Harnessing Passion, Drive & Persistence for Lifelong Success | Tony Hawk

30:23And we're just trying to make our way through teen years and, and skateboarding. And, and, um, it got, it was, it was hard. I mean, it was like, I got, I got bullied, you know, yes, I was successful. Yes, I was doing, but, but I would get, I would get, uh, Thrasher magazine would talk shit about my performance when I would win. Yeah. I remember that because I was from Northern California and Thrasher magazine was skateboard magazine from Northern California. I actually wrote for them for a while when I was a postdoc to make some extra money under a different name, folks, but you can try and find those articles.

30:56They're out there. And then in Southern California, it was Skateboarder Mag, Trans World, mostly Trans World Skateboarding. Yeah. It was a Trans World Skateboarding and Thrasher Magazine were the two. The rivals. Right. Yeah. So yeah, I recall some of those things that were said. It just is amazing to me, but it brings about a really important lesson, which is that kid that gets made fun of, if they're determined and they love what they're doing, that's gonna be the kid that blows everyone away later. And I know this for sure, because I'll never forget, do you remember the back to the city contest that were called in San Francisco?

31:31So I went to those, they were in the drain fountains in front of city hall. I remember getting there one day and there was this guy with kind of like Afro-like hair pushing around and he was doing what are called daffies. He had two skateboards, he was kind of like weaving around. And I remember thinking, you know san francisco's got its issues now but back then it was rough also for different reasons i remember thinking like this guy's gonna get beat up i hung out with the embarcadero crew i was like this guy's gonna get beat down yeah that guy was mark gonzalez oh yeah so one of the greatest perhaps the greatest street skateboarder if you can't really define these things greatest and whatnot in skateboarding um but you know i remember thinking this guy is just he's a kook And then I realized who it was.

32:10And then I realized he was just like any other kid there at some level. And then a lot of the kids that got teased early on, they stuck with it. Five years later, I'm seeing them in the magazines. And I think about this with podcasting too. There've been some podcasters that have reached out early on and had questions. And I look at their stuff and, you know, one's initial impression can be like, wait, what are they doing here? And then you just see them two years later, three years later, and they're doing amazingly well. And you're like, this guy or gal is here for good. they're gonna they're probably gonna be top of the game in a few years so you never count anybody out when you would go to sleep at night in that era were you like laying on the pillow going like oh my god people hate me there's stuff in the magazines i gotta push harder this is hard did you talk to your dad about it i mean again it's a lot to bear even as an adult i can only imagine what it's like to bear as a 15 year old kid i didn't really have a support group you know or any resource to, to voice those concerns.

33:06Um, I just knew I wanted to keep getting better. That was it. And so if anything, if I was worried about those voices, if I was worried about the, whatever take people had on me, I knew I was going to go back to the skate park and learn more tricks. um and at some point i had so much of that as a foundation that it was sort of undeniable that like well he can do all this stuff and he doesn't doesn't just do it at his home park um and i think that's probably when the tide turned for me is when when i started to do well at other events um namely upland pipeline which was for the most part the most frightening pool that we could ride the thing was big but i also recall like the the hips as they're called like the transitions the way they match up were super tight a lot of her giant coping super rough like if you fell in upland you're getting chewed up it's pulling your knee pads down i didn't know that because from the photos i wouldn't know that oh it was it was treacherous it really was like it was and and i wanted to do well at the event and i would drive up there every weekend like my friend uh greg smith was a freestyler but he lived near upland and so i would go drive friday after school straight to upland skate at night skate saturday all day skate sunday uh early and then drive home because I live in San Diego.

34:34And I just made it my mission to figure that thing out because that was the proving ground for me. And so if I could skate that, I could go skating. I'd like to take a quick break and acknowledge one of our sponsors, Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens, now called AG1, is a vitamin mineral probiotic drink that covers all of your foundational nutritional needs. I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012. so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking Athletic Greens and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once or usually twice a day is that it gets me the probiotics that I need for gut health.

35:11Our gut is very important. It's populated by gut microbiota that communicate with the brain, the immune system, and basically all the biological systems of our body to strongly impact our immediate and long-term health. And those probiotics in Athletic Greens are optimal and vital for microbiotic health. In addition, Athletic Greens contains a number of adaptogens, vitamins, and minerals that make sure that all of my foundational nutritional needs are met, and it tastes great. If you'd like to try Athletic Greens, you can go to athleticgreens.com slash Huberman, and they'll give you five free travel packs that make it really easy to mix up Athletic Greens while you're on the road, in the car, on the plane, et cetera.

35:48And they'll give you a year's supply of vitamin D3K2. Again, that's athleticgreens.com slash Huberman to get the five free travel packs and the year supply of vitamin D3, K2. So it's clear you had enormous drive. Let's talk a little bit about the process of trying tricks, the anxiety associated with it. Did you and do you have a sort of systematic process? Was it, you know, I'm going to learn the basics first. Like, did you say that? Did you say, okay, I'm going to learn how to do stuff, you know, at coping level, then I'm going to do a little layer, then I'm going to go bigger, I'm going to do this.

36:22Or did you just sort of try what you wanted to try and obviously weren't haphazard about it? Like how it seems you're pretty systematic about exploring what's possible and then pushing forward a little by little, but yeah, maybe you could talk a little bit about how you have conceptualized, okay, tomorrow I want to try this. It comes in different forms, but for the most part, I think about how I could combine existing tricks and would this trick work going into this trick and could your body position shifts or would it all work in unison? And when I approach a new trick, I'm saying, I'm saying more in the last 20 years, my thought process is I have all the pieces to this.

37:11I've done every bit of it. I've done the, I've done the first part of the trick in another form. I've done the second part or the grinding of it or whatever, usually in some other basic way. And then the landing is, well, the landing is from whatever that is. And if you can throw all those things together and make the timing work, it's going to work. And I, I never, I never went at something with some haphazard approach or throwing caution to the wind. Like hope this, see what happens. It's always very much like, I know I have all these things. And so I just have to put them together. And I mean, now things are so technical that my same approach that I'm doing hundreds of times, one of them just works.

37:58And it's not because I didn't, it's not because I committed to that one. It's because of some tiny fractional adjustment that happened that I didn't even know happened. And it just worked. And I mean, that kind of is the curse of what tricks are now. because there are plenty of moves that I've done over the last 10 years even that I only did once because it was too fucking hard to get to. And I didn't learn from that one make. And that's hard to accept because in the past, I was learning tricks to have them in my arsenal that I could just throw them down at a competition or a demo. I've got that in my pocket.

38:36These days, like that trick, for instance, I did a 360 shove it, 5-0 to fakie. all right let's let's break that down for real 360 shove it so who's going to take this on i'll let you take this on i can try from my knowledge and perspective but why all right 360 shove it is pushing the board with your feet and letting it spin a full 360 rotation under your feet and landing back on it it's it's a trick that people do on usually on flat ground i've learned i've learned to do it up on the vert walls like i can do 360 shove it's kind of in the air but But I'm doing that. I'm doing a 360 shove it. And then I'm landing on my truck, right?

39:18Like the axle between the wheels. One axle in a, what we call a five O position, which is basically a wheelie on the truck. So everything is so precise. I got to do a 360 shove it at exactly a certain spot on the wall. I've got to catch it so that my truck lands when my foot hits it. I can't push it into the truck because that, that screws up my balance. So it has to land on the truck. I have to land with my weight perfectly set back enough that i can come in backwards because i'm doing this trick and and i'm i'm gonna come in fakie right 360 shove 50 to coming in forward is as a whole different beast that that i could probably do that just in a few tries but the idea that i have to land on this thing balance on it like a teeter-totter and then reverse my energy and come in the fakie backward it's so hard it's so hard to to get into the right position so like anytime i try it there's like a one in ten chance i'm even going to get into the position i need and that's the one i have to commit to so every time i do it it's so intense and it takes so much so much commitment and so much mind i don't even know how to explain it like the that you have shut everything else out except this one moment and this one fractional piece that you have to make work.

40:46And I've done it once. And I would love to do it again, but I know it's going to take the same amount of effort. I didn't learn from that one that I made some trick that makes it happen every time. It's all so technical and there's so many things that can go wrong that I'll accept that. Okay. I did it once. In thinking about the 360 show at five Oh fakie. Uh, was that something that you thought of the night before you decide that day? Do you ever use visualization? Have you ever had, um, learning come to you in a dream or find that you tried, tried, tried something, went to sleep that night next day, made it anything like that?

41:23Yes. Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle of the night and I'll write down something because it was like, oh, there's this trick. Oh, I think I could do that. Yeah, okay, I'm gonna write it down. So you dream about skateboarding from time to time? Yeah, well, yeah, that has shifted a bit after I got hurt, but yeah. I used to dream that I can't skate. Like I'm trying and it feels like the ramp's made a carpet. I can't get the speed. I can't get the timing. And then as I went through this traumatic injury, my dream shifted to, wow, I can skate. I can do all my tricks again. Oh, interesting. Yeah.

41:53A little piece of science around the can't skate piece or when people feel like they're bolted down in a dream or they can't run away. There's this one phase of sleep called rapid eye movement sleep where the brain is very active. The dreams associated with it tend to be very vivid. And at the same time, we are completely paralyzed. And the idea is that no one really knows why, but that it's the case that we're paralyzed to prevent us from acting out our dreams. it's also an interesting neurochemical phenomenon because during these rapid eye movement dreams they tend to be very intense but the body can't release adrenaline so it's almost like its own form of trauma therapy it's like you're experiencing this intense thing in your mind but your body can't react and so oftentimes people uh have argued that that's why you feel like you want to move and you can't because you actually can't some people have woken up while still a bit paralyzed in REM have you ever had that happen where you wake up but actually a couple of my kids have struggled with that a couple of times.

