Laird Hamilton Quotes

Make sure your worst enemy doesn't live between your own two ears.

If you can look at one of these waves and you don't believe that there's something greater than we are, then you've got some serious analyzing to do and you should go sit under a tree for a very long time.

Your path is yours alone. And if it’s the path less traveled, that’s absolutely fine. The world doesn’t need more conformists. The world needs more people who create and question and search.

If you just get out of your own way... It is amazing what will come to you.

Don’t be afraid to really use your imagination. Let it run wild. It’s one of the most powerful tools you’ve got.

In this book, you’ll naturally look for common habits and recommendations, and you should. Here are a few patterns, some odder than others: More than 80% of the interviewees have some form of daily mindfulness or meditation practice A surprising number of males (not females) over 45 never eat breakfast, or eat only the scantiest of fare (e.g., Laird Hamilton, page 92; Malcolm Gladwell, page 572; General Stanley McChrystal, page 435) Many use the ChiliPad device for cooling at bedtime Rave reviews of the books Sapiens, Poor

I think the key to happiness is maximizing each day. So if you’re unhappy, here’s a simple prescription: Live harder.

Everything comes down to attitude: You determine what yours is, and the external world will reflect it back.

What we've been given is precious. It's majestic in its smallest details and its largest manifestations. Anyone not humbled by the power of the ocean should take a good, long look at a fifty-foot wave. If you don't have respect for a wave, it's only a matter of time before the ocean teaches you to get some. We're all equal before the wave.

We're all equal before a wave. —Laird Hamilton, professional surfer In 2005, I was working as an equity analyst at Merrill Lynch. When one afternoon I told a close friend that I was going to leave Wall Street, she was dumbfounded. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?" she asked me. This was her polite, euphemistic way of wondering if I'd lost my mind. My job was to issue buy or sell recommendations on corporate stocks—and I was at the top of my game. I had just returned from Mexico City for an investor day at America Movíl, now the fourth largest wireless operator in the world. As I sat in the audience with hundreds of others, Carlos Slim, the controlling shareholder and one of the world's richest men, quoted my research, referring to me as "La Whitney." I had large financial institutions like Fidelity Investments asking for my financial models, and when I upgraded or downgraded a stock, the stock price would frequently move several percentage points.

We’re all equal before a wave. —Laird Hamilton, professional surfer

Make sure your worst enemy doesn't live between your own to ears.

Life is for living.

Quitting: easy. Daring to triumph: hard.

The complicated formula that allowed these purchases included their assistance in obtaining Con O’Neill’s pardon, his release from prison, and, oddly, a knighthood for O’Neill balanced by a pledge from the two lairds to King James that the land would be “planted with British Protestants.” 6 Almost immediately, Montgomery and Hamilton began arranging the migration of large numbers of lowland Scots into their Ulster lands.

My tendency to get kind of bored quickly and not just accepting the monotony of the status quo, the continual monotony of the single thing, but just actually trying to make it interesting and new and exciting and different.

We have to have a family waiting for us. Otherwise, what’s the point? Empty glory is a lonely feeling. I know my mind is connecting more these days to family and, obviously, to my relationship with the woman I love. But all of it, whether you have it be your friends or your peers or your teammates, whatever connects to the wholeness of everything—that’s riches. That’s achievement.

Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears” (Laird Hamilton)

JUST BEFORE CHRISTMAS, the Neumanns boarded Wildgoose I for another winter holiday in Hanalei Bay. Adam was planning to surf again, this time with Laird Hamilton, one of the sport’s legends. WeWork was finalizing a deal, modest by Fortitude standards, to lead a $32 million investment round in Laird Superfood, Hamilton’s company, which sold turmeric and mushroom-infused coffee creamers. Adam’s wave pool investment hadn’t panned out, and WeWork slashed the value of its stake to zero after Wavegarden had trouble selling its $16 million “coves.” But the Laird Superfood bet had less to do with surfing than with doubling down on the nutritional coffee-creamer industry, much as Masa poured money into multiple food delivery apps. If the DeCicco brothers couldn’t change America’s food paradigm, maybe Laird Hamilton would.

For every single person it’s something unique. You can’t compare your experience to mine, and I can’t compare mine to his.

Make sure your worst enemy doesn’t live between your own two ears.” — Laird Hamilton