Shaun Tomson has experienced some incredible heights. He’s also experienced some devastating lows.
He was a world surfing champion and is widely regarded as one of the greatest tube riders of all time. He is an actor, author, environmentalist and businessman.
Everything he knew changed dramatically when he received a call in 2008 telling him his teenage son had died after playing the “choking game.”
“I lost my beautiful son Matthew, 15.5 years old, I lost him to a bad decision,” Tomson told The Ticket.
“He heard about this game at school called the choke game where the kids at school all wore ties… he played the game and it killed him.
“My life and my wife’s life came to a complete standstill.
Shaun Tomson (center) was at the forefront of the pro surfing scene and won the world title in 1977.(Delivered: Shaun Tomson)
“And for many months I’ve wondered who I am. What is my basic purpose? Where am I going? What am I doing? And I’ve gone back to that code… I’ll keep paddling out.”
The code he refers to is his surfer code, his mantra, which he constantly tucks in his back pocket as he travels the world.
It’s a code he shares with others who might need some balance after life has thrown them a curveball.
“Paddling back” is what surfers do no matter what — whether they’ve been thrown to the bottom of a Hawaiian reef by a monster wave, whether a shark is after you, like what happened to world surfing champion Mick Fanning in South Africa in 2015.
In South Africa, Tomson learned to surf on Durban’s South Beach in Kwa-Zulu Natal. It was the beach where his father Ernie had been attacked by a shark decades earlier, ending his dream of becoming an Olympic swimmer.
“He had a good shot at gold at the 1948 Olympics and was attacked while riding his little wooden surfboard, but I think it’s one of the first recorded attacks on a surfer on South Beach in Durban,” Tomson said.
“My father taught me to swim and surf 100 meters from where he was attacked. So, in one of the lines of Surfer’s Code, I write I’ll never turn my back on the ocean, which is an actually Hawaiian term.
“He showed me by example that even though his career and his life were changed by that shark attack, he still has that great love for water.
“Surfing teaches you never to turn your back on the ocean, it teaches you humility, it teaches you perseverance and resilience. It teaches you about hope.
“I’m writing that I know there’s always going to be another wave, this concept of hope and this concept of optimism. It teaches you about honor.”
Shaun’s father, Ernie, even taught him to love water after a shark attack.(Delivered: Shaun Tomson)
A friend contacted him in the early 2000s about a serious environmental impact at the Rincon, California surf break that Tomson now calls home.
His pal asked him to come up with something that would empower a group of kids who are invited to the beach for a media day to highlight the impact of environmental degradation on future generations.
“I went home and wrote 12 lines, each line starting with ‘I will’. I wrote down the basic lessons surfing had taught me about life, not how to become the best surfer in the world, but about courage, camaraderie “Integrity, honor, bravery, tenacity, resilience,” Tomson said.
“And I printed them on little plastic cards and gave them to the kids…we ended up solving the environmental problem…but the cards and the code took on a life of their own.”
Tomson took the words he wrote on the cards and turned them into a book, Surfer’s Code: 12 Simple Lessons for Riding Through Life.
Shaun Tomson turned 12 flashcards into a book of lessons to live by.(Delivered: Shaun Tomson)
During two years of COVID, Tomson spoke to approximately 150,000 people from all walks of life: PTSD survivors, others in drug rehabilitation and in prisons, to CEOs of some of the world’s largest companies.
He asked each of them to write down four words that describe how they were feeling; those that recurred most often were stress, anxiety, depression, and breakup.
To help people deal with the despair caused by COVID, Tomson teamed up with Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet and philosopher Noah benShea to publish The Surfer and the Sage: A Guide to Survive and Ride Life’s Waves.
“I don’t have any answers, but I’ll tell you what, I have some really interesting insights … all my books are just how-to guides, I don’t believe in recipes,” Tomson said.
“It was wonderful to do this collaboration to bring together a kind of metaphorical spirituality of surfing with its spirituality and create the kind of book that’s there to help people through this disorder.”
Along with a group of like-minded Australians and Hawaiians, Tomson was at the forefront of professional surfing in the early 1970s.
“There was no such thing as a pro surfer, but I had this incredible love and passion for surfing,” he said.
“And then I joined this band of crazy guys from Australia – Rabbit Bartholomew, Mark Richards, Simon Anderson, Peter Townsend and then some guys from Hawaii.
Shaun Tomson with his family.(Delivered: Shaun Tomson)
“Together we created this dream… we made a few hundred dollars a month… but we had a vision,” he said.
All became world champions. They turned a lifestyle into an industry that’s now worth more than $100 billion (US$158 billion).
“Together we created this, and we created this opportunity today for young men and young girls to make millions and millions of dollars,” he said.
“We have Stephanie Gilmore from Australia who just won a world title, she’s an eight-time world champion… and it’s just so wonderful to see these young athletes surfing and inspiring people and getting paid for it.
“It’s been an amazing, amazing ride… the fundamental role of an athlete, I believe, is to inspire… athletes are leaders in their own way… [they] let us see life differently.
“The meaning of life can be distilled into two sentences, one is ‘I’m getting better’. We have this genetic compulsion to want to get better.
“And the second is, ‘I will help others to be better.’
“That’s it. This is life, in many different words and in many different ways, but this is who we are as human beings. The greatest word is hope.”
As much as he loved traveling the world during his 16 years as a professional athlete, what Tomson enjoys doing most today is speaking to schools, universities, business groups and his surf buddies as they meet to watch old surf movies together to watch .
“I love doing that. I love it because I lost my son. I’ve lost my hope If I do that, I’ll get her back,” he said.
There’s a saying: Only a surfer knows the feeling. Australia’s oldest living world champion, Nat Young, coined the phrase: All surfers are one tribe.
“In some respects I agree with him. There’s this wonderful tribal element, almost like ancient knowledge,” said Tomson.
“In the area where I live now in Santa Barbara, the indigenous tribe that lived there was called the Chumash.
“The oldest human remains were found in my area 13,500 years ago and right on the beach is this beautiful monument.
“My late son Matthew and I often went to the memorial and you left an offering… it’s my favorite spot.
“It’s called Shalawa Meadow and has these words: ‘The sanctity of the land lies in the consciousness of its people. This land is dedicated to the spirit and memory of the ancestors and their children.’
“They are amazing words, and they tie us back to that connection with the land, the past, the present and the place.
“My place was in the sea and whenever I go upstairs and look at the monument – and it’s very close to the water, it’s only 50 meters away – I know that I’m in this place where I should be.”
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