HOLLY BECK, PRO SURFER

Hi jessica,
    AWESOME questions. as a pro surfer i do a lot of interviews. i have a solid stack of canned answers that i can recite without having to actually think at all. i have the script memorized. i always find the most enjoyable interviews are the ones that make me think. im looking forward to answering yours, but its friday night, i surfed all afternoon, and my boyfriend and I just ordered a pizza, so i will get to them in the morning.
    don't worry about butting in, i can give you some canned answers to relieve your curiosity.
i didnt start surfing til i was a freshman in high school. by the time i graduated i had had some success in amateur surfing, and even attracted some sponsorship that took me on a few trips and gave me free clothes. I never really thought id ever be a pro surfer. I went to UCSD because it was right on one of hte best surf spots in california. but my first year, right after winter break, i was invited to go on a photo trip for Surfing Girl magazine with a bunch of other pros. At that point i realized that while they were definitely better surfers than i was, the gap wasn't as big as i had thought. I busted ass and started taking summer school and extra units to graduate early (in three years) so that i could put all my time into pursuing surfing. it worked out pretty well.

i picked psychology because it was interesting. it worked out really well also because unlike econ or science majors you don't have to take as many courses sequentially, making it easier to get the extra classes i needed to graduate early (i could take two at a time rather than having to take one before the other). I got really into cognitive psych. the brain fascinates me. i still read about it whenever possible. I never thought id do anything with the degree, so i just took classes that sounded interesting.

my problem is that i have a lot of empathy and have a hard time not taking other's peoples problems into myself. For that reason I never thought id be good at actually practicing psychology. I might have been good at it, but it would drive me crazy emotionally. I also wasn't into the idea of constant research. Those two choices seem to be the big options for a psychologist. My sister and best friend were also psych majors. My sister is living in spain teaching english. My best friend is about to embark on her PhD project.

im turning 28 this month, which makes me feel super old. there is a whole new generation of women surfers coming up that are like 14 and fricken ripping! they grew up in a post-blue crush (the hollywood movie) era where women's surfers had ample sponsorship opportunities and they were encouraged to get into the sport and supported all the way along. So, last year i gracefully stepped aside from competition. I traveled around the world for almost 8 years doing contests and that was enough. i still have one year (til the end of '09) under contract to be a pro surfer which now entails photo and video trips, appearances, catalog shoots, etc. I could probably extend for a few more years, but im going to make that decision when i get to it.
In Spring the boyfriend and I are moving to Nicaragua. we have a few pieces of land down there and just built a little house on one of them. Going to surf and hang out and have that as home base and get the garden going and see how self-sufficient we can be. We are also trying to buy 33 acres to do a small hotel/ housing development. On the side i'll run a women's surf camp but only a few months a year.

In the meantime, im getting my MBA in Marketing online. Just to add to the resume in case we don't like living in a third world country and i have to actually get a real job. With my connections in the surf industry, experience, and education, getting a job in marketing should be easy.

advice to you.... take a year off before getting your masters if you do decide to do it. travel. go to that country you've always wanted to go (and the one next door to it) and stay there for a while, at least a month. then re-evaluate your plans and goals.

ill get to those questions this weekend.

Hi,
thanks for the reminder : )

1. Have you ever doubted your talent? If so, how did you work through it?
Yes, very often. Most of the time the doubts came from competitive losses. The way I found to work through it was simply to remind myself of why I do it in the first place, which was because it's fun. I found that by separating myself from the competitive environment and just going surfing, it helped me relax and enjoy it, which helped bring back the confidence.

2. Have you ever been enlightened by an event that gave you a new perspective on life? Explain.
When surfing is a job, it is difficult not to always be approaching it like a job. As strange as it seems, it’s hard to go out and just have fun with it. It’s easy to get caught up in putting so much focus on performance whether it is while actually riding the wave or in promoting myself through the media. So much of that is not enjoying the moment but focusing on the future, and what that effort will bring. A couple years ago, I had the chance to visit a tiny island nation off the coast of West Africa called Sao Tome. We went surfing with naked African boys who were riding rough pieces of wood. I pushed a few into waves on my board, we traded boards and I tried to ride theirs. It was an incredible experience and I completely lost myself in the enjoyment of the moment. After that trip I’ve tried to worry less about the future and focus more on right now. As John Lennon is reported to have said, “life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.”

3. If you and I were to trade places, tell me one thing about yourself that I should know.
Someone is always listening or watching. If you do or say something stupid, you will hear about it later.

4. If you could choose a theme song for the rest of your life, what would it be?
That’s a tough one. Anything I chose I would definitely get sick of. I suppose I would pick “Summertime, and the livin is easy…” I’m not sure who sings it originally, but my friend Kyla Langen who has an amazing voice sings it and I tend to think of it a lot. “you’re daddy’s rich, and your ma, she’s good lookin’, so hush little baby don’tcha cry…”

5. If you could live any where in the world, where would it be?
Nicaragua! Warm weather and water, excellent waves, beautiful people, very undeveloped and uncrowded. Moving there in Spring 09.

6. If your talent had an odor, what would it smell like?
Salt, sea weed, and stinky wetsuits. I used to surf every day before school in high school and one time a friend said to another friend that as I passed her in the hall, I smelled like the ocean. I took that as a compliment although I don’t think she meant it that way.

7. If you could change one aspect of our society through your work, what would it be?
For people to travel the world and experience different cultures and people. It would open their minds and make the world a much more understanding place. Those people who think that America is the greatest country on Earth or that Christians are the only ones that are right, those people need to get out of their bubble and explore a little.

8. How do you want people to remember you?
Someone that spoke her mind and inspired others.