Episode 46: Meet Taylor Morozova- Entrepreneur, Stylist, Podcaster, and Unbound Surfer

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Show Notes

Have you tasted the different flavors of surfing?- the salty ocean, the sweet freshwater lakes, and even the earthy rivers. Yes, surfing is where the waves are. We owe a fifth of our surface freshwater reservoir to the Great Lakes: Michigan, Superior, Huron, Erie, and Ontario. Four of these majestic bodies of waters are what shape the coastlines of Michigan. Due to its sheer size coupled with localized wind systems, surfing is indeed possible in the Great Lakes. Because of the unique surfing environment, it’s not for nothing that surfers are welcomed by a tough challenge with a dash of pure excitement!

Taylor Morozova carried the California spirit as she searched for a place she can call home. As a seamstress, she used her passion for clothes to serve others with a purpose. Her heart was left in New Zealand when she met with the ocean. She instantly fell in love with its beauty and later on took the challenge to teach herself how to surf. Her endeavors were always tailored with a desire to ride New Zealand’s big waves again. Not until she met a new love, Michigan, where she also met her husband.  

In this episode, Taylor shares about the three things she loves the most: people, fixing things, and surfing. She also shares how the Great Lakes differ from other surfing spots and how unique the surfing community is there. Taylor also gives out some great tips on how to surf the Great Lakes and be a responsible and wise surfer. Taylor also owns a brand called the Wave Babe Hair and she lets us in on some hair care pointers. As a podcaster, she hopes to paint a picture of what surfing is like in different settings from unique individuals all around the world. Today, we get a glimpse of what lays in store for her podcast, the Weird Waves Podcast. Taylor’s story may not be a straight path where everything falls into place but it is an inspiration for everyone wishing to find that special place where they truly belong. Tune in and make your quarantine days a little less melancholic and stressful with a dose of your Oceanriders fix! 

Episode Highlights:

01:41 Born With A California Spirit
06:20 A Purposeful Service
11:32  Attached To The Ocean
15:29 Michigan- Hair We Go!  
19:45 Hair Care 
22:00 Great Lakes Season Surfing Tips 
33:24 The Weird Wave Podcast

Today’s episode is a conversation with the multi-talented, Taylor Morozova. She’s an amazing person and has an astonishing story. She taught herself to surf in New Zealand and then became part of the brave and awesome surfing community in the Great Lakes of the USA. She’s full of surprises and she shares her story today.

“I would surf every single day. I just loved it so much!”

In fact, Taylor and I have more than surfing in common as she and her husband have just launched the Weird Waves Podcast. Check out their podcast on online platforms.

I hope you enjoy this episode.

Take care, have fun, and enjoy the waves.

 

Ciao,

Imi

Connect with Taylor:

Weird Waves Podcast

Facebook 
Instagram
YouTube

 

Wave Babe Hair

Facebook
Instagram

Resources Links:

Related Episodes

Quotes:

“I would surf every single day. I just loved it so much!”

“If there's a wave, you're going surfing.”

“Because it’s basically an inland ocean or a freshwater ocean, people don't respect it… That is a huge issue.”

“Some people don't want more people. But I think every time I see someone out there with me, it's such a joy.”

“Only a deadly worldwide pandemic will prevent a surfer from getting his or her daily medicine.”

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Transcriptions:

Imi Barneaud: “Hi everybody, welcome to the ORP, conversations with creatives, entrepreneurs, thinkers and dreamers who also happen to be surfers.  My name is Imi and I am your host.  

Today’s episode is a conversation with the multi talented Taylor Morozova.  She’s an amazing person and has an astonishing story. From teaching herself to surf in NZ to being part of the brave and awesome surfing community in the great lakes, she is full of surprises and she shares her story here today.  In fact, Taylor and I have more than surfing in common as she and her husband launched the Weird Waves Podcast a few months ago. Taylor is now a hair stylist 

So, without further a do, please welcome Taylor Morozova.

Well, hello Taylor and welcome to the ocean writers podcast. How are you today?

Taylor Morozova: I’m awesome. I’m very excited to be here. I’m a little nervous, but I’m excited.

Imi Barneaud: I was very nervous as well. The last time we did the podcast together, it was like, it’s funny being in the hot seats. I was just wondering if before we started, you could introduce yourself to the listeners.

Taylor Morozova: Yeah. So my name is Taylor Morozova, formerly Taylor [inaudible], and that is my married name. I am living now in Michigan City, Indiana. And yeah, I guess I was born in California. I didn’t stay there for very long, but I think that California spirit was maybe born into me a little bit. And I grew up most of my life in Michigan, but my family, we kind of moved around a lot. So I think because of that I was never really grounded. I was like a free person, I made friends really easily because I had to do that. And yeah, I grew up in the kind of the Middle South of Michigan, a very Midwestern typical life.