42:50Yeah. REM interference is called. It's not dangerous and usually people can jolt themselves out, but it's kind of terrifying. So that's interesting. So we'll get to a discussion about the recent injury and thankfully recovery from the injury. Not miraculous because that makes it seem as if it's surprising. Frankly, I'm not surprised that you've recovered, but it is spectacular the way you have. But you're saying that in your dreams before the injury, you would think about skateboarding, but you felt like there was a kind of can't do it when i was doing it in my dream there was always some roadblock that i just could like why can't i get any speed why can't i why can't i snap or do this trick um it's more in the moments where it's twilight moments where i'm kind of awake and i'm thinking about tricks that everything else falls away and i can actually focus on what kind of new moves to come up with um uh an example of that was uh recently i went to the x games in japan a few weeks ago uh and i was thinking i was going to go more to show my support and because they had a vert event there's not a lot of vert events anymore so if there's a vert event it's kind of like if you build it i will come because i want to show my support that's that's kind of where my heart is and they had a best trick event.

44:11And I thought, man, maybe I could get in the best trick. Is there anything new though? You know, and I'm still recovering from my leg. And then at some point I was falling asleep and I thought, Oh, I could do that trick and come in one 80. I know I could do that with, with my current state and not getting that much speed. So to explain what I was doing is, is a half cab body, very old backside blunt. Okay. We can walk through this half cab has come up backwards go 360 right so half of that would go as i as i approach the top of the ramp i body rail that means i jump around and then i jump around on my board and then i make sure that it lands with my two trucks out and my tail on the coping which is very precarious and i've done that and come in fakie that's the blunt piece that's the blunt so i've done that where i where and then you have to you have to use your beat to lift up the board come in fakie right i've done that i've done that twice.

45:07And I thought, well, I wonder if there's something I could do like that. And then I realized that if I just keep coming around and I come in backside direction, that keeps my body spinning and that might actually be easier. It wasn't, but I figured it out. I think I saw a clip of this on Instagram. I did it. Yeah. I mean, I did it. I did it at X Games and that was like, it was my last run. It was, it was, I mean, it didn't move the needle. I got seventh place, but for me, it was a huge moment. It felt amazing, I bet. Oh yeah, for sure. I mean, it was like weeks of preparation and trying to figure this thing out.

45:44I made it twice before the event on my own, alone, on my ramp. But that's just an example of, you know, I was literally falling asleep and then all of a sudden it was like, half-cat bodybuild, back's a blunt. I love it. That liminal state between wakefulness and sleep is such a beautiful state that if one is open to ideas showing up there, they almost always do. I started trying it the next morning. Do you ever find that when you're taking walks or in the shower or not thinking about skateboarding? Yeah. It's usually in the sort of mundane moments that I get inspiration. Do you have practices for pure relaxation aside from socialization?

46:29I know. I was never, I think that's something I've been lacking. I never was good at warming up, stretching post warmup, um, or, or, or relaxing, you know, meditation, nothing. I just, I, I go skate and it's on. Um, and as I've gotten older, I realized that's not the best technique, but it's worked so far. It has worked. Um, so for you, it's go hopefully a little bit of warmup. If you, I have more of a sort of OCD warmup run that I use to gauge how I'm feeling, but I kind of have to get through that. Like a surgeon, when a surgeon's about to do a surgery, um, they don't warm up. They just check off the various boxes of, you know, this is here, that's there, make sure that they're comfortable in their environment.

47:21And then they do, they do the life-saving work. Yeah. Yeah. My, I'd say my warmup run is, is kind of basic tricks, but they give me a sense of how, how stiff or how I, what I need to adjust for, for the rest of the day. So I guess it's not so OCD, but, but I definitely feel like I got to go through that routine. What feels the best? Like I know that making a new trick feels incredible, especially if you've been at it a long time, dialing it in so that you can do it again and again is its own form of reward. But what is the maybe list of two or three things that just feels so good? Well, that for sure, learning new tricks, not even that it's something that I created, but just doing something that I've never done before.

48:09When I first learned varials, backside varials, no one had done backside varials before. They'd only done frontside. And a varial is where you reach down, grab your board, jump in the air, and then turn it 180 under your feet. It's like a shove it, but you're guiding with your hand. I learned that halfway up the pool, the main pool at Oasis with no one around. And the feeling I got when I rode away was something that I had never experienced. And it is literally the buzz that I've been chasing ever since because it was like, I created something. Varials Below Coping was the button. That was it.

48:46It really was. And if you saw a video of it, you'd be like, that thing like what can i say it was it was the first time that i thought i thought of it um i i went through all the motions of it i did the work and i figured it out and you know no one no one cared but at some point i was able to do it six feet in the air and do a full 360 varial and so that was the building block but but that feeling was like no other um i'd say that and And then just even to strip everything else away, like the most basic tricks, like a backside ollie is a no-handed aerial. That used to be what it was called, backside no-handed aerial.

49:31It feels so good because even to this day, people say, how does the board stay on your feet? And I can't even tell you how the board stays on my feet. I just know how to maneuver it. And I know how to keep the pressure on it and the friction going. and backside always is like, I think it's like a marvel of physics and a clean backside to me is feels good as anything. Yeah. It's a beautiful thing to behold. I confess I've never done a legitimate backside all on a mini ramp. Sure. But not on vert. So I can't relate to the feeling, but I love, love, love the fact that you brought us back to that early variable-o coping feeling and that that marks the essence of what feels so good when you do something else, right?

50:20It's sort of like a – as a neuroscientist, I see it as a chemical stamp. It's like a chemical fingerprint of progress, right? And I'm also delighted to hear that it still feels that good to do these things because I don't think anyone can have the kind of lifelong progression that you've had, and it's still going without a, not just love of the thing, but love of the feeling that it brings when no one's around. Cause you said skating your ramp by yourself. So how often are you on your ramp with, you know, no one's filming for Instagram, no, nothing for a video, nothing for a video game. None of that.

50:54Maybe there's, you know, maybe other guys are around gals around. We'll talk about gals too. Cause one of the big shifts in skateboarding since I started is that there's some amazing female skateboarders. Now, there's a young lady, in fact, that's been skateboarding at your ramp. Forgive me, I can't remember her name. Is it Reese? Reese. Reese Nelson. Goodness. Goodness. Gracious. I know. She is so good. So good. So good. So we'll get back to that. But I think that, you know, people starting any kind of sport or academic career or business or anything, I think people assume that you go from zero to a hundred somehow, and that there are these people that are just selected by genetics or by luck or by some combination of things to just like get it and be better than everybody else.

51:40But it's clear that you've spent a lot of time alone, driving someplace to skate the next day or alone at the ramp. So do you ever reflect on that kind of drive? And you know, what, what, what that's all about? Or is it just so intrinsic to who you are? I don't, I don't think about it. I just know I have to do it. It's like, I mean, I, we can get into it with my injury but um uh but but to go back to what you're saying is you're saying that people think that oh you were chosen for this or genetics whatever have you saw last name's hawk after all you saw me skate yeah when i first started skating there was no way you'd think that i was natural or that i had any future in it i was all gangly i was all over the place i was eating shit left and right like it just it wasn't i wasn't good i wasn't i wasn't a natural um i've seen people that are naturals and I've seen that how they don't have that drive.

52:39They don't have the discipline and it's not wasted, but they just don't, they don't utilize, they don't take advantage of what they have naturally. And for whatever reason, I don't, I don't fault anyone for it. Um, but I've seen both sides of it. And I've also seen other skaters who are just driven and who are not really good, kind of sloppy, and become the best, Andrew Reynolds. When we put him on our team, he was just like me, super gangly, his board's bouncing around, but he's trying every single trick. And every time he sent me a video, it's some new technique that he's figured out. And he didn't really, by the untrained eye, he didn't have the skill set for.

53:24And then he became the boss. You know what I mean? So I think it's just you have to give that as much weight as natural talent, if not more. I'd say more. Yeah, I would certainly say more for science and, you know, the people who are in the lab late at night and early in the morning and drilling away, not always the smartest, certainly not the dumbest, but smart enough to show up when other people are leaving and continue. And I think there has to be a little bit of friction internally. i mean you know maybe maybe externally also but just some friction some i'm gonna show you yeah yes okay my best example of that and i haven't talked about this yet um because i did it privately but i i broke my leg doing a mctwist something that i've done thousands of times in my 40 540 yeah so it's it's a one and a half spin in the backside direction but that particular grab that you do makes it a McTwist because it makes you kind of flip upside down.

54:27So it's kind of a one and a half somersault. It's not my trick. It's Mike McGill's trick. I learned it not long after he created it in 1984. Been doing it ever since. I mean, I'm talking about 40 years of McTwist, right? I've gotten hurt once or twice, but not bad. Anyway, I fucked around and found out, did one with no speed last year thinking I could do it like I was still 20 and got tangled up and broke my femur. I had a super long recovery. I had a false start. I had a non-union fracture, which means my bone never connected back to itself and it kept pushing itself further away. And that's all in the past.

55:11I got a second surgery in November and all along in the back of my head is I got to get back to 540s. I have to. And I can't explain why I have to. I hate that it means that much to me. But it's in here. You know what I mean? It's not a sense of pride. It's not like I have to prove this to anyone. I just have to do it. And last week I did it. It was so scary. And I prepped for it. I mean, even down to like my diet and I stopped drinking altogether. And I was like, every time I go to the ramp, I'm just trying 540s, like to get the spin, to get the landing zone with no intention of making it, just that I had to get there.

