Transcript Disclaimer - May contain the occasional confusing, inaccurate, or unintentionally funny transcription moment. It’s all part of the show.

Brent: 00:01

You and I are sitting in Jacó, Costa Rica, right now. Woohoo! Yeah. We're doing our first field trip for the midlife circus. So hopefully first of many. First of many. Yeah. So I'm going to start out with a question like we normally do. When you land somewhere like this, and normal life is a few thousand miles away, what is the first thing that hits you?

Rob: 00:40

For uh this trip to Costa Rica, the first thing that hit me with Brent was the humidity getting off that airplane. We had some people, you know, Tara's hair is pretty straight. You know, Carolyn's hair is not so straight today. Uh the humidity hit me first. It's a lot different than Colorado. But it's an interesting experience. I think I've talked about this once on a previous episode. When I travel to a different country, my heart rate immediately goes down getting off the plane. A lot of people get really stressed out when they're traveling, especially international. They have to go through customs. For some reason, I immediately just mellow out and relax because I know I have very little control in a place like this. I have no control of what's going to happen through customs. I have no control what's going to happen throughout the time I'm here. And so I end up not getting anxiety around it. I get peace around it. Because I just relax and say, I'm going to have to go with the flow. A lot of stuff's going to happen. I'm just going to have to roll with everything. And it helps me just get through the whole trip when something goes wrong, something gets weird, something happens, something, you know, something unexpected that I may not like in normal life happens. Just kind of rolls off my back in a place like this. I just auto-regulate and I'm just down and a lot more low-key.

Brent: 01:53

I hear you. Because here, especially you're in a foreign country that English isn't the native language. People are operating at a different pace, different speed. We, when we all arrived, we arrived at nine or 10 at night. So that's a little bit different there. Somebody just picks us up, you know, and then we've got roughly an hour and a half ride to get to where we're staying. And you just have to settle in. But I'm with you. Humidity, one thing. I mean, I'm sweating bullets right now, which is not my normal course of action in the lovely state of Colorado. So sweating, sitting, sweating, sweating, sitting, talking.

Rob: 02:27

Yeah, yeah.

Brent: 02:29

So but it's really exciting. And just for our listeners, we're at a place called Surf Synergy, and you and I talked about doing this trip a year ago because I came here with my family to learn how to surf in June of last year. And we decided to say, well, what if we could actually put together a large group to come down here, rent out the entire place, which we actually have multiple families? It's an incredible environment. But before we dive into all the experiences of the week, can you just share with the group what

Brent: 03:00

Surf Synergy is?

Rob: 03:02

Oh man. So first off, if you haven't had a chance to look at us on video on Apple for our audience, you can actually click on the little link on Apple Podcast. You can actually see in video, we're recording outside. So first off, I'm going to apologize for any golf carts or cars that drive by, the random lizard that scurries by that Brent screams when it goes around him. We might get a sloth peeking over the shoulder of one of us here. So we're out, we are outside on one of the many decks that they have here at Surf Synergy. Surf Synergy, the way I would describe it, Brent, is like camp. It's like you mentioned it early on. It's a field trip. We're out on a field trip. We're out doing something that is a little bit different, unique. Surf Synergy is not just a surf lesson or a place you would go to take surf lessons. It is, they really done a good job creating a lifestyle around surfing and overall health, both physical and mental health. And so it's a, I think there's 15 rooms at this location. We're taking surfing lessons while we're here. And each one of us has a private uh coach that's giving us individual instruction. We get to watch video after we surf to actually get more instruction on what we're doing. And we've surfed, uh, we've been here for, I think we'll be here seven days. We will have surfed for five of the seven days we're down here. Um, but beyond surfing, I'm taking yoga classes for the first time in a long time. So every morning it starts off with yoga. We've done some breath work along the way. The meals have been fantastic. I'm trying to figure out if I'm losing or gaining weight while I'm doing all these physical activities and sweating. But we have it, but they're not just fantastic tasting food. It's really healthy, nourishing food for almost any diet, if you will. So it's a really all-encompassing retreat center in the western coast of Costa Rica. That's been just a ton of fun. It's incredible.

Brent: 04:57

And so in the background, you might hear some noise. They're actually getting ready for lunch. Yeah, I know.

Rob: 05:02

We've got to hurry up so we can get upstairs and get some lunch.

