One afternoon I got up from my desk to take a stroll over to the local “food court” to get some lunch as I always did every day…day in and day out. As I walked across the street passing by the local gas station en route to shove food down my face, I heard a loud booming voice from the gas station, “HEY TIM…HEY TIMMY!” I looked over to see a long time friend, Pat Weber, whom I had known from days in Ventura, CA. I hadn’t seen him in years. He was gassing up a van with about 10 surfboards on top of the van and another 10 inside. I got over there and gave him the “what’s what and what” about all the boards. He proceeded to tell me that he had started up a surfing school and was just killing it! He told me that he was so stoked; he was doing what he loved (surfing), meeting cool new people, and making good money on top of it! Wow I thought to myself, how cool! Of course I had to tell him I was doing great and making money hand over fist etc. just to save a little face, but inside I was jealous immediately. Not really jealous of him personally, but just jealous of his new “lifestyle.” Pat told me to keep in touch and threw me a t-shirt with his company logo and jumped in the van and took off.
I walked over to assume my position at the “food court,” stunned by what just transpired. Having replayed all the things Pat told me over and over in my mind, my lunch didn’t taste very good.
Now for people that are close to me and know me well, I’m sure they could attest to the fact that I am a pretty jovial person all the time. Always laughing, joking, and having fun. I can tell you I do not suffer from depression and really do not have any understanding of how a depressed person must feel. However, I can say with some certainty that after that “chance” meeting with Pat, I slipped into a funk – a depressed state – I was not the same person for the next 2 weeks or so. I began to “hate” my job, hate my work surroundings, and hate everything about the mortgage business. I was having trouble smiling and for me that just isn’t right. I had officially become depressed about what I was doing with my life – sitting in this cubicle, talking to people thousands of miles away that I didn’t even know or really care about. Everything sucked it seemed like, except my gorgeous family. My wife and kid definitely helped make things easier to swallow in those trying times for me.
One day sitting at my desk staring at the phone waiting for it to ring, I was in one of my daydream states again, thinking about Costa Rica and all the things I missed so much about it. Thinking about traveling and surfing exotic lands…when all of the sudden it hit me, like a ton of bricks, like the biggest head rush ever. What took me so damn long to figure this out?!!! “WHY NOT DO A SURF SCHOOL IN COSTA RICA!” Genius!!!
I had all the connections I had made in my time living there. My brother Tyler was still there and struggling to make a living. He had all kinds of contacts…damn, it made so much sense it hurt! You ever just have a light bulb go on and you know whatever it is, it’s right as rain? I had that moment that day in my cubicle.
It was game on. I had the idea, but there was A LOT of work to do to even think about getting this thing off the ground. First and most importantly, I had to see what my brother thought about the idea. I called Tyler and gave him my “pitch” and before I had all the details out of my mouth, he was all over it,”Yeah it sounds unreal!”
The idea was born…now how the hell am I going to put this together???