Passion Struck with John R. Miles
Skateboarding Legend Tom Schaar on How to Fall 999 Times and Still Win | EP 603
Fri, 25 Apr 2025
In this powerful episode of Passion Struck, John R. Miles sits down with Olympic silver medalist and skateboarding legend Tom Schaar, the first person in history to land a 1080—a mind-blowing three full spins mid-air. But Tom’s story isn’t just about defying gravity. It’s about defying doubt, embracing failure, and staying grounded while the world spins around you.At just 12 years old, Tom did what no one had ever done in skateboarding. But what most people didn’t see were the 999 failed attempts it took to get there. In this intimate and inspiring conversation, Tom opens up about the mental discipline behind his success, how he handles fear, the evolution of his mindset from prodigy to pro, and what keeps him pushing limits even after Olympic podiums.Whether you’re an athlete, entrepreneur, or simply someone trying to overcome a personal hurdle—this conversation is for you.Click here for the full show notes: https://passionstruck.com/tom-schaar-how-to-fall-999-times-and-still-win/Join the Ignition Room!Join the new Passion Struck Community! - The Ignition Room: https://station.page/passionstruckKey Takeaways:What landing the first 1080 really required—physically and mentallyWhy failure isn’t a setback but a prerequisite to growthHow Tom manages fear and high-stakes pressure in competitionThe surprising truth about balance—on a board and in lifeWhat keeps him grounded and hungry after Olympic gloryHow the mindset of micro-improvement has fueled his entire careerFor more information on Tom Schaar: https://www.teamusa.com/profiles/tom-schaarSponsors:Factor Meals: http://factormeals.com/factormeals50off and use code “FACTOR MEALS 50 OFF”Rosetta Stone: Unlock 25 languages for life at “ROSETTASTONE.com/passionstruck.”Prolon: Reset your health with 15% off at “ProlonLife.com/passionstruck.”Mint Mobile: Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at “MINT MOBILE dot com slash PASSION.”Hims: Start your journey to regrowing hair with Hims. Visit hims.com/PASSIONSTRUCK for your free online visit.Quince: Discover luxury at affordable prices with Quince. Enjoy free shipping and 365-day returns at quince.com/PASSIONFor more information on advertisers and promo codes, visit Passion Struck Deals.Speaking Engagements & WorkshopsAre you looking to inspire your team, organization, or audience to take intentional action in their lives and careers? I’m available for keynote speaking, workshops, and leadership training on topics such as intentional living, resilience, leadership, and personal growth. Let’s work together to create transformational change. Learn more at johnrmiles.com/speaking.Episode Starter PacksWith over 500 episodes, it can be overwhelming to know where to start. We’ve curated Episode Starter Packs based on key themes like leadership, mental health, and personal growth, making it easier for you to dive into the topics you care about. Check them out at passionstruck.com/starterpacks.Catch More of Passion Struck:My solo episode on The Mattering Mindset in Love – Choose the Love You DeserveCan't miss my episode with Jennifer B. Wallace on the Consequences of Prioritizing Achievements Over MatteringMy episode with The Art of Listening: How to Make People Feel Like They MatterCatch my interview with Laurie Santos on How to Matter in a Busy WorldListen to my solo episode on Fading into Insignificance: The Impact of Un-Mattering in Our Interconnected EraIf you liked the show, please leave us a review—it only takes a moment and helps us reach more people! Don’t forget to include your Twitter or Instagram handle so we can thank you personally.How to Connect with John:Connect with John on Twitter at @John_RMilesFollow him on Instagram at @John_R_MilesSubscribe to our main YouTube Channel and to our YouTube Clips ChannelFor more insights and resources, visit John’s websiteWant to explore where you stand on the path to becoming Passion Struck? Take our 20-question quiz on Passionstruck.com and find out today!
