Interview: Kevin Carillo

Show Notes

The ATV tour service, Pippin Rentals, Kevin and his family operate in Nosara.

The surf school where Kevin teaches, Safari Surf.

National Geographic Article on Blue Zones (where people routinely live longer than average)

Peer reviewed article about how research into Blue Zones led to this conclucion: “putting the responsibility of curating a healthy environment on an individual does not work, but through policy and environmental changes the Blue Zones Project Communities have been able to increase life expectancy, reduce obesity and make the healthy choice the easy choice for millions of Americans.”

Who to contact to book tortilla lesson when you’re visiting Nosara (Conocer)

Wikipedia Entry on Catalan

Interview Transcript

Intro Part 1

My name is Maia Dery.

The Waves to Wisdom interviews are the result of an exploration into a world I discovered when I learned to surf at mid-life.

Some of these conversations aren’t necessarily with people who we would instantly recognize as leaders but they are all leading us in a direction I instinctively followed and have benefitted tremendously in the process. Some of them don’t have huge audiences, but they are living very large lives.

To me, these people all seem to have wisdom practices centered on their relationship to the more-than-human world, to what we usually think of as “nature.”

Surfing proved first revelatory, then revolutionary in my life. I thought I was creative, thought I knew and loved water, thought I took care of my body. But when I entered the world of surfing and waves, when I started to ritualistically return to a literal edge, I realized my vision for my life had been hampered by some artificial barriers.

Slowly, with each wave and wipeout, those barriers in my brain, heart, and body began to dissolve.

I began to wonder, what if we all had a nature based practice that cracked us open? Made us more creative? Allowed us to reliably let go with the abandon of play? Of unbridled joy? What if we all practiced vulnerability, risk and failure on a daily basis and they were fun? Wouldn’t it make our lives better? Wouldn’t it lead us to the places it feels like, in this moment of planetary peril, we need to go?

Whether you find full bodied and big hearted connection through waves or walking or digging in the dirt, I hope you find these conversations useful in your own journey of re-inhabiting your life with renewed joy, deep engagement, and increasing wisdom.

Kevin: As a Tico Nosareño and surfer, I love this place. It’s so good. This place is magical. A lot of things that you can learn. The waves, surfing is so good. Just like taking off like just get up on the wave, it’s gonna feel like something magical inside of you, like butterflies on your belly, something like that, it’s gonna like, feels like, this is like heaven.

Intro Part 2

Maia: Kevin Carillo is a young surf instructor from Nosara, Costa Rica, a small jungle community dominated by American and European expatriate surfers and yogis. Over the last five years This place and the people who grew up there have,, become a strong current in my own heart, pulling me back over and over. Each time I return I learn more about the Pura Vida culture of the locals and, in turn my own culture’s predispositions leading us to define ourselves by accomplishment over relationship or work over love. The interview is with Kevin, a human but we recorded this conversation near the end of Nosara’s dry season, just a couple of days after the first rain. Along with that rain comes a gathering wave of new life, including, as you’ll hear loud and clear, crickets. It seemed fitting that, in a place where the waves, trees, hills, and wildlife are abundant, the jungle would make it’s voice heard.

Kevin’s ability to describe, in his second language, no less, the ways that the lessons he’s learned from the waves have helped him overcome stress and temptation, sort out his priorities, and grow up to be a strong, happy teacher, partner, and expectant father reminded me that wisdom is not always a result of age. Sometimes a disciplined play practice in the more than human world, something like surfing, can help us figure our lives out in what seems to me to be very brief time. Welcome to Waves to Wisdom.

Kevin: Hello Maia

Maia: Hello Kevin, will you, let’s start by telling everybody your name, your age and how long you been surfing.

Kevin: My name is Kevin Carillo. I am from Nosara, a local surfer here and I am 24 years old and I’ve been surfing for 10 years.

Maia: and did you learn from someone in your family or friends? (0:46)

Kevin: I had a friend, a classmate and he surfed, said, “Hey, you should surf!” He’s from Garza. His name is Steven. And I start surfing but just by myself. I tried by myself.

Maia: And and was it reasonably easy to learn by yourself?

