I had to learn the hard way. There was a blindness, without any education or will or drive. Everything I started in the beginning from skate shops to record labels to a million and one side hustles that I went in without knowing how I was going to do it, a lot of those ventures just went out of business.

For me, I'm a skateboarder.If I'm not skating then I'm going crazy. The big deals, if I'm not skating, it's not worth it.

I'm a 6 AM guy. I get up at 6 AM every morning so I can knock out my email, phone calls and start the day.

In life some people trip and some fall but some take that trip and make a beautiful dance out of it.

You're better off owning 30 percent and having two amazing partners who compliment you and are equally as driven as you are than having 100 percent and only having one aspect of it, unless you're a super genius who is creative and business-minded at the same time.

What I love to tell young kids is ultimately let your dreams evolve around your opportunities. You have to focus on always learning. It's cliche, but the reality of it is that if you take action and try and fail you're gonna learn a lot by the time you try it again, and you'll build a foundation of experience that's gonna be ultimately the rock that allows you to find success or follow your dreams.

All the coverage of skateboarding sucks. They couldn't care less when it comes to how skateboarding is portrayed. All I can do is portray it the right way when it comes to me. So skateboarders can look at what I'm doing and say, "Yeah, the only person doing it the right way is him." That's why Street Dreams was so important in being 100% true to skate culture. That's why the Wild Grinders are important in showing the different styles of street skating. That's why I get involved in building the skate parks. All I can do is show skateboarding the right way.