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SCUBA, Stunt Woman, Adventure Travel.
Sylvia Gogh, is a professional scuba diver, stunt woman, and jewelry designer. Sylvia shares her incredible journey from Hungary to California, her experiences in adventure travel, and how she has embraced change and new opportunities throughout her life. She discusses the transformative power of SCUBA and travel, the importance of overcoming fear, and her work empowering inner city kids through scuba diving. Sylvia also highlights her jewelry design inspired by her travels and the meaningful messages behind her creations. The conversation emphasizes the importance of living life to the fullest and pursuing one's passions.
Website: www.szilviagogh.com
Book: https://szilviagogh.com/book
You're listening to the Adventure Sports Podcast. We talk with adventurers from around
the globe to bring you the inspiration and motivation you need to get started in the
outdoors or to keep you moving if you're already there. Now here's your host, Kurt Lindville.
Hey friends, happy Monday to you. It is, well by the time you hear this, it's March
the 2nd. Today is March the 1st. Something very strange happened yesterday. In addition to
being my birthday, I found myself remounting my ski bindings to accommodate my new ski
boots, which was really fun and getting those skis ready for the, are you ready for this?
Opening day of the ski season for me. At the same time, I installed a new Luch Cable for
my DRZ 400 motorcycle and I charged up the battery and I tuned up everything getting
it ready for a happy season of riding outside and I suddenly realized I was pulling my motorcycle
and my snow skis out of storage on the same day. Very very strange occurrence. There's
a reason for that. First, I decided I probably wouldn't need to ski until the snow is excellent
and the snow's been mediocre this year and I climbed Kilimanjaro, which also meant no
sense and risking getting hurt before killing, right? But we had abnormally warm weather this weekend,
which of course meant that I needed to get the motorcycle going. We live at 7,700 feet in the town,
which is the coldest town from Fall till Spring in the whole United States, lower 48 states,
I should say Alaska does beat us and I was riding my motorcycle on March 1st. Took it out today,
had a lovely ride, it's just very very very strange. Well, life is full of surprises sometimes,
but sometimes life is what we make of it and today's guest, I think, epitomizes what that
means more than perhaps anyone we've ever had on the show. Sylvia grew up in communist hungry,
in very very challenging conditions her father died young because of radiation poisoning from
Chernobyl and other members of her family have also suffered from cancers and early demise because
of Chernobyl. Sylvia wasn't willing to stay put, she ended up in the Mediterranean, she ended up in
the Pacific, she ended up in San Diego, she loves scuba diving and she built an amazing adventurous
life filled with water sports filled with adventure travel filled with grabbing life by the horns
and wrestling it to the ground to make something glorious out of it. It's so amazing so I've been
reading her book and it's it's fascinating, it's it's one part inspiration, one part confession,
one part, just an explanation on how we don't have to take what life gives us, but we can make
something of our own and Sylvia has done that in spades you're going to love today's program
Sylvia Goge, oh and I should mention you know those crazy blue monkey figures from Pandora,
yes we're talking about Avatar Sylvia was the safety coordinator for the stunt crew for the
underwater scenes that made Avatar what it is, but enough of that let's hear directly from Sylvia
as we enjoy today's episode boy every now and then we have a guest on the adventure sports
podcast and there's so many varied things to cover from a lifetime of living large and living
adventurously and I really don't know where to start today's guest is one of these people this is
Sylvia Goge and Sylvia is a professional scuba diver a stunt woman and she is a jewelry designer
she does a lot of adventure travel she lives on the beach in California and she works with inner
city kids she's written a book called diving into dreams and it just goes on and on and on and on
it she has a rich background I'm not going to waste time trying to explain it all when she can
tell us herself so Sylvia welcome to the program so glad to be here I love connecting with like
minded people and your show is is one that I love to listen to get inspired and try new things
that I haven't done before so I have to start people are gonna say oh wait a minute I hear an accent
but I don't know what that is that's eastern but what is it so Sylvia where are you from?