Imi Barneaud: Oh, that’s fantastic. So did you have brothers and sisters?

Taylor Morozova: Yeah, I have a younger brother. His name is Jackson, he is 21, and we are complete opposites. I always wanted to do new and different, and try a bunch of different things. And he likes where he’s at, he was always very into sports, I was never really into sports, we’re total opposites though, we’re very close.

Imi Barneaud: That’s wonderful. Yeah, because you’ve got a really, really typical profile and a path. This is an amazing, it’s a really, really, really amazing profile. You’re quite a multi-potential, and it’s amazing the amount of sort of ventures that you’ve been on. I mean, having such an adventurous spirit obviously helps. So do you think you could walk us through the different businesses that you started in your life?

Taylor Morozova: Yeah, I can. So I guess I’ve always been a little bit entrepreneurial. When I was in middle school, I was very interested in fashion. I was planning on going to fashion school in Italy actually. I was very, very interested in clothes and how people wore clothes. I put on multiple different types of fashion shows and was doing events, and I’m a seamstress, I learned how to sew when I was younger so I was really creative. And what was interesting when I was in high school, there was a very transitional time. The high school I was in was experimenting with these different schedules and pretty much my high school, everybody just left me alone, which was really nice. I was involved in all these different things. And then I ended up not going to Italy because while I was traveling and looking at different fashion schools, I really hated the people that I was meeting in these fashion departments. I just couldn’t stand it, it was very pretentious. My parents bought me Louis Vuitton so I’m going to become Louis Vuitton type of thing, I didn’t really like it, and my mom was able to have free college for me where she taught. So I went there and I was just so bored that I started becoming involved in these little things. So I became involved in this event marketing company, and that was very strange, I wasn’t getting paid. I was just learning and I started my own unofficial management company I guess we’ll say. I was managing some rappers, and I had one guy who was like my main guy, and he’s actually still involved in music. But yeah, he is, I think he owns his own management company and we had, I mean, I can’t even believe anybody took me seriously, honestly, I was only 18. I was just talking to people and there’s a headphone company called House of Marley. My friend was an intern with them and so their team was really small. We sat down and had this interview about a brand deal with my rapper and them, and there was this other promoter who was in on the deal and he’s now one of the biggest new talent agencies. He manages this huge rapper called The Baby here in the States. And what ended up happening with that is my main guy, he went completely silent. Like he was in a different state. I flew him to my state to meet for this meeting, and then after that it just totally fell apart. So that was strange.

Imi Barneaud: What an amazing life experience to be out there negotiating deals.

Taylor Morozova: Well, I mean, I’m not even sure if I had the business to do so, but I was just recently that I was going back through all of that stuff and it was a little bit of a strange time. I wasn’t really going to class and I was just focusing on this type of thing. And when it all fell apart, I just didn’t really know what to do. And also not a lot of people knew that I was doing that because I was supposed to be in class, going to school and I wasn’t. So it’s kind of lost, and I ended up getting kicked out of school. And I remember working at this job, and I had a boyfriend and it was just in this weird place, and someone told me to look into teaching abroad and I ended up becoming a nanny. I moved to New Zealand, just so crazy random. And long story short, the first job I had was awful, I quit that one, moved to Ragland, which is like world-class surf, I lived there for two and a half years, and out of necessity because I’m a seamstress, I had all these backpackers in and out of my house. I was staying at the hostel and people would just say, Oh, Taylor, can you fix this? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. And then I had someone ask me: “Can you fix a wet suit?” And I was like: “Well, I don’t know. I’ve never fixed the wet suit before.” And then it became a little challenge. So then all of a sudden I created this newer and different way of melting the neoprene back together.

Imi Barneaud: Wow. How did that work?

Taylor Morozova: Well, I had this, God, it was so just random, but I just practiced on some other wetsuits. I had this curling iron straightener thing that I used to melt the rip and then there was a patch that I would melt on top of it, so it would rebond together the neoprene because that’s how they make neoprene anyways. It’s a polyester, a petroleum byproduct. So it’s multiple, that’s how they melted and they press it to make wetsuits. So I kind of started looking into it, and then I started getting these little, nothing was official. This is the theme of my whole business career. There was nothing official about it at all. It was just like I had this little sign in front of my house and I would come from my day job nannying, and I would come home and there would be like wet suits and like a node and whatever. And then I started fixing some for the local hostels. So I would just come and get like 20 wetsuits, grab them and they would pay me $20 per wetsuit, and then I could keep whatever ones I didn’t fix. So I use those for spare parts. And it was just like this big cycle. Yeah, it was a really awesome time of my life because I got into a community where I had a purpose, and I was providing a service that people wanted, and then it expanded into sailboat sails and like kitesurfing sales.