55:59And then I had to have this heart to heart with my wife that, you know, she doesn't want to see me get hurt. She doesn't want to see me risking myself at this age anymore. She doesn't want to live through another traumatic injury with me. and I had to tell her like, I have to do this. She was gracious and accepting and that's all I could ask for. It wasn't like she was like, yeah, you gotta go do it. It was like, okay. That's who you are. and so she was there she was my only spectator so good i confess i've seen a video of this and my first response was um f yes and my second response was that was really high like this is no you know just above coping 540 this isn't even you know this is a head high 540 i'm not going to make the same mistake i did last time where i tried it low thinking i just get away with it anymore.

56:55So the going high was more of a safety measure, which is ironic. The bigger the ramps for me, the safer it is because I have a better landing zone. I have more time in the air to adjust. And even though it looks spectacular and six feet in the air, it's just like, no, I need that. I can't skate some eight foot pool. I have no landing zone. I'm too tall. I move too slowly now to do that kind of stuff. So that's why you don't see me like in the park events and stuff like that. You know, you're going to see me on this 14 foot vert ramp because that's my happy place and that's where I'm safe. Um, but also having my wife there, I just knew I wasn't going to get hurt in front of her because I would have been such trouble.

57:40The, the emotional support and pressure is a real thing and in the best ways. Not to focus on the bad aspects of the injury because - There are plenty. Yeah. I recall you and I communicated not long after the, let's say, let's call it what it was, the first break. And I remember you said to me over text, you said, how long before I'm skateboarding again? And I said, skateboarding as in pushing or skateboarding as in what you do on vert, you know, and you said, uh, what I do on vert. And I said, well, it seems you are doing a lot of things. You were doing deliberate cold, deliberate heat pressure.

58:19You do a number of things. I mean, you're not haphazard about your career and your body and your health. And we'll get into that a little bit later. Some of the things that you've enjoyed as beneficial for you, but, um, you said, I'm calling it at two months. And I said, okay, um, I believe it. And then I recall that you, was it the Oscars or some other award event where you came out about a week later, you came out there, you walked out, this broken femur and you weren't using any support to walk out. So you clearly ditched whatever support you might've been using, which I think is awesome, by the way.

58:53And then pretty soon I was seeing videos of you dropping in. I'm seeing videos of you doing kick turns below coping. I'm seeing videos of you at coping. And we have a friend in common, the skateboard and generally photographer, Mike Blayback. And I remember texting Mike, I was like, Tony's back already. This is superhuman rates of healing. And I think it is superhuman rates of healing. Then you mentioned that you damaged, broke the femur again. So did you allow more rest the second time? What was driving you to get back in it so quickly? The first go around, I just didn't listen to any of the professional advice because I thought, Well, I've come this far and I've always been able to push through broken pelvis, broken elbow, knee surgeries.

59:42And the timeline is always very shortened for me because I just get back out there and I get the healing started. But I also am comfortable with what people think is extremely risky. But in this instance, I wanted to get back out there right away. And not long after the Academy Awards, I was actually walking with a cane at that time. and I ditched the cane just to walk out on stage to present the award. So that was my big coming out moment, but it was kind of forced. And as soon as I walked out to stage, I grabbed my cane, and I was hobbling in the backstage. But I was skating kind of a mini ramp, and I was already struggling because I couldn't put my weight on my front foot because my bone still had not connected to itself.

1:00:29So there's a gap in the bone, but there's a nail, what they call a nail or, you know, big piece of metal that's holding them in place. But I didn't realize how careful I needed to be with that because it was so precarious. And I decided I'm going to drop in on the mini ramp. Like, I think I'm ready. And it wasn't the drop in on the mini ramp. It was me getting to the top of the mini ramp and stepping off my board. It's always that kind of stuff. But, but I just stepped off my board like I would do any other day, but I didn't think I led with my front foot and I felt the bone move in that moment.

1:01:02I really, I felt it. I felt it either twist or get out of place. And I was in total denial for months because I just said, oh, I just, it just hurts now. Like I, you know, I, I got a minor setback. And then I finally, eight months into my recovery, seven months into my recovery, I was always in pain. My skating wasn't progressing. I couldn't get speed. And by all measures, I should be back. At least I'd be back to a level that I feel good about. And I went and got x-rays and they said, your bone never connected. You have a non-union fracture. And every time I skated, so my bones like this, every time I skated, I was pushing it further away.

1:01:50And so my bone was like this on the last x-ray. And that was the hard truth. So for those listening, just laterally displaced, think about a pipe that's broken in the middle and just one's offset to the other. And as I keep skating and I could force my skin, like I kind of learned this hack where I can put 75 % of my weight on my back foot and 25 % of my front foot and do what I wanted to do. But it wasn't where I thought I'd be. And it just hurt all the time. I mean, it really was like that was my trigger because I have a pretty high tolerance to pain. and it was always hurt. Like I would dread going to the airport knowing I had to walk to a gate.

1:02:32So I knew something was wrong there. I went to a specialist that deals in non-union fractures and he had a very pragmatic, factual approach. And it was like, oh, I would do this. I'm gonna take that nail out. I'm gonna take the other hardware out and put it together. And you cannot move for two months. Did you obey that order? I did. Really? Yeah. I was chilling. I was not going to risk that again. And do you prioritize things like sleep, nutrition, just generally? And did you emphasize those things while you were recovering from the injury? Yeah. I was very disciplined in my diet, in my schedule, in my sleep.

1:03:16Surprisingly, I was very busy because I do speaking engagements and suddenly my speaking engagements were getting booked left and right. I mean, to the point where I did a tour through Europe last summer of speaking engagements. So that was a silver lining, I guess, to my idle time. And I leaned into it. I made myself available and it's good money and it's fun to interact. And, um, but all through, all through that, of course, in the back of my head, I was like, when, when can I skate? When can I skate? And then when I finally started skating, it was night and day with my leg. I felt like I could lean forward.

1:04:03Suddenly I was learning tricks every, every session, relearning tricks. Um, so I just, I just lucky that I got to live in this time of modern medicine. Was that two months the longest you've ever gone without skateboarding vert? Yeah. Yeah. Without skating at all. Not even just pushing around? Good for you for obeying doctor's orders. And also good for you for deciding that your rate of recovery is going to be whatever it is for you. Because I feel like I'm hearing both things. On the one hand, you listen to the medical professionals. On the other hand, I'm not hearing, oh, you know, I looked at the average rate of recovery from this kind of fracture, this and that.

1:04:43it's like it's as if you decided two things at once that there are experts who have something to offer me here i'll follow their advice and yet i'm the expert at myself here i'm putting myself in your first person uh tony's the expert in tony and i'm gonna make sure that i come back 100 yeah or better yeah not better but um and i've and i have come to terms with that because i know that i'm not going to be pushing myself the way that i did before i got hurt anymore. There are some tricks now that are way more difficult just because whatever, something changed in my body. And for instance, I can't grab slob.

1:05:23Like I can't, I can't do it consistently. That used to be my go-to grab. I could do that anytime over 60 foot gaps, whatever. Like I could just, I just grab, I knew where my board was. I knew that was going to hold on to my feet. And half the time I try to grab that way now, I don't reach it or I grab my foot instead. and I don't know, I can't make the adjustment to fix it. And so I've just sort of come to terms with, well, that's not the go-to grab anymore. And that's okay. I had a good run. Yeah, your kit's pretty vast. So there's a lot of other things to reach to. Aside from the 540, which by the way, congratulations.

1:06:01Thank you. Not only is it a 540, but done at least head high. I've seen it with my own eyes. and um and under really great circumstances your wife there just the two of you and after and the trick that broke the femur in the first place yeah so um congratulations on that thank you are there other things that you you're thinking you know can't wait to get back to that um let's set aside slaw bears for now yeah um yeah i i want to get my hand plants back the way i used to do I have yet. Yeah. So invert like it's one handed handstand. Um, I can do them now, but I've seen you do them recently. Yeah.

1:06:41But, but I used, they used to be my signature was a tuck knee Ember and flopped all the way back. And, and I can't get ahold of my board to pull it all the way back. Like I used to, um, if I can get that, I'll feel like that's it. That's, that's, that was the last milestone. I'm not here to, uh, diagnose and, and treat these, uh, specific, uh, skateboard trick isms but between your what you said about the slob air and what you're saying about this it sounds seems like there's something about about getting your your your front hand around and around my pulling it back back in behind you so maybe this is like the way that the femur is lining up with your pelvis and maybe some off-ramp something or other physical therapy could do i am actually working with um at best core he is a he is the doctor of physical therapy and he has helped me immensely through my recovery.

1:07:32And when I'm frustrated with this motion or that's the same grab actually as in the twist, he worked on me before it and was just contorting my body and my leg into these positions that I don't really even get to when I'm skating just to prepare me for that. And he did, but that's what it took. It's interesting that we're talking about skateboarding and we're also talking about physical therapists we're talking about nutrition we're talking about sleep so growing up like none of that none of that never imagined any of this never and i'm chuckling because you know growing up in skateboarding um early on for me uh not quite as early as you but pretty early 12 um and got out of it and back and yes i can still do a thing or two uh here and there um but that's not the point the point is that you know the nutrition consisted largely of, you know, fast food or whatever was around.

