The first thing you need to know is that this book is published by Rodale Press: glossy photos and generic glosses on what's personal, valuable and important in life, i.e., largely standard English, bromidic writing, with a strong commercial angle in mind.
Not that Laird Hamilton doesn't manage to put his own personal stamp on the final product; no, he actually does pull it off.
The book is tweaked to speak with Laird's own experience and voice. Laird Hamilton is sui generis after all, and because of this fact, the book is as much a testament to his being a force of nature as much as it is an inspirational how-to. The world is Laird's gymnasium.
To illustrate the commercial aspect of the book, however, Laird writes, "There's no such thing as not enough time.... So when I hear someone say they don't have time for fitness -- I'm not buying it.... That's messed up." That's fine. That is Laird himself speaking. But then, on the last page of the book, there's a list of Resources where you can buy all the stuff Laird references throughout his talk or writing, things like the Bosu ball he uses or the muscle milk he drinks.
The second thing you need to know is there are lots of photos of Laird in the book, colored ones as well as black-and-white. In some of these, he looks gorgeous; in others, he looks downright goofy. In still others, particularly while surfing, he looks like an indistinguishable, unrecognizeable and small figure or dot in the ocean. Interestingly, in the Forward to the book, Laird writes that it's a big world, but we humans are not so big. Maybe inserting photos that show the surfing celebrity as a human dot in the grand ocean was part of the author's plan.
Further inside the book, there's a section on circuit training (the standard stuff) and one on the power of Yoga (the standard poses). I admit I was surprised to learn that Laird advocates Yoga, but then, in reading the book, I learned Laird is a flexible athlete, both physically and mentally.
Laird's own personal twist on all these exercises is that he does not believe in routine or doing the same exercises or circuits over and over again. He advocates changing it up in order to challenge the body regularly, and he especially wants you to pay attention to the moment as well as to the body such that in doing the circuit, for example, he wants you to exercise more than just one muscle at a time but get lots of sleep afterward. Laird likes 8 to 10 hours a night himself.
There's a section on raw food eating ("Don't Eat Dead Food," i.e., raw milk), including a recipe chapter with lots of color photos of food, and there's a section on the supplements Laird recommends, including the use of the dubious colloidal silver, which Laird claims to take only topically, not internally (as the quacks recommend). While Laird does recommend eating raw butter and raw milk, the recipes for salmon, for example, do involve heat and baking. It's clear that there's nothing fixed or rigid about Laird's recommendations or plan. He's clearly a self-confessed meat-eater, not a vegetarian.
There's a small section on his wife and children (3 girls), too.
The very last few sections of the book contain surfing tips with not-so-special technical knowledge offered such as "To become an advanced surfer, it's critical to know ho to use your upper body in conjunction with your lower body."
Overall, Laird Hamilton ultimately wants the reader to understand that you need to have fun with your life and stay in tune with fun. Lastly, he wants the reader to know Pe'Ahi is his girl and will always be his girl, with all due apologies to wife and daughters.
The book reveals that Laird Hamilton is a total athlete. You can read about him; you can follow his recommendations; you can be inspired by him; but it's clear you can never match him. He's non-pareil.
