so I didn’t get to shout when I’m
grateful for just a minute ago but I’m
grateful for skateboarding I’m most
grateful for skateboarding because as
you heard earlier everyone has a really
interesting story involving
skateboarding so I’m gonna go ahead and
share my favorite one with you so the
most memorable moment that I’ve ever had
on a skateboard was actually my very
first and terrible fall now anyone that
knows me now knows that I don’t skate
handrails but years ago I did I enjoyed
them but on this particular day it was
very average everything was okay it was
the normal day and after about 30
minutes of trying this handrail it felt
as if my skateboard had been hit with an
invisible wall and before you knew it I
was flying through the air full speed
directly to the ground now if you’ve
ever dropped a bowling ball on hardwood
floor at a bowling alley that was the
exact sound that it made when I hit the
ground in that moment there were only a
couple things that were running through
my head of course the first one being
how bad was I truly injured so of course
I checked to make sure all of my limbs
were still attached but most importantly
what I thought about was was I willing
to get up and take that risk and run
that risk of falling that hard again
of course my decision is very clear
because ten years later I’m still
skateboarding professional skateboarder
now and I’ll still love skateboarding
and in fact even through skateboarding I
teach skateboarding lessons to children
and adults they range from the age of 5
to 35 and the cool thing about
skateboarding is when I learned to
skateboard it was through a collection
of different friends and things like
that they all gave me different
perspective helped me understand how to
do specific tricks and things like that
it’s probably the one sport where it’s
totally ok for me as a 28 year old to
hang out at a skate park with someone
that’s 15 or also that’s 40 and it’s
really interesting but through all those
challenges and learning to skateboard
the one thing that my friends couldn’t
teach me but I had to learn on my own I
had to become very familiar with failure
so
with the kids that I teach skateboarding
lessons too I’ve noticed something very
strange now for a moment this is Braden
he’s really rad I love the guy he just
turned eight years old so he’s very
animated when it comes to skateboarding
so when I first see him at the skate
park he’s very excited to skate he just
in this photo in particular as you can
see he’s happy as a clam he was really
happy because he landed that trick that
trick he’s very focused you can see him
draw on it but also when he struggles to
do something first try or second try or
even after 30 minutes of trying he
becomes very angry and it always reminds
me and makes me think of something
that’s very troubling and it bothers me
in this day and age in this society
instant gratification has become the
norm across the board it’s true for me
and it’s true for a lot of us when our
situation isn’t ideal right away when we
don’t find the results right away that
we want we become frustrated and then
turn that causes us to shut down we stop
trying whatever it is that we need to
try or that we want to accomplish and we
shouldn’t do that failure to me is the
most important thing that we need to
have in fact failures should be
celebrated and embraced by all of us it
should never be treated as something
negative now going back to skateboarding
I get the question a lot where people
ask me oh how do you get the board off
the ground how do you do this and I’ll
explain it to you tonight in the
simplest terms that I can now with that
practice with skateboarding in order to
successfully do a trick especially a
kickflip you have to know exactly how
much force you need to put on your tail
to pop your board up how fast you need
to slide your front foot up and then at
the same time flicking your foot now
that’s the easy part
that’s how you get it to turn now also
after that you have to stare down wait
for your board to come around put your
feet down with just the right pressure
so that you land and roll away perfectly
now it sounds it sounds a lot harder
than it looks right
so as a visual artist as well how I
learned I learned through two mentors I
also read a lot of books and things like
that and the thing with the books I
picked up a lot there’s a lot of do’s
and don’ts there’s a lot of guidelines
there’s a lot of rules and I think
that’s wrong when it comes to learning
and growing the best way and the fastest
way that we can ever grow and learn is
through the experience through the
experience of failure when you put
restrictions and you put a path of on
success you’re doing nothing but
restricting yourself from growing into
the greatest that you could be well
let’s go back to skateboarding a little
bit I had to fail a thousand times
before I successfully did my first
kickflip I had to it was part of that
process we all have to fail when we’re
learning something but with that I
failed a thousand times but in that
process I learned something that could
not be taught in a classroom to anyone I
learned creative problem-solving I
learned to how to break down my own
actions try different things make
different things work maybe experiment
with whatever I was doing
I learned to break down that process in
order to be successful and I also
learned to never give up
I learned persistence because you have
to keep trying and trying in order to
succeed and that’s why I push failure so
much with the kids that I teach
skateboarding lessons too I do my best
to explain to them that you are not
going to get it first try if you do
fantastic that’s awesome but you didn’t
learn anything there’s a reason why
there are successful pop stars and
one-hit wonders they got it right the
first time but there’s no formula to
their success you have to struggle and
you have to fight through it you have to
do it in order to keep pushing forward
and personally I think I need to need
this you all need this and everyone that
you know need this we all need to fail
and everything that we do we need to
fail because this is how we learn to
progress this is how we learn to stay
persistent and keep fighting this is how
we grow we as a human race have not
progressed
is far without failing constantly the
last thing I want to talk about is it’s
one of the phrases I hear a lot and I
don’t like it I honestly think it’s
counterproductive and I want to pass it
along to you everyone always says
practice makes perfect but they they’re
incorrect simply if you’d like to argue
about it later that’s fine but practice
does not make perfect practice makes
persistence with persistence you breed
consistency with consistency that gives
you everything you need to learn move
forward and progress so right before I
walk off this stage I want all of you to
think about something whether it be you
personally someone you know that’s doing
everything they can to accomplish their
dreams and their goals I want you to
think about this in your lives what were
you afraid to fail at that you’d still
love to accomplish and how are you going
to stop that and succeed when stepping into tomorrow thank you
