If seven time surfing World Champion Layne Beachley could do it all again driven by love instead of fear, she would. That’s what she lays out in her upcoming book Awake Academy: Know yourself, grow yourself and live a happier more purposeful life and her Awake Academy course developed from everything Layne learnt during her career as one of the world’s best surfers.
“We’re helping people boost their emotional intelligence, boost their empathy because when we learn to fill up our own cups, that’s when we have the capacity, the authenticity and the energy to fill up others,” Layne says.
Layne won her first World Title in 1998, starting a streak of winning six in a row, the only surfer to ever have achieved such a feat. Only injury brought pause to her dominance, when in 2004 she was forced to take time off to recover. As it would eventuate, the break gave Layne new insights into what was driving her and how she could do it differently. “I just stopped and I stayed still for a long time and I did a lot of crying. I did a lot of soul searching, a lot of journaling, a lot of meditating, everything was really slow compared to how fast I had operated for such a long period of time.” Layne adds, “I literally had to sit with my s*** and own it.”
During this period, when Layne had to watch two other surfers claim World Titles, she learned a lot about her motivations, her fear of rejection and started learning the slow process of self acceptance. This was a turning point in her career, “I just learned to trust in who I am and who I wanted to be,” she says. When she returned to competition, the process felt different.
“In 2006, I joined the tour again with very little expectations other than to surf without pain and was able to make the final in the second event, make the final and the third event, and every time I made the final, I went straight back into my fear mode,” Layne says, “and the universe is just saying ‘Layne, you know better now.’ So I had that breakthrough in Brazil and that set my momentum going until I won my seventh one in 2006 and then I was ready to retire.”
“I won five World Titles in a state of fear and two World Titles in a state of love,” Layne says, “and it’s the love based World Titles that I really want to impress upon people because the love based titles were process driven. I was falling in love with the process of being a better athlete, being a better competitor, being a better human being.”
Now, as women’s professional surfing gets the hype and spotlight it has always deserved, there is some sentiment among former female pro’s that some of their achievements tend to be erased as “best ever” references are made of the current generation’s heavy barrel riding and big turns. Layne reflects on this saying, “sometimes I feel like what we did and how we went about it and the challenges that we overcame and the status quo that we were able to shatter at times goes unnoticed and unthanked.”
“I don’t feel that every prior generation is given the credit where credit’s due for paving that or establishing and setting that standard for the current generation to then capitalise on. We’re going to see this continuous improvement and evolution of women surfing and let’s not talk about it being the best it’s ever been, let’s talk about how incredible it is and where it’s going to go.”
“The ocean doesn’t discriminate, it’s just the humans that do, so let’s stop bringing in that gender bias discussion or discrimination based on how you define yourself and let’s just all enjoy these extraordinary performances.”
“I’m incredibly proud of where women’s surfing is today.”
Layne’s new book, co-authored with her business partner Tess Brouwer is set to be released on November 26, 2024. She is scheduled to appear at SXSW Sydney on October 14 as part of the panel Redefining Success: Beyond the 1%.