And I had heard this rumor that this guy that was involved in all the businesses in the town, he used to fix kitesurfing kites and he stopped because his vision was going bad, but he wouldn’t admit that as vision was going bad. So I heard this rumor that, yeah, there’s industrial sewing machines above the Surf Emporium. And I was like, no way. Well, yes way. I went up there and I said, God, you guys have so much inventory up here, I’ll trade you, I’ll clean it out and organize everything if you let me work up here. So I traded my labor for two months of free rent. So then I was able to really start pumping everything out, and then I didn’t get a business visa to continue on. But again, it wasn’t official, I was so young, I was 21, sorry, 22, almost 23 like I had a skill but there was no paper trail for the skill. So yeah, that was one, and then I came back to the States, and I just wasn’t really doing anything. And I ended up working in this shop, again, sewing but doing interior for classic cars. I was working with different Italian leathers and these hundred thousand dollar cars with this guy, he’s my mentor, his name is Ray, now he’s 86. And at the time he had like two teeth, half of a leg because he was a diabetic, worked every single day, and he had been to Australia, New Zealand before he had traveled and done all this stuff. I learned so much, I wasn’t getting paid, I was getting paid in lunch, take me to lunch. And this little time I was fighting my legal battle, so I was going back and forth with a lawyer and trying to figure out how I could get back to New Zealand. And that didn’t end up working so then I moved to where I’m at now.

Imi Barneaud: That’s an amazing story. And yeah, you really were still attached to New Zealand. Did you build a whole community? Is that what you learned how to surf?

Taylor Morozova: Yeah, so when I first got to New Zealand, I signed with a nanny agency and they do these little, whatever, meetups and stuff. So I came in August, so two months later we went to, Oh, no, actually, first I went to Ragland for a protest, and I was just in the ocean for hours, just swimming. They were like, Taylor, are you okay? And I’m like, yeah, I’ve never seen anything like this. And I’d been to Florida and stuff, but there was just something that, it was just so powerful to me. So then we went back with this group to learn how to surf, and I did a surf lesson and I was awful, just awful. I mean, I was also so unhealthy, I mean, I had gained a lot of weight when I was in college, and I just wasn’t fit and I was just obsessed with it. So we had the two hour lesson, everybody else was like, we’re done. And I paid the guy extra 20 bucks to keep the board for whatever. And I think I didn’t even stand up until my third or fourth time surfing. Where I was living it was only like 40 minutes away from Ragland, so I would work for this horrible, they treated me so badly, they were awful to me, but I worked insane Monday through Friday, and then I would just take off on the weekend. I would sleep in my car. If I had extra money, I would stay at the backpackers or whatever. But I was like, I’m going to Ragland every weekend.

Imi Barneaud: So that’s where you learned to surf and you progressed. Did you progress on your own, or did you take more lessons?

Taylor Morozova: No, I didn’t really take any lessons. I knew a couple of people that expanded as I moved there, that taught lessons, but I was just always, I wanted to get better. I wanted to be able to surf with my friends, and my friends were such good surfers and I was like, nah. So even when it was a flat day when all real beginners were out, I would take this like little, it’s the only board I brought back from New Zealand, this little 5″10′ it’s just a total biscuit. And I would just duck dive to teach myself how to get deep so that I could go out with my friends and surf bigger waves and stuff. But I was just like, I would surf every single day, I just loved it so much.

“I would surf every single day. I just loved it so much!”

Imi Barneaud: Well, that’s amazing. So if you take anything from all these different ventures, what would that be in terms of entrepreneurial spirit thing?

Taylor Morozova: Well, what I’ve figured out and through what I’m doing now is, one is that I like people, so anything that’s involved with people I’m really interested in, I love people, I like talking to them, I like hearing their stories. And the other thing is I’m really good at fixing things, whether it’s like, so when you’re a manager, you’re fixing, you’re the middleman. So you’re between the artist, whatever’s on the other side. With repairing, it’s the same. You’re fixing, you know the goal and you have what you have, and you have to figure out the goal. And now I do hair, I’m a hairdresser, it’s the same thing. Whether or not the person knows that they need their hair fixed, they need their hair fixed, or changed, or manipulated in some way, that’s the goal. So I think through that is the main thread that I’ve been able to pick out for sure. Especially while I was in school for hair the last two years ago, I had a lot of time to think about things and reflect and it’s odd, that’s definitely the common thread.

Imi Barneaud: Yeah, that’s really interesting. When you got back from New Zealand you were working with your mentor and being paid for lunch and then you decided to do hair school, is that correct?

