FAMILY MATTERS

RAISING KIDS IS THE ULTIMATE JOURNEY, AND I
FEEL INCREDIBLY LUCKY TO BE ON IT. IT’S HUMBLING —
AND GRATIFYING BEYOND WORDS—TO BE A PARENT.
GABBY AND I DON’T CLAIM TO BE CHILD -RAISING EXPERTS;
WHAT SEEMS TO WORK FOR US IS TO BE AUTHENTICALLY
OURSELVES. EVERY PARENT HAS HIS OR HER OWN SET OF
PHILOSOPHIES, DISCOVERIES, AND STRATEGIES.
HERE ARE SOME OF OURS.

GABBY: We only have girls around here: Izabela, 13; Reece, 5; and Brody, 1. We’re balancing out the testosterone.

When I became a mother, I wasn’t nervous. You’re in it. You do feel as though you don’t know what you’re doing. Then, all of sudden, that stops. The bottom line is that you do the best you can.

LAIRD: People always ask how having children affects my thinking about what I do in terms of the risks that I take. I’ve thought about the answer a lot. I want people to value me for who I am, and the ocean is who I am. I brought my kids into the world—they didn’t ask to be born—but it seems to me to be wrong if I stop being myself because of them. It’d almost be cheating them.

GABBY: You always want to make sure your children are safe, but when you’re too fearful, you’re going to pass that on to them. I think it’s important for them to stay joyous and not become overly fearful themselves.

So much of parenting is consistency. It’s like any relationship in that regard.

LAIRD: We’re not Little League parents. I think it would be unbelievably sad to make your kids do something you want to do. We’re just going to provide opportunity and create exposure: Here’s windsurfing, here’s snowboarding, here’s film, here’s scholarship, here are books, here’s golf. It’s whatever they want to do. The primary objective is to create a fulfilled person.

GABBY: I’ll let Reece eat cake and ice cream. I don’t want to make them issues or taboos. I’ll let her explore things. She doesn’t drink soda, though. I think if you can avoid that, you should.

LAIRD: The most important thing you can do is give all your love and lots of your time to your kids. Give them grown-up answers to their questions. Exercise patience and tolerance like you never knew you had. And always remember that your children owe you nothing. You, on the other hand, owe them everything.

DROPPING IN

DON WILDMAN

I met Don Wildman in 1995 on a heli-snowboarding trip in British Columbia. We hit if off immediately, though I don’t think either of us suspected that we would play such a major role in one another’s lives. In fact, we didn’t keep in touch after the trip, and it wasn’t until 2 years later that our paths crossed again. I’d just moved to Malibu, and one day I walked into Coogies, a local restaurant, and there was Don, drinking an espresso in his mountain bike gear.

I knew he was an accomplished athlete and that, along with being an expert snowboarder, he’d competed in the Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon nine times, ridden his bike in the 3,000-mile Race Across America, and won many of sailing’s most prestigious events. I also knew that he had retired from an extremely successful career after founding the chain of health clubs that became Bally Total Fitness. What I didn’t know was that Don, who recently celebrated his 75th birthday, would also become the toughest training partner I’ve ever had.

Since then, during the past decade, we’ve had countless cups of espresso together; spent thousands of hours in the water, on the slopes, on the trails, and in the gym. We’ve gone on adventures in Alaska, Argentina, New Zealand, Canada, Europe, and Indonesia; we’ve paddled through the Grand Canyon on the Colorado River and across the Hawaiian Islands chain. He’s taught me everything he knows about mountain biking (which is a lot), and I’ve taught him about surfing and paddling. He also introduced me to the Circuit, a weightlifting routine that he spent decades fine-tuning (see page 47).

Don is gung ho in the purest sense. If I called him up in the middle of the night and said, “Hey Don, let’s go paddle the Nile” or “Look, there’s this thing I want to do in the Arctic,” he’d say, “I’m there. I’ll pack right now. We’ll catch a plane in the morning.” Don is one of the great bad-asses of all time. He’s also one of the smartest, most generous, most supportive guys you could ever meet.

Here are some words of wisdom from Don Wildman, my friend and inspiration. As you’ll see, he knows a thing or two about life.

I have a house on the beach at Malibu. I have a lot of fancy neighbors, but they’re never at the beach. We’re the only ones out there. So are we wrong, or is everybody else wrong? I think everybody else is wrong. I think we’ve got it right; we’re sitting on surfboards looking at the coastline and saying, “Hey, life is unbelievable.” I don’t know what the rest of the world is doing, but I think we got it figured out right here, right now.

I remember the first football game I played in high school. We were behind; I was supposed to catch the kick shot. The pressure … If I fumbled, we would lose the game. I caught it, and I still remember all the noise, the fans yelling. And I thought to myself, This is great! This is amazing! And I still have that feeling about competition. I love it.

I’ve done the Hawaiian Ironman Triathlon nine times. The first time I did it was something of a lark. I wasn’t even worrying about finishing. I got to the finish line, and they told me I’d won! I couldn’t believe it. But then they found this Canadian guy who beat me by a minute or so. I went back the next year, and he beat me again. Heck of a runner. I ultimately beat him after 8 years.

I think one of the reasons I train is because it makes you mentally tough in all areas of your life, including business. It teaches you discipline, having to do things you don’t particularly want to do every day—but you find the determination to stay motivated. Basically, anything that doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

Everything I do, I overdo.

One of the scariest things I’ve done is the Aspen downhill. I was the oldest competitor by 30 years. My son convinced me that it would be really fun. The night before the race, for the first time in my life, I dreamt that I’d died. Next morning I got up, put on the skintight outfit, the helmet, the whole thing. The race was terrifying. The amount of force downhill puts on your legs is unbelievable. One girl broke her jaw; one guy broke his leg. I got to the finish line, and I said, “How’d I do? Did I break the record?” because I thought I was so out of control. And they said, “No, you were the slowest.” So I went back up and did it again. And the second time I beat one guy.

Some people have to win. I don’t have to win. I really like to win, and I’ll do my level best to figure out how to win. But if I lose, it doesn’t totally destroy me. It makes me want to try harder.

My father gave me some simple advice once. He said, “When you’re doing something, run. Rather than walk, you run.” Everyone thinks it’s so hard to get ahead, but it’s not, because most people are lazy.

Sixty years ago there was an adage that too much exercise would give you an “athlete’s heart.” The professionals were telling people, “If you overexercise, it’s very dangerous because you will enlarge your heart and you will die.” Also, everyone was told that if you worked out with weights it would make you muscle-bound. In the early days of the health club business, that was my number one bugaboo in getting women to join the gym. The first thing out of their mouths was “I don’t want to get muscles.” And it was so absurd, like, “What do you want, fat?” There are only two choices.

You can’t beat age. But you can certainly slow it down.

As you get older, it takes you longer to recover from training, and you’ve got to avoid injuries. But one thing’s for sure: Activity is the key ingredient. When people stop moving, that’s when it’s all over. The other part of aging well is mental, being happy and having the right attitude. Whatever you’re doing, I think you need to find it fun.

In athletics, most people have been programmed to believe that once you get into your late twenties, it’s all over for you. That’s totally crazy. People at any age can be competitive. You just have to have the ambition and the desire.

Living a great life is not about how much money you have. It’s about how good you are at maximizing each day.

You have to embrace change. Because no matter what we’re doing today that we think is so fantastic, there’s gonna be a better way to do it in the near future. And I always want to be on that edge. I don’t care how old I am, I want to be among the first people doing something.

If the brain stays young, you’ll stay young.