I know people always guess that I'm from Cuba or Colombia or friends I have a very mixed
mud accent because I lived around the world but I was born in a landlock communist country
called Hungary which is the central euro okay everyone's gonna want to know why are you living on
the beach in California how did that happen it was never the plan honestly I came here for a
two-week vacation 25 years ago and I have to be honest with you before I came here I briefly
lived in Mediterranean, Thailand and England and in England every people house the Jerry
Springer show is on pretty much all day while they are sipping their mediocre tea and I was just
convinced all Americans are like the people in the Jerry Springer show so I honestly never wanted
to come here I came to visit my cousin just briefly for a two-week vacation 25 years ago
when I landed in Los Angeles I realized that it's not reality you know the reality shows don't
always reflect reality people here in America actually are very diverse just everywhere I was in
the world there are nice people normal people crazy people and California has everything I ever
wanted the weather the palm trees the no winter and the ocean and I have to say it has the greatest
opportunities if you want to do something in America you really can't start a company in an
afternoon so I did I started like two three different companies I do the jewelry the professional
scuba diving teaching diving for like the past 30 some years and honestly if you can't make it in
America I don't know where else can you do it in the world you know I think it's easy especially
for people in the US to not realize the opportunity that we have and you mentioned diversity the
United States was settled from people from all countries all over the world we're not a people group
we're a mixture of humanity from around the globe and it's so exciting to meet so many wonderful
people from so many wonderful places just like yourself hungry that's fantastic yeah I mean especially
Los Angeles is a melting pot for my kids classmates are all over from India the Philippines China
I want I just love talking with people from around the world I love trying their food
their costumes it's just so eye-opening and I think everybody needs to have a little bit wider
vision of what the word is to be a more tolerant because it's very easy to just see things
through how everything you do and your family do and then think everybody else is doing something
strange but in reality I think there's the beauty in the word that we are all different it would
be boring if it would be all the same wouldn't it be if everybody would think the same agree with
the politics religion whatever it would be so boring you couldn't have conversations and
I love questioning everything and everybody oh that's great it how would you learn if everyone was
just like you it would be so boring it really would be it would and I think sometimes I it's easy
to fall into the trap of thinking that people that think differently somehow are on the other side
or the enemy or the wrong or but the reality is when you meet people with differing ideas
and approaches to life it's a great opportunity to find the common humanity and to learn from
each other and to grow and to stretch and it's it's lovely I lived on a Muslim country I mean
I'm sorry I lived in Thailand which is mostly Buddhist but I lived in an island that's majority
Muslim okay so much negativity I heard when I I told people I lived there that oh my god that
single woman 25 years old by herself in the word in a Muslim place oh my god what's gonna happen
to you and you know what happened to me I was invited by all the locals to their dinner table
I was taking care of I was offered shelter at a very good local price and I lived there for two
years without anything happening to me right and almost always that's what I hear on our podcast
when I talk to people that have done adventure travel around the globe it's all the things that
people fear that that it's just like the extreme minority of what happens in the world what really
happens is people find out that people are people and love is king 100% and if you think about what
is the strongest feeling that motivate people it's not love it's not curiosity it's fear
and I think fear stops people from living a most fulfilling colorful interesting life they fear of
taking off by themselves because what will happen they are afraid of leaving a job because
somebody will take it by the time they come back they are afraid of trying new interesting food
bit crunchy cockroaches or anything because oh they're gonna die I think fear stops people
from living life to the fullest and that is just the silliest thing if we could only just put that
outside and be a little bit more I mean just ask yourself what's the worst that can happen right
you can always go home you can always spit the food out you can always try a different thing if
you don't like whatever you are trying or a country if you don't like it there you know the tree
you can pack up and move to another country I mean that's what I did in my life right you're not
a truck you know that's great so Sylvia what does you've done so many adventurous things in your life
what does an adventurous year in Sylvia's life look like describe to us if you could live your
perfect year what would that be I think my perfect year wait are am I looking back of a perfect
year of my life or I'm planning a new perfect year well I had both I I had that perfect year when
I was 25 let's hear that one first all right so I I was teaching scuba diving in England where I
moved for a guy that seemed like a good idea at a time we were outside of Manchester running a dive
shop and in about an eight-month stretch the entire summer was three hours long meaning the sunshine
I'm like I can't do this anymore that's not why I became a scuba instructor and started
traveling the world and the boy kind of turned out totally different than when I met him and
decided to move with him from the Mediterranean to England so I'm like enough enough is enough
I can't go home and listen to my mom saying oh I told you so so I I got the globe out you know
the the one that yeah body has in their house so I I decided to spin it and where my finger stops
is where I gonna go next my finger stopped on Thailand quick weather check the season is just starting
there so I booked a one-way ticket to Thailand Bangkok and just headed south until I hit the seashore
and decided to get on the first boat that left Puket and it ended up on Copipi Island if you
see in the movie the beach with Leonardo DiCaprio right that's the island 20 years ago before it