Brent: 05:04

Yeah. So that the setup here is also we're in the town of Jaco. It's about 90 minutes from San Jose, which is the capital of Costa Rica, uh, or one of the largest cities in Costa Rica. And we are about, I would say, five to ten minutes from the beach. Yep. But we're on a hillside, and so you've got this beautiful view of the beach in the distance or the ocean in the distance, but we're surrounded by a rainforest. So when Rob said, you know, you're going to, you know, you might see a sloth, you might see some monkeys, you're going to see a lot of lizards and iguanas, there's a few local cats, there's a couple dogs, um, and the macaws, uh, a mango just dropped from the tree over there. Yeah, I'm surprised we haven't been hit by a mango.

Rob: 05:47

There's so many mango trees.

Brent: 05:49

They're on property, and you're like, you hear them and they'll hit a building, you're like, what just happened?

Rob: 05:53

Yeah, like a major, like a little car wreck is going on if a mango hits one of the tin roofs.

Brent: 05:57

Yes. There's daily uh, like sometimes there's daily rainstorms, lightning, thunder, but it's all at about 85 degrees. Yeah. So you're never cold. You're never like when it rains, you're not cold

Brent: 06:10

and wet and miserable. You're just like, it's just raining. Yeah. They've got multiple yoga decks for different yoga. They've got massages, cold plunge, cold plunge, heat therapy, plunge, yeah. A traditional sauna that looks out to the rainforest. So it's a neat place. So we're really happy to be here. As I'd mentioned, there's uh I there's how many families? I think there's six or seven families here. Six families, probably. Yeah, six different families. Yeah, uh, a friend of mine from college, he brought his family. He's got five girls, and their ages, you know, mixed ages, they're all surfing, having a blast. Another family has four kids, um, mixed age from three up to probably 12.

Rob: 06:49

Yeah, the age range here, it's crazy. It's like three to 55, I think, is age spread. Yeah, and it's so much fun having three-year-olds running around swimming.

Brent: 06:58

We just planted trees with three-year-olds. We did. So they have this little exercise where you plant fruit trees for future generations. And so you and I were actually helping out the little one. Yeah. It was super fun on this hillside. So it's a neat place. And what we want to talk about on this episode, and really our desired kind of key takeaways, is how adventures in midlife come together

Brent: 07:20

and what do you learn from them? And what's the motivation behind them? And so we're going to tackle this using the five rings of the midlife circus. So we're going to talk about adventure, purpose, finance, uh, relationships, and health. And we're going to talk about our own experience, but also what we've observed. So, Rob, let's start out with adventure. So, for you individually, you knew you were coming to surf. One of the coolest things is you had surfing as part of your uh 50 things to learn in your 50s. So, surfing was one of them. Surfing is a part of the trip, but just for everybody's, you know, to ground everybody, you surf for about two and a half hours a day. So it's not like a full day of surfing, and you're exhausted after two and a half hours. Yeah, yeah. You're feeling time.

Brent: 08:05

Yeah. Yeah. So as part of the adventure ring, what did you take away? We're on our last day of surfing, is a little bit later. We're going to surf a little bit later today. What did you take away from it?

Rob: 08:15

So it's been interesting. And I had surfed before, I had taken a single lesson before, but that might be going back 10 or 12 years that I actually went surfing before. Surfing for five days in a row, Brent, has actually allowed me to progress a little bit. So it's beyond just I've been out in the ocean with a surfboard to now saying I can stand up. I can actually turn a board, I can actually ride a wave for an extended period of time. Sometimes I do fall, I do get rolled a little bit. I'm not quite on the outside yet, which I'm hoping today we might get on the outside a little bit, but I've been catching some green waves. It is part of the 50 things I want to learn. It is one of the list of things that I want to check off this summer, is saying I've learned to do this. I am, and I'll let you know this now, I am going to be able to check that box saying I've learned to surf. I'm not good, but I can actually go out and stand up on a wave and surf for a period of time. And it is something I do want to learn how to do more often is be able to surf on a vacation, go pick up a rental board, go out in the ocean and surf for a couple hours. But it's physically demanding. I mean, this is it's an interesting thing when I talk about vacations that are part adventure and part relaxation, because we're getting a little bit of both for us. It's uh adventure and relaxation. Uh, I mean, you go surfing, then you get a massage. Yeah. But the massage only helps you go surfing the next day because you're sore that next day again. I'm going to go home sore from this trip, which I like having vacations that I come back with having done some physical activity that makes me a little bit sore. So that's been part of the adventure. The other thing on this trip, and I mentioned this before, you talk about hot uh therapy, cold therapy, cold plunge. But the other big part of the adventure for me was the exercise we did a couple days ago, which was holding your breath. And holding your breath, you did some work up on a deck that overlooked the area, just learning how to regulate your breath, inflow and outflow. But then the adventure was we jumped in a pool to figure out how long we can hold our breath for. And actually was interesting, I increased my breath hold by a minute. Oh, wow. Just in the pool, from the pool to in the pool. I was able to do some more exercises and I got an extra minute out of holding my breath. And something I want to keep working on. Uh, keep working on how I can regulate my body a little bit better to be able to hold my breath a little bit longer.

