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Shaun Tomson - Former World Surfing Champion, Leadership Expert, Environmental Activist

Shaun Tomson

Profile updated March 19, 2025
LocationTravels from Santa Barbara, CA, USA
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About Shaun Tomson

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The Code to Activate The Power of Purpose

Purpose:

Purpose is the energy that empowers organizations and individuals to thrive. It positively impacts the workplace too – recent research from EY indicates that purpose-led organizations perform 42% better than those that are simply in business. However, according to a recent Gallup poll, 85% of employees worldwide are not engaged or are actively disengaged in their job. Considering you spend around third of your life at work, this disengaged culture means that helping people to find a sense of purpose isn’t just vital for business, but also for people’s overall wellbeing.

With these insights in mind, Shaun Tomson shows how to find and define one’s purpose to powerfully re-engage individuals and activate a positive wave of commitment and performance throughout an organization.

Sometimes all you need to turn hope into action is to write your promises down and say them out loud—to make a promise to no one but yourself. Shaun’s presentation and workshop are about many things—faith, courage, creativity, determination—but above all they are about the promises we make to ourselves about the future.

The Dangers of Growing Up:

20,000 young people aged 15 – 24 die every year in the USA from preventable accidents, all caused by poor choices.

How We Can Help:

The Code is a simple exercise that empowers students to make positive choices in their everyday lives. Built around 12 promises that young people make to themselves, The Code gives them an effective tool to navigate the rough waters of adolescence and young adulthood by asking them to visualize their futures. The power of writing—the power of affirming “I Will”—helps students see beyond today and set a course for tomorrow.

Goal:

The ultimate goal of the Code is to create a wave of positive energy that keeps circling the globe, infusing everyone that comes across it with a powerful spark of hope for the future. It is designed to create a feeling of confidence in oneself, an attitude of strength that results in positive decision making to combat despair, risky behavior, and negative peer pressure.

2-Part Structure: Keynote & Workshop

1) Shaun’s powerful 60-minute keynote will inspire students to believe in themselves and to believe in the power that each and every one of us has to shape our lives through the power of “I Will.”

2) The CODE Workshop is a simple exercise, a self-empowerment program of 12 promises, a bond of hope between today and tomorrow, a simple tool to help create a positive attitude for positive decisions. Each student writes their Code within 30 minutes in a classroom setting with other students– 12 lines, each line beginning with “I will.” Each student reads their Code out loud to the other students and then picks one favorite line which is written on a whiteboard.

Results:

  • Motivates students to improve their performance
  • Emotionally engages students with each other
  • Activates positive change
  • Helps to identify personal goals to achieve success
  • Useful in uniting the class
  • Makes students feel accountable to reach their stated goals
  • Helps students realize they share common values
  • Creates a sense of shared purpose

Speaking videos

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Media coverage

World-champion surfer Shaun Tomson shares his inspiration in 'The ...

Shaun Tomson is a former World Surfing Champion who became a businessman and inspirational speaker. In "The Code," Tomson reveals his...

Books by Shaun Tomson

The Code: The Power of "I Will" - Book by Shaun Tomson

The Code: The Power of "I Will"” (2013)

How to convert the power of “I Will” into a life-changing mantra The twelve stories in this book, taken from Shaun Tomson’s own life experiences in and out of the surfing world, offer the simple message―I Will―as a model to face life’s challenges and help you achieve your goals. All you need is to be encouraged to find your voice and commit yourself to positive values. The stories resonate with positivity and hope for the future, and are infused with the belief that even in the darkest time, light shines ahead to show you the way forward.

Surfer's Code: 12 Simple Lessons for Riding Through Life - Book by Shaun Tomson

Surfer's Code: 12 Simple Lessons for Riding Through Life” (2011)

Powerful lessons for surfing, business, and life from world champion surfer Shaun Tomson. In Surfer’s Code, world champion surfer Shaun Tomson shares the life lessons he’s gathered from decades of surfing―from his boyhood adventures in South Africa to the world tour in the late 1970s to the business world today. For Tomson, surfing is a hobby, a sport, a religion, an obsession, and more―it is a way of life. Tomson’s life lessons have guided his career to the top of both professional competition and the world of business. These lessons are born of the collective wisdom of the surf community and are a powerful source of inspiration in the face of extraordinary challenges of everyday life. I will never turn my back on the ocean I will paddle around the impact zone I will take the drop with commitment I will never fight a rip tide I will watch out for other surfers There will always be another wave I will always ride into shore I will honor the sport of kings I will pass along my stroke I will catch a wave every day All surfers are connected by one ocean In a new epilogue, Tomson tells about light as a symbol of hope―through his very personal experiences of a wipeout, the loss of one precious son, and the arrival of another son. Shaun Tomson was 1977 World Champion on the International Professional Surfing Tour. A native of South Africa, he spent fourteen years on the World Tour (1976–1989). He has been featured in more than forty surf videos and starred in the surf movie In God’s Hands. He was listed as one of the twenty-five most influential surfers of the century (Surfer, 1999) and one of the sixteen greatest surfers of all time (Surfing, 2004). He is currently Chairman of the Advisory Board for the Surfrider Foundation and owns his own apparel company, Solitude, in Santa Barbara, California. Patrick Moser is the editor of Pacific Passages: An Anthology of Surf Writing (University of Hawai'i Press, 2008). He collaborated with Shaun Tomson on Surfer's Code: 12 Simple Lessons for Riding through Life and has written articles for The Surfer's Journal and Surfer. He currently teaches writing and French language at Drury University in Springfield, Missouri where he also offers a course on the history and culture of surfing.

Surfer's Code: 12 Simple Lessons for Riding Through Life - Book by Shaun Tomson

Surfer's Code: 12 Simple Lessons for Riding Through Life” (2006)

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