Meet Rj Martin | Community Creator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Rj Martin and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi RJ, have there been any changes in how you think about work-life balance?
Creating something from the ground up, especially when you’re the driving force behind it, naturally consumes both your waking hours and even your dreams. It’s a double-edged sword: on one hand, the passion and focus are the fuel that drives innovation and progress. On the other hand, it can easily become overwhelming.

While my projects still take up much of my energy, I’ve learned how crucial it is to schedule intentional downtime. For me, finding balance is about consistency in prioritizing my well-being. I make sure to keep morning yoga classes on my schedule three times a week, and I’m pretty strict about wrapping up work by 6:00 p.m. I also pencil in a full rest day each week, usually on Sundays.

Everyone’s rhythm is different, but without that one day of total rest, I find myself heading towards burnout and anxiety. In the past, not prioritizing this led to feelings of panic after just a couple of weeks. Now, I make sure to protect my time and energy to avoid reaching that point. It’s about balancing passion with self-care, and finding what works best for your mental and physical health.

What should our readers know about your business?
I’ve been fortunate to be able to create housing and build lasting communities here on Oahu. I moved here to go to graduate school in 2003 and began small scale real estate investing. Within 5 years I was able to buy some vacant land where it took me another 10 years to build a neighborhood of 25 affordable homes. It was wonderful to watch families buy and move into their first home and to witness their kids grow up. I really believe in the stability that home ownership provides families. I was also inspired to to build something that was more community oriented, and focused on interpersonal relationships. During Covid I built out my first co-living space for digital nomads, Surfbreak Co-living. We created a culture and an application process so that the community functions like a community of your best friends from around the world. We select groups of people that can live together, support each other, and live their best lives in a place that feels like home. I really believe that the quality of one’s life depends upon who you surround yourself with. Remember, your company is a choice. And its not just who you decide to be friends with, but also who you decide to work with. Once I started having employees I realized that my biggest responsibility was to them. That how we interacted, the work that was required of them and the things that we accomplished together would likely be the single largest factor in their quality of life. Thus, when picking a job, who you working for is way more important than what you are doing.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
Honolulu, Hawaii, is home for me and I absolutely love Island life. On a surface level, it allows you to be in the mountains for a hike or in the ocean within minutes. On a interpersonal level, island communities function differently then the continents. In Hawaii, we like to say everyone is only one degree of separation. Communities are much closer and I would argue respectful. If I have friends visit, it’s always about getting in the ocean, whether that be swimming, surfing or free diving. There’s always a great hike followed by some great Asian food. Situated 2,000 miles from the mainland, Oahu lives up to the meaning of its name as “the meeting place” of the Pacific.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
I’m incredibly blessed to have a badass mother. She taught elementary school for 38 years straight and moved to Hawaii for a year in 2015 to help rescue me on my first affordable housing project. I couldn’t afford any employees, or even to rent an apartment, so we worked side by side 7 days a week while living out of the model home. We slept on air mattresses and stored all of our personal items in Rubbermaid bins so that we could show the homes. I didn’t realize how incredibly powerful my mom was until I got to work with her.

Website: https://www.surfbreakcoliving.com

Instagram: @surfbreakcoliving.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/bs3tb4ZjJN4EWRGq/

Image Credits
These images are owned by Surfbreak. We are thankful to have had some incredible photographers stay with us and capture the essence of community at Surfbreak Co-living – featured are shots from Brad Flowers, Salia Jalen, Stormi Kadar, along with many more!