002 Nathan Fletcher interview

Welcome to the RAD matters podcast. I'm your host, Mike Ranquet. And this episode is pretty cool in that I have an interview with Nathan Fletcher. And Nathan and I go back a long, long time, like play ad style. I always knew him as like, you know, almost the runt of the litter, you know, Christian was going off in the early 90s his fucking run, run around the chicken without a head. You know, who the fuck knows what he was being driven to. But you know, Nathan just was always there just kept his cool. He definitely got involved in other sports, other things. explored a lot different avenues. And probably, I don't know, 15, maybe even 20 years ago, really came back in to the fold of surfing. Certainly in the last 10 he's put his mark on, on surfing, like as an individual and as part of a dynasty family in the surfing industry. And you know, one thing for sure is, Nathan would be considered like a pro's Pro, right. And he'd also be considered I think, I was thinking about this today, and he was probably gonna Fletcher's Fletcher of all the Fletcher's he's probably the favorite butcher of all the Fletcher's but he's badass. And we only had a short time together. He jumped in my car at Casa Louis airport before he went into security. And I pressed record and here's what we got. Okay, we're, we're just running with it. wheels on the ground, going fast. Nathan's extra fuel, sir Mike. Mike, but Mike, what are you up to? Like? He says, as far as like, in any meditation or a shit like that? Yeah, I have and I found out that that's the key to all keys. That's the secret to life is becoming one with yourself. And then you can become one with all things. Okay. Um, I mean, I'm one on one did whatever. But like, a on a surface level? Sure. We're one I'm an egg, dude. Whatever. But, but yeah, like, but like, where did you take it from there that you're sitting in my car now out there for it about fly out in an hour and a half and just raining blood, these things about meditation on to me just like, ah, where did that come from? What happened? Well, it came from the medicine. And no, it comes from doing your work. And what your work is, is your breathing and stretching. And so breathing and stretching simultaneously. They it's called Yoga, okay. But I like to call it stretching and breathing. So when you do that, consistently through time, something will happen, you'll break through and you don't know what it is that you're going to break through to. But then you'll get to the meditation. And so what the meditate what the Yoga does, in that, well, the stretching and breathing, what you're doing is you're gearing yourself up to be able to relax in a meditation. And so then, through your breathing, you put your conscious body to sleep. And then once you're yours, you go into your subconscious. Oh, we got a little traffic here. We're down at Casa Louis, international or inter Island at this point. Okay, so it just comes down to the breathing. And then once you're breathing, you're moving. And so if you're doing Tai Chi, Yoga, whatever all you're doing is setting yourself up for relaxing and having what happened joyful life what happened in 2020 that like you just like had this epiphany this and just things started moving in a in a way for you that you can't help but think that you kind of projected Well now it comes to numbers in so all these numbers lined up and so my birthday is on jun 666756 and six is 12. seven and five is 12. Right? And so then I broke my leg on January 3 2009. January 3 2009 It was a second time I broke my leg. So then I did all this stretching and breathing blah blah blah and I tried to figure out when I started what day exactly was it I started and it was January 3 2019. And I was like why is January 3 Such an important day in my life. And then I realized oh, I broke my leg my femur 10 years to the day that when you broke your femur it was it pipe. Yeah. And so then I figured out wow, what a miracle I broke my leg on the same day that I started this but I never knew till a year after I started. So then once you do that, other things it just unfolds. It's like the onion peeling an onion and so whatever you're doing, you're reaching for some new whatever some new thing in the world because of lockdown Coronavirus. The social media, the rabbit hole of just life like to hurry up and FUCKING KILL YOURSELF deal is, that's one way to do and we done that. But once you get into the stretching and breathing, it calms you down, all you're trying to do is become more even minded more relaxed and understand that everything is okay. And you are where you are, which is a hard thing to do in modern times, and which is our thing to balance when you have I don't know urges like kinda like, guys like sue you like to do gnarly shit or be around like there's something about that that like is calming in and of itself. And maybe we just have too much of something, we have to burn it off so hard that way, this even find hard to find the stretching Well, and that's the other thing. So it's like you do so much things you go, you chase these highs of big waves, I like the gnarliest gentlemen, whatever it is motorcycles skateboards, you're trying blah, blah, blah, and then you're on drugs, and you're on the gnarliest drugs, and then you get off the drugs. And you have all this, these other things and you're trying to figure out what's happening. Now you have kids, your wife. And so the last thing left is to get to know yourself. And once you get to know yourself, then you can have faith in the universe. And when you have faith that wears off on your children, and when your children know that their parents are strong and confident, that makes your children strong and confident. And so no matter what, it's just being a better human. For Humanity. It's it's totally selfless. Because before children, that's when you're yourself, you do everything you love, but all sudden you look down you have these kids, and that's you. And so then you you dedicate your life to that, but what makes you happy, what makes you a better person without trying to go strive to ride the craziest waves or do this and that. So then you got to just become happy with who you are and where you're at? And how do you do that it takes work. And to be able to be comfortable with yourself? I don't know, I'll go to the end of the earth to try and find something more fun to do than sit here. Yeah, yeah. And actually have to reflect No, dude. It's like, it's an endless chasing the tail