Dane, Patrick and Tanner Gudauskus have spent a lot of their lives in the water riding some of the most epic waves. They've traveled the world for competitive surfing and taken the leap into free surfing all alongside each other. Dane, Patrick and Tanner are now giving back to the surf community through their company, Positive Vibe Warriors.
Dane, Patrick and Tanner Gudauskus have spent a lot of their lives in the water riding some of the most epic waves. They've traveled the world for competitive surfing and taken the leap into free surfing all alongside each other. Dane, Patrick and Tanner are now giving back to the surf community through their company, Positive Vibe Warriors.
Connect with the Gudauskas Brothers:
Episode sponsors:
Shelby Stanger:
Growing up with siblings can be a delight and a challenge. My sisters and I did our fair share of fighting as kids, but now we get along pretty well. This seems to be standard for many sibling relationships. Dane, Patrick, and Tanner Gudauskus have had plenty of opportunities to squabble. Dane and Patrick are twins, and Tanner is two years younger. All three of them are professional surfers and they've been competing with and against each other for their entire lives. But despite the circumstances, these brothers have managed to stay super close. For years, Dane, Patrick and Tanner have traveled together, gone head-to-head in competitions and they've even started a family business. I'm Shelby Stanger and this is Wild Ideas Worth Living, an REI Co-Op Studios Production.
Dane, Patrick and Tanner Gudauskus have spent a lot of their lives in the water riding some of the most epic waves. After high school, all three brothers entered the international competition circuit, touring from one surf contest to another. Since there were kids traveling and surfing has been a huge part of the Gudauskus lifestyle. On most weekends, the whole family packed up their Volkswagen with surfboards and spent entire days at the beach.
Dane, Patrick, Tanner, welcome to Wild Ideas Worth Living. It's exciting having all three brothers on the show.
Patrick Gudauskus:
We're excited to be in one place together.
Shelby Stanger:
Will you guys each introduce yourselves? We'll start with Dane.
Dane Gudauskus:
Yep. My name is Dane Gudauskus and, from San Clemente, California and I got my two brothers here, too.
Patrick Gudauskus:
Yeah, my name is Patrick Gudauskus. I'm 37 years old from San Clemente, California. I'm the oldest of the three Gudauskus brothers here. Dane's my twin. I'm older by three minutes. Tanner's, my younger brother, two and a half years younger and I guess kind of similar to Dane, we kind of all ended up in the same line of work and field of ocean enthusiasts.
Tanner Gudauskus:
I'm Tanner Gudauskus, 34. I'm Pat and Dan's younger brother. I've just always kind of been tagged along as a three pack.
Shelby Stanger:
You guys had adventurous parents or at least adventurous compared to many of our parents. My parents' idea of a vacation was to go to Palm Springs. We'd stay at a hotel and there was a tennis court, which is awesome, super grateful for it. But you guys did different kinds of adventures with your parents.
Dane Gudauskus:
For our parents, I think our dad grew up in Los Angeles area, so he was familiar with it. Our mom came over from New Jersey and they really loved the outdoor experience of living in southern California. They were in San Diego for a period of time and from our earliest memories, we were always in a Wesfalia van, whether it was down on the beach at Sano or on a little aluminum skiff thing, just out fishing, spearfishing, just snorkeling, just being engaged with nature. So it was always like that from a very young age.
And I remember one time vividly we took all five of us in a small little Isuzu Trooper all the way down to the tip of Cabo and that was a real hilarious experience. I can't imagine from their point of view because it was pretty bomb road trip with the three of us squished in the backseat there. So it must've been chaotic, but we made it and it was a blast. And the only two tape cassettes they had in the car was Graceland and U2's, Joshua Tree, I think. And it was just those two tape decks playing over and over. It was amazing.
Patrick Gudauskus:
48 hour trip.
Shelby Stanger:
That's really fun. You know guys are a good example of the fact that when you raise kids to appreciate nature, they tend to really appreciate nature and all it has to offer.
