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Tony Hawk

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2023-03-27
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2023-03-27
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  1. “Absolutely, yeah. I mean, that's the thing I just felt. Especially through those years when I was going through the fire of celebrity culture. I never felt fulfilled, and you'd wake up in the morning. It's like, what was that? And also, it was distracting me from my own kids. And I think that that's really what made me want to make a positive change in my life is that I felt like I was not, I was there, but I wasn't really available emotionally to my children as much as I could be because I was so distracted with all this other noise. And I pulled it around. I mean, I was able to... Get back, be more connected, just be part of what they were doing even on a more basic level. And that to me is way more fulfilling. I mean, that's just, you know, I could. I could wax poetic, but I do feel like I feel so much more.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “And at some point, I got famous by accident. And it's not necessarily what I wanted. And at some point, I took inventory of that and I realized that I don't really care. You know what I mean? Like, I don't care if I don't get into this VIP thing, whatever it is. Take it or leave it.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “Yeah, I think it was more the when I got caught up in the fame of it all more in the late 90s, early 2000s when my video game was a big hit and suddenly I was not just doing skate events, I was doing talk shows and I was doing big appearances and getting caught up in that level of fame is very disorienting. And I could see myself falling into that where it's like, well, now I'm a celebrity and now I will go to the red carpet events and do the, you know, and the clubs and all that. I definitely indulged a bit in that, but at some point recognized that this is just not what I want to be doing. And this is not. This is not as fun as skating. And these are not the people I really identify with. I mean, a lot of the people that I saw through those years, especially at the big events and stuff, they all they really wanted was to be famous.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “Oh, for sure. And I saw plenty of my peers. I think one thing that saved me is that I love the skating so much that I saw my peers get distracted with partying with the excess and they would start to lose their motivation and their skill sets. And I recognize that very early on and thought, I don't want to go down that road because the skating is too important to me. I want to keep performing at a top level. And for sure, I had my distractions through my life and through my adult years, but skating was always such a high priority that I never lost that.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “Yeah, and Dreading events. Going to an event and dreading it. I mean, it's almost like Pink Floyd the Wall. It's just, I was building a wall around everyone around myself and performing was just obligatory. Because everyone expected me to do it. Everyone expected me to do well to win the event, whatever it was. And there was no. Celebration in that, there was no There was nothing that made me feel. It was just, it was, I was a machine and I'd go and do the event and win the trophy, get the prize money and go home and then go skate and go try to learn new tricks. That was the fun part. But really what I was doing was just trying to prepare for the next event, which is probably another in a week or two away.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “The process of learning new tricks more, I started to appreciate the idea that I could be more creative and take more chances. And at some point, I missed competing, but I had to sort of discover that within myself. My own terms, and then when I came back to competing, I let go of the idea of perfection. I let go of the idea that I had to do the best every single time. And I took way more chances. And sometimes it didn't work. Sometimes I didn't make the finals. But when I did make the finals, I was doing it on a level that I was proud of. I wasn't. I wasn't phoning it in, so to speak. I wasn't being conservative with my approach. And that became much more fun. It was more risky. But when it would work, It was something that I was much more proud of.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “Well, it taught me that even if you're doing what you love, it's not always going to be enjoyable because of the pressure of success, because of the self-imposed pressure that you put. But What it did teach me was the value of letting go. And when I let go of that, even as hard as it was, because my sponsors were saying, if you quit competing, you're out. There was no other path to success in skateboarding. You couldn't make a living on YouTube, on social media. A reality show, whatever it was, it was just your competition rankings. That was it. That's what your success was. And they told me, you know, what are you going to do? How you expect to make a living? And I was like, I don't know, but I can't keep going this direction. And what happened was when I was removed from it, I started to appreciate.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “And that was fine. I accepted all that, but it was more that it got repetitive. It started to get to suck the fun out of it because I was just this machine, like this competitive machine. And my competitors, who I thought were my friends, I still do, were very much under the impression that, oh, well, Tony's just going to win, so we're hoping for second. And they would tell me that. And they thought that that was a compliment to me. To me it was just, it was crushing because it just meant that somehow they were separating me from the pack and the crew that I loved. I love the camaraderie of the team and the camaraderie of all the skaters. And it was like they're just pushing me out from that because they think that I'm on a Level or plane or whatever it was. And as much as you think that's a compliment, it wasn't.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “Only when I started getting burned out on competition sometime around 1988, 89, I was doing really well in the events And it started to become repetitive for me. I would go to an event. I'd have to hide new tricks from my competitors and from the judges because at some point the judges were giving me scores based on what they thought I could do, not compared to everyone else in the event, but just what they thought I was capable of. So if I came to an event with some new tricks and they saw me doing those new tricks in practice and I didn't do them in my competition runs, I would get marked down based on what they judging me against myself.