Brent: 10:24

What's cool about that is how they teach the breath work, it's a little bit tied to surfing because you are, you know, you sometimes you tumble and you're underwater for a few seconds. But it was actually the instructor for the breath work talks about life. And when you get into situations that the anxiety or you just feel the elevated heart rate, how breathing can bring things down really quickly, gave us some techniques and it's different sessions. You were in a different group as me when you did the breathing in the water or holding your breath in the water. It's amazing to see that you were able to add a minute over just a course of a couple of days by just practicing a few of these techniques. But that's what's so fun here is you're getting life skills. And I love getting life skills in my midlife because it's things that I'll just keep practicing. I think what I observed just on from an adventure standpoint is how many people gravitated to different things this week that it was a venture for them. So you talked about cold plunge as an example. Not a lot of people here have done a cold plunge and they're like, and then I saw them doing it multiple times throughout the week. Or this morning there was an organized hike that went to this rainforest where there was an old hotel uh that was uh a couple passed away years ago. The kids said want to take it and they just let it go and they donated the land to the community, and now it's like a hike to it where you've got like monkeys and you're in a forest. And I think you guys saw I didn't go with you today on like yesterday, but there was a poison dark frog. We saw one of the poison dart frogs was really neat.

Rob: 11:56

Yes, and then the graffiti art up there is just fantastic.

Brent: 11:59

Oh, it's exceptional.

Rob: 12:00

Yeah, it's a weird feeling. You're walking around this abandoned hotel infrastructure, so just cement portion built cement portions of the building, but it's three levels you can walk through, and there's different types of art everywhere through this thing. It was really cool.

Brent: 12:13

It's like a bed and breakfast, so it's not like this massive Marriott, but it's like a small, quaint place in the hillside, and you get there, and it's kind of strange because you walk along this walkway and then you start to see a lot of wildlife, and yeah, and then you're overlooking parts of it, the beach to where we're surfing. So the adventure here is just phenomenal. And I think for me, what I took away from the adventure was since I surfed last year, this year I actually feel more confident on some of the waves that last year I was like, there's no way I'll do that. And you get an instructor that just keeps building you up throughout the week and keeps challenging and just teaching you the rights and the wrongs or how to get better, but it's never in a threatening way.

Rob: 12:55

No.

Brent: 12:56

And that video that they do, they do this video at the end of the day and they bring everybody into a media room and you watch and you laugh, and because there's a lot of fun tumbles. Oh, yeah. But what's amazing is every single person that has surfed has gotten exponentially better throughout the course of the week. Yeah. And I'm talking little, little ones.

Rob: 13:13

Five-year-old, I think, was the youngest surfer we had on in our group, and five-year-old, and the five-year-old took up better than I did. 55, yeah. The five-year-old is popping up on waves better than me.

Brent: 13:21

Yeah, so it's very family-oriented, they kind of meet you where you're at. Yeah. So,

Brent: 13:25

which leads us into the next section of the five rings is purpose. And one of the things that I find about purpose down here is getting a part of the Costa Rican culture. And I was talking to one of the leaders here that runs Surf Synergy uh this morning after breakfast, and she was saying that it's really interesting when Americans come here because they have such a fast-paced lifestyle and they're just always worried about move, move, move, move, what's next, what's next, what's next? And then she said, But by about like day two or three, they're just calmer. Yeah, they settle in. And they settle in and they relax and they enjoy it, and they also let uh the team here, which is exceptional, there's a full team, yeah, that do different things and they let the team drive the ship and they take care of you. And if you don't want to surf one day, they may figure out another activity. If you want to sit, there's two pools here, if you want to sit by the pool, sit by the pool. You know, and it's like if you want an extra massage, we'll take care of you. And so you get that. But one thing I think about purpose is I want to hone in on the surf instructors and how they're so good at what they do. And a lot of them, well, I think the youngest instructor we have is 17. Okay. And he's with one of my sons who's 17, so that surfer, he rips. Holy cow, what he was doing on the surfboard. And then they have surfers all the way up into their 50s, you know, instructors, but they're so community-oriented, they feel the water, they feel the waves, they talk a lot about the energy of the ocean and just respecting it. And I just their purpose is to really guide us through the journey of learning how to surf, but also learning how to settle in, yeah, enjoy the moment, be present. And sometimes take a break. You know, if you're struggling a little bit out there, you're having a tough time paddling out, take a break. It's okay. Let's go have some water, let's have some watermelon. And I really like that, but I think the purpose, what Costa Rica is known for, is living in the moment where the people are just so kind, so genuine, so thoughtful, uh happy. Yeah, every one of them is happy. And it's not just a hospitality happy, it doesn't feel shallow.