Patrick Gudauskus:
Thinking as a parent now you see there's so many things that parents have access to between tablets and life coaches of people online. You Google anything, it's like try this, do this, do this. And you think back to our parents when you're saying adventurous parents, I think how sick it is that with just two tape decks and some snacks and we'd play, you'd hang little cans or bottles and make music and you'd be singing and it's just so inspiring to think now as a parent full circle what that actually means. It's so courageous to be like, I'm taking my three kids and we're just going to rock to the tip of Cabo and we're going to see anything we can.
Shelby Stanger:
Your parents sounded like they were badass, absolutely.
Patrick Gudauskus:
They're sick. For sure.
Shelby Stanger:
Tanner, what was it like being the youngest with these two charging brothers ahead of you?
Tanner Gudauskus:
These guys, they've always been really nice. I think the three of us, we've gotten along really well. I think a lot of people do. They trip out about it a little bit because we're always together, but that's just how it was. I don't necessarily know another option. We have funny stories. We grew up in a two bedroom house, so the three of us split one room until high school, so we had bunk beds and just another bed, so we would get into fights and quarrels, but then you kind of just had to move through it because you were going to wake up next to the person and we shared a car through high school, we shared a cell phone and I think it's, because that's all that there was available, we just had to learn how to deal with it. And then once we started needing each other in a sense outside of high school, I definitely remember being super thankful.
The three of us are experiencing these things together and then we could take it home and still tell those stories. It wasn't like a satellite experience on the road and that kind of switched the whole mentality. Maybe in your adolescence you might drift further away, but by virtue of, like Pat was saying, the three of us being in surfing together and as well riding for the same brands, it was like glue. And so thank goodness we had all that time together and had those formidable years to get through it, then it made it a lot easier. I mean still even now I rely on Pat and Dane almost even more than back then because there's really no handbook to grow up. There's all these different things that you learn about. Even things like finances.
Shelby Stanger:
It's nice to be the youngest
Tanner Gudauskus:
In so many ways. Even going through school, it was a little less strict from our parents on me than it was for Pat and Dan as well. There's all those small things and they always let me hop in the car and I don't know, I just feel like my perspective is that they were twins, so it felt as if I was just this singular younger brother and it almost somewhat made it easier for us to roll together. It just was kind of like, I don't know, it just felt built in.
Shelby Stanger:
When Pat and Dane were teenagers, they started entering local surf competitions. There was a vibrant and pretty hardcore surfing community where they grew up in southern California and the twins started getting to know the landscape of competitive surfing. A few years later, the twins were performing so well in local competitions and then on the qualifying series that they were accepted to compete on the global tour with the World Surf League. At the same time, Tanner was just graduating from high school and he immediately dove into competing as well. If he qualified for the global tour, he and his brothers would get to travel the world together. But in order to qualify, Tanner had to win an intense heat. As luck would have it, he was going up against Dane and Patrick. In the surf world, that heat is pretty famous. Did you guys all compete on the tour at the same time or did one qualify first and then the next one and then the next one? How did that happen?
Patrick Gudauskus:
In that particular event in the whole season for Tanner to qualify, I think I had already qualified and there's only 16 spots allocated and Tanner was either 17 or 16 and it was like Dane was round one, Tanner's round two, I was round three and we had to first, second, third, first, second, third to make it to this one heat together. And it was just like the odds of it were just kind of spectacular. And that was the heat Tanner needed to make to actually get on tour. And we had one of our other friends, Mason Ho, who's just like family member. He is insane. And he was in the heat too and he is just tripping. How did I end up in 12 months of competing that you guys are all in this one heat that's the most important heat of his life and we're all just in together by kind of random odds and it was fun.
Tanner Gudauskus:
It's weird looking back on that too, because competing, it's such a juxtaposition of competing itself, kind of cutthroat when you're on the road, it's definitely take it or leave it mentality. And then the one heat that I legitimately needed to make, Pat, Dane, and Mason were, we were all hooting each other into these waves. It was one of the most special heats experiences I've had and probably the one heat that I look back on through my competitive career that I'm most thankful for. Even through the whole process of being on tour, just the fact Damon was saying it's the most challenging contest venue that you can really find.
