In 2016, Alex Gray received a phone call from his team manager at Volcom.

Yeah, I mean, I honestly really haven't talked about it yet, but two years later it was a 15-minute phone call,

and just that I wasn't being re-signed.

Did you see it coming? No. I think with them I saw my relationship going a few more years,

but trickling down per year. Sure. Fair enough. But I was just so gung-ho on making it to 20 years with them. You know, I was at 18, and I'm like, I just felt like that 20-year thing was going to be such a cool accomplishment.

That's where I wanted to get to personally.

And then after that, I'm like, okay, it makes sense, you know.

Let's, you guys, we can start doing whatever.

So it kind of came out of nowhere, but the reason why I was left ambiguous,

and, you know, they are a part of a parent company and, you know, have a marketing budget

to face within, and they were making changes.

And they brought on a very big athlete for them in their surf world

but just made cuts across their board sports from surfing, skating, snowboarding. And when I heard

the other names that were like, oh my God, those aren't just Joe Blow, like there's some serious

athletes being being cut out there.

But really, for me, it's like these moments happen, and you see a lot of guys become, like, really bitter.

They really, I don't know if they self-consciously do it, but their careers begin to stop.

I knew that the ultimate decision that I had to make within this is, look,

it's inevitable. It happened before I wanted it to, but think about the 18 years that I had.

And, you know, only gratitude and thanks. I think of all this stuff, all these magazine covers,

all these things happen because of it.

So you have to keep that feeling of gratitude and allow it to be and allow it to let go.

...