It puts a ceiling on your progress. You're blocked by your pride. To get good, you have to throw your board around and fall.

Everyone expects me to do certain things.

What it is is that there's an intrinsic value in creating something for the sake of creating it, and better than that ... there is this beauty in dropping it into a community of your own making, and seeing it dispersed, and seeing younger, more talented, just different talent, take it to levels you can never imagine, because that lives on.

Do what you love and try not to look at what other people occupy themselves with.

Any eyes on me - a late-night street sweeper, some dude texting in his parked car, the homeless guy talking to himself - make me feel uncomfortable when I skate. Everyone expects me to do certain things.

Who are you? What is your distinct contribution? That is so valuable whether it gets you anything or not. Trophies? Doesn't matter. If you know you did it, that's what keeps you going, you know? Success is illusive.

I fell in love with skateboarding because it was individual; there were no teams, there were no captains, there was nothing to perfect. No style that had to be measured. It was completely opposite of what I saw in so many sports. It was creative. And to this day, that's what I love, that's always kept me back to it because it's endless creation.