Kevin: It was hard. I just remembered I just wipeout a lot on the sand.

Maia:[Laugh] But you must’ve liked it enough to continue despite the frustration.

Kevin: I know because that was the thing that you as I kid like something that you want to learn, it’s like okay I need to get this I need to get it. I need to try, doesn’t matter how hard it is, I need to get it.

Maia: And clearly you got it.

Kevin: And I got it

Maia: You got it— okay how long did it take you?

Kevin: I remember like took me like two weeks just to get up on that big board.

Maia: I’m pretty sure it took me about two years so— not too bad but I was 40 not 14 when I started. Excellent and then how long did it take you to fall in love with it?

Kevin: Since the first day.

Maia The first day even though it was frustrating [yes} you loved it right away?

Kevin: Yes, since the first day. [OK] Because I kept on going [yes] kept on going.

Maia: and and you already had a relationship with the ocean? You knew how to swim?

Kevin: I know how to swim. [okay] Yeah I knew how to swim cause here in Nosara we learn how to swim since we are like four years old. Like, little little little kids. Cause we are being on the rivers, jumping from the bridge, getting on, we call that “possas”– when the river has a little deep water, maybe a tree next to the river and we just go on the tree and jump.

Maia: And the kids love it? [yes] okay fantastic okay so you work for school, a surf school. And who do you mostly teach lessons to here in Nosara?

Kevin: Mostly beginners. A lot of beginners— just first day, trying in the whitewater and it’s like, it’s really good. I love it.

Maia: What do you love about it?

Kevin: I love the smile on their face yeah. Cause when they got that wave, when they get up, cause first they tell you, like, “I’m not good at this. I never tried this, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to not do this, since it’s the first day. “ So they have a perspective like maybe I get it but really long. You know? And when they get it since the first wave, cause sometimes they get up on the first wave, its’ like, “I got up!”

Maia: And what what sort of people, like what ages and where they from mostly?

Kevin: Mostly from the United States, there’s a lot of people from United States. There’s like an age that mostly come here to surf that is like 30 to 50. There is like a lot of people that age that want to surf.

Maia: I’ve noticed that too and I have noticed that this is a place where a lot of single women travelers seem to come to learn to surf and even older women [yes] lots of women older than I am if you can imagine that.

Kevin: Yes, it’s so good. I love that.

Maia: It’s really good, isn’t it? What do you love about it?

Kevin : That you can see that there’s no time, there’s no age but you can practice a sport, even though it’s hard, you could see like 10 feet waves and you still see old lady surfing. Or it’s small and she’s enjoying the wave you can see it doesn’t matter the age.

Maia: It doesn’t matter does it? And this beach that you teach on is a particularly good beach to learn, isn’t it?

Kevin: Yes, it’s because it’s a beach break [yes] no rocks and the wave is like small, soft, really good to learn.

Maia: So fun! The long rides here are just so fun. Do you think the fact that you were surfing as as a young boy, as a young man, did that change the way your life went in high school and afterwards?

Kevin: Of course, yes.

Maia: And it obviously, since you’re now a professional in the surf industry, it changed in that way. Did it change it any other ways, maybe earlier or affect how you made decisions or what decisions you made?

Kevin: I remember in college, like, high school I was in the last grade, just graduating to go to the University and here in Costa Rica you gotta do a final test, like five tests, like math, biology, science, English and it’s like a hard test because you don’t know what you see on the test it’s just like go and do the tests and I already surfed on the time and I remember I was so stressed out, like studying a lot. And I was like, no, I need to relax, I need to go surf, I need to be the water, take my time, see some waves, see like how it’s going to make me calm down and it helped me to win the test and I got the test and I got graduated.

Maia: It was fine. So you felt stress which you were pretty sure was gonna impede your performance, you weren’t going to do as well as you could have if you weren’t stressed. You knew by that point— you’d been surfing for four years then? Three or four years [yes, yes] and and you knew that if you went surfing that you would be able to handle that test without stress. [yeah] and so you already had that coping mechanism?

Kevin: Yes

Maia: That that sounds like wisdom right there. Good what. what other ways as a young person did surfing affect your life?