Shelby Stanger:
And just because you needed to win and you're their brother and good friend didn't mean that they were just going to give it to you.
Tanner Gudauskus:
No, but I think at that level you do see it's such a struggle and such a grind to do it. If they were sitting on me in that heat that could have rerouted our friendship at that point. I mean we were in it together so deeply. I think each one of us probably, if it had been either one of them in that situation, I would've done the exact same. I would've given them the set waves and yeah.
Shelby Stanger:
That's really cool.
Dane Gudauskus:
Well, the ocean is so interesting because it's really a connection to this greater energy and somehow the ocean always seems to give the rewards to those who are needing it on the day or you know what I mean? Who gets the best wave of the day on a big swell. Who gets that magic wave in a heat when the odds are stacked against you. Its so many things out of your control as a competition surfer because you're engaging with mother nature. And so I feel like that day it came to T, came and that whole day from the beginning of the competition was like that. There was this great beautiful energy, so we were just grateful to be sharing it, but it was the ocean calls the shots.
Shelby Stanger:
Do you guys have any just memorable funny moments on tour that you love to tell people?
Patrick Gudauskus:
We have a lot of funny moments out there. The tour is awesome. It's a lot of fun.
Dane Gudauskus:
There was amazing one that we were in. We were in England, and we were all three traveling together with a really good friend, Dylan Graves, and there was a fog delay, so the plane couldn't get off this tiny little runway to go to France. And so by the time, it was like a delay, we ended up missing our flights. It was peak summer in France, so they canceled our reservation because we didn't show up. It was just high demand. So we show up first night, we all sleep on the car that we had. We pulled into a random parking lot.
Patrick Gudauskus:
With a Honda Civic or something.
Dane Gudauskus:
We were all four of us sleeping, literally one was on the hood, two, it was a freak show. And then it turned out we had made good friends with the people who owned the hotel and they're like, "Hey, the best we can do is a closet." And so we literally-
Patrick Gudauskus:
Like a storage closet.
Dane Gudauskus:
The four of us slept in a closet on a single bed, but it was like the four of us spent, slept perpendicular to the actual bed.
Tanner Gudauskus:
Like feet on the luggage bags so you can make it work.
Dane Gudauskus:
And we just, Dylan had this painted Yatzi game and we just laughed. We laughed so hard at the ridiculousness of it all, had so much fun. And then we went to the next event. I mean it was that kind of just comedy nonstop. And you're with your friends, you're at this time in your life where you're meeting all these new people, engaging in these new cultures. And we just freaking, we had so much fun. And that to me was the weirdest. Sleeping in a closet, sleeping on your car, you know, you do all that stuff.
Patrick Gudauskus:
We had 10 days or whatever it was.
Dane Gudauskus:
In France, it was just great.
Shelby Stanger:
A couple of years into their World Surf League careers, Dane, one of the twins decided to leave competitive surfing. Meanwhile, Pat and Tanner continued to compete around the world for over a decade. Did you guys ever have an experience where competing with each other wasn't so fun? You lost or...
Patrick Gudauskus:
Kind of all the time. Anytime we were together it sucked. We were like, oh.
Tanner Gudauskus:
So Patrick and I, this was probably my last year of competing and Pat and I traveled together for that. You probably do about 10 to 12 events in the year, and I think we probably lined up six to seven times in that year. And I lost to Pat every event. But it was funny because we would be traveling together. We'd be staying in the same place. So Pat and I would literally get on these flights together, travel all the way to deep Spain, we're in rural Spain, and then we'd be like, okay, well there's the heat draw. We are in the same heat.
Patrick Gudauskus:
And mind you, it's like 200 people.
Tanner Gudauskus:
Yeah.
Patrick Gudauskus:
The odds of it are just like, ah.
