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Catching waves has become one of Ivanka Trump's hobbies. The former first daughter spoke about her love for surfing during her first-ever podcast interview with Lex Fridman.
"I feel like when we get busy and when we're running around, it's easy to feel we're so in our head and we feel sort of so consequential like in the context of even our own lives. And then you find yourself in a situation like that, and I think you feel so much more connected knowing how minuscule you are in the broader sense. And I feel that way when I'm on the ocean on a surfboard," Ivanka shared in the interview, which was released on July 2. "It's really humbling to be so small amidst that vast sea."
She added, "It feels really beautiful, you know, with no noise, no chatter, no distractions, just being in the moment."
The mom of three pointed out that you can't fight the ocean. "You just have to sort of be in it," she said. "And I think in surfing, one of the things I love about it is I feel like a lot of water sports you're like manipulating the environment, you know? And there's something that can be a little like violent about it. Like you look at windsurfing. Whereas with surfing, you're like in harmony with it. So, you're not fighting it, you're flowing with it. And you still have like the agency of choosing which waves you're going to surf, and you sit there and you read the ocean and you learn to understand it, but you can't control it."
Ivanka admitted that the hardest part about surfing for her is paddling out. She explained, "Because when you're like committing, you catch a wave, obviously sometimes, you know, you flip over your board and that doesn't feel great. But when you're in sort of the line of impact and you've maybe surfed a good wave in and now you're going out for another set, and you get sort of stuck in that impact line, there's like nothing you can do. You just sort of sit there and you try to dive underneath it and it will pound you and pound you."
"So, I've been stuck there while four, five, six waves just like crash on top of your head," Ivanka continued. "And the worst thing you can do is get reactive and scared, and try and fight against it. You kind of just have to flow with it until inevitably there's a break and then paddle like hell back out to the line, or to the beach, whatever you're feeling."
Despite the paddling, the Women Who Work author has grown fond of the sport. "I only learned a couple of years ago, so I'm not good. I just love it," she said. "I love everything about it. I love the physicality. I love being in the ocean. I love everything about it."