The beach smelled like fried sausage and sunscreen, a bad mix that clung to your clothes the way salt does after a long paddle. Onshore wind whipped flags into submission.

It's May on the Gold Coast. You'd expect perfectly tempered weather - the kind that makes people want to wear less clothes and more skin - but this morning, too early for my usual daily routine, the air had a sharp bite. Hoodies are zipped high, coffee cups dominate the press rooms, and groms wrapped in towels while their parents check heat sheets on made-in-China iPhones.

The lineup wasn't a pretty sight either. Wind-chopped and messy, the kind of conditions where you'd think twice before throwing anything too ambitious. Yet from the beach, you could hear it - the crowd's sudden inhale as Toledo paddled into a section that didn't look like it wanted to cooperate. He squared up anyway - one pump, two, before he launches.

With a success rate of what feels like north of 90% he lands an air reverse that looked like gravity had briefly signed a non-compete clause.

He screams. Then raises both arms skyward. Not toward the crowd, or the 8k-a-pop tele lens.

Straight up to the sky. God first.

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And that's the part that sticks (apart from the landing). Fingers tracing the sign of the cross, head tilted back as if waiting for an answer. It wasn't for optics. It was all impulsive, and it yanked me straight into a question I have been wrestling with for years: what does it mean to play, fight, sweat, and bleed with God on your team sheet?

The 100% vs. the 115%

Here's the math as I see it:

I was raised on brutal arithmetic. Put in 100% effort, maybe you get 100% results - if the market doesn't tank, if the ref doesn't blow the call, if your boss doesn't secretly hate you. It's a fragile compact, and it doesn't take much to short-circuit.

But watch Brazil's surfing generation - the "Brazilian Storm" of Medina, Ferreira, Toledo - and you realize they're not playing by the same algebra.

Without a doubt, they are professionals, and surfing has come a long way in terms of the legitimacy of athletes. They train, they diet, they take care of their recovery, and most tour surfers have a team that tweaks efforts based on performance metrics. But hovering over all of that is the 115% - the invisible dividend they believe comes from God.

Is it mental trickery? Partly. Sports psychologists talk about "externalizing pressure" - the idea that if the outcome belongs to God, then failure isn't proof that you're worthless.

It's a way of shifting the burden of performance from the individual to a higher power, allowing the athlete to focus on their efforts rather than the potential outcomes.

It's just… part of the plan. Less burden. More bandwidth to swing for the impossible.

That's why you see Italo Ferreira, in the final minutes of the Olympic gold-medal heat, paddling like a man possessed, blowing past exhaustion.

Because he wasn't paddling alone, and part of me envies that, because I don't know, perhaps, I'll never know what it feels like to split the bill with God.

For me, sport is sweat and statistics. Effort in, result out. If the wave shuts down, that's physics. If the market collapses, that's capitalism. It’s not some celestial fine print or invisible partner picking up the slack.

But faith rewrites these terms. A blown knee becomes a test. A loss, a lesson and a win, a blessing.

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The notification hits my phone at 7:47 AM -another LinkedIn bro dissecting Sydney Sweeney'sSweeney's American Eagle campaign like it's the fucking Rosetta Stone of modern advertising. The coffee's still bitter on my tongue when I scroll past the third " genius or problematic?" hot take of the morning.

By 8:15, I've counted seven more posts. Creative directors analyzing camera angles. Brand strategists debate the "male gaze implications." Marketing VPs reshare takes about authenticity versus objectification.

Opinions wrapped in corporate speak, performative outrage seasoned with engagement bait, consultants monetizing controversy with five-slide carousels about "what brands can learn."

The algorithm feeds me one more - whether using a young, beautiful blonde is insensitive in today's inclusivity debate.

The discourse machine is in full swing, churning content from content, opinions from opinions. Everyone's got a temperature check on whether this campaign represents progress or regression, brilliance or major faux pas.

The comments sections read like sociology dissertations written by people who've never left a conference room.

I close the app and stare out my window at actual humans walking actual streets, buying actual coffee, living actual lives that don't require a think piece to validate their existence.

I take another sip of my coffee. By this stage, it doesn't just taste bitter, but also cold, too.

Something that should be simple - coffee, selling jeans -turns to shit when you're debating the cup instead of what's inside it.

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The Gospel according to goodby

Walk through any agency from London to New York or Venice Beach today, and you'll find strategists with art degrees genuflecting before the altar of "brand purpose."

They throw Nike's Colin Kaepernick campaign into brand decks, cite Patagonia's environmental activism and walk you through the case study of Ben & Jerry'sJerry's social justice mantra. The scripture is everywhere: brands must stand for something. Brands must change the world.

But here's what you won't find in those $60,000-a-year portfolio programs: purpose-driven marketing works until everyone's doing it. Then it's just noise in church.

Brand purpose, authentic storytelling, emotional connection, and community building. Rinse, repeat, invoice.

I remember sitting in a conference room in 2019, watching a brand exec pitch their latest brand manifesto about creative rebellion. It was a beautiful film. Diverse casting. Soaring orchestral score. The kind of work that wins Cannes Lions and gets featured in Campaign.

The following day, I find myself in another room watching Converse present their "Create Next" platform, which aims to promote individual expression. It was the same visual language. The same emotional beats and the same promise of transformation.

