The Top 5 Needs of the Living

Layne Beachley (0:02)

You're tuning in to A Wake Up Call, which is your weekly dose of purpose packed with science-backed tools to beat burnout and boost happiness.

Tess Brouwer (0:09)

Hosted by us, Tess Brouwer and seven-time world champion Layne Beachley, we're the founders of Awake Academy.

Layne Beachley (0:16)

This podcast mixes raw life lessons, expert wisdom and practical tips to help you stop sleepwalking through life and start living it on your terms. You ready to wake up and thrive? Let's go.

Season 3 is proudly brought to you by AIA, a leading life, health and well-being insurer, supporting healthier, longer, better lives. Protect what matters most and AIA will help you to do it for life.

Tess Brouwer (0:42)

Hey, Dream Team. Welcome back to A Wake Up Call. A few weeks ago, we posted a 49 second clip from our podcasts.

We thought we were sharing a conversation about performance and what it was like to be a performer in a condition that didn't really suit you, right, LB?

Instead, what happened was is it went viral and it started a conversation that we didn't like. So it reached over 400,000 people very quickly. It generated over 41,000 likes, 2,000 shares, over 2,000 saves, and almost 200 comments, which is actually not a lot considering how much traction it got. But the comments became a social experiment that revealed far more about where humans are right now, about identity, about leadership, about gender hate of each other, and way more than what it was like to be a surfer in the 90s.

Layne Beachley (1:46)

Yeah, way more than was intended.

Tess Brouwer (1:48)

Yeah. So today, we turned off the comments because it was starting to get out of control.

We took back our power in that. But LB, what surprised you the most when I rang you and said, hey, this is starting to take a little bit of a turn?

Layne Beachley (2:05)

What surprised me the most was the attack. Because the intention was just to demonstrate or articulate what it was like for me and my generation of surfers, at the start of my career, that it wasn't a happy, welcoming, inclusive environment.

Tess Brouwer (2:22)

Yeah. Do you think the fact that you called it a misogynistic shit show?

Layne Beachley (2:28)

It may have had an impact. What took me by surprise was just the vitriol, just unnecessary.

First, they attacked me and then people attacked each other, and then it blew out a proportion to a situation that was not anchored in reality or truth.

Tess Brouwer (2:47)

Yeah. It was taken so far out of context, which is the danger of sharing such short clips.

Layne Beachley (2:52)

True.

Tess Brouwer (2:52)

For context, what were you hoping to get across to people?

Layne Beachley (2:58)

The intention was to highlight actually how far we've come, because it started in a way like-

Tess Brouwer (3:06)

Surfing started.

Layne Beachley (3:07)

Surfing, the Pro Tour when I joined in the 90s. What I really wanted to highlight was just how much progression we'd made and how so many people were integral in that progression. So my predecessors, they did it tougher than I did, both men and women. But my experience was just through my lens as a woman in a very male dominated environment of professional surfing. So it was to highlight the fact that, yes, it was tough and we felt shorthanded and we felt disrespected and unheard and devalued.

But over time, we've now landed at a moment where I'm so grateful for where women's surfing is today. I'm so grateful that the predecessors that paved the way for me, handed me the baton to then change the landscape and shift the needle, and then I was able to hand that baton to the current generation, like Stephanie Gilmour and Sally Fitzgibbons and Tyler Wright, who have then gone on to shape women's surfing to where it is today.

Tess Brouwer (4:08)

Yeah, and I feel like surfing and pay equity has enabled other sports to take that on. You guys have seen that in so many ways now, as people come to you to say, well, how did you do it or what conversations that you had? So it was really a catalyst for change.

Layne Beachley (4:22)

It was a catalyst for change, exactly.

Tess Brouwer (4:23)

One of the pieces of feedback that was on there is, so on that post alone, and I looked at the statistics, 90 percent of people who viewed that post were women, and 10 percent were men, which is probably why the men were going really hard against women, and the women were piling on and going against. So it became like-