Chapter 1: Who is Tom Schaar and why is he a skateboarding legend?
literally and metaphorically what happens when a 12 year old doesn't just dream big but becomes the first person in the world to land a trick that even the pros thought was impossible and how do you evolve when the moment that made you famous becomes just the beginning Today, we're answering those questions and more with my guest, Tom Schaar. Tom is not just a legend in the making.
He's already made history. He's the first skateboarder ever to land a 1080-degree spin, the youngest X Games gold medalist, the youngest Dew Tour and Vans Pool Party champion, and most recently, a silver medalist at the Paris Olympics. But behind these milestones is a mindset that goes far beyond skateboarding, a fearless dedication to growth, resilience, and reinvention.
In today's conversation, we dive into what it really felt like to land that historic 1080, how Tom manages fear, and why it's part of the process. The mindset shift from prodigy to Olympic medalist, how to stay grounded when the spotlight hits, and the power of redefining success over and over again. But this episode isn't just about gravity-defying tricks.
It's about resilience, self-mastery, and how to stay grounded when the world is watching. Before we dive in, a quick heads up. If you're looking for a space to connect with other purpose-driven high performers, we've just launched The Ignition Room, a private membership community where podcast listeners, readers, and intentional leaders like you can go deeper on the topics we explore here.
Think of it as your home base for curated tools, behind the scenes access, and conversations that fuel your growth. Check the show notes to sign up. And if you're just getting started with PassionStruck, check out our episode starter packs, theme playlists on resilience, mindset, and emotional mastery at Spotify or PassionStruck.com slash starter packs.
And this week, we've had some amazing conversations. On Tuesday, I spoke with Yonge Mingyur Rinpoche, one of the world's most respected meditation masters on how to awaken your true nature. And Thursday, we unpacked how sponsorship, not just mentorship, can transform a career with Carnegie Mellon's Rosalind Chao. And I have a special announcement that we just learned about today.
PassionStruck has earned two gold Stevie Awards. at the 2025 American Business Awards. Passion Struck was awarded gold for best business book, and the Passion Struck podcast was awarded gold for the best independent podcast. These prestigious accolades underscore Passion Struck's mission to help individuals and organizations lead with greater meaning, intention, and humanity.
And these awards validate the impact we're making through powerful storytelling, science-backed tools, and real conversations that transform lives. Now, let's jump into this inspiring episode with a living legend of skateboarding, Olympic medalist and true PassionStruck trailblazer, Tom Schaar.
Thank you for choosing PassionStruck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. I am so excited today to welcome Tom Schaar on PassionStruck. Welcome, Tom.
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Chapter 2: How did Tom Schaar get started with skateboarding?
No, not at all. Especially because when I first started high school, they hadn't even announced yet that skating was going to be in the Olympics. Up until then, well, it's still all right. I'll finish what I was saying first. But up until then, I was just skating for fun or whatever. And doing just because I love it. And I still do. That's the point I was getting to.
Yeah.
Well, how did you originally get into skateboarding? Were you a cyclist at first and then transitioned or was this kind of the first passion you had?
I got into it because my older brother skated and being the little brother, I had to copy, steal whatever he was doing. That's how I got started. And yeah, no, as soon as I started, I just fell in love with it. And that's pretty much all it's been. Never looked back.
Yeah, I remember you and my son are about the same age. And I remember when he was in elementary school, even in middle school, he loved the rip sticks and the scooters and really anything he could, he could find out how to ride. And he's a really good snowboarder as well. So to me, the rip stick is hard for him. He just picked it up right away.
Yeah. Snowboardings. I have some beef with snowboard. I broke my collarbone twice in the same season. So I'm on a long hiatus from snowboarding at the moment.
you know what having been a skier my entire life what always does it for me is when you ski you're really leaning forward and that's what gets me on when i snowboard all the time is i catch that front lip and then those face plants hurt yeah no they do not feel good snow is not soft So I'm going to take you back in history to what we were just talking about, middle school.