1:08:29Cigarettes and beer were sort of the energy drinks and supplements of the times. This has fortunately changed, but there was essentially no health promoting tools or aspects to it at all. But that was back then. But then over time, it seems it's evolved. Like now I see, I saw a couple of posts from Stevie Williams, like he's in the gym. I think I saw Danny way early on working with Paul Cech and doing some balance work, neck work, because he had broken his neck surfing and things of that sort. So there seems to have been a big shift over the last 15, 20 years where skateboarders are taking good care of their bodies like other athletes, thinking about the resilience of their bodies and also generally taking better care.

1:09:13Like a lot of them opt not to drink and do drugs and all those sorts of things. So, I mean, how does it strike you to see the way that skateboarding has evolved towards the option to be much healthier and treat it like a serious sport where you're a serious athlete? A word that, you know, even 15 years ago, 20 years ago, if you called a skateboarder an athlete, some people might even be offended by that. People in skateboarding, right? Absolutely. Yeah. Well, to answer your question, in the early days, that was part of the the scene and the culture just because the the it was the antithesis to organize team sports and mainstream culture and so it was just like yeah this is what we do fuck it who cares like we drink and we skate and everyone it was it was wild west right but as i never fell into that deeply because i saw how it affected people's performances and the skating itself was paramount to me that is what i wanted to focus on that's what i wanted to be good at and i saw people partying and partying their skills away so i had at least that forethought um and then as skating got more established popular more of a career option then people started taking it more seriously especially competitors i mean and but there's such a wide swath of of what skateboarding is and it's a big tent so to say that it's more organized yes it's more organized over here there's still all these skaters over here partying hopping fences don't care about contests don't want sponsors oh well like gx 1000 like those kids that bomb hills in san francisco like like but that that's what i love about it is the diversity of it all.

1:10:56And that that's, we're all part of this scene. So I was a competitor. That was, that was my path to success. And so I appreciate that people take it more seriously now and that they do have trainers. They have resources. I mean, they have sponsors that will pay for this kind of stuff. There was no such thing. I mean, like at our biggest skate contest, we were all staying at Stacey Peralta's parents' house the night before. And he would take us out to get spaghetti because he thought carbohydrates was going to give us energy the next day. That was the extent of training in 1983. Right. But nowadays we're treated like high elite athletes because they are like, if you really look at people that are at the top of their field, people like Nigel Houston, you know what I mean?

1:11:48Like the dude is a machine. He is one of the most precise skaters that we've ever seen or precise athletes. This side of Nadia Comaneach. Yes, I'm aging myself. But what I'm saying is this takes hardcore dedication, precision, athleticism, and devotion. And so now they have the resources to back that up and to keep it going longer. I mean, yeah, would I be able to do this now, especially after getting hurt without the help of a doctor of physical training? Probably not. I'd do it on some level, but I wouldn't get to where I am now. And so, hey, I think it's awesome. I never wanted to covet skateboarding as this thing that no one else, like a gatekeeper to it.

1:12:43No one else can touch it. I always thought there was something in skateboarding that was magical and that was good for mental health and that was required such passion. And I never understood why I didn't get bigger through those lean years. It was always like, kids, this speaks to kids. Like, it's daredevil. And it's active. And it's exciting. And you can do it as a group, but you can do it your own way. And I don't know all those things. It took a long time for everyone else to figure it out. They definitely figured it out. I mean, nowadays skaters are the cool kids in school. Yeah. It's in the Olympics.

1:13:23Like there was always discussion. Would it be, it was an exhibition sport in the Olympics at one point. No, no, no. Oh, I thought it was it for, maybe it had a run at potentially being an exhibition. There was talk of that. Got it. Got it. But it never did. And, and not that, I mean, at some point, especially in the late 90s early 2000s skating was getting appreciated and and kind of reached that threshold of of is it mainstream well it's in it's on mcdonald's commercials so i guess that's pretty mainstream and so we already had come of age and it was like we don't need the olympics we're already more popular than a lot of olympic sports right so why do we need their validation And then at some point it became like the power dynamic shifted and it was like, oh, they need our cool factor.

1:14:14We don't need their validation. And it was like, yeah, OK, you guys want it? Sure. Go ahead. Hold the events. Hold the qualifiers. We'll participate. But we don't need this. Well, you've been an amazing ambassador for the sport that's driven so much of that wider acceptance and progression and invitation into different domains. One of the things that I definitely want to talk about is the video game, right? Because I think that the video game changed a lot of things for the general public in terms of their perception of skateboarding. I mean, And what it allowed, of course, is this is obvious, but it allowed kids that weren't going to, you know, bang up their shins or walk in with a broken wrist or, you know, all skinned up to do incredible tricks, but in silico on a screen, right?

1:15:08And to pretend that they are the pro skateboarder. That's essentially what video games are about. And yet, when you can see something, just like you can imagine it in a dream or while you're falling asleep, and you can see something and hear in air quotes, do something in a video game, it also is going to inspire a number of kids to go outside and grab a real skateboard and try that or try something like that. So clearly, the video game was a catalyst for what I consider now the wide acceptance of skateboarding as a sport in all its various forms. Could you just talk for a little bit about the genesis of the video game?

1:15:43Were you into video games prior to the video game? Were you into technology generally? And what sort of motivated the interest in the video game? Because it certainly has changed the face of actual skateboarding and the perception of skateboarding. Well, I've been into video games since the get-go. I mean, I was a kid playing Pong, Pac-Man, Missile Command, Q-Bert, you name it. and then getting the home systems in television, Super NES, Commodore 64, um, Sega, yeah. But, but I, um, and I always loved technology. So when I, when I finally started making money in the eighties, my first kind of big purchase in terms of that, uh, in, in terms of electronics was, uh commodore amiga which was considered one of the highest end uh home computers you know alongside mac but but more graphic oriented and and more game oriented um and so i was always into that idea that you could do this kind of stuff at home not just in arcades and then i got a i got a call from a pc programmer that wanted to pitch a skate game and had a crude engine of um a skater that cruise around go in bowls and stuff like that and it was all keyboard controlled it was clunky but it was something and the last thing that we had as skating was 720 in the arcade or skate or die for home systems for commodore 64 that was like the last thing that had happened for skateboarding in video games and so i went with him i was excited to get like i got to we got to go to Nintendo and pitch it.

1:17:29We went to Midway. You know, we went to all these different console and software manufacturers and we're just told that this is a bad idea. Skateboarding is not popular. Home video games are barely a thing. Why would anyone want to buy a video game about skateboarding? Someone said those exact words to me at Midway. and so he got frustrated and he needed to find a job and i was i was just kind of free-floating so i said okay he goes well i'm gonna i'm not gonna do this but i feel like you've established yourself at least in the video game world uh industry that you're interested in doing something so maybe if someone does something they'll call you and i was like yeah right sure sure enough like a year later activision called me and they said hey we heard you want to do a video game i said well yes i would love to work on a video game.

1:18:22I'm not a programmer or anything. So we have something we're working on and we'd like to show it to you. And so I went up to Activision. They were working on a skate game, but it was based on an engine of a game that was already released called Apocalypse starring Bruce Willis. So the first version of my game was Bruce Willis on a skateboard with a gun strapped to his back in a desert wasteland doing kickflips. And it was awesome. It was, it was truly like I picked it up and I got past that visual and then I started playing it and it was intuitive. It, the motion felt right. The engine was right.

1:19:01And I was like, this is, this is the baseline of something special. I didn't think it was going to be some big hit. I just thought this is, this is going to be appreciated by skateboarders. And that was my goal, the entire development process, which was about a year and a half after I signed on. We, through that year and a half, we were going back and forth with, they would, they would FedEx me builds on CDs. I had a modified PlayStation and I would play it, make notes. And then I thought, man, skater is going to dig this. And that was it. And skating wasn't even that popular. It was coming to, you know, it was starting to get some traction.

1:19:38What year was this again? like 98. So it was like X games were starting to come into the fold. People were taking note of what skateboarding had become at that point. And then I thought this is going to be cool. Skater's going to like it. And then not long before the release, they called me and they said, Hey, we want to, we want to offer you a buyout of future royalties for this game. Cause I think, you know, there's, I think people are going to like it. And I was like, what does that mean? They go, we'll give you a half a million dollars and then you don't get royalties going forward but you get that money up front and at that time in my life like to hear someone say half a million dollars seriously sounded like a half a billion dollars like no one had ever talked about numbers that big to me well also 98 was a little bit of a of a quiet time for vert skateboarding too right sure yeah it was all about in general but yeah for yeah luckily vert skating still was a thing because of inline skating because inline skating was huge right late 90s and they were all vert and so we as skaters got to sort of ride those coattails because it was like hey there are vert ramps because everyone's rollerblading i forgot about that that did like and i have Honestly, like I was the special guest at a couple of inline rollerblade shows where it was like, this is team rollerblade live and special guest Tony Hawk, the skateboarder.

1:21:07And I was like, Hey, all right, dropping in, but it paid the bills. Yeah. So to answer to like, to, to, from what you're saying, vert skating was, it was a thing at least established in the X games, which was something and enough for us to make a living. um so when they offered me this money i actually was in a pretty good place um in terms of my i don't know my options my my trajectory and i felt like and i i had just bought a new home and i thought i'm gonna take a chance and see what happens and like that was the best financial decision i ever met took the equity yeah i just let it ride and i was like no i want to see what what happens with this?