Kevin: Um Well taking decisions to be more responsible. So if you go to surf and if you don’t take the right wave you gonna wipe out, you gonna fall off.

Maia: So you learned when you were surfing that you didn’t go for every wave? [no] You had to pick the right wave for you [yes] and that translated to your life on shore. You metaphorically saw that there’s a path in life that, if you take it [yes] you’re gonna wipe out.

Kevin: Yes, you’re gonna wipe out.

Maia: No bueno. [laugh]

Kevin: No bueno. And yeah as a kid as a kid it is hard because those are things that, for a kid is really hard to take you know and like the surfing industry is like many things that you’re gonna see like drugs or alcohol, those things. So you gotta take it easy. Do the right things, go study, be responsible even though you surf still like you have other the things to do.

So, bad things you gonna see, not good friends not good friends. Friends that are going to tell you to do something, supposed to be friends right? And they going to say okay this is the surfing life. The surfing life is like, go surf, get out of the water, get changed and then go party, drink, do drugs, and maybe get a girl and then go back and wake up the next day just feeling empty and do it again. But that’s not not surfing.

Maia: That’s not surfing?

Kevin: That’s not surfing.

Maia: No. It really is for, for people who have not been here to Nosara the surf instructors are sort of alphas.Do you know that phrase? [yes] they’re in some ways they’re the people on the beach with the most status—the surf instructors. You’re all very good surfers most of you are young [yes] most of you are strong and handsome or beautiful and and there are endless waves of incoming tourists many of whom are beautiful and young and in search of a good time for the week or two that they are here.

I can imagine how for a teenage boy, or a very young man, that situation would be full of temptations—all of these people coming in with money and a desire to party. [yes] and and somehow you’ve managed to navigate all of that [yes] without, as you say, going a bad way. And you think that surfing helped you with that?

Kevin: Surfing helps, yes. It’s like if you feel like those things are going together, those bad things like what you say, like girls coming here to get party, alcohol, drugs, friends. But surfing helps like okay, relax calm down. This is not what you need to do. You need to clear your mind. Surfing like helps like clear your a lot.

Maia: So not just if you have a stressful situation like a specific test. But it sounds like if you have a larger stressful situation like figuring out how to live a life in a situation where that the bad path is easily accessible. Surfing it sounds like helped you navigate that.

Kevin: Yeah cause like you have goals right here. Surfing is like you set up goals first you’re like okay “I’m gonna get up on the board, I’m gonna turn to the side, I’m gonna cutback, I’m gonna paddle to the outside.” You’re thinking about your goals. You go little by little, doing something. It is like life, okay you need to do this thing first, it’s not like like, I’m gonna get a board, paddle out, it is not how you do it, you go little by little, take your time, set up like the right things that you need to first, and and start getting to do with those goals right? And then you’re gonna be surfing really good or you’re gonna be having a good life.

Maia: And speaking of good life, will you tell everybody your very exciting news?

Kevin: Well I’m,I’m having a baby. I’m so excited for that! Having a little boy. His name is Andreu. And I hope and I hope he gets like a good surfer. I hope he surfs. Yeah and I’m so happy to surf with him. And teach him how to surf and teach him how to live the life really good. Enjoy the life.

Maia: And when you said enjoy the life what is what is a good life to you? What is, what do you notice is a good life?

Kevin: Wake up smiling. Smiling because you are, you have a good partner on your side, a good person, with good karma, good soul and pull you up, right? With happiness. That’s a good life and go to the water, go surf at least like one hour, go surf, clear your mind, feel the sun on your face burning, especially this month, March. And enjoy the water and then like maybe go to a job, meet people, have friends, that’s a good life.

Maia That’s a good life.

Kevin: Learn some culture and eat a lot.

Maia: Eat a lot! That’s a good life!

Kevin: Yes.

Maia: There’s a concept or an expression or a way of being here that you all call Pura Vida. Could you tell anybody is listening what is Pura Vida from your perspective?

