462: When You’ve Lost the Life You Thought You’d Have: Charles Webb’s 20 Year Journey Back to the Water

Kevin Lowe: But all of a sudden, that moment happened, that event, that single instant when a motorcycle accident would leave him paralyzed from his chest down.

Kevin Lowe: But his story isn't one of those where you hear the accident, and then we jump to today, and you hear about all the good stuff, the amazing stuff he's doing.

Kevin Lowe: Which, by the way, he's doing some incredible stuff.

Kevin Lowe: But where today's episode really takes you is all the years in between.

Kevin Lowe: The over two decades spent trying to find himself again.

Kevin Lowe: Going through hard times in life.

Kevin Lowe: Drugs and arrest. And ultimately, just feeling lost in life.

Kevin Lowe: Until all of a sudden, one phone call came through. One sentence was spoken.

Kevin Lowe: And it would change everything.

Kevin Lowe: That sentence, you can get back in the water.

Kevin Lowe: This sentence, this mindset, it wouldn't just change his life, it would ultimately change the world.

Kevin Lowe: Because today, Charles Webb is the founder of Stoked for Life Foundation, a foundation leading the way in adaptive sports, getting people back in the water.

Kevin Lowe: My friend, this is an interview that is going to inspire you.

Kevin Lowe: It's going to motivate you.

Kevin Lowe: But more than anything else, if you're somebody who you feel lost in the in-between, it's going to connect with you. It's going to be with you.

Kevin Lowe: And you're going to walk away understanding that you're not alone in feeling like that.

Kevin Lowe: My friend, in case you're new here, I am your host, Kevin Lowe, a guy on a mission to use my own story of becoming blind back when I was just 17 years old.

Kevin Lowe: So we're looking at almost 23 years ago, I awoke to find a world gone dark.

Kevin Lowe: My life changed forever. And yet my goal is to just use what I've gone through to be a help to you.

Kevin Lowe: And that's why I produce this very podcast each and every week.

Kevin Lowe: So, my friend, if you listen to today's episode, maybe you're new here, maybe it's the first time you've ever heard this podcast, and say you like it, well, then, my friend, please consider hitting the little follow button wherever you're listening to it at so that you get notified next week when a new episode drops.

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Kevin Lowe: Last little announcement before I turn it over to my interview with Charles Webb My friend, my custom music production agency called K-Lo Music Took the story you're about to hear And turned it into a custom song called Back in the Water I've attached it to the end of today's conversation So, if you want a little musical payoff Just because you were awesome enough to stay till the very end Well, just realize that you have that to look forward to.

Kevin Lowe: How in the world I can take a big conversation like this and shrink it down into just a single song.

Kevin Lowe: It's not always easy, but we did it. And I hope you enjoy both.

Kevin Lowe: So with that said, this is episode 462 of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Kevin Lowe: This is my interview with Charles Hennig.

Kevin Lowe: What's going on, my friend, and welcome back to Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Kevin Lowe: Today, I have the pleasure of being in the studio by Charles Webb.

Kevin Lowe: My man, Charles, welcome to the podcast.

Charles Webb: Thanks, Kevin. I appreciate it. We're super stoked to be here, so thank you for the invite.

Kevin Lowe: Absolutely, dude. Well, man, I'm excited to get to dive into your story, and where I honestly would love to begin is just kind of getting a better understanding of, you know, kind of like where you come from, where, I guess kind of specifically I'm interested to know is where surfing kind of entered the picture for you.

Kevin Lowe: I'm assuming that was in childhood, but would love for you to just kind of unpack that little journey, just where you come from, where you grew up, how surfing entered the scene for you.

Charles Webb: I'm from San Diego County, East County, specifically when I was young, which is more inland.

Charles Webb: But when you live in San Diego, regardless of whether you live in South County, East County, or North County, the ocean is a part of your existence.

Charles Webb: San Diego is pretty much a water-based community, whether it's in any of the numerous lakes that are in San Diego County or specifically the ocean.

Charles Webb: So as a child, I had a relationship with the ocean, with the water, not surfing wise, because East County more, you know, you went to the ocean only a few times. You're, you know, maybe 40 minutes away from the ocean, 30 minutes away.

Charles Webb: So it was a journey to get to the water. But when I was going into high school, we moved up to North County, which is a coastal community.

Charles Webb: And it's Oceanside and, you know, Carlsbad.

Charles Webb: Lacadia, Encinitas, there's Tri-City.

Charles Webb: There's some inland portions of North County, but a majority of North County is on the coast.

Charles Webb: Going into high school, we moved to North County and that's when I really developed a great relationship with the water and with the ocean and surfing and that was the culture.

Charles Webb: When I stepped out, we lived on the west side of the railroad tracks, which means you could hear the ocean from your house.

Charles Webb: So, you know, having that experience and being able to to just grab my boardwalk to the beach and in the in the 80s, surfing was very territorial and very localized.

Charles Webb: So it wasn't if you were from a different town and you tried to surf a local break in a different town, you needed to know somebody.

Charles Webb: Otherwise, there would be there would be words or exchanged or worse than that.

Charles Webb: You know, people fight a lot. So in the 80s, you really had to earn your spot in the lineup. You couldn't just paddle out and be like, Hey, I'm here. Like you go to breaks now and there's, you know, 80 people out on the break and nobody knows each other.

Charles Webb: It wasn't like that back in the day. It was, you know, so you kind of had to earn your way into the lineup. So there was a pecking order.

Charles Webb: And so, you know, I had to earn my stripes coming up. And so that was a whole process.

Charles Webb: And luckily, you know, the, the people around me that were influential, you know the Joey Brands and the the Barr Brothers and you know, just the guys you know the Scott Chandlers the guys when I opened up magazines I saw guys that I saw in my classroom and in school, so it was you know so that that's kind of where I grew up you know Breakout Magazine was a pretty popular magazine in the 80s and it was.

Charles Webb: You know originated from Carlsbad so so there was a lot of influences on me that were just local guys that were just ripping surfers that I got to surf with and walk the halls of my high school with.

Charles Webb: And, you know, sometimes I'd get roused by them, but most of them were pretty cool to me as a, as a young guy growing up, you know, I got hazed by everybody because that was kind of the way back then, but it wasn't in a terrible way. I saw a.

Charles Webb: Scenarios where kids were, you know, far worse off than me, but it also had to do with ability. If you couldn't surf, you know, they didn't see progress in your surfing and they didn't see ability to, to not waste a wave at the good local break when it was pumping.

Charles Webb: That was the main factor of like, okay, if they see progress from month to month, from year to year, and then all of a sudden you're ripping and, you know, doing big turns and, you know, so that was kind of it.

Charles Webb: Me and my brother kind of grew up around a lot of influential guys that could really surf. And we had the good fortune of having some of those guys kind of invest time in us and say, hey, come paddle out here, come paddle out here.

Charles Webb: When you paddle out with somebody that's well known, then you get less grief and you get a couple of waves.

Charles Webb: So that whole culture in the 80s was a big thing and was a big influence on me.

Charles Webb: That was really the revolution of surfing as far as board shaping, you know, went from long boards, In the 60s to the 70s to to the really aggressive pipeliners, you know, the big wave boards, the big single fins to the twin fin revolution and then to the thruster.

Charles Webb: And so being able to be a part of that and see that and see the guys that that made that happen, watching, you know, Mark Richards ripping on twin fins and giant surf and and then, you know, watching the, you know, the Gary Andersons and the thruster revolution come in and really change the game of surfing.

Charles Webb: And then the quads came into, you know, and they they still have their place in surfing.

Charles Webb: You know, a lot of people still use the quad fins and stuff like that.

Charles Webb: So being a part of that whole evolution and seeing the surfers that really made those boards and those, those shapes popular and, you know, having guys like Michael Barron and Gary Linden in this community and the Dick Brewers and the Rusty Prezendorfers kind of in this community in California and specifically in Carlsbad, having Mike Barron for offshore and having Gary Linden, those guys were super influential on the shapes and the kind of boards that I rode and, what I had access to.

Charles Webb: Normally, you can only surf on what you have access to.

Charles Webb: At that time, in the 80s, it was a lot different than it is now.

Charles Webb: There was no soft tops and you couldn't go to Target and buy a surf.

Charles Webb: You had to actually go to a mom and pop surf shop and get one shaped.

Charles Webb: And hopefully that shaper saw you surf a little bit, maybe, and saw you growing up as a Grom and would do something really nice for you.

Charles Webb: I got lucky and had guys like Paul Barr and, you know, Augie Costantino and Fleet Hamiltons and these guys that surfed for big name shapers.

Charles Webb: And when they didn't, a board didn't work out for them, you know, maybe I got that board at a discounted price and I got to surf on a really ripping, shredding board, that, you know, maybe at the time I probably had no business surfing on, but it really helped It evolved my surfing.

Charles Webb: You know, it helped me as a surfer be able to surf at a higher level, you know, so.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Yeah. That's very cool. And I mean, I can't help but think like, how, how freaking cool is it that like, you just kind of, you know, pop into this scene, not knowing I'm sure, until later on looking back of like, oh my gosh, like, the people I'm immediately surrounded with could be such influential, you know, big people in the surfing scene.

Kevin Lowe: I mean, you just kind of, like, appreciate the way life works like that,

Charles Webb: You know? You know, it was definitely a gift from, you know, for me, a gift from God, man.

Charles Webb: A lot of things that happened in my life are just a blessing.

