December 12, 2025 • 58 mins
Ever wondered why some people get stronger, wiser, and more grounded with age?
In this powerful conversation, Laird Hamilton and Gabby Reece reveal why midlife is actually the most dynamic, resilient, and liberating season of life. They open up about growing up on islands, how they met, what keeps their partnership strong, and why presence, patience, and community matter more than ever. From breathwork and injury recovery to identity shifts, parenting, and purpose, they share the hard-earned wisdom that helps them stay grounded, strong, and deeply connected.
If you’re ready to see midlife as a chrysalis, not a crisis, this episode is for you. Watch now.
Timestamps:
00:00 Welcome
00:09 Childhood and Island Upbringing
05:06 How Gabby and Laird Met
09:24 Navigating Two Athletic Careers
14:26 Relationship with Your Aging Body
21:46 Breathwork and Training Philosophy
26:04 Books and Science Behind Breathwork
29:42 Midlife Crisis vs Midlife Chrysalis
37:59 What Gets Better With Age
41:51 Relationship With Risk and Mortality
45:36 Presence and Stillness
51:47 Wisdom Bumper Sticker
54:17 Closing Remarks
Learn more about MEA at https://www.meawisdom.com/
#LairdHamilton #GabbyReece #MidlifeWisdom #MidlifeChrysalis #HealthyAging #LongevityLifestyle #BreathworkTraining #MindBodyHealth #MidlifeTransformation #AgingWell #PeakPerformance #AthleteMindset #MidlifeGrowth #ModernElder #ChipConley
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Sometimes you're building and you're trying to prove something
and then you layer in all these experiences.
You know, with Larry and I talk about how much kind of
experience we have. So you layer in all of this work
and experience and then all of asudden you realize, oh, wait a
second, I don't need to sell it.I don't need to force it.
I don't need to prove it. I can just be.
(00:22):
And if somebody feels that this is useful, I'm ready to go.
Welcome to the Midlife ChrysalisPodcast with Chip Connor, where
we explore how midlife isn't a crisis, but a chrysalis, a time
of profound transformation that can lead to the most meaningful
chapter of your life. Welcome to the midlife
(00:43):
chrysalis, and I'm Chip Conley. And this week we have a couple,
Gabby Reese and Laird Hamilton, very famous performance
athletes. She was famous as a volleyball
star. Laird still rides big waves at
61. They don't just ride waves, they
(01:04):
create them. She's a legend of strength and
grace. He's a surfing icon with a wild
streak. And together they make midlife
look like the ultimate adventuresport.
I think you're going to enjoy this whether you're an adventure
sport person or not. I think you'll appreciate the
relationship, what they learn from each other, as well as
their relationship with aging, which they thought quite a bit
(01:27):
about. Hope you enjoy the episode.
Welcome Gabby and Laird to the Midlife chrysalis.
We're honored to have you. Hi, Chip.
Thanks for having us. Yeah, we're honored to be here.
So I know that, Gabby, you spenta lot of your youth in the
Virgin Islands, maybe Saint Thomas, is that correct?
And Laird, you were born in San Francisco but grew up by, you
(01:50):
know, on the North Shore of Oahu.
So you both sort of were beach kids on some level.
What was your upbringing like? And then take us forward to 30
years ago when you met on the set of the extremists Because I,
I've, I've read some fun stuff about that.
Well, I mean, my upbringing was obviously on the beach in
(02:11):
Hawaii, on an island, on islands, in the villa in, in a
small village in kind of a little more, I'd say primal like
I, I kind of lived in a house that had been moved twice by
tidal waves. We had an outhouse and a cold
shower screen windows. If it rained really hard, you
(02:33):
couldn't the little TV that we had with the, you know, rabbit
ears with the aluminum foil, youcouldn't hear it.
The, the rain would drowned out the sound on the roof.
And, and, you know, I spent a lot of time, I mean, there was
rivers and beaches and I spent alot of the time in the jungle
and just kind of growing up withnative people that were still
(02:56):
kind of living off the land and kind of it was the end of that
era. So I kind of, you know, I had
that and then I was a young, a young boy or person around a lot
of adults, a lot of, around a lot of, of men and, you know, in
the 60s. And so I think I got I, I got to
watch a lot of bad behavior maybe which which led me to
(03:20):
probably be more conservative inthe way I guess I don't know
the, the side effect of that. Are you talking about smoking
pot? Is that what you're talking
about? What are you talking about?
Yeah, no, Well, just whatever was happening in the 60s, I
think it was just a little more irresponsible kind of lifestyle.
I mean, I would say irresponsible because I'm kind
of linear in that way, I guess. But yeah, just just just, I
(03:43):
think more carefree, kind of, you know, live to surf and
maybe, maybe work, maybe not work, have a family, maybe not
have a family, that kind of stuff.
Just just know. I mean, I had an incredible
mother. So I always say my mom raised
two sons and a few men. So, you know, I think I had a,
(04:04):
a, a, a really powerful influence that way, especially
for the imagination. And, you know, and I just grew
up fixing things, you know, learning how to fix things, kind
of learn how to do everything. My daughter's always say, hey,
you know, like, how do you know how to do this?
I go, well, that's just when you're where we lived and what
we did. You just had to have some skill
in every field. You know, you had to be able to
to do everything. You know, maybe not great, but
(04:26):
well enough to, you know, get byGabby.
Mine was different and very similar.
I think if you listen, if you'rein an island in the 60s or in my
case the 70s. My father actually is from
Trinidad. So I understood why he was in
Trinidad. But you know, why are your
parents in the Caribbean? And so a lot of times it was
(04:47):
like the parents were sort of getting away.
A lot of times they had us quiteyoung.
And so you were sort of growing up maybe with them as well.
And I didn't always live with mymother and then I sort of moved
back in with her when I was 7 inthe in the Caribbean.
But you're in nature. There's not a lot of kind of
traditional rules. You know, you're it's not
(05:08):
getting beat into you that you're supposed to grow up and
do all do this thing or follow this line.
So you you grow up in the wild more.
You're in the you're in nature, you're in the ocean.
My mother even trained dolphins.Like there's some like really
funny eccentricities there. And, and then also being
together with everybody and everybody different, every
(05:30):
different age, every different culture you're together.
And so I think you're on your sort of relationship with, with
that interaction with people anddifferent cultures is pretty
fluid. And so I, I think I grew up not
quite as wild as Laird, where Laird grew up was pretty
primitive and like primal and fishing and hunting and, you
(05:52):
know, doing and also even Laird being a male and me being a
female. But certainly the island I was
on was more populated. And, and so by the time I left
the Caribbean, I had, I was a junior in high school and I had
put all my, my kind of mostly all my YA behavior.
The radical behavior was I was almost through it by the time I
(06:16):
left. So you, you mentioned meeting
Laird 30 years ago and it's actually in November this year
will be 30 years. I by the time I met Laird at 25,
I was a professional athlete. I was really disciplined and you
know, alcohol is not a part of my life and like just kind of
all these very sort of strict grown up things.
(06:39):
I was doing ATV show and interviewing athletes and I had
done a lot of shows, maybe 60. I'd done MTV Sports and then the
extremists. I was interviewing mostly male
athletes that were doing sort ofthese alternative sports, which
is this is when they were percolating.
And I was going to Hawaii to do a series of shows like Robbie
Nash windsurfing and Hang Gliding and skydiving.
(06:59):
And I was going to interview some surfer that was part of a
group of eight guys that were doing this new type of surfing
called tow surfing. And my guest was a guy named
Laird Hamilton. And you, you know, you got
information through a fax machine because I would try to
do my homework. And there was this big hoopla
about this layered Hamilton guy.And I had even, I had layered
within surfing was known, but outside of surfing, not
(07:20):
particularly. And I had interviewed some big
athletes and somehow the hoopla around me interviewing Laird
prior to going was so interesting.
People were like, oh, Laird Hamilton, OH da da.
And I was like, OK. And yeah, so obviously that
interview changed our lives, that we lived together I think 8
days later. Wow, wow.
(07:41):
Well, we lived in different places.
It was very complicated and, andat 25, I was certainly not
looking for my life's partner, but I met Laird and I, I
thought, oh, this is a very unique person.
And and then it went from there.Yeah.
When I was I, I was on Maui surfing and we were focused on
(08:02):
trying to ride giant waves. We developed a technique to ride
the biggest waves, you know, that were that maybe have ever
been ridden. And so we were that was our
focus. We were, we were in the ocean.
We were focused on that and, youknow, I was going to do an
interview and I was like, oh, what, what bimbo are they
sending me now? Like, you know, like I knew the
(08:24):
guy that was running the production company and he was
called me and said, hey, we're doing, we have this show, we'd
love to have you as a guest. And I was kind of like, oh,
yeah, OK, whatever. And that's how I kind of came
into the situation. Like Gabby said, you know,
things were complicated at the time and and I was definitely
the last thing on my mind was, you know, a woman, attractive
(08:45):
woman. And you know, that was like,
that was not something that was even, you know, I think it it
snuck up on me on a way that waskind of out of my control.
I don't think I had any say in it.
It was kind of like this is what's happening.
And you know, I always say it was love and infatuation after
first conversation. It wasn't really like I saw her
(09:06):
and I went, wow, that's, you know, I was not, that was not, I
didn't have the that lens on anyway.
And I was like, yeah, what you know, OK, whatever.
And then once, once I once I experienced her mind, you know,
that that kind of took care of that.
Wow. But she's I mean, she's she's a
hottie though too. I mean, let's be honest.
(09:28):
And and Gabby, you, was it for you?
Was it sort of like love at first sight?
Or was or was this? No, I mean, listen, I she's not.
That kind of girl. No, and I I'm not like and plus
I have been in the fashion business, so I worked with like
incredibly, you know, whatever handsome man.
And I think, and this is maybe what Larry and I have a lot of
common values and and I think weoperate, even if we weren't
(09:50):
together a certain way and it's similarly how we get there is
different. And one of them wouldn't be I, I
could appreciate like a handsomeperson or a beauty, you know,
beautiful girl, but I, I, I wouldn't see a guy and be like,
Oh, I'd, I'd have to see something about you that would
make me go, Oh, that's, that's interesting.
So, and, and I did think that when I interviewed Laird, I go,
(10:11):
oh, this is a, this is a very unique, very focused.
And also I could feel Laird's genuineness, like Laird is not
capable of being any other way than how he is.
The fact that you both had, wereyou, both of you were athletes
and you had been successful and we're continuing to be
successful. In fact, Gabby, you didn't even
(10:34):
start playing volleyball until you were in high school, right?
Yeah, I didn't really pick up. I had Dibble dabbled and then it
was my junior year when I moved to Florida that I I got pretty
serious about volleyball and basketball.
Yeah. Do you think that the the fact
that you both were athletes and you know, very well regarded in
your own field, I mean, was thata positive, negative or did you
(10:55):
feel a sense of bonding because of that?
And clearly we're going to talk further about how you've bonded
around performance sports, but back in the early days, was that
a positive or a negative? I think it's both.
I think, I think there was it makes it easier and more
complicated, so easier and that you have a great understanding
(11:17):
and respect for pursuit and a passion for something.
So it's not like, you know, Laird's going to say to me, why
do you need to practice? And I'm going to say, why do you
need to go to that swell. But then the conflict is is
like, how do you make your livestogether work when you're in a
deep pursuit personally? And the kind of the given the
take of that there. It's just, it's a little, it is
(11:38):
that part has just a little moretension around it where it's
like you're trying to be so focused and yet you're trying to
consider a whole, you know, another person.
What I I think also that you know, because you have a focus
and then and you know, you're ona mission, you can also
(12:00):
recognize that and and appreciate that in somebody else
and be supportive too. So I think there's a, I think we
did have the ability and have had the ability to be highly
supportive of one another. And it's like my desires and my
needs in this area isn't taking away from you.
You know, it's not like I'm takeit takes away from you.
(12:21):
And and I think in another type of relationship where you did,
the person didn't understand, they think every time you were
trying to do your thing that it was somehow taking away from
them. And so we never had that, that
part of it. I mean, at when I met Gabby, you
know, my kind of notoriety was, was a lot less than I would just
(12:41):
say than her. But this also, it wasn't nearly
as high as it eventually has, you know, became and has become.
