The Jordan Harbinger Show - 324: Tony Hawk | How Did I Get Here?

Episode Date: March 12, 2020

Tony Hawk (@tonyhawk) is a vertical skateboarding legend who enjoys household name status these days, but as we learn in discussing his book How Did I Get Here?: The Ascent of an Unlikely CEO, the journey’s been far from easy.[Featured photo by J. Grant Brittain via Tony Hawk's Instagram] What We Discuss with Tony Hawk: Why taking risks is important for the sake of progress. How personal success can be gauged independently of financial success. Why your personal brand needs to be genuine and something you’re willing to protect. Why it's important to learn everything about your craft -- even if you've "got a guy who handles that." What The Tony Hawk Foundation does for underserved communities. And much more... Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/324 Sign up for Six-Minute Networking -- our free networking and relationship development mini course -- at jordanharbinger.com/course! Like this show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps! Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the show. I'm Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with my producer, Jason DeFilippo. On the Jordan Harbinger show, we decode the stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most brilliant people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you. We want to help you see the matrix when it comes to how these amazing people think and behave, and we want you to become a better thinker. If you're new to the show, we've got episodes with spies and CEOs, athletes and authors, thinkers and performers, as well as toolboxes for skills like negotiation, public speaking, body language, persuasion, and more. So if you're smart and you like to learn and improve, then you'll be right at home here with us.

Today on the show, something from the vault, the legendary Tony Hawk, pro skater and business mogul. We'll uncover why taking risk is important for forward progress. Maybe it doesn't sound like a big deal there, but when Tony tells it in his interesting and sort of trademark unique way, you'll really get a kick out of it. and why you can't be afraid to slam and get right back up again. A pretty apt skating analogy for business that I can readily identify with myself. And why your personal brand and being real are something that we need to be

and something that we need to protect at all costs. Now, this might not sound like groundbreaking business information, but any interview here with Tony Hawk is always going to be a fun one. And he's got a few funny stories about his face being printed on things that let's just say you don't want your face printed on. If you want to know how I manage to book all these phenomenal guests, well, through my network, I manage relationships hundreds, maybe thousands at a time using systems and tiny habits. Check out our six-minute networking course, which is free over at jordanharbinger.com slash course.

By the way, most of the guests here on the show actually subscribe to the course and the newsletter. So come join us and you'll be in great company. Now, here's Tony Hawk. I've read the book about how did I get here. Jason, who's my producer, who's also on the line, has followed. you for how long Jason, like, a long time. I think, Tony, you signed my first shirt at the first Trashmore contest in 85.

Oh, awesome. Yeah, nice. I also watched Bones Brigade. And the Bones Brigade video led me to ask just why skating in the first place? Because in the Bones Brigade video, it starts off with this, pardon me, but like a freak show of guys, right,

that we now think are awesome. But they're all talking about how outcast they were as kids. So how did you even get interested in something like this? How did you get into something that was just like kind of this underground, nobody's doing it type of thing? It almost doesn't make sense. Well, I picked up skating when at the tail end of its first boom in the 70s. So in my eyes, it was popular.

You know, my older brother was doing it. A lot of my friends in the neighborhood were doing it. And so I did it more based on that was the trend. And then when I discovered the possibilities or when I saw the possibilities, I think it was the first time I went to the skate part. And I literally saw people fly. out of empty swimming pools. And that was my wow moment

that I want to learn how to do that. I want to learn how to fly. I mean, I would probably be diagnosed with ADD or something nowadays, but it spoke to my instant excitement, gratification. Like, I don't know if I was considered a daredevil, but I wasn't really afraid to try new things and learn flips and things like that

as a young child. And there was like a danger factor. There was this edgy factor. And I just devoted myself to it. Around that same time, my friends quit. all my peers, my classmates, they grew out of it. It was a trend, and they were over it, and they moved on to the next thing, and I couldn't give it up.

I felt like it was finally something that I kept improving at, that I had a feeling of self-confidence that I had never found in any other sport, and I just stuck with it and suddenly found myself in with all these oddball characters. Like skating really attracted people who were willing to try something different, who wanted to be set apart from the status quo, and I loved it. And they were all artsy, kind of strange, but really creative. What sort of subcultures do you see now that are, as skating was back in 79, 80? Do you see something starting now where you're like, ah, this is kind of like how skating started.

Let's see where this goes. In terms of an activity? Yeah, it doesn't have to be a sport or anything. It could be yoga for all I care, but that's too mainstream now. Do you see anything that started off sort of niche with a bunch of oddballs that you're thinking, oh, that's kind of what we looked like back in 79, skateboarding in someone's pool before the cops came. My best example is my 17-year-old son

is really into electronic music, but a very certain type of electronic music. I call it Nintendo Rave music, for lack of a better term. He goes to these shows, and he actually performs. He has his following, and there is something there that is really unique. You know, all these people have sort of found each other, and I feel like they feel like outcasts

in the world of electronic music even. I've kind of watched it blossom. It's slow, but I feel like they have that same connection with each other that we had as skaters, where we're doing something totally different. We truly enjoy it, and it's fun. Aside from the fact that you had so many injuries and so many hospital visits that your doctor pulled you aside and asked if your parents were abusing you. For guys who considered yourselves nerds and outcast, you were pretty tough, it seems like. That is the defining moment if you want to do this seriously or continue to do it is the moment you get hurt. Is that do you love it so much that you're going to push through this and learn from your mistake?