You landed the first ever 1080 when you were just 12 years old. Can you take us back to that moment? And for a person who doesn't understand what a 1080 is, maybe explain it to them. And yeah, what was going through your mind when you finally stuck it?
A 360 is just one spin around full circle. And then a 1080 is just three of those. So it was like, you go up in the air, grab your skateboard, spin around three times, come back down. I was the first person to ever do one, but I was 12. I was 13 years ago and I can honestly hardly remember it at all.
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Chapter 3: What does landing the first 1080 mean and how did Tom achieve it?
So it's really going from X Games to Olympics is a pretty crazy jump, but I think it prepared us pretty well for what to expect.
People who aren't familiar with you, I'm going to just go down this path a little bit longer. So it makes sense why I'm asking you some of the questions later on in our discussion. Not only did you shock the world when you landed that 1080, but then you shocked them even more when you became the youngest X Games gold medalist after winning the Asian X Games in Shanghai.
Can you walk us back to that experience? How much of that do you remember?
How much do I remember? I remember just being in China with my mom at 11 or 12, which is a pretty crazy experience. Just getting lost everywhere we were going. It was pretty fun though. That was like the first time I really got to meet like all these other guys that I would end up skating with over the rest of my life. And they were all very nice to me, which is cool.
And they're all very supportive and Yeah, that was a crazy moment. I didn't really know what I was getting into going into that contest or anything. But yeah, I guess I launched the beginning of my competitive skating career in a way.
Well, you hear a lot about parents who take their kids all over the place because they're doing club sports, whether that's club soccer or volleyball or club hockey. But it's next level when you're a parent and you take your kids to China.
Yeah.
How in the world did you convince your mom to do that?
I have no idea. That's a great question. She's been to China with me, Australia, Brazil, everywhere you can think of pretty much.
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Chapter 4: How do the X Games compare to the Olympics in skateboarding?
Because I guess before you ever landed the 1080, you probably had to practice that thing a thousand times and probably wiped out about 990 of them. That's funny, actually.
Some random... Kid on Instagram just DM to me and asked me like the exact same question. He was like, are you scared when you skate? And to be honest, I'm terrified. Most of the time, some of the stuff is pretty scary, but there's a fine line that you have to ride along because if it's not scary, then there's not really much of a reward.
It feels like, but at the same time, don't hurt yourself, but
you just got to take things slowly take a trick and break it down into smaller pieces and kind of work on the individual parts of it until you feel you have the confidence to try and actually do the trick but most of skating is that's really it it's just mostly confidence if you you get to a certain point in skating where you know you can do certain things but you just have to remind yourself that you
know you can do them because a lot of it just testing the waters and seeing what feels right. But I don't know where I was going with that one exactly.
But back to the point is there's, I think every skater is scared of what they're doing, but you just learn to let that sit with you and just, yeah, I guess it's like a kind of fight or flight situation that you get into when you're trying new stuff.
I myself am not a Navy seal, but I spent time. working with them and deploying with them when I was in the service. And one of the things that I learned while I was with them is to get over fear. We did a lot of exercises that involved breath work, mindfulness, yoga, things like that. Are any of those types of techniques, things that you've employed at all?
Yeah, I think so. I think a really good one is to just stay present too. Just because a lot of the fear that you'll have is from thinking of what could go wrong. But that's just thinking into the future of something that hasn't happened yet.
Because if you're trying a trick and you're scared that you might get hurt doing it, well, you don't know if you're going to get hurt because you haven't tried it yet. So I think it's just about staying in the present and just trying to not really think about what could go wrong or what could go right even. Just staying in that moment while you're going to try something.
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Chapter 5: How did early successes shape Tom Schaar’s mindset and career?
process of failing and learning from your failure and kind of continuously improving on what you've learned. And even if you don't end up landing a trick, you'll still be learning from that. And the more you fall, the more you'll figure out stuff. And it's just this, it's like a chess game in your head until you finally figure out exactly what you're doing wrong. And then it all clicks.