became touristy actually by nice 25 years ago it was just white sandy beach only dive shops with a
cafes restaurants with pirate movies time assages and that's it so my perfect day every day on
the island was waking up getting on a dive boat working teaching diving swimming with whale sharks
turtles dolphins sharks meet new people from around the world have amazing conversations eat fresh
bananas watermelons do another dive come back have lunch take a nap play a little beach volleyball get
a time-assage and meet up in the bar with young people from around the world listen to good music have
great conversations make friendships that still last and I can go anywhere in the world and I will
have friends who say hey come and stay with us that I met through diving so for me that here was
the best year of my life being 25 on an island with really nothing to worry about we didn't really
have internet we didn't have cell phones there was one internet cafe where if you really wanted to
see what's going on in the world you could check the BBC or the CNN while you having your coffee
but if you wanted which I did you could live blissfully ignorant and just enjoy nature and the
Muay Thai the waterfalls the diving oh my god that was one of the best years of my life that sounds
fantastic and I love the idea that you spun the globe and your finger came down and you went
that doesn't always work out but I think it really can you're always going to have an
experience I quick story my wife and I when we went on our honeymoon 31 years ago we were in
Europe and I hadn't planned a lot for the honeymoon I just wanted to explore but we were exhausted
the hotels we were staying in were too expensive and my wife looked at me one morning and she just
said this is not a honeymoon we need to slow down we need it and so I said okay so we pulled out the
map and I said we're gonna go and I close my eyes and drop my finger on the map and it was a
village in Austria that was on a lake in the mountains and I said that's where we're going so we packed
up we jumped on a train we got there got off the train there was no village no nothing no taxis
we're just standing in the middle of the woods where the train stopped but a lady walks up to us
and Sylvia she was from the US she heard us speak in English she invited us to come and stay
in some apartments that she had she actually taught semesters overseas for Bervard College
we stayed there for several days we skied with an Austrian ski champion heliputs we had amazing
adventures all over that part of Austria exploring such beautiful just wonderful places
it's like our honeymoon was completely restored because we dropped a finger on a map
I honestly everything in my life that turned out the most amazing was unplanned I'm actually
putting a trip together my sister still lives in Europe and once a year we decided to meet up
at random places around the world and spend a week to two weeks together so we can actually have
conversations without our husbands our kids like you know when you really can just connect and focus
because we are on different time zones so we can't really talk when it's morning for me it's already
dinner time for her so it's really hard to have a conversation when you live on the like nine hours
away from nine hours of time change so we're gonna go to Sri Lanka this January end of the month
and my sister and I have the same travel styles what we do we book the first two nights when we
get in to Colombo the capital where we both land and meet up and then after that we just
gonna go with the wind my theory if I can find it online to book it on Agoda or bookings it's already
too crowded and too popular so we love traveling just going with the wind off the beaten path
and talking with the locals or fellow travelers find out what's the cool
under the radar destinations to do and that's how we travel last year we did the the country Georgia
rusea nice you won't believe that's like that's like an adventure paradise you have seven different
climates there from the forever snow up in the Caucasus mountains and then you have the summer
beaches it has the mountains it has the Tundra in one tiny country you can experience so much
and what we did same we didn't plan anything we found a local driver we were just gonna hire him
for the first day to take us up to the mountain where otherwise we couldn't really drive up ourselves
and then we ended up hiring him to take us for the rest of the week everywhere he took us to his
mother's house who taught us how to make cheese from the the cows milk that cows that were outside
the garden I mean these are the things you can't pre-plan you just have to go with the flow
and it's beautiful it's not everybody who can do that and I can't do this with everybody when I
travel with my husband and son we pre-plan things we pre-book the hotel the transport
activity is mostly but there are a few people and even if there are no people I honestly had the most
adventures traveling solo because when you buy yourself you are open to meet people you know when
it's two people talking talking in a bar or anywhere in the restaurant you kind of closing yourself
off to meeting new people because you are in your bubble but when you travel by yourself
you are really a magnet to meet people and start conversation whether if you just sit next to
somebody in a bus stop or on the train and that's how you can hear about all these hidden gems I
love traveling and just going with the flow that's what I did for the first 10-15 years of my life
after leaving finishing college and starting to travel as a professional scribe driver
Silvia so many people right now are thinking oh she is so brave that sounds terrifying
were you always that brave or did you learn it by experience say that I'm brave I just know what I
want and I just know what I don't want I did not want to live in hungry that is landlocked it has
really depressing winter weather that comes from Siberia it has very um structured
way of living with a lot of bureaucracy and I'm more of a free spirited girl ever since I was born
so I knew that I did not want that I didn't know what I want but I I just started to take off
after college before getting the job the husband the mortgage and I said I'm just going to travel
for three months okay I'm just going to go to the Mediterranean do my instructor training
become a scuba instructor and just spend the summer there then I come back and I gonna start
you know what everything everybody's expecting from me the normal life then that three months
turn into six months to a year then I move to England with that guy like I said that seemed
