E233: Tony Hawk: My Name Made $1.4 Billion! Burnout, Obsession & Regrets
The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
FlightStory
4.6 • 13.2K Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2023
⏱️ 88 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you think about skateboarding, there is one name that will pop up in your mind: Tony Hawk. It’s the same name that fronts a billion-dollar video game franchise. He has been called the Michael Jordan of skateboarding, and at the height of his career, he was so dominant in competition that the real fight was for second place.
But before skateboarding became the Olympic sport it is today, and Tony became the living legend that he is, he was an outsider in a sport for outsiders. Driven by his love of skateboarding and to prove his haters wrong, he created an entirely new path for the sport and brought it into the public light and popularity it has today.
In this conversation, Tony discusses his life's dedication to skateboarding, the highs and lows that this commitment brings, and how the sport has given back to him by teaching him lessons that he has used in both life and business.
Topics:
- Becoming the person I am today
- Where does your talent come from?
- My skating career & the struggles along the way
- What did burnout teach you?
- What’s the secret to your success?
- 12 years to master your biggest trick
- Your video game made $1.4 billion
- What advice would you give your younger self?
- Intimacy & fame
- Entrepreneurship
- The words you never said
- Last guest’s question
Tony Hawk:
Instagram: http://bit.ly/3TRcn1V
Website: http://bit.ly/3TQQYWM
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Yeah, I'm either gonna make this or get taken away on a stretch |
| 0:05.8 | And change my life completely |
| 0:10.2 | We prepared for that. How could you prepare for anything like that? |
| 0:14.8 | Tony hot began riding a skateboard when he was nine years old and when he turned 16 |
| 0:19.2 | He was the best skateboarder in the whole wide world |
| 0:23.2 | Being the outcast and the outcast activity. I got picked on I got bullied even when I turned pro |
| 0:28.6 | I would leave high school for a big skate event. I'm signing autographs |
| 0:31.9 | And then I would come back and be a ghost in the hallways again |
| 0:34.3 | I just wanted to see skateboarding get more popular |
| 0:36.8 | But I got famous by accident |
| 0:38.8 | Suddenly I was chosen ambassador. I was making income |
| 0:42.1 | I owned a house in my last year of high school |
| 0:44.5 | So I was doing talk shows and I was big appearances |
| 0:47.5 | My video game was a big hit. How much revenue of billion dollars? Wow |
| 0:52.6 | The trajectory just seemed like it was never gonna end and then we dropped very quickly |
| 0:58.6 | I was so hyper fixated on my skating. I didn't really work on my humanity |
| 1:02.5 | I was a machine and I'd go and do the event and when the trophy go home |
| 1:06.7 | It didn't allow me to be myself very much. Did you lose people? Yeah |
| 1:11.7 | Made them feel like they weren't the priority and a lot of it was just being afraid of intimacy and I regret that |
| 1:17.9 | I started getting burned down on competition |
| 1:20.7 | The term burnout is used a lot these days. What did that experience teach you about what causes burnout? |
| 1:26.0 | It taught me that |
... |
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