And So what I was doing wasn't completely appreciated and
respected at the time. So I was dealing with that.
And Gabby, you looked at me, I think like, hey, I can give you
a hand. I can help you out because, you
know, I see it. I mean, that's at least what
(13:03):
she's expressed to me. I, she saw it and was like, hey,
you just need a little, a little, a little guidance and a
little help. Because I was just focused on
specifically, you know, what I was doing and not necessarily
figuring out how to maybe capitalize from it in some way,
at least to make it worth the value of the time it was taking.
(13:24):
And I and Chip, I recognized early that Laird was actually
much better in his sport than I was at mine.
I I knew that I knew the difference.
I've been around a lot of athletes.
And so the other part of that was like me really appreciating
somebody who was really good at what they do.
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(13:47):
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(14:08):
opportunity to flourish. Claim your copy today at
meawisdom.com/midlife Book. And what was the kind of advice
or or guidance that you gave Laird at that time that helped
propel him to even more fame? Well, first of all, let's talk
(14:30):
about timing. I second of all, I had done a
little bit of that side hustle for my own sport, 'cause when
you're in a lifestyle sport, nobody cares.
So you kind of have to do the song and dance.
So I had already been down that path.
Yeah, I was a water polo player.I was a water polo player and I
totally get it. Played water polo at Stanford.
You know, I'm with you. You know, people like, oh, it
(14:51):
must be so hard. And what are the rules again?
And. What oppose?
Like one of the hardest sports there is.
It's so brutal. It is, yeah.
Yeah, for sure. So I think, and I was fortunate
we were working with a manager that had helped me sort of tell
my story outside of my sport. And with Laird, it was even a
little more different because itwas like, well, you have the
(15:12):
element of the ocean, which is so romantic and captivating and
dangerous, so great for storytelling, but also you're
out in the middle of the ocean. So how can people observe it?
So it was really and, and Laird just also how, you know, he
happens to be a good communicator.
So there was a lot of things in his favor and the timing and
then working with this woman, Janie, and and it was, it was
(15:34):
the right time. And it was just sort of getting
behind Laird and encouraging himbecause if it's up to Laird,
Laird would rather dig a hole orgo surfing.
And you go, hey, listen, this one little interview or the
series of interviews really is going to provide you with more
freedom and runway to do what you want to do.
Well, we are lucky to have him here today.
Thank you. So what's been your relationship
(15:56):
with your body as you've gotten older?
So let's let's move forward. Both of you are officially in
midlife. I define midlife as 35 to 75.
So you still got a while to be there.
Laird, you're in your early, your early 60s and Gabby your
mid 50s, I guess. Is that correct?
That's right, yeah. So what's your relationship with
(16:19):
your body been as you've gotten older?
And what kind of advice or wisdom might you give our
listeners and and viewers about how we continue to see our body
as, you know, a rental vehicle we're supposed to take care of?
That's a great way to say it. You know, I'll let Laird because
(16:41):
you know, the difference to withus is Laird is still in deep
pursuit. So what he is needs and requires
of his body. Also, it's like if I'm a little
half cocked, it's kind of OK. I'm not going to get into big
trouble. I can just pull back on my
training. So I'll let you answer first
because you're in a different realm, and then I'll give you
mine. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, you
(17:01):
know, I mean, somebody asked me,you know, about being 100%.
I said I, I wasn't 100% since I came into the world and took a
breath of the air here, you know, So I, I think it's always,
you're dealing with, with what you have, you know, how you're
feeling and, and learn how to begood at that.
I've been hurt a lot in my career.
I've had a lot of injuries. I have it, you know, at this
(17:23):
point, I have an accumulation ofa lot of repetitive motion and,
and you know, other things that have have led to, you know, I
got 2 titanium hips and I've hadthousands of stitches and, you
know, I've had a lot of damage in, in the years.
And you're, you're always tryingto mitigate that.
You, you, you get better at it. You know, you, you realize it's
temporary. You know, you kind of go through
(17:44):
the mental thing of can I will, will I be able to do it again?
And all that psychology. But once you've been through
that cycle, you know, you, you kind of get, you get good at
recovering, you get good at dealing with being hurt.
And it's just part of life. I think part for me, I feel like
I just look at it like this is this is what I where I'm at
right now. And then how, how can I still
(18:07):
perform and accomplish what I want to accomplish?
And if I have to go to bed a little earlier or, you know, do
some other therapies to, you know, help me eat better, take
supplementation, you know, do all the, just do all the little
things that support the big picture, then I do that.
And I'm diligent about that, about that aspect of it.
(18:29):
You know, I try to have my training not hurt me and get
injured from my training 'cause that's, that's always bad when
you get an injury from training,it's like it's supposed to be
supportive and not destructive. But so the training has evolved,
you know, prioritize certain things more than you would have
in the past. It's not always about grinding
yourself down And, and, and cause I've had that mentality
(18:52):
too. Or it's just like, hey, if
you're not, you know, if you cansuffer without damaging, there's
difference between damage, suffering and other suffering.
So I think it's just having thatrelationship, getting a better
relationship with being injured,getting a better relationship
with performing injured, just all those things and, and you
know, and then being honest about it too, like, hey, you're
(19:14):
hurt, you're not going to be able to and being OK with that
too, because it's only temporary, you know, all of
those things. I think there's so much
psychology that goes around it. I think as you get older, you've
been through so many different phases of it.
You get kind of better at the process.
And, you know, I would say what I lack in youthful enthusiasm, I
try to make up for with some kind of experience and wisdom,
(19:37):
you know? I think for me, and you know,
I'm going to throw this out there and say it, sometimes as a
female, you even have these other extra layers because of
like youth and beauty and all these things, right?
So I think perspective, I alwaysstart with my perspective first,
which is the opportunity to be as healthy as I am as a real
(19:59):
gift. And, and, and also I don't hang
around a lot of people that do the whole like, I can't do that
because I'm 40 an hour. I'm 50 and I'm like, OK, like
you got to go. So I think it's me being in
charge of my own. Perspective about how fortunate
I am, the grace of another day of being this age.
(20:20):
I'm spending time with people that they're just still dreaming
and they're in pursuit and they're going to do the work.
They're not going to talk about what they want their body to do.
They're actually have a strategyand a plan and a practice that
they're showing up every day andevery week to get that done
because a lot of people, mostly it's lip service.
I'm getting like this, but they're not doing anything
(20:41):
different. So I have a, a really good
practice in place that supports me and I actually even think
certain things diminish, but then you still have an
opportunity to always be better.Like it's like looking for those
small little windows of growth and improvement and, and again,
being reminded that not everybody gets to be 55 or 61
(21:01):
like that. We're so fortunate and I'll do
what it takes to feel good, to be strong, and that takes often
a lot of hard work and to be thoughtful.
So I it's also like not bullshitting yourself.
Yeah, and we we set our life up to be, you know, accountability.
Gabby has, you know, three days a week.
(21:24):
She has a group that comes and trains and does her training and
then we have another thing, another three days a week.
So six days a week we have people coming or around to to
work out with. So on a day where you go, you
know what, today I'm pretty busted up.
I don't feel like doing anything.
You got people outside going, OK, you guys ready to go kind of
things. So it kind of, you know, you set
(21:46):
it up to kind of not have a way out in a way, like you just set
that thing out. And Gabby has been a proponent
of it. But I have I, I surround myself
with a lot of younger guys that are, that are hungry, that are
strong, that are striving and you know, they're, they're still
on their, you know, in not that I'm not in my pursuit, but
they're still early in the earlystages of their pursuit.
(22:09):
And so I feed off of that too. You know, like if I was with
around, if I just hung out with a bunch of 61 year old guys that
I'd probably be go sit down on the couch instead of some young
hungry animals that want to grind away at it.
I'm like, OK, cool. And you know, you got to be OK
with, hey, I'm not 21 and that guy's 21 and he's doesn't have a
(22:31):
sore part on and you know, his testosterone is coming out of
his ears, but I'm like, that's cool.
But I'm OK with that. I'm not going to use him as a
comparison to me because he alsodoesn't have all of the
experiences and all the things that I've been through and has
all these other things to deal with.
And I'll take my things over histhings.
I'll give me a few sore body parts over the life starting.
(22:55):
Over. Yeah, yeah.
So you do a lot of performance training with people and breath
work is part of it. So do you want to talk a little
bit about what the sequencing you see around breath work being
sort of a foundational part of training and and how you came to
(23:16):
that reckoning or that or that resolution?
Well, Laird, I watched Laird do a 45 minute or 50 minute breath
work today. I'm like.
Yeah, the isolation, you know, Ithink, I think, I think, but I
mean any and. Explain.
Explain. Some people know.
Explain what people to people What?
What does that mean? What is 4550 minutes of breath
work mean? What is?
(23:37):
What are you doing when you're doing that?
Well, there's a sequencing of breathing that you do.
So there's some, you know, it depends on what you're looking
for out of it. I'm, you know, right now this
lately my focus has been around kind of at least three long
inhale breath holds. And so in order to do that, we
(23:57):
go into like a pattern. So we'll do a three or four
minute pattern to build us up into either an exhale breath
hold or an inhale breath hold. And we'll hold that for a long
period of time. And so we have a like a sequence
of, of patterns that we go into before we go into these long
holes. And then we go into these long
holes and hold them as long as, you know, you can, but or
(24:19):
somewhere there, you can always hold longer, but we go into it,
you know, one where you're really getting squeezed.
And then we recover and go back through that and do those
multiple times through. And that isolation of the, of
the breathing really does improve the system, right?
Because normally we're breathingaround activity and there's a
meditative aspect to it. There's a presence, you know,
(24:40):
most meditation and most things are based around, I mean, breath
work is everywhere and everything.
If you, you know, if you think about and Amen and all these
sounds that we use in conjunction with breath.
I mean, I, I think anybody that deals with the water book, Gabby
and I grew up swimming. You know, she her mom trained
dolphins. She was in the ocean air and the
(25:03):
importance of air is relevant. It's a relevant thing because
you're like, there's air above and there's no air below.
So your relationship and, you know, being a water polo player,
it's all about the air, you know, it's all about, you know,
and if your head's out, that's cool.
But when you're under, there's no.
And so I think that was the foundation.
I think I was led to it. There was rock stone running
(25:26):
when I was a kid that the, that the Hawaiians would do, you
know, ride a stone, hold a stone, jump off a boat, go to
the bottom and then run along the bottom.
You get a longer down time. So I was already around things
like that within the within breathing.
And then the Iceman Wim Hof who,who, who I know is a friend of
mine, you know, he kind of popularized a form of tumor
(25:48):
breath work. I mean, then there's apnea from
free diving. I grew up around free diving and
free divers and there's all thatbreath work.
So there's so many different modalities.
And but when you look at, you know, in a prioritization of
elements for survival, I always tell people I go, you can go
weeks without eating and go go days without drinking, but you
can only go minutes without breathing.
And so as far as the importance of what it is, it's free.
(26:10):
You have it, you own it. And a lot of our health issues
stem from our lack of ability tobreathe correctly.
And so it just, it just seems like something to give again, as
you go, you kind of prioritize because sometimes I don't think
we, we believe that that a certain type of training is
important enough. If it's just not, you know, hey,
(26:32):
I'm banging iron, I'm lifting something, I'm running 30 miles.
I'm, you know, it's all this grind, grind, grind.
And we don't prioritize the simplicity of something like,
Hey, we're going to just sit here or lay here and we're going
to breathe for 30 or 40 minutes.And we can make this breathing
as difficult as any exercise you've ever done, maybe harder,
like we can make it impossible. And but, you know, putting that
(26:54):
kind of perspective on it and then doing it on a regular
basis, you really get the the benefits from it and you see it,
you can feel it in your overall performance in your health and
everything. If somebody wanted to learn more
about breath work or should theyjust go to YouTube and just
check out some videos or do you have a do, is there somebody who
(27:15):
you particularly recommend or maybe even your your videos?
Well, there's some great books. Actually, yeah, I think Patrick
Mccune has written some great The Oxygen Advantage because
it's also he shares with you your understanding of your
relationship with CO2. And how?
And then breathe. And and breathe, James Nestor's
book is, is really great. And you know, like when is is
(27:37):
fun to follow along with. But if you want to get sciency,
I like Patrick Mccune for that because he he talks about even
high level athletes don't have something called a bolt score
very that's very good, very high.