Kevin: Pura Vida is like living life in a good way. You need to live the life healthy, happy, be friendly with others, that’s Pure Vida, even though you don’t know that person, giving a smile because you don’t know what he is living. That’s Pure Vida. Like be interested in his happiness. Like like, hey hello how are you? Have a good day. That make you be a Pure Vida person and that’s the Pure Vida life here. Like we live healthy, we live happy, we love our place, we love our culture, and we take care of these little piece of land. And love the people that are here. And we help help a lot, like if if you go on the road and someone is stuck with the car that is not working broken, you stop and help him.

Maia: That’s Pure Vida.

Kevin: That’s Pure Vida.

Maia: Just so that people understand it you see a lot of people coming here from other places that don’t live in a Pure Vida way [yes] they don’t. What does that look like? What is Pura Vida the opposite of?

Kevin: People who are too stressed out, people who wants to hurt other people, they just come here, destroy this piece of land and destroy the happiness that other people are living. He’s like too stressed out, needs to relax calm down breathe.

Maia: Yeah. So you were young man and you it sounds like you you had a moment where you were probably tempted to do these bad things, to live this party lifestyle. In that moment how do you think you were able to make a good decision for yourself?

Kevin: Cause I start when I was young, in high school, so there are like friends and there are like a lot of temptation like, let’s go out, party. And I did, I went to parties and I get crazy and it was not good, I was not feeling good. I was feeling empty every single day. And like you start thinking that’s the way you need to live because everybody does that. And you think that you are doing the right things, that you’re living a good way because you have money and you are paying for going out, and you’re paying for everything that you need, but it’s not, it’s not healthy but then I realize that I need to live in a different way.

Maybe from my family? I see my family like living really good, I have a good family, especially my brother. So it’s like, graduated, work, get your house because you need a house to live and then you can get the rest. Because my mom said, this is what my mom told me all the time since I was young, like, “Get a job— study, get a job, get a house and then you can do whatever you want.”

Maia: it’s very interesting to hear that that your mother and surfing reinforced each other. Your mother said, “Take these steps in this order.” and you learn from surfing you don’t just go right out in the big waves, you have to take these steps in this order and then you don’t get hurt and that’s, that’s pretty wonderful.

So you went to college and what did you study?

Kevin: I studied to be so first I went to public university [okay] and I studied just to know English, just just to know. For two years was like from Monday to Friday. And it was like from 8 in the morning to 9 p.m. A long time just studying. Not too much for surfing, just on the weekends. So I need to get up really early on Friday or Saturday come to the beach, surf, and then late Sunday go back to study again. And then I finished that. I got a job to be a surf instructor. And the company that I’m working right now they help me a lot to get money and then pay for another career. And I studied to be a English teacher for elementary school and it’s so good.

Maia: It’s so good. So you got your degree in elementary English education? [Yes] And why is it so good? Tell me what’s so good about that?

Kevin: Because you are because your education keep your teaching kids you are teaching things that you know so you better do it good and feel good for it because that’s gonna be the future of this world.

Maia: Okay so so your little boy, Andreu, he will speak English and Spanish?

Kevin: He will speak English, Spanish, Catalan, from Barcelona, and Italian.

Maia: And Italian— so he will he will have four languages? [I know] My goodness.

Kevin: He’s gonna be a good guy, he’s gonna be a int… guy, he’s going to be really interesting.

Maia: He’s gonna be really interesting.

Kevin: Yeah all the ladies gonna be looking at him.

Maia: Yes he is going to be very attractive to whoever he wants to attract I am sure, yes so good! Okay, good so you have because you are a professional surf instructor, [yes] and by choice you could be a teacher, obviously, you are qualified to be a teacher of English but you are the teacher of surfing instead. You’ve watched a lot of people go from not being able to surf at all to be able to surf a little bit or maybe even a lot. Because one of the things I’ve noticed about your clientele your customers is that they come back. They’re so happy after coming here for one week and working with one of you, you are all such wonderful, warmhearted pure vida instructors. People, you know, by the last day sometimes they’re in tears. They don’t want to go home. [No] They’re in love with you and this place and the waves. They come back and they get better! [Yes] Even if they don’t live near waves themselves.