of the point you're eating your own ass of, of life that like, is easy to. to, I don't know, it's easy to come to but like at the same time. It's a it? Yeah, it's just really interesting. Everything you're saying carry on. Sorry. But I digress. Well, now it's you know, because once you do that, then you become love. And when your love, everything's joyous. And that's what you're radiating. So people don't even come around you. They're joyous. That makes them happy to see you smile. And why are you smiling? Because you're happy, you're good. You're content. You're not in a hurry. You're so those things? It's contagious. It makes people feel good. So you feel good. It's just that's the key. Like who wants to be mattered? sadder? Yes. And that and you're going to be if you don't take steps to make yourself happy. So scientifically, it takes work. So so you're able to be fine with yourself and I'm not talking going to work. I'm talking about sucking the fucking man. Okay, so, say I saw you two years ago in a wahoo. I never know never heard of this ship for well, it's over time. It's who I am. But it was because I went so dark in my life after certain things and so what's left once you come back from the darkness, you know, you you've got to go to the light in the window. So once you go to the light, you realize how fucked up you were in the dark, but it doesn't matter because that's who you are to make you a better person. If you never went that dark, you couldn't even go light. So the fact is you're not moderate. Moderate is moderate and you're not that so you got to go all the way these ways and so it's not something to talk about with everybody I don't you want to talk about this. So I'm enjoying talking about it but I don't speak with this about two people because it's personal. I don't do it to have people recognize it have people understand these are personal goals that I have that I do on my own to make me a better happier person and a better father, and a better asset to the world. That's fucking that's a really interesting and pretty fascinating to hear it No. It's a trip and it's like the good trip not like fuck man Nathan's out but like fuck Nathan's on his sick one right now. You know, because I end up All these numbers line up, and then so my birthday is six, six. So I know that everything in my life is good on a pair. That's why I broke my leg twice. But then the January 3 2009, what's in the middle? My birthday? June six. So if you go to January 3, what's halfway through the year cycle would be June six, right? So then it's three, six, and nine, and then the six is equal 12. Right? So and then and then there's 2020. So this is the only year in my life where it's going to be two numbers are paired. And so this year has been like, the best year in my life by a longshot. I wouldn't take away any of the other years, but in the fact of like, okay, this is life. And this is how you're gonna live till you go to the other side. That's I finally found something that you could do you know, that you can enjoy? Because surfing, you're not gonna do it skating. Oh, you're doing photography? Exactly. The shit goes away. You don't even like to see music you like 20 minutes ago? I actually do. But well, you know what I mean? No, no, I do I do. No, it is it all goes away. It's like, you can't just depend on some few drugs forever. And, and accolades, you know, like, responses from people. And the other thing is, is, is getting rid of your ego and your ego, you know, argues with your heart, but you follow your heart. And you use your ego as a tool as long as you recognize what it's for. You know what I mean? Because yeah, because otherwise the ego like will drive you to your death. And so you don't want it but you want it to use it to succeed at things. But technically, you got to recognize it and just follow your heart so you're real. Yeah, that's it's interesting shit, Nathan. Wow, fuck this a nice little nice layover, huh? Europe, but we're at Honolulu today. Yeah, me and Dan. Good. Ask us we have Yeah, the list. Oh, listen when I one of them. Anyways, we had a great day surfing. And we just came to Maui. And then Mike came showed up because I've known Mike 30 years at least as long as time and so now we're just talking shit like friends. But you guys are listening, whoever you guys are. So I hope you enjoy it. Whatever. Hey, collectively, between you, your brother, your mom, your dad, I've known Fletcher's for like 120 years, you know, like, that's funny. Yeah, since since the beginning. And so we're surfers. You knew because we snowboard and skating. And I advocated it. These trade shows in weird places. Yeah, well, I just I just knew who the flutters were like not that many people in the snow industry. The snow industry was just like, Everything's new. We're the best and like, I was only 30. Guys, you ripped. Yeah. It was like you knew Him because they just know where to get. It wasn't like the train or practice or whatever. They just skated and did whatever. And they snowboard. Good. So they are pro snowboarder. But then it was like soon as the guy started training, and they went to that other side of like, sportsmanship and like 10,000 dudes are up. It was kind of different. It was a sport. At first it was I knew you because it was a small thing. And whatever. It was all good. But the fact is, we're still friends. And we've been on a similar parallels for many years. You know, like, like you're saying about the sports is like with, you know, snowboarding you can learn in weekend. Anyone can learn it in a weekend. Basically, you can't say surfing you can't teach like a 55 year old dude. Just to never really, you know, never surfed. Yeah, you can't teach him dropping on just chest high wave by the end of a weekend or drop in on a mini ramp. Just mean you're like, like patted to the teeth. Got into the fucking teeth. But you could teach him to snowboard and 12 hours. Yeah. For really, if they listen to snowboarding's heart for that Fuck, yeah, no, no, it's a mixed blessing brought a lot to things and then completely suck the life in love and blood of everything at other things, but, you know, such as life as nuts. What happens? I think, specially in this step. Yeah. So that's why you, you renourish and you deal with it, you get prepared for that. So they can't suck your blood? Yeah, no, I like your Dude, you're so fucking funny, right as rad. Alright, we're out. Okay, cool. Um, okay, Nathan. I love you too. And I'll talk to you soon. And then hold on second.