Eat, sleep & surf
Surfing has become an all-consuming passion – with business benefits – for Jason Middleton, founder and CEO, Silver Air Private Jets. Words: Yves Le Marquand
Going “full feral” means living in boardshorts for two weeks, spending up to eight hours a day in the water, says Middleton.
Eat, sleep & surf
Surfing has become an all-consuming passion – with business benefits – for Jason Middleton, founder and CEO, Silver Air Private Jets. Words: Yves Le Marquand
Going “full feral” means living in boardshorts for two weeks, spending up to eight hours a day in the water, says Middleton.
IT COULD be the company name. It could be the crop of short, grey hair. It could be the early career stint as a professional triathlete. It certainly is the love of catching a wave – from remote regions of Indonesia to California – that makes Silver Surfer an apt name for Jason Middleton, founder and CEO, Silver Air Private Jets.
When he’s not in the office, leading Silver Air, he’s most likely to be found on his board. Whether he’s riding a wave or waiting for the next set to roll in, Middleton is at one with nature – a place, he says, “where he does his best thinking”.
“You can’t really solve problems in a boardroom,” he explains. “I hate meetings to solve a problem because I just don’t think they're solved. You have to step away. I think everyone should have a place to go.”
Once a year for two weeks, Middleton heads out to the Mentawai Islands, a collection of 70 or so islands located 90 miles off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, “in the middle of nowhere”.
“A bunch of things happen to me,” says Middleton. “One, I get very fit. Your body transforms over those two weeks because you’re in the ocean for eight hours a day paddling, sometimes up to 20km.”
Middleton is also a big believer in grounding, or earthing, the body through walking barefoot on natural surfaces like grass or sand to connect with the Earth’s energy. (He is not alone, earthing is also a must for Luis Enrique, former Spain footballer and manager of Paris Saint Germain (PSG), who begins each morning barefoot, walking laps of the PSG training pitch).
For Middleton, earthing, along with regularly spending hours in the water, is “transformational”. He tells us: “All of a sudden, you start thinking so clearly when you put yourself in that kind of environment.”
The second change comes in the form of reflection. Middleton always makes sure he has a notebook with him to journal of an evening. “After I surf all day, I write notes down. Sometimes it’s just about the day – ‘I got this sick right-hand barrel today, it was the best barrel ever’ – or it could be, ‘I’m going to change my revenue model at Silver Air to something completely different’. I’ve done that before,” he recalls.
As a man who admits he likes “a nice fluffy down pillow” if he is staying at the Four Seasons, when Middleton travels to remote Indonesia, he goes “full feral”.
“I love it. I am just living in a bunk room with a bunch of Aussie dudes wearing speedos, and no air conditioning. I live in board shorts for two weeks with no shirt. I don’t take showers – I might rinse the salt water off, but that’s it. I am just full on. There’s no cell service. I’ve literally checked out. You’re living on this tiny little island with nothing. You eat, sleep and surf. That’s it,” he says.
But surfing isn’t Middleton’s only love. Bow hunting and fletching (fitting feather flights to) arrows by hand, has provided his latest opportunity to “nerd out”. A self-confessed lover of learning new things, especially if they involve some cool new gear, archery, arguably, was made for Middleton.
“I’ve been that way since I was a kid,” he says. “I’m into compound hunting bows – so no wood, all carbon fibre. It's all latest and greatest technology.”
He has been shooting for the past year and recently began to make his own arrows. “I was up late last night building a new set of arrows,” he says. “I shot them for the first time this morning before work.”
The precision required to construct the arrows offers an escape from the rigours of leading Silver Air. “I love it because I have such a crazy work life and it gets me out of my work mind. I’d also say I come up with my best business ideas and creativity when I'm away from my office, when I am away from work. If I’m out there in the field shooting arrows, hunting or out for a trail run,” he explains.
“Nerding out... I've been that way since I was a kid.”
“I think it's really important for creative people – when you’re running a company or even working in an organisation – to get out of it. It’s allowed me to come up with my best ideas. I’ve learned that a little bit later in life – when I came up with this idea, I was out for a run. I should be doing more of that.”
For Middleton, nothing bad ever comes out of his stints away in nature. “When I come back, the biggest thing is that I’m a better leader at my company, a better husband to my wife, a better father to my kids, a better friend to my friends,” he says. “It’s because my body and mind are in such a pure space.”
Annual surfing pilgrimage to Indonesia aside, Middleton is never too far from a wave.
COMPOUND INTEREST… in making arrows
TODAY’S compound hunting bows are the leading edge of modern archery, chosen for their high energy efficiency, speed and accuracy. Modern bows typically achieve raw arrow speeds between 280 and 350 feet per second – faster than an accelerating Formula One car.
In line with his philosophy of always going “all in”, Jason Middleton has been building and shooting his own arrows. He says the complexity and accuracy required to construct a set of arrows provides the ideal mental escape from his role as CEO of Silver Air Private Jets.
“Every single component on that arrow is a different weight arrow, and you want all your arrows to weigh the same,” he explains.
“Once you have everything cut and ready to build, you’ve got to measure them, you have to weigh them all. You mix this field point with this arrow with this fletching set – you mix and match them, then you go to build them: glueing in the tips, glueing on the fletching. It’s crazy how detail-oriented it is.”
His latest set are 28 inches in length. “I built them up to be a little bit lighter, so they’re about 430 grains, four fletches, field points on them, and they’re fast.” Middleton opted for a high grains figure because he has built the arrows for hunting. These setups often use heavier arrows – 400–450 grains – and lower draw weights. This results in raw arrow speeds between 250–285 feet per second.
“If you get to know me, you'll know that when I’m in, I am all in. I don’t mess around,” says Middleton. “When I do something, I do it full on. That’s just been the way I've been with everything in my life, whether it’s athletics, surfing, aviation, even archery now.”