What have you noticed that learning to surf either through your own life or watching so many people of all ages learn to do it— what have you noticed that that does for people?

Kevin: So when they come here, some of them, well like mainly, maybe all of them? They come here, a new place, they don’t know anything about here. They just know okay, I need a place to learn how to surf and a place that help mostly for kids, right? And they come here for some surfing and they get this life here, the way that we treat them, cause we like to treat them really good. We try to give them the pura vida that we have. So they come here and it’s not only like surfing.

Maia: Okay, so in what ways do you think that these people coming to surf, how can you see it change them as they get into the water, begin this process of working with the ocean, making mistakes?

Kevin: Yeah they they come here and they get related to the ocean and they start feeling like okay it’s a good sport to try, it’s not hard, it’s easy it’s really easy, surfing, is easy if you set your goals, “Okay I’m gonna do this.” and then just do the right things, like getting up, back foot, front foot and surf the wave and they start learning little by little new things. They get interested in the surfing life. And they want to learn more. The same like me. Like, you start learning new things every single day and then not only surfing, maybe like, living here in Nosara, like living with us, with instructors, We treat them, we are like a family here. We host them like brothers, like this is my younger brother or my old brother, my sister, or sometimes like there come old ladies and we call them “Okay, Mama!” Cause you are like my mom. We are gonna treat you like you are my mom and we are happy to have you and be like a family and surf and eat and laugh.

Maia: I can attest to that because, in a lot of places that are dominated by surf culture what that winds up looking like is that those places and that culture are dominated by young men who are good at surfing, that sometimes happens, and there sometimes isn’t a place for people like me, you know a middle-aged women and that is not the case here is it is so beautiful it is like I’m your mother or your aunt or somebody su tía, su mamá, somebody important to you all. And really the pure vida is palpable, it’s a wonderful welcoming vibe all the time no matter who you are or how good or bad, technically speaking, you are at surfing. [Yes] What did surfing teach you is there anything that we haven’t talked about that surfing taught you in terms of a life lesson.

Kevin: Um, yeah, like surfing, like sometimes if you feel like you’re gonna take bad decisions surfing might help you a lot, like clear your mind, feel the ocean, feel the wind that’s going to make you calm down and think clear, think what’s better for you (3:28). And if you just do whatever seems faster, something seems faster and you just want to take it maybe it’s not the right thing. So for living, it’s like taking good decisions taking good decisions like the same wave like if you see a wave and it looks good, sometime you see a wave and it looks good it looks like a perfect wave but it’s not, it’s too short. Let’s wait for the second one or the third one. That’s the one that you need, it’s not the first one, you don’t need that one, even though it looks good but it’s not the one that will fill you up so for living you’re gonna see you like bad decisions coming up like did you take this and maybe it’s not right for you.

So that’s what happened to me like okay I need to study, I need to get a job, and then once you get that you need to get the second step and then you need a good partner with you, you need a good partner that help you that make you like grow up right? That don’t make you get stuck right there. That’s really important too. So it’s not a girl that you’re gonna find at the party and then just go out just one night And that’s the girl, no.You need to know the lady, to know the girl, surf together, yeah? surf together, know pretty well and then you do the decision. So it helped me a lot.

Maia: And tell us something about your partner

Kevin: She’s, she’s a good surfer. But I love surfing with her. I love that. And we start talking, we started exploring all the area right here in Nosara cause I’m still, I live here, but still there’s many things that you can see, like the first time. And we did some ATV tours, we went to some waterfalls and we did some trips to surf and we started talking (6:45) to know each other and then I realize that she’s a nice person cause so inspire, like, something really good that you can see through her eyes that she’s she’s so nice and, yeah, I love her a lot.

Maia: She is beautiful in every way a person can be.
Maia: and I understand your father also has an intimate relationship with the ocean.

Kevin: He’s a fisherman. He loves fishing and he taught me how to understand the ocean lot cause he knows really well the ocean because he knows really good the moon. Yeah. I don’t know but he understand the moon really, really good and if you asked I can ask him right now like what moon do we have right now he will tell you right away and he will say okay this is, the moon is right here, is like this so the tide is low so when you have this moon, this tide, the we can catch fish.