Or is that the sign that you have to stop because you don't like getting hurt? From the very beginning, like one of my worst injuries in the beginning was I got a concussion, I knocked my teeth out. I knew when I woke up in the pro shop of the skate park that I wanted to get back out there and do it. And it wasn't going to stop me, even though, you know, I had this extremely tragic injury for the most part. Yeah, I know that the second I knock my teeth out doing anything is probably the day that I stop doing that activity. But I definitely understand the compulsion to become obsessed with something like this and just become great with it. And as I was talking to a lot of my friends, I was stoked about this interview, of course, and said, hey, I got Tony Hawk coming on. Isn't that cool? And do you have any

questions for somebody like that? The overwhelming number of parents especially said, oh, yeah, you know, my kids were doing that for a second, but they don't like doing it because they keep falling. And I thought, this is exactly what Tony's talking about when he says, are you going to push through it? Because the people who get really good at anything, skating or otherwise, are the people that do slam and then come back from it and say, yeah, you know, a sensible person

probably wouldn't keep doing this to themselves, but I'm too into it. I can't quit now. Definitely there's a happy medium too. There are plenty of people that enjoy skating that don't want to push it too far, don't want to risk themselves, but still enjoy doing it.

So nowadays, especially, there is a stronger foundation of people participating because of that. But in our day, that was it. It was like, you're definitely going to get hurt learning to do this. And are you willing to push through that and keep going and risk your body? And obviously some people get away with less injuries. Had a string of pretty bad injuries through my years.

But they would come in waves, you know, when it rains the pores. I think I had two knee surgeries over the course of a year and a half. No, I was going to say, I remember when I broke my leg skating and I was laid up. It was like I was in the middle years of high school. There weren't that many skaters around. but as soon as I was laid up, all my skater friends kept bringing me all the latest trans worlds and thrashers and an occasional playboy to get through the day. And all I could think about, though, was I cannot wait to get back out there.

I want to get back on my board. I had no thoughts whatsoever that, you know, this was like, oh, I got hurt. I can't do it anymore. The first thing I wanted to do as soon as I was done was get back out on my board. Yeah, and especially when you do it on a professional level, that just comes with the territory. So, you know, it sucks getting hurt. It sucks to see people get hurt, but we know that they're going to come back. Like, that's just a given.

It was actually kind of tough to get you to do the interview because you're a busy guy and also because you control your brand very strictly. And I thought that was kind of interesting and obviously very normal for somebody in your position. I was entertained by this Fruit Loop story, which is one of the kickoffs for you controlling your brand very strictly. And I think that's hilarious. Let's see. That was around, I want to say, 97-ish. You know, the X-Games were just sort of coming on the scene and Fruit Loops wanted to do what they considered an extreme, motion with some of the X-Games stars. And so they brought me, they brought Matt Hoffman,

Johnny Mosley, maybe a rollerblader at the time to New York. And they wanted us to do this precedent. I had never been part of a precedent before. So I didn't really know what to expect. And we had like media training the night before and, you know, our talking points and what we do on interviews. And basically what they were doing was they were going to have us do a skate BMX exhibition and then do interviews with media outlets, but the interviews are supposed to be talking about Toucan Sam as if he's a real person and that he's into our sports now. Oh my gosh. A real entity, a real Tuchan.

And at the time, I didn't know any better, you know, and I was like, well, that's weird. Would you really do that? And they're like, well, yeah, you know, that's the idea is that Tukan Sam is hip now. He's into your guys' sports. And we wore these Fruit Loops shirts and they bust in all these school kids to be the the cheering section, and it all just felt so forced to me, where there could be an easy way to connect fruit loops to, let's say, our sports in a much more natural way. Right.

You know, we're like pimping Tucan Sam as the next superhero of our sports. And it just felt cheesy. And at some point, I was like, what am I doing here? You know, this is so strange. But luckily, the people that they chose to do it with me were hilarious. And so we kind of made it our own funny, ridiculous event. I mean, Johnny Mosley was announcing the VERT exhibition and naming tricks as serials. Oops.

Because he didn't know what the skate tricks were. Right. Yeah. And then he got scolded because he was using other serial brand names. Right. So it's like Tony Hawk with the grape nut, but then not really remembering, hey, this is supposed to be fruit loop centric. Yeah, exactly. Like, oh, yeah, that's a lucky charm twist.

So, you know, we made it fun, but I don't want to do things like this. even though the money was ridiculous. Like, it was more money than I got paid for any promotion in my whole life. I got an agent and explained that situation to him and he was an agent to a couple of their pretty big TV stars. And he said, oh, yeah, no, don't worry. He said, we're going to put an end to all that stuff

and you're going to have control over these promotions and how you're presented. Because I literally had this conversation. Like, you know, there was a lot of humiliation for a lot of money, but it wasn't worth my integrity. Right. And long term, like if you were doing stuff like that, that now, your company would be a joke.