One of the things that I talk a lot about on this podcast is the need to push boundaries and you can't ever stay comfortable with where you're at. And one of the big things, whether you're an executive, whether you're a coach, whether you're an athlete, is the mental blocks that come about when trying to push boundaries.
And you talked about this earlier where you went through a period of time where things weren't just clicking like they had before. When those doubts crept in, how do you analyze them? How do you overcome them? Because this is something that a lot of people face, a lot of people who are a lot older than you.
Yeah. For me, I took a really big step back and just kind of looked. I just tried to figure out where I wanted to be and fit into this skating world. It was never the idea of me stopping, never.
came into my head i just didn't really know where i fit in and i think just trying to i don't know do your own thing is kind of what i figured out if you love what you're doing like it'll eventually it'll all come together and i think that's what happened for me i just found a different path and I'm very glad that it worked out though.
So I wanted to go to Paris for a little bit. So it was a little bit in doubt that you would even go to Paris. Can you talk a little, talk us through that story?
Yeah, I barely qualified by the skin of my teeth. I missed out on the first, the Tokyo Olympics, well, the first one for skating. And I missed it. They take three Americans and I was the fourth by five points or something crazy. And then going into this one, I was number four again by five points again.
And the last qualifying stop was in Budapest, which was like June, like right before the Olympics. And I had to get second place. And the person that was in third had to get like 16th or something like that. Like it was very long shot chances that it was going to happen because the person that was in third was very good. They would always do well in the contest.
And somehow going into the finals, I didn't really, wasn't really paying attention to the the placings or anything, but he was in 16th and the finals were about to start. And I was like, Oh my God, this could happen. And then I ended up in second. So it was like the exact number of points or whatever I needed to qualify.
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Chapter 6: How does Tom Schaar manage fear and overcome failure in skating?
just a weird kind of vibe so I was just trying to have fun I was running around doing dumb stuff in the village the whole time and I think just trying not to like super stress out over it like I definitely was mentally preparing and getting ready for it I wasn't just like goofing around the whole time but I think just having fun was more what I was getting at than pretending like this is a
life or death moment the future depends on this or whatever i was just having fun with my friends and when did you realize that that you would want a medal did you know immediately i nailed it i had my whole run planned out like i knew exactly what i wanted to do and you never know how the judges are gonna judge your run really skating is a very subjective sport so it's hard to tell one thing
for someone can be really hard and it can be easy for someone else so it's hard to really put a perfect score on a skateboarding run but i think for the most part i think 95 99 of the time the judges nail it they usually they're all professional skaters and they know what they're talking about they know what they're looking at so but i just wanted to land my run like i knew what i
went there to try and do and I ended up landing it and I honestly didn't really care if they put me in last place or if they put me in first I just wanted to go do what I wanted to do and that would have been good enough for me and I noticed I got a good score for it and I was like that's that could hold for a while and it did I stayed I got put in second and I stayed in second the whole rest of the contest well congratulations again
And I have to talk about two things more about related to the Olympics. I heard you on another show, a person asked you, what was your favorite thing about the Olympics? And you told them table tennis.
Oh, by far. It was so cool.
How competitive? I haven't seen those matches in person, so you can't really judge the speed and stuff. What's it like?
The ball is just teleporting from side to side. You can't even follow it with your eyes. But those were more of the very locked-in people that I saw in the village. They were not there to have fun. They were there to win, and it was cool. I admired that intensity. But it was crazy. We saw the mixed doubles finals.
and it was crazy it's in a smaller like arena it was like a high school basketball size stadium and it was just packed like there was five thousand six thousand people in there and it was loud like it was insanely loud you had to be completely silent while they were playing but as soon as somebody scored these six thousand people were just yelling it was pretty cool
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Chapter 7: What mindset shifts helped Tom transition from prodigy to Olympic medalist?