1:21:56And as soon as the game was released, it was getting stellar reviews. And then I remember like the very next week after it was released, never stopped saying, okay, we're working on number two. What do you want to do? Like, what do you mean? Well, yeah, we're doing a sequel. Wait, what? Awesome. And then we ended up doing like 10. Amazing. Crazy. Amazing. I'm thinking about your decision to not take the cash and to see how it would go. I'm thinking about your decision to buy a car at 16 and as a consequence get pulled over because you look younger. I'm thinking about the time when through the graciousness of your parents who took me in because I had no money to get back up to Northern California and they couldn't get ahold of my mom.

1:22:45They took me to your home, but then they took me to where you were living the next day, which was in Fallbrook. You don't remember this, but I do. And I know you've heard this story before, so forgive me because most people listening haven't. But I remember getting driven up to Fallbrook. You had the ramps in your backyard. I walked in, got introduced to you. You were very gracious, said, hello, what's up? I said, feel free to push around on the ramps outside. It was the mini, it was a spine ramp. Yeah. Two ramps back to back folks, spine. Sorry, nomenclature. I think Ray Underhill was there. Yeah, he lived there for a while.

1:23:18And as I recall, you had a pretty vast music collection, and we'll talk about music. But it also seemed that there were a couple of cars in the driveway and whatnot, but it's clear to me based on a number of things and that interaction and what I observed there, that either you had someone in your ear, either your dad or your mom or both, or maybe it had been Stacy, or maybe it was somebody else who was advising you to make very good financial decisions, like not spend all your money. or continue to spend all your money to invest in things, you know, or maybe it was just instilled in you at a young age.

1:23:55Who knows? I'm asking because I think so many people burn their early success, you know, what represents a lot of wealth for them early on. They burn that or they start making just bad decisions. You explained before why you tended to avoid drugs and alcohol and certainly any severe relationship to drugs or alcohol that would keep you from progressing and skateboarding. But the ability to make really good decisions as a young, famous athlete is more rare than it is common, even when people have coaches. So I'm curious, where did that shrewdness and that prudence come from? And was Frank, your dad, and maybe Nancy also advising you all along, like, hey, think smart, be smart, because clearly you've made some very smart decisions?

1:24:45He was definitely a guide in it. He was the first one who said, you should probably buy real estate. I was 17. So I didn't even know that was possible, but he co-signed and made it possible. But then after that, I ended up buying that home that you went to and it was four acre property and we built these ramps on it. And that was amazing and definitely helped propel my skating to a different level than I ever imagined. But at some point, that was just a drain. And it was a drain financially. And I was living beyond my means. And my income kept dropping because we're talking about not long after that was 91, 92, the slowest days of skating.

1:25:31And I've got this giant mortgage. And I've got this property and these ramps that I can't afford to upkeep. I can barely afford my water bill at one point, you know, and so what you saw might've seemed stable, but behind the scenes, it was, it was starting to unravel. Birdhouse hadn't been started. Birdhouse was started in 92. And when I started Birdhouse, I took the equity from that house to start it. Cause I, I didn't, I burned through my savings from trying to keep this place going. Um, so I took a second mortgage out on that house, right? I took my equity out, started birdhouse sold the house for what i had taken out and then um moved to my original place that i had when i was in high school and just pulled back on expenses i think that was the that was when i really became shrewd because i had to i had i had a first child i had an income that was very uncertain, very fluctuating.

1:26:32And I was just eating Taco Bell and Top Ramen and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and not spending anything and taking every job. Like the most random demo requests or we want you to be a consultant on this commercial because I'm 24. I'm too old to be the guy skating because it has to be youth, right? But they're like, well, we want to see what's possible. So can you come up the day before and show us the ropes? And so I would be the stunt skater that's filling in to show them the angles and stuff. And then they would go hire Chet Thomas as the young kid. And then I would stand around. I was getting paid.

1:27:12I didn't care. I think I remember those commercials. It was a cereal commercial or something like that. The cereal commercial was Chris Miller, Frosted Flakes. Right. And I was Tony the Tiger. So I was wearing a skin tight suit. It's all the blonde SoCal guys. you chat uh yeah yeah um i throughout the um birdhouse which is your company but without telling people what is it skateboard company i remember uh willie santos was early on i remember he's super nice kid used to see him at the contest i remember thinking well tony hawk has his own company for skateboarders that was revolutionary we had a team you know like willie willie was a maestro um jeremy klein legendary street pioneer uh steve barra who's kind of a we call it atv but street and vert um we had uh ocean howell who was like our number one amateur we had andrew reynolds matt beach um we had a team like it was full on was it fun to move from rider to also rider but team manager owner was it fun it just it was just necessary i can't say it was fun i mean yeah it was it was fun because we were still just kind of reckless and driving you know six of us in a van driving to skate shops across the country and begging them for 300 bucks so that we could get gas and food in a hotel room and get on our way um i don't know it just it but for me it just felt like a necessity to keep to, to, that was what I had to do to make a brand happen.

1:28:49And so I was willing to do it. Um, and, but it was exhausting. Yeah. Cause I had to be the, I had to be the coach and the tour manager and the skater, you know, I was putting myself out there on like the worst conditions and just rolling my ankle left and right. And it was, and it was all street and it was just wasn't my thing it was it was hard but i just i loved it it made it happen in my mind i'm thinking you had to be tony hawk the skateboarder frank hawk the organizer yeah and stacy peralta the yeah because stacy had been a pro skateboarder i still think of him as a skateboarder even though he's a filmmaker right skateboard just like i still think of spike jones as a skateboarder bmxer filmmaker um seems like you had to integrate all of those.

1:29:41And I mentioned that because I am curious. I think a lot of people are probably curious. Are you the type of person like sit back in a chair at night and think like, okay, like how I'm going to do this? I mean, are you contemplative or is it really you just identify what needs to be done this year and over the next three years and set your milestones kind of short in? I guess now or back then? Back then. Oh no, everything was just in the moment. we got to get here we got to get to dallas by tomorrow like as soon as this demo's over get in the van we're going um we got to get a hotel room you know it was just stuff like that it was it was very much but but i i i respected i think i learned to respect um punctuality because i traveled with plenty of skaters that were not and didn't care and show up late and was like, dude, I don't know these guys.

1:30:35And then when I was in charge, it was like, we're going to be on time because we have to respect other people's time. And we said, we're going to be here at three o 'clock. We're going to be there at three o 'clock. And that's not easy with a skate crew. Mike Blayback, who as you know, is integral to the Hubbell and Loud podcast. I talk about that. We've got some other guys that came over from DC as filmers and editors for us. And they're so punctual and they're so on it. And I noticed you showed up early today, right? Right on time or early, early by five minutes. And that is a distinguishing factor, I think, in any occupation, but especially in skateboarding, where there's this kind of looseness.

1:31:17And so if you do show up on time, it really means a lot. The professionalism that, you know, was instilled in you, it's clear that different places were that showing up. Mentioned the shrewdness about the business decisions. I'm curious about another aspect of that, which is maybe a little more cryptic, which is whether or not it was the CD collection that I saw or your mention of the car, your interest in video games. It seems that one thing that you've done that a lot of guys that I knew, because back then, by the way, it was mostly guys now, as we said, women doing it too, women and girls. it seems like you have a lot of other hobbies and interests music and etc but that we never heard about you getting like distracted or pulled down those lines like we didn't hear about you going and surfing and getting hurt hurt surfing so that you couldn't skate we're getting really into motorcycles or race racing cars right you know um some people went hard left out of skateboarding into that like ken block the late great ken block but that became his main thing seems like you you You knew that skateboarding was the main frame and stayed with that.

1:32:23And yet you have a lot of other interests. Yeah, I think I, well, with other sports, especially like motocross, I have this huge respect for motocross. I think it's super exciting. I would love to do it. And I know that I would not escape unscathed. Like I would definitely want to learn the tricks, do whips and flips and whatever, and I'm going to get hurt. and I don't want to risk my skate career for that. So I purposely pulled away from that type of thing. The last knee surgery I had is because I overshot a jump in Mammoth on my snowboard. So that was a lesson. I was like, don't, what are you doing?

1:33:06Just cruise. Yeah, stay on the ground, hit the powder. Free ride with your bros because I learned my lesson. So yeah, you're right. But at the same time, like I still, I still love going surfing and snowboarding. I don't do them as much, obviously. But, but those are part of, of what I did all growing up. And they're important to me. I did, you know, do a couple of celebrity car races, like a NASCAR race. And I totaled a car in the Long Beach Grand Prix because this dude ran me into the wall. And it was like, well, that was fun, but I'm not, I don't, I don't have the bandwidth. to get that serious about it.

1:33:48And now you have a family, of course, too. Of course. Yeah. I mean, and those things as fun as they are and as, I don't know, as sort of auxiliary as they are, they require a lot of time. I mean, just for instance, that Long Beach Grand Prix, they want you to go stay in Palmdale for like a week and a half and train and figure out how to truly know how to drive and be safe. And it's like, I don't, You got time for that? Yeah, that's time you're not skateboarding. Or with your family. Right. Yeah. Right. I feel the same way. If I get pulled away from reading papers and prepping podcasts and reading the latest research and thinking about experiments we could do, then for more than a couple of days, I start feeling the itch.

1:34:32I have a feeling this stuff is programmed into one's nervous system after a while. You've been skateboarding for so long that if you go a few days, it probably just your system is like depriving you of water or something like that. Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, well, just for instance, our ramp is being torn down on Sunday. Today is Friday. Our ramp is being torn down on Sunday at 10 a.m. to be moved to Salt Lake City for our big VRT event. I'm going there at 8.30 so I can get a session before it gets torn down. I love it. On Father's Day. That's my Father's Day. I'm going to work at 8.30 a.m. on Sunday.