But at the same time, because I fought for that control and because I had such a good track record going forward from there, people do trust our instincts with how marketing goes. In those days, and even for a few years after that, a big company was not going to hear that you didn't like their marketing because they went to college for that. And they did target groups, you know, focus groups, and they know what they're talking about.

And I'm like, but this is not skateboarding. And this is not how skateboarding should be portrayed. It does us an injustice. Maybe it does something for you and your resume, but this is not how you treat what we do with respect. It was a struggle. But we've come through and shown that we can be successful and that we were a little more savvy to what the kids wanted.

This is an extreme lesson for you to learn. You even had the toilet paper incident where was this before or after that where you walked into the office of some schmuck who was printing your name and brand on some just terrible piece of gear, and there was a roll of toilet paper that said something like Tony Hawk brand.

That was the first go-around for me. That was actually in the 80s, so that came before. And in the 80s, I didn't have any business sense, you know, about what any of it meant, like endorsements, licensing, and whatnot. And I was signing every offer

that came across my desk because there were guarantees and there were royalties and the contracts that I was signing were actually conflicted with one another over what products they could do. So I was already in breach of contract by signing them.

Then I went to this company that was making the original fingerboards were, you know, that what became eventually like tech tech type of stuff, but these were like plastic. And I had signed away my name for them to do pretty much any accessory they wanted. And so they were making really cheesy Velcro wallets and the fingerboards and just chotchkes that had no place in skateboarding. And the logos that they were coming up with were just straight ripoffs of other skate company's logos. And I went in to try to talk to them.

You're like, no, you can't do this. You can't take a Vision Streetwear logo and put my name in it and think that that's okay. And he's like, well, yeah, actually, we can. We have the rights to your name. And as he's talking, there's this roll of toilet paper behind him with my name on the outside of it. And I was like, what is that? And he said, oh, that's a joke because one of our retailers said, well, you know, you can put anything with Tony Hawk's name on it and it'll sell even toilet paper.

And so we made that for them. And I think at that moment, I realized that I was not a person to them. I wasn't someone to be respected. I was just a name, a brand, and for them to make as much money as they wanted. And I ended up paying to get out of my contract with them. And that was my first lesson in terms of keeping control of a brand. And so fast forward to 10 years later. And then I realized like, oh, this is what happens when you're part of a big marketing campaign.

So I think between those two is what my big lessons in terms of how to keep your integrity, how to control your brand. And luckily, I survived that wave in the 80s, and there was no YouTube back then to document every mistake. Yeah, although people are probably on eBay right now looking for some Tony Hawk toilet paper and Velcro wallets.

I did end up buying one of those watches somehow remained that these guys made, which had no quality control, just super cheesy, and I ended up buying it on eBay a couple years ago. Just as a reminder of what not to do, never again. Do you have people going through

and looking for unlicensed and just getting ancient stuff that looks bad and just snagging it. I used to, but it's a little easier now with trademarks and with social media. Like, you know, something comes up and it just immediately comes to your attention. Right, yeah, that's true. You can nip it in the bud. It doesn't end up with a massive distribution and then you've got to find the end product. You can go to the source.

It's very easy to sort through now. Yeah, Google alerts are your friend, I suppose, in this case. Maybe. You're still skating and innovating. I mean, you did the 900, which I know was in 99, but. Most of your tricks now seem to be a little bit more technical and maybe less dangerous, which probably makes sense given that you're, and I'm not trying to say that you're old, but I am and I'm 36.

I don't know if I'd want to be flying through the air. Oh, yeah, I fully accept that. Yeah, I've kind of learned to refine my style to much more technical and low impact type of tricks, and that has allowed me to continue doing it on my age. It's not some great secret. And, you know, some of the stuff, not that it doesn't necessarily resonate across the industry is what the next new hot trip. But it gives me a sense of creativity.

And there's something unique about it, where people who go, oh, no one has ever done that. And to do NBDs and skateboarding is a pretty big deal. So the fact that I still get to get a few under my belt is pretty exciting. Yeah, it seems like you have to constantly be innovating and pushing your own abilities. Otherwise, you think you'd lose interest in it if you weren't progressing all the time? That's funny.

I think I had this discussion with my wife just the other night and I was trying to figure out, like, If I don't feel like I'm continuing progress, would I be so excited to keep skating? I probably would, but it's hard to project that far down the line for me. Yeah, fair enough. But I see plenty of my peers that, you know, they're not necessarily doing anything new, but they still love it. And they love getting to travel the world, getting to do it to a new audience, to more appreciation.

And I feel like I probably would come to terms with that. And I have in some ways. I mean, there are definitely some events I go to. like there's this bowl event in Sydney, Australia every year. I've been to last three of them. And my routines in that bowl are not necessarily getting any more progressive. But I really enjoy it. The crowd and the whole experience is, you know, it's kind of like a reunion every year.