For sure. But I just try and be a good example. And there are a lot of skaters that I maybe would say aren't the best examples for kids growing up. But I just always try and remind them to have fun. And we are just, it is a kind of a children's toy at the end of the day. So just have fun with it and do your own thing and
everything will work out. So what advice would you give to some of the young athletes who are listening to the show, or it could even be an older athlete who has put it in their mind that they want to do a marathon or maybe want to do a triathlon or something. And they're struggling to find that, that passion, that strength to push through the setbacks. What would you tell them to do?
What's a starting point or a trick that you have used?
For me, you got nothing to lose and failing is a lot easier than living with regret, I think. So it's better to try and fail than it is to never start and regret not ever trying. So I think just if you're going to do something, give it your all, have fun and take it seriously, but not to a point of where it becomes not fun.
And maybe I'll just answer you another question on that. Have you ever... put a goal in front of yourself or a trick that at the onset you thought, man, this is virtually impossible, but I'm going to go for it. And what, and if you did like, how do you psych yourself up that you have the ability to do it?
I think with skating, it's a lot of who you surround yourself with. Cause there's a lot of tricks that, or just stuff that I would not want to do alone or by myself. And if you get a good group of friends or just a good group of whoever you're skating with or whatever you're working towards, it doesn't have to be skating.
That can really help push you out of your comfort zone a little bit in a good way because if you're all in it together, it feels not as daunting or something like that. So I think just having good people surrounding you, working towards a goal with other people is a lot more fun also than trying to do something by yourself. So I think that also helps.
And I'm sure having those people there as you're trying these new things, they're analyzing what you're doing and probably trying it out themselves and you each using different techniques to do it probably helps in the learning curve. Yeah. You learn with each other for sure. One of the things I have really been talking to my son a lot about who's 26 is like for kids.
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Chapter 8: What was Tom Schaar’s experience qualifying for and competing in the Olympics?
who have grown up in your age group, I sometimes wonder who are the role models that you guys look up to? So as you look at people who are older than you, who do you look for inspiration? Within skating? Well, in skating or beyond.
Okay. My brother is still one of my main inspirations. He got me into skating and he's always been there for me. So I'm very grateful for him. My mom and my dad too. They drove me to the skate park probably 10,000 times. And yeah, I definitely wouldn't be doing any of this without them. Within skating though, I've known a lot of the professional skaters that I looked up to as a kid.
And they always say, don't meet your heroes, but within skating, it's the opposite of that. I've to me, every skater is a very cool, nice person. And they've all helped me along the way. Tony Hawk's given me a lot of help and he's been very supportive of my career, especially as of recently.
I ride for his skateboard company in that birdhouse and he's helped me out a lot, but I don't know, outside of skating, it's I don't know. I really just stick with it in skating. I'm not too well versed in other sports or any other kind of stuff like that.
Yeah. I guess part of what I'm looking at is I'm very interested for younger men in understanding like, what is your definition of a man of courage? Like when you think of that, who pops in your mind? Is it, and what are the qualities or values that they possess?
I think just being, having the humility to really be yourself, I think is a very courageous thing to do. Just really trying not to just go your own pace and doing your own, what you want to do. I think that does take a lot of courage. Yeah. Maybe I guess humility is probably a pretty good one.
That's a good one because you need to be humble to also be self-compassionate. So I wanted to ask you a couple of things about progress and peak performance. One of the people I interviewed on the show was Sally Jenkins, who's a sports reporter. And I was asking her for the people like you who are world class and reach that elite level compared to the people who are really great.
but never become the LeBron James or the Simone Biles. I asked her, like, what does she see different between a Steph Curry and a player just underneath them? And she was saying that It all comes down to the training and how they go through the exercises and the unseen moments when no one's looking.
It's the extra reps that they put in, their willingness to try things that their peers aren't willing to do. Like Steph Curry learning how to dribble just as proficiently with his non-dominant hand as with his dominant one and all those things. Do you think that there's truth to what she says?
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