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “I agree with that except that When I got into skateboarding, no one was getting paid. No one was getting accolades. No one was getting attention. And so I never aspired to that. And what I see now is I do see kids that get into skateboarding with the notion that they will get rich or famous or and or famous. And if they get any sense of fame or fortune, they lose their motivation. So I agree with you in that sense. But if you're getting into an activity, a sport, an art form or whatever that has not been established and it's not, there's no clear path to success. I feel like your motivation is always just to get better at it. The money and the fame and everything, that's all incidental to just being able to keep doing it.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “Cast aside from the skateboarding community. And that's what became isolating. But. That all that stuff just would fuel me to get better. And I didn't, it's not like I'm thankful for it, but I accepted it and I went out to prove myself.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “I was isolated in the sense that the hardcore skaters, the older generation. Didn't support me, didn't want anything to do with me, but I did have my crew. I mean, it wasn't completely isolated. I had a few friends that we all had the same sense of values and the same sort of directives for skating. So I would bounce ideas off of them and we would come up with tricks together sometimes. Sometimes it was just something that they were asking me to do. But that sense of camaraderie is what I'm talking about. But it was very limited crew. And yeah, I mean, I chose to do this outcast activity as a kid, already separating me from my classmates and my peers, kids my age. You're like, skateboarding's so lame. Why are you doing that? Then I choose to skateboard. My style of skateboarding is not cool. It's considered a circus, like I'm just a circus freak doing these little baton twirls with my skateboard. So then I'm...”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “Well, luckily I had been doing it for so long at that point and had seen it come and go that I was excited in the sense that skateboarding was going to get a renewed interest. And if I was the conduit to that, then I'll accept it. I wasn't trying to get all the glory. I just wanted to see skateboarding be more accessible and get more popular. And so at some point I don't want to say that anyone appointed me, but it was definitely, I was this chosen ambassador to skateboarding because I could do interviews and I could speak on behalf of skating at its core, but also to a mainstream audience to make them understand why skating could be valid or why it would be a positive influence on their kids.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “Yeah, I was under a lot of pressure and a lot of accusations like that. And I just kind of put my head down and just focused on my skating until I shut him up. But even then it was. It was always tricky. You know, it was like that, then my dad, he got out of it, and not long after that, he got sick and passed away and lung cancer. But then the X-Games came around and like I said, I was still on top of my game. And then I was sort of the one they were focusing on because my name had resonated from the previous generation. And then I was doing well in competition. So then the other skaters were accusing me of hogging the spotlight. I'm not choosing the programming here. And so that was tricky too. But I think I learned so much from my early days of sort of being the outcast and the outcast activity that you weren't really going to, I had sort of built up a resilience to all that.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “It was hard. Yeah, it was absolutely difficult for me in those years because I was doing well. And then there was. Claims of nepotism. There was a lot of animosity and it was uncomfortable for me because my dad was always there and I was doing well. So it would be one thing if I wasn't skating that well if I was just sort of Mid range. But I think that all of that just drove me to get better, improve everyone wrong. I mean, I'd like to say that. I didn't enjoy it, but it definitely lit a fire.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “Yeah, I don't. He never did it. He never really got paid. So, you know, to think that it was entrepreneurial, it was more altruistic than anything.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “Just he saw me and he saw how much I loved it and he saw a very serious lack of organization. And he was always very supportive of his kids. I mean, my brother was a surfer. He would drive him to the beach at dawn to get the good waves. My sister was in a band. He would be the roadie for the band and drive all their gear to the gigs. So when I started skating, he was all in on supporting it, but he saw that it was just sort of chaos. There was very little organization. There were very few events. And he saw a group of kids like me that loved it and had very little support.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “He was in the 80s, yeah. He helped to form the National Skateboard Association, which sanctioned most of the events through those years.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “And so that was another spike in popularity. And a lot of skate parks were opening in those days. And I think in the late 80s, the liability became too much for these skate facilities and they just started closing very quickly. I mean, there was just a toppling of skate parks through, I would say, 89 to 91. And then there was no place to do it because there were no public parks. All these facilities are private. There were few, but they were not good. And so all these private parks were a closing shop. And then we had skaters had nowhere to go. So that's when skating took to the underground and became more street centric.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “There was a few things I think that skating had gone through cycles in the past, in the late 70s. Skating was the new fad. It was like, especially in the US, it was like the yo-yo. It's the new toy And it's a transportation, and you can do all these things. And then that fad kind of faded out. And then in the 80s, it became this thing because we were skating the empty pools and there was this attitude and the music and the hairdo's and the graphics. And then back to the future.