Pro Surfer Shaun Tomson: Anacapa Students Know “The Code” [video]

Shaun Tomson the professional surfer and best-selling author of “Surfer’s Code: 12 Simple Lessons for Riding through Life” and award-winning documentary filmmaker of “Bustin’ Down the Door” released his new book titled “The Code” during Breakfast Club at Anacapa School on May 29, 2013.  Shaun says that Anacapa students were the inspiration behind his latest work.  Shaun hopes that “The Code” will be a launching point for a worldwide movement generating “positive peer pressure.”

“This book was inspired not by the surf or by my international speaking engagements but by a small group of kids I spoke with at Anacapa School in Santa Barbara,” wrote Shaun in the new book’s introduction. The introduction continues:

I’d been invited to give a talk by (Anacapa) Headmaster Gordon Sichi, a surfer I met out at Rincon one day. After I spoke with the students and engaged in some lively discussion, I decided to give them an assignment. I told them I’d written the original Surfer’s Code in twenty minutes—a quick exercise to capture the essence of what was important to me. I told them, “Create your own code. Take twenty minutes and tell me about all your goals. Begin every sentence with the words ‘I Will.’” About a week later Gordon sent me their answers. They were beautiful, sensitive, full of humor and hope. In essence the kids wrote a series of promises they had made to themselves.

Students were fascinated by Tomson’s life as a professional athlete and asked him some great questions at the end of the presentation. See the video above!