grateful for just a minute ago but I’m
grateful for skateboarding I’m most
grateful for skateboarding because as
you heard earlier everyone has a really
interesting story involving
skateboarding so I’m gonna go ahead and
share my favorite one with you so the
most memorable moment that I’ve ever had
on a skateboard was actually my very
first and terrible fall now anyone that
knows me now knows that I don’t skate
handrails but years ago I did I enjoyed
them but on this particular day it was
very average everything was okay it was
the normal day and after about 30
minutes of trying this handrail it felt
as if my skateboard had been hit with an
invisible wall and before you knew it I
was flying through the air full speed
directly to the ground now if you’ve
ever dropped a bowling ball on hardwood
floor at a bowling alley that was the
exact sound that it made when I hit the
ground in that moment there were only a
couple things that were running through
my head of course the first one being
how bad was I truly injured so of course
I checked to make sure all of my limbs
were still attached but most importantly
what I thought about was was I willing
to get up and take that risk and run
that risk of falling that hard again
of course my decision is very clear
because ten years later I’m still
skateboarding professional skateboarder
now and I’ll still love skateboarding
and in fact even through skateboarding I
teach skateboarding lessons to children
and adults they range from the age of 5
to 35 and the cool thing about
skateboarding is when I learned to
skateboard it was through a collection
of different friends and things like
that they all gave me different
perspective helped me understand how to
do specific tricks and things like that
it’s probably the one sport where it’s
totally ok for me as a 28 year old to
hang out at a skate park with someone
that’s 15 or also that’s 40 and it’s
really interesting but through all those
challenges and learning to skateboard
the one thing that my friends couldn’t
teach me but I had to learn on my own I
had to become very familiar with failure
so
with the kids that I teach skateboarding
lessons too I’ve noticed something very
strange now for a moment this is Braden
he’s really rad I love the guy he just
turned eight years old so he’s very
animated when it comes to skateboarding
so when I first see him at the skate
park he’s very excited to skate he just
in this photo in particular as you can
see he’s happy as a clam he was really
happy because he landed that trick that
trick he’s very focused you can see him
draw on it but also when he struggles to
do something first try or second try or
even after 30 minutes of trying he
becomes very angry and it always reminds
me and makes me think of something
that’s very troubling and it bothers me
in this day and age in this society
instant gratification has become the
norm across the board it’s true for me
and it’s true for a lot of us when our
situation isn’t ideal right away when we
don’t find the results right away that
we want we become frustrated and then
turn that causes us to shut down we stop
trying whatever it is that we need to
try or that we want to accomplish and we
shouldn’t do that failure to me is the
most important thing that we need to
have in fact failures should be
celebrated and embraced by all of us it
should never be treated as something
negative now going back to skateboarding
I get the question a lot where people
ask me oh how do you get the board off
the ground how do you do this and I’ll
explain it to you tonight in the
simplest terms that I can now with that
practice with skateboarding in order to
successfully do a trick especially a
kickflip you have to know exactly how
much force you need to put on your tail
to pop your board up how fast you need
to slide your front foot up and then at
the same time flicking your foot now
that’s the easy part
that’s how you get it to turn now also
after that you have to stare down wait
for your board to come around put your
feet down with just the right pressure
so that you land and roll away perfectly
now it sounds it sounds a lot harder
than it looks right
so as a visual artist as well how I
learned I learned through two mentors I
also read a lot of books and things like
that and the thing with the books I
picked up a lot there’s a lot of do’s
and don’ts there’s a lot of guidelines
there’s a lot of rules and I think
that’s wrong when it comes to learning
and growing the best way and the fastest
way that we can ever grow and learn is
through the experience through the
experience of failure when you put
restrictions and you put a path of on
success you’re doing nothing but
restricting yourself from growing into
the greatest that you could be well
let’s go back to skateboarding a little
bit I had to fail a thousand times
before I successfully did my first
kickflip I had to it was part of that
process we all have to fail when we’re
learning something but with that I
failed a thousand times but in that
process I learned something that could
not be taught in a classroom to anyone I
learned creative problem-solving I
learned to how to break down my own
actions try different things make
different things work maybe experiment
with whatever I was doing
I learned to break down that process in
order to be successful and I also
learned to never give up
I learned persistence because you have
to keep trying and trying in order to
succeed and that’s why I push failure so
much with the kids that I teach
skateboarding lessons too I do my best
to explain to them that you are not
going to get it first try if you do
fantastic that’s awesome but you didn’t
learn anything there’s a reason why
there are successful pop stars and
one-hit wonders they got it right the
first time but there’s no formula to
their success you have to struggle and
you have to fight through it you have to
do it in order to keep pushing forward
and personally I think I need to need
this you all need this and everyone that
you know need this we all need to fail
and everything that we do we need to
fail because this is how we learn to
progress this is how we learn to stay
persistent and keep fighting this is how
we grow we as a human race have not
progressed
is far without failing constantly the
last thing I want to talk about is it’s
one of the phrases I hear a lot and I
don’t like it I honestly think it’s
counterproductive and I want to pass it
along to you everyone always says
practice makes perfect but they they’re
incorrect simply if you’d like to argue
about it later that’s fine but practice
does not make perfect practice makes
persistence with persistence you breed
consistency with consistency that gives
you everything you need to learn move
forward and progress so right before I
walk off this stage I want all of you to
think about something whether it be you
personally someone you know that’s doing
everything they can to accomplish their
dreams and their goals I want you to
think about this in your lives what were
you afraid to fail at that you’d still
love to accomplish and how are you going
to stop that and succeed when stepping into tomorrow thank you
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