Taylor Morozova: Yes, it is. So this was before I moved to where I’m at now. So I moved to Michigan City, Indiana, which is outside of new Buffalo, Michigan. And I had gone six months without surfing. I needed to decide, am I going to go through and continue on learning this? Is this where I want to live? No, it’s not where I want to live, so I need to kind of figure something out. Actually, my old boss told me that you could surf on Lake Michigan. I was like, no, you can’t. He’s like, yes you can. I’m like, there’s no way I lived here my whole life, whatever. He’s like, I’m telling you. So I just Googled it and I only wanted a board. I was like, if I’m going to live in Michigan, I need to be able to surf. Like I’m going crazy, it’s been six or seven months, whatever. And they were hiring and I was like, Oh, well, they needed someone who could teach surf lessons and whatever. And I’m like, well, I’m not like certified, but I know how to surf and I lived in New Zealand and they were like, now that I talked to the manager who’s a good friend of mine, she’s like, you just kind of fell out of the sky, she just needed someone.

So my first or second week working this new job, I met my husband. I didn’t know he will be my husband at all because I wasn’t planning on, I was going to work for a summer and go to Oz. Like I was gonna set up my business in Australia. I had friends in Byron, I was going, our first messages are me being like, I’m here till September, like I’m leaving. So I just fell so in love and I met someone whose life really mimicked mine, and it was really awesome. And we ended up staying, and I started hair school because his business was trucking and he was going to learn how to drive a truck. And I was like, well, I’m not just gonna sit at home and whatever. I had tried to restart my business here. It was only working because stuff is just so cheap here that people don’t really fix anything, which is unfortunate. But as a business person, it just wasn’t going to happen for me. And with hair, I just thought anywhere we go I can just give $10 haircuts and I know we can, whatever. So I think I had done a lot of half-assed businesses, legally standing. There was no paperwork, there was no written anything down. And I had gotten really, I mean, I had to dismantle my whole life basically of three years in New Zealand and that was really difficult. So I didn’t really want that to happen again, I wanted to have something that said like, I have this skill and I know that there’s a document, and I wanted to have an actual legal business, and I wanted to do things a little bit more. I mean, not a little bit more, but I wanted to have it more legit. And I think that’s what led me to hair. It’s flexible and it’s people. Yeah, I mean, I like people.

Imi Barneaud: That’s fantastic. So what kind of hair services, do you go to people’s houses and do their hair, or do you work in a salon?

Taylor Morozova: So recently about three or four months ago, I went fully on my own. So I have a little studio really close to my house and I do color cuts. And if you want me to come into your house, I will certainly do that. I do weddings and any type of styling and stuff. And then I’m also building out a YouTube page because I’ve had a lot of questions for the women of the Great Lakes or from them because our haircuts have frozen. And that is unique, that’s a unique issue, anyone in an Arctic area. So that inspired me to share more of my knowledge on that basis. And just different things like sulfate free versus non sulfate free shampoos, and what’s actually the best for the environment. Is it this eco-friendly one or is it the one that’s made in the United States? And there’s a lot of questions that people have for me from the surfing community that I want to put out there and just see if people are interested in that.

Imi Barneaud: That’s so exciting, so what happens to hair when it gets frozen, can it kind of break off?

Taylor Morozova: So the outer layer of your hair is a cuticle and this is what expands and contracts when you wet your hair down, that’s why if you’re surfing and you’re have color in your hair, it’s going to leach out because the cuticle is just what keeps everything nice and contained. So if your hair is healthy, the water molecules are going to sit on the outside of your hair and they won’t really cause any damage. It’ll swell your hair up, but it won’t really damage it. If your hair split, those water molecules will get inside of where the split ends are and actually expand them and make your hair split warm when it’s frozen because water expands when it freezes, so that’s the damage about. And then the worst thing you can do, which is what everybody does after a frozen surf, go and put then scalding hot water on your hair because then, it doesn’t cook it, but all of the oils and your scalp, it just exacerbates issue, it’s just more extreme from one to the other. So the best thing you can do is thaw your hair out nicely. And I always tell people to wear it in a braid because it’s a little bit more protected, and to put a conditioner on if you can before you go for a surf because the conditioner is what freezes, it’s less likely to get inside of your hair, it keeps everything nice and contained.

Imi Barneaud: That’s really interesting. That’s excellent advice, all of it. That’s amazing. So what’s your YouTube channel called?

Taylor Morozova: It’s called Wave Babe Hair. I’m still building it up, I haven’t put a video out yet. I want to get a few in the arsenal before I start putting them out. It’s quite a bit more labor intensive than the podcast is because it’s a lot of editing, and I also have to get all my science correct, and make sure that everything I’m saying is accurate. So yeah, but it’s the same as my Instagram, it’s Wave Babe Hair.

Imi Barneaud: Lovely, lovely. We’ll put the details in the show notes. So let’s talk about Great Lake surfing, this is amazing. How does it work?