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “You never know. In fact, when I was 24 is when I started my company Birdhouse and I honestly thought starting a company was my way of sort of bowing out of the spotlight and not being a so-called professional skater because there were very there was very little opportunity for me as a half pipe or vert skater to be doing anything. And I was trying to nurture a group of skaters that were mostly street and trying to give them new opportunities and trying to have them promote our company as well. So I thought that I was curating a team and that I was going to be sort of the ringleader of it, but not be considered a pro myself. I never quit skating though. That was just my blood. And so at some point, A few years later, things started to pick up again. The X Games happened. They had a half pipe contest. And I was still on top of my game.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “With a car full of skater. And in that moment, I thought, I can't keep doing it this way. Like, this is not sustainable. I'm not going to be able to be a pro skater much longer if I think I'm going to do this type of skating. And so I'm going to stick with more of the half pipe, which is what I know. Even though that wasn't the popular way of skating, I just knew that if I wanted to keep skating into my adult life, I was going to have to stick with my expertise.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. “And then in the early 90s, street skating came into its own. And what you see today with people jumping downstairs on handrails, ledges, and things like that, that was just starting to blossom And I realized pretty early on that that was not my strength and that my ratio of success to injury was much higher doing that. So I kind of gave it up. I was in it for a while. I was skating some of the competitions and I was doing a lot of tours and things. And then at one point I was driving home from a tour. I had sprained one ankle almost to the point of breaking it, but somehow didn't. And then in the process of nursing that one, I was still skating because we were on tour. I rolled the other ankle, trying to save this ankle. And then I'm driving home with ice on both ankles.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. “And it's tricky, though. I mean, I don't like saying that just because skating is subjective and it's apples to oranges. So who is the best that's all in the eyes of the beholder? I did well in competition. I got good scores and I had a good run.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. “unparalleled in terms of suddenly I was making income. I owned a house when I was still in my last year of high school from my earnings. And everything, the trajectory just seemed like it was never going to end. And then it dropped very quickly in the early 90s. And then I had a good three or four years that were very slow and touch and go in terms of. Trying to make a living, provide for a family, and then things kind of came back around in the late 90s. So when I say early in my or late in my career, there's a few stages of that.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. “Yeah, well, I've had a pretty lengthy pro career, but I would say that around age 16 is when I started to come into my own and was able to shut down any of the pushback or the haters, so to speak, because they were all saying, oh, he's only good at his home park or he only does these goofy little tricks. And at some point it was like, you can't really deny that I'm doing these tricks in the most difficult circumstances and consistently. And so I had this run of success in my late teens that was, I thought,”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. “I think it was that I wasn't afraid to step out of my comfort zone, and I also wasn't afraid to get hurt along the way. And I accepted that as part of the process. And I can't say that very many people did that. I mean, definitely, definitely my peer group, the ones that were skating at the time, they knew what it took to get that far and they were willing to take the hits for it. But also, I like to explore other techniques that weren't comfortable or maybe that I even thought were cool because I wanted to learn everything. And so I would go off on these tangents of trying certain tricks or a board manipulation and then lean into that and do every single variation of that and then move on to something else. And then all of that started to combine into this trick repertoire that I had that was pretty deep.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  28. “I think it was it would have been later on in my pro career when I started to figure out how to do these what they called, they used to call them circus tricks, but I like to think they were more avant-garde. And I would do these sort of unique moves that I created, but I started to learn how to do them more in the air, like at an impressive height. And I think it was around probably more around 16, age 16 when I started to realize like, oh, I can do these things. At heights that is reserved for very few. And I can do them on other terrain besides just my familiar home park. And I guess that's probably the point where I felt like I have something that is more valid than just a niche style of skating that only happens at my hometown park.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  29. “No, and then at 14, I turn pro, but all that really meant was that. I moved up a category in competition. So There was sponsored amateur, and then there was professional. And to be professional just meant that you were competing for a $100 first place prize money.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  30. “Sponsored, yeah, which basically meant that I got free skateboards once in a while. It wasn't some There was no contract or anything”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  31. “Ah the culture, the community of it. I loved everything about it. I loved the attitude, the DIY aspect, the renegade attitude that you would, you have to hop fences, you know, to go skate an empty swimming pool or to go skate a schoolyard. And it was just so, there was so much. Art and creativity involved, it was like any skater, it's most likely they're going to play also play music or they're also going to be artists or do other interesting things. There was a soundtrack to it. It was embedded in punk music because that was the same sort of vibe and attitude that we had. And it was just more like, oh, this is my scene. I have the sense of belonging here. And I don't care if I don't fit in with my classmates or my peers.”