Charles Webb: And so being able to see guys like Sonny Miller, who was a great filmmaker back in the day, and unfortunately he's no longer with us, but to be able to see Sonny walking out in the surf at my local break and filming guys that you know, that we knew and then seeing them at a local house party where it was like hey he's, kicking back and rapping and and everybody's kind of talking about the day surf and you know i didn't know any better, so it didn't hit me like oh my god you know sonny miller he was like one of

Charles Webb: the guys you know it didn't hit me like oh there's paul bar you know there's scott chandler you know those guys were guys that went to my high school and would, you know, would cut me off at the local break when I was surfing, you know, and they were just dudes that I surfed with.

Charles Webb: So I didn't really like know any better as far as, you know, what was out there was, you know, I, you know, it was, I was very fortunate that we went from total inland to just like right into the Mecca of like North County, California surfing.

Charles Webb: So it was, you know, it was, it was pretty cool.

Charles Webb: Still doesn't go unaccounted on me, you know, and unappreciated that that's where we ended up.

Kevin Lowe: Absolutely. Now, was Bacton, was it like a big battle even between like a whole like East Coast versus West Coast surfing and surfers and competitions?

Charles Webb: I wouldn't say any of that. I mean, we had a huge migration of Floridians that came to North County and, you know, had a huge influx of Brazilians that came at a certain time.

Charles Webb: And surfing surfing you know even though it is localized if you could surf, you know people recognize that you could surf and you know you would get your spot you know i wouldn't say that there's there was more of a local town rivalry than anything you know yeah.

Charles Webb: If you were from oceanside and you were trying to surf warm water jetties if you didn't know somebody and you're you know there yeah but it was back in the day you know and vice versa if you tried to surf ocean side harbor and you didn't know somebody it was, good luck man you were going to catch a lot of waves so but that's how it was anywhere pretty much you know we were fortunate back then that there was probably, one third of the population of surfing that there is now you know when you paddle

Charles Webb: out at a local break you know maybe there was 10 guys out now there's probably 40 or 50 people out at that break, you know yeah you knew every one of those 10 guys and there was a pecking order of like, okay, these three guys are the elders, these three guys are the mediums, and these three guys are what's left.

Charles Webb: So, you know, now it's just...

Charles Webb: You know, just the upper echelon of the guys and then every other person that wants to take off, you know, and doesn't have any surf etiquette of like, that's one thing that's really went out the window is just etiquette of surfing.

Charles Webb: You know, there's not a lot of it when you go out to big surf breaks and, you know, if you go to Waikiki and, you know, you surf canoes, there's no etiquette.

Charles Webb: It's just every man for himself, but, you know, you can still go to local breaks and, you know, if you surf Malibu too, you know, there's, there's an upper echelon of people that surf that break, but at the same time, there's also, no etiquette, you know, there's just people that don't know what to do and they're not in the right place and they don't know where to be.

Charles Webb: And, and so that's kind of like how it is, you know?

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Incredible. Well, so.

Kevin Lowe: For you and your kind of personal story, so you get moved to this new area, high school age, you get involved in surfing.

Kevin Lowe: Does surfing become something, I mean, obviously it does, just listening to you talk, but I mean, become a big part of your teenage years?

Charles Webb: Yeah, I mean, it was everything. If there was a swell, we didn't go to school. Yeah.

Charles Webb: Yeah. You know, yeah, it became everything and it became my life and it became my brother's life. You know, my brother's a big part of what we do and he's been influential my whole life. But he got hired to do to be the assistant contest coordinator for the Bud Surf Tour with Ian Carnes.

Charles Webb: And Ian Carnes is a you know I think 1977 or 76 champ, uh somewhere in there 78 I'm not exactly sure what year he won but he did win a world championship he was very influential in creating what is now the WSL the ASP the Association of Surfing Professionals Ian Carnes was directly responsible for creating that the ASP World Tour became the mainstream, of professional surfing and then that mutated into the WSL, what is now the WSL.

Charles Webb: So yeah, firsthand, you know, the BudSurf tour really helped mutate, surfing into a bigger payday you know the the bud surf tour was sponsored obviously by hannheiser bush and budweiser so the money there was money behind it so surfers got big checks and that kind of catapulted the asp as well into getting bigger sponsorships and and surfers getting bigger paychecks until finally you had you know your first millionaire surfer and then you got guys like kelly slater and that are you know soon to be billionaires i guess you know so yeah the industry

Charles Webb: really blossomed and you know back in the day the 70s and the 80s surfers were bums you know they.

Charles Webb: Could make a living at surfing you know it was just like hey it was like you're a surfer but then it became very respectable and became surfing is a is a really arduous sport that you have to have, can you be out of shape and go surfing sure you can surf casually and you can surf longboard you can surf small waves you can surf big waves but if you're going to surf competitively at any level, there's a grind to it.

Charles Webb: And you have to be somewhat prepared and you have to have some knowledge.

Charles Webb: You know, the more surfing knowledge that you have that can kind of get you by as far as, you know, maybe you're not in great physical shape, but you have this super immense knowledge of the ocean and where to be, where not to be and how to, you know, just read the ocean that, if you can do that, it's a big advantage over people that maybe don't have that ability, to really read what's happening in the water.

Charles Webb: So, yeah, it's, you know, it's all relative.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. So for you, coming up to the point of like your accident, which I believe was in 86, kind of where were you at in life at that point?

Kevin Lowe: Like what age were you? What was the kind of your trajectory dreams that you had had at that point?

Charles Webb: Yeah, I was out of the house. I was living on my own.

Charles Webb: I was working a full-time job. I was working construction, doing piece work.

Charles Webb: I had been doing construction work for about four years.

Charles Webb: So when I was 15, I ditched school and one of my buddies picked me up and put me to work. And, you know, school, I didn't graduate. You know, I went to school part time and I worked.

Charles Webb: So by the time I was 19, I was on my own. You know, me, another guy, we're just doing piecework, making great money.

Charles Webb: Yeah, I was living on my own and surfing and just grinding out a life.

Charles Webb: And that's everyday life.

Charles Webb: I was just living and had an errand to run on a motorcycle, on my roommate's motorcycle. And literally, I don't know, maybe a mile away from our house, I hit a patch of dirt and slid out. The bike washed out.

Charles Webb: And it was around an S-turn going down a hill.

Charles Webb: And yeah, I slid into oncoming traffic and the car slid underneath the car.

Charles Webb: And yeah, we've got a 67 Buick Skylark. I got pinned underneath it.

Charles Webb: The back tire was on my back.

Charles Webb: And it didn't, you know, it didn't break my back. It gave me a hairline fracture and pinched my spinal cord.

Charles Webb: It didn't tear my spinal cord. I'm an incomplete paraplegic at the T78 level.

Charles Webb: It was life changing to say the least. You know, it was being 19 and thinking that possibly still surfing was, you know, professional surfing was still a dream of mine.

Charles Webb: You know, my brother's on the Bud Surf Tour, of course. I'm like, yeah, you know, I can I can be still become a professional surfer.

Charles Webb: And so that was kind of my dream was, you know, work, make enough money to maybe enter a couple of contests and get some points. And so that was kind of my goal.

Charles Webb: But, you know, at 19, that that accident happens and it changes everything.

Charles Webb: And so that that's kind of how it happened. And, you know, the impact that it had was huge.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Wow. So, you know, I can't help but think every day in life is ordinary until something happens that makes it memorable.

Kevin Lowe: For you, for that day of your accident, I mean, you kind of gave me a rundown of it, but I mean...

Kevin Lowe: When you talk about the accident itself and the injury you sustained, for somebody like me who doesn't have a clue from a T7 to a T14, like, what exactly happened?

Kevin Lowe: I mean, you slid, you went under a car, but what exactly went down that caused you to become, as you call it, an incomplete paraplegic?

Charles Webb: Yeah, having the weight of a, you know, 67 Buick Skylark American made steel, car, you know, tire across my back, it, it cracked my spine.

Charles Webb: So it didn't break it, but it hairline fractured it.

Charles Webb: And the weight of that and a few bone spurs, you know, or chips of bone went into my went into my spinal column, and pinched my spinal cord and bruised it.

Charles Webb: So, you know, the doctor couldn't tell me that I was never going to walk again.

Charles Webb: You know, in fact, he walked in the room and said, look, I can't tell you you're never going to walk again because your spinal cord's not severed.

Charles Webb: It's not torn. It's bruised and it's pinched.

Charles Webb: So that could change at any time. And, you know, here we are 40 years later.

Charles Webb: I celebrated 40 years in February on February 6th.

Charles Webb: And look, I'm not one of those guys that's incredibly traumatized by my accident.

Charles Webb: Or sometimes you see people that have an accident and they go by their accident site and it's very traumatic for them.

Charles Webb: And, you know, I understand that to a certain extent, but I literally had to drive the same exact piece of road that I crashed on for seven years to drive to my job.

Charles Webb: So every day to go to work, I'd drive across my accident site, and then coming home, I'd drive across it again.

Charles Webb: You know, so I have, realistically, I didn't have time to be traumatized by accident.

Charles Webb: This is my accident site. It is what it is, a piece of road that wasn't as fortunate.

Charles Webb: Once I crashed and there was a time where obviously surfing was not an option because in 1986, there was no life rules on or stoked for life or access for High Fives Foundation.

Charles Webb: There was none of it. You know, so being in the hospital for as long as I was, I was in the hospital for 11 months, almost. Wow.

Charles Webb: Wow. It wasn't, you know, I meet people with the same injury that I have right now.

Charles Webb: And, and literally they're from accident surgery to rehab.

Charles Webb: They're in the hospital less than a month and then they're at home.

Charles Webb: And then, so it's, the technology is vastly different than it, than it was back then.

Charles Webb: And so it took me a long time to get out of the hospital. And then when I was, got out of the hospital, I was still in a kydex jacket for six months and still had a process to go through to even learn like what this whole new existence was about.