Rob: 15:51

You can feel the hospitality happies when you're out traveling and they're doing it because they have to, it's their job, they get paid for it. Yeah, the genuineness of I just want you to have a great experience, not a great vacation. I want you to have a great experience that I get to live every day. Yes, but I want you to have that type of experience yourself for you and your family.

Brent: 16:11

Yeah, and then staff has dinner meals with us. They'll sit with you, they'll talk to you about the culture, they'll talk about their families. And so I just think the purpose side was really fun to observe people in their element inviting us into their country and really teaching us a lifestyle that is not so fueled on more, more, and more. It's fueled on let's be present and let's be great at what we're doing right at this moment, which was beautiful.

Rob: 16:39

I think we had some people in our group, in the big group, that had some interesting experiences with either their massage therapist, the yoga instructor, the breathwork, where they had some personal breakthrough moments as well, where they found maybe a little bit more about themselves, who they are, who they're meant to be. I'm not going to share those stories because they're really personal for those people. But it's really neat when some of those people shared their stories of I kind of had this personal breakthrough today or in the last couple of days, or here's the one thing that somebody said, and they said it to me at that right moment when I needed to hear it. It was special. So a trip like this, Brent, I know a lot of our

Rob: 17:15

audience start thinking about. And when you go look it up, you're going to see when you look up Surf Synergy, there's a price tag associated to a trip like this. So I'm just going to share with people maybe some of the things that are part of this experience. Um, and then think about how to think about finance, which is our third ring of the circus that we're going to discuss today. How to maybe think about finance differently when it comes to trips like this. So Surf Synergy is all inclusive. So we have individual surf instructors. Everybody's personalized that stays with you the entire time. So I had my same surf instructor for the entire trip, which he can help me progress. He knew exactly what I did yesterday to be able to do today. We have a chef's and uh weight staff that's here for us, as well as security on property. Um, we have uh yoga instructors, or actually a couple of yoga instructors, a couple of massage therapists. A massage came in with this uh package or with everybody's package. You get a massage, or you get multiple massages if you want as well. Uh, we had some tours that people could go on. So a group of people went horseback riding. Uh, we did the standup paddle boarding, which was a lot of fun. Some people went on an ATV tour, a zipline tour, which I heard was really fun because it was pouring down rain during the zipline tour. Um, so all of those excursions are included in the overall price. All the therapies we talked about, the cold plunge, a great pool. So there's a lot of things that most people, when they think of vacation, look at hotel as a certain thing. You got to look at thinking of this as hotel food and experience all wrapped into one from a price tag. And so I know some people will say from a price standpoint, it may be cost prohibitive to do a trip like this. And I would just encourage people to think differently about finance and costs when it comes to doing something like this and a trip and a retreat like this for yourself and your family. And the first thing is at this point in our lives, we've earned the right to be able to do stuff like this and to be able to spend money on this. And so the guilt that can come times get associated with a trip like this, like, oh my gosh, I feel guilty doing something. You've earned the ability to go and do this at this point in your life, but think of it less of an expensive vacation and more as an investment. And coming from finance, it's interesting to talk about spending money on a trip to Costa Rica to learn how to surf as an investment. But the investment that you're making is in that experience. And I think about the family that's here, the big, broad family that's here on this trip. It's uh a sister, two sisters, and a brother that then brought their entire family with them. And it includes, I think, eight or nine cousins that don't get to hang out together all the time. And you're watching these cousins interact, and the cousins are three to 25 years old, but they're all hanging out and running around the pool and hanging out together. The stories that that family is going to be able to share every Christmas, the fun they're going to talk about. You know, when one kid ran into the other kid on the surfboards and they bounced around and you know, it's your fault that I fell over and things like that. Those stories are an investment in that family, in that family unit coming together and the memories that it's going to create for that family together. Us with our group of friends that are here for Tara and I, it's an investment in the two of us coming together to try and learn something new that we're not good at, which is a challenge to try and do something that we're not good at over and over. It's an investment in that experience to learn something about ourselves. We had to both check our competitive nature at the door because I wanted to be competitive, and then I realized I can't be competitive in this environment. Um, I tried to be competitive holding my breath until I started seeing stars, and I was the first person to pop up in the pool, and I was okay with that. Yeah, which for me is not normal. Normally, like, I got to meet everybody, I got to be faster than everybody. I got something out of the pool session because I was the worst in the pool, and I was actually really proud of what I did in the pool. So it was an investment in the overall experience. And so, as people think about a trip like this, my coaching is to think about the outcomes that are going to come from it and almost get past the price point, if you will. And when it comes to the price of a trip like this, one of the things that we talked with Surf Synergy about for our listeners and the experience that our listeners, I think, have earned in their career, have earned at this point in their life, Surf Synergy partnered with us to offer a 10% discount to any of our audience. As long as you reserve your trip before the end of August, it can hold it anytime that's available. So you can actually take the trip in November, December this year. If you book it before the end of August, Surf Synergy is going to give our audience a 10% discount on the overall price of that trip, which is pretty substantial. It's really neat. They're actually wanting to do this. We're not sponsored by Surf Synergy, we're not getting a kickback on any trip at all. This was just something that Surf Synergy has offered to us based on the conversations we've had with the owner and the leadership team down here on site. And it's really cool that they're doing that.