1:35:08I love it. speaking of family and lineage uh tell us uh about your kids you've got some talented skateboarders in your family besides yourself i do um well i have four of my own and i have two stepkids and um they all skate my daughter not so much anymore but all the boys five boys uh are all really into it um my oldest son is the most uh he's the most prominent because he turned pro and has, I mean, you know, has his own following. He has a name for himself, Riley, and he's 30. Yeah, he kills it on street. He's a big street skateboarder. He does. Yeah. But, you know, they're all good. They're all good skaters in their own ways.

1:35:57And it's so fun. I mean, I didn't, of course, they're surrounded by it their whole life, especially Riley, because when he was young, I didn't really have the means to have childcare or whatever. So I just had to take him with me on tours and whatnot. So he was always around it. So he got good at it by default, but at some point started to shy away from it because he felt the pressure in my shadow. And it was like, I don't, this isn't fun. I don't, people expect me to be super good or I have to do this stuff. And so he went, shied away from it, but then found a bunch of his friends in high school that they love skating.

1:36:32He's still good at it. So he, that he found his crew and they've all found their crews, uh, completely independent of me. And so when we go on vacation, for instance, we, we were last year, we were in, uh, or two years ago, we were on the big on Hawaii. They wanted to the skate parks. I don't want to go to the skate parks. I'm on vacation. It's also a little harsh stuff. It's a great way to get hurt. Right. What's that? Over in Hawaii. It's all weather worn. Oh yeah. And it's not even my scene, but, but then, so I go, I'm, I'm, so I'm, I'm their chauffeur and I'm their filmer. I love it. That's my vacation.

1:37:07But because they all love it so much, you know what I mean? And it just, it's so cool. Like, I mean, how could I ever ask for more? It's amazing. Let's talk about Frank and Nancy a little bit, just because I have this kind of odd connection to your family through this really two or three day interaction. Changed my life forever. Meeting you was spectacular as a young skateboarding kid, but also just the idea that someone would literally take me into their home. I mean, they had every reason to not trust me. First of all, I was hanging out with Billy Waldman. No explanation needed. The people who knew Billy, I hope he's doing well.

1:37:40I haven't heard anything about him, but I hope he's doing well. But we were wild. But he basically took me into your home. He and Nancy took me in, you know, fed us or fed me. I had another friend with me. Um, and you know, I just have to say, as you're describing your family, I can only imagine what it must've been like for Frank and Nancy to see you have your kids. Did they get to, um, live long enough to see, uh, that Riley and your other kids were skateboarders? My dad met Riley. Uh, but my dad passed away when Riley was two. Okay. So he's the only one of my kids that, that he met. Yeah. Um, my older sibling, uh, had kids.

1:38:23So he met two of his other grandkids besides Riley. Um, my mom got to see some of Riley's success, but, uh, she suffered from, um, Alzheimer's dementia. And so things slipped away. But, um, I, I think that, uh, my dad would not believe that skateboarding in the Olympics. To him, that's, that is the top of the mountain because he was really into other sports. He loves sports. He loved the Olympics. He loves, he loved watching football. He loved watching baseball. He loves when the Olympics were on. He just, he loved the competition element and the hype of it. And, and I think there was part of him that felt like, why isn't skateboarding in this?

1:39:10You know, but he knew that there were so many hurdles to get through and so much more acceptance that needed to happen. And I don't think he imagined whatever happened. Yeah. He was a special guy. I can still hear his voice. He was a very large guy too. I don't know if I was just smaller than I definitely was smaller. He had like a big presence. And, um, and I know I've told you this many times before, this is actually how we got reconnected. I sent you a direct message and said, Hey, I met your parents. In fact, they took me into your home and I'm telling the truth and you'll know I'm telling the truth because they took me to dinner and they ordered black coffee after dinner.

1:39:47And, you know, for years I would order black coffee after dinner. You know, as a kid, you're just so impressionable. These really nice people took me in. I was like, wow, this is what a really healthy family looks like. I'm grateful to have loving parents. I always did, but I didn't have the healthy family structure. So for me, it was like, oh my goodness, these people drink black coffee after dinner. This must be what healthy families do. So by the way, folks, don't drink caffeine within eight hours of going to sleep. But, but I still do that. But well, it doesn't seem to be holding you back.

1:40:17Individualized, but yeah, it's spectacular that this lineage of, you know, Frank to you and, and I mentioned, and Nancy, because it seems like while she might not have been at the contest and run around setting up tables and doing all that, like she clearly was supportive as well. Oh, she was at a lot of the events too. I mean, they needed all hands on deck when it started getting big and no one was taking salaries. You know, that was the thing is that people thought like, oh, your dad's like cashing on. He never took up money for any of that. And he took so much shit. You know what I mean? He just, he just loved it.

1:40:49It was for you. It was for me. And it was also for the misfits that I surrounded myself with. And even though he was, he was brash and he was like, you know, he was, I don't know, what's the word? He was foreboding and intimidating and whatever else. He did it for all those kids that were kind of lost. Like you. I mean, really, he loved that it brought them together, that it gave them a sense of self, that gave them a sense of purpose. He saw that because he was that. He really had a rough childhood. And he did everything he could through his adult life to make up for it with his own kids and with the kids that they surround themselves with.

1:41:33So that's what he loved about it. Of course, he loved seeing me thrive too, but he loved that he created this safe space and this sense of community. And so my mom, that was her thing, was getting people together. Gatherings. Oh, we should all get together. Even my siblings and I, as much as we want to emulate our parents, we don't do it as much as they did and we regret that. Well, there's still time. No, we, I mean, we do, but it's tricky. We're all in different areas. Sure. Yeah. The person that comes to mind when I think about your dad, I'm forgetting the movie, but there's this one Clint Eastwood movie where he lives in a neighborhood where I think it's a bunch of young Hmong gangsters.

1:42:20El Camino. El Camino. Yeah. And I just remember like there's that scene of like Clint coming out on his porch and just standing really upright yeah everything in his front is front lawn is everything super manicured and just standing there like this immense presence and that that's how i remember frank hawk yeah but he was a total softy that's the thing that's that's you know there was a it was it was all a front well he was certainly very gracious like like you you know you you got you got to see that side of him where it's just like oh yeah come on we'll take you out you want to go see Tony's place.

1:42:54Let's go. Like that's not some hard ass. Well, there's a tail end to the story too, where he actually called my mom. And I think there may have been a statement or two about, Hey, this kid's 14. Like he can't be in Linda Vista boys club, taking the bus back to Lancaster, et cetera, et cetera. May have been some discussion like that, but then they also paid for me to go home. Oh yeah. They flew me home. Yeah. So I think I owe you a couple hundred bucks for a Southwest flight or whatever airline it was. Well, it's fun. And I think important to reminisce about these people because they aren't just your parents, but they've done so much and through you.

1:43:31I really think that emotions and stories are really like the equivalent of energy in humans, when people talk about energy, because that gets carried forward. Speaking of which, we share a common love of some particular music. Are you somebody who listens to music to to inspire you, to get amped up, to go skateboard? Is music an important part of your life? Yeah. Let's put it this way. I had a playlist for my 540 the other day. Okay. Fine tune to that trick and what would get me motivated and hyped to do it. You don't have to share with us what's on the playlist unless you choose to. Oh, man. But was it high energy, low energy?

1:44:14High energy. Well, and some meaningful songs like New Order Ceremony and, let's see, Nine Inch Nails, Getting Smaller, because that was a song we used in one of our big skate tours, and it was one of the most high-energy sections of the show.

1:44:33Gosh, there were so – I can't go through all of them. I forget. Gang of Four.

1:44:43Wait. gang of four is uh shit i forgot what is it um oh i find that essence rare fires up so i had i had like 10 that were just gonna if any of those played it's i'm gonna make it and and i knew that it was about an hour and a half and that's as long as i'm gonna try it before i'm too tired so you're listening in the warehouse or you're listening in the warehouse On random. And then the song that I made it to was off of that Prodigy album, Fat of the Lamb. And it's called Climatize. It's instrumental. I used it for a birdhouse edit when 411 was the thing. 411 were these little like video newsletter type things.

1:45:28Yeah. Anyway. So when that song came on, I was feeling it. I made it. fantastic i love this because you know the neuroscientist in me is immediately going to say you know we have this brain that loves to take in information and discard other information but paired association is so strong yeah and when you couple that with some sense of reward like the making of the varial below coping as as early in life or making the 540 as a comeback to you know the injury after the injury. I mean, it was almost like, I loved all that music, but I was indoctrinated by it through the skate parks because that was the soundtrack to the skate.