Maia: So your family, I’m lucky and I am lucky enough to have been to your house, and your family owns a beautiful piece of land I don’t know how much but a lot of land you as far as you can see really from your house there are Carillos. And how far back does your family go in Nosara?

Kevin: It was like a long time ago my, my mom, well, my grandpa and my grandma they were from Nicoya, they were living in Nicoya and then my grandpa sold that land and moved to here Guiones or Nosara and then he got that land for like 25 colones.

Maia: 25 Colones?

Kevin: Which is just like

Maia: 50 cents?

Kevin: Something like that.

Maia: And he got this land and start living here with my mom my aunts all my family open, and now he’s old, now he’s really old, he’s 97 [my goodness] Yeah, he’s 97 and we still have this land and I’m living one piece of that cause my mom got gave me and it’s a nice place because it’s all family right there.

Maia: So beautiful! And you live right next door to your 97-year-old grandfather don’t you?

Kevin: I live next to him and I see him every single day [every single day] and he is still walking by

he’s walking by himself he wave at me when he saw me and we made jokes, he loves jokes.

Maia: Well, it’s interesting because he grew up in Nicoya and this whole area around Nicoya is a blue zone [it’s a blue zone]. Zona azul, sí? What is a blue zone?

Kevin: It’s where the people live because longer we have people here who live a long, long, long time. I know people who get more than hundred years.

Maia: Wow [because he’s happy] he’s happy do you, I mean you’re not a scientist and I’m not a scientist and I and I don’t know that there have been scientific studies trying to figure out why people in Blue Zones live so long but you have any opinions about why?

Kevin: I hear what I’ve been realizing that the corn [the corn?]. The corn— so the corn so what happened here I know like for my family you say when you go to eat you always have to get a tortilla on your plate.

We don’t we don’t get Coca-Cola, we don’t get Fanta, that’s what they were drinking before. We get chicheme. Chicheme is a drink based on corn based on corn, is a corn that is purple and the it could something different to get the drink all the grandma and grandpa’s how do they know I double with the were drinking and eating really healthy things.

Maia: Interesting

Kevin: And we grow up fruits right here, fruits vegetables [so many] a lot of sandias

Maia: Sandias! Watermelons…

Kevin: The watermelons are so good.

Maia: People just throw the watermelon meat right in the blender and blend it up and drink it. It’s delicious!

Kevin: That’s why we get longer.

Maia: That’s why you live longer. I suspect pure vida has something to do with it too, the just openhearted, accepting, loving, generous attitude people have towards one another, not everyone but, but culturally.

Kevin: Yeah I told you like, being healthy if you are healthy people if you are healthy, person if you’re eating good and living this life, you gonna be a nice person, you’re gonna be smiling the whole time, you won’t be angry, you’re not gonna be mad at mad at anything

Maia: From my perspective one of the problems I see with this place is that a lot of Americans and Europeans come to Guiones and many of them miss out on pura vida because they only talk to other Americans or Europeans. And in groups that I have have brought your students and and also retreat groups it’s inevitably the one thing that they remember most, now they have a great time I mean there’s there’s world-class yoga here in these beautiful yoga studios, the surfing is so exciting, the beach is spectacular it looks like the cover of a fancy magazine every single day, it’s so beautiful. But every single trip where I’ve brought people the thing that they remember most is when we go to the home of a local and they learn how to make tortillas the local way. [yes] That’s always the thing that moves them the most.

Kevin: Here like everybody know how to make a tortilla.

Maia: Yes and and just the authentic experience of interacting with the people and so many… it’s interesting I see a lot of Americans come here and they they keep separate from the people and maybe talk to a Tico surf instructor but they they don’t get out of this little village and they don’t get out to some of the places that you take them, Pippin Rentals, and it’s such a shame because when they do get out, as you say, it fills you up so much more the experience it when you really, even just for half a day, when you really feel the culture and in the way of living here. It makes the whole trip, even if it’s only a week long, it makes it so much more meaningful and the love that you feel for this place is so much deeper because it’s not just about what can I get how good a time can I have here it becomes about this exchange were you’re talking to people and they’re talking to you and and it isn’t so unequal. Because one of the problems here and in many places in the developing world where wealthy Americans come to vacation is inequality. There are people who make very little money and then Americans building two million-dollar homes and the prices get very expensive for food and housing and and these are challenges, the gentrification. These are challenges that the that this place faces but those challenges seem less insurmountable when you watch the wealthy visitors interact with the locals as humans, human to human it really, in my experience, at least, it makes a big difference.

