the Practical Skateboarder

On Hawk vs. Wolf Episode 113, Ryan Sheckler discusses his experiences growing up in skateboarding and overcoming massive challenges on and off the board with Tony Hawk and Jason Ellis. Ryan’s experiences are rich with insights about managing failure, the courage to persevere, and the importance of building a community. Check out the full episode for more.

Failure and Perseverance

“Do not be scared to fail. If you love something, whatever you’re doing, to a point of exertion and you’re just gonna give everything to it, keep going. That is perfect. That is where you need to be. And you can fight through it.”

– Ryan Sheckler

“I don’t want to get hurt, but I’m 100% willing to get smoked at any point in time for what I love to do.”

– Tony Hawk

Ryan and Tony make it clear. Failure is inevitable. It is part of the process. And, despite what may happen, when you’re totally committed to it, you have to persist. And, persistence isn’t easy or obvious. Persistence is a learned skill you develop the more you commit and muster up the courage to act.

“The first two times there, I had to learn how to fall down that thing. I was trying to run out, trying to figure it out. And then realized, I have to land, if I’m not gonna make it, I have to take the initial impact and I have to launch myself forward. I have to launch into a front flip over my left shoulder. That was the only way it lessened the blow.”

– Ryan Sheckler

Learning how to fail well comes from practice. As long as the falls don’t break you, then you can learn how to take them well and keep working toward your goal.

Finding and Fostering Your Community

“I didn’t have a crew. It was my dad, my mom, and my brother…. My mom was like, ‘yeah, we’re going to skate street,’ just to sit down and read a book and let us skate for 8 hours.”

– Ryan Sheckler

The people we surround ourselves with can amplify our persistence and encourage us when they see we’re engaged with something we love and something we just might be great at. Importantly, the people we surround ourselves with enrich our experience of skateboarding because they’re the only people who can really understand why we do what we do and why we love to do it.

“All I ever wanted to do was to have somebody feel the same way I felt about skateboarding. And how do you do that? You have to introduce them to skateboarding somehow. So, I had an outlet with the show. We’re gonna have a drama show, but it’s always gonna be skate. There’s always gonna be this skate element that’s gonna make it look inviting. And that’s all I cared about.”

– Ryan Sheckler

To connect, you need a common ground. You need a way for others to engage with what you’re doing at a level that’s accessible to them. For Tony, the Tony Hawk Pro Skater video games helped to not only introduce more people to skateboarding but contributed to the revival of the sport altogether. For Ryan, his reality show was his attempt to use the show as a medium for sharing skateboarding. What we love to do can only become better when we share it with others and when we encourage others to engage with it.

“Your dad sent an email to me…that’s awesome that there’s a young kid into skating! That’s how rare it was. That you were so committed.”

– Tony Hawk

“Only fan…yeah! I wanna meet this kid. He had my sh*t on. He had an Ellis board and wheels. And he ripped.”

– Jason Ellis

“What you guys did for me as a kid, by just letting me be around, is a life lesson that I’ve held on to. And now, I get to pay it forward. But if I didn’t have that experience when I was a kid, maybe I wouldn’t be who I am today.”

– Ryan Sheckler

Tony and Jason are an example of how we ought to act when someone tries to connect with us through something we love. It wasn’t about fans and praise for them, but the authentic connection they all shared with skateboarding.