Tanner Gudauskus:
Yeah. And then we'd paddle out and I mean every time was just a different way that the cookie would crumble and then you would just come in and get in the car and then you would just go to dinner and you'd be like, wow, this is the experience. It is lame, but it's actually, the odds of it happening are spectacular. I don't think it ever really got more personal. It was just so strange that it continued to happen.
Patrick Gudauskus:
But it couldn't get more personal because we worked so hard. Yeah, I guess in our eyes we feel like we're the underdogs. We've always kind of had to earn our place to the table. And even as kids, there's a lot of pretty deal kids that came into surfing and good for them, that's amazing. But I feel like we always worked really hard to be at the table and put on a performance. And I think that it's a testament to we just were going for it. We didn't have any expectations and we didn't have any knowledge pre-existing like, oh, we should be able to make the world tour or win a world title or whatever.
And so when you think about that day in and day out, dedication to your passion and what you want to do and what you want to achieve, we really did it together. And then to really do it together and then have the same moment where only one passes. I think that was kind of like, yeah, it was just interesting. It was like, but that's, that's why we weren't upset with each other. We'd just be like, Hey, we're trying our absolute hardest and whoever gets through good on you.
Dane Gudauskus:
At that point, and we've all experienced it in our own ways, that surfing competition is one small part of the whole surfing experience. Really, it's a sliver. It's, for us, served as the entry point into community and surfing, but really it's just this kind of really niche kind of thing when really the surfing experience is so universal, so broad, so deep, you can go so far into it and not even have a clue about competition. And just because we have the level of, I guess by being on the professional stage and ability wise, it's opened us up to so many new experiences by just releasing the competition side of things.
Shelby Stanger:
When we come back, Dane talks about his decision to pursue free surfing and how Tanner and Patrick eventually followed suit. The brothers also share the mission behind their surf business, Positive Vibe Warriors.
After a couple of years on the competition circuit, Dan Gudauskus decided to make some career changes and start free surfing. Making a living as a free surfer was a relatively new thing at the time. Instead of getting sponsorships or winning prize money, surfers could support themselves by creating their own content and selling it to magazines. And this new iteration of his career, Dane still needed to be at the top of his surf game, but he wasn't at the mercy of judges or competition schedules.
Dane, you went the free surfing route a little bit sooner than your brothers. They were still on tour and free surfing wasn't like this direct path. So free surfing, for you, Dane, when did you decide, I'm just going to go this route and maybe you can just talk about what free surfing is for people who think I'm speaking a totally different crazy language right now.
Dane Gudauskus:
Free surfing is essentially non-competition surfing at a high professional level, I guess. I mean, essentially, anyone who surfs is kind of a free surfer if you're not doing the competition side of things, but you can really have a career path in non-competition surfing. It's not a lot of people doing it, especially back at that point in time.
Shelby Stanger:
What year was this about?
Dane Gudauskus:
So 2010 was the year that, or 11 or 10, somewhere around there. And we had a good group of friends who was looking after myself and just saying, Hey, they would go to these heavy waves and surf these barrels primarily. And they invited me on some trips and I began to form a relationship with riding these style of waves. And it was just cool. But you had to establish connections with photographers and magazines and learn how that infrastructure works. So basically, I mean if you were dedicated to stay on the road and work within the infrastructure of photographers, you could have a good path forward in pursuing your dreams, but just in a different asymmetric route to the competition.
So it was really good growing for my surfing, riding a bunch of different boards, just connecting with different people. So I guess we've all made our transitions away from competition at certain points in time and we've all done it in our own kind of way. But when I see people going for that transition away from competition to just getting into the free surfing stuff, it just gives me so much excitement. Their path is unwritten and they're going charge into their own direction, their own identity, and really just form that relationship to surfing in a whole new way that they might never known could exist.