Brent: 22:06

So thank you, Surf Synergy, for putting that out there. Uh, we're so happy

Brent: 22:11

that that families might be able to take advantage of the experience we have, which leads us to our next ring, which is relationships. I'm all I'm emotional talking about relationships. You mentioned the one family group. They've got you know three separate families. It's three siblings that came together. I went to college with one of the siblings. I think they have, I think you said nine or eleven kids associated. So all the cousins are hard for them to all to get together because some of the cousins, I think the oldest is about 25, the youngest about three in that group.

Rob: 22:40

They live on together, they live on both coasts.

Brent: 22:42

They're both in their coasts, New York, South, and Texas and Florida. They're all over the country. Yeah, New York, Texas, Florida, California. Yeah. And so you think about everybody coming together and they're having the time of their life. I think of my family with my two boys. My youngest is going off to college next year. To have this moment with them has been great. My wife, Carolyn, one of her closest friends from college, their five kids are here. Same thing with ages, and trying to get everybody together is really challenging. So bringing them all together, our good friends from Eagle are here as well. But what's cool about it and the way Surf Synergy sets this up is you do all your meals together. It's communal. So you end up sitting with different people almost every meal. I saw you this morning after breakfast playing with the two three-year-olds. Yeah. Like hide and seek, and they were having the best time, Rob. Like they are having so much fun. And that's what happens here. Last night I was hanging out with some of the people that I didn't spend much time with, just talking with them after dinner, and it was really cool. And so those relationships, you're buying into those relationships and you're investing into them. And there's not a single person that will walk out of here going, gosh, that was just a waste of my time. Everybody has said something that has said this is a bit life-altering for me for different reasons. And some of it's like, I just got to spend time with my kids in a different setting. Some of the kids here, uh, and I can't call them kids because they're in their mid-20s. I haven't seen them in 10 years. We can call them kids. They're half our age, right? I have a cool story that one of the kids will say, She's in her early 20s. The very first day, and I've known her since she was born, very close family friends of ours. And she said, Why are you coming back? And I said, Because I get to spend time with you and everybody here. Like it's so special. And then later in the trip, she's like, I see why you say that. I've had more conversations with parents and watching their kids evolve, especially the ones in the 20s, because they're starting to see things through a different lens. So it's been great. I think the relationships has been fun, and just I love the fact that everybody is talking to everybody.

Rob: 24:50

Yeah, it's the whole group is mixed up. Every age is hanging out with each other, whether it be the eight-year-olds that I'm goofing off with in the band or watching videos with to the uh to the adults, and it's the and I've been on a couple of trips like this, Brent, where you travel, you're in a different location, it's a little bit out of the norm. You might be in a physical activity doing something. And yes, you're with your nuclear unit, your close unit, and that brings all of those individuals closer together, but you also get a chance to expand the family a little bit with everybody else that's part of the experience with you. So I think about the families that are here that I've never known before, that I would absolutely invite over to my house to stay the weekend or stay a couple of days at our house. That has happened on other trips for us before. And it's yet because you have to get out of what your normal environment is to put yourself in a place of maybe a little discomfort to realize we're all one big family at this location, all having similar but very different experiences. It's been a lot of fun. I keep asking your college buddy for old stories of you. Um, I haven't gotten any good ones yet. I'm going to come out last night. The last night he's been holding them back for us that I can actually slip in during the episodes. Yes. Maybe he'll leave us a voice message at some point on the uh on our podcast, one of the voice memos or something we'll get to play for you. But uh it's the relationship side is I the adventure's been fun, finding purpose has been fun, but truly I think the relationships that I'm watching develop between all the guests here is probably the most special.