So I guess I am learning to accept that. But it's weird to just be playing the hits for me. I guess that's the crossover, you know, is like a band and maybe their new stuff isn't as popular. Or maybe they're not getting any new stuff at all. But they go out there and they play. these songs that everyone knows and they still like it. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger show with our guest, Tony Hawk. We'll be right back.

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Subscribing to the show is absolutely free. It just means you get all of the latest episodes downloaded automatically to your podcast player so you don't miss a single thing. And now back to our show with Tony Hawk. What's one modern 2016 type trick? You'd love to bring back in time if you could and pull off in the 80s just to blow people's minds. Do you have anything in mind? Oh, wow. That's a good question.

I mean, anything switch would have been unheard of. So I did a Switch McTwist in 98. If that had happened in the 80s, no one, people just would not have understood anything because even our skateboards were not amidextrous. You know, our skateboards were meant to go one direction. There was no nose on the board. The idea that you're skating at backwards was incredible.

The idea that you're actually skating at Switch and doing these tricks as if your opposite stance, it would be like you came from a time machine. That's right, because skateboards when I was a kid, I forgot. They were kind of fish shaped, right? Like 2D fish? They were. There was definitely a nose and tail that were defined as such.

And in the 80s, there was no nose. No one had a purpose for that. So your nose was like three inches past the truck, and that was it. I forgot all about that. We were cleaning out my buddy's garage probably last summer, and he had one of those like Nashua or whatever skateboards with like the grainy, basically little blue crystals glued on it for grip. Yeah.

and giant wheels. And it had, yeah, like a little fish tail and a little pointy nose, like a mini surfboard. And the thing was enormous. And I remember comparing it to modern skateboard, it looked like a completely different animal. It was just unreal, how bulky it was and everything.

Yeah, it's funny because those shapes are kind of coming back in fashion for a lot of the older generation. What would you have done if you weren't a skater? Do you ever think about that? Like, what would you have gotten into if skating didn't exist? Well, I was always really interested

in electronics and, technology and I learned to use a computer very early on. I learned how to do video editing on a video toaster, the first sort of consumer level nonlinear editing system. So I dabbled in that and I obviously did it with skating a lot. But at some point when my income was drawing up from just skating, I started to actually do freelance editing for companies. So there was a point in time around the early 90s where you were doing this not making enough money. I know you just had a kid and You were eating a bunch of ramen all the time. Yes.

Why did you keep going? Because at this point, it's looking pretty bleak. You're not waiting out, oh, skating's going to get popular again. It's just like, this is my life now. What am I going to do? There was a little bit of that, but every once in a while, some opportunity would come up, like, as minimal as skating in a six flags parking lot for, like, a promotion they'll do for a week and getting $100 a day for three exhibitions

a day, and that paid the bills, you know? and then allowed me to skate. So it wasn't like, oh, I got to do this. It was like, oh, cool, I get to skate, and people are going to be there watching, and I get paid. It was for a tenth of what I usually would make, but it made it happen.

But there were a couple of times when those were not coming in as frequently, and we were struggling. Like, I'd started Birdhouse, a skate brand. We were struggling with that. The sales weren't there. And so there were a couple times where I almost gave up on skating

or the skate industry as a career, but I never thought I'd quit skating. I just didn't know if I'd be able to actually make a living out of it anymore. I adjusted my life accordingly. I moved into a smaller place, was saving my money. I was, like you said, eating a lot of top ramen and Taco Bell and peanut butter and honey sandwiches at the time. And just to have my first child, and, you know, it was definitely a challenge,

but I was willing to do whatever it took to continue to skate. When you were 16, you were making more money than your high school teachers. And then, of course, the skating industry slipped into that coma. the ESPN X games popped you right out of it. And it seems like your love for the game, your love for skating is what enabled you to be ahead of everyone else when the world was ready

and threw gasoline on the fire through the X games, right? It seems like this is something that you had been practicing the whole time because you loved it so much and that's why you were ready for action when the spotlight was on you. Yeah, I think so.

I mean, especially when those first X games came, they wanted to do VERT as an event and Virt was mostly, I don't want to say it was dead, but it was not the chosen style of skating at the time. And the vert skaters that were the ones that were progressive, especially in the late 80s, early 90s, weren't really skating that much, mostly because they didn't have the facilities, but also because there was just no living to be made in it. And I never had quit. Luckily, you know, I lived in Southern California,

so there were some vert ramps around here. And that was still my forte. That was still my strengths. And so when the X games came, I guess I was ahead of the game. I had not. I had not. never quit. I still had my skill set. I was still learning new things and it was kind of like I had the advantage of having a name that people already knew. Not that that had anything to do with my success as a competitor, but definitely my success as a recognizable name that people would tune in for. You've got a lot of great business takeaways from this from your experiences as well. I mean, never get cocky because good luck turns bad fast was something I saw in the early part of the and taking pride in being obsessive and putting in the time to get great is what, in my estimation,

at least from the history here, is what made you ready for the limelight. You take a lot of care and explaining that once you've achieved proficiency, you have to take your specialty to a new level that fellow specialists can actually appreciate, and you continue to innovate from there, and that's what sets you apart. It sounds like a long way of saying, be so good they can't ignore you. That and as well as go outside your comfort zone, learn everything about your craft. I mean, for me, I grew up skating in swimming pools and then eventually on vert ramps. But at some point, I realized my skating would probably be better and more well-rounded if I do break out of this and go learn some of these street moves and some of these kickfoot moves and things like that. And that was not something that was considered necessary for the type of skating I did.