1:46:08It was, it was punk music. It was Sex Pistols and, and 999 and Black Flag and Devo and X and Buzzcocks. And you know, that, that was, that's what I kept hearing. And that's what I associate with my best of times. Yeah. It's in your nervous system. Yeah. Yeah. There's a few voices you know rancid and tim armstrong and the operation ivy operation ivy sound system sound system was on that playlist was on the 540 playlist all right you know tim will be so happy to hear that and matt freeman the bass player and jesse michaels is now playing again with tim right lead singer of operation ivy yeah with their new um their new gig what's it called they had a name and then they they uh they changed it oh okay initially it was uh well i don't want to say because they changed it for a reason but we know i know they're making the music yeah which is amazing operation i was incredible my yearbook photo for i think two years running was the cover of operation i because i didn't show up for the yearbook photo speaking of which did you show up for yearbook photos or did you graduate high school i graduated high school but i didn't go to any of the events prom or any of the auxiliary i didn't know i mean i was i was an outcast like i was not even though i had success in skating skating wasn't cool and i was not homies with anyone at school except for two other skaters and we felt very ostracized so nah yeah i did show up for the graduation because because my mom and dad wanted to see it yeah likewise i graduated but i could tell you more about the curbs in the parking lot of my high school than i could about anything that happened in the classroom i broke so many sprinkler heads because the sprinkler heads were right next to the curb and there was a double-sided curb and so you board slide because i'd go there early and board slide and then i'd just like lean too far and break the sprinkler head and never got caught what high school uh well i went to a couple i went to sarah high school originally um then i went to um san dieguito high school which is in north county and then i ended up at torrey pines i got so bullied at san dieguito that i requested to be transferred because i couldn't go i couldn't survive there as a skater i would have to hide my skateboard in the bushes before class and then go find it after school so that people wouldn't target me wow the 80s were rough it was like a it was like a john hughes film well for sure it was so divided it was jocks versus nerds and then skaters were like not even considered in that realm because they're just gonna get they're gonna get hammered because there were so few of us well things have changed and not only have things have changed such that skateboarding is far more popular and respected.

1:48:49And, you know, at least one mark of that is in the Olympics, although there are other marks of respect, certainly. But a huge evolution that I've observed is when I was skateboarding as a 14-year-old and you know, into my – close to my 20s and then took some time off for sure, hardly any girls, hardly any women there were a few like carabeth burnside they got teased ridiculed it was hard on them super hard yeah super hard now largely through instagram um but some other channels as well you can see this young girl reese onvert skateboarding better than a lot of grown men who have been skateboarding for decades i mean um and then there are a number of other ones in the um in street skateboarding um and also taking really hard slams like you know so this this is a complete revision of the recent history of skateboarding so thoughts on that and um on reese and there are a few others was it is it um lizzie who um took a really bad fall that was filmed broke their broke the um neck off her femur yeah yeah these are tough ladies yeah yeah i mean doing it and for coming back.

1:50:04Lizzie did the loop. She did the full 360 loop. First woman to ever do it. So what do you think changed like that paved the way? Is it just, you know, a critical mass of females doing it? Is it that, you know, Sky Brown, you know, for sure, for sure. There were, there were the pioneers, people like Kara Beth Burnside and so many others. um patty hoffman was one of the one of the first vert skaters too who were they planted the seed and and then there were other women that took inspiration like oh girls can do this even though they're largely outnumbered and they get hassled for sure and then through the street era um people like elissa steamer who who paid the way for legit street skating um but then through the years it started to become more common, more accepted, which is dumb to say, because it should have always been accepted.

1:51:08But the thing that really tipped the scale was when everything was leading up to the Olympics, there had to be equal divisions in equal disciplines for men and women. And suddenly there was no question of, should we have a women's event? Like, no, we have to have a movement because that's how we, that's the road to qualifying for this, the Olympic stage. And Vance Park Series, to their credit, they were holding events simultaneously, not that were Olympic qualifiers, but just their own. And they said, these events are equal across the board, equal prize money, equal attention. I mean, it was just like, that was just matter of fact.

1:51:47And that shifted a lot. It really did. But now if you go to a skate park, you see plenty of women there. Yeah, it's awesome. And like literal women, like moms. You know, there are older women that are learning how to skate. It's awesome. Not that it matters so much, but does anyone claim to be the first female to do 540 on vert? Is that sort of a known thing? That would be Lindsay Adams. Fantastic. And she did that. I'll tell you how she did that. she was trying it so she was trying to make a twist she's married to Travis Pastrana it's like the you know it's like the elite action sports couple and she was trying them, she was getting pretty close and then we did a big exhibition in Paris at the Grand Palais on behalf of Quicksilver it was a huge event they put a half pipe up and we did this giant show.

1:52:52There were thousands of people there and it was very much

1:52:59unspoken but expected that I was going to do a 900 at this event. I think it was, I want to say it was 2010 maybe. And, or no, like 2009. And, and, and the organizers were kind of like, okay, so we're going to do this. And then, you know, at some point you do a 900. And I was like, I, I can't guarantee that ever. Like every time I've ever made it, it's been pretty spontaneous. I've, you know, I've set out to do it and not, I've come up short. I can't guarantee it. I'll try. I'll try. And they, they're like, yeah, yeah. Okay. And so I knew the whole time that we're skating. I was like, okay, everyone's expecting this.

1:53:37So I kind of went through the motions of, of, uh, doing my exhibition tricks, you know, playing the hits and then started trying 900s. and at the same time lindsey started trying 540s because she was feeling that energy and so it was this sort of not battle but definitely we were we were trading hits it was like all right here goes oh you missed it and here goes lindsey oh she missed it and then i uh she almost made one like was riding down, you know, and, and then fell at the flat bottom. It was like, Oh, and then I made 900. And that was kind of the showstopper. Cause like, that's what they expected.

1:54:22And everyone's going crazy and whatever people are coming down off the ramp, knees sliding down. And we're saying goodbye to the crowd. And I look up and Lindsay puts her tail out. There's still people standing on the ramp and she puts her tail out. And I was like, I think Lindsay wants to try it again. Here we go. I'm on the mic now. She made it. Love it. She stole the show. Like without question. It was huge. You can look it up on, on YouTube. Like it's there. Lindsay Adams first, first five 40. It was awesome. And then she made it and we all grabbed her and put her on her shoulders. That is awesome.

1:55:00It was pretty cool. That is awesome. Cause these things are like the four minute mile as a barrier. Then people break that barrier. And then other people break that barrier it's i mean i i've watched enough of skateboarding in recent years see you know like the sky brown thing she's phenomenal and i actually saw her family out to dinner here in los angeles and um with her brother and her folks are really gracious really nice and there again you know parents going to the skate park after all she's couldn't drive herself i think she's at that time she was probably like nine you know probably one of the biggest shifts too is that parents encourage their kids to skate now.

1:55:36Could you imagine that when we were young? Never. No, there were so many factors telling us not to, which just made us want to do it more. Sure. But yeah, now, now kids are like, parents are pushing them into it. Get out there, learn tricks. It's like, wait, that's not what we're supposed to be doing. But it's cool that, I think, I think what the, the really cool factor of all that is there are definitely people our age. I'm, I'm, I'm grouping you into my age category. I'm 47. All right. Close enough. But, but that have kids and skateboarding was such a special time in our life. And then they're rediscovering it through their kids and they're skating together.

1:56:15And I think that's just so amazing that someone of our age would be like, you know what? I used to do that. You're into that? Like, let's go. And then you could show your kid how to do a sweeper. I can probably do that. I don't have kids yet, but when I do, I'll show, I intend on being healthy enough and yeah to do a sweeper people can look up sweeper we don't have to explain it for him but a little layback grind or a sweeper yep oh yeah because they won't they wouldn't think to do it no and they are doing all these difficult flip tricks and that's not my it's not my scene yeah what's your go-to on a game of skate if you're gonna really like take out the younger generation um i can do impossibles pretty uh pretty regularly on transition consistently i can do them on flat so this is where basically you scrape the back of the it's an ollie really but it wraps around the back foot over your foot yeah um that's kind of my my sneak attack on games escape does rodney mullen get credit for that trick stuff oh yes that's yeah that's a rodney are you still in touch with rodney absolutely yeah yeah he's somebody that um certainly deserves deserves mention in the pioneering of tricks i think he's the godfather of modern skateboarding i think of rodney you and mark gonzalez gonz as like the guys that i'm honored drove the the progression in different partially overlapping directions that set the template for us.

1:57:40I learned fingertips because of Rodney. Like the first trick you saw me do, I learned that because I saw Rodney do it on the ground. And I thought, well, I can't do it on the ground, but I have plenty of time in the air to do it. It's awesome. It's awesome that Stacy put you guys together. We, we mentioned Bones Brigade, but we didn't really talk about the architecture of it from the perspective of skateboard progression but it was um kind of like any good band it seemed like there was really good chemistry yeah um interpersonally but also um that there was each person had something unique you skated the way you did mike skated the way he did stevie the way he did and you know rodney and you know we respected each other but we also fed off each other tommy guerrero yep right because growing up in the bay area like yeah in fact tommy skating the hills of san francisco in those videos makes it look easy but those hills are are rough they're dangerous and they have real life obstacles like moving buses you'll notice he wasn't stopping his top signs so that's fantastic uh we could reminisce about all these angles but the the point being that um spending time with people who do similar things or the same thing but do it differently is one of the best ways to progress this is why i routinely fly to texas and hang out with peter Tia, another podcaster, Lex Friedman, just because they do things differently than I do.

1:58:57Where do you draw sort of peripheral inspiration from now? I know you see Jimmy Wilkins at your ramp quite a lot, the phenom Jimmy Wilkins. It's kind of eerie how good that kid is. Who else are you spending time with besides Reese? And one of the reasons I ask this is that skateboarding is unique among many sports in that a given session, a gathering to skateboard will include an enormous range. 55-year-old men and 10-year-old girls. Exactly. Yes. Which is incredible. You don't think about soccer, a serious game of soccer between professional soccer players. It's not even that we're skating together.