like a great idea the time until it turned out he had six children from four different women he
forgot to mention and you know the Manchester weather and I'm not the type who likes to go back and
hear my mom say I told you so so I just kept going and I always had in my mind that I'm just
gonna do one more place maybe I go to Thailand then maybe I go to Cambodia and I go home okay maybe
I just gonna go and see Indonesia because that looks really cool all right if I'm already in
Indonesia maybe I just gonna see Malaysia and you know the year started stacking up and my mom still
had the belief that maybe one day I still gonna go home but it all changed when I got married and
had a child in California so I wasn't brave I just I just I think it's like a breakfast buffet
right some people know what they want exactly and it's easy I'm someone who needs to sample a lot
of things to figure out what it is that I don't like until I can narrow down what I do like
wow so we could do an entire show on travel we could do an entire show on your scuba diving we
could do an entire show on being a stunt woman we haven't even talked about that yet I don't know
how we can cover it all but I want to hear about the stunt woman bit guess we've not even touched it
okay that's another thing that's entirely because of fate so when I came to America for that
two weeks to see my cousin in Florida it was right after 9-11 so from Bangkok I could not fly
to Florida but I could find a flight to Los Angeles California and I figured once I'm in America
it's gonna be easy to just hop over to Florida so I called up one of my students from
Thailand and said hey do you remember offering me a couch when I ever come to America so I stayed in
his apartment and his family is from San Diego if you have been there it's the most beautiful
ocean side with the the most perfect weather in the planet it's actually proven scientifically
that if you look at one year's weather the most ideal place with the best weather to live is
is San Diego yes it's always sunny around 20 sazis like 70 80 Fahrenheit hardly ever rains it's
very lush palm trees it has the ocean perfect for surfing and scuba diving with the underwater
forest and on land there are horses there's a bunch of really really cool adventure hikes so
I stayed there with my friend and I'm like get here if fate wants me to stay here I will get a job
at the first place where I ask for it I opened up the yellow pages back in the day we didn't
really google things we just looked through that phone book and I caught up the first dive center
called aquadventures and this captain hook type guy in his fifties picks up the phone and gives
me a lecture about how girls cannot scuba dive but if I really have to send him my resume
well my resume has ice diving rep diving cave diving living in England teaching in the Mediterranean
by that time I had about 2000 scuba dives under my belt experience in marketing because that's
my college degrees marketing management and I really thought this is like a dead end and I was just
ready to look for flights to Florida when he calls me back and says do you want to start on one day
nice I worked for that same guy for seven years managing his dive center in Burbank which is
conveniently right next to all the studios ABC NBC Nickelodeon Disney so we had a lot of stunt
coordinators directors actors coming for training renting equipment fixing equipment
needing water safety and it was only a matter of time for me to get into the stunts because
it's just not that many women who is the size of an average leading actress and can do the ice diving
the precision diving that the movies require but getting into stunts is not as easy as just being
in the right time in the right place right it's a it's a catch 22 to work on a Hollywood production
you need to be in the screen actors guild sag but to get into the screen actors guild you had to work
three days on a Hollywood production a major Hollywood production so you see it's kind of hard
right so it's only either incredible luck or talent that can get you in and I was lucky enough
to get casted for a commercial where I had to swim in freezing cold February in bikini for
all day long jumping off a boat it was a commercial for ex de ordan a skinny dude puts this
deodorant on himself on the beach and armies of women come to tear him up hard because he's so
attractive the red bikini women like the bay watch type are running on the beach towards him
the green bikini women are climbing over the mountains and the hills running towards to get him
and the blue bikini quad is swimming through the Pacific to try and get on shore and get him
and the first time we did it it was like 50 women jumping into the ocean and swimming
ferociously the second time it was dirty and by like take 10 high potermia and sea sickness started
taking all its victims it only was a lifeguard junior lifeguard girl and myself on the deck of the
boat and I overheard her asking the stunt coordinator so it's definitely gonna get me into sag right
it's gonna give me the tough hardly and I get inside and the stunt coordinator said yes
and I'm like wait wait if she's getting in does it mean that I'm getting my second
and the the stunt coordinator looked me up and down and said go you've been here all day freezing
your ass off you bat so basically that got me into the screen actors guild and after that all the
stunt coordinators could hire me whose families I trained I got to double drew Barry Moore
for a big miracle up in Alaska saving the whales who got stuck under ice I did all the ice
diving double for drew Barry Moore I got eaten by piranhas in piranha 3d in a cave underwater
I got to work a lot on dexter all the NCSI Miami and all those kind of shows and of course
the highlights everybody wants to hear about is avatar I I got a call to work on the water safety
and the teaching the actors scuba diving for the avatar way of water and the one that just came
out the fire and ash hmm that had to be interesting
have you ever gone through all the hassles of getting on the plane security luggage
long waits at the airport all that kind of stuff and then when you finally arrive at your
destination not only are you worn out but you also might feel a little bit disconnected I know
that I do when I hop scotch around the planet on a plane that's one of the reasons why I love the
great American road trips where you get to drive from one place to another and connect all of those
dots you get to experience the changes in the terrain and the weather and the people in the
