Episode Stack: https://stackl.ist/4bYzGBc

Surfbreak has a job title that is quite different than most: Director of Happiness and Gratitude. Dani is that Director of Happiness, and the role is less abstract than it sounds. Her problem was that answering “where should I eat” was eating the hours she needed for the rest of the work.

This episode is about what she did with that problem, and what a

608-member community in Hawaii decided its local knowledge was worth

organizing.

Dani joins Ivanha to talk about Surfbreak, the digital nomad community

founded five years ago by RJ Martin, now running in Honolulu and Puerto

Escondido. She explains how the community screens for values instead of resumes, what happened when Stacklist co-founders Kyle and Martina

stayed at the Hawaii house, and how one hike turned into a hub:

restaurants, cinemas, and places worth the drive, built as stacks of

cards and handed to every arriving member as a QR code.

IN THIS EPISODE

• Why Surfbreak runs an application and a background check, and what they are actually screening for
• The economics of a “Director of Happiness and Gratitude” role, and why
• Surfbreak funds one
• What 608 members over five years produced, including three marriages
• How a half-hour hike with a Stacklist co-founder became a company-wide decision
• The pauhana where former members built the first stack of
• recommendations together
• Why the QR code changed Surfbreak’s relationship with local restaurant
• owners, not just its guests Dani’s three-part answer on what makes a community worth joining: gratitude, teamwork, laughter

CHAPTERS

0:00 Welcome and what a Director of Happiness and Gratitude does

0:26 Surfbreak, RJ Martin, and the ohana principle

1:18 608 members and three marriages

2:46 The job: making success conscious

4:27 How to join: application, background check, two locations

6:41 How Surfbreak uses Stacklist

8:38 Meeting Kyle on a hike

13:14 Keeping the stack alive

15:39 Advice: gratitude, teamwork, laughter

19:23 The Puerto Escondido location

21:15 Aloha

ABOUT THE GUEST

Dani Jines is Director of Happiness and Gratitude at

Surfbreak, a community of digital nomads with locations in Honolulu, Hawaii and Puerto Escondido, Mexico. Surfbreak was founded roughly five years ago by RJ Martin and now counts 608 members. Membership runs through an application and a background check.