And then eventually I learned that in business. Like, I wanted to start this business. I had to jump into how to do purchase orders, how to forecast, what's a POP? like net and gross profit and all that stuff, I could have ignored because I did have people that were qualified to do that stuff, but I dove in because I knew that based on my previous success that it was only going to benefit me in the end,

being obsessive, but being obsessive about the entire industry of what you're doing. How do you balance that? You mentioned in the book, the more you make it in the corporate world, the more you need to prioritize spending time on the street. How did you learn that lesson and how do you balance that now?

I walk to walk. I go skate. I mean, that's my best explanation is that I'm still out there skating. I'm watching the events. I'm hanging out with the kids, with the ones that are considered the contemporaries now. And I do it because I love it. But as long as I have my finger on the pulse of what is happening out there, I can at least adjust my products in my career to be progressive as well,

because I don't want to get stuck in a rut. There's a lot of hustle and grind, especially throughout the books. And it's really easy, I think, for outsiders to just kind of assume you caught lightning in a bottle because skating was trendy and you were in the right place. at the right time. You admit a little bit in the book, look, there's a little bit of luck. ESPN revived the brand, skyrocketed it. But what if that didn't happen? What was the plan? And do you think that entrepreneurs and business people should hope for something like this? What advice do you have to prepare people for something like this or a lack of something like

the X games, really launching them up into famed fortune, so to speak? Well, I think that following your dreams and following your passion, sometimes it is a struggle. And for sure, there were moments when we started Birdhouse that we were about to give up. We anticipated skateboarding coming back into fashion on some level, but it took a few years longer than we anticipated. And there were a couple times where we're like, maybe this isn't going to work. But I also believe that if you're just scraping by doing what you love, you're going to be infinitely happier than wild success doing something that you feel like you're selling yourself

out for, that you've lost your integrity for. because I still love going to work every day. I loved going to work back then, even though it wasn't really paying that well. But at some point, you have to live in the real world. And can you afford to live there with your passion? Maybe not. Maybe there's a way to alter that, that approach. Maybe there's a way to start working with someone else that's doing it, that you appreciate

or that you respect. But yeah, I mean, at some point, you can't just have some money drain. Right. A lot of folks come on and say, look, it's important. to follow your passion, but a lot of the same people are also having kind of a hindsight bias, right? It's like it worked for you because you worked really hard and everything came together, but there's a lot of people who follow their passion right into their parents' basement. So you have to really be prepared to ask yourself, am I willing to do this even for a non-living

wage or just barely a living wage? If so, continue to do it, you'll experience that happiness that you'd mentioned before. But if not, it might just have to be a hobby and that's okay too, or you might have to be the video guy for somebody who's doing what you eventually want to do and you have to be cool with that. Yeah, and that's the compromise you have to decide for yourself and how far are you willing to take that?

And for sure, that's a perfect example. Like, yeah, maybe I'm the video guy that covers this industry or this action, but it keeps you in it. And maybe that's good enough. When I was skating in the mid-90s and barely getting by, I still loved what I did.

So I considered it a success regardless of not being able to, you know, get a new car or any other sort of luxuries, but it was something that I looked forward to every day, something to look forward to doing. And I don't think people, everyone could say that about their job. I know that you're super concerned with authenticity. In the video game and the print ads and things like that,

there was one example, we had some print ads and the models were holding skateboards, but they were holding it in a way you could just tell, like, these people have never held a skateboard before. And you're cringing and you're thinking, nobody's going to notice. And the photographer and the media company saying, look, nobody's going to notice, we don't even see the problem.

But you knew any skater would immediately go. These people are fake. They don't really do it. Why is this something that's so important to you? Well, obviously, because I wanted to be authentic. Because I want to represent skateboarding the best I can. I mean, you know, beyond wanting to be successful or to have successful products or things that people enjoy, I do want it to represent skateboarding in a way that people would be proud

of it who've grown up with it. You know, like it's been my identity for so long. and I wouldn't want to exploit it in a way that makes it any less important. And so when I get to do big promotions, especially when I was doing big promotions, like on the heels of our video game success, I made sure that the skateboarding that was shown was authentic, that the lingo was authentic, you know, that it really spoke to hardcore skaters, but on a bigger level that I was using these marketing dollars of people like Frida Le and McDonald's to promote skateboarding to a bigger audience.