Charles Webb: And, you know, my mom says, you know, your friends just accepted you and you just went back to your life.

Charles Webb: And look, you know, that's when I was working carpentry. I didn't know anything about computers. I didn't know anything about anything else other than building with my hands. And I couldn't do that anymore.

Charles Webb: At the level that I was doing it. Now, could I have made a better decision and went to school and been a contractor or something like that with the knowledge I had?

Charles Webb: The streets were a little closer to me than school.

Charles Webb: You know, so at that point, when I kind of got my bearing of being in a chair, and life at that time here in North County, San Diego, it was very fast moving and it was a lot of drugs and it was a lot of.

Charles Webb: So, you know, I made a lot of bad decisions as far as what I wanted to do and where I where I put myself and where I ended up for a lot of years. Yeah.

Kevin Lowe: So with your accent. So just in like basic terms, so did you become paralyzed, just like waist down?

Charles Webb: It's like mid chest.

Kevin Lowe: Mid chest. Okay.

Charles Webb: Yeah. It's like mid chest.

Kevin Lowe: Okay.

Charles Webb: That's a little bit of a higher level injury.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. So I have two questions that I want to ask you is first, how is it for you mindset wise to even begin the process of moving on with life, given the fact that you have a doctor who says, you know, can't guarantee that you won't walk again.

Kevin Lowe: So to me, in that situation, I say, okay, so that means there's a possibility that I do walk again.

Kevin Lowe: So how do I then proceed to move on with life without just being stuck in this thing of, well, I'm just going to wait till I'm all better.

Charles Webb: So there was a process in the hospital when, you know, I really thought that I was going to walk.

Charles Webb: Yeah. So that, you know, as a teenage kid, I'm like, as soon as they put me in a different position and I get out of this, this bed and I'm able to sit up and there was things that I had to learn how to do.

Charles Webb: I had to learn how to sit up again. It took months and, you know, and then they were like, Hey, we're going to sit you up.

Charles Webb: And then after that, we're going to put you in a standing machine and we're going to stand you up.

Charles Webb: And so I thought, well, geez, man, as soon as they stand me up, I'm going to walk. You know, realistically, that's what I thought.

Charles Webb: And knowing what I know now, it's like only 1% of spinal cord injury patients make a full recovery.

Charles Webb: So that's a super small percentage. So of course, I didn't know that then.

Charles Webb: And, you know, I attacked my rehab pretty, pretty arduously i lifted a lot of weights and i did i did what i could for sure to try to strengthen myself and be able to try to try to walk again, but at the same time it was just you know when they put me in the walk in the standing machine that's when i just i just knew i just said okay well i'm obviously i'm not going to walk again so.

Charles Webb: Reality hit me as a teenage kid and i just said you know i'm not going to, I'm not going to walk. So I, I really was like, I need to get my, my stuff together and, and figure this out, like figure out how to live in this chair because that's what's going to happen. I'm not, I'm not walking out of this.

Charles Webb: I'm going to have to live in this thing. So, and you know, there was a time when, you know, I probably scared the crap out of my mom pretty bad because, I was literally sitting in my room on the floor and I had taken apart the wheelchair completely, every piece of it, and had it all laid out on the floor and just taking it apart and my mom walked in and um kind of freaked out and she started crying like what's the matter with you what are you doing you know and i said well, um if i have to live in this thing i'm gonna learn how to take it apart and

Charles Webb: i'm gonna learn how to you know and that's funny because i did that a couple times i took the chair apart but now my chairs are in such bad shape i don't take them apart.

Charles Webb: And i never get the crap beat out of them all the time so it's kind of ironic that you know, she told me my mom told me at that day you know you're scaring me you're scared man don't be scared i'm just and and i remember kind of freaking out that day just going you know what this, basically f this chair you know like climbed out of it and i tipped it over and i just said you know what i'm gonna take you apart and i'm gonna gut you right now, yeah that was kind of my mindset was just like, all right, how do you work?

Charles Webb: You know, you kind of know how I work. How do you work?

Charles Webb: So it was just kind of a weird process for me as far as it took me a really long time to find my place, you know, and I don't mean like.

Charles Webb: In life i found a purpose working in a corporate world and you know i became, i would even today in the corporate world i could you know hold my own at a certain point you know because i was forced to say you know okay at some point i'm gonna have to survive and i have to get a job because the government at that time definitely was not giving me enough to live in california i think they were giving me like four hundred dollars a month or something like that and it I was living with my mom, but at that time, I'm older, I'm getting into my 20s.

Charles Webb: I wanted to live on my own. I wanted to find out what life was about.

Charles Webb: So I went and got a job, you know, got a corporate job and figured that out and kind of moved up the corporate ladder.

Charles Webb: But still, in that time, there was still a long process of making a lot of bad decisions, surrounding myself with the wrong people still at that point.

Charles Webb: And even though I was doing good in my life and I was making money and I was, you know, had my own place and was driving my own car and doing stuff, you know, still making really bad decisions and surrounding myself with wrong people and, you know, putting myself at risk.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. I'm curious, kind of looking back, having this accident happen back in the 80s.

Kevin Lowe: How have you seen, and I'm curious to know if it's been for the better, the worse, the same, as far as just general, not even accessibility, but more so even just maybe acceptance by people for being disabled.

Kevin Lowe: How has that kind of evolution been in your eyes?

Charles Webb: Yeah, it's funny. because, I mean, even though living in California and I got injured in 86 and that was right around the time that a lot of the disability laws were taking place and people were fighting for that kind of thing at that point.

Charles Webb: And I became the beneficiary of that. You know what I mean? For all the work.

Charles Webb: That people put before me, the disabled community that were fighting for accessibility in the streets and in the stores and in the restaurants.

Charles Webb: And, you know, there was a long time in the 80s in the probably in the 90s where in the community you know i had to i had to sue people to get access, yeah restaurants and bars and places that you know i would let's say we're going to go out with the family you know and there's 10 of us in 1991 we go to this bar and not a bar we went to a restaurant.

Charles Webb: A very nice restaurant, and, you know, the bill ends up being, I don't know, 500 bucks or something like that.

Charles Webb: And I go to use the bathroom, and the bathroom door's too small.

Charles Webb: So we're giving this establishment a whole family experience and letting them give us an experience, but yet I still got to go pee in the parking lot.

Charles Webb: So, you know, there was a lot of that in the 80s and, you know, in the early 90s.

Charles Webb: But now the accessibility is great. And, you know, the acceptance back then wasn't wasn't so much that there wasn't any acceptance. You know, it was seeing a kid like me.

Charles Webb: Let's say I was around 22 or 23 when I really started thriving and going out in the community and, you know, wheeling 20 miles a day and doing different stuff on the beach and exercising and just seeing a kid out, grinding on the beach, wheeling up the biggest hills he could find, you know, vertical hills.

Charles Webb: And just people were like tripping on me. they would see me and be like, what the heck?

Charles Webb: So, you know, there was a rebellious part of me that was like.

Charles Webb: What are you looking at? You know.

Charles Webb: I don't know how many times in my twenties I said that to people like, what are you looking at?

Charles Webb: Cause they were just like, Whoa, what is this? You know, it's a, it's a disabled kid that's grinding.

Charles Webb: Like he's, and they weren't looking at me like anything other than, you know, probably like, wow, look at this guy living life, you know, because it wasn't so much in view back then, you know? Yeah.

Charles Webb: But now you see, you know, now there's a large...

Charles Webb: You know, disabled community, wherever you go. And there's people that disabled sports and, you know, adaptive sports everywhere and, the Paralympics and just so many things that, that we have access to now, you know, there's so many foundations that will take you surfing or take you skiing or, you, know, take your fishing or doing things that, learning how to fish in a wheelchair in the early nineties was not an easy thing to do, you know, but having people that were very versed in sports fishing and stuff

Charles Webb: just go you know what we're going to take you out we're going to put you on the back of the boat and you're going to catch fish you know i was lucky that i had friends that i grew up with that they didn't see the disability they knew me before, so they were like look even though your your.

Charles Webb: Disability is there your physical body changes but your soul doesn't like it your soul only changes if you become angry and you let it change, You know, realistically, if you still love life and you still are welcome to new experiences and energy and, you know, life is just a whole bunch of energy, man.

Charles Webb: And if you got negative energy the whole time and that's what you're going to do, then that's what you that's what you'll be.

Charles Webb: You know, you surround yourself with negative energy. That's what's going to happen to you.

Charles Webb: You know, and I learned this firsthand, you know, by surrounding myself with the wrong people and going through experiences and ending up in jail in a wheelchair.

Charles Webb: It's like there's a whole bunch of things that happened in my life.

Charles Webb: And seeing people that have gone through the same, like not the same exact thing as me, but the same close to the same experience as me, and making way different choices and ending up in such different places in such more positive way really is like, okay, there's a lot to be said about just, you know, surrounding yourself with the good people and positive energy and, and different things like that.

Charles Webb: It's, it's, it's real, you know, and some people might be like, Oh, you sound like a hippie or whatever, you know what I mean?

Charles Webb: But living, having the experience of saying, you know what, I made a lot of bad decisions and it put me in very bad compromising positions and, and then making different decisions and surrounding yourself with different people, like-mindedness of, of just wanting to make positive change and impact and just different stuff like that it's you know experiencing it and seeing it and living it i can attest to it and go yeah it's it's a real deal it's a real thing and it really makes a difference so.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah you know man i listening to you talk you know i was just hit by this kind of obvious thing of your story but but at the same point it kind of hit me was this simple fact of, you know, you kind of mentioned this highlight reel, or maybe we'll call it a low light reel, mentioning prison and all these kind of aspects of life.