Patrick Gudauskus:
And I think to Dane's credit, I mean remember when we were all doing it together on the competition, and I always remember Dane serving as really unique probably to most people in the world how they approach a wave. And it was like you didn't fit in the confinement of a jersey. The jersey was a box. And you have judges and the judges, they give you scores based on these certain things, but styles not really included in that or aura or presentation or the artistic side of how people approach a wave. And I think watching you make that transition was this crazy leap of faith off of this into the unknown abyss of like, oh man, I wonder how will it be received? But then it wasn't that you were less of a surfer or more of a surfer, it was nice to see you have freedom.
It wasn't confinement in this little space and arena of a handful of people's subjective vision of your surfing and it's liberating to leave the box of competition, it's being in society or things that are expected of you and there's all these confinements and when you really see, I think Dane blossomed completely to who you are today, but as a surfer to leave that kind of space. And it was like really, I would say it's really courageous and also really inspirational for us too. And I think it was a really pivotal time for all of us in surfing to see that leap of faith. And then also how it transcended.
Tanner Gudauskus:
I think from, from the outside when you're looking at surfing and maybe not understanding the idiosyncrasies of how to make it a career like Dane being a free surfer and us being in competition. The competition route is, it's interesting because it's very structured, so you can train for the events, you work on your boards, you're meeting these people, you're climbing a sort of a ladder, but when you step away from that and you don't have the structure, yet, you're still surfing as your occupation, that's when a different kind of work ethic comes in.
And I feel like it was really great for us having Dane kind of lay that path down because. Like he's saying, you work with a team of people to get you into these spots and it's not like I'm going to Europe for the summer because that's when the five events are. It's like, hey, this is South swell season, this opens up these hemispheres, these locations I'm keying into. And that freedom of your own journey is so like Pat's saying is so liberating.
Patrick Gudauskus:
And also challenging because how do you create your own steps up the ladder without a ladder decline?
Shelby Stanger:
Dane, Patrick, and Tanner have each found their way as professionals outside the competition space. They have partnerships with brands like Hydro Flask, Channel Island Surfboards, Vans, and more. On top of that, the brothers started their own business called Positive Vibe Warriors. The project started as a donation service to make surfboards accessible to communities all over Africa, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica. But over the years, positive Vibe Warriors has morphed into a mission-based business that makes and sells soft boards, which are surfboards that are extremely durable, lightweight and they're great for beginners. So how did you guys come up with the Positive Vibe Warriors and what is it?
Dane Gudauskus:
Essentially it was just kind of in those moments on the road and trying to just keep each other uplifted and be there for each other and got to have a positive spirit vibe, something you can share and warrior, they overcome that kind of adversity. And so we just started saying it kind of as just a little bit of a fun saying to kind of like, Hey, come on, we're all in this together and let's go lift up and elevate each other. And it just started to stick and we made a couple fun T-shirts just for friends on the road and it was just something to bring people together. It turned into a foundation as our kind of experiences in the world continued to grow. We went to Jamaica probably in 2012 or 14. It was just a beautiful surf culture and we went down there and it's just outside of Kingston and there's some great waves and there's these kids there that were just absolutely ripping. There's just these amazing waves and they're surfing. These boards had been put together six or seven times.
Shelby Stanger:
So there were boards that had been broken six or seven times and repaired, and surfing on them?
Dane Gudauskus:
Yeah, and maybe even put together with other boards, whatever they had access to. If you got the passion, but you don't have, there's no surf shops, there's no industry there. So we came back from that trip feeling like, wow, those guys showed us their whole culture. They really welcomed us in and shared with us such a beautiful place and just they're stoked for surfing. And so we just wanted to say thank you. I wish we could've left all our boards.
Tanner Gudauskus:
We're like, wow, that these guys are surfing at the same level, pushing the same moves that we're pushing. So it's a bummer because the tariff taxes that come through Kingston weren't allowing any surf goods to cross into the port. And we found a loophole by creating the foundation and using foundation to their foundation of Jamaica Surf Association we could push boards through. And so then we started up the surfboard drive and use social media. It was a three-week process. And it was funny because we went to the surf store, we just basically made posters, put them up at the surf store and then put it on our Instagram. And the first week we got maybe 10 boards and we're like, oh my gosh, this is insane. We got 10 boards, we're killing it.