Kevin: Yeah that’s really important interactions with the local person right here is really good just like we do surf lessons is not only like the whole time just talking about surfing they talk to you about like how you living, what do you do, what else do you do besides surfing, and you get a conversation with them so people who come here they, they love chatting, like they love talking.

It’s gonna be fine. It’s gonna be really good chatting with the local person so know about the life here. How’s the life in Nosara? How’s the pure vida? So like they gonna show like yeah we eat healthy we eat tortilla, we made it like this. How to make chichi my or how to make tamarindo. so many things that you can learn from a local person. So many things and they… you gonna feel so good to learn those things from a new culture, from a new place it’s not only likes to surf or somebody just yoga, yoga, yoga with a person that you, that doesn’t even know the place many people come here, start living here and they are from United States or they’re from Europe and they are living here for ten years maybe, they are living here for 10 years and they think they are becoming local person, local people so that’s the one that like sometimes I like not getting into the pure vida life. You know?

Maia: Absolutely

Kevin: And yeah this place is getting bigger. Many people are investing this place and the prices are going like in the clouds. It’s really, really high prices, really big prices and we as a Costa Rican people, as a local people, we pay the same, we pay the same but we don’t get paid when we get the job we don’t get paid at the same to afford those prices.

Maia: It’s, three dollars an hour is very standard isn’t it?

Kevin: Yes. So yeah that’s what happen it’s getting really big this place.

Maia: Ok, Would you say that all Costa Ricans or most Costa Ricans live la pura vida?

Kevin: No, not really. So, Costa Rica’s not that big but there’s many places the capital city, the center of Costa Rica we cal the Central Valley, that part, there’s more violence right there, cause like there’s more buildings, there’s more cars, more people the life right there is like a little more faster. Maybe like, like a big city in the United States. Not that big but for us seems to be like really fast.

Maia: And are people in the in the big cities here stressed-out?

Kevin: Yes, stressed out because of traffic, because they live in the way that is just like, wake up, go on the road, on the street, be like an hour, hour and a half in the traffic, go to work, stress out with their boss, and then go back to the street again. Then go home at night, eat something fast and wake and go to sleep and wake up again in the same way, every single day. And they have long period of working maybe and then maybe at the end they have a little vacations, but it’s still like stress out [and it’s not] maybe they don’t surf.

Maia: And maybe they don’t surf, which makes a big difference [yes]. Because you, it would be easy for somebody listening to this to think that you don’t you that you don’t work like that. But in fact, especially during the high season, during the busy season here, I’ve watched you now for weeks in a row start with lessons at 7:30 in the morning

Kevin: Or start sometimes like 6!

Maia: Sometimes at 6 and teach right until the sun goes down you at at 5:45 at night and it’s hard physical labor, pushing people into waves.

Kevin: So you must be in shape, you must have like muscles and be in shape, and be eating healthy and drink a lot of water, because like, we been working a lot, the whole day in the water, I don’t even change my clothes, I just be wet the whole time. Just start us the lesson at 7, do hour and 1/2, go back, get the next one, just drink a little water, sometime a little time for a little breakfast, then get to lunch, get in the water again, until 6. until the sunset . And it’s, good is, a good life. And now I have a little more time off and I’m spending that time surfing which is I am still getting tired but my mind is like out of the stress I’m not stressful because I’m surfing. All my stress is on the water, it’s gone, the ocean took that stress and I feel so good. Mostly when I was surfing with Maia

Maia: We have had some really fun times, haven’t we? [yes] Yes, yes. And you’re, you’re so generous. Sometimes the waves here get quite big and and occasionally they’re, they’re fast. It’s a pretty slow break in general but occasionally they’re fast and you’re always very good about telling me whether or not you think I’m ready to take off on a particularly challenging wave. It’s nice to have that reassurance.