Kevin Lowe: And I couldn't help but think, you know, despite the fact that you're in a wheelchair, you're actually still just this young person.

Kevin Lowe: Kid in his 20s trying to trying to do life you know just just trying to figure out life still literally you you've got your mind you're still the same person your legs just don't work you know and and you're just trying to figure stuff out and yeah it's like yeah why wouldn't you get involved in stupid stuff you know it's like you you're just trying to to do what you can and in that age we make a lot of stupid decisions you know

Charles Webb: And you know i didn't go to prison i did go to county jail but i you know and i avoided prison very luckily like, i was facing good prison time but i luckily avoided that and but you are who you surround yourself with man and, if you want more you have to go out and, make more you know and so in that kind of that whole process of like all right i went to jail and it had a huge impact on me and i and and that's when i realized look man i can't be a gangster in a wheelchair, like even though i lived my life like that for a long time and i carried guns

Charles Webb: and just did stupid stuff that was a point in my life where i said you know what I can't be a gangster in a wheelchair, man.

Charles Webb: I have to be, I have to live a normal life. You know, sitting in jail in a wheelchair, was really sombering moment of you need to make some really life changes.

Charles Webb: And, and I did, you know, when I got out, I just, I told myself like I have to, there's some things I have to do in my life and I have to, you know, have conviction in my decisions and what I do.

Charles Webb: And I have to have more character and more belief in myself and things that I can do in a positive way.

Charles Webb: At that point in my life, I just kind of stopped with anything that I thought extracurricular activity that could make me extra money.

Charles Webb: And I just said, you know what, if I'm going to make money, I just kind of got to go grind.

Charles Webb: Really put my nose down in the corporate world and just started working and just trying to make my own way, honestly, and without any side bars of, you know, oh, I can get a quick come up of a couple grand here if I do that.

Charles Webb: And then I had to surround myself with different people. And that's when I told a lot of people in my life, like, hey, you're a threat to everything I'm trying to work for. And if you can't help yourself, then I can't help you.

Charles Webb: And I'm at the survival mode right now for myself.

Charles Webb: So I have to really take care of me. And if you're not in that same realm, and you're still doing the things you're doing, then I can't do it with you no more, you know, and I really had to distance myself from some people in my life that I still love.

Charles Webb: And, you know, all these years later, we're reconnected, because of course, they had to make different decisions in their life, too.

Charles Webb: You know, it's either prison or the grave, you know, and that's, you know, there's a lot of my friends that aren't with us anymore.

Charles Webb: And there's some of my friends are in prison for the rest of their lives.

Charles Webb: So, you know, I've seen it so close up. I've lived it. I've seen it happen to people around me.

Charles Webb: And you can continue to make the same decisions if you want, you know, which I know a lot of people have. And I just chose not to, you know, I value.

Charles Webb: The people in my life, I value my life and my self-worth and, and the people that doing those things affects more than just yourself.

Charles Webb: So when I realized, you know, a, my accident, you know, really affected my family, seeing my aunt was a strong woman and I've never saw her cry a day in her life coming out of the ICU or whatever I was in, you know, surgery and seeing my aunt crying, bawling her eyes out you know uh, this here's this strong strong woman that i've never seen shed a tear and here she is just bawling like a baby and you know my first question was i you know what's why is auntie crying you know why is she crying i didn't you

Charles Webb: know at that point i'm just literally drugged up coming out of surgery and and you know i don't know what's going on so making those decisions to say you know what i'm gonna live a better life i'm gonna put myself in better positions.

Charles Webb: And at the beginning of that was, was really great. You know, I was living a good life and I, you know, surrounded myself with a lot better people.

Charles Webb: And, and then getting out of my car one day, I snapped the upper bicep in my left or my right arm, the right upper bicep, because I got injured.

Charles Webb: In the accident, I had gotten two rotator cuff tears because of the tire across my back. It was resting on my shoulders as well.

Charles Webb: So I had two rotator cuff tears, two on my left shoulder and one on my right.

Charles Webb: They were moderate tears and they didn't require surgery, but they were there and I needed to do stuff about it.

Charles Webb: But through the years of kind of living an independent life, I started to tear that bicep. And one day getting in my car, it came completely detached.

Charles Webb: So through that process of doing that at that time, my brother met a guy named Kavika Watt that was on the beach and he was touting a, prototype paddleboard that he had made that one of our friends had shaped a guy that I mentioned a couple of times, Scott Chandler.

Charles Webb: He's a big wave surfer in our community and and a really pretty good shaper and so he had helped this guy kind of, shape this paddleboard without riggers on it and that you could put a wheelchair on top of it, and that people could do like actual paddleboarding on the water when he met my brother on the beach they didn't know each other they just he was talking about it and said hey i can't find anybody, in a wheelchair that's kind of crazy enough to ride this thing and my brother

Charles Webb: said You know, I think I got, I think I have somebody that might be going up to ride that way.

Charles Webb: You know, at this time, I'm very injured. I'm, you know, on Percocets and I'm laying in bed.

Charles Webb: You know, it's probably two, maybe a week and a half, two weeks after I tore my right bicep.

Charles Webb: And my brother calls me really early in the morning on a Sunday, probably like 6 a.m. These guys had been talking for an hour on the beach, old guys watching the surf at 5 a.m., you know.

Charles Webb: Said, Hey man, you got to get up and you got to meet this guy.

Charles Webb: And I was just like, bro, somebody like I was, somebody better be dead.

Charles Webb: You're calling me right now. I couldn't sleep for a week.

Charles Webb: You know, I was just like in miserable pain. And I, you know, I've never been a person that liked painkillers.

Charles Webb: So being on painkillers was really something that was not that I wanted to be.

Charles Webb: I didn't want to be in that position where I was on pharmaceutical drugs.

Charles Webb: So, so yeah, I was in a really bad spot and I just kind of barked at him a little bit, but he got his message across like, Hey, this guy's got this thing and you can get on the water.

Charles Webb: And I said, I'll call you back later. And I hung up. But that, that phrase that he said was ringing in my head when I tried to go back to sleep, basically just the phrase was, you could get back in the water.

Charles Webb: You could get back in the water.

Charles Webb: And that's all I heard when I laid down and I said, shit, I can get back in the water.

Charles Webb: So I just, 10 minutes later, I called my brother back and said, what do I need to do? And what do I need to meet this guy?

Charles Webb: And so I met him, Kavika, I don't know, about three days later and saw the board.

Charles Webb: And that couple of days after that, I was paddling.

Charles Webb: And so paddled at Carlsbad Lagoon for a little bit.

Charles Webb: And I mean, it took literally just like four weeks before it helped me get my strength back in my shoulder.

Charles Webb: Like it had an immediate impact on me and it had an immediate impact on my condition on my shoulder.

Kevin Lowe: How long was this after your initial accident

Charles Webb: When you became paralyzed It was 10 years bro It was literally 19 It was 2013 when all this was taking place, So this was a lot of years later. I was out of the water for many, many years.

Charles Webb: You know, I did sports fishing, so I stayed connected with the ocean.

Charles Webb: I swam. I had a house for, I don't know, eight years that had a pool.

Charles Webb: So I was swimming all the time. And I kept my relationship with the water and with the ocean through fishing and through swimming mainly.

Charles Webb: And then so when I got the opportunity all these years later, you know, and that's why my shoulder was all grinded down.

Charles Webb: Because here you are, you know, all these years later doing all this manual physical, you know, I was very physical. I've wheeled 20 miles a day for probably, I don't know.

Charles Webb: I did that for about 10 years.

Charles Webb: And I would just, my workouts were climbing the biggest hills that I could find.

Charles Webb: The longest, biggest, gnarliest hills in the town, I would just go climb them.

Charles Webb: You know, if they were short and steep, if they were long and drawn out, if they were, you know, just go climb these gnarly hills.

Charles Webb: And so that had a big toll on my shoulders. So my shoulders broke down after a lot of those years.

Charles Webb: And so it ended up with this tear and that's kind of, you know, meeting Kavika was a big giant, you know, defining moment.

Charles Webb: You have these defining moments in your life where meeting him was a defining moment. We were both praying for something, you know, he's praying to God that, Hey, let me change somebody's life with this thing.

Charles Webb: And I'm praying to God saying, please let me get back to my normal life where I can get in and out of my car and go to work and I can, you know, use my arm again. Let me get back there.

Charles Webb: And we meet and this contraption that he came up with.

Charles Webb: And here we are, you know, four weeks later, I'm able to lift myself back in my car and I'm able to start living my life again. And then, I don't know, three months later, I do a paddleboard race, which was Battle of the Paddle.

Charles Webb: Which, you know, I had no idea about any of it. Somebody emailed me and said, hey, you should think about doing this paddleboard race.

Charles Webb: And so, you know, I thought in my mind of minds like paddleboarding, you know, at that time in 2013, little did I know at that time was the peak of paddleboarding and racing and the sport.

Charles Webb: And the sport is a great sport and people in the community, it's just amazing.

Charles Webb: But I thought, you know, oh, this is gonna be 50 people you know that's what I thought yeah I had no idea I just emailed Rainbow Sandals and said hey I'm going to do your race because at the time by that time three months later I was paddling about five miles a day.

Kevin Lowe: Oh, wow.

Charles Webb: And then I thought, you know, hey, I could paddle with this thing without the outriggers. So I took the outriggers off and I could paddle flat water without it.

Charles Webb: And then I got the crazy idea that I could surf on it. And I was like, hey, I told my brother and Kavika, I said, I could surf on this thing.

Charles Webb: They're like, dude, you're crazy. It was an 11.6 touring board was what they would call that round nose touring board, kind of like a longboard, but really wide. And it had a wheelchair on top of it that would lock on the top of the deck.