Your CO2 tolerance there. Your CO2 tolerance.
So if you can get a high CO2 tolerance, there's some great,
(27:58):
great things. And what I always loved is if
you're sitting at your desk, youknow, unless you're sprinting,
pretty much you should be breathing in and out through
your nose, right? And and most people are doing 15
to 22 breaths per minute when weshould be doing 5 to 7 and just
slow it way down. What kind of path are you
(28:20):
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(28:42):
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There's some correlation to longevity on this, you know,
including the species that tend to live longer are having less
breaths per minute if I'm not mistaken.
(29:02):
Yeah, 1 less and less. Heartbeats.
Yeah, less heartbeats. Slower heart.
Rates like slower breathing rhythms.
Your overall health will be better, your mood, you'll be
down regulated, you'll be in your parasympathetic, you'll be
revved up all day long into yoursympathetic system.
So I think to learn, really control, Yeah, to learn its
point, we don't really give it the value.
I have to remind myself all the time.
(29:24):
Just because I know when I put that in quotes doesn't mean I'm
so great at always practicing it.
So wouldn't you? Yeah.
And when you bring consciousnessto your breathing, when you
bring out like an awareness, like hey, I'm in a nose breathe
right now and I'm going to be aware of my breath in the length
of time I'm inhaling and exhaling.
That's why some of the education, that's why those
books are good, because it helpsyou understand the breathing,
(29:45):
which then you get you further committed into doing it because
then you're just not like, hey, what's this breathing thing and
what do you mean? CO2 this and that.
So you, you, when you learn about it and you understand the
way the system works, then you're more vested.
And then then you're like, OK, I'm gonna that's where the
value, that's where I prioritizebecause I understand, you know
what it does. And then and then you can build
(30:05):
from there. But you know that's a you.
Can ramp up, ramp down like you can use it like I mean.
If you go, if you know what the hawka is, people don't realize
they talk about the hawka being intimidation thing, but it's
actually a a pre bowel preparation pattern.
So they're they're preparing forBabble.
Is that, is that from the Maori's?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my God, those guys, they're
(30:27):
fierce. Like I yeah, I mean just.
I talk about the lion when the lion roars.
You know, when you hear a lion roar, you can tell by the roar
like the power. And so you hear the lion roar
and everybody goes, we better pay attention because this is
this is this is powerful, right?And so they in a way, I think
(30:50):
that that so many things in so many cultures, the spirit and
breath are connected. That's why when you do extensive
breath work, you can have kind of meta or even transformational
experiences. We get people going through
these breathing patterns and they get like they have
emotional releases. I mean, there's a lot of stuff
that comes from it. And so I I think again
(31:11):
important. We can spend the whole hour on
this one. Exactly.
Let's move on to this idea of a midlife crisis or chrysalis the
way we tend to historically, or at least since 1965 when the
term was popularized. We sort of see midlife as this
time where, oh, our body's falling apart and I'm bored.
(31:32):
You know, I've been doing the same old thing and and I'm
disappointed in my life because,you know, I haven't accomplished
this or that or, or for some people, they have kids and it's
like, you know, they're doing sandwich generation taking care
of their parents and their kids at the same time.
Did you have a midlife chrysalis?
Did you have a a time where in your 40s or 50s you've had a
(31:57):
reckoning, a challenge that had that forced you to re evaluate
your life? And how did you get to the other
side of it? Because part of the reason I
called it chrysalis is because EU curve of happiness research
shows that frankly, after 50, weget happier with each decade
after having a low point around 45 to 52.
So tell us about your midlife chrysalis, if you had one.
(32:20):
Weirdly, I think I had mine veryyoung.
I got to be honest. I had mine at 30.
And what that was, was me havingto come to terms with the way I
was doing things in the long runwas not going to work for the
life I was living. So I was already married to
Laird. I was probably emotionally
(32:41):
scared to be vulnerable. I because of the way I grew up,
I just was very self-contained. And so I, I had that early,
which in then coming out of it and committing to doing things
that were uncomfortable and different, which really just
meant communicating more, sayingwhat I wanted, needed, felt
(33:02):
instead of being stoic and silent about everything.
And, and understanding that whenyou're going to love someone and
you're going to build a family, that it, it is scary, you know,
like loving is risking and it's,it's tied into the thought about
loss. And I was like, Oh yeah, but
that's living. And so I, I had that, that
(33:24):
early. And so that really helped me
kind of have a, a nice glide after 35 into where I have been
for the last 20 years. And I will say this, I do
remember 50 being somehow easier, even though I didn't
freak out too much, but still easier than 40.
(33:45):
Something about 40 was like, oh,wow, this is like game on now
TikTok, like time's rolling. And 50 was like you'd already
had to really have lessons. And the notion of surrender
really came into my life that probably about 46 or 7 where it
was like, if you don't get a relationship with surrendering
(34:09):
and being OK with not knowing. And Byron Katie was helpful for
me in some of this, you know, like they had notion of past
futuring and worrying about shitthat hadn't happened and all
this stuff. So that was sort of my process.
Different than Laird. I think Laird had a monumental
shift in his 40s. Did I?
(34:29):
I think so, if I recall. I was going to say I probably
have, I probably have one every week.
You know, I think mine's like slow drip.
I have one and then I come out of it and then I have another
one. And I mean, we, I mean, there's
a couple things that I mean, obviously when I, I used to
drink, I like drinking. I love the glass of wine, 2
(34:50):
glass of wine, a bottle of wine,2 bottles of wine.
Like I'm a professional. And I think, I mean, obviously,
I think that was not it's a depressant.
And that was probably a big shift for me to when I stopped
drinking. That was I think I had I
continue to drink. I don't think Gabby and I would
probably have made it. And you know, I, but I will say
(35:11):
that I think that both her and Iare, are, have been fortunate
because the way my athletic career has gone, I was never in
a thing where was like, OK, I was a pro, I was a champion and
now I'm done and I don't do it anymore.
And so I think I don't have thatpart on my career side.
Like I don't have that kind of thing.
(35:33):
When when, when I lost that. I mean, Gabby has never, you
know, she's still a woman and she has her vanity, but she
didn't rely on her beauty in herlife.
Like she, it was her athleticism, her intelligence,
these other things. And those things, you don't lose
those if you're just relying on your beauty.
And then all of a sudden you're getting a little older, like I'm
not quite as beautiful as I was when I was 20.
(35:53):
And so I have, we have some of those things that have helped us
along. You know, I continue to have a
pursuit. I think one thing that's helped
me is that my goal posts always moves when I get close.
So right when I get close to a, you know, a field goal or
whatever, it just shifts a little bit and then I'm re.
So I'm, I'm kind of always in pursuit.
(36:13):
I mean, I think the ocean has allowed me to do it.
I think reinventing myself in the sense of kind of looking at
new disciplines and shifting what I'm doing to, to continue
to pursue has helped as well. I, I think the, obviously the
drinking and, and, and our relationship and me as a person,
that was a monumental shift. I think that was a a a moment
(36:35):
and it was leading up to a maybe, you know, part part of it
was it was, you know, dealing with maybe I had set up a goal
and I'd achieved it and it didn't bring me what I thought
it was going to, you know, like I thought, oh, I'm going to just
do this and that's going to be it.
And then I did it and I was like, wow, that did really
didn't work. I mean, you see people do that
all the time. You know, they set it up like if
I just, you know, have a billiondollars, it's all going to be
(36:57):
good. And then they get a billion
dollars and they're like, Oh my God, I gave up everything to get
a billion dollars. And then I'm still in the same
spot. I was expect it's worse because
I did all the things, I neglected all this other areas.
So I think it's a combination ofall, all of those.
Things and Chip thinking about you and your philosophy, I think
one thing Laird and I have done,maybe because we did grow up on
islands and it was the way we raised our house has always been
(37:19):
a place for people to get what they need if we could offer it.
We've always been a had a sense of community and service, even
when we were younger. But I think as you get older,
you become even better at that and more capable of being of
service to your community. And I, I think that that has
been a nice tipping of, of the scales.
And then, you know, having daughters and, and learning,
(37:43):
learning from them. And Laird always says a quote
that he heard. They don't know if they said it
was maybe a guy in the military.You know, never let your
accomplishments be greater than your dreams.
And both Laird and I are sort oflike, well, what else could we
do? And and not so attached to the
past. Yeah, and and, and being, I
mean, culturally Hawaii Aloha isthe generosity, the giving, the
(38:06):
sharing. I mean, that's just what we do
there. We we've done that.
So that that's been very naturalfor us.
So mentoring is part of that, like bringing in because I've
been mentored for and it's like,you know, pass it on.
Like like, I mean, that's why wealways share things.
We learn like in normally, like a lot of times as an athlete,
you get this thing that gives you an advantage and you keep it
(38:27):
a secret because you want to have an advantage over your
opponent. And I think for me, I, I never
felt that way. I never felt like I need this
thing. I'll be like, hey, you want my
board, you want my training, youwant my food, you want
everything except my girl. You could have everything.
But you know, I mean, and if youcan do it better than me,
congratulations kind of thing. And so I think that's more of
(38:48):
our approach as a person, but asa couple.
There's a woman in Becca Levy who at Yale who is a big fan of
the Modern Elder Academy, MEA. And in her work, she's shown
that when you shift your mindseton aging in midlife from a
negative to a positive, so you actually see aging as a up,
there's an upside to aging, unexpected pleasures of aging
(39:09):
that you gain 7 1/2 years of additional longevity.
So I want to ask both of you what's gotten better with age in
your life? I mean, for me personally, I,
I'm don't have to be as hyper vigilant.
I don't worry as much because I,I learned how ineffective that
is. And I, I've let a lot of that
go. And, and also sometimes you're
(39:33):
building and you're trying to prove something and then you
layer in all these experiences like, you know, with Larry and I
talk about how much a kind of experience we have.
So you layer in all of this workand experience and then all of a
sudden you realize, oh, wait a second, I don't need to sell it.
I don't need to force it. I don't need to prove it.
(39:55):
I can just be. And if somebody feels that this
is useful, I'm ready to go. And so there's something really
enjoyable about becoming more masterful about certain things,
but not feeling like I got to show everybody how smart I am or
how capable I am or how hard I'mwilling to work because your
body of evidence, your body of work.
(40:16):
It's kind of there and so that part is is really beautiful and
and also listen, watching my family grow like we're walking
behind two of our daughters in New York the day and these are
formidable young women. I'm like, this is really badass.
Like look at these girls. You know, it's so cool and, and
just always having the space andthe wherewithal to really
(40:39):
appreciate all the small things to notice, just to keep
noticing. I feel like the control of your
contentment, right, that you really can control it.
Like it's not we we are so kind of programmed to believe that
you you have to be told that you're good and you have to
everything's being dictated by, you know, the outside parties
(41:01):
and they really don't care aboutyou at the end of the day.
And once you get to the point where you're like, Oh, no, I'm
what I'm doing is good and I feel good and I'm, and, and I'm
doing the right thing and I'm, you know, all these things, but
you take control of it yourself personally.
You're just set free at that point.
You just have a freedom. I think that you never believed
you could have given the other frame of mind, right?
(41:25):
The other frame of mind, which is I'm, I'm relying on people to
tell me how I did and how I lookand how you know, and what
success is and what failure and all that stuff.
And I think so having that and you know, I mean, the ocean
teaches you patience, but I think you get, it's a learned
skill. And I think he you can get
better at being patient and being.
(41:46):
And, and then ultimately, I think it's the having the faith,
you know, having the faith to, to believe that it's going to be
OK. I, I, I mean, maybe maybe
there's some submission in that you're OK to that you're going
to go to right. I think that that's a big piece
of it. I think, you know, I think death
always plays a factor in everything.
(42:08):
And I think when you're young, you think it's not, you know,
you're never, it's never going to happen.
It's so far away. And then you get older and then
you get older and then you're like, wow, you know, now I'm
getting near the finish line andin whether the finish line is,
you know, 30 years more or whatever, but you're, you're not
20, but you're 60 or you're 70. And so I think that there's
(42:29):
something about being OK with that.
I think you have to be OK with that.
I think you have to be ready to,if you're not OK with that,
that's going to make, for me personally, I feel like that's
going to make a, a, a pretty tense thing as it nears and
you're not OK with it. You got you.
