Pursuing Your Passion
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.580 | - What's the advice to someone who's passionate
00:00:07.780 | about a thing that's not necessarily a revenue source
00:00:11.560 | for their life right now?
00:00:12.960 | - It's what's going to bring you the most joy
00:00:15.700 | and it's worth it.
00:00:17.060 | You know, I think it's, if you go to work
00:00:21.540 | and your work makes you happy,
00:00:23.260 | that's living the dream at any level.
00:00:26.800 | And if it's very successful financially,
00:00:31.800 | great, that's just sort of gravy,
00:00:33.600 | but it's more about your peace of mind.
00:00:36.900 | And I think that if there is something
00:00:39.600 | that makes you truly happy
00:00:40.980 | and maybe you have to do something else
00:00:44.040 | to supplement your income,
00:00:45.240 | try to balance those things as best you can.
00:00:47.640 | - Yeah, I've actually,
00:00:48.560 | I've turned my position on this in the past few years.
00:00:51.600 | I used to say, oh, go follow your passion,
00:00:53.720 | you know, find a way to make that your job.
00:00:56.320 | But if you have a job that allows you
00:00:57.920 | to follow your passion, not as a job, that's okay.
00:01:00.640 | - Yeah, that's enough.
00:01:02.440 | - And for a lot of people,
00:01:03.260 | my brother-in-law went pro golfing
00:01:06.200 | and then hated it because it was his job
00:01:08.280 | and then got a job and just golfs on the weekend
00:01:11.720 | and loves it.
00:01:12.800 | And so I think for some people,
00:01:14.380 | even pursuing it to some extent can actually take away,
00:01:16.880 | I don't know if there was ever a moment in your career
00:01:18.200 | where it was like skating to win competitions
00:01:21.180 | and to win trophies was just too much
00:01:22.700 | and it took away the fun.
00:01:23.960 | - Yeah, for sure, especially in the late '80s,
00:01:28.960 | I became a machine and it was very cyclical
00:01:33.320 | and it was like, all right,
00:01:34.680 | there's an event coming up next weekend.
00:01:37.040 | I've got to learn a couple of new tricks for the event
00:01:39.320 | because the judges saw what I'm,
00:01:41.160 | you know, they saw my current roster of tricks.
00:01:45.080 | So I got to hide it from them
00:01:47.080 | and then unleash it in the finals.
00:01:49.800 | And then, but it became so formulaic
00:01:51.920 | that it really was not fun.
00:01:54.200 | And at some point I just pulled away
00:01:56.080 | and stepped away from it altogether
00:01:57.360 | because skating had become a job and it wasn't fun for me.
00:02:01.680 | And then when I did pull away,
00:02:04.040 | I got very creative with my skating
00:02:07.720 | and I was able to really learn a lot of different techniques
00:02:11.480 | and a lot of stuff that I wanted to pursue,
00:02:14.480 | even though I wasn't making a living at it at the time.
00:02:17.560 | I mean, I kind of was,
00:02:18.440 | I still had signature skateboards and whatnot,
00:02:20.520 | but when you're not, in those years,
00:02:22.480 | if you were not competing actively,
00:02:24.440 | you were not going to get coverage.
00:02:26.400 | You were not going to get career opportunities.
00:02:29.960 | But I was willing to let those go
00:02:32.440 | to just at least be happy with it.
00:02:34.800 | And so it gave me this new sort of new energy
00:02:39.800 | to come back to competing
00:02:41.320 | and with a different approach that was more,
00:02:43.840 | it was more, I don't know how to explain it.
00:02:49.880 | I guess it was less careful and it was more risky.
00:02:54.880 | That was it.
00:02:57.720 | I came at it with a sense of,
00:02:59.400 | I'm going to just try everything.
00:03:01.160 | If it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
00:03:03.040 | I'd rather just do this and take the chances
00:03:04.880 | and have fun doing it.
00:03:05.840 | And if it works, then it's going to work awesomely.
00:03:09.040 | The downside to that was that
00:03:11.520 | when I did come back to competing,
00:03:13.520 | it was when skateboarding was starting to take a downturn.
00:03:16.480 | So I came back with this renewed energy
00:03:18.560 | and I was winning a lot of big events.
00:03:20.240 | And all of a sudden it was like, what happened?
00:03:22.520 | Where's the crowd?
00:03:23.920 | Where's the contests?
00:03:25.120 | - Where's the prize money?