Taylor Morozova: So the basic is that there’s no tide and there’s no groundswell. So everything is wind swell and it’s freshwater so you need more volume even if you’re a short border, long border, it doesn’t really matter. You need a little bit more beef just because you’re not as buoyant in freshwater. And the biggest adjustment I think for people would be the time periods between the waves. So if you have a seven second period between a wave, you are calling off of work. No one is going to work because that is an amazing time period. I think I’ve seen it only a couple of times. But yeah, it’s a totally different thing, it really humbled me, it really changed my surfing in a really good way because if there’s a wave, you’re going surfing, you’re not really like, I mean, some people are pickier, but I would say you can’t really be picky here, you have to just go and it’s very fickle. So it could be working in one spot for like an hour and then the wind changes and it’ll either push it completely flat or it can make it too choppy to where it’s not rideable, and yeah, so it’s very sensitive. Yeah, it’s awesome.

“If there's a wave, you're going surfing.”

Imi Barneaud: And what seasons can you surf? Is it all seasons?

Taylor Morozova: Until frozen over, it looks like this year it’s going to be a whole year. Our Lake hasn’t frozen, which is, I mean, it’s okay, but for a climate standpoint, it’s causing a huge issue with beach erosion right now. So a couple of our surf spots are actually completely shut down because the erosion is just insane, it’s really bad. So when, it’s called shelf ice, but it’s just ice around the beach. And what it does is even if there’s waves, it protects the sand from erosion. So we knew that this was going to be a warmer winter, we basically didn’t have a winter, but usually the ice, we get ice all the way, but it’s not looking like that this year, so it’s creating a huge problem. And the other thing that I would say unique to Lake surfing is that because nobody, not that many people know that you can do it, people call the cops on you, like a lot. And I’ve had a couple of issues with the police–

“Because it’s basically an inland ocean or a freshwater ocean, people don't respect it… That is a huge issue.”

Imi Barneaud: Why do they call the cops?

Taylor Morozova: So Lake Michigan has the most drownings per year in almost all of America for lakes. And it’s because it’s basically an inland ocean or a freshwater ocean and people don’t respect it, that’s my opinion, that’s controversial. But I do believe that that is a huge issue. So because of the increase in drownings, we are out there when people aren’t told not to swim.

Imi Barneaud: Right.

Taylor Morozova: And people get very upset. I mean, the stuff that people say to you and to your face, you’re going to drown. And I say no. And then they’re like, well, what about, it’s just such a guilt trip and you’re arguing with people, even the lifeguards, they legally aren’t allowed to perform or they aren’t trained to do surf rescue. Where I live specifically in my city, it’s a big controversy. We have a lot of people trying to change it. There’s the great lakes surf rescue project, which is doing surf training and it’s one of the strangest things that people get really mad at actually at you and it’s very bizarre.

Imi Barneaud: Have you managed to surf, avoid that?

Taylor Morozova: Well, so in Chicago, in the city of Chicago, it’s completely illegal to surf. I know Brex, I can’t think of his last name, but he notoriously, I think it was 2011, got arrested for surfing. They dropped the charges, but you definitely can’t surf in the majority of Chicago, and then technically you can get a fine. My boss, my old boss, owner of the Surf Shop, Ryan Gerard, I think he got a $75 fine at one point, but it seems the legality is, as long as you’re not at least where I live, as long as you’re not teaching lessons, and that’s more like a liability issue more than anything else. But if you take your own liability, then there’s no fine.

Imi Barneaud: That’s incredible. And what’s the surfing community like in the Great Lakes?

Taylor Morozova: It’s amazing. It is just awesome. For the most part I would say that it’s super open because we want more people. Some people don’t want more people, but I think every time I see someone out there with me, it’s such a joy. There’s definitely spots that are more crowded, and where I live, only if it’s the perfect conditions, it’ll suddenly be filled with people. But only a couple of other people that surf with me, but I actually have a lot of surf shops, which is really cool, spread anywhere from Milwaukee, there’s a couple on Lake superior, it’s just really, really cool. And it’s such a unique thing that everybody is pretty helpful to each other, which is just really nice. And I really like that. So I’m definitely a big fan of the Toronto surfing scene because it’s a city and it’s right there. So there’s so many people in Lake Ontario, those guys, they have something really, it’s Great Lake surfing but the community aspect of it is just something I’ve never seen on the lakes before. It’s really special.

“Some people don't want more people. But I think every time I see someone out there with me, it's such a joy.”

Imi Barneaud: Oh, wow. That’s fantastic. It’s a completely unknown world for me to imagine. The only image I have of Great Lakes surfing is a guy with these icicles and everything.

Taylor Morozova: They do that on purpose.

Imi Barneaud: Do they?

