Skateboarders are amazing people; they embody a form of learning, leading, creativity, and being free spirited in a very unique way.
Though the modern, grown up world may not necessarily be designed for their needs and aspirations.
At early age you are likely having a blast in life; you can do whatever you love, look good, and the city is your playground. Also at an early age, but after that, maybe in your early or mid twenties there might be some priorities coming: job, relationship, family, money, caring for someone else etc. Maybe disruption, maybe difficulties to fit in, or ongoing challenges.
I am skateboarding since 1996 and it was literally the one and only thing that mattered from age 13 to 19, and it has defined my identity more than any school, job, or family idea has. Catching up with skateboarding nowadays I came across a lot of news and updates from peers posting about depression, anxiety, sobriety, and even devastating news of suicide of fellow skateboarders.
What are the needs and aspirations in the skateboarding community? Skateboarding and caring about your friends are definitely great actions we can do. But what else? How if we can add kindness, self-compassion, nourishing wholeness, and sponsor that everyone is okay (even though may not making best choices all times). Enriching choices and developing authentic happiness. What if we can transfer the joy gained by skateboarding into other areas of life?
Therefore I am committed for two initiatives:
1. The survey “Characteristics, Needs, and Aspirations of Skateboarders Age 25+”
A lot what I stated above is build on a hypothesis and in order to objectively find out more the survey is an attempt to give insights. It is a quantitative survey, containing about 70 questions; most of them are scaling based with to gather information on a broad basis. If you are a skateboarder (or former skateboarder), and your age is 25 years or older please participate and more important share this with your friends; as more surveys completed as better we know. Please use this link leading to the landing page: https://bit.ly/3gF3AuF
As a reward I will offer a free optional 45 minute online life coaching session. Also I will make the findings public.
2. The group forum “skate-care-create”. It is a self-care group for skateboarders and the idea is to host regular online meetings via Zoom to provide a safe space for conversation and exploration, opening up to wholeness and providing more choices. Join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/3153215004756705
Your sharing, liking, and promotion of this makes a great difference!