So you have an opportunity to get everything in aligned, you
know. You're doing big wave surfing.
(42:50):
So I mean, there's a there is, there is a death defying nature
to the sport you've chosen. So my guess is that you've had
to maybe when you're younger it was like, oh, that's never going
to happen. But as you've gotten older, do
you see the danger attached to it as and does it not not scare
(43:12):
you? How do you feel about riding 60
foot waves? I think you'd be ignorant not to
have the not to have the respectthat, hey, you can.
I think I think it has definitely developed a
relationship with death that a lot of people never have.
So I think at a certain point, because it's been, I've had so
many, so many opportunities to be exposed to the edge.
(43:35):
You know, I've had, I have a relationship with it.
And so I'm like, people talk, Oh, I'm going to live to 150.
I'm like 150 years of this stuff.
I think I'm OK, Like I'm not, I don't need to do that.
Like I want the quality till they're till I'm done.
But but I also AM realistic about we're all going to die.
And so we have to be OK with dying.
Are you OK with dying? Because if you're not OK with
(43:57):
dying, then you're not OK with with what is going to inevitably
happen. And so when you're not OK with
what is inevitably going to happen, it's going to have a lot
of influence over you. So, so you got to, you better
learn how to get OK with it. Maybe, maybe as we get older, we
get a little more acceptance of that.
I think when you're younger and you do risky things, you're not.
(44:19):
I mean, at least for me, some people can go about it and
pretend like there's not a possibility, but I just, that's
not. I we used to years ago watch
Jackass and I would laugh and hated it.
And he goes, she's like, it's easy to die, try living.
Exactly. No, dying's easy.
Dying's really easy. You know how easy it is to die?
(44:39):
Just walk outside and when a cargoes by, just jump in front of
it. It'll it takes about a less than
a second. He was always offended at like,
people being cavalier because he's like that's that's not hard
to to die is not that hard. Yeah.
And, and, and, and you could look at what we've done, my
friends and I in, in the big ocean and think that we're being
(45:00):
cavalier about it. But in a way we are taking, we
have the utmost respect for it and we're showing it through our
conduct and our behavior. You know, we, we do think
dangerous things every day that we don't even have any that
we're not even remotely conscious of.
We're hyper vigilant about, about what we're doing in about
the, about what's going on. And I think that that changes
(45:23):
your relationship with it in in a way.
And so that's for me, I feel like that's been the, the part
of, you know, as I, as I get older and, and that you're not
like Gabby said, you're not out.You don't have to prove
anything. You're not like I got to prove
everything. And you know, and do this whole
thing that that you're forced tohave when you're young, You need
that. That's actually, that's just
part of what you do. I think part of the blessings of
(45:45):
feeling like you've been run over by a truck as you get older
is that you're, hey, good. I don't need to prove anything.
You know, like, I don't need to go out and be like, hey, I got
to show you that. How do you do it?
And if you do these things, it'sreally more just for your own
personal. I have a saying that, hey, if
you see it, you know, if a tree falls in the forest, no one sees
it. Does it actually fall?
And I'm like, it absolutely falls.
(46:07):
So like, like, you know, like I can go do things and not have
people see it and be OK because it brings me a complete
fulfillness. It's been said that in the first
half of the life we're performing and maybe pursuing,
in the second-half of life we'rebeing present.
How does that sound to you and and how are you more present?
Clearly Laird, giving up drinking is a form of adding to
(46:33):
your presence. But you're both performance
minded. But you seem to be both very
present as well. So how does that relate in your
own life? I think Laird might be a scooch
more present than I am. I think I'm a lot of times like
getting things done in my mind. But I'll be honest with you,
(46:54):
I'm, I mean, listen, I'm pretty focused present person.
I'm just comparing myself to him.
But I will say that even though I'm in pursuit, but for the sake
of pursuit, not for the sake forthe for the creative aspect of
pursuit, not for the I need to survive.
I want to prove something to myself or to others, but trying
(47:17):
to pursue it in a different way as a creative expression and
taking it pretty serious. So I, I actually feel now that
my, our youngest daughter just went to college.
I've said that I've had my foot on the gas the whole time, but
now I'm also taking my foot off the brake.
So conversely, I'm I'm looking for a different and interesting
kind of expansion. Your empty nesters.
(47:38):
Open nesters. Open nesters.
OK, so that's the sharing thing.Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They can come back. They're coming back.
Well, and it's not them, it's some other 20 year old male or a
good thing. It's like someone's always
around. Yeah, yeah.
Kind of like a runway, you know,it's the planes are landing and
taking off. They're always landing and
taking off. You need some air traffic
(48:01):
controllers. Here we are.
Here we are. How about your relationship with
presents? Well, first of all, I have, I'm
with, I have three women in my life, four women in my life.
So if you're not present for theladies, I mean, I do a lot of
waiting. So, and waiting makes you
present. Like if you're waiting your
present. So I'm present.
I think I've learned to be more still with that.
(48:23):
Like I've been waving the ocean just teaches you things that you
just and like, no, like nothing else can teach you.
And, and in a way, when you're waiting for a wave and you're
waiting for a swell and you're waiting for all these elements
to come together together to create the perfect gem.
And it's like, and it could be years.
It's I mean, you know, I think one of the moments of my
(48:44):
athletic career was at 35 years old, like I literally, and I
surfed since I was five years old.
So that was 30 years of doing, pursuing and believing and, and
then having the thing arrive. And so in a way, I think that
that training that the ocean hasgiven me that patience that, you
know, it is hard as it is. And sometimes actually Gabby's
more, she's more concerned for me than I actually am.
(49:07):
Like she's like, I know I can feel you.
I'm like, no, I'm OK right now. Like I'm OK.
Are you sure you're OK? Like you shouldn't be OK, but I
but I do. I think that has brought me more
more in the presence. I think just everything going on
in the world, just how radical things are sometimes bring,
makes me more aware of the moment, the space I'm in, the
sun rising, the ocean, all thosethings.
(49:30):
And so in a, in a way, there's astillness in that.
And, and also my faith in that it will happen too.
Is that my faith in that it willhappen makes me better at
waiting. Like if I know it's that I know
it's going to happen. Like it's going to happen.
I, it's just, and is it tomorrow?
Is it next week? Is it next month?
Is it in six months? It's going to happen, It's got
it will happen. And so kind of having the, the
(49:52):
faith in that and knowing it will helps me wait, 'cause
sometimes I think you think it'snot going to happen and then
you're like, then the waiting isimpossible, then it becomes
impossible. So I think that that that kind
of belief has led me to be more present and more still.
And then a lot of the stuff thatwe do, I mean, the pool training
that we do never is one of the most kind of present bringing
(50:15):
places that we have. I mean, I have a friend that 70
something comes up this morning goes I come here because it's
the only thing that I do and theonly training I do that brings
me in the present, brings me in the moment.
I don't have any distractions. I don't have nothing comes in.
And so I think there's some things that we do that help us
do that. I know they act of of surfing
and foiling in the stuff that wedo.
(50:37):
I mean, it's one of the few places that bring you in the
present. You know, maybe making love
might help be one of those too. But I'm just just just bringing
you in the presents like you're in the moment.
You know, people talk about riding a wave.
There's nothing. There's very few things that
I've ever experienced in my lifethat bring you in that in the
moment like that does. And I think that does help you
(51:01):
kind of bridge the gap into other places where you can be in
the moment. You start to get better at what
you're looking for and knowing what it feels like.
Yeah, we talked about attaining and attuning.
There's things you want to attain, but in order to do that,
you have to attune. And that's certainly surfing is
absolutely that last question. Your daughters come to you and
(51:22):
and say, OK, mom and dad, I wantyou to come up with a wisdom
bumper sticker that actually reflects something you've
learned along the way that you want to pass on to us.
So like a piece of wisdom that might might have an origin story
to it with your wisdom fingerprints, what would what
(51:43):
would you say to your daughters?Well my first one would be for
the bumper. My first right to the top of my
head that just pops directly up would be if you want to go slow,
get over in the right lane. It sounds like you're one of
those guys that I've seen on thewaves is like, Chip, you are a
(52:04):
novice surfer, get out of the way.
You don't have to worry about that with our girls that all
drive like lunatics, like their father.
OK? I think for me, the thing I
really have hoped to impart on my girls is really to build your
life from your inner voice and that, you know, the idea of
(52:30):
look, because it's, it is more female, but we get caught up
into, oh, well, that's working for them.
So I should do that. No, you should do the thing that
is you, your, you, your path, your purpose, your voice, your
mission, your family. Your whole thing comes from you
being willing, even when you're scared, to follow the voice
(52:54):
inside of you because it's your life and and you don't want to
live someone else's life. Beautiful.
And do you feel like you ever were doing that, Gabby?
Not so much. Mine's not as deep, but my mind
I think mine would be, and I write this down quite often as
(53:16):
anything is possible for the believer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a certainly a theme for
you. That is true.
Lair, lair chip, I'll tell you what.
I'll tell you a line that Laird always says to me, everything is
going to be OK, and it is OK. And I think sometimes if we're
going through something, if we just think about that for a
second, it's like, oh, yeah, youknow what it is?
(53:38):
It is OK. And one time I interviewed
Robert Waldinger, you know, fromthe Harvard study.
I'm sure you know him. And I asked him.
He's a he's a friend. And I asked him one time I go,
OK, listen, they write books, the Bible, the Dao, like you
name it. And they tell you all the
secrets to happiness like they tell you it's all there.
(53:58):
I go, how come we just can't do it?
And he goes, oh, Gabby, that's how you get wisdom.
That is a perfect way to end a wisdom a wisdom podcast.
Thank you guys. You're you're delightful.
I look forward to seeing you in person and I just appreciate you
being inspirations and role models for all of us.
Chip, thank you. We appreciate you.
(54:19):
So much. Aloha.
Well, I I'm looking forward to hanging out with the two of them
because my first lesson is they have an open home.
Not only are they open nesters, not empty nesters, but they have
an Aloha, an Aloha spirit, a sharing point of view, which is
(54:40):
that that's what we're here to do is to share with each other
our wisdom, our love, our meals.And so my first lesson here is
that the the two of them are very open.
They're just, they're open people.
They're open books in terms of who they are.
They're open doors in terms of how they welcome people in their
life. Secondly was I think maybe the
(55:04):
juxtaposition of breathwork and the conversation there, which
they got really into. You know, let's make sure in the
show notes, we show Patrick Mcewen's book as well as James
Nestor's book. I've read, I've read, read James
Nestor's book Breathe. The idea of breathwork is
something that we have not really explored here on the
midlife chrysalis, but it is something anybody can do.
(55:29):
And so it's free air. Air is free.
Breathing is free and learning how to control your breath and
to actually have the ecstatic kind of experience in a
holotropic kind of breathwork accession is, is certainly
something that we all should consider and it's good for us as
we get older. Juxtapose that with the other
(55:50):
point of my second point, which was this idea of dying.
You know, breath work is living and you know, at some point
Laird talked about dying is easyand living is the hard part.
And, you know, just knowing thatinevitably we're going to die,
that memento Moray, that sense that, you know, we are here
temporarily on this planet. I guess there's a big, big wave
(56:13):
surfer, you know, someone who's riding 60 and 80 foot waves and
are basically each time they go out on those waves, you're
you're taking your life in your own hands.
I think that that was, you know,to me, he's used dying as a
operating system and organizing principle for how you live a
great life. And then finally, you know, it's
(56:35):
toward the end of the interview,we didn't get into talking about
religion or spirituality, but hestarted Laird.
They both did. But Laird in particular started
talking about the faith and, andhaving a devotional practice in
the sense that you're going to be out there and trust that that
wave is coming. And that metaphor, the idea that
(56:58):
you have some faith in devotional practice to see that
that wave is coming is true in all of our lives.
You know, if we can actually have a belief system that helps
us to see that even when we're in the midlife chrysalis and
something wrong is happening in our life, that on the other side
of this, we're going to be wiser.
If you're, if you're getting divorced and you don't want to
(57:21):
be divorced on the other side ofthis, you're probably going to
be much more thoughtful and havea better pair of glasses in
terms of who the next partner orspouse will be being present to
actually see the opportunity when it arises.