00:03:26.160 | - You guys like, turn the machines back on.
00:03:28.520 | I thought this was cool.
00:03:29.960 | And so it was kind of like
00:03:32.480 | the wrong place at the right time.
00:03:34.160 | - But you probably wouldn't have had the career
00:03:36.040 | you had after that, had that not happened.
00:03:38.680 | - No, no.
00:03:39.560 | Because in those dead years,
00:03:42.440 | I was skating more than ever.
00:03:44.440 | Having fun doing it.
00:03:47.560 | Learning new tricks and learning new techniques.
00:03:49.200 | It was just that I wasn't doing it in front of crowds
00:03:51.040 | because the crowds weren't there anymore.
00:03:54.400 | - Yeah, I think I'm very fortunate that,
00:03:56.040 | and I think you did the same with your podcast.
00:03:57.800 | Like when you start a podcast,
00:03:59.640 | if you can start it not needing to be
00:04:01.720 | your job and your business,
00:04:03.360 | you can do whatever you want with it.
00:04:04.680 | You can kind of say, you know what?
00:04:06.480 | This podcast was not, you know, when I started it,
00:04:08.760 | I never thought I'd be going over countries as episodes.
00:04:10.920 | And then I was like, you know what?
00:04:12.000 | I'm going to London.
00:04:12.840 | I want to talk to someone who knows everything about London.
00:04:14.360 | Let's make an episode about London.
00:04:15.360 | And then we did one on Japan.
00:04:16.640 | So I think when you really start to do
00:04:20.240 | what you're passionate about in your work,
00:04:23.040 | it sometimes creates an even better experience.
00:04:24.760 | And people love these episodes and I never had an idea.
00:04:26.920 | - Oh yeah.
00:04:27.760 | No, I think, well, my cohost, Jason Ellis and I,
00:04:30.480 | we have a lot of,
00:04:32.080 | we have a lot of experience, obviously skating,
00:04:35.680 | but just life experience.
00:04:36.960 | He was, you know, had a totally different path than I did.
00:04:40.800 | And when we have guests, especially with non-skating guests,
00:04:44.240 | we relate to them in different ways
00:04:46.920 | that people would not expect,
00:04:48.040 | but in a very parallel way.
00:04:53.040 | For instance, we had two wrestlers on,
00:04:55.360 | that's our most recent guests,
00:04:57.400 | and Darby Allen and Jamie Hayter.
00:05:00.080 | And people were like, why would you have them on?
00:05:01.800 | And then when we started to talk about our experiences
00:05:03.600 | and our injuries, we were right in line
00:05:06.520 | and we were bouncing off of each other.
00:05:08.040 | And it was a really great conversation.
00:05:09.800 | It was fascinating, you know,
00:05:11.240 | and say what you will about wrestling
00:05:14.120 | or that it's made up or whatever it is,
00:05:16.080 | they are, those guys take as much abuse as skateboarders.
00:05:21.080 | - Yeah, it was great.
00:05:23.360 | I listened to this episode.
00:05:24.480 | It was wild to kind of,
00:05:26.280 | I don't think I've gotten that behind the scenes look
00:05:28.440 | at wrestling.
00:05:29.280 | You know, it hasn't been a passion of mine,
00:05:31.440 | but it was super fascinating.
00:05:33.160 | And you don't have to say who,
00:05:34.600 | but I know there's some cool guests coming down the pike.
00:05:36.440 | So if anyone's listening and wants to check it out.
00:05:38.960 | - Yeah, we have an insane roster coming up
00:05:43.000 | and I feel like now we're starting to hit our stride
00:05:45.840 | and we've been doing it a couple of years.
00:05:46.960 | So you're right, it wasn't something that we needed
00:05:50.240 | but we enjoy doing it.
00:05:51.440 | And we did find that we had something unique to offer.
00:05:54.640 | We found a groove, we found an audience.
00:05:57.560 | It was just that we weren't doing all the right things
00:06:01.400 | with the algorithms and the, you know, the promotions.
00:06:03.960 | And so now we have a group, Malka,
00:06:07.360 | that is taking the reins on that
00:06:10.880 | and they've been doing a great job.
00:06:11.960 | So we get to focus more on the content.
00:06:15.680 | - Podcast is great.
00:06:16.520 | I enjoy it, especially 'cause I have my childhood
00:06:20.040 | skate dreams still somewhere buried in my head.