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  32. “So it was cool in certain sects. I would leave high school. I would go to, for instance, Houston for a big skate event. And there's all kinds of skaters there. I'm signing autographs, taking photos. And then I would come back from that weekend and maybe even have won some money to go to high school and be a ghost in the hallways again. That's the kind of dichotomy I was living.”

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  33. “In fact, in my early high school days I had to hide my, I had to, I chose to hide my skateboard in the bushes behind the school because I used it as transportation and because I would get hassled carrying it around school. They would say not so nice things as I would walk stroll by with my skateboard. Even though I was starting to find some sense of success with it, I was actually at that point sponsored. I had a company that was giving me boards, that was sending me to events. And even when I turned pro, which meant that I had my own skateboard model, it was just not cool.”

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  34. “Um, no, I always relied on that. I was in the gifted classes growing up. And so I was with other kids that were of that same ilk. So I always thought that my path would be more. Academia based. I thought that I would be. I actually thought it was going to be a math teacher because I excelled in math and I liked helping my friends with it. So I thought, oh, that is maybe that's my trajectory. And then when I found skating, it wasn't that my academics fell by the wayside, but it was more that, oh, maybe I have something else here. And it really wasn't until I was in high school that I realized more of the potential of that.”

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  35. “No, I never thought about that I guess I was never. Deep in my introspection to worry or concern myself with that fact. I just knew that I wanted to go skate.”

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  36. “Oh, for sure in my case, my older siblings were all my brother is closest, he's thirteen years older than me. So absolutely they thought they were done raising children. I was not planned. And I think that my parents were kind of reaching a winter of their marriage even before that or just after I was born. So it was a little icy. And I think that because they were from that generation, those generations, you just stay together no matter what. And so they did. And it's not like it was terrible. Like I said, it just wasn't that warm.”

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  37. “Um it was pretty Quiet? I don't know. My parents were older when I was born, so it kind of felt like I was raised by grandparents. My dad was 45. My mom was 43. By the time I was at an age where I was being very active and doing things, they were kind of in retirement mode. And I can't say they were. I don't know. They weren't close. It was almost like they were just roommates. And so that definitely rubbed off on me in a lot of ways, but it just felt like, oh, this is just a functional household. It's not full of love necessarily.”

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  38. “Gave me a sense of purpose. It gave me an outlet for my energy and my frustrations. And it gave my parents some much-needed reprieve from My determination, that's my mom put it in her best way is that. I was difficult. I was always very thick-headed. I wanted to do my things my way. I wanted to do on my terms. And she said when I found skateboarding, I really found a directive for that. And when her friends would say, he's such a nightmare, she'd say, he's just very determined.”

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  39. “Yeah, and in a lot of ways it was. I mean, I was a smaller kid. I got, we used to call it picked on. I got picked on a lot, bullied. And I didn't excel that much in team sports. I just kind of was middle ground, if that. And then when I found skating, every time I'd go skate, I got better at it. It was incremental, sometimes almost immeasurable, but I knew that I was getting, each time I was improving and I couldn't say that about any of the other sports I was doing. I mean, baseball, basketball, like, yeah, sure. Sometimes I'd score. Mostly I wouldn't. But I never felt like, oh, I'm really getting to a different level of this. It was more like I did it because it was expected of me. And every time I skated, I got better. Every time I would go to the park I would learn some little new technique that would lead me to something else.”

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  40. “I think early on I was obsessed when I first started skating. I found something that spoke to me, I found a community of people that we were just a bunch of misfits and outcasts that sort of fit together somehow. I loved what skateboarding brought to me in terms of my sense of identity, my sense of self-confidence, and the creative aspects around it. I just loved it and all I wanted to do was it as much as possible. And there was no... There was no end goal. There was no fame or fortune in the cards because no one had ever had that from skating. Even the top skaters. So What was it? It was just an obsession, and I wanted to do it as best I could always, even when I reached the top of the ranks of competition, I still want to get better.”

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  41. “Billion dollars The trajectory just seemed like it was never going to end, and then it dropped very quickly. I was so hyperfixated on my skating. I didn't really work on my humanity. I was a machine and I'd go and do the event and win the trophy, go home. It didn't allow me to be myself very much. made them feel like they weren't the priority. And a lot of it was just being afraid of intimacy, and I regret that. I started getting burned out in competition.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  42. “The outcast and the outcast activity I got picked on, I got bullied. Even when I turned pro, I would leave high school for a big skate event. I'm signing autographs, and then I would come back and be a ghost in the hallways again. I just wanted to see skateboarding get more popular. But I got famous by accident. Suddenly I was chosen ambassador. I was making income. I owned a house in my last year of high school. So I was doing talk shows and I was doing big appearances. My video game was a big hit.”

    2023-03-27 · The Diary of a CEO · Tony Hawk: The Man With The $1.4 Billion Name! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT