Kelly Slater talks about his surfing career and how he became one of the best surfers in the world. He also talks about his shortcomings as a young father who was too focused on his career.
Kelly Slater is an American professional surfer who is widely considered to be one of the greatest surfers of all time. He has won 11 World Surfing Championships, more than any other surfer in history. In addition to his surfing accomplishments, Kelly is also an accomplished musician and actor. He has released two albums with his band, The Surfers. Kelly has also appeared in several films and television shows, including Baywatch and Blue Crush.
Kelly acknowledges how putting his career first as a young father strained his relationship with his daughter, who is now an adult. He admits that putting his career before his daughter caused her some hurt and suffering, and him too.
“I’m trying to unwind myself with my own daughter, who’s now 27 and married. When she was born, I was just starting the thick of my career, and I had these lofty goals and dreams and Ambitions, and to be perfectly honest, that caused some suffering for her, yeah, and for me as well, but for her, um, but kind of unbeknownst to me at the time because I just had my sights set on this thing.”
He also talks about the most challenging time in his career, when his personal life was falling apart, and how surfing was the one thing he was always sure of. When things got tough around him, he would turn his focus to his sport and focus on winning, a way for him to dull the pain.
“I was engaged young, and then yeah, she and I split up, and I was really in a lot of pain, and uh, I had some Financial issues happen. It was super tough, and like, all these things converged in ’94 for me 93 94 and uh, my only, the only thing that I felt was going to keep me sane and happy was to win.”
Kelly expresses his desire to use the lessons learned from his mistakes to become a better father to his newborn son.
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