From Will Leitch’s incredibly well done and heartfelt blog on Deadspin, “My Roger Ebert Story”:

“He told me “that this is important to you as it is, that’s a very large percentage of what you need, really.” He emphasized that such ephemera like “career” and “success” were mostly beside the point. “Just write, get better, keep writing, keep getting better. It’s the only thing you can control.”"

Very well said. A lot of people have come to me over the past few years asking for advice on how to better position themselves in their respective BMX endeavors, be it riding, writing, filming or photography. I often find myself going into the minutia of what each of those paths requires but the most important, most basic advice I could give to anyone is just what Roger says here. You must work hard, assuming you don’t have some supernatural genetic talent or gift (which I certainly don’t), much harder than your peers and you need to focus on what you can control, which is getting as good as possible at whatever it is you want to do in life.

I try to err on the side of not coming off as a motivational speaker, so this is all you’re going to get out of me on the subject.