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that's outdoorsy dot com promo code ASP wait sure was I mean it started off as a two-month project
which is a really really long project for a movie for a water job usually we work one to two days
a week or two week is a long long water work but two months it's like a really long like pirates
of the Caribbean type long job this job ended up being two years we just kept good James James Cameron
has so many amazing ideas and we just kept doing more and more water stuff and exploring
with creatures underwater with the sea do's underwater he built a 650,000 gallon tank in Manhattan
beaches studios which is an eight-minute drive from my house so I got so lucky this is a sturtore
building it's like a hundred feet by I want to say 60 feet by 30 feet deep and we could change
the depth of the tank so we could make it shallow water or really deep oceans we could turn it
into a beach so like 30 45 degrees where you know a lot of times they land on the beaches so we could
do that we could create waves like really big stormy waves 10 foot waves that you could serve
we had a current machine that could swipe you away it's really strong I mean we could do anything
Jim called it his Swiss army knife I mean with a push of the button we could change the terrain
into anything from a calm shallow water into deep sea to violent oceans like crossing to
ontartica type weather anything and it was so much fun because we were doing things that
never been done before right nice we were experimenting with underwater creatures with sea do's
the the jet evader you know that the things that they use in Florida with the jet skis and
super high pressure water puts the people up yes go super high yeah now we did that underwater
we did that all those uh breakneck chases that you see in avatars two and three were done with
dose and my job as a water safety you can only imagine I have two guys using the jade
waders chasing each other a bunch of other ones are using sea do's to chase each other we have the
obstacles that they have to over go in a 650 thousand gallon tank with glass windows what could go
wrong right how did nothing go wrong I mean how on earth it sounds like a catastrophe because I
have to say we had the best water safety team I've never worked on a movie set where safety was
as paramount as an avatar our team had a plan for everything if somebody has a spinal injury we had
a whole lift practice with a crane setup we and we had time to actually practice it I mean I've
never worked on movies where you have time for the safety team to to work together go to every
scenarios that can happen and practice over and over it's it's it's it I don't even know how to
tell you how good it feels to have uh Jim being so safety conscious because there were a lot of
hazardous things in in that tank that could have injured people so here's the big picture I'm
getting you decided to leave home for a brief period you spun the globe you had experiences you
tried things you went places you made decisions like if I don't get a job on the
first person I reach out to then I'll go to Florida and it's like serendipity all these things
grew into bigger things and other things and ultimately I mean you're working with James Cameron
on one of the biggest films ever and it's like wait a minute here's a here's a gal from hungry
who didn't want to spend the winter at home my thinking has always been dream big work hard
and never give up and yes through my life I had a lot of obstacles a lot of dead ends but the way I
look at life is if something is not meant to work out it's not meant for me let's try something else
that's actually what my book is about I wrote uh now that I'm turning 50 years old next year
I figured it's it's a good time to recount all that happened to me I mean starting with my father
dying at when I was 13 years old we had Chernobyl happen and at first it everybody was saying oh
it's all okay you can go outside but the next year my father died because of cancer boy yes
and so my book basically starts when I'm 13 years old and I I start thinking about
what makes me happy and that's when I actually started scuba diving I did a sport called
orientering diving in lakes and quarries that it's very much like orientering running in the forest
you have to find objects underwater using a compass and a distance accounting device
and once I went underwater for that very first time I felt happy like that that where you feel
you belong to somewhere where you find your shangrila where oh my god I can close off that
chatter everybody talking to me telling me what to do what should I wear what should I think what should
I eat underwater I was so at ease at peace and I was happy and that's where my life really started to
alter or open up or or I don't know but basically that's where my story starts and in this book
takes you through my awakening to what I really want to do being a scuba instructor and
travel the world that my entire family was super skeptical to hear because you know one
a girl being a scuba instructor that's a hobby right scuba diving is not how you make a living
but when you know deep inside what you want I think you just have to find a way and
don't listen to everybody telling you why you shouldn't be doing that and why can't you do that
so I learned early on saying when the naysayers told me you can't do that just watch me and just
don't listen to people who tell no but you can because they are in my mind very shallow mind it
closed never trying fearful people I mean I think I totally trade off from your question
no that was beautiful you started talking about the idea behind recounting your life's adventures
in a book for people and all the things that have happened because of your attitude of just
leaning into what makes you happy and one thing I want to highlight there is you did a lot of pivots
there are a lot of times you said nope this is not it I'm moving on and I think that led you places
it sure did you know I come from a family that is not rich by enemy so I never had parents who could
pay those vacations that my classmates did jetting off to Paris and doing stuff so I was very early
on starting to make my own money and own opportunities I was tie-dying t-shirts tutoring math
working in an ice cream shop because I didn't want other people telling me what I can and can't do
and I found nobody will hand me anything on a silver platter if I want something I have to take
the chances and the opportunities so it's all started in the Mediterranean when a friend of mine
who is a chef offered us all to go and spend the summer with him in Malta that was right after the