That was the more lofty goal of all of that stuff, was that I get to use these huge marketing dollars campaigns to show skateboarding to an audience that's never seen it, and in a way that represents it well. Obviously, you care deeply about it because you've always had a lot of skin in the game at all times. For example, you invested a lot of your royalty checks

back into your own business. You invested into Huck Jam, boom, boom, huck jam type stuff with your own money. So you had a lot of skin in the game, and you're not afraid to both in skating and in business, take a slam if you want to progress. Do you think you learned that through skating or do you think you always kind of had that hit, fall,

get up again before that? Do you think that something has developed through skating and is now present in your business or am I reading into it too much? No, for sure, that idea of taking risk for the sake of progression. That is exactly in tune with my business ethics. Someone's got to do it.

Someone's got to do it first. Let's try it. And it doesn't always work. And luckily I've had enough successes that I was allowed those failures, but definitely in a case like what you said, the boom-oom-hacham, you know, the idea was that we would do a tour

where our sports, skateboarding BMX and motocross, are the entertainment, not the sideshow to a bigger event. You know, that's how we did our exhibitions. It was like, oh, we're the halftime show for the football game. We're in the parking lot of the big concert going on inside.

And I was like, I think our sports have enough recognition now and enough appreciation that we could be the center of an arena, and I drew up a ramp system that filled an arena floor and started looking for any kind of help and people were just dumbfounded. They're just like, this is, you're crazy. And so I eventually wrote a check for the ramps and just set it in motion. And once we got something that was more viable, you know, once we had the ramps in place, once we had the crew, we started picking up sponsors

and we got the whole thing underwritten. But it took that leap of faith. I was willing to risk literally millions of dollars because I believed in it. You're listening to the Jordan Harbinger Show with our guest, Tony Hawk. We'll be right back after this. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. Your support of our advertisers keeps us on the air. To learn more and get links to all the great discounts you just heard, so you can check out those amazing sponsors, visit jordanharbinger.com slash deals.

And don't forget, we have a worksheet for today's episode. That link is in the show notes at jordanharbinger.com slash podcast. If you're listening to us in the Overcast player, please click that little star next to the episode. We really appreciate it. And now for the conclusion of our episode with Tony Hawk. And you have a lot of huge successes. I mean, first of all, the video games, there's like 80 of them now, right, across various platforms. I don't know. Do you know something I don't?

I don't know. I feel like I looked it up and there was just a bunch of different results. And some of them sure are like, hey, here's the mobile version of this. And here's the, you know, there's a bunch of different versions and international versions. and stuff like that, I think, are probably counted in that total. But how do you deal when things don't work out? I mean, for example, skate jam, if that sounds like it rhymes as space jam, you know what I'm talking about here, right?

The space jam, back in action, which was supposed to be the skateboard version of space jam with you instead of Michael Jordan, went all the way up, you're taking meetings, everyone's laughing and basically popping over champagne, you hop on a flight to Australia, never heard from anybody again. Yeah. How do you deal with the disappointment slash rejection of project? just not falling through or bombing. It seems like those take out a lot of people.

A lot of people don't come back from that stuff. Well, so many experiences like that early on of big promises that I learned to take every claim like that with a grain of salt. You know, I just learned like, oh, well, yeah, maybe something like that will happen, but I'm not going to count on it because it was too hard. I mean, especially in the lean days

when things would come up like, oh, you might be in this commercial as an extra or, you know, as a stunt double. And if I relied on that and it didn't come through, I was crushed or I'd spend the money before I got it. And so I just learned like, if it comes, it comes, but I'm not going to count on that stuff. This was a super exciting prospect. I was meeting with Warner Brothers. We had a handshake deal. You know, they had offered me money and we were going to bring back the Looney Tunes characters in the form of a skate movie, like

Space Jam. And that was amazing. But at the same time, I just had too much experience with Hollywood and with other disappointments where I was like, I just, you know, I'm not going to believe this until we're actually on a set shooting this. And they were so excited about the project and so excited to get it going. They met me at LAX restaurant when I was flying to Australia for a week to shoot a movie, a different movie. And it was all happening. And we were going to put the whole deal together when I got back.

From the time that I left, until the time I got back, they had premiered the movie with Brendan Fraser. What's it called? Back in Action. Uh-huh. And that flopped so hard that they said we're not doing Looney Tune Tune stuff. That was it. Jeez.

So then that was it. And it's just like, all right, I didn't cash any checks I didn't have. They didn't say that. Like, that's just what my Asian figured out later. Because I kept asking, like, what is going on? Oh, they're supposed to get back to me. And they finally said, I think that on the heels of the flop that was this movie, they're not going to do anything with Looney Tunes.

Have you ever confronted Brendan Frazier? Thanks for ruining my franchise, bro. Yeah, we can't really yell at Bugs Bunny. All right. Well, one thing I thought that was really funny in the book is, I think it was Kids Choice Awards or something, you're walking by all these A-List celebrities in the front row. Maybe it wasn't Kids' Choice. Maybe it was something more serious.