Charles Webb: So I told him, no, man, I want to try to surf on this thing.

Charles Webb: So we took it to Doheny Beach and I surfed on it. I caught five waves.

Charles Webb: I caught one wave all the way to the beach.

Charles Webb: And so little do I know, like about a month later, this battle of the paddle race is at Doheny Beach.

Charles Webb: So I'm like, hey, I could actually do this. I look at the short course, which is five miles.

Charles Webb: And I say, I paddle five miles every day. So I think I could do this race.

Charles Webb: Like, so I approached my coach, Kavika, and say, hey, we could do this.

Charles Webb: Like, we could do this race.

Charles Webb: And he's like, okay, let's go. Let's, you know, if you're down for it, let's do it. So I emailed Rainbow Sandals and a guy named Barrett Tester.

Charles Webb: And Barrett was a big proponent to adaptive paddling after I entered the race because Rainbow really had to fight for me to paddle because Parks and Recs and the insurance said, hey, man, you can't do this.

Charles Webb: It's called Battle of the Paddle. I didn't know all this, but there was 484 people in my class alone.

Charles Webb: So when I show up to the race, there's 5,000 people on the beach.

Charles Webb: People on the beach there's 5 000 people on the beach and there's almost 500 people in my class which was just the the open group class so, yeah it was so when i'm seeing us on the beach i'm like holy shit like what what did i do.

Kevin Lowe: Like no no when you say in your class you don't mean other people who are also in wheelchairs do you no

Charles Webb: No that's just the open group class so they're just paddlers I'm the only paraplegic to ever do an open water paddleboard race to my knowledge.

Charles Webb: And that was the first time that I'd ever done one. So Ryan Levinson is actually the first disabled person to do an open water paddleboard race.

Charles Webb: He did the very first Battle of the Paddle and he's got muscular dystrophy. So, yeah.

Charles Webb: So he was like somebody that I drew a lot of inspiration from of like, all right, let's, you know, but I didn't know that he did BOP until after.

Charles Webb: And I met Ryan after I did the race.

Charles Webb: And, you know, that's another story. But doing that race, it changed everything.

Charles Webb: Yeah, it changed everything for me. And that's the reason why we have Stoked for Life now is because of doing BOP and the sub community embracing a disabled, paddler and not vibing them out.

Charles Webb: And like, what are you doing here? And why are you here? You know, they were like, paddle, bro, paddle, paddle.

Charles Webb: You know, one guy named Brennan Rose, who I, you know, we're good friends now, but I didn't know him from anybody the day of the race.

Charles Webb: And I'm on the starting line watching 300 paddleboarders paddle out before me, you know, and really questioning, like, what am I doing here?

Charles Webb: But I have this kid jump in the water, you know, he's an elite.

Charles Webb: Big wave surfer and distance paddler, true waterman, you know, fisherman, he does, does all kinds of different disciplines and jumped in the water and said, Hey man, I want to paddle this race with you.

Charles Webb: And I was like, Oh, he looked like Zach from saved by the bell.

Charles Webb: Saved by the bell. Want to paddle with me? I was like, yeah, dude, whatever.

Charles Webb: Like if you want to paddle with me, paddle, you know, I'm at, I'm at the starting line. The race is about to start and there's 500 people, you know, on the starting line. So it was a real crazy moment.

Charles Webb: And there's a, picture in a magazine.

Charles Webb: I think it's a standup paddle magazine or, you know, one of the standup paddle magazines that came out at that time.

Charles Webb: And it's me on the starting line with Brennan and my coach.

Charles Webb: And, you know, the look on my face is just so, you know, I have sunglasses on, so you can't really see and I have a helmet on.

Charles Webb: But like, I'm just staring at all these people that are paddling before me.

Charles Webb: And I know exactly what I was thinking, which is like, what am I doing here?

Charles Webb: I'm getting way over my head.

Charles Webb: And that's, you know, somebody asked me, you know, like, what are you thinking right there? And I'm thinking, I'm in deep shit right now.

Charles Webb: That's what I was thinking. But having Brennan there and having Kavika there to, you know, really, it was crazy because every single person.

Charles Webb: Paddler really encouraged me to, to paddle, you know, to, and they, you know, being on the water with 500 people, it's not easy.

Charles Webb: The water's very churned up and there's, you know, you got to go around a buoy and you got, there's a whole course you have to navigate.

Charles Webb: And it was difficult and it was scary. And I fell over coming out of the surf.

Charles Webb: So the, the first part of the race, I don't know, I got out about a hundred yards over three waves and then the fourth wave knocked me over.

Charles Webb: And so the lifeguards wanted to take me back to the shore.

Charles Webb: And I'm like, if I go back to the shore, I'm never going to make it.

Charles Webb: So, you know, the option was we need to flip this board over.

Charles Webb: I need to get on the board out here in the deep water where nobody could touch the bottom.

Charles Webb: And so me and Kavika had practiced some deep water loading on the board in the Harbor where I did some, some training and we were able to get me back on the board within about a minute.

Charles Webb: And you got to understand there's hundreds of paddlers paddling around me and they're falling and their boards are falling and their paddles and it's all that there's just debris in the water and there's people and it's surf and it's it's chaotic.

Charles Webb: It's not like, oh, I'm just getting on a board. It's like straight chaos, you know, and people and boards and, you know, it's just madness.

Charles Webb: And that's when I realized this is why they call it Battle of the Paddle.

Charles Webb: Like it's truly you know it was the most elite paddleboard race on the planet at that time and so.

Charles Webb: Seeing that and experiencing that and being in the surf and then finally getting on the board and going let's go let's go and then paddling and then you know hearing people go go go and you know going into a buoy with probably 80 or 90 people at the same time very intimidating so yeah i mean that whole race changed everything in my life and coming out of that race, the people that embraced me and the community that embraced me was, you know, it was amazing.

Charles Webb: They were just, you know, Larry Hamilton and Candace Appleby and these, these icons of water sports, you know, came up to me and said, you know.

Charles Webb: Laird told me I was an inspiration and, you know, Candice just has always been a big supporter, you know, ever since that day, you know, just coming up and giving me a big hug and just going, wow, you know, awesome.

Charles Webb: You know, people of that caliber, those caliber of water people, you know, Laird is the quintessential waterman of our time, you know, and Candice is the exact same thing, but on the female version of that, you know, the probably the most decorated woman paddleboarder and the most like just grindy surfer.

Charles Webb: And, you know, she just does amazing work and coaching people and the Ocean Academy that she's a part of and all all that kind of stuff that she's accomplished.

Charles Webb: Just that that caliber of person coming up to me and just giving me love and giving me stoke and just saying, yeah, that was awesome.

Charles Webb: Good job. You know, to me, it was life changing.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, it's honestly pretty powerful because when listening to you, I can't help but think like, not only did you find this new sport, but you really kind of found a family again like you had in surfing.

Charles Webb: Yeah, you know, the stand-up paddle community embraced me so quickly and with such a big hug.

Charles Webb: And even though I don't paddle right now because due to injuries and surgeries and I just haven't found my way back to paddling, for years and years I paddled many races and just that community just was always there.

Charles Webb: And if I get back there and I get my board back in the water and I start paddling again and I do another race, I guarantee you they'll they'll just embrace me again.

Charles Webb: And it'll be like, hey, where have you been? Like we missed you. Yeah.

Charles Webb: That's just how that community is.

Charles Webb: And that's and it gave me the ability, you know, Steve Bainey from Infinity Surfboards makes paddle boards. And Candace Appleby actually is an infinity speed freak. She's been paddling for them for years.

Charles Webb: So Steve is like an integral cog to how I found my way back to surfing because he makes what's called a wave ski.

Charles Webb: And a wave ski is a sit-on-top surfboard for people with disabilities.

Charles Webb: So he started shaping those boards.

Charles Webb: Freddy Carrillo was the first guy he shaped a board for in 1998 or 99.

Charles Webb: And so Steve was at that race. and steve saw me and and reached out to me and said hey man you're gonna kill yourself on that thing.

Charles Webb: I actually make surfboards for people with disabilities and i can make you a surfboard and so steve reached out to me and and yeah i went to sano and met, you know all the boys uh met all the adaptive wave skiers and chris overly and some of the other guys and went surfing with steve and yeah he he just uh, Changed everything for me at that point. It was game on once I was like, oh, I got a surfboard and somebody that wants to help me shred.

Charles Webb: It was on after that. Happened really quick after that. I started surfing.

Charles Webb: I was already paddling and doing a lot of paddleboard races, but I started doing surf contests, adaptive surf contests, the Dukes and the WSA contests, and started doing those. And then it just took off.

Charles Webb: I was surfing and paddling.

Charles Webb: I was doing surf contests and paddle races in the same month doing, you know, one or two surf contests and at least one paddle race every month.

Charles Webb: And that's, you know, a lot of publications were taking pictures of me and found social media and, you know, through Facebook and Facebook.

Charles Webb: Instagram and all that kind of stuff people started reaching out to me more people just with disabilities were asking like how can i do that how can i get on one of those boards how can they started asking a lot of questions you know and so from that point it kind of became, an obligation to me like somebody gave this to me somebody gave me the auditability board somebody gave me the ability to do this they didn't charge me money or say hey pay me and i'll help you you You know, it was like, look at what we found.

Charles Webb: Look at what we could do. You know, hey, do you want to do this?

Charles Webb: And so it became really apparent to me that I needed to pass this on.

Charles Webb: And this was an obligation for me to have to give it to somebody else.

Charles Webb: You know, that became the mission was like, how can I help somebody else get on the water? How can I help somebody find surfing? How can I help somebody find paddling?