iron curtain fell and we could start traveling to the west as I mentioned I grew up in communist
hungry until 1990 when I was 14 years old the Berlin wall fell and a couple years later I had this
opportunity to spend the summer in the Mediterranean and work as a waitress and I walked by a dive shop
every day to the restaurants from my friend's apartment and I always was just oh my god I want to
try that but it's so expensive it's a hundred dollars a day to go scuba diving and I don't have a
hundred dollars and after about a week or two I worked up the courage to walk into the dive center
and with my very broken English I asked to see the owner it was a middle-aged woman
I looked her in the eye and I said do you do internships and she's like what I don't have the
money to go scuba diving but I have a lot of experience I have about five hundred dives under my
bat by at that time I did a lot of search and rescue type diving I did a lot of team diving and I
offered the lady hey I will sweep the floor I will wash the peed in wet suits I fill the tanks in
exchange that I can go scuba diving in the Mediterranean and learn to become a dive master
she looked me up and down and she gave me a chance I mean she gave me the chance that started
something that just led from one adventure to one country to another one thing was always
constant from that moment on scuba diving in my life that is my deepest passion is to be
underwater where I feel the most free the most meditative some people call it a religious experience
or a meditative experience I don't know have you been scuba diving yes I love scuba diving
it and I agree with you that's the experience you're flying you outside of space can only feel
that experience of total weightlessness underwater when you can just walk for example at the edge
of a drop off and there is the big blue there's nothing when you see out if you put your buoyancy
to slightly negative at that point you can just jump off that underwater cliff and fly through the
water and see the fish swim by you the dolphins bus by maybe hear the whales singing and you do
nothing about your chores your homeworks who pissed you off what you need to do nothing your brain
becomes totally blank empty and this is where you can really live in the here and now
hmm when you describe that I thought again of avatar it's like no this is the real deal it's like
it's like what you see on avatar but for real you know everything you see in avatar is real I mean
yeah all the the underwater forest that where they do the chase scenes that's based on the
California club forest all that crazy looking underwater creatures if you scuba dive you you
notice you have seen those mock diving in the Philippines all all over the world like all these
like really crazy out of these world creatures that Jim has in the movie are really inspired by
scuba diving he's a huge scuba diver and I feel that his movie is undoing what jaws did to the
diving industry I feel because of jaws so many people are scared of going into the ocean but because
of the scenery that avatar has I I really noticed a shift how people are intrigued and interested
again to go and see what's below the surface but yeah that's that's fantastic yeah jaws was
extraordinarily scary and entertaining but I think it it scared a generation at least you know
maybe maybe more than a generation people just are like oh I can't go near the water and it's
that's that's really regretful really really I mean if you think about it most of your body
is made of water so it's only natural that you feel this pool at least that I feel this pool
to be in the water in any form whether it's rafting, kayaking, spend, send up paddle boarding, swimming,
snorkeling, freediving, scuba diving any form of the water just makes me happy
I got to tell you something that I just think is hilarious and we actually have an episode coming
up soon Sylvia actually by the time this one is posted it will have already aired so we had an
episode that recently aired where a friend and I went river snorkeling so we did a float trip down
the river but with snorkels and wet suits instead of the raft and we had the greatest time but
people in our local area were laughing about it they found out about it and it kind of became a meme
but you you're the guy that snorkels and rivers united just so for Christmas which just happened
my wife actually made everyone in the family t-shirts to say river snorkeling and a bunch of
stickers so we have stickers that now say adventurous sports podcast river snorkeling
it was a crazy fun event but one thing I love about scuba diving or snorkeling and rivers
is that not only are you weightless but the current takes you places
so you fly and soar with the current and the things you see and the experiences you have
but I have to admit we went down the river for two or three miles and when we got out
I was just all discombobulated I mean I felt car sick because I had been soaring through
the rapids you know for sale anyway that's a total aside but it kind of illustrates another way
to enjoy the water like you describe it it's amazing so water to me is medicine yes I don't know if
you knew but I went through breast cancer at age 39 which is like oh it's like the you know gym
Morrison Jimmy Hendrix Chinese job playing they all died at 27 in my family 39 is that magic number
my father died of cancer at his age 39 my cousin died of cancer at age 39 breast cancer
who's just an older than me and at age 39 I was diagnosed with breast cancer no yes
and I'm like I'm not gonna die I just had a two-year-old baby I finally have a husband a
home a cool job and a kid I am not going to die so I went to see my oncologist
because I had a very aggressive cancer I ended up having what Angelina Jolie had the double
mastectomy where they take both your breast off yes I had a total hysterectomy
basically taking your ovaries your womb everything and it was a two years or deal of recovering
going through chemotherapy I lost my hair I had after the surgeries like tubes hanging out of me
I did everything my doctor told me I took the pills the chemo everything but what really
kept me sane and giving me my life back is the water even when I couldn't swim or scuba dive
because of the surgeries I had I was out paddle boarding just sitting on my paddle board or
standing on better days and paddling in the marina where the water is calm and for sure I
won't fall in and once my wounds healed up enough I went back swimming oh that first day in the pool
I felt like someone was holding me down with metal arms and their rubber ring and it was hard
