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Riding the wave of businessShaun Tomson has had to endure personal tragedy, a very public and humiliating bankruptcy in Durban and another almost fatal collapse of a business venture in Santa Barbara in the aftermath of the 9/11 horror in the United States, but he has survived and prospered. And ‘passing along the stoke’, or exhilarating life lessons, through his book Surfer’s Code to audiences all over the globe has become a passionate pursuit for the former world champion.
Tomson was a professional surfer who won the coveted IPS World Championships in 1977. He was universally admired for his good looks, eloquence and athleticism.
His stylistic approach to tube riding also endeared him to crowds. He used a unique style of pumping and weaving through and around collapsing sections of the barrel.
But what was not as widely known about Tomson among non-surfing audiences, was his longevity.
He was among the top-six ranked surfers in the world for nine straight years from 1977 to 1985, and spent 14 years on the World Tour.
Tomson was also recently listed as one of the 16 greatest surfers of all time.
Asked about the secret of his excellence and longevity, Tomson says he subscribes to Malcolm Gladwell’s 10 000-hour rule (Gladwell said in his book Outliers that the key to success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practising a specific task for a total of around 10 000 hours).
“But I like to take that rationale to the next step. It is practice, and then there is determination, persistence and perseverance.
“More important than all of that, is why someone practises. People practise because they are ‘stoked’, because they love what they
are doing.
“I loved what I was doing – surfing – probably more than anybody else in the world. It was not because I knew if I practised, I would be the best, but because I loved it,” says Tomson.
During a Discovery Leadership Summit in Sandton in July, Tomson spoke about leadership and success.
A code of honour
“I said at the summit that a leader has one role and that is to inspire. Leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, John F. Kennedy, Barack Obama and Winston Churchill inspire us to be better than we are,” he told Leadership.
“Their inspiration comes through example of integrity, honour and optimism. Their inspiration is a reflection of who they are.
“How can you be involved with drugs, do illicit business deals, cheat on your wife and then expect to inspire other people? Charisma can only take you that far. It might open the door to you, but it all falls apart because there is no substance.”
Tomson said the successful leaders were all very learned, disciplined and committed people with a frame of reference beyond their own geographic area. That notion of honour defines them.
They would do something because it is the right thing to do, not because they have to
do it.
“That is why I call my book Surfer’s Code. I don’t call it ‘Surfer’s Law’. You do it because that is what you feel you should do in your heart.
“There is a distinction, in that code is about honour and spirit, not about law,” explained Tomson.
Embracing passion
The former world champion said there is no difference in terms of what produces success in sport or business.
“You can have a guy who is running a $10-million company, and he can be a million times more successful than a person operating a $100-million company. You walk into that environment and you see smiling employees and product integrity. The passion and sense of community is the key factor in business success, not the numbers,” he said.
South Africa is in the midst of a recession with 4 345 South African dollar millionaires losing their super rich status of being worth more than R8m in cash and investments in the past year.
What would Tomson’s message be to the nation during this turbulent time of an economic downturn? “Maintain optimism because the tide is going to come in again.
“Now is the greatest opportunity for a very long time if one wants to kick-start something new. I’m currently involved with two new business ventures in South Africa .
“Things can turn around fast. In the United States of America, it is happening with consumer sentiments in terms of the direction the country is moving in with the new leadership under president Obama,” said Tomson.
“It takes a while for the Titanic to change direction. And when the USA changes direction, the rest of the world follows.
“We got into trouble quickly and getting out of it will take some time, but we will get out of it with a new appreciation of how important integrity and the dangers of greed are,”
he added.
Crash-landing at Waimea
Tomson had to overcome setbacks many times.
In Surfer’s Code: 12 Simple Lessons for Riding Through Life he mentions a wipe-out at Waimea Bay, where he was hit by a monster wave.
He reminisced about the experience in his book, saying: “That wave hit me squarely. I felt as if I had been walking along the highway and got hammered by a truck from behind – a terrifying impact.
“Never to this day have I been struck so hard by a wave. It was a feeling of absolute crushing violence, an unbelievable sensation of force
and power.”
But Tomson swung his board around and paddled back out. He said the knowledge that he did not give up on himself that day and did not take the easy way out, carried him through business crises.
Painful business lessons
He had two devastating free falls in business.
One occurred after he had sold his share in his own apparel company, Instinct, in 1990, a $40-million international brand.
He started a new company, Tomson, in the 1990s, but things went horribly pear-shaped when a large retailer cancelled a deal.
“It was a difficult and humiliating experience for me – to be all over the front pages of the newspaper – a former world champion files for bankruptcy. I had to decide what to do.
“I took a trip to America. It was an uncertain period for us, and we did not know which way the South African economy was taking. Also, I was damaged goods,” recalled Tomson.
He did paddle out and found a new job with a great clothing company, Patagonia, before being offered another job as marketing and sales director at one of his former sponsors, O’Neill.
After three years with those companies, the Tomsons decided to establish their own company, Solitude, in Santa Barbara.
After three years, they had built up a great product line, with hundreds of distributors from California to New York and millions in sales. But then 9/11 hit, and the bottom fell out again.
Sales plummeted, and he was looking at his second business failure in less than 10 years.