Charles Webb: How can I get these people to where I'm at right now? You know? Yeah.

Charles Webb: So that's, you know, that kind of became, you know, a lot of people reached out to me from different countries. And that was the thing was, you know, I was getting people from Japan and Brazil and Colombia and all kinds of different places of like, hey, how can I do this? Where can I do it?

Charles Webb: How can I get one? And so that was, that's where it was like, okay, we need to help these people. We need to figure out a way to help them.

Charles Webb: And that's when we were like, well, you know, we could start a nonprofit. profit.

Charles Webb: So that's where Stoked for Life kind of came in in 2015. Took me a couple of years to kind of be able to, to go, okay, you know what, I need to figure out the way to do this.

Charles Webb: And through some mentors and people that still are donors and still support us, they like to stay anonymous.

Charles Webb: So I'm not going to say his name, but he was a huge part of everything that I did and helping me create a nonprofit and what it looks like and how to, you know, how to conduct it.

Charles Webb: So there was a few people that were very integral. Another guy, Wesley Stewart from, he was the founder of Urban Surfer Kids.

Charles Webb: Even though I think he's no longer involved as far as being on the board or anything.

Charles Webb: But he was a very integral part of helping me see what a nonprofit can look like and how much impact it can have.

Charles Webb: And so just through the whole process of the journey, you can't keep these awesome things to yourself that are gifts that were given to you.

Charles Webb: You got to pass them on, man. And it's the pay it forward type thing.

Charles Webb: So that's where Stoked for life came from. And through that, through competitive surfing and through seeing, hearing, sitting at a table, you know, with.

Charles Webb: Five legendary, six legendary, you know, old school adaptive surfers and hearing what's wrong with adaptive surfing at that point, you know, what was wrong, what we needed to do, what, what, how can we change it? How can we do this.

Charles Webb: Well, you know, better, you know, and that just hearing those guys and, you know, I took all of that in.

Charles Webb: And a few years later, we 2017, we started the U.S.

Charles Webb: Open Adaptive Surfing Championships. And 2018, we implemented the classification with Dr. Mo Johnson. And that classification is now what will be recognized if and when adaptive surfing gets in to the Paralympics.

Charles Webb: They will be using that classification that was done here at the U.S.

Charles Webb: Open. And so, yeah, it's been a it's been a fun journey and being the first adaptive surf contest professionally to offer money.

Charles Webb: And it's kind of a big deal for adaptive surfers to travel the world.

Charles Webb: And, you know, our paychecks aren't that huge, but to just be able to get a paycheck to show up and say, you know what, I can at least get entry fee and some food money and, you know, or enough to cover my hotel room or my plane flight to get to the next stop.

Charles Webb: It's been a really fun journey to be able to be a part of a really growing sport.

Charles Webb: It's probably the fastest growing adaptive sport on the planet as far as structurally wise people getting introduced to it. There's always new people in the sport every year.

Charles Webb: I'll get, I don't know, I've seen probably five or six new names on the list of registration for the U.S. Open.

Charles Webb: And so, yeah, it's always interesting to see new people and everybody's getting involved. and it's a beautiful thing.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, without a doubt, man. That's so incredible. And I wanna ask you a little bit more about it, but if you don't mind, I wanna go back real quick because I read something in I don't know what exactly is there, if the question will go anywhere, but back that first Battle of the Paddle that you did, that first race, which sounded just, I mean, it sounded brutal, but it also sounded extremely empowering and epic.

Kevin Lowe: I read that afterwards you had just gotten your car and kind of broke down.

Kevin Lowe: I was hoping you could maybe unpack that a little bit.

Charles Webb: Yeah so coming off the beach getting to shore being carried king's chair fireman carry whatever they call it up the beach and you know having 5 000 people cheering for you was something that i never experienced and then, throughout that time i kind of talked about candace and laird you know so many people were coming up to me and giving me hugs and you know spot just people were handing me stuff like here's, it was just really overwhelming and then to have somebody like candace come

Charles Webb: up and give me a hug and then have laird come up to me and give me a hug and just say that's the most inspiring thing i've ever seen is what he said to me and laird's you know he's the first guy to toe in a joke and you know develop toe in surfing and bring back stand a paddle from kind of the graves you know of the ancient, hawaiians that used to and tahitians that used to stand up paddle that crew of guys the strap crew and just that whole, genre of cats you know are so legendary you know and through for me just to

Charles Webb: have laird come up to me and say that you know knowing that he's what he's done at chopu and and, Just what he's done for surfing and surfing, not for surfing, but just the things that he's done and accomplished and just being the waterman that he is.

Charles Webb: Just talking to him, it just was so overwhelming for me.

Charles Webb: And so, yeah, I literally wheeled off to my car after about 15 minutes and I just, I cried and I drove off.

Charles Webb: And little did I know, Rainbow Sandals honored me with most inspirational paddler award at the race.

Charles Webb: I didn't find that out until like three weeks later at another race.

Charles Webb: With somebody who was like, we're actually Chuck Glenn, who I think is, you know, related to Laird through marriage.

Charles Webb: Chuck Glenn is, you know, a guy that gets invited to do the ultimate waterman's challenge.

Charles Webb: So, I mean, he is a true waterman of many levels, foiling and surfing and stand up paddle and just do all these genres, fishing, all these disciplines.

Charles Webb: And I met Chuck at this next race a couple of weeks after Battle of the Paddle.

Charles Webb: And he said, Hey man, my uncle loves you. And I said, who's your uncle? He said, Laird.

Charles Webb: And he goes, where'd you go? And I go, what do you mean?

Charles Webb: Your uncle talked to me. I started crying. I laughed. You know, I was overwhelmed.

Charles Webb: He said, well, they honored you with this amazing award, this awesome paddle award. And I said, well, so then I went back to Sparky and Rainbow Sandals and Barrett Tester and they honored me with that paddle.

Charles Webb: That went to their headquarters, Rainbow in San Clemente, and they honored me with that.

Charles Webb: And Rainbow Sandals sponsored me and Sparky sponsored me for many years and paid for my races.

Charles Webb: And I just want to send out a big shout-out to Rainbow Sandals and the love that they gave me for so many years.

Charles Webb: And they supported me for so many years. And unfortunately, through a donation or something like that, I had to step off their team.

Charles Webb: But I just want to always say that Sparky gave me so much love and so much stoke through –.

Charles Webb: Being a professional athlete, you find out when you make mistakes and leaving Rainbow was one of the biggest mistakes I ever made as an adaptive athlete for sponsorship and just support so that, you know, just want to always give them homage and that they were there for me and that they supported adaptive paddling and an adaptive athlete.

Charles Webb: They pay for my surf contest and they pay all my entry fees every year for whatever I was doing.

Charles Webb: They did that for, I don't know, five or six years. So I just always want to give Sparky love and Rainbow Sandals so much love and what they did.

Kevin Lowe: Well, dude, I love that. And I mean, first and foremost, Rainbow Sandals, if it weren't for them, I would have been barefoot my entire high school.

Kevin Lowe: So, I mean, I have bad respect for Rainbow Sandals.

Kevin Lowe: By far, we're the best flip flops ever made. So I love that.

Kevin Lowe: But what I love about your story and when I was listening to you talk about that experience coming out of the water, what I love about that is, you know, we talked earlier about, you know, accessibility and stuff.

Kevin Lowe: And it's so many times when we have a disability of any kind, we can't help but so many times feel like isolated, like we're the ones that are having to have these things done for, these exceptions made for it.

Kevin Lowe: And you can feel like you're separate from everybody else.

Kevin Lowe: And what I love about this story is the fact that To me, true accessibility is when it just makes you united with everybody else, you know?

Kevin Lowe: And the fact is, is that, yeah, it is inspirational.

Kevin Lowe: It is incredible. But at the same point, you were also just a paddler out there on the water like everybody else.

Charles Webb: Yeah. A lot of people with disabilities, and you can attest to this, you've probably come across some people that just say, Look, I don't want to be called an inspiration.

Charles Webb: And I've heard that. And for me, it's a little different.

Charles Webb: So the first person to ever call me an inspiration, I was probably a month into the on an ability board experience.

Charles Webb: And I was paddling on Carlsbad Lagoon, the back lagoon, flat water.

Charles Webb: And I got off the beach and I was changing my clothes in my car and I just got my shorts on and I was putting my shoes on.

Charles Webb: And I saw a lady that was probably 75. She might've been 80.

Charles Webb: She was, she's up there in age and she was walking on the pathway and she was crying. She was sobbing and I thought she had fallen or something.

Charles Webb: And I was like, are you okay? Are you okay?

Charles Webb: You know? And she said, she said, yeah, me and my husband were following you in our kayaks while you were paddling on the lagoon.

Charles Webb: And she said, you're such an inspiration. And I, you know, and I said, you know, in passing, I just said, yeah, thank you. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But then I started thinking about it on the way home and I'm thinking, This lady has seen World War I to Vietnam.

Charles Webb: She's seen the radio turn into the TV, black and white, to turn into color.

Charles Webb: She's seen the 8-track to cassette to DVD.

Charles Webb: This lady's seen so much in her life. And she sees me, and I'm what inspires her.

Charles Webb: So I embraced that because of the experience and just the emotion that she had.

Charles Webb: That of all the things that she's seen in her life, that, that seeing me can pull that out of her and just make her sob.

Charles Webb: I was like, okay, well, I guess that's awesome.

Charles Webb: And years later, you know, I heard people when I started, because mind you, I didn't know any disabled people for 25 years.

Charles Webb: I just hung out with my regular life and my job. And, and I didn't really get involved in the disabled community until I did BOP.