Taylor Morozova: Yeah, they do it on purpose. Yeah. So they do the ice beard challenge–

Imi Barneaud: Really?

Taylor Morozova: –to see who can get the biggest one and get their picture taken and stuff like that, pretty cool.

Imi Barneaud: So does that happen to your hair as well, when you’re in the water in very cold conditions?

Taylor Morozova: So what I do is I usually have two braids and then I tuck them in the back behind my hood. So the only thing that really gets frozen as if little baby hairs, now I have bangs so if they sneak out they might get frozen, but your eyebrows and your eyelashes do get frozen. For me, when my eyelashes get frozen, that’s when I’m like, yeah, I gotta get out. When I can’t see anything, and that’s what I’m like, okay, it’s time to get out. But then also you can just hold your fingers over your eyelashes and pull them out. I know it’s bizarre.

Imi Barneaud: And what suit do you have to surf in in those conditions?

Taylor Morozova: Well, I just got my first six five so before I had a five four, and a four three, and a three two. So that’s the main thing about the Great Lakes is a very heavy cost upfront to be able to surf year round. It’s pretty expensive. It’s changing because the more surfers we get, the more used gears on the market, and the more open it is for people. But yeah, it’s very expensive. So in the winter, it’s boots and gloves. The boots are eight mil. The gloves are seven mil. The hood, you can get extra hoods and stuff. I don’t usually get cold, so for me, I’d rather have a little bit of a thinner wetsuit so I can have the flexibility.

Imi Barneaud: Yeah. Because you must be pretty stuck if you’re in a suit.

Taylor Morozova: Yes. The technology is changing so much. The wetsuit that I just got is from HyperFlex, it’s an American company. They are really focusing on the Great Lakes market, which is really cool. One of my friends works for them, and their women’s six five, it’s one of the best ones I’ve ever seen. It’s so flexible, it’s more flexible than my old five four. I’m really warm but I feel like I’m paddling in my five four.

Imi Barneaud: That’s amazing. That’s fantastic. And I love the way that there’s a whole market, and there’s a whole really growing community. And you were saying you could get arrested, does that mean that you can’t organize competitions, or contests, or things like that?

Taylor Morozova: No, there certainly are competitions, I think I’m speaking specifically about my area, so there are five great lakes. I surf on Lake Michigan. I do know that in Wisconsin in Sheboygan I think they have a couple of different contests, and we do have lots of community events. So the third coast surf shop every year does a lūʻau. The summer will be the third annual Great Lakes surf festival, which they do. That’s really cool. If there’s no waves, they have these huge, whatever, $250,000 boats that create waves and you can like, everybody goes in the water with your log and you sit and wait for the boat to come by, and there’s one wave and everybody surf, it’s really nice. I mean, people think that it’s a gimmick, which I can see why people would think that, but it really is not. I mean, we get really clean, really shreddable waves. There’s a lot of short boarders, there’s a lot of guys that totally rip, and yeah, there’s a couple of surf contests I know on lake Ontario, we have a bodyboarding association, yeah, I think that’s also in Ontario, they do a couple of competitions. So yeah, we do have competitions and stuff like that. So you have to know who you’re working with I guess. You have to know if the police get called on you, then you just have to talk nice to them and explain, I know my rights, I have in my car like a printed out version of the property rights and Lake Michigan property rights and the Lake public access thing. I know that.

Imi Barneaud: That is so interesting and it’s so exciting to know that there is, the size of the Mediterranean is probably the size of a Great Lake or something like that. And we get waves here as well, which is fantastic, and the period is terrible because the wind swell or very little groundswell, but it’s just so exciting to know that there’s a big community. Does it get busy [inaudible] or are they quiet?

Taylor Morozova: So I would say yes at certain spots. There’s this controversy course about naming spots, so I will not name any. No, but busy? For the lakes is like 50 people I would say. It’s not like busy, busy, but because of the time period between waves, and because of only certain spots working, it seems crowded because of that. So I don’t know, you’re really close together even if you’re on the one wave and the guy behind you is on the second wave, it’s very close together because the wave period is so short.

Imi Barneaud: Yeah, I get that, I get that. Let’s talk about your podcast, WEIRD WAVE Podcast. So could you introduce us to why you started the podcast in the first place?

Taylor Morozova: Well, the podcast started, I was working in Chicago at the time, and I listened to audio books and stuff, and I was listening to Gary Vee. he’s all that business kind of guy. And he is like, I know a guy that runs a Dragon Ball Z podcast, and he’s making whatever, $58,000 a year. So if you have something unique that you’re doing, you should make a podcast right now. And I was like, Oh, that’s funny, thought about it, and then on my drive back, I came home and I said to my husband, I’m going to start a podcast about surfing. He’s like, what? I’m like, yeah, I ordered myself a mike and thought about it. And I was like, well, surfing on the Lake is pretty weird, weird waves, Weird Waves Podcast, okay, let’s just see how it works. And yeah, I just thought the first person to interview would be my boss, my former boss of the surf shop in New Buffalo, and from there just thought every Monday we’ll do a podcast, we’ll just see if anybody’s interested in this. And if nothing else, I like talking to people and it’s grown from there, yeah.

