Finding Mastery: Conversations With Michael Gervais

This week’s conversation is with Tom Carroll on being a maverick, honesty, and risk.Tom is best known as one of Australia’s great surfers and sportsmen. I have known of Tom since I was a grom (stoked little kid who flat out loved surfing).With two world professional surfing championships and three wins at Pipeline (one of the heavier waves in the world) under his belt, you’d be forgiven for thinking he’s just a champion athlete.Rather Tom is a maverick -- in many ways.Reaching the professional level of any sport has its fair share of challenges, but in the modern era, there is generally some sort of path or map to follow -- like in baseball, gymnastics, or soccer -- there's a variety of developmental clubs / teams / or university systems that help cultivate and weed out those that have "it" and those that don't.Coaching and feedback along the way and physical training would be assumed,Tom emerged in an era where none of this existed and essentially had to figure it out as he went. He was part of the begi