Former surfing world champion Mick Fanning to spend more time as a dad in 2023

After a career defined by trophies, titles and world travel, Mick Fanning is devoting 2023 to the most important job of his life – being a dad to his young son.

After a career defined by trophies, titles and world travel, Mick Fanning is devoting 2023 to the most important job of his life – being a dad to his young son.

In an exclusive interview with Body+Soul – relaunching this Sunday, February 12 – the three-time world surfing champion said fatherhood had finally forced him to slow down, reassess his priorities and what success means.

Despite a post-sport business empire, including craft-beer company Balter – sold for around $150 million in 2019 – Fanning knows that the hyper-driven attitude that’s enabled him to achieve so much isn’t necessarily helpful for nurturing a wayward toddler.

That’s why, for the moment at least, he’s taking his foot off the accelerator.

“When I get something in my head, I’m usually like: ‘I’ve got to do it right now, get it done! But kids don’t work that way,” he told Body+Soul. “I’ve lived a really big life. But the number one for me now is just family.”

Mick Fanning and son Xander in Fingal Head. Photo: Jamie Green.

Fanning and his partner Breeana Randall became parents two and a half years ago, and he’s visibly besotted with family life. “Right now, I’m really content and happy to just be at home and do the dad thing,” he says. “Watching Xander grow and getting to relearn life through his eyes is just incredible.”

Recalibrating his priorities to free up time for family was a conscious decision. Although Fanning only became a father on the brink of his 40s, he admits his pursuit of sporting excellence began to damage his relationships.

Mick Fanning on the cover of Body and Soul.

After winning world titles in 2007, 2009 and 2013, Fanning now concedes these triumphs came at a steep personal cost. “I couldn’t even be in a room and have a beer or a meal with someone without thinking, ‘How is this going to affect me tomorrow?’

“I didn’t realise it at the time, but that really affected a lot of my relationships. It got to the point when I had to look in the mirror and say: ‘Is winning a world title more important than friends, family and life?’ I’d become so single-minded that it started eating away at my relationships.”

Fanning was forced to change perspective in 2015 when his life was derailed by a series of traumatic events. “Obviously there was the shark attack, then I lost my brother and I had a marriage breakdown, as well,” he says.

“I’d always had this vision of my life as a wooden barrel, where all the fun things I did to keep me going was the water [inside]. That water level would go up and down from time to time. But at the end of 2015, it was dead empty. I just felt like I had nothing left.

“There were definitely days where I couldn’t get out of bed, because I was just so exhausted and depressed. So I had to relearn what was important to me, what made me happy, what would get me out of bed. I had to refill my life tank. And a lot of the small stuff that I used to worry about, I had to pour out of the barrel.

“Success doesn’t just mean work. Success also means relationships, success means friendships, it means fatherhood or whatever you’re doing. You have to work hard at all those different things, too.”