It's like Puffy, Jay-Z, and you're still wearing your helmet. Yeah, MTV Awards. And then you felt a little bit self-conscious. You even noted that in the book. I mean, what list do you think you're on? If they're A-list, what list do you think you're on when it comes to these kind of guys? But to put it in context, I remember what you're talking about now. What happened was we did an MTV Awards show, and our video game was up for a soundtrack

Award and they wanted to do something surprising for the crowd. They turned the stage into a skate park basically, like all at once, where you had no idea this was coming. And then we all started skating and there were these obviously huge stars in the crowd. And I had my helmet on, but I was dressed for the event. So I did this whole thing. And then I went up and presented an award and totally forgot to take my helmet off. And then I'm walking by all these huge stars like Jay-Z and like giving them thumbs up.

and he gave me this funny look, and I realized like, oh, she's, I'm wearing my helmet. Like, oh, yeah. That's when I felt self-conscious. So I was like, I looked so ridiculous walking through the crowd in the suit. And in my helmet, like, I could have just taken it off just after we did the skating, but I forgot. I was too nervous. So they're thinking, like, interesting fashion choice, a suit and the skate.

Yeah, I just felt dorky, that's all. But on full display of, like, the, yes, the A-listers of the time, I don't really consider myself on any list. I mean, I can't believe people still recognize me. I can't believe that I get recognized for skating because that was never something, there was a goal, there was never something that was an option

when I was younger. Like, the most famous skaters when I started skating were only known to a very small group of skateboarders. They were in the skate magazines. They were definitely not on TV. They weren't considered sports stars. I still feel strange that I get recognized.

I mean, it's amazing. Like, I get incredible opportunities. I get VIP, whatever, passes, seating and stuff. I get to do some really rare things with my kids that most people would never get to experience. But I'm always thankful for it. I never expected it. And I don't know what list that puts me on,

but, you know, I don't get invited to the Academy Awards. Not yet, but I'll tell you, a long time ago, well, I don't know, a year ago or so, you and I were at the same event, speaking at the same event. I took a photo with you after you had done a talk at this, like, house outside where there was a pool and a fire pit.

That's all I remember it. I posted it on Facebook from my phone and the caption didn't come through. And I noticed it, and I thought, oh, I'll fix that later. No one's going to comment on it because it just looks like me and some friend of mine hanging out. And when I came back and checked the photo later that night, there were dozens of comments like,

holy shit, that's Tony Hawk. How'd you meet Tony Hawk? So I don't know what list you're on, but tons of people recognize you immediately. People that I don't think ever owned a skateboard, at least not for the last couple decades, every single one who commented was enthralled. It wasn't just, oh, yeah, that's that Tony Hawk guy.

It was, what? Where did you meet Tony Hawk? So you still got that. Oh, that's pretty cool. Well, thank you. That's for sure. I don't want to think that I have more whatever recognition than I do. And like I said, I'm still, I don't take it for granted at all.

You know, I don't expect people to recognize me. And the weird thing is that it happens more now than almost ever. And I have no explanation for that because it's not like our video game series is still on top. And I'm not doing big marketing campaigns so much anymore. But it's amazing. When you fly, do you take the skateboard with you on the? plane or do you check it? I usually take it with me and it's funny because people think that's like me trying to being pretentious and like, hey, here I am. Here's my skateboard. I usually take it with me

because if I can do it without almost any of my bags that I check in except my skateboard. Right. Might be tricky to go and buy a new skateboard and do a demo at whatever hour of the day it is that you arrive. Yeah, my board is very specialized. We don't make that shape. I have size 13 feet. So it's very important that it arrives with me. That being said, when you fly to certain cities in Europe, you cannot put the skateboard in the overhead bin. Because it won't fit or they won't let you? No, it's just their policy.

So I'm well-versed in which airports I can fly through with a skateboard in which I can't. That's funny. And people must look at you like, who is this guy trying to be relevant, you know, with his skateboard? Who is this guy? Or sometimes they just think it's me being pretentious with it.

that it's like, check me out. Here I am. Here's my skateboard. It'd be like, you know, some famous guitarist walking through with his guitar strapped around his neck. Right. Like, oh, they won't recognize me unless I have my skateboard. Let me put some stickers on it. Yeah, exactly. Tell us a little bit about the foundation and why it's important. Well, the foundation, we started 14 years ago, and it was my way of giving back, obviously, to the industry and the community that have given me so much. But for me, it was a reaction to a number of skate parks that were being built at the time. This is around 2001, 2002, and they're mostly in affluent areas, and they were mostly being built by city councils that were just doing it to

congratulate themselves for being so cool that they would build a skate park. But in the reality of it was that they would hire the lowest bidding contractor for the job, which was usually someone that just poured concrete for sidewalks. And they were not consulting the skaters of the community, and they would just go ahead and full seam ahead with no consultation of people that were experts in the field. And then they would build these parks that were terrible. You know, they were poorly designed. There would be like a set of stairs that met a wall. I went to a couple of these grand openings because I was invited to go and I would say, you know, this park is terrible. And they would say, that's what the kids were saying, but we said,

wait till Tony Hawk gets here and shows you got to ride it. I think at that moment, I realized that there's this disconnect between the kids who need these facilities who want these facilities and the entities that are providing them, but more than that, these facilities and this funding should be going to much more needy areas, much more low-income challenged areas where the kids don't have many outlet for activities. I decided I want to do something about that and bridge that gap between the kids who need these facilities and the people who are providing them, hopefully provide funding, but mostly provide resources on how to get it done and how to communicate clearly with the kids that want these parks. The seed money for the foundation came from me being on the celebrity