The copy changed, the brand changed, but the marinade was identical.

Since then, I've seen variations of that campaign from sports brands to lifestyle companies, and two startups that hadn't even launched yet. All selling transcendence. All promising to unlock your true self. All reading from the same playbook that Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein wrote for Nike thirty years ago.

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The problem isn't that purpose-driven marketing doesn't work. The problem is that it works so well that everyone started doing it. Suddenly, every surf brand is protecting oceans, every skate company is empowering youth, and every energy drink is unlocking human potential.

The market got oversaturated with inspiration.

We created a feedback loop where marketers make content for other marketers to analyze, while consumers become an afterthought in their own buying process.

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History has a strange way of repeating itself. If you have been around the surf and action sports industry, I'm sure you'll remember the year 2010.

The big three – Rip Curl, Quiksilver, and Billabong – started their long, rocky road through turmoil, bankruptcy, and budget cuts. On the flip side, brands like Roark and Howler Brothers rushed onto the scene, bringing a fresh approach to a stagnating market that would ultimately change how brands communicate. Two years later, Billabong filed for bankruptcy, and we used its business case in our MBA Economics class as a simulation to teach market dynamics and corporate restructuring.

Wild times.

Today, fourteen years later, we're experiencing an eerily similar sense of déjà vu.

These things tend to be cyclical and somehow, yet again, involve the same players. Most heritage brands pulled through – they always do. But the cost of survival has fundamentally altered their DNA.

The success of many brands now hinges on licensing agreements, fire sales and staff cuts, a far cry from the high-roller times when deals were signed in private jets and corporate parties involved strippers and snow – not the good, cold, mountainous one.

The reality is that brands scramble to keep their heads above water while athletes and ambassadors struggle to make a decent living, resorting to non-endemic sponsorship deals and social media revenue streams to subsidize what the industry can no longer provide.

But there's a silver lining, at least according to O'Neill's VP of Sales Paul Harvey.

In a brand new addition to the Duct Tape Theory content series, we're introducing Pulse Check.

Intentionally infrequent but explosive in news and insights, we're discussing trends and more with the industry's finest. In our first installment, Paul is going deep down the rabbit hole into the current state of the surf industry and where we're headed from here.

And speaking of headed – in true surf industry fashion, big changes are happening as we speak. Since our recording with Paul a few weeks ago, Billabong is now joining the Quik license O5, and RVCA is moving to the license group United Legwear. Both are no longer going to be with the Liberated Group.

The real story here isn't just about business metrics or market share. It's about an industry grappling with its identity in an environment where traditional models no longer guarantee survival.

The next chapter in surf industry history is being written in real-time, and it's shaping up to be unlike anything we've seen before.

Strange times indeed.

"First is first and second is nothing."

That's how Shaun Tomson saw the world as a '77 world champion. Victory meant silence. Strength meant swallowing loss. In professional surfing's golden era, champions like Tomson, Ian Cairns, and Rabbit Bartholomew wore masks of invincibility. You'd never see tears after a heat loss - just a firm handshake and the silent promise of revenge.

Then his 15-year-old son, Matthew, died.

The champion who never showed pain found himself in a hospital room, watching his wife collapse under grief. The competitive fire that drove him through two decades meant nothing now.

In our final Raw File, Tomson speaks about what the ocean taught him after Matthew's death. How writing twelve lines that start with "I will" became his way back to light.

These same lines now shake prison inmates to tears and give burned out execs and lost kids direction - not through motivation or self-help mantras, but through the simple power of putting your truth on paper.

From the highest of highs to the bottom of a dark empty pit, Shaun Tomson reveals how his journey mirrors professional surfing's evolution - from a period of forced stoicism to one where champions like Filipe Toledo or Steph Gilmore openly step away to protect their mental health.

Finding strength in our darkest moments seems so utterly impossible, but sometimes the only way forward is to let others see you break.

You might know him as the quick-witted charmer from the Qualifying Series, always ready with a joke or a wild story from last night's party. That Beyrick – the one who could light up any room and surf circles around most of the tour – was also slowly destroying himself.

"Humor was my shield," he tells me, with the kind of raw honesty that only comes after you've lost everything worth lying about. "I was the funny guy, because being real? That shit was terrifying."

In this edition of Raw Files, we jump into the undertow that nearly dragged one of surfing's brightest talents into the darkness for good.

Beyrick walks us through the perfect storm: early success that came too easy, a competitive circuit that normalized destruction, and the crushing pressure to maintain an image that was killing him inside.

This isn't another story about addiction in professional sports. It's about what happens when the party ends, when the Instagram filters fade, and you're left staring at yourself in the mirror, finally ready to ask for help. It's about finding God in the last place you'd expect, and realizing that true strength isn't in how hard you can party or how big you can surf – it's in having the courage to start over.

Through tears, laughter, and the kind of silence that says more than words ever could, Beyrick shares a journey that will feel painfully familiar to anyone who's ever used success to mask their struggles.

Whether you're in the water or on dry land, this conversation reminds you that sometimes the bravest thing you can do is admit you're lost.

Want to know what real courage looks like? It ain’t 8-10 ft Pipe on a west swell. It's what Beyrick does in what you’re about to see and hear – laying his soul bare so others might find their way out of the darkness a little sooner than he did.

This is Raw Files. This is real. This is recovery.