to be a positive one or a negative one? I just take that pretty seriously, and I just want to carry that on. But a big part of it is mental health, physical health and spiritual health. If we’re not checking those boxes very regularly, we’re not going to be able to do that and really care for one another.”
“Surfing is definitely that thing for me. I tell everybody it’s the ultimate therapy, because it really just does something that nothing else has ever done - with how physically demanding it is, but then also how you’re literally flowing with Mother Nature. These waves that come from hundreds of miles away are formed, and you’re connecting with that energy and flowing with it. And, learning how to flow with the ocean - it’s this special dance that you do. It’s this literal dance with the ocean and your board. It’s incredible, I mean, there’s really nothing like it. No sport can compare to what you’re doing and the way you’re interacting with Mother Nature. There’s an old saying, “Only a surfer knows the feeling,” but it’s so true. Until you feel that feeling of riding a moving wave - a moving wall of energy created from who knows where - there’s just nothing that compares to that feeling. Yeah, you want to keep doing it over and over and over again.”
