Harnessing Passion, Drive & Persistence for Lifelong Success | Tony Hawk

KEYPOINTS

• 01

  Love of the activity came first; there was no career to aspire to

  Hawk found skateboarding around age 10 and quit Little League mid-season once he saw skaters 'flying on magic carpets' at Oasis skatepark in San Diego. He turned pro at 14, when first place paid about $150, and after a year and a half had $600 saved, which he spent on a moped. Huberman uses this to argue that excellence almost always rests on loving the thing itself, not on a goal of fame or money.

• 02

  Drive and discipline outweigh natural talent

  Hawk says he was 'gangly' and slamming constantly as a beginner, nobody's idea of a natural. He has watched naturally gifted skaters fail to use their gifts, and driven, sloppy-looking skaters like Andrew Reynolds, who tried every trick, become 'the boss'. He gives drive as much weight as talent, 'if not more'. Huberman adds that in science too, the people who keep showing up when others leave tend to win out.

• 03

  New tricks come from combining pieces he has already mastered

  Hawk does not 'throw caution to the wind'. He breaks a trick into parts he has done in other forms, such as the entry, the grind and the landing, then works on timing until they fit. At today's technical level, though, a make can come from a tiny unconscious adjustment, so some tricks, like his 360 shove-it to 5-0 fakie, he has landed only once and cannot reliably repeat.

• 04

  Ideas arrive in the drowsy state before sleep and in mundane moments

  Hawk sometimes wakes at night to write down a trick idea. He came up with the half-cab body varial to backside blunt for the X Games in Japan while falling asleep, made it twice alone on his ramp after weeks of preparation, and landed it on his last run. Huberman highlights this liminal state between wakefulness and sleep as fertile ground for ideas, and Hawk adds that showers and walks work too.

• 05

  Dreams can track recovery, and REM paralysis explains 'can't move' dreams

  Before his injury Hawk often dreamed he could not skate, as if the ramp were carpet. During recovery his dreams shifted to being able to do all his tricks again. Huberman explains that in REM sleep the brain is highly active while the body is paralyzed and cannot release adrenaline, which may be why people feel they want to move but cannot.

• 06

  A late growth spurt changed his skating

  Hawk was so small that at 16 police assumed he was 13, and he wore elbow pads as knee pads, inspired by a photo of Steve Caballero. He shot up around 17, gaining height and strength and suddenly going about eight feet out rather than four, while bowls 'looked smaller'. Huberman notes that a longer arc of puberty and late growth correlate with a longer life.

• 07

  Ignoring medical advice turned a femur break into a non-union fracture

  Hawk broke his femur on a low-speed 540, a trick he had done for nearly 40 years, and initially rushed back. Stepping off his board on a mini ramp, he felt the bone shift, then spent seven to eight months in denial, compensating by putting about 75% of his weight on his back foot. X-rays finally showed the bone had never joined and kept separating. A non-union specialist reoperated and ordered two months of no movement, and Hawk followed it.

• 08

  Avoiding the party culture was a performance decision

  Early skating culture defined itself against team sports, with drinking, smoking and fast food. Hawk stayed out of it because he watched peers 'party their skills away'. Training then meant Stacy Peralta buying spaghetti the night before a 1983 contest; today pros have trainers and sponsors pay for support. Hawk credits a doctor of physical therapy for getting him back after the injury.

• 09

  Hard lessons, not early fame, made him financially prudent

  His father co-signed on property at 17, but by 1991–92 the four-acre ramp property was draining him during skating's slowest years. He took equity out to start Birdhouse in 1992, sold the house, and lived on Taco Bell and Top Ramen while taking any demo or stunt-double job. He traces his shrewdness and punctuality to that period.