The idea of attaining and attuning attaining sometimes
(57:41):
requires some attuning. And at the end of the day, he
talked about just being a believer.
And this reminds me of Viktor Frankel, A man's search for
meaning, and the fact that the people who actually perished
most, most quickly in the concentration camps of World War
2, we're not necessarily the ones who are the most infirmed.
(58:03):
They're the ones who had lost a sense of hope and meaning and
belief in faith. So just as Ted Lasso says,
believe. I hope that that's one of the
key things you got out of today's episode and I'll see you
next week. Thanks for listening to The
Midlife Chrysalis. This show is produced by Midlife
Media. If you enjoyed this episode,
(58:24):
help us spread the word by subscribing and leaving a review
on your favorite platform.
Sometimes you're building and you're trying to prove something
and then you layer in all these experiences.
You know, with Larry and I talk about how much kind of
experience we have. So you layer in all of this work
and experience and then all of asudden you realize, oh, wait a
second, I don't need to sell it.I don't need to force it.
I don't need to prove it. I can just be.
(00:22):
And if somebody feels that this is useful, I'm ready to go.
Welcome to the Midlife ChrysalisPodcast with Chip Connor, where
we explore how midlife isn't a crisis, but a chrysalis, a time
of profound transformation that can lead to the most meaningful
chapter of your life. Welcome to the midlife
(00:43):
chrysalis, and I'm Chip Conley. And this week we have a couple,
Gabby Reese and Laird Hamilton, very famous performance
athletes. She was famous as a volleyball
star. Laird still rides big waves at
61. They don't just ride waves, they
(01:04):
create them. She's a legend of strength and
grace. He's a surfing icon with a wild
streak. And together they make midlife
look like the ultimate adventuresport.
I think you're going to enjoy this whether you're an adventure
sport person or not. I think you'll appreciate the
relationship, what they learn from each other, as well as
their relationship with aging, which they thought quite a bit
(01:27):
about. Hope you enjoy the episode.
Welcome Gabby and Laird to the Midlife chrysalis.
We're honored to have you. Hi, Chip.
Thanks for having us. Yeah, we're honored to be here.
So I know that, Gabby, you spenta lot of your youth in the
Virgin Islands, maybe Saint Thomas, is that correct?
And Laird, you were born in San Francisco but grew up by, you
(01:50):
know, on the North Shore of Oahu.
So you both sort of were beach kids on some level.
What was your upbringing like? And then take us forward to 30
years ago when you met on the set of the extremists Because I,
I've, I've read some fun stuff about that.
Well, I mean, my upbringing was obviously on the beach in
(02:11):
Hawaii, on an island, on islands, in the villa in, in a
small village in kind of a little more, I'd say primal like
I, I kind of lived in a house that had been moved twice by
tidal waves. We had an outhouse and a cold
shower screen windows. If it rained really hard, you
(02:33):
couldn't the little TV that we had with the, you know, rabbit
ears with the aluminum foil, youcouldn't hear it.
The, the rain would drowned out the sound on the roof.
And, and, you know, I spent a lot of time, I mean, there was
rivers and beaches and I spent alot of the time in the jungle
and just kind of growing up withnative people that were still
(02:56):
kind of living off the land and kind of it was the end of that
era. So I kind of, you know, I had
that and then I was a young, a young boy or person around a lot
of adults, a lot of, around a lot of, of men and, you know, in
the 60s. And so I think I got I, I got to
watch a lot of bad behavior maybe which which led me to
(03:20):
probably be more conservative inthe way I guess I don't know
the, the side effect of that. Are you talking about smoking
pot? Is that what you're talking
about? What are you talking about?
Yeah, no, Well, just whatever was happening in the 60s, I
think it was just a little more irresponsible kind of lifestyle.
I mean, I would say irresponsible because I'm kind
of linear in that way, I guess. But yeah, just just just, I
(03:43):
think more carefree, kind of, you know, live to surf and
maybe, maybe work, maybe not work, have a family, maybe not
have a family, that kind of stuff.
Just just know. I mean, I had an incredible
mother. So I always say my mom raised
two sons and a few men. So, you know, I think I had a,
(04:04):
a, a, a really powerful influence that way, especially
for the imagination. And, you know, and I just grew
up fixing things, you know, learning how to fix things, kind
of learn how to do everything. My daughter's always say, hey,
you know, like, how do you know how to do this?
I go, well, that's just when you're where we lived and what
we did. You just had to have some skill
in every field. You know, you had to be able to
to do everything. You know, maybe not great, but
(04:26):
well enough to, you know, get byGabby.
Mine was different and very similar.
I think if you listen, if you'rein an island in the 60s or in my
case the 70s. My father actually is from
Trinidad. So I understood why he was in
Trinidad. But you know, why are your
parents in the Caribbean? And so a lot of times it was
(04:47):
like the parents were sort of getting away.
A lot of times they had us quiteyoung.
And so you were sort of growing up maybe with them as well.
And I didn't always live with mymother and then I sort of moved
back in with her when I was 7 inthe in the Caribbean.
But you're in nature. There's not a lot of kind of
traditional rules. You know, you're it's not
(05:08):
getting beat into you that you're supposed to grow up and
do all do this thing or follow this line.
So you you grow up in the wild more.
You're in the you're in nature, you're in the ocean.
My mother even trained dolphins.Like there's some like really
funny eccentricities there. And, and then also being
together with everybody and everybody different, every
(05:30):
different age, every different culture you're together.
And so I think you're on your sort of relationship with, with
that interaction with people anddifferent cultures is pretty
fluid. And so I, I think I grew up not
quite as wild as Laird, where Laird grew up was pretty
primitive and like primal and fishing and hunting and, you
(05:52):
know, doing and also even Laird being a male and me being a
female. But certainly the island I was
on was more populated. And, and so by the time I left
the Caribbean, I had, I was a junior in high school and I had
put all my, my kind of mostly all my YA behavior.
The radical behavior was I was almost through it by the time I
(06:16):
left. So you, you mentioned meeting
Laird 30 years ago and it's actually in November this year
will be 30 years. I by the time I met Laird at 25,
I was a professional athlete. I was really disciplined and you
know, alcohol is not a part of my life and like just kind of
all these very sort of strict grown up things.
(06:39):
I was doing ATV show and interviewing athletes and I had
done a lot of shows, maybe 60. I'd done MTV Sports and then the
extremists. I was interviewing mostly male
athletes that were doing sort ofthese alternative sports, which
is this is when they were percolating.
And I was going to Hawaii to do a series of shows like Robbie
Nash windsurfing and Hang Gliding and skydiving.
(06:59):
And I was going to interview some surfer that was part of a
group of eight guys that were doing this new type of surfing
called tow surfing. And my guest was a guy named
Laird Hamilton. And you, you know, you got
information through a fax machine because I would try to
do my homework. And there was this big hoopla
about this layered Hamilton guy.And I had even, I had layered
within surfing was known, but outside of surfing, not
(07:20):
particularly. And I had interviewed some big
athletes and somehow the hoopla around me interviewing Laird
prior to going was so interesting.
People were like, oh, Laird Hamilton, OH da da.
And I was like, OK. And yeah, so obviously that
interview changed our lives, that we lived together I think 8
days later. Wow, wow.
(07:41):
Well, we lived in different places.
It was very complicated and, andat 25, I was certainly not
looking for my life's partner, but I met Laird and I, I
thought, oh, this is a very unique person.
And and then it went from there.Yeah.
When I was I, I was on Maui surfing and we were focused on
(08:02):
trying to ride giant waves. We developed a technique to ride
the biggest waves, you know, that were that maybe have ever
been ridden. And so we were that was our
focus. We were, we were in the ocean.
We were focused on that and, youknow, I was going to do an
interview and I was like, oh, what, what bimbo are they
sending me now? Like, you know, like I knew the
(08:24):
guy that was running the production company and he was
called me and said, hey, we're doing, we have this show, we'd
love to have you as a guest. And I was kind of like, oh,
yeah, OK, whatever. And that's how I kind of came
into the situation. Like Gabby said, you know,
things were complicated at the time and and I was definitely
the last thing on my mind was, you know, a woman, attractive
(08:45):
woman. And you know, that was like,
that was not something that was even, you know, I think it it
snuck up on me on a way that waskind of out of my control.
I don't think I had any say in it.
It was kind of like this is what's happening.
And you know, I always say it was love and infatuation after
first conversation. It wasn't really like I saw her
(09:06):
and I went, wow, that's, you know, I was not, that was not, I
didn't have the that lens on anyway.
And I was like, yeah, what you know, OK, whatever.
And then once, once I once I experienced her mind, you know,
that that kind of took care of that.
Wow. But she's I mean, she's she's a
hottie though too. I mean, let's be honest.
(09:28):
And and Gabby, you, was it for you?
Was it sort of like love at first sight?
Or was or was this? No, I mean, listen, I she's not.
That kind of girl. No, and I I'm not like and plus
I have been in the fashion business, so I worked with like
incredibly, you know, whatever handsome man.
And I think, and this is maybe what Larry and I have a lot of
common values and and I think weoperate, even if we weren't
(09:50):
together a certain way and it's similarly how we get there is
different. And one of them wouldn't be I, I
could appreciate like a handsomeperson or a beauty, you know,
beautiful girl, but I, I, I wouldn't see a guy and be like,
Oh, I'd, I'd have to see something about you that would
make me go, Oh, that's, that's interesting.
So, and, and I did think that when I interviewed Laird, I go,
(10:11):
oh, this is a, this is a very unique, very focused.
And also I could feel Laird's genuineness, like Laird is not
capable of being any other way than how he is.
The fact that you both had, wereyou, both of you were athletes
and you had been successful and we're continuing to be
successful. In fact, Gabby, you didn't even
(10:34):
start playing volleyball until you were in high school, right?
Yeah, I didn't really pick up. I had Dibble dabbled and then it
was my junior year when I moved to Florida that I I got pretty
serious about volleyball and basketball.
Yeah. Do you think that the the fact
that you both were athletes and you know, very well regarded in
your own field, I mean, was thata positive, negative or did you
(10:55):
feel a sense of bonding because of that?
And clearly we're going to talk further about how you've bonded
around performance sports, but back in the early days, was that
a positive or a negative? I think it's both.
I think, I think there was it makes it easier and more
complicated, so easier and that you have a great understanding
(11:17):
and respect for pursuit and a passion for something.
So it's not like, you know, Laird's going to say to me, why
do you need to practice? And I'm going to say, why do you
need to go to that swell. But then the conflict is is
like, how do you make your livestogether work when you're in a
deep pursuit personally? And the kind of the given the
take of that there. It's just, it's a little, it is
(11:38):
that part has just a little moretension around it where it's
like you're trying to be so focused and yet you're trying to
consider a whole, you know, another person.
What I I think also that you know, because you have a focus
and then and you know, you're ona mission, you can also
(12:00):
recognize that and and appreciate that in somebody else
and be supportive too. So I think there's a, I think we
did have the ability and have had the ability to be highly
supportive of one another. And it's like my desires and my
needs in this area isn't taking away from you.
You know, it's not like I'm takeit takes away from you.
(12:21):
And and I think in another type of relationship where you did,
the person didn't understand, they think every time you were
trying to do your thing that it was somehow taking away from
them. And so we never had that, that
part of it. I mean, at when I met Gabby, you
know, my kind of notoriety was, was a lot less than I would just
(12:41):
say than her. But this also, it wasn't nearly
as high as it eventually has, you know, became and has become.
And So what I was doing wasn't completely appreciated and
respected at the time. So I was dealing with that.
And Gabby, you looked at me, I think like, hey, I can give you
a hand. I can help you out because, you
know, I see it. I mean, that's at least what
(13:03):
she's expressed to me. I, she saw it and was like, hey,
you just need a little, a little, a little guidance and a
little help. Because I was just focused on
specifically, you know, what I was doing and not necessarily
figuring out how to maybe capitalize from it in some way,
at least to make it worth the value of the time it was taking.
(13:24):
And I and Chip, I recognized early that Laird was actually
much better in his sport than I was at mine.
I I knew that I knew the difference.
I've been around a lot of athletes.
And so the other part of that was like me really appreciating
somebody who was really good at what they do.