and painful but lap after lap I started to feel my whole body stretching again moving again
and the water carrying my weight it was oh the best medicine and finally I could go out to the
ocean and do snorkeling and freediving again and once I got my strength back I could go scuba diving
again and I have to tell you that just being in the water to me is not just the meditative experience
that I explained earlier but it's also the best medicine so anytime I feel hurt pain sorrow I just
head out either swimming or surfing or diving and I come back as a change person have you ever
experienced that so many times in so many ways not always water sometimes water but that's what
adventure sports are for me they're healing yes they're healing just to connect I I can say last
summer I I had a really really rough day and I was just undone I thought man I do not know what
to do with myself I was in such a pickle and I jumped on my motorcycle and I wanted to a back road
and I just rode the motorcycle and saw the scenery and and I shook my fist at the heavens
by the time I I got back home again I was a new man it's amazing how fresh air or the water can
just cleanse your soul your mind your lungs and I really find myself being happiest when I'm in
nature when I'm feeling that I'm one with nature you know you're not overtaking it or
using it but when you really feel you can just blend in but being part of nature whether it's
a hike in your cemetery or swimming in the ocean or being in my garden and gardening and the
hummingbird comes by to say hello nature to me is so important and over COVID I found that finally
everybody had the time to slow down and being a little bit more open to to being in nature that
it seems like after COVID everybody forgot again you know the funny is part of that I know
several people that work in the outdoor industry of course and they had the supply chain disruptions
and everybody wanted outdoor gear at the same time and no one had any and so they ordered all of
this gear and when it finally started coming again then the lockdowns were done and everyone
forgot everyone had too much inventory and all the it was a boom and bust cycle for the outdoor
industry but I wish it wouldn't have been I wish that people would just say there's something
there worth spending more time on you know yeah it was such a great opportunity that nature gave us
I really don't understand why why people went back to where they are unhappy and putting up on
well no that's for sure not but I just see very little I go on social media I do it for my work
for the jewelry company but I really want to live my life in real life but when I go on social media
I see a lot of these happy pictures in the most stunning places but then I know in reality those
people who take those really happy pictures in those places or their foods somewhere they didn't
really enjoy those moments as much as they could have I really wish we could go back to
instead of like showing everybody how happy and amazing lives we have to really feel that
without the need like yeah documenting it it's it's I want to share this Silvia I've shared this
before on the podcast but it's been a while and I think you'll understand when I was 10 years old
my family took a trip through the American West and it was the first big trip we'd ever done
and it was a car trip and my my parents gave my sister and I just a tiniest little bit of money and
said go get something for the trip so she bought a tiny little camera and I bought a tiny pair of
binoculars we took the trip and when we got home I was saying to my sister oh do you remember when
we saw this do you remember when we did that do you remember what this looked like and she said no
when her pictures came back from being developed and she goes oh that's what you're talking about
she was documenting I was experiencing exactly right and nothing's wrong with taking a picture
folks yeah hopefully take the time to experience where you are make it real make that's the
priority of your trip to be in the moment rather than document it and put it up on Facebook
Instagram tiktok and everywhere right yes absolutely man Silvia you've lived such an amazing
life and diving into dreams is the name of your book and I would assume that if people want to learn
more these amazing stories that would be a great place to go it is if you ask me to describe it in a
few sentences I would say it's a eat pray love type book and the wild soul searching through travel
so you will find me in Africa and Antarctica like I travel to 57 countries worked on 27 Hollywood
productions so you're gonna have a lot of behind the movie scenes of the beaten track travels it's
gonna be a lot of hitting dead ends lessons learns overcoming obstacles the message of my book is
dream big work hard and never give up if you if you want to hear a story of someone coming from
less than ideal places and living her best life and feeling that she has enough I mean it took
me 50 years to get to the place where I can say that I do have enough I don't want more of anything
I don't need more money I don't need fame I don't need career I'm happy where I am with my life with
my my family with the ocean here next to me where I can go surfing diving I'm creative I do volunteer
work and I'm present to see my kid my kid grow up he's 12 years old in middle school so it's only
a few more years that I feel that we have this opportunity to bond and in this 12 years he's
already been in 22 countries with us nice you know we need to go another hour but we're not
gonna be able to I want to touch on a couple of things that I know about that I just want people
to also know about you take inner city kids scuba diving who don't even know how to swim I work
with the charity called a chance for children and it was started by the Baywatch creator Greg Bonan
and his wife take Collins and it is all because Greg who is a real life lifeguard rescued two kids
who were drifted into reptiles and almost drowned and that's when he realized that these kids
who live in Los Angeles only 20 minutes from the ocean can't swim so he started this program the
Baywatch camp and the chance for children where we work with these kids who are in a most vulnerable
area in the Watts and in the Los Angeles area where gang violence is very prominent where kids
parents either drug addict or in gangs I mean not everybody's but it's it's it's very much
prominence there so we started taking their these kids and do activities with them they go
fishing they learn swimming they do surfing and I started taking them scuba diving and these kids
