I think there's so much to learn
from failure through your life.
You learn what you're capable of.
You learn what you can endure.
And you learn to be successful through those failures.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
My best advice to anyone that experiences
early success is to realize that it might be short lived.
Definitely enjoy it while you can,
but stay true to your values and save your money.
It was really strange to be at a young age making money.
I was 17 years old.
I was making six figures from royalties and from prize money.
And it just felt surreal.
And at some point when you're that young
and you get that much success very quickly,
you think you're invincible and you think
that it's never going to end.
And suddenly I found myself buying cars.
I bought a house.
I bought a house when I was 17.
My parents co-signed it, but I paid for it.
And then I was living on my own as a senior in high school.
You know when you're a senior and some kids' parents aren't
home and that's where everyone's partying?
My parents were never home.
The party was always at my house.
But at the same time, my priority was skating.
So I was very lucky that I realized early on
that these distractions of partying and fame and whatnot
are only pulling you away from this activity or your skill
set.
And I knew that my priority was always
to keep skating and getting better and skating.
And I think that's what saw me through those very formative
years and those times when I could've just fallen
into that trap.
I'd have been one of those behind the music.
Well, he had a good run, and then he
struggled the rest of his life.
Well, the first sign that the skateboarding
was declining in popularity were the skate parks closing.
And a lot of them closed because it was the popularity waning,
but most of them closed because they
couldn't afford the liability insurance anymore.
And then through the '90s, because
of the lack of facilities, people took to the streets.
People were out skating private property and trespassing
and getting tickets.
So to be a skater back then, you had to kind of be an outlaw
or you had to not worry about that element.
And if you're trying to make a living at it, good luck.
The opportunities were drying up.
The competitions were scarce.
Sponsorships were scarce.
My royalty checks in the early '90s
were being cut in half every month.
I'm not talking about a gradual decline.
I'm talking about one month I made $2,000.
The next month I made $1,000.
Next month I made $500.
And you just can't maintain a career that way.
And so I started looking for other ways to make ends meet.
I started a skateboard company in 1992
when skateboarding was sort of at its biggest
lull of popularity, because I thought
it was my transition from being a pro skater to being a company
owner.
Because I thought that my career as a skater was kind of done.
I was more known as a vert skater.
Vert skating was over.
And I believed in the cycle of skating.
I saw it come and go twice already.
So I thought, well, it's probably
going to come around again.
I had to believe that.
And also because I didn't want to do anything else.
I love skating too much.
I love skating so much that I was
willing to struggle with a skate company
to keep it afloat at huge challenges
to my livelihood and my lifestyle.
I mean, I was eating Taco Bell and Top Ramen and peanut butter
and jelly sandwiches for like two years
and sold my cars, moved into a smaller place.
But I was happy doing that if it allowed me to stay in skating.
And I think that was probably another huge defining
moment in my life, because I was willing to do that because I
loved it for no money and at a detriment
to my livelihood and even my family.
Because I just wanted to skate.
And so I chose every single job I could.
I remember building a jump ramp for a Mountain Dew commercial
and driving it to Hollywood in a truck
because they were going to pay me 500 bucks,
including the materials for the jump ramp I built.
And doing skate exhibitions in amusement park parking lots,
three a day, 100 bucks a day.
Paid the bills and I got to skate.
So it was more like I love skating so much that I
was willing to do it for nothing,
but I was also willing to chase every opportunity so that I
could make a living at it.
And many other of my peers were not so lucky.
They couldn't find those opportunities,
and they had to stop.
The lesson for me was do what you love,
because that is the definition of success.
If you get to do what you love for a living, if you wake up
and you're happy to go to your job,
that's the key to happiness.
I know plenty of people that make extraordinary amounts
of money that are not happy, because they
thought that was the goal, and they're miserable in their job.
They're miserable the way that they make the money.
And so I realized then that this is something
that I love doing regardless of the financial rewards.
And yeah, nowadays I get paid ridiculous money
to ride my skateboard.
But I'd still do it for free any day of the week.