If you're enjoying the conversations we've been having
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(13:47):
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(14:08):
opportunity to flourish. Claim your copy today at
meawisdom.com/midlife Book. And what was the kind of advice
or or guidance that you gave Laird at that time that helped
propel him to even more fame? Well, first of all, let's talk
(14:30):
about timing. I second of all, I had done a
little bit of that side hustle for my own sport, 'cause when
you're in a lifestyle sport, nobody cares.
So you kind of have to do the song and dance.
So I had already been down that path.
Yeah, I was a water polo player.I was a water polo player and I
totally get it. Played water polo at Stanford.
You know, I'm with you. You know, people like, oh, it
(14:51):
must be so hard. And what are the rules again?
And. What oppose?
Like one of the hardest sports there is.
It's so brutal. It is, yeah.
Yeah, for sure. So I think, and I was fortunate
we were working with a manager that had helped me sort of tell
my story outside of my sport. And with Laird, it was even a
little more different because itwas like, well, you have the
(15:12):
element of the ocean, which is so romantic and captivating and
dangerous, so great for storytelling, but also you're
out in the middle of the ocean. So how can people observe it?
So it was really and, and Laird just also how, you know, he
happens to be a good communicator.
So there was a lot of things in his favor and the timing and
then working with this woman, Janie, and and it was, it was
(15:34):
the right time. And it was just sort of getting
behind Laird and encouraging himbecause if it's up to Laird,
Laird would rather dig a hole orgo surfing.
And you go, hey, listen, this one little interview or the
series of interviews really is going to provide you with more
freedom and runway to do what you want to do.
Well, we are lucky to have him here today.
Thank you. So what's been your relationship
(15:56):
with your body as you've gotten older?
So let's let's move forward. Both of you are officially in
midlife. I define midlife as 35 to 75.
So you still got a while to be there.
Laird, you're in your early, your early 60s and Gabby your
mid 50s, I guess. Is that correct?
That's right, yeah. So what's your relationship with
(16:19):
your body been as you've gotten older?
And what kind of advice or wisdom might you give our
listeners and and viewers about how we continue to see our body
as, you know, a rental vehicle we're supposed to take care of?
That's a great way to say it. You know, I'll let Laird because
(16:41):
you know, the difference to withus is Laird is still in deep
pursuit. So what he is needs and requires
of his body. Also, it's like if I'm a little
half cocked, it's kind of OK. I'm not going to get into big
trouble. I can just pull back on my
training. So I'll let you answer first
because you're in a different realm, and then I'll give you
mine. Yeah, I mean, I think it's, you
(17:01):
know, I mean, somebody asked me,you know, about being 100%.
I said I, I wasn't 100% since I came into the world and took a
breath of the air here, you know, So I, I think it's always,
you're dealing with, with what you have, you know, how you're
feeling and, and learn how to begood at that.
I've been hurt a lot in my career.
I've had a lot of injuries. I have it, you know, at this
(17:23):
point, I have an accumulation ofa lot of repetitive motion and,
and you know, other things that have have led to, you know, I
got 2 titanium hips and I've hadthousands of stitches and, you
know, I've had a lot of damage in, in the years.
And you're, you're always tryingto mitigate that.
You, you, you get better at it. You know, you, you realize it's
temporary. You know, you kind of go through
(17:44):
the mental thing of can I will, will I be able to do it again?
And all that psychology. But once you've been through
that cycle, you know, you, you kind of get, you get good at
recovering, you get good at dealing with being hurt.
And it's just part of life. I think part for me, I feel like
I just look at it like this is this is what I where I'm at
right now. And then how, how can I still
(18:07):
perform and accomplish what I want to accomplish?
And if I have to go to bed a little earlier or, you know, do
some other therapies to, you know, help me eat better, take
supplementation, you know, do all the, just do all the little
things that support the big picture, then I do that.
And I'm diligent about that, about that aspect of it.
(18:29):
You know, I try to have my training not hurt me and get
injured from my training 'cause that's, that's always bad when
you get an injury from training,it's like it's supposed to be
supportive and not destructive. But so the training has evolved,
you know, prioritize certain things more than you would have
in the past. It's not always about grinding
yourself down And, and, and cause I've had that mentality
(18:52):
too. Or it's just like, hey, if
you're not, you know, if you cansuffer without damaging, there's
difference between damage, suffering and other suffering.
So I think it's just having thatrelationship, getting a better
relationship with being injured,getting a better relationship
with performing injured, just all those things and, and you
know, and then being honest about it too, like, hey, you're
(19:14):
hurt, you're not going to be able to and being OK with that
too, because it's only temporary, you know, all of
those things. I think there's so much
psychology that goes around it. I think as you get older, you've
been through so many different phases of it.
You get kind of better at the process.
And, you know, I would say what I lack in youthful enthusiasm, I
try to make up for with some kind of experience and wisdom,
(19:37):
you know? I think for me, and you know,
I'm going to throw this out there and say it, sometimes as a
female, you even have these other extra layers because of
like youth and beauty and all these things, right?
So I think perspective, I alwaysstart with my perspective first,
which is the opportunity to be as healthy as I am as a real
(19:59):
gift. And, and, and also I don't hang
around a lot of people that do the whole like, I can't do that
because I'm 40 an hour. I'm 50 and I'm like, OK, like
you got to go. So I think it's me being in
charge of my own. Perspective about how fortunate
I am, the grace of another day of being this age.
(20:20):
I'm spending time with people that they're just still dreaming
and they're in pursuit and they're going to do the work.
They're not going to talk about what they want their body to do.
They're actually have a strategyand a plan and a practice that
they're showing up every day andevery week to get that done
because a lot of people, mostly it's lip service.
I'm getting like this, but they're not doing anything
(20:41):
different. So I have a, a really good
practice in place that supports me and I actually even think
certain things diminish, but then you still have an
opportunity to always be better.Like it's like looking for those
small little windows of growth and improvement and, and again,
being reminded that not everybody gets to be 55 or 61
(21:01):
like that. We're so fortunate and I'll do
what it takes to feel good, to be strong, and that takes often
a lot of hard work and to be thoughtful.
So I it's also like not bullshitting yourself.
Yeah, and we we set our life up to be, you know, accountability.
Gabby has, you know, three days a week.
(21:24):
She has a group that comes and trains and does her training and
then we have another thing, another three days a week.
So six days a week we have people coming or around to to
work out with. So on a day where you go, you
know what, today I'm pretty busted up.
I don't feel like doing anything.
You got people outside going, OK, you guys ready to go kind of
things. So it kind of, you know, you set
(21:46):
it up to kind of not have a way out in a way, like you just set
that thing out. And Gabby has been a proponent
of it. But I have I, I surround myself
with a lot of younger guys that are, that are hungry, that are
strong, that are striving and you know, they're, they're still
on their, you know, in not that I'm not in my pursuit, but
they're still early in the earlystages of their pursuit.
(22:09):
And so I feed off of that too. You know, like if I was with
around, if I just hung out with a bunch of 61 year old guys that
I'd probably be go sit down on the couch instead of some young
hungry animals that want to grind away at it.
I'm like, OK, cool. And you know, you got to be OK
with, hey, I'm not 21 and that guy's 21 and he's doesn't have a
(22:31):
sore part on and you know, his testosterone is coming out of
his ears, but I'm like, that's cool.
But I'm OK with that. I'm not going to use him as a
comparison to me because he alsodoesn't have all of the
experiences and all the things that I've been through and has
all these other things to deal with.
And I'll take my things over histhings.
I'll give me a few sore body parts over the life starting.
(22:55):
Over. Yeah, yeah.
So you do a lot of performance training with people and breath
work is part of it. So do you want to talk a little
bit about what the sequencing you see around breath work being
sort of a foundational part of training and and how you came to
(23:16):
that reckoning or that or that resolution?
Well, Laird, I watched Laird do a 45 minute or 50 minute breath
work today. I'm like.
Yeah, the isolation, you know, Ithink, I think, I think, but I
mean any and. Explain.
Explain. Some people know.
Explain what people to people What?
What does that mean? What is 4550 minutes of breath
work mean? What is?
(23:37):
What are you doing when you're doing that?
Well, there's a sequencing of breathing that you do.
So there's some, you know, it depends on what you're looking
for out of it. I'm, you know, right now this
lately my focus has been around kind of at least three long
inhale breath holds. And so in order to do that, we
(23:57):
go into like a pattern. So we'll do a three or four
minute pattern to build us up into either an exhale breath
hold or an inhale breath hold. And we'll hold that for a long
period of time. And so we have a like a sequence
of, of patterns that we go into before we go into these long
holes. And then we go into these long
holes and hold them as long as, you know, you can, but or
(24:19):
somewhere there, you can always hold longer, but we go into it,
you know, one where you're really getting squeezed.
And then we recover and go back through that and do those
multiple times through. And that isolation of the, of
the breathing really does improve the system, right?
Because normally we're breathingaround activity and there's a
meditative aspect to it. There's a presence, you know,
(24:40):
most meditation and most things are based around, I mean, breath
work is everywhere and everything.
If you, you know, if you think about and Amen and all these
sounds that we use in conjunction with breath.
I mean, I, I think anybody that deals with the water book, Gabby
and I grew up swimming. You know, she her mom trained
dolphins. She was in the ocean air and the
(25:03):
importance of air is relevant. It's a relevant thing because
you're like, there's air above and there's no air below.
So your relationship and, you know, being a water polo player,
it's all about the air, you know, it's all about, you know,
and if your head's out, that's cool.
But when you're under, there's no.
And so I think that was the foundation.
I think I was led to it. There was rock stone running
(25:26):
when I was a kid that the, that the Hawaiians would do, you
know, ride a stone, hold a stone, jump off a boat, go to
the bottom and then run along the bottom.
You get a longer down time. So I was already around things
like that within the within breathing.
And then the Iceman Wim Hof who,who, who I know is a friend of
mine, you know, he kind of popularized a form of tumor
(25:48):
breath work. I mean, then there's apnea from
free diving. I grew up around free diving and
free divers and there's all thatbreath work.
So there's so many different modalities.
And but when you look at, you know, in a prioritization of
elements for survival, I always tell people I go, you can go
weeks without eating and go go days without drinking, but you
can only go minutes without breathing.
And so as far as the importance of what it is, it's free.
(26:10):
You have it, you own it. And a lot of our health issues
stem from our lack of ability tobreathe correctly.
And so it just, it just seems like something to give again, as
you go, you kind of prioritize because sometimes I don't think
we, we believe that that a certain type of training is
important enough. If it's just not, you know, hey,
(26:32):
I'm banging iron, I'm lifting something, I'm running 30 miles.
I'm, you know, it's all this grind, grind, grind.
And we don't prioritize the simplicity of something like,
Hey, we're going to just sit here or lay here and we're going
to breathe for 30 or 40 minutes.And we can make this breathing
as difficult as any exercise you've ever done, maybe harder,
like we can make it impossible. And but, you know, putting that
(26:54):
kind of perspective on it and then doing it on a regular
basis, you really get the the benefits from it and you see it,
you can feel it in your overall performance in your health and
everything. If somebody wanted to learn more
about breath work or should theyjust go to YouTube and just
check out some videos or do you have a do, is there somebody who
(27:15):
you particularly recommend or maybe even your your videos?
Well, there's some great books. Actually, yeah, I think Patrick
Mccune has written some great The Oxygen Advantage because
it's also he shares with you your understanding of your
relationship with CO2. And how?
And then breathe. And and breathe, James Nestor's
book is, is really great. And you know, like when is is
(27:37):
fun to follow along with. But if you want to get sciency,
I like Patrick Mccune for that because he he talks about even
high level athletes don't have something called a bolt score
very that's very good, very high.
Your CO2 tolerance there. Your CO2 tolerance.
So if you can get a high CO2 tolerance, there's some great,
(27:58):
great things. And what I always loved is if
you're sitting at your desk, youknow, unless you're sprinting,
pretty much you should be breathing in and out through
your nose, right? And and most people are doing 15
to 22 breaths per minute when weshould be doing 5 to 7 and just
slow it way down. What kind of path are you
(28:20):
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(28:42):
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There's some correlation to longevity on this, you know,
including the species that tend to live longer are having less
breaths per minute if I'm not mistaken.
(29:02):
Yeah, 1 less and less. Heartbeats.
Yeah, less heartbeats. Slower heart.