Brent: 26:16

And just the fact that everybody's getting something out of it, no matter the age that you're in and you're where you're at in your life, and just I was nervous because you and I were the one who spearheaded this whole thing of bringing everybody together, and you feel that accountability of just you want everybody to have a good time, and then you get here and you see how quickly the staff takes over, yeah, and they just own all aspects of people's journey. And if somebody, you know, gets an injury or something happens to somebody, they're just on it and they take care of it. And if somebody wants something different to eat, they'll figure it out, you know. And the cool thing on relationships is one thing I'll notice because we're all guilty of it, is not a single person had a relationship with their phone this week.

Rob: 27:05

That's actually one of the neatest things about now. We have Wi-Fi service and we can't get onto our phones. Yeah, um, but talk about unplugging. Yes, there's a game room, but kids are downstairs playing ping pong. And yes, there's Wi-Fi, they can get on the phone, they can play video games, but most everybody was not on their phone all throughout the stream. They weren't sitting by the pool scrolling. No, they were sitting by the pool drinking out of a coconut because we have plenty of coconuts to crack and drink. Uh though coconut, I've never done that, by the way. Neither have I. So they want to order them now.

Brent: 27:34

Day one, they taught us how to crack open coconuts and drink the coconut water. And I probably have had about 30 coconuts.

Rob: 27:42

I may have had 10 every day when you've been here. They're cold too. It's one of the cold drinks we get. You crack open a coconut, and it's about this, it's about a cup and a half or two cups of liquid.

Brent: 27:52

Yeah, it tastes so good. It's fantastic. Yeah. One of the kids actually, one of the days, I think he had like 28 coconut water. One day. One day. Yeah. And they don't say anything. The staff's night, like, oh, we're run out. They'll just go get more. This property is in a rainforest, so it's beautiful, and there's plenty of coconuts to go around. By the way, the fresh fruit, oh yeah, all the fresh things. Yeah.

Rob: 28:13

Which brings us to the last topic, which is health.

Rob: 28:15

Yeah. Health. Um, so the uh you just talk about food. So the food is incredibly healthy and very nutrient-dense food here, and they can cater to any diet. So we have vegans that are with us where they have tofu and they have vegetables that have been sauteed or roasted for the vegan appetite. We have gluten-free options because there are a couple of celiac individuals on this trip. Uh, my wife and I actually list ourselves as pescatarians on this trip, and the fish has been fantastic. Uh, there's been chicken, and but it's all been very nutritious food. Yeah. Um, you're watching them make it sometimes because there's our dining room has like a the kitchen is attached to it. Uh, so they cater to every diet. The other part of the health thing has been just the yoga, the experiences. So while I am going to go home sore from this trip, I'm also going to go home. Having said, I did six days of yoga in a row, which is the longest streak of yoga I've never done in my life. Me too. And now, you know, unfortunately, I'm probably not going to be able to do yoga on before I fly home, on the day we fly home. Maybe I'll get up and just stretch a little bit and I can call it a yoga day. And I'm going to now see how many days I can get the streak to continue of doing this because I know I need this in my life going forward. I need to have some form of yoga practice, some more flexibility beyond the strength training and the cardio training. Probably even more important than both of those two is going to be for me just mobility and the ability to move my body, and yoga would help with that. But the health side beyond the yoga, um, there's a small gym we can go and use. The breath work was a full body exercise. And it's actually interesting, your toes start to tingle a little bit as part of this exercise. So you're getting all sorts of benefits beyond just the uh cardiovascular system helping you with uh learning how to breathe.

Brent: 30:01

And the one thing they teach you at the beginning is the contrast therapy. So yeah, you've got a cold plunge. For most people here, they've never done that, where you get into 50 degree water and you may do it for timing-wise, I think we were in the water for about two minutes, was it? About two minutes. So you go cold and then they have a sauna, and you go in the sauna for about eight minutes, and then you get back into the cold for another two minutes. Most people have never done that. It is incredibly the vitalization that you get out of it, it's incredible. Like I love it, and it's fun.

Rob: 30:36

Yeah, like you're it's hard, but it's fun. But everybody's cheering you on while you're doing it though, too. When you get in the cold plunge, it's uncomfortable. Yeah, we have a whole group of people cheering you on. So you it makes you want to stay in the water to actually help every you know, to be part of the club that's actually staying in the water for the two or three minutes.

Brent: 30:53

I noticed uh a lot of people actually did it. I only did it one time when they first did it, but a lot of them were doing it daily.

Rob: 30:59

Yes.