Patrick Gudauskus:
And think about it, that's people, just to break it for a second, that's people's actual board that they paid for, they might've surfed to had a great life with it. And then they decided through this kind of notification, I'm going to give my equipment away so that these guys can have opportunity to surf.
Tanner Gudauskus:
So then the second week it doubled and we're like, oh, well there's 25 boards. This is a bit more than we can carry on board bags. So now we're starting to look at it a little differently. And still, we didn't really realize by the last week we had up to 320 boards. So then we were in this new world of, okay, we had this idea, it's gone go quite large. So we had to learn about shipping and actually and packing a storage container that would then go from Long Beach to Jamaica. And then we met up with the boards when they crossed through the port.
Dane Gudauskus:
Yeah, it was just really meaningful to Patrick mentioned, see all these people who came out to donate their own boards that they purchased and had these experiences on and give it to someone else who needs it because these kids, you want to see the best for them and make sure they have the same opportunities to get the equipment. And so yeah, it was beautiful. And then we went from Jamaica and we were pretty inspired. We worked with the Cruise Waves For Change and Surfers Not Street Children in Cape Town. So we did a second board drive down there.
Shelby Stanger:
So it started as a board drive where you literally went to places where people could surf and they had good waves, but they didn't necessarily have access to equipment. You found this foundation got all these people stoked to give you their boards, which is beautiful because now other people could participate in it. That was 2012. I mean, what is Positive Vibe Warriors today?
Dane Gudauskus:
The foundation just served as this vehicle for us to give back. And through those experiences we came to realize that the most meaningful thing you can contribute to a community in terms of equipment, especially when people are trying to learn how to surf, is it's got to be safe and it's got to be last a long time. So at this point in our careers, we really wanted to make that leap and it being able to build something that was a bit more of a sustainable minded approach and it was safe and meaningful and people could come together around the ocean and have that shared experience.
So right now we're currently making soft boards all made in the USA. They're extremely durable. They're made from a closed cell phone and we still do work in communities. Like right now we just sent down 40 soft boards-
Tanner Gudauskus:
In Cape Town.
Dane Gudauskus:
In Cape Town. We do make a lot of boards for junior guard programs they use in their programs because they're so durable. And then we also give back through scholarships and stuff. But it is a business which has been really fun for us to learn kind of together again, jumping into business together and learning that side of things. It's just been a great experience, been crazy, been a lot of learning, but we feel really proud about what we're building and it's an exciting new chapter.
Shelby Stanger:
Positive Vibe Warriors started as a nonprofit to get surf equipment to under-resourced communities around the world. They also work closely with youth water safety and junior lifeguard programs. If you want to learn more about Positive Vibe Warriors, check out their website, PositiveVibeWarriors.com. You can also follow them on Instagram, @PositiveVibeWarriors. To see what Dane, Patrick, and Tanner are up to, check them out on Instagram. We'll link to their profiles in the show notes.
I got to interview the Gudauskus brothers in person at the Revel Shine wine event in Laguna Beach. Huge shout out to Revel Shine for the invitation and for connecting us to these badass athletes. Also, your wine is pretty amazing. A special thank you to SEP Hotels for providing incredible accommodations for our team. Also, just a pro-tip, I tried the G Skate, which is a Gudauskus Bros model surfboard manufactured by Channel Island Surfboards. They modeled it after a skateboard and it's probably the most fun board I've ridden in a really long time. Wild Ideas Worth Living is part of the REI Podcast Network. It's hosted by me, Shelby Stanger, produced by Annie Fassler, Sylvia Thomas, and Sam Peers Nitzberg of Puddle Creative. And our senior producer is Jenny Barber. Our executive producers are Paolo Motola and Joe Crosby. As always, we love when you follow the show, rate it and take the time to write a review wherever you listen. And remember, some of the best adventures happen when you follow your wildest ideas.