I loved watching this and so many other snippets of ex skaters having to do the reality check. I only got to a certain point in my skate career; no where near close to Joey. However, I experienced enough of a pure skate driven lifestyle to know that being in the thick of that day to day is so rad. Every day is a weekend, the biggest decision of the day is where to film and take photos. But….time was the enemy for me and many others like me who started feeling pressure of being sponsored. By the end of my career, Joey was rising to the top and I felt the “changing of the guard” syndrome that I knew was inevitable. For me, I always knew my moment in skating would be brief and short lived; it got to a point where so many other people that weren’t even sponsored were miles ahead of my talent bar. My last board company was ATM; I called John Falahee and told him, “man, someone else deserves my spot on the team.” I did experience a short lived identity crisis, not necessarily because the spotlights, glitz and glamor of getting coverage in the magazines. Mostly, it was because it was just so rad just being with your friends, skating, learning new shit, hanging out and being dorks- all day every day. When you wake up to that pattern for over a decade, it’s pretty tough to re adjust to worrying about how much you’ll need in your 401k. Regardless, just being a skateboarder made a huge impact on my outlook and persona. It gave me a leg up in my career, literally. Now, Im an executive for an education technology company. When, I said that skating gave me a “leg up,” here’s what I mean. At the beginning of my sales career, I was interviewing with a huge, well known education company. During the interview, I was asked, “what made you so successful?” I decided to take a risk and I said, “I was a skateboarder at heart and I rode for several companies in my day. Repetitive falling and getting back up until you made a trick gave me resilience.” In the panel, sat Ryan Kenreich’s (RIP) mom who at the time was a manager. Still to this day, I credit the referral Ryan gave to his mother. I ended up getting the job and have been in my industry as an executive for 20 years now. To end off, like Joey, I absolutely love what I do. One of the perks is that I work with schools and school districts where I stumble upon old skatespots in LA, Orange, San Bernardino counties, all the way up to San Francisco. I still carve around from time to time, I still wake up in a cold sweat when I have a rad dream about skating in my 20s. I drove by Lockwood the other day. When I see those spots and/or people skating, it reminds me that though the dexterity has made its exit, my mind and heart are still in it. Thanks for reading.