Rates like slower breathing rhythms.
Your overall health will be better, your mood, you'll be
down regulated, you'll be in your parasympathetic, you'll be
revved up all day long into yoursympathetic system.
So I think to learn, really control, Yeah, to learn its
point, we don't really give it the value.
I have to remind myself all the time.
(29:24):
Just because I know when I put that in quotes doesn't mean I'm
so great at always practicing it.
So wouldn't you? Yeah.
And when you bring consciousnessto your breathing, when you
bring out like an awareness, like hey, I'm in a nose breathe
right now and I'm going to be aware of my breath in the length
of time I'm inhaling and exhaling.
That's why some of the education, that's why those
books are good, because it helpsyou understand the breathing,
(29:45):
which then you get you further committed into doing it because
then you're just not like, hey, what's this breathing thing and
what do you mean? CO2 this and that.
So you, you, when you learn about it and you understand the
way the system works, then you're more vested.
And then then you're like, OK, I'm gonna that's where the
value, that's where I prioritizebecause I understand, you know
what it does. And then and then you can build
(30:05):
from there. But you know that's a you.
Can ramp up, ramp down like you can use it like I mean.
If you go, if you know what the hawka is, people don't realize
they talk about the hawka being intimidation thing, but it's
actually a a pre bowel preparation pattern.
So they're they're preparing forBabble.
Is that, is that from the Maori's?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh my God, those guys, they're
(30:27):
fierce. Like I yeah, I mean just.
I talk about the lion when the lion roars.
You know, when you hear a lion roar, you can tell by the roar
like the power. And so you hear the lion roar
and everybody goes, we better pay attention because this is
this is this is powerful, right?And so they in a way, I think
(30:50):
that that so many things in so many cultures, the spirit and
breath are connected. That's why when you do extensive
breath work, you can have kind of meta or even transformational
experiences. We get people going through
these breathing patterns and they get like they have
emotional releases. I mean, there's a lot of stuff
that comes from it. And so I I think again
(31:11):
important. We can spend the whole hour on
this one. Exactly.
Let's move on to this idea of a midlife crisis or chrysalis the
way we tend to historically, or at least since 1965 when the
term was popularized. We sort of see midlife as this
time where, oh, our body's falling apart and I'm bored.
(31:32):
You know, I've been doing the same old thing and and I'm
disappointed in my life because,you know, I haven't accomplished
this or that or, or for some people, they have kids and it's
like, you know, they're doing sandwich generation taking care
of their parents and their kids at the same time.
Did you have a midlife chrysalis?
Did you have a a time where in your 40s or 50s you've had a
(31:57):
reckoning, a challenge that had that forced you to re evaluate
your life? And how did you get to the other
side of it? Because part of the reason I
called it chrysalis is because EU curve of happiness research
shows that frankly, after 50, weget happier with each decade
after having a low point around 45 to 52.
So tell us about your midlife chrysalis, if you had one.
(32:20):
Weirdly, I think I had mine veryyoung.
I got to be honest. I had mine at 30.
And what that was, was me havingto come to terms with the way I
was doing things in the long runwas not going to work for the
life I was living. So I was already married to
Laird. I was probably emotionally
(32:41):
scared to be vulnerable. I because of the way I grew up,
I just was very self-contained. And so I, I had that early,
which in then coming out of it and committing to doing things
that were uncomfortable and different, which really just
meant communicating more, sayingwhat I wanted, needed, felt
(33:02):
instead of being stoic and silent about everything.
And, and understanding that whenyou're going to love someone and
you're going to build a family, that it, it is scary, you know,
like loving is risking and it's,it's tied into the thought about
loss. And I was like, Oh yeah, but
that's living. And so I, I had that, that
(33:24):
early. And so that really helped me
kind of have a, a nice glide after 35 into where I have been
for the last 20 years. And I will say this, I do
remember 50 being somehow easier, even though I didn't
freak out too much, but still easier than 40.
(33:45):
Something about 40 was like, oh,wow, this is like game on now
TikTok, like time's rolling. And 50 was like you'd already
had to really have lessons. And the notion of surrender
really came into my life that probably about 46 or 7 where it
was like, if you don't get a relationship with surrendering
(34:09):
and being OK with not knowing. And Byron Katie was helpful for
me in some of this, you know, like they had notion of past
futuring and worrying about shitthat hadn't happened and all
this stuff. So that was sort of my process.
Different than Laird. I think Laird had a monumental
shift in his 40s. Did I?
(34:29):
I think so, if I recall. I was going to say I probably
have, I probably have one every week.
You know, I think mine's like slow drip.
I have one and then I come out of it and then I have another
one. And I mean, we, I mean, there's
a couple things that I mean, obviously when I, I used to
drink, I like drinking. I love the glass of wine, 2
(34:50):
glass of wine, a bottle of wine,2 bottles of wine.
Like I'm a professional. And I think, I mean, obviously,
I think that was not it's a depressant.
And that was probably a big shift for me to when I stopped
drinking. That was I think I had I
continue to drink. I don't think Gabby and I would
probably have made it. And you know, I, but I will say
(35:11):
that I think that both her and Iare, are, have been fortunate
because the way my athletic career has gone, I was never in
a thing where was like, OK, I was a pro, I was a champion and
now I'm done and I don't do it anymore.
And so I think I don't have thatpart on my career side.
Like I don't have that kind of thing.
(35:33):
When when, when I lost that. I mean, Gabby has never, you
know, she's still a woman and she has her vanity, but she
didn't rely on her beauty in herlife.
Like she, it was her athleticism, her intelligence,
these other things. And those things, you don't lose
those if you're just relying on your beauty.
And then all of a sudden you're getting a little older, like I'm
not quite as beautiful as I was when I was 20.
(35:53):
And so I have, we have some of those things that have helped us
along. You know, I continue to have a
pursuit. I think one thing that's helped
me is that my goal posts always moves when I get close.
So right when I get close to a, you know, a field goal or
whatever, it just shifts a little bit and then I'm re.
So I'm, I'm kind of always in pursuit.
(36:13):
I mean, I think the ocean has allowed me to do it.
I think reinventing myself in the sense of kind of looking at
new disciplines and shifting what I'm doing to, to continue
to pursue has helped as well. I, I think the, obviously the
drinking and, and, and our relationship and me as a person,
that was a monumental shift. I think that was a a a moment
(36:35):
and it was leading up to a maybe, you know, part part of it
was it was, you know, dealing with maybe I had set up a goal
and I'd achieved it and it didn't bring me what I thought
it was going to, you know, like I thought, oh, I'm going to just
do this and that's going to be it.
And then I did it and I was like, wow, that did really
didn't work. I mean, you see people do that
all the time. You know, they set it up like if
I just, you know, have a billiondollars, it's all going to be
(36:57):
good. And then they get a billion
dollars and they're like, Oh my God, I gave up everything to get
a billion dollars. And then I'm still in the same
spot. I was expect it's worse because
I did all the things, I neglected all this other areas.
So I think it's a combination ofall, all of those.
Things and Chip thinking about you and your philosophy, I think
one thing Laird and I have done,maybe because we did grow up on
islands and it was the way we raised our house has always been
(37:19):
a place for people to get what they need if we could offer it.
We've always been a had a sense of community and service, even
when we were younger. But I think as you get older,
you become even better at that and more capable of being of
service to your community. And I, I think that that has
been a nice tipping of, of the scales.
And then, you know, having daughters and, and learning,
(37:43):
learning from them. And Laird always says a quote
that he heard. They don't know if they said it
was maybe a guy in the military.You know, never let your
accomplishments be greater than your dreams.
And both Laird and I are sort oflike, well, what else could we
do? And and not so attached to the
past. Yeah, and and, and being, I
mean, culturally Hawaii Aloha isthe generosity, the giving, the
(38:06):
sharing. I mean, that's just what we do
there. We we've done that.
So that that's been very naturalfor us.
So mentoring is part of that, like bringing in because I've
been mentored for and it's like,you know, pass it on.
Like like, I mean, that's why wealways share things.
We learn like in normally, like a lot of times as an athlete,
you get this thing that gives you an advantage and you keep it
(38:27):
a secret because you want to have an advantage over your
opponent. And I think for me, I, I never
felt that way. I never felt like I need this
thing. I'll be like, hey, you want my
board, you want my training, youwant my food, you want
everything except my girl. You could have everything.
But you know, I mean, and if youcan do it better than me,
congratulations kind of thing. And so I think that's more of
(38:48):
our approach as a person, but asa couple.
There's a woman in Becca Levy who at Yale who is a big fan of
the Modern Elder Academy, MEA. And in her work, she's shown
that when you shift your mindseton aging in midlife from a
negative to a positive, so you actually see aging as a up,
there's an upside to aging, unexpected pleasures of aging
(39:09):
that you gain 7 1/2 years of additional longevity.
So I want to ask both of you what's gotten better with age in
your life? I mean, for me personally, I,
I'm don't have to be as hyper vigilant.
I don't worry as much because I,I learned how ineffective that
is. And I, I've let a lot of that
go. And, and also sometimes you're
(39:33):
building and you're trying to prove something and then you
layer in all these experiences like, you know, with Larry and I
talk about how much a kind of experience we have.
So you layer in all of this workand experience and then all of a
sudden you realize, oh, wait a second, I don't need to sell it.
I don't need to force it. I don't need to prove it.
(39:55):
I can just be. And if somebody feels that this
is useful, I'm ready to go. And so there's something really
enjoyable about becoming more masterful about certain things,
but not feeling like I got to show everybody how smart I am or
how capable I am or how hard I'mwilling to work because your
body of evidence, your body of work.
(40:16):
It's kind of there and so that part is is really beautiful and
and also listen, watching my family grow like we're walking
behind two of our daughters in New York the day and these are
formidable young women. I'm like, this is really badass.
Like look at these girls. You know, it's so cool and, and
just always having the space andthe wherewithal to really
(40:39):
appreciate all the small things to notice, just to keep
noticing. I feel like the control of your
contentment, right, that you really can control it.
Like it's not we we are so kind of programmed to believe that
you you have to be told that you're good and you have to
everything's being dictated by, you know, the outside parties
(41:01):
and they really don't care aboutyou at the end of the day.
And once you get to the point where you're like, Oh, no, I'm
what I'm doing is good and I feel good and I'm, and, and I'm
doing the right thing and I'm, you know, all these things, but
you take control of it yourself personally.
You're just set free at that point.
You just have a freedom. I think that you never believed
you could have given the other frame of mind, right?
(41:25):
The other frame of mind, which is I'm, I'm relying on people to
tell me how I did and how I lookand how you know, and what
success is and what failure and all that stuff.
And I think so having that and you know, I mean, the ocean
teaches you patience, but I think you get, it's a learned
skill. And I think he you can get
better at being patient and being.
(41:46):
And, and then ultimately, I think it's the having the faith,
you know, having the faith to, to believe that it's going to be
OK. I, I, I mean, maybe maybe
there's some submission in that you're OK to that you're going
to go to right. I think that that's a big piece
of it. I think, you know, I think death
always plays a factor in everything.
(42:08):
And I think when you're young, you think it's not, you know,
you're never, it's never going to happen.
It's so far away. And then you get older and then
you get older and then you're like, wow, you know, now I'm
getting near the finish line andin whether the finish line is,
you know, 30 years more or whatever, but you're, you're not
20, but you're 60 or you're 70. And so I think that there's
(42:29):
something about being OK with that.
I think you have to be OK with that.
I think you have to be ready to,if you're not OK with that,
that's going to make, for me personally, I feel like that's
going to make a, a, a pretty tense thing as it nears and
you're not OK with it. You got you.
So you have an opportunity to get everything in aligned, you
know. You're doing big wave surfing.
(42:50):
So I mean, there's a there is, there is a death defying nature
to the sport you've chosen. So my guess is that you've had
to maybe when you're younger it was like, oh, that's never going
to happen. But as you've gotten older, do
you see the danger attached to it as and does it not not scare
(43:12):
you? How do you feel about riding 60
foot waves? I think you'd be ignorant not to
have the not to have the respectthat, hey, you can.
I think I think it has definitely developed a
relationship with death that a lot of people never have.
So I think at a certain point, because it's been, I've had so
many, so many opportunities to be exposed to the edge.
