MONEY
The best advice my mum ever gave me was to find out what’s good for you. That’s why, when I said I wanted to be a professional windsurfer, she didn’t drag me to university. I know a lot of people struggle with money. I never had that, even though my parents aren’t rich. I have wonderful parents, and they have always supported me, but always within limits. Still somehow, working little jobs and saving up money, I could get better and better. I see a lot of people struggling by thinking they need money to achieve something. But in my eyes money’s on the street – you just need to grab it. If you are creative things will come up. And from little things come bigger things, if you try hard enough. If you are prepared to work hard, you will get rewarded.
THE OUTSIDER
I used to be popular in school. Everybody wanted to sit next to me. When I got into windsurfing I became a bit of an outsider, because it was the only thing on my mind. My friends went out for the first time, got drunk, hooked up with girls … all that didn’t really interest me, I just wanted to go windsurfing. When I look back at this really important phase in life, I placed myself outside the group, I missed out. It’s a vicious circle. You are already an outsider because of windsurfing, you get into windsurfing even more only to become the total outsider. At the same time people found it interesting. I had a good tan, sun dyed hair and always had good stories.
I didn’t know how to handle the attention and, I think because of this, I came across as somewhat arrogant. Being this outsider actually made me into a shy person, which I wasn’t at all before. What do they want from me? I just wanted to windsurf. I wanted to be a friend too, but I didn’t have time to hang out at the bar and drink beer. This was the reason I had less and less contact with people at home, until I only had a couple of friends left.