Charles Webb: And then people started reaching out to me and then you know we started hanging around some adaptive surfers that steve baney introduced me to and then kind of getting into the community then i was like these are my people, like i have a whole tribe of people that i never i was lost i just you know i was like a little kid that wandered off and then got raised by wolves.

Charles Webb: And then came back years later and was like hey these are my people you know this rabid animal that had only been hanging out with able-bodied people for all these years So it took a little bit of adjusting, but, you know, I found my place, you know, finally of like, okay, I guess this is where I belong and this is where I'm supposed to be.

Charles Webb: And so, you know, finding Stoke for Life and finding these people, you know, these Steve Bainies and these, you know, these people that were helping me that would find my place back in the water.

Charles Webb: You know, Steve has helped so many people in the water and helped so many people just just...

Charles Webb: Find happiness in the water. You know, it's, it's been a real pleasure to, to be around people like that and to honor people like that.

Charles Webb: And to have people like that believe in me, you know, getting a call from Steve Bainey saying, Hey, can you come in and kind of help me with this kid?

Charles Webb: I'm going to, I'm going to make them a wave ski. And I'd like your input.

Charles Webb: I'm like, dude, you've been making wave skis for people for 20 years or something like that.

Charles Webb: You know, like, what do you need me for like that call was so honoring and so, i just i was like yeah i'll be right there.

Charles Webb: Like i'm on my way you know and and being able and and the guy we were shaping the board for his name's brad parks and brad is an influential presence in adaptive tennis playing, so brad is like one of those guys that like really helped develop the sport of adaptive tennis And so, knowing that and meeting Brad and getting able to serve him.

Charles Webb: So it's all like super relative. Like you meet one person, they introduce you to another person that has a ripple effect on you and that person.

Charles Webb: And that person knows this person. And then it's just.

Charles Webb: It's all webbed together. And I didn't know that being, you know, like until I met these people. And then I go, oh, like, OK, I get it now.

Charles Webb: You know, going to Hawaii and doing my first Dukes Ocean Fest and surfing in that first event in Hawaii and meeting Richard Julian and knowing what kind of impact Rich has had on the sport and on just, you know, talk about tennis.

Charles Webb: That's an international tennis player. Talk about adaptive paddling.

Charles Webb: This guy's canoe paddling all the time. He's been doing it for, you know, 20 years.

Charles Webb: And, you know, for me as a open water paddler, to meet another guy that like, I paddle open water in a different way on a canoe.

Charles Webb: But to have a Tahitian paddle to kind of know that technique to kind of it's kindred spirit.

Charles Webb: It's like, oh, this guy's my freaking brother from another mother, you know.

Charles Webb: And so to be introduced to those people and to have those people in my life now and to be able to lean on them for advice about competitions or anything, development of the sport.

Charles Webb: Developing a world tour to have those guys to lean on as a voice and as more experienced than me.

Charles Webb: You know, have I been as disabled super long? Yeah, since 1986.

Charles Webb: But I've only been involved with adaptive water sports, you know, for, you know, about 15 years, you know, 13, 14 years.

Charles Webb: So there's other guys that came way before me. Now, have I had a pretty big impact because of what I've been able to do?

Charles Webb: Okay. You can say that maybe, but, but I always want to honor the people that came before me and laid the path for me because I wouldn't be where I'm at.

Charles Webb: I wouldn't have figured this out if there wasn't a Freddie career or Richard Julian or, you know, guys that came before me, the, the, you know, the Anthony Smythe, the Mark Mono Stewart's, the, the Mark Thornton's, me and Mark don't see eye to eye anymore, but he's a guy that came before me and, and really laid the path for me and, and other people.

Charles Webb: So, you know, and I always want to give homage to those guys and, you know, let them know that, you know, yeah, I wouldn't be where I'm at without their input and their their work and their however they did it, you know, but we're, we're here now. and we're a little bit farther down the road.

Charles Webb: And if that's from my contribution, then great.

Charles Webb: But I can't say all of these things I did all by myself or I've had a tremendous amount of help and teamwork and people that believe in the sport and believe in Stoke for Life and mentors that have guided me and said, hey, don't do that, do this and do it this way and, be more well-spoken and don't be so abrasive.

Charles Webb: And there's just so many things because I wasn't always this nice, Kevin. No.

Charles Webb: There's people that can remember even five or six years ago that I've had to learn a lot to...

Charles Webb: To be in a better place, to be a better business person, to be a better representative of the sport, to be a better husband, a better friend, a better brother, you know, and it's taken the willingness to take criticism, to want to grow from it, to understand your mistakes and, and say, yeah, I made a mistake.

Charles Webb: And can I grow from that mistake? Can I learn from that? Can I anything?

Charles Webb: Can I make sure that somebody else learns from that mistake?

Charles Webb: And there was a time when I thought maybe I was a finished product, you know, one of my 30s where I was like, ah, what you see is what you get, you know.

Charles Webb: And there couldn't be a worse phrase for somebody to say, what you see is what you get, because that just shows a limitation of wanting to grow and change and mutate and be something better, be something more beautiful, be something more important, be something more encouraging.

Charles Webb: It's very limiting to just be like, what you see is what you get.

Charles Webb: I'm a finished product. You know, like phrases like that or to me are just, you know, and I've been guilty of saying stuff like that.

Charles Webb: But through meeting different people and through the opportunity to grow and to learn, you know, it's been great to be able to say, I'm not a finished product, man.

Charles Webb: I got a lot to learn and I want to learn and I'm willing to learn.

Charles Webb: And there's people that are willing to teach me. So I have to honor them, you know, what they're willing to put forward.

Charles Webb: And not just be so one-sided to say, hey, I'm a finished product and what you see is what you get.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, yeah, dude. Well, man, I think your story is incredible.

Kevin Lowe: The evolution and as you just said, of this idea of continuing to evolve.

Kevin Lowe: And, you know, earlier, you know, a little bit ago, we were talking about this idea of inspiration and whether it's a good thing or it's a bad thing. And me personally, I feel like all the things that we do in life, we have to find inspiration.

Kevin Lowe: We have to be inspired to even get motivated.

Kevin Lowe: It all starts with the inspiration. And so to see you finding ways to find inspiration for yourself, to then inspire others, I think it has indeed created an amazing ecosystem that you've been able to create with your foundation, with all that you guys are doing.

Kevin Lowe: And I know that this episode is coming out, literally coming up the last stop of the world tour.

Kevin Lowe: How many different disabilities or classes do you guys represent at each of these stops?

Charles Webb: So there's nine divisions in, straight up, and then you go both ways, male, female. So, you know, the tree would be 18 divisions, but it's realistically, it's nine divisions.

Charles Webb: And some of the divisions are, I don't want to say they're disabled-based.

Charles Webb: You know, there's a division called below-knee stand. So, you're a below-knee amputee, or you have a below-knee disability or impairment, then, yeah, you would fall under that upper limb stand.

Charles Webb: Yeah, if you have an upper limb impairment or, you know upper limb amputation then you would fall under that but there's also like my division wave ski which is just that's the kind of board you surf on it's a sit on top surfboard a majority of the people that surf in that division have a spinal cord injury so yeah there's nine divisions the u.s open is september 10th through the 13th so we are happening right before the which is which is awesome because you know some people will be able to listen to this and,

Charles Webb: maybe draw some eyes Maybe they haven't seen adaptive surfing.

Charles Webb: Maybe they haven't experienced it.

Charles Webb: And they'll be able to get on a live stream and go to YouTube and get on the High Fives Foundation YouTube page.

Charles Webb: Maybe the Stoke for Life Facebook page we're going to be launching from, I believe, this year.

Charles Webb: And check out the event. It's live streaming. We'll have some awesome special guests this year.

Charles Webb: Hopefully some really mainstream surfers and you'll meet a lot of adaptive special guest surfers that are competing and they're going to come into the booth and talk with us for a little bit and talk about the sport and talk about different aspects of the sport and, the sports going and maybe, you know, down the road in 2032 or 2030.

Charles Webb: You know, they get acceptance in into the Paralympics in 2032 and, and maybe that's the next thing.

Charles Webb: The possibility of growth for the sport. There's a lot that goes behind that to those as well.

Charles Webb: You know, the Paralympics, it's the framework of it.

Charles Webb: They're not going to accept nine new divisions. So there's a lot of a lot of work that has to be done there as far as to get that sport accepted and to get it over the hump and what it's going to look like and what divisions are going to be accepted and how many medals they're going to have.

Charles Webb: And so that's a whole different thing. And that's kind of for me, I want to help the Paralympic movement.

Charles Webb: And I started that in 2015 with the ISA and being on their committee and doing, you know, as much work with them as possible that I could do and try to try to help the format.

Charles Webb: And we're still trying to help the format get accepted in 2032. And but.

Charles Webb: What it's going to look like is we don't know that. So what I want for adaptive surfing is I want them to always have a place to go.

Charles Webb: So let's say they get accepted in 2032 and only three or four divisions get accepted. Well, what happens to the other five divisions?

Charles Webb: Where do they go? You know, now their Paralympic dream is non-existent.

Charles Webb: We want to have a place for them to go. So that's where the ASP comes in, Adaptive Surfing Professionals.

Charles Webb: The association of adaptive surfing professionals will have all those nine divisions and we'll continue to, help in whatever way we can with the paralympic push getting more countries involved traveling to different countries so far the tour has went to we start in australia in march we go to hawaii in may two years ago we went to costa rica and then back to oceanside next year we'll go to japan and back to oceanside so we'll have four stops on the tour so so far we've went to Australia, Hawaii.

