Sponsorship

After watching a recent Nike commercial that (literally) spotlights some of my favorite skateboarders, I was thinking about what it means to be sponsored.  Paul Rodriguez, Omar Salazar and Theotis Beasley have made it about as far as any skateboarder could dream to go.  Being paid to skateboard for an international company with bottomless pockets and being filmed in exclusive locations that are aired on primetime television are the dreams of little kids practicing in driveways across the world.


You can see the video I'm talking about below.  As you watch it, think about what they did to get there.






 To get where they are, they needed some raw talent and a lot of determination.  They worked crazy hard and had to go out of their way to meet people that could help them reach their goals.  And the interesting thing for me is that now that they have more-or-less arrived, they're still doing basically the same things they were doing before: working really hard at skateboarding.


Getting sponsored by Nike has not fundamentally changed what they do.  They've always done it.  They are contractually obligated to do what they do with a particular pair of shoes on, but they are still doing what they do best.


Can the rest of us approach work in this way?  Since changing jobs a year ago, I've found myself doing pretty much the same things I did in my previous job... I just do it with a different name on my shirt.  I still meet as many people as I can and I still help people in whatever way I can.  In fact, I realized recently, that if I lost my job, I'd find a new job by doing what I'm doing now: meeting as many people as I can and helping people however I can.  When you think about it in those terms, it feels less like a job and more like sponsorship.  I'm doing what I love to do, I'm just contractually obligated to do it with a Tektronix shirt on.


I'm living the dream!