edition of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, and we got to $125,000 with the help of my brother as a lifeline. Is he especially smart guy, I assume, or is he just really good at Google? He's a writer, he's an editor, and he has a literature degree, and the quote was about Hemingway. So I called him up, and he didn't answer it immediately, and I got nervous, and I could hear him typing, and so he was doing a Google search. And this is 2002. So you got to realize that that was not how these things go. And so I started panicking because I could hear him typing and he immediately said the answer and he had got it through Google search. Nice. Yeah, of course. Luckily, he got it right. That would just be horrendous, right, if he blew that for charity. And you guys have done a phenomenal job. It looks like

at least the stats that I got, which might not be up to the minute, but 572 skate part projects in the U.S. have received funding from the Tony Hawk Foundation. and a half million awarded to help create public skate parks, 400 worldwide projects with training and different foundation, and that's in 2015. And there are millions, by the way, of people using these every year. They're not just sitting kind of idle. And it's a huge accomplishment and a huge piece of legacy.

Do you think about that when you create these things? Like, what am I going to leave behind other than some really awesome videos and some video games? I mean, is this part of your legacy that's important to you? I have never been so concerned with that aspect of things. I mean, I am hugely proud of what I've helped to accomplish and create in skateboarding, but I've never been one to be like, I need this on my gravestone. I'm just stoked to see skating grow and to have been a participant in that

or to have been some catalyst in that is rewarding enough for me. One of our show fans asked, is there anything you would have liked to accomplish professionally that you have not? Professionally, that's kind of a broad term. I think that I would have liked to have taken the Boom Boom Huck Jam concept internationally on tour. I think that that could have done really well in places like Europe in Australia, and even Japan. But our stage setup was so cumbersome and it would have taken a big sponsor and a big influx of cash to take it overseas. For anyone that knows what concert tours are,

generally you have about four to five semis that carry all your gear. We had 14 semis carrying our gear. And so to take that on the road in another country was a, a huge cost and a huge undertaking, and I never got to do it, but I would have loved to. How do you stay motivated to innovate and not kind of get caught up in the celebrity of everything? Like, how come you're really grounded guy? You do a lot of community service, even meeting you in person, just totally normal conversation. I've also met a lot of other people, and that's not the case. Do you know why that is? I mean, are you actively working to stay a normal person, for lack of a better word? No, I think it's come with having experienced the highs and lows.

already. I mean, I had a great bit of success in the 80s. And I did, you know, I was young and I felt invincible then. So probably if you met me back then, I might have been a little bit more of a dick. But having had a sort of downfall of success and learning that I truly do love this and I would never give it up through the sort of darker days. And then having it come back in a way that I never imagined or dreamed. I mean, that's been incredible. But I never lost sight of what got me here. And that is the skating. And that is the skating. And that is the. the being a genuine person. And so it's not an effort, but it's definitely just who I am now. It takes being knocked down to get there, I think. You know, it's weird. Skateboarding now, some people get into it to be rich or famous.

When I got into it, neither one of those things was even possible. That was nothing on the horizon for that, right? It was like when you're learning a new trick, you mentioned this in Bones Brigade. Learning tricks from people who've done it already, that's easier. It sets up everyone's beliefs

that it could be done. But if nobody's done it, then it seems like it might be impossible. So for you, having done that with skating, you see that probably a lot with new entrance to the arena, is they're looking at it like, all right, skate, work hard, dot, dot, dot,

fame and fortune in video games, and that for you was uncharted territory. And so the idea that you could fail and just be normal Tony Hawk, a guy who used to skate, was always something that was maybe in the back of your mind. That was always a possibility. They're very transparent.

The people that get into it because they think it's their ticket to fame or fortune are the ones that lose their motivation quicker than anybody because once they get a taste of that, they think that's it and that they can just ride along, cruise it for a while, and you've got to keep challenging yourself. And I think that's the mark of a true champion of what in any sport is someone who continues to challenge themselves

regardless of how they've compared to everyone else. Tony, thank you so much, man. This has been amazing. Everybody who asked questions got their question in. I really, really appreciate your time, and we really appreciate everything you've done for the sports and of course for the Tony Hawk Foundation. Well, thanks for having me and listening to my stories.

Big thank you to Tony Hawk. We'll link to him in the show notes. Links to everything is always in the show notes, the sponsors, the guests, everything. Please use our website links if you buy any books from these guests because, well, that helps support the show as well. Also in the show notes, there are worksheets for each episode so you can review what you've learned here from Tony Hawk.

We also have transcripts now for every episode, and those can be found in the show notes as well. I'm teaching you how to connect with great people and manage relationships using systems, using tiny habits over at our six-minute networking course, which is free over at Jordan Harbinger.com slash course. Now, don't do it later. If you try to kick the can down the road, you cannot make up for lost time when it comes to relationships and networking. And the number one mistake I see people making is postponing this and not digging the well before they get thirsty. Once you need relationships, you are too late. These drills

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