Yeah I noticed, I mean it really is remarkable, because your job is very intense, I mean people, it’s the ocean, things can happen out there. Just the other day we were surfing in the morning and you paddled up and it was so cute you said, “Are you gonna stay out here for a while?” and I said “Well, yes.” and and you said, “Well, there’s a 4 or 5 foot shark over there.” [laugh] [yes] It was like oh, okay well maybe I’m not gonna stay out here for awhile. But even at the end of the day after five lessons or six lessons, you’re so good to people and so patient with them, and take such good care.

You, just this morning, the waves were so good and you told me, I asked if you got any of them when they were good and you said no I couldn’t take off because I was with a mother and children who…

Kevin: Two little girls [with two little girls] like 14 years old.

Maia: Okay and and they, you couldn’t leave them to take a wave, that you needed to stay with them.

Kevin: I need to stay with them and there were good wave, so good, [so good] I still remember that wave coming, there were like five of them, and I was like. “Okay no I need to let this wave go.” [yes] because those waves were not good for them because it was a little steep [yes] and I love steep waves [yes] because I can make some tricks [yes- laugh] in they were no good for them so that I told them this is not good for you we’re gonna wait for another one who would fit you better.

Maia: Which is just wonderful and, and I, there are many surf schools here, there must be almost 20 surf schools in this tiny village now,

Kevin: I think more than that.

Maia: Even more than 20… and I have watched many instructors from other surf schools leave [yes] clients so that they could take a wave and it’s one of the reasons that I have formed such a close relationship with you all over these year’s is that you you really do put your clients’, not just safety but, but comfort first.

Kevin: Yes. Because it’s a place, it’s a new world outside, like on the break, that part is like a new world. There are many things, there’s gonna be people, there’s gonna be waves ,there’s gonna be, sometimes, animals, so it’s a new world. So and they’re not gonna be used to that.

Maia: Is there anything else about your life as a surfer, your relationship with the ocean, you as a as a Nosareño, is there anything that you would like to say to anybody listening?

Kevin: As a Tico Nosareño and surfer, I love this place. It’s so good. This place is magical. A lot of things that you can learn. The waves, surfing is so good. Just like taking off like just get up on the wave, it’s gonna feel like something magical inside of you, like butterflies on your belly, something like that, it’s gonna like, feels like, this is like heaven— how the nature made that and you can use that power of nature and you can surf that. Because it’s not like you make it right? It’s just like okay, it’s coming by themself because God made that wave because the nature of the current is a wave, the wind made this kinda wave perfect, just for you. And just surf it, get it, and it’s like the life. Like this is your life, enjoy it, on the way they’re going to be bad things just move it around, skip it, like when you’re surfing you skip some people and move to the side, go to the other side, don’t look what you don’t need to look and chosen joy.

Maia: It’s good good life advice, just enjoy it.

Kevin: Just enjoy it. Just enjoy what you having in the moment. Don’t think about like way too far. Just think about right now, the present. And live the present right now.

Maia: It is something that that people here seem to be very good at is enjoying the moment, taking time to be with their families. So many people just go out and watch the sunset together, play soccer with their kids on the beach. They don’t work, you now, all the time, if they don’t absolutely have to and it’s it’s a beautiful thing to see. And there certainly are, they’re are a lot of of owners of businesses as as we’ve discussed who sometimes demand longer hours than is healthy for the employees but when people have a choice they really do seem to put love, to put being with their families and being with their friends, it’s a very high priority.

Well thank you so much Kevin [you’re welcome]. This has been just wonderful I feel like I learned a ton and I know everybody listening will too.

Kevin: I hope they learn a lot from this, and yeah you’re welcome.

Maia: I hope you enjoyed Kevin’s wonderful perspective on life, love, and waves. To set up a time for an exploratory conversation about coaching, a custom Waves to Wisdom retreat in Nosara or the US, or an inspiring, energizing event for your organization or group visit wavestowisdom.com.