Kelly Slater is considered the greatest surfer of all time and one of the greatest athletes of history in any modality. He is also among one of the longest to play at the high level tournaments – and now, retired, put everything from perspective. Now entrepreneur, the surfing legend evaluates that “it is important to have their principles, and they can always be aligned with their business.”
Since when he had no business beyond his sponsors, Slater has always been more important than the money he received was aligned with his convictions. “I never wanted to do a dollar, I just wanted to work with something I believe in,” said the closing lecture surfer Expert XP 2025 This Saturday (26).
In addition to a sports icon, Slater is also a vocal name about the preservation of the environment. Through the outerknown sustainable fashion brand, it produces pieces of clothing based on recyclable materials.
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“We made social governance the number one point of the company. In our factories, everyone has good salaries and working conditions,” he said. “It’s more expensive to produce, we don’t do high volumes, it’s a treacherous business plan.”
In another initiative as an entrepreneur, Slater was the main sponsor of wave technology created by humans. With its Ranch surf, it opened a pool where surfers can surf perfect waves and transformed what could not be purchased individually into a successful business model that was part of the world surfing circuit.
And all of this came after winning eleven world titles from the World Surfing Circuit for 30 years in the main sport category. The big secret to enduring so much time competing at a high level? “Passion for what they do, for what you dedicated your life,” he said.
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“No one wants to get older, everyone wants to be young and having fun for the rest of his life. But when you get old at the maximum level of your sport, it’s a different position of being. I was the youngest and then the oldest champion,” he said.
In 2022, one week of turning 50, Slater won the Honolulu stage in Hawaii, becoming the oldest person to gain a phase of the circuit. And he says he would exchange any other title of his career for that victory: “Winning at that age did not mean much to me, but for all who accompanied me all my life.”
Slater evaluates that there are many things to be done to stay at the high level for so long, but the first is to have a passion for what dedicated to your life, your relationships, work, past and family.
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Still young, Slater found in the surfing an escape from the unstable relationship between his parents. “Surfing was everything to me, I went to the sea and forgot everything in the world. I felt since you was a young man that surfing was very special to me. I knew that, I knew I would lead to something spectacular in life. I don’t know why, I just felt.”
Now, at 53, he can look back from the perspective of his son of only one year. “Changing a diaper has become more important than taking a wave.” According to Slater, seeing his son doing things like getting up, walking or eating for the first time reminds him of his child’s time, the things he himself liked to do.
“So many things happened in my life that overloaded me. I don’t complain, it was great. But you can almost barely absorb all those memories, feelings, thoughts,” he says. After all, one wave is never the same as another.