He began clearing out his office on a Friday, only to find a last-minute investor, Randy Paskal, and his father. They shook hands on a new deal on the Sunday. On the Monday morning, they started moving everything back into their offices.
Tomson sold Solitude to Oxford, one of the largest apparel companies in the US, after building it up into a $50-million business trade.
“I may still get worked over again in business and washed up on the beach. But you know, I’ll always be paddling back out again,” he added.
Tomson has become a very successful businessman, author, inspirational motivational speaker and television producer.
On the shelf and off the wall
He recently co-produced a full-length feature film about the mid-70s surfing era called Bustin’ down the Door, which premiered in 2008. Currently, he is working on a Hollywood feature film adaptation thereof.
He is also involved in producing two television shows known as documentary dramas. The one is titled Hell Men and is about the adventures of a group of eight surfers in search of a 100-foot wave.
The other is Life on Tour, which involves a group of young surfers in their quest of the winning title.
The former champion says his ultimate quest is to produce inspirational content for TV and film. He has just completed a book of children’s poetry called Surf Creatures.
He is finishing off a new version of Surfer’s Code, strictly for business.
The creational surfer also works on a retail store concept in South Africa as well as on a wine concept in the country.
The wine will be a quirky South African product for the overseas market known as “Off the wall”, named after a famous surfing break.
A Zambezi shark… and a father’s smile
From his father, Ernest “Chony” Tomson, he learned the vital lesson – one of 12 included in Surfer’s Code – of never turning his back on the ocean.
Tomson Sr. was a superb swimmer who was training to represent South Africa in the Empire and Olympic Games when he was attacked by a Zambezi shark near South Beach.
His entire body was lifted out of the ocean. When he dropped back, he was missing most of his right biceps.
But because of his sense of humour, he was totally unselfconscious of the terrible scars that the shark’s teeth had left on his body.
He also encouraged his son to surf and to embrace the ocean. “In the face of my father’s tragedy, it could have been easy to become bitter because his dream was destroyed.
“It also could have been easy to say: ‘I won’t let my firstborn go into the ocean 200 metres from where I was attacked.’ But my father did not do that. He maintained this wonderful optimism and a smile on his face throughout his life.
“The whole notion of passion and love, and keeping a smile on your face is so important.
“My father taught me to keep yourself and your success in perspective,” recalled Tomson.
When he first won the Gunston 500 – one of the biggest surfing competitions in the world – in 1973, Tomson was standing on the stage with five other competitors just before the final results were announced.
His father was not judging the competition at the time, but he stood behind the judges because he called the colours and identified the surfers as a way of assisting them.
He knew the result, and Shaun looked up at his father, 25 yards away, and gestured with his hands to ask Tomson Sr. how it had gone.
“I knew it was a very close final and that I had been number one or two.
“I was excited about my chances and looked up at him, but he gave me the thumbs-down signal. I was disappointed,” he remembered.
“When the final was announced, I had won. I looked up at my father and he was killing himself with laughter. He had pulled the wool over my eyes.
“My father would have argued: ‘my son is one of the biggest surfers in the world, he is 17 years old, but keep it in perspective. It is not that serious’. He maintained that smile about life.
“When asked about that shark and the attack, his answer was always: ‘The shark died of blood poisoning’.”
Tomson says he has met many inspirational leaders who possess that smile, that sense of humour, that sense of optimism and sense of happiness, such as the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.
“Where does that smile and happiness come from? I don’t know, but I do know the more you do it, the better person you become, and the better the other person will be as well. A smile is a very powerful instrument,” added Tomson.
A devastating family tragedy
The Tomsons’ son, Mathew, died on 24 April 2006 in Durban, aged 15, from an accidental death caused by playing the ‘choking game’.
Asked how he was able to overcome the devastating tragedy, Tomson told Leadership: “My wife and I were really in a stage of despair for a long, long time. The pain is just endless.
“People out there who also suffered tragedy and did not even know us, reached out to us.
“I found what helped, is that we accepted the finality of it all. It is a case of: what is, not whatever.
“It is unbelievably hard, but we had to accept the dreadful finality of it all. Because the alternative of acceptance is self-torture, and it is endless self-torture,” he said.
“Things happen in life because they happen. There is no rhyme or reason for it.
“Life happens around you and you have to accept it for what it is, instead of saying that God did it to punish you or that ultimately everything would be revealed to you in a blinding flash.
“We relied on the love of family and friends. What happened is that the love we were given in some ways motivated me to give some love back to people. Now I want to create inspirational projects that inspire other people,” added Tomson.
Passing along the stoke
Speaking to different audiences, including the Disney Corporation and Google, has been a favourite pastime of Tomson (if the surf is not good).
“One of the key elements of Surfer’s Code is passing along the stoke.
“A stoke is the essence of the surfing experience, that feeling of exhilaration and exuberance when you are standing on the wave and riding it out, that feeling of emotional happiness.
“I like to pass on that feeling, to give the audiences some sort of inspiration,” added Tomson.
Additional sources:
“Surfer’s Code, 12 Simple Lessons for Riding Through Life”, by Shaun Tomson, Penguin Books;
“Outliers”, by Malcolm Gladwell, Little, Brown and Company;
Shaun Tomson, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: www.wikipedia.org