Imi Barneaud: That’s fantastic. And yeah, so I was privileged to be on your podcast a few weeks ago, so we’ll put a link in there, and no, it’s a lovely way you’ve actually connected with people. In my case, I did that to actually connect with surfers around the world. Who do you usually contact for the podcast? Is there a kind of, do you search for people by their profile, or by the waves that they’re used to riding? How do you target your guests?

Taylor Morozova: Well, I guess it’s kind of spread, it’s kind of spread all over. So what’s been happening is that we start with one and then it’ll go like, you should talk to this person and you should speak with this person. I think episode 23 was a guy who followed us on the podcast. And when I found his profile, he’s surfing this river in the middle of Brazil and he discovered the wave, and then he led me to another person. Sometimes I was in Uruguay, two or three weeks ago and I knew I wanted to try and interview someone there. So I just searched surf Uruguay and just messaged a bunch of people. So the thing is is that I’ll talk to anyone, anyone that surfs, because I guess the way my podcasts, it’s talking to surfers about surfing, but it’s also kind of like who surfs, who are these people that surf, and it’s just something that’s been really interesting to me. So that’s how I’ve targeted that. And from that, the only, I guess thing that I try to do is I do try to spread out like, have a couple of ocean surfers, and then a couple of lakes surfers, and a couple of river surfers, and to spread it out a little bit and have the location change a bit so that I’m not just interviewing 20 people that surf Michigan.

Imi Barneaud: So every Monday?

Taylor Morozova: Every Monday.

Imi Barneaud: And how long have you been doing this? Every Monday, this is amazing.

Taylor Morozova: Yeah. Since July.

Imi Barneaud: Wow. There hasn’t been any pod fading or anything. Have you got several, you know, stored away just in case, how you manage that?

Taylor Morozova: So I’m doing quite a few this week. We did a bunch before Christmas to get us through. I did one week where I had a couple before our trip because I knew that I wanted to have that, I tried to have at least one. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t work out. But yeah, I don’t know. Mondays as a hairdresser, it’s always your day off. So it’s been this cool thing where I’ll record the podcast and then Andrii edits the podcast. Now I’ve started doing the video thing because we find that people really like seeing the conversation. Most of them happen on Skype. So I started doing that, and yeah, I mean, it works, but I guess the format in which I do it, there’s not a lot of editing. So unless the audio is really bad, it’s difficult. I don’t want to say that it’s not difficult, but it’s not that difficult. And we like it. I really like doing it. It’s kinda cool, it’s something like, I just know that every Monday, 6:00 PM puts out a podcast, no matter what. And we did a couple around Christmas time, what all we saw is if we were to take a break three weeks around, Christmas would probably be a good idea because people are so out of their routine that they’re not really, the figures seem to go with a bit during holidays or Christmas time. But it seems like people then go back. I mean, we’ll just see for now, every Monday and then we’ll just see what happens.

Imi Barneaud: Excellent. This is such an exciting conversation and I’m really, really glad to be connected with you, and it would be a pleasure to take you surfing on the Mediterranean if you’re in France someday.

Taylor Morozova: I love it.

Imi Barneaud: It would be so cool.

Taylor Morozova: And you as well.

Imi Barneaud: Yeah. Well I’ll take you up on that one day, I’ll turn up.

Taylor Morozova: That sounds good.

Imi Barneaud: Yeah. I guess before we wrap this up, I’ve got a few questions that I usually ask my guests at the end of the show.

Taylor Morozova: Okay.

Imi Barneaud: It’s four sentences to finish, so basically the first one is I LOVE.

Taylor Morozova: I love traveling.

Imi Barneaud: I MISS.

Taylor Morozova: Oh, I do miss New Zealand. That’s probably the thing I would say I miss more than anything. It’s an amazing special place for sure.

Imi Barneaud: Yeah. Yeah. I WISH.

Taylor Morozova: I wish we had some waves.

Imi Barneaud: Classic, and I WANT.

Taylor Morozova: Oh, that’s a good one. I want, let me think about this for a second. I want the podcast to continue to do well, I guess I’ll say that.

Imi Barneaud: Oh, lovely. It is beautiful. It is actually on the cuff of a hat like that is, it’s difficult. I don’t know if you say that expression on the cuff of hat, but still, sorry about that.

Taylor Morozova: I feel like I’ve heard that before.