Charles Webb: We'll be going to Japan. We've went to Costa Rica. So we're trying to help grow the sport in different regions of the sport where people can get introduced to it, can see what it looks like, want to get involved and then represent their countries.

Charles Webb: You know, if they can get to a national event, get on their national team, get on the ISA and be able to do that.

Charles Webb: The ISA's event is at the Desert Wave Pool this year, which is going to be another great opportunity for adaptive surfers kind of show their moxie in a wave pool and show what they can do on a pretty high level wave and see uh different disciplines of adaptive surfing and and kind of show what they got so so there's still a lot this sport is still mutating man it's very young it's it's in its you know infancy and and we're still trying to figure a lot of stuff out with the classification.

Charles Webb: With structure, with infrastructure. So it's not perfect. And we've made a lot of mistakes. We learn from those mistakes. We listen to the community.

Charles Webb: What we like to say about the Association of Adaptive Surfing Professionals, it's built by adaptive surfers for adaptive surfers. So we have a competition committee.

Charles Webb: There's adaptive surfers from each region, each event that are on that committee that help say the structure of this sport. So it's not one voice that says, hey, we're going to go this way.

Charles Webb: It's a whole bunch of voices. It's Mark Mono Stewart. It's Richard Julian. It's me.

Charles Webb: It's Roy Tuscany from High Fives Foundation. There's a lot of voices to say, okay, how are we going to guide the sport?

Charles Webb: What's it going to look like? There's not one person that's in charge and says, just because I'm the founder of the AASP doesn't mean that I just say, oh, this is what we're doing and this is what we're going.

Charles Webb: I've implored the voices in the sport that I think have the most depth and have the most experience and that can help us do the right thing and get to the right place and and all that kind of stuff so I you know I didn't want to create it and say oh I created this awesome thing and I'm gonna you know drive it into the ground, you know I need the community to help me guide it I need people with more experience more voice to to help make this sport be all it can be you know yeah so that's I tried to do it,

Charles Webb: the best way possible as far as.

Charles Webb: How can we do this where it.

Charles Webb: Doesn't hurt the community, it only helps the community.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, man, what I was sitting here thinking was at the end of this interview today, I come back to your personal story, and then let's talk about adaptive surfing, this entire ecosystem, this world that we've been talking about.

Kevin Lowe: And I can't help but think of the inspiration to me that this story is for anybody who's living in the in-between.

Kevin Lowe: Because we all get focused on the event that maybe happened that changed our life.

Kevin Lowe: And then where we want to go. And we feel lost in that season in between.

Kevin Lowe: And what I love about your story is the fact that we see where you started.

Kevin Lowe: We see the accident that changed your life.

Kevin Lowe: But then there was this long period of time where you're trying to figure life out again. And you went through a lot of hard times.

Kevin Lowe: And you experience the good times and the bad times of life.

Kevin Lowe: And yet you made it through. You found yourself back on the water.

Kevin Lowe: Water gave you back life again.

Kevin Lowe: I feel like it gave you this zest for life again.

Kevin Lowe: And now I'm watching you with what you're building through the foundation, through all this stuff with surfing, literally touching people all over the world.

Kevin Lowe: And I can't help but think like, yeah, right now, who knows where it's going to be.

Kevin Lowe: Right now, for any of us interested in getting involved in if nothing more than just spreading the word, you can play a role in the dash in between where it started and where it's going right now.

Kevin Lowe: And I can't help but think, man, It all starts by tuning in to the final stop.

Kevin Lowe: You know, I think this is absolutely incredible.

Kevin Lowe: I applaud you for what you've been doing, man.

Charles Webb: Well, I appreciate that a lot, Kevin. It means a lot coming from you.

Charles Webb: And, you know, you've seen a lot in obviously your podcast.

Charles Webb: You talk to a lot of people, influential people in the disabled community.

Charles Webb: And it's people like you that shine the light, you know, that says, hey, look at these guys. Look at what they're doing. Look at this community. Look how it's thriving.

Charles Webb: You know, and without your voice, you know, a lot of people wouldn't be heard.

Charles Webb: So I'm super grateful, A, just for the opportunity to come on here.

Charles Webb: And we've got to give a big shout out to my guy, Shani Whitaker, who made the connection between me and you. And we're all trying to just get back to some kind of normalcy of what it was like, where it was before.

Charles Webb: And as mundane as that might sound to somebody that hasn't experienced it, to a whole bunch of other people that have experienced, they're going to say, I get it.

Charles Webb: I'm trying to get back to there, too. I'm trying to get back to, and look, it doesn't have to be a physical disability, man.

Charles Webb: It can be, it can be just everyday life, you know, like so many people don't understand that the struggle is real for everyone, you know, and the people that lose sight of the, you know, and I don't want to be, you got to be empathetic to people's struggles just in life in general, just makes you a better human.

Charles Webb: You know, it doesn't mean that you have to have a political stance or do anything. it just means that.

Charles Webb: That a you have possibly experienced some loss or some difficulty and that you can you can sympathize or empathize or relate to other people's struggles you know and and so i think that, in the big scheme of things and in the big picture you know there's kindness that doesn't really cost you anything and i didn't know this for a long time and still sometimes you know look you're getting one side of me right now.

Charles Webb: And, and, you know, sometimes I'm just a person and everybody makes mistakes and everybody can be guilty of saying the wrong thing or doing the wrong thing at the wrong time. And I've done that a lot.

Charles Webb: I said the wrong thing and I did a lot of, you know, talking when I should have just did a lot of listening.

Charles Webb: And that's the thing, man, is that I really appreciate you giving people the opportunity to be heard and giving people the opportunity to, to talk and, and show their experiences and talk about their experiences.

Charles Webb: And, you know, without that, it can be difficult, you know, to, to really make positive change.

Charles Webb: And, and, because ultimately, that's what everybody wants to do.

Charles Webb: Everybody wants to make a positive change. And everybody wants to, you know, have the opportunity to, make an impact, you know, on somebody on themselves on people that they love on, for me, it's, it's, it's, you know, you're an awesome guy for creating the format that you've created and sticking with it for as long as you have and you know how many episodes you have and just what you're doing is great so i really appreciate uh the time and and the effort to talk about surfing and you know shine light on what we're

Charles Webb: doing at the us open in stoke for life.

Kevin Lowe: Oh man well well first and foremost thank you tremendously for for that and it does man it it means it means the world to And what lights me up is just getting the opportunity to To sit down with people like you who, you know, we just get to, as you said, shine a little light on the aspects of life. You know, as you said, we're all dealing with something.

Kevin Lowe: Life certainly ain't easy, but I feel like the only way that we're going to get through it is if we just lean on each other and find inspiration in each other.

Kevin Lowe: And we'll get through it together. And I think that's the whole purpose of life is to get through it together. So.

Charles Webb: Yeah. And, you know, surrounding yourself with like-minded people.

Charles Webb: And I said that a few times during this and I can't stress it enough.

Charles Webb: You are who you surround yourself with. And if you surround yourself with like-minded people that want certain things and that want change and that are going a certain direction, that have a certain frequency, energy level or frequency, man, you have to take advantage of that. And it's never too late, brother.

Charles Webb: If I could make the change, I went from having my house raided by.

Charles Webb: You know, NTF and Myctonics Task Force and the FBI to where I am right now, you know, all these years later.

Charles Webb: It's all about just conviction and, you know, what your heart tells you and what your faith guides you to and where you put yourself, you know.

Charles Webb: And if you put yourself in bad situations, you're going to find bad outcomes.

Charles Webb: If you put yourself in better situations, you'll find different outcomes and better outcomes.

Charles Webb: And that's what I learned throughout my process of just be where I'm supposed to be.

Charles Webb: And then in your heart, know what you want to accomplish is good.

Charles Webb: And and kind of that's kind of where I'm at right now. And, you know, it took a long time to get there.

Charles Webb: And I've been super fortunate just to I want to thank all the people that support Stoke for Life Foundation and all the sponsors.

Charles Webb: And I can't name you guys one by one, but you all know who you are.

Charles Webb: And, you know, all my close friends and family, my mom, my brother, all my brothers and sisters. And, you know, the people that really believe in what we're doing, it gets you to where you want to go.

Charles Webb: And that's that means that people are lifting you up, not tearing you down.

Charles Webb: So, you know, and I just want to, you know, if I say one thing at this podcast, man, and if it touches one person, it's just believe in yourself.

Charles Webb: Um, you can't accomplish anything if you don't have any belief in yourself.

Charles Webb: It's really easy to look around you and see a lot of people that believe in you.

Charles Webb: It's really hard to look in the mirror and see somebody that believes in themselves.

Charles Webb: So, you know, if that's one thing that I could just tell anybody that's listening, that can hear this in earshot, just believe, man, believe you can do it, believe in yourself and, and you can make greatness happen.

Kevin Lowe: Amen to that. My man, Charles Webb, dude, it's been an absolute honor.

Kevin Lowe: Thank you so much. And for you listening today, I hope that what you are leaving today's conversation with is probably way different than why you tuned in in the first place.

Kevin Lowe: You probably came for the surfing, the inspiration, the motivation, the adaptive surfing, all the things.

Kevin Lowe: And yet you're leaving with what this guy just busted out with.

Kevin Lowe: I mean, my goodness, Charles Webb, my man, you're incredible.

Kevin Lowe: For anybody interested, please check out the episode show notes where I have links where you can watch live, can get tuned in to the broadcast, and also just to get tuned in to everything happening with Stoked for Life.

Kevin Lowe: I'm telling you, if you're not on board, you might as well get on board because they are going places.

Kevin Lowe: So my name is Kevin Lowe this was Grit, Grace and Inspiration get out there, crush the day enjoy the day and don't forget to check out those show notes for all the links mentioned.