Brent: 30:59

Which was really cool. And the other thing that I thought was cool was to see uh some of the growth of the yoga classes, all ages in there. And one of my kids was really drawn to it, and he said, if I want to surf well this week, I know I need to, because everybody's sore, it's a lot of work. I know I need to uh make sure that I'm flexible and you stretch on the beach before surfing. So, like the health aspect of it is so phenomenal. And I hats off to the team here because they're thinking about every part of the process, and the food is so healthy, all the fruit, by the way. Yeah, it's all fresh. It's half of it's coming from the property.

Rob: 31:38

I know it's the mangoes.

Brent: 31:40

Yeah, yeah, the mangoes you have every day, the coconuts, and then they'll get berries from over here and down in their markets. And so you've got this, like it's so beautiful, like how they bring the health aspect. One thing that I will say that I've heard from a lot of the adult adults, the midlifers in the group is one person said to me uh yesterday, this is the best I've ever felt. Wow. Because, and they said, and it starts with the food I'm eating, yeah, because it's consistent, it's healthy. I'm not just scrambling to have a burger or I'm scrambling. Now, of course, it's feel like you have a private chef here, so that's the advantage of coming to a place like this, but it was the health, and then it transitioned quickly into the food, the lifestyle. This individual had never done yoga before, never once. Not tried it in their mid-50s, never tried it. I loved it. But I can't believe I'm not doing this every day. Yeah. So I find that like you bring that health together, and the challenge for all of us coming out of a trip like this is what maybe one thing you could take from it. What did you feel like? What's the healthy habit that you feel you want to bring back with you as you go back? You mentioned stretching and the mobility. Is that where you it's going to be yoga?

Rob: 32:53

I mean, we have a yoga studio. I can pull up YouTube videos on yogis that I can actually follow and do something more regularly. That's the big one I need to take back with me. Uh prevent future injury. That's the thing. It'll actually help me both perform better on long runs today, but it's going to help prevent future injury for me.

Brent: 33:10

You know, it's cool is I was talking to a few of the people that in our town that we live in the mountains is in the summertime, they have yoga in the park, yeah. Uh Sundays, I think it is, and they have yoga by the river as well. Uh Wednesdays or Thursdays in the afternoon. I was like, that's kind of a nice continuation of this because we're in an outdoor environment. But if we did it back at home, we're in the summer season that we might be able to do that. And we can hold each other accountable to being there.

Rob: 33:34

Yeah. And we can also Brent, you're not down here. What's going on? Are you on your way?

Brent: 33:38

Uh yoga classes start. Where are you? Where are you? And the other thing that you can do is you can laugh with each other. Yeah. That's a cool thing that happens with this journey down here is the amount of laughter that people have when somebody might hold their breath for 30 seconds and they're like, but then you see them do a minute and a half the next time. You're like, wow, that's incredible. The surfing is going to always be humbling. You think you got it, and then you're just getting tumbled and tumbled and tumbled. But that to me is and then watching people start to adapt just little habits. And the habit that I see coming out of this is it's the real it's being present.

Rob: 34:15

Yeah. I was going to say, I hope that you brought something up like this because you talked about it earlier that you don't see people in front of their phones or their tablets anywhere. And it's families, it's kids. Uh, there was a young woman that finished a book today that she started and finished in the last four days. She started and finished a book. I don't think I saw her with her phone once this entire trip. Yeah. Which it's allowed her to both read and do something maybe she doesn't do in normal life. But yeah, everyone is super present while they're here, which hopefully is the learning that most people go back and keep going somewhere. I know.

Brent: 34:48

Yeah. I mean, that's what so I as I recap kind of our conversation today, we're at Surf Synergy. Thanks for making this trip.

Brent: 34:55

I know you're excited about it. It's incredible. Um, I find that, you know, when I think about the five rings, you know, and we start out and we're talking about, you know, the first ring that we talked about today is the adventure side. It's certainly an adventure. It's there for you. But there were people this week that didn't surf at all. Right. And they still had a blast because they're not comfortable in water. Surf Synergy accommodates that.

Rob: 35:19

And if it's not Surf Synergy, there's other types of retreat centers that are like this all around the world that create a very similar experience. That if surfing's not your thing, it might be something else to go and do that's similar to getting you in an environment that might push your boundaries a little bit.