Imi Barneaud: On the drop of a hat maybe.

Taylor Morozova: Yeah.

Imi Barneaud: That’s it. Yeah, that’s it. Yeah. So let’s talk about what your plans are for the future.

Taylor Morozova: Oh, yeah. Well, my plans for the future I guess is to surf as much as possible, of course. Continue to build the podcast and then I want to grow my salon, that’s really important to me. And then I’m also doing this training to become an educator for the brand that I own. For me, it’s another way to travel so I would love for someone to pay me to travel somewhere that would be pretty unique, and special, and cool. And yeah, just focus on building, I said to my husband, both of us, it’s like 2020 for us to see the year to build. The last couple of years, we’ve traveled a lot and we’ve had a very, very large amount of fun, and now I want to root myself and just really focus on building both of our businesses.

Imi Barneaud: Lovely. Beautiful. So reminders of how to get a hold of you, and how to listen to your podcast.

Taylor Morozova: Yeah, so if you want to contact me personally, it’s at Wave Babe Hair on Instagram. The podcast is at Weird Waves Podcasts on Instagram and you can find it on anchors, Stitcher, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, all of those. And yeah, if you found me through this, send me a message. I want to know how many people come from this, it’ll be interesting.

Imi Barneaud: Lovely. Lovely. Well, Taylor, thank you ever so much for being such an awesome guest, and I wish you all the best in the next endeavors.

Taylor Morozova: Thank you so much.

Imi Barneaud: See you soon, ciao.

That was such a refreshing intended conversation, and I hope we enjoy listening to it too.

I love the way Taylor has a passion for giving new purpose to things and learning new skills. She’s definitely an inspiration for me. Also, I’m in utter admiration of her courage to weather the icy conditions every winter to go Lake surfing and take pleasure in doing it too. It goes to say only a deadly worldwide pandemic will actually prevent a surfer from getting his or her daily medicine. To get hold of Taylor head over to the Weird Waves Podcast on all the podcast platforms, and on Instagram at Weird Waves Podcast and Wave Babe Hair, all in one word.

“Only a deadly worldwide pandemic will prevent a surfer from getting his or her daily medicine.”

Check out episode 28 of the Weird Waves Podcast because I’m in it, and I was really privileged to be on her podcast.

At the time this episode comes out, we’re actually in week two of the quarantine here in France, and the first week really, really freaked me out. I wasn’t as much stressed about being cooped up because I worked from home anyway and spent most of my time between my office and my kitchen, but I was just playing worried for my family and friends. And I’ve been through all phases from, yay, it’s a giant holiday to actually baking frenzy, gardening, brewing beer, and total meltdowns too. It’s been hard to find a balance between work and taking care of my family and also keeping my mind off the horrible news. I’m really thankful for your patience on social media. I haven’t been posting very much, and I guess I’ll eventually figure this out and be more active on Instagram and Facebook, but at the end of the day, I really urge you to stay at home and think about the number of lives you can save by staying in quarantine.

Anyway, that said, if you enjoy this podcast and it’s livening up your daily quarantine, please share it with your friends and family. It’s the best thing you can do to help me grow the podcast. You can always share your favorite photos and videos on The Oceanriders Facebook Group, it’s called The Oceanriders Community and links to it are in the show notes. I’m sure your stoke will actually be contagious and help us all lift our minds. It’s really easy to join, just head over to Facebook and look up The Oceanriders Community. You could share your tips for staying fit. You could check slams, favorite photos, or anything else surf related, and it would really, really relieve everybody I guess. You can also support my podcast by skipping over to my websites at www.theoceanriderspodcast.com, it’s all in one word, where you’ll find the back catalog of episodes. You’ll find blog articles, photos, and videos of my guests. Don’t hesitate to sign up to the newsletter too. I must admit I haven’t had time to actually make a newsletter yet, but what I do, I’m sure it’ll be awesome and you’ll benefit enormously. I would have suggested actually having a look at my online merch shop, it’s called the theoceanridersshop.com, all in one word. But with the coronavirus everything is kind of on hold, and the postal services are a bit fluky. So anyway, if you want to support me you can also head over to Facebook at The Oceanriders Podcast, Instagram at The Oceanriders Podcast, and Twitter at Imi Podcasts, and follow me instead.

This podcast wouldn’t be possible without the collaboration of my awesome podcast editor Leng Inque, she has been a rock during this time and really helped me stay on schedule and focused.

Thank you Taylor Morozova for being my guest today, you are such an inspiration.

And last but not least, I wanted to thank you guys for listening until the end. You really are awesome. Until next episode, take care, stay safe, have fun and enjoy the waves once you can go out. Until the next episode, take care, have fun and enjoy the waves, only once you can go out. Ciao.

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