(43:35):
You know, I've had, I have a relationship with it.
And so I'm like, people talk, Oh, I'm going to live to 150.
I'm like 150 years of this stuff.
I think I'm OK, Like I'm not, I don't need to do that.
Like I want the quality till they're till I'm done.
But but I also AM realistic about we're all going to die.
And so we have to be OK with dying.
Are you OK with dying? Because if you're not OK with
(43:57):
dying, then you're not OK with with what is going to inevitably
happen. And so when you're not OK with
what is inevitably going to happen, it's going to have a lot
of influence over you. So, so you got to, you better
learn how to get OK with it. Maybe, maybe as we get older, we
get a little more acceptance of that.
I think when you're younger and you do risky things, you're not.
(44:19):
I mean, at least for me, some people can go about it and
pretend like there's not a possibility, but I just, that's
not. I we used to years ago watch
Jackass and I would laugh and hated it.
And he goes, she's like, it's easy to die, try living.
Exactly. No, dying's easy.
Dying's really easy. You know how easy it is to die?
(44:39):
Just walk outside and when a cargoes by, just jump in front of
it. It'll it takes about a less than
a second. He was always offended at like,
people being cavalier because he's like that's that's not hard
to to die is not that hard. Yeah.
And, and, and, and you could look at what we've done, my
friends and I in, in the big ocean and think that we're being
(45:00):
cavalier about it. But in a way we are taking, we
have the utmost respect for it and we're showing it through our
conduct and our behavior. You know, we, we do think
dangerous things every day that we don't even have any that
we're not even remotely conscious of.
We're hyper vigilant about, about what we're doing in about
the, about what's going on. And I think that that changes
(45:23):
your relationship with it in in a way.
And so that's for me, I feel like that's been the, the part
of, you know, as I, as I get older and, and that you're not
like Gabby said, you're not out.You don't have to prove
anything. You're not like I got to prove
everything. And you know, and do this whole
thing that that you're forced tohave when you're young, You need
that. That's actually, that's just
part of what you do. I think part of the blessings of
(45:45):
feeling like you've been run over by a truck as you get older
is that you're, hey, good. I don't need to prove anything.
You know, like, I don't need to go out and be like, hey, I got
to show you that. How do you do it?
And if you do these things, it'sreally more just for your own
personal. I have a saying that, hey, if
you see it, you know, if a tree falls in the forest, no one sees
it. Does it actually fall?
And I'm like, it absolutely falls.
(46:07):
So like, like, you know, like I can go do things and not have
people see it and be OK because it brings me a complete
fulfillness. It's been said that in the first
half of the life we're performing and maybe pursuing,
in the second-half of life we'rebeing present.
How does that sound to you and and how are you more present?
Clearly Laird, giving up drinking is a form of adding to
(46:33):
your presence. But you're both performance
minded. But you seem to be both very
present as well. So how does that relate in your
own life? I think Laird might be a scooch
more present than I am. I think I'm a lot of times like
getting things done in my mind. But I'll be honest with you,
(46:54):
I'm, I mean, listen, I'm pretty focused present person.
I'm just comparing myself to him.
But I will say that even though I'm in pursuit, but for the sake
of pursuit, not for the sake forthe for the creative aspect of
pursuit, not for the I need to survive.
I want to prove something to myself or to others, but trying
(47:17):
to pursue it in a different way as a creative expression and
taking it pretty serious. So I, I actually feel now that
my, our youngest daughter just went to college.
I've said that I've had my foot on the gas the whole time, but
now I'm also taking my foot off the brake.
So conversely, I'm I'm looking for a different and interesting
kind of expansion. Your empty nesters.
(47:38):
Open nesters. Open nesters.
OK, so that's the sharing thing.Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They can come back. They're coming back.
Well, and it's not them, it's some other 20 year old male or a
good thing. It's like someone's always
around. Yeah, yeah.
Kind of like a runway, you know,it's the planes are landing and
taking off. They're always landing and
taking off. You need some air traffic
(48:01):
controllers. Here we are.
Here we are. How about your relationship with
presents? Well, first of all, I have, I'm
with, I have three women in my life, four women in my life.
So if you're not present for theladies, I mean, I do a lot of
waiting. So, and waiting makes you
present. Like if you're waiting your
present. So I'm present.
I think I've learned to be more still with that.
(48:23):
Like I've been waving the ocean just teaches you things that you
just and like, no, like nothing else can teach you.
And, and in a way, when you're waiting for a wave and you're
waiting for a swell and you're waiting for all these elements
to come together together to create the perfect gem.
And it's like, and it could be years.
It's I mean, you know, I think one of the moments of my
(48:44):
athletic career was at 35 years old, like I literally, and I
surfed since I was five years old.
So that was 30 years of doing, pursuing and believing and, and
then having the thing arrive. And so in a way, I think that
that training that the ocean hasgiven me that patience that, you
know, it is hard as it is. And sometimes actually Gabby's
more, she's more concerned for me than I actually am.
(49:07):
Like she's like, I know I can feel you.
I'm like, no, I'm OK right now. Like I'm OK.
Are you sure you're OK? Like you shouldn't be OK, but I
but I do. I think that has brought me more
more in the presence. I think just everything going on
in the world, just how radical things are sometimes bring,
makes me more aware of the moment, the space I'm in, the
sun rising, the ocean, all thosethings.
(49:30):
And so in a, in a way, there's astillness in that.
And, and also my faith in that it will happen too.
Is that my faith in that it willhappen makes me better at
waiting. Like if I know it's that I know
it's going to happen. Like it's going to happen.
I, it's just, and is it tomorrow?
Is it next week? Is it next month?
Is it in six months? It's going to happen, It's got
it will happen. And so kind of having the, the
(49:52):
faith in that and knowing it will helps me wait, 'cause
sometimes I think you think it'snot going to happen and then
you're like, then the waiting isimpossible, then it becomes
impossible. So I think that that that kind
of belief has led me to be more present and more still.
And then a lot of the stuff thatwe do, I mean, the pool training
that we do never is one of the most kind of present bringing
(50:15):
places that we have. I mean, I have a friend that 70
something comes up this morning goes I come here because it's
the only thing that I do and theonly training I do that brings
me in the present, brings me in the moment.
I don't have any distractions. I don't have nothing comes in.
And so I think there's some things that we do that help us
do that. I know they act of of surfing
and foiling in the stuff that wedo.
(50:37):
I mean, it's one of the few places that bring you in the
present. You know, maybe making love
might help be one of those too. But I'm just just just bringing
you in the presents like you're in the moment.
You know, people talk about riding a wave.
There's nothing. There's very few things that
I've ever experienced in my lifethat bring you in that in the
moment like that does. And I think that does help you
(51:01):
kind of bridge the gap into other places where you can be in
the moment. You start to get better at what
you're looking for and knowing what it feels like.
Yeah, we talked about attaining and attuning.
There's things you want to attain, but in order to do that,
you have to attune. And that's certainly surfing is
absolutely that last question. Your daughters come to you and
(51:22):
and say, OK, mom and dad, I wantyou to come up with a wisdom
bumper sticker that actually reflects something you've
learned along the way that you want to pass on to us.
So like a piece of wisdom that might might have an origin story
to it with your wisdom fingerprints, what would what
(51:43):
would you say to your daughters?Well my first one would be for
the bumper. My first right to the top of my
head that just pops directly up would be if you want to go slow,
get over in the right lane. It sounds like you're one of
those guys that I've seen on thewaves is like, Chip, you are a
(52:04):
novice surfer, get out of the way.
You don't have to worry about that with our girls that all
drive like lunatics, like their father.
OK? I think for me, the thing I
really have hoped to impart on my girls is really to build your
life from your inner voice and that, you know, the idea of
(52:30):
look, because it's, it is more female, but we get caught up
into, oh, well, that's working for them.
So I should do that. No, you should do the thing that
is you, your, you, your path, your purpose, your voice, your
mission, your family. Your whole thing comes from you
being willing, even when you're scared, to follow the voice
(52:54):
inside of you because it's your life and and you don't want to
live someone else's life. Beautiful.
And do you feel like you ever were doing that, Gabby?
Not so much. Mine's not as deep, but my mind
I think mine would be, and I write this down quite often as
(53:16):
anything is possible for the believer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a certainly a theme for
you. That is true.
Lair, lair chip, I'll tell you what.
I'll tell you a line that Laird always says to me, everything is
going to be OK, and it is OK. And I think sometimes if we're
going through something, if we just think about that for a
second, it's like, oh, yeah, youknow what it is?
(53:38):
It is OK. And one time I interviewed
Robert Waldinger, you know, fromthe Harvard study.
I'm sure you know him. And I asked him.
He's a he's a friend. And I asked him one time I go,
OK, listen, they write books, the Bible, the Dao, like you
name it. And they tell you all the
secrets to happiness like they tell you it's all there.
(53:58):
I go, how come we just can't do it?
And he goes, oh, Gabby, that's how you get wisdom.
That is a perfect way to end a wisdom a wisdom podcast.
Thank you guys. You're you're delightful.
I look forward to seeing you in person and I just appreciate you
being inspirations and role models for all of us.
Chip, thank you. We appreciate you.
(54:19):
So much. Aloha.
Well, I I'm looking forward to hanging out with the two of them
because my first lesson is they have an open home.
Not only are they open nesters, not empty nesters, but they have
an Aloha, an Aloha spirit, a sharing point of view, which is
(54:40):
that that's what we're here to do is to share with each other
our wisdom, our love, our meals.And so my first lesson here is
that the the two of them are very open.
They're just, they're open people.
They're open books in terms of who they are.
They're open doors in terms of how they welcome people in their
life. Secondly was I think maybe the
(55:04):
juxtaposition of breathwork and the conversation there, which
they got really into. You know, let's make sure in the
show notes, we show Patrick Mcewen's book as well as James
Nestor's book. I've read, I've read, read James
Nestor's book Breathe. The idea of breathwork is
something that we have not really explored here on the
midlife chrysalis, but it is something anybody can do.
(55:29):
And so it's free air. Air is free.
Breathing is free and learning how to control your breath and
to actually have the ecstatic kind of experience in a
holotropic kind of breathwork accession is, is certainly
something that we all should consider and it's good for us as
we get older. Juxtapose that with the other
(55:50):
point of my second point, which was this idea of dying.
You know, breath work is living and you know, at some point
Laird talked about dying is easyand living is the hard part.
And, you know, just knowing thatinevitably we're going to die,
that memento Moray, that sense that, you know, we are here
temporarily on this planet. I guess there's a big, big wave
(56:13):
surfer, you know, someone who's riding 60 and 80 foot waves and
are basically each time they go out on those waves, you're
you're taking your life in your own hands.
I think that that was, you know,to me, he's used dying as a
operating system and organizing principle for how you live a
great life. And then finally, you know, it's
(56:35):
toward the end of the interview,we didn't get into talking about
religion or spirituality, but hestarted Laird.
They both did. But Laird in particular started
talking about the faith and, andhaving a devotional practice in
the sense that you're going to be out there and trust that that
wave is coming. And that metaphor, the idea that
(56:58):
you have some faith in devotional practice to see that
that wave is coming is true in all of our lives.
You know, if we can actually have a belief system that helps
us to see that even when we're in the midlife chrysalis and
something wrong is happening in our life, that on the other side
of this, we're going to be wiser.
If you're, if you're getting divorced and you don't want to
(57:21):
be divorced on the other side ofthis, you're probably going to
be much more thoughtful and havea better pair of glasses in
terms of who the next partner orspouse will be being present to
actually see the opportunity when it arises.
The idea of attaining and attuning attaining sometimes
(57:41):
requires some attuning. And at the end of the day, he
talked about just being a believer.
And this reminds me of Viktor Frankel, A man's search for
meaning, and the fact that the people who actually perished
most, most quickly in the concentration camps of World War
2, we're not necessarily the ones who are the most infirmed.
(58:03):
They're the ones who had lost a sense of hope and meaning and
belief in faith. So just as Ted Lasso says,
believe. I hope that that's one of the
key things you got out of today's episode and I'll see you
next week. Thanks for listening to The
Midlife Chrysalis. This show is produced by Midlife
Media. If you enjoyed this episode,
(58:24):
help us spread the word by subscribing and leaving a review
on your favorite platform.
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