Brent: 35:32

Yeah, and then they but they accommodated, they did some hikes with some of those people. Um, they took them to town with some people that didn't want to surf, so they accommodated. So Surf Synergy is super special that way, but the adventure is waiting. So that was the first thing we talked about. Then we moved into purpose and just understanding how tied to present, but how tied the staff was, and they really taught us about slow it down. Like just take this moment to be amazing and live the best version of yourself right now. And that I tell you the ones that do so good at that as a yoga instructor. So they just bring you to a place, their voice is calming, they're going to take you through this journey, and you're just about to fall asleep, and then you move, and it's just special. Then you talked about finance. Like I like how you framed the finance because a lot of times we see a trip like this is like that's an expensive hotel or that's an expensive meals. But when you look at the whole thing and what did you get from the whole thing? You can't recreate a piecemeal. You can't. It's just really hard to do. And so that to me is, and then you know, thanks to Surf Synergy for you know offering that generous discount. And once again, you just have to go to surfsenergy.com and put in the discount code circus. And if it doesn't work, the code for some reason, you know, you need to be able to book your trip. You don't need to have your trip by the end of August, but you need to book it by the end of August. If something's happening, the systems, just message the show. Rob and I know the people down here and they'll be glad to help us um navigate any challenges that you have. We rented out the whole place, yeah. They do that too. Or if you've got 10, 12 people, you want half the place, they'll figure out how to keep you a bit isolated, maybe from some of the other guests. They're so good at that. So take advantage of that. So we talked about finance and then we moved into relationships. And I think that was our special part of this experience. It's you bought memories, you know, you bring people together to talk about what's going on in their world. And I didn't hear a whole lot of people talk about work this week either. No, I know you and I didn't. It was pretty cool. Yeah, you know, we just prepared ourselves for a podcast today, right? Yesterday. Yeah, we just talked about it and kind of scouted out. There's probably a hundred places we could have done this podcast, but we were like too close to the pool. We also knew that people would done some cameos, you know. We had friends showing up in the background. Now we got bugs flying around us a little bit, but yeah. Well, notice they're flying near you. Yeah, I'm the best thing.

Rob: 37:58

I'm the pig pen today.

Brent: 38:00

And then we ended the our discussion on health, Rob, and how we could take healthy habits. I think it's those healthy habits of what we eat. You know, this my sleep score, like my sleeping was really good last night, and just I was so exhausted.

Rob: 38:13

I was wondering when you were going to bring up sleep. Yes, I didn't. I mean I thought we'd make it through the whole episode. We wouldn't hear about your sleep.

Brent: 38:22

Nope. Oh, last night was a good one. We had some big thunderstorms a couple of nights that would just shake the whole jumped out of bed thinking someone was breaking into the building.

Rob: 38:31

Yeah, yeah.

Brent: 38:32

But last night, Rob, my sleep. So I had to just, I'm glad I brought it up just to humor you. But you know, but the health side of it, so many things. We learn new things. We learned a lot about breath. We learned about contrast therapy with cold and hot. Uh, we learned how to properly prepare ourselves to go surfing, how to prepare ourselves after surfing, um, being more comfortable in the water. So, to me, exceptionally amazing experience just all around. And I'm glad we were able to do it.

Rob: 39:01

It's been a lot of fun. So thanks for uh bringing this together, Brent, because I know you're a big part of the spearhead having been down here last year. Um, thanks to Surf Synergy again for that discount. And I meant forgot to mention this earlier. If you use the code Circus, that's how you can access it. Um, as we finish up our episode, we always try to provide gratitude. And the I have two forms of gratitude today. One is for the staff and the entire broad staff within Surf Synergy. I know it's multiple owners that we've been in contact with, and we have people that are on site, people that are off-site helping make sure that everything is happening. Uh, our surf instructors, the chefs, the security, the cleaning crew has just been given us an incredible experience. So thanks to Surf Synergy as an organization. Um, it's really made this a top-notch of that. It's incredible. Yeah. The second piece of gratitude I have is for all of the families that are down here. And I mentioned this before as Tara and I have traveled and we've been on trips like this and been to places like this before. I would say the families down here have made this trip really special. So the families I've been able to hang around before, families that I've never known before, that now feel part of my family a little bit more, that's been really special. So thank you to everybody that participated with us and joined us and jumped at the chance to come on a trip like this. And some people jumped in really quick and some people hemmed and hawed and finally jumped in. I'm just really happy that everybody did jump in because it's actually made that trip better for me. So thank you to the crew that's down here that are joining us and making this a memorable, memorable vacation. Yeah. Thank you, Rough.

Brent: 40:34

Thanks everybody, and we'll see you next time.

Lena: 40:37

That's it for this episode of Midlife Circus. Visit midlife circus.fm for show notes, transcripts, and all the latest happenings. And be sure to join us in the Midlife Circus community on Substack. Follow Midlife Circus on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss your next great act. Quick reminder the opinions and stories shared here are personal reflection, not professional advice. This show is for entertainment and inspiration only. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you under the big top next time. Midlife Circus is a Burning Matches Media production.