Former surfing pro launches lifestyle brand celebrating the second half of life
By Mona de Crinis
Growing up on Maui, where a surfboard is more appendage than equipment, Micah Nickens took to the water like most North Shore boys did, chasing swells from Honolua Bay to Pe‘ahi – the monster surf spot known as Jaws.
Gifted the surfing gene by both parents, Nickens felt the ocean coursing through his veins and his future on the crest of a wave. Reputed more for aerials and acrobatics than big-wave mastery, he carved his way to professional status, even serving as occasional coach for world champion surfer and Olympic Gold Medalist Carissa Moore.
Now edging toward 50, Nickens is encouraging mid-lifers and late bloomers to stay active with his island-based lifestyle brand, Uncles Movement, through his expanding line of sports and athletic wear.
The former pro athlete began adding #unclesmovement whenever he posted an epic barrel or other rad surf move in playful acknowledgement that he’s aged out of the very demographic he spent a career pursuing.
“It was initially meant as a joke,” he said. “I had moved into Uncle territory.”
In island culture, “Uncle” and “Auntie” are respectful terms of affection reserved for those more kūpuna than keiki. For Maui-born Nickens, it’s an earned distinction that signals a standard of engaged maturity in which aging is not the same as getting old.
The Uncles Movement hashtag stuck. Nickens’ surf/skate/board buddies – also not the kids they used to be – began using #unclesmovement to identify their own heroic midlife feats. There’s something to this, he remembers thinking. That inner fire that lit us up as kids, we need to keep it aflame as we get older, stoke those embers rather than settle for the ashes.
Calling it a “common sense reminder,” the sportswear entrepreneur readily admits his pep talk – hike that unfamiliar trail, take those two left feet to hula lessons, rip the tags off that new Aloha shirt saved for special occasions – is not groundbreaking or new but rather a light-hearted, middle-life reminder to “never stop, never give up.”
Nickens certainly didn’t. After #unclesmovement caught social fire, burning through his extended surfing ‘ohana, he designed stickers with the UM logo and mailed them out to friends, associates, friends of friends – any influential peers he knew involved in an active lifestyle – to track the brand’s reach.
Someone in San Diego texted Nickens a photo of a bumper bearing the UM sticker, followed by pics of folks schussing the Swiss Alps with stickers on their skis. People were tagging surfboards, snowboards, skateboards – any board, gear, vehicle or sticker-worthy surface echoing Uncles Movement’s energizing mid-life message.
“It was game on,” he said, recalling those first few morsels of validation that nourished his dream. Sourcing industry connections built over decades, Nickens selected quality materials and ordered a modest run of T-shirts and caps emblazoned with the UM logo. When he sold out of his initial run of t-shirts, Nickens doubled down, adding long sleeves, technical activewear and shorts to the brand.
While he has ambitious goals, such as producing a women’s line called Auntie’s Mission, hosting wellness retreats and promoting supplements under the UM banner, Nickens is mindful of the financial burden of building a brand.
“I’m not making hasty decisions and putting my family in debt,” he said. Instead, Nickens is methodically expanding his product line, slowly adding to it every three to four months.
As the brand has evolved, so has its creator. Decked out from top to bottom in form-fitting athletic wear brandishing the UM logo (save for shoes, socks and unmentionables), his frame taut and lean, Nickens says presenting daily as an embodiment of the UM credo has been transformative.
He’s developed a healthier relationship with food and drink and stepped up his fitness training, shedding pounds and gaining muscle. His tennis game is stronger than ever, and he’s inching closer to emulating his role model – Makenna, his daughter – in word, thought and deed as he strives to be a better version of himself.
“She’s my example of how to be a good human. I want to be more like her,” Nickens said of the 15-year-old he shares with his wife, Melissa, who has taught him to let go of ego, tame insecurities and always lead with aloha.
Encouraging lifelong personal growth with an outstretched hand, Nickens is already changing lives on island and around the world, like the Aussie pal who relapsed after 10 years of sobriety and found the strength to begin anew through Uncles Movement’s magnanimous message of hope.
“He was so disappointed in himself and his decisions,” said Nickens, who reiterated UM’s core principles of redemption and renewal to help his friend. A few months later, he contacted Nickens to tell him that “he had forgiven himself, was starting over and doing well.”
“It’s been a wild ride so far,” said Nickens, recounting the journey from youth-obsessed corporate player to second-act advocate championing center stage over shutting down and blaming the director. Although we’re the writers and stars of our own plays, it doesn’t have to be a solo performance, he suggests. We all land on those frayed pages eventually, the trick is to flip the script.
Once merely whispered encouragement among aging friends, Uncles Movement’s “stay active” affirmation is quickly becoming a full-throated “cheehoo!” as second-half athletes, adventurers and average Joes ascribe to its uplifting message, wearing the UM logo like the badge of honor it is.