1:59:34It's that we are communicating and influencing each other. I mean, that is like the last conversation I had with Reese was she's talking about like, are you going to try to do 540s again? I go, yeah, I'm kind of working on it. She goes, well, I think, because she saw me try one. And she goes, I think you need to pull out a little more. And she was right. And she's how old again? She's 10. And I, and I didn't even consider that because I'm just back in my mode and I'm not taking into consideration that I don't have the snap that I had before I got hurt. And she was, I mean, that was one key to me making it.

2:00:08And, you know, to that, that it's, but it, but to me, that's just, that's representative skateboarding and the inclusivity of it and the diversity of it, where it's me, I'm 55. There's 30-year-old pros that are at the top of the game. There are 17-year-old up-and-comers, men, women, 10-year-old girl that is doing tricks that we've never even thought of or want to do. And it's all part of the... the whole mix. That's really beautiful. I want to ask you about memorabilia. Not a topic that I think about much, but I think in a prior conversation of ours, you mentioned something about this. So there are skateboard collectors.

2:00:58There are people that collect stickers, skateboards. There's a whole market and world for this. And in addition to people wanting selfies with you when they see you, I imagine there's a long history and continued tradition of people taking a pen, putting your hand and saying, can you sign this? Right. Because you are in this very small, but very clearly esteemed group of people where your signature increases the value of things. So how does that work? And how does that feel? Like if a skateboarder who, you know, there are the telltale signs of who is and who isn't, right? Um, if they walk up to you and they're like, Hey, will you sign this?

2:01:40Do you feel good about signing it? Or is that something that you refrain from? And if somebody is just merely a collector, a trader, and they're trying to, um, build their portfolio, so to speak, um, you can probably also sense that. So I'm not trying to put you in the hot seat here. Well, to answer your question through the years, I was always open to that. And, and I'm happy to, um, especially when people are skaters or skate fans and whatnot. In the last three years, there has been this new element of resellers, of people that just go buy signature stuff. They have nothing to do with skating.

2:02:18They don't care about skateboarding at all. They just want to get my signature on an item and sell it. And they usually do it on eBay or through their own channels. That's fine at some point. Like a few years ago, I respected the hustle. These guys, they knew that I was going to be at this event. Okay, they're outside waiting. They've been waiting for hours. I'll sign a couple of things. But in recent months, even, they have figured out how to get my flight info. Some hacked into my actual airline accounts. Some have sources at certain airports that get the manifests and they sell the information.

2:02:55I found all this out because I've actually held a couple of them accountable. Because I said, look, I'm not going to sign this until you tell me how you knew I was going to be here. I have no business here. I'm here to visit family. No one knows I'm coming here. Oh, well, we saw a friend said they saw you at the Detroit airport. Like, no, they didn't. They wouldn't know where I'm going to anyway. Like, oh, I saw it on Twitter. You didn't see it on Twitter. I'm on Twitter. Tell me the truth. There's a guy from TMZ that gets flight info and he sells it to us. Okay, thank you. But that has increased to a point where it's not sustainable.

2:03:30I can't please everyone. The last time I flew out of Chicago, there were about 15 people. One guy had a shopping cart full of skateboards. And they all bum rushed me at security before I went through security, thinking that I'm going to sign stuff. I'm like, you guys, I can't do that. I'm going to miss my flight. And I can't delineate who, like, I'm sorry. You guys have like sabotaged yourselves. I don't know what to say. and then I went through security and there were four dudes waiting at the gate. They had bought tickets, airline tickets so that it could be past security. Airline tickets they're not going to use to chase this.

2:04:15So, I mean, wham, people want my autograph but it's weird and it's intrusive and it's kind of creepy. Yeah, just tell them that a neuroscientist told you that you got to get that slaw bear right and if you sign too many autographs that uh you're never gonna get all my chances of getting it back you're not gonna get the tuck knee you're not just not gonna be do the flap knee invert you're just not gonna get it anyway it is it's just a really weird new thing that has popped up and um other than that and and so the tricky part is when there is a public thing or a public exhibition or whatever to try to figure out who is the true skate fans and who aren't um usually they're pretty identifiable, but it, it just, it has ruined the experience for people who truly are, that grew up skating.

2:05:01Oh, well, thanks for sharing that. And, um, we won't tell everyone what the telltale signs are so that these people don't exploit them. The skateboarders, the real fans will know, um, uh, they won't have to worry about whether or not they represent accurately because you just will. Um, on the positive side, something I've been wanting to learn more about from you is your philanthropic efforts. I think Kevin Rose, who's in the tech sector, was the first to mention to me that you guys have done some philanthropy together. And maybe you've done some with Jim Thiebaud as well, the great Jim Thiebaud.

2:05:40Yeah. Well, both Jim and Kevin were board members. Jim is the current board member of the Skateboard Project. Tell us about the Skateboard Project. Um, it's, it's, it's my nonprofit and we try to develop public skate parks and there's certain underserved areas, but more so by, by supporting the community and giving them the resources to do so. So groups that are trying to get skate parks in the area, we are the resource center for them. Um, we'll give them advice. We'll give them funding. We'll give them, uh, our stamp of approval and that can go a long way. and uh to date we've helped to fund over almost a thousand skate parks now and seven or 800 of which are open um i mean it's my proudest work for sure and and it's because i never i never took for granted the fact that i grew up near a skate park and that was my home away from home that was where i found my sense of community my sense of identity my my crew and so many kids choose a skateboard, but have no support in doing so.

2:06:44And so those skate parks are a lifeline. Yeah, I can attest. They absolutely save lives. There's no question. Where can people find out more about your foundation? We can provide a link, but I guess - Skatepark.org. So where does the funding for these parks actually come from? It comes from donations from supporters. It comes from fundraisers, some corporate. Sometimes funding is funneled through us for specific regions. Like we have a built to play project that's in Michigan and New York, and that's funded by the Ralph C. Wilson Jr. Foundation. So they give us the funding and then we have to give it to that area.

2:07:26But it's easy because there's plenty of projects. And now there's an abundance of skate parks in those areas. I love it. Thank you for doing that, for organizing around that. And I get to get more places to skate. I'm curious what's in the immediate horizon, right? These days you probably have the option to say yes to things and no to things. You know, you have a family, you have your skateboard career. Where do you place your priorities in terms of how to carve up your day or your week? I mean, what would you like to make sure that you do for as much of the hours of your waking day for the next, let's just say five years?

2:08:08Because if you want to extend that out, you can. Well, I want to be available to my kids first and foremost. And we still have one at home for the next four years. So I will make sure that I'm available to her. and in terms of career, I never had great aspirations. Like I never thought, okay, this is what I want to accomplish. It was always just very more trick specific oriented. So it was always like, I want to try this and this and this. I would like to continue skating. I don't know if I'll be able to skate at the level I'm skating right now in five years, but I know that I'll still be on the ramp.

2:08:47I may not be doing it in public. trying to advocate for public skate parks, doing more with the foundation. And whatever I think, I think the way I prioritize my time is what will resonate the furthest and have the best impact on skateboarding in general. I do feel that I've come to a point where, yes, I'm some unofficial ambassador to skateboarding and I want to represent it well. I want to be fair in that skateboarding is all kinds of different things. It's not just X Games or Olympics or whatnot. It represents a true culture. And I want to project that as much as I can and make sure that people understand that that's also positive.

2:09:39And I mean, really, everything that I'm doing now is just kind of fun. I got it for the, I would say in the last five to 10 years is the first time I've truly enjoyed what skateboarding has provided me in terms of opportunity and what it brings to me and, and what it means to my family. Like I have a much better appreciation, understanding for it. And these days it's just like, everything's kind of just gravy. It's just so fun. I can't believe I could still do it for a living. It's crazy. I'm 55 years old and I truly ride my skateboard as a career. Like that's nuts. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

2:10:21Well, it certainly is earned. And I just want to say thank you for a number of things. First of all, thank you for going to the skate park. Thank you for picking this trajectory. Thank you for inspiring me and so many other young people and old people, older people over so many decades now, both with what you did on a skateboard and off the skateboard, and including your resilience and determination to push and continue to progress to the point where you were badly injured, and then to push through that, come back, at least match what you did previously. And I would wager that you will exceed your prior skill level going forward.

2:11:04So I want to thank you for your resilience. I know it comes from an intrinsic drive. Your love of skateboarding, it just absolutely comes through. I share in some of that, of course, having grown up in it, but not nearly as much as you, but also just your willingness to stretch out into these different areas, like the video game thing or talk about X Games, the Olympics, because that did allow for a lot of growth and lateral movement of skateboarding. And at the same time, just as you said, to bring it right back to the fact that skateboarding isn't one thing. It is not like other sports. It's its own sport and it's its own lifestyle.

2:11:40It's its own thing. And we do consider you the ambassador for skateboarding. I appreciate it. I speak for many people and I say that we're very grateful that you are because you bring that shrewdness and that prudence to it, but also that get after it punk rock spirit and the goodness that your parents instilled in you clearly comes through everything from the philanthropy and onward. So I can't say enough positive things or express enough gratitude for what you've done and for your time here. Your legacy in skateboarding, but also just in the game of life is clearly cemented. So thank you. Oh, thank you.

2:12:15And I appreciate that the ethos of skateboarding shines through on your show and just your crew here. Clearly a lot of them come from the skateboard world. So you're still supporting it, whether you know it or not. Thanks so much. And hopefully you'll come back and we'll do it again. All right. Sounds good. Thank you for joining me for today's discussion with Tony Hawk. If you're learning from and or enjoying this podcast, please subscribe to our YouTube channel. That's a terrific zero cost way to support us. In addition, please subscribe to the podcast on Spotify and Apple. And on both Spotify and Apple, you can leave us up to a five-star review.

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