I'm telling you are terrified by the idea of going scuba diving and they can't swim most of them
never even had a bathing suit but they do it anyway and when they come up they have the biggest
smile on their face and they have their mind open to the possibilities that they can do anything
and everything they don't have to do what they see in their neighborhood and I do a lot of
public speaking as well in these schools and we talk about let's say at career days that I make a
living of things I love like scuba diving doing crazy adventures and making jewelry of gemstones
I gather through my travels and I ask these kids what do you guys like doing video game taking
pictures doing hairs and by the time we are finishing the sessions they realize that you can actually
make a living of anything in today's world right you you can be a video gamer you can be a
hair stylist you don't have to follow what your neighborhood and your your parents your brothers
are doing and I find it the most empowering thing is to open a kid's mind to the possibilities
so I love working with the chance for children and take all ends I love it that you do that I love
it that you're giving back that you're using your life experiences to give hope and dreams to the
next generation thank you you know someone gave me a chance the lady in the Mediterranean yeah and
I'm in a position now where I feel obligated to to give it back to have others to to get started
to to live out their dreams I also want to touch on your jewelry I'm going to comment right now
you have on these these beautiful kind of aqua green ear rings and you have the most beautiful
blue eyes too that they match I'm just telling everybody it's amazing so you make this jewelry
inspired by your travels and inspired by your scuba diving by the ocean right yes I basically
when I travel whether it's tracking through the Himalayas in the Paul or the earrings you see is
actually turquoise from Egypt or the pearl I found when I'm in Indonesia I buy a lot from local
artists to bring it back to California where I turn them into one of a kind or sometimes a series
of of a jewelry that I sell in my online web shop and the whole message of my jewelry line is to
live life to the fullest to experience to be open-minded to be daring and not only do I make
these gemstone pieces from the treasures I found along the way like shark tut also inside
Africa I have a lot of ocean inspired jewelry but I also make silver hammered uh
affirmation bracelets and necklaces that say I am enough I am who I am she believes she could
so she did because every now and then we all need a little reminder that we are braver than we think
and just give a little push so my jewelry has been received really well I have a lot of followers
in the yoga community the mindfulness community the travel ocean community as well as I have a
monthly subscription called manifestation box where together we have a story meditation cards
a bracelet on necklace and the gemstone each month that helps us work with a with a team for the
month and each month we either work on open-mindedness, self-confidence things like that so I find that
I'm not the only one who finds this beneficial uplifting and happy me living an optimistic life
but a lot of other people are telling me that it resonates with them so yes
I love it I also love the idea that it's not just a decoration you have a bit of jewelry it becomes
a reminder for the pursuit of that period of your life and by wearing it it serves as a daily
reminder that this is an area where I can I can grow more I can become more and you know I used to
wear a bracelet made out of swivel hooks for fishing yeah that not hooks just the swivels but I
used to wear that I wore it for years and it reminded me of important things in my life and people
would ask questions about it and then you you could share with people what the inspiration was
exactly it's so fun it's a great conversation starter I also have a zero waistline where I use
stupidiving equipment parts mixed with gemstones to promote the the zero waist lifestyle I live
that in my life I try not to use any single use plastic in my life I try and use glass metal things
when I travel to I pack in pack out only take as little as possible I try not to buy a lot of things
and teach my kid also take his lunch in like a reusable lunch bag so I figured with my jewelry
instead of throwing away some parts that are no longer needed in the scuba equipment where we have
to change out filters and washers every year I turn them into jewelry as well I have it both for guys
and for for women we also use a shark suit you know when you diving with with the sharks we have
the chain mill suit that also looks like the night's shiny armor I I use a lot of the discarded
materials that that that company who makes the shark suits don't use anymore I combine that
with gemstones and make jewelry out of that as well nice I love it wow what a fun hour we've just
enjoyed that so immensely hearing about all the the ways that your life took new directions found
new purpose new experiences and it grew into a lifestyle it grew into a book it grew into helping
inner city kids it grew into having a family it grew into being able to spend a lifetime
doing the thing that really seemed to give back to you which was being in the water scuba diving
all those things working on movies being a stunt woman a safety coordinator
fantastic Sylvia thank you so much for your time and for sharing the adventure with us
thank you so much and I hope that the message that you have a choice to live life happy resonates
with your listeners and they all can think of what could they change in their lives to live life
happy yes hmm maybe I don't want to overstate this but maybe a little less should and a little more
could 100% or a little less of oh my god you're so lucky turning into I could do that too
that's that's so cool I want to do that let let I'm going to do that nice so how can people
find you your book your jewelry what's the best way the easiest way where everything is centralized
is Sylvia gok.com build that for us okay my name is so it's S-Z-I-L-V-I-A-G-O-G-H.com
okay so S-Z-I-L-V-I-A-G-O-G-H.com yes and then from there you can go into look at my stunt work
my scuba diving work my jewelry my book that's a good hub very very good well Sylvia I'll put
that in the show notes of course and thank you again for being on the adventure sports podcast
and sharing all this with us I'm inspired tons of fun thank you for your time thank you for
having me y'all you bet and everyone out there make sure that you figure out what your thing is
pursue it and get out there and have some fun
you



