"The Chief" Legendary skateboarder Jamie Thomas shares his story and recalls what it was like to live in a small southern town to becoming one of the most famous street skaters in the world. Find out how God invaded his heart and life!

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful, theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I'm excited to be here. We've got a great guest today, and I'm going to let my co-host, Nate, introduce him. So Nate, go ahead. Well, thanks, James. This is a big one for me. I'm super thrilled because it's not every day you get to have one of your childhood heroes on. I've been skating my whole life since I was four, and basically everything I ever wanted to do on a skateboard or in life in general, music, everything was a lot that has to do looking up to this guy. So Jamie Thomas, welcome to the show. He actually helped me start my skate ministry, this board back here when it came out. Once he got saved, it's like it gave me this feeling of like, oh, I got Jamie on my back, you know, like he's behind me now. And it just took off. And then I started my skate ministry. When he came out to give his testimony, I did my skate ministry every week and weekend there for almost 20 years. And I really don't think it would have been possible without Jamie. So it's a huge honor to have you on the show. I got married in a pair of his shoes, literally, like I've looked up to this dude my whole life. So it's an honor to have you. Thank you so much, Jamie. Yeah, my pleasure. And yeah, that's a lot, man. I'm thankful to have crossed paths with you so early. And yeah, it's a pleasure to be here. Jamie, you know, Nate and I have known each other for maybe six months, right? I mean, I don't think you started working with me for, you know, it hasn't been that long since we've known each other. Right. And so I've heard your name an awful lot, and I'm really excited for the interview. And so I'm wondering if you just go ahead and share a part of your story. Like, how did you come to know the Lord? How has your faith sort of reshaped your life in some important ways? And just give us kind of the, you know, the high points of your life, I suppose. Wow, that's a big question. Well, I think it's helpful to start off with a little bit of an origin story. I grew up, I was born in Florida, Central East Coast, Melbourne, Cocoa Beach area. I was born there and then I was just a few weeks old. My parents moved to Alabama. I spent most of my childhood in Alabama. And we lived in, when I was a kid, we lived in like the sticks of this small town in South Alabama called Dothan. And we had pigs and chickens and goats, and it was like a full, like we lived in the woods and we took a bus like super far to the schools, like public schools. County schools, like we lived outside of the city limits. And that was amazing, though. I really loved being in the woods and being in nature. We had like a long gravel road. We had a spring at the base of our driveway that we would collect water. I mean, it's kind of like real old timing, you know, when I think of it. But I loved that as a kid, there was so much freedom and there was nothing to worry about. You know, it was like, I could only get into so much trouble in like acres and acres of woods. So I really, really enjoyed that part of my childhood. And, you know, around fourth or fifth grade, my father got a few jobs. Fourth grade, he moved. He moved us to Atlanta for a year. He was a nuclear plant engineer, a nuclear plant manager. So he got a job in Atlanta and we moved to Atlanta for a year. And that's when I first discovered skating. In that move, I found a skateboard that was in the garage when we were moving. And I had no, I didn't even know what it was called. I'd never even seen a skateboard in my life. And I'm probably, you know, 10 years old or so. And it was my sister's from the 70s. And this is like 1984. And it was my sister's from the 70s. Anyway, I was like, what is this? And she showed me like how to tic-tac and how to walk the dog, like these old 70s tricks. And I was blown away. And so this skateboard became my new thing that in my new house in Alabama. I mean, excuse me, in Atlanta, we had, you know, a cement driveway and I lived in a neighborhood with a cul-de-sac, you know. And I could ride it. I could ride around the neighborhood. It wouldn't have done me much good in the gravel. That's why it was in the attic the whole time. At any rate, I started skating on this board and, you know, it was like a fiberglass, like banana board, kind of like a penny board. It was probably four inches wide, but it was still fascinating on how much fun I could have with this little thing. And I was into that for a while. I got into BMX around that time. And then my father moved us back to Alabama for the summer after that year in Atlanta. And then I was like, kind of like, oh, this kind of stinks. And, you know, now we're back in the woods and, you know, that previous year, like the Van Halen 1984 album came out and I got to like hear rock and roll. I went to a Rick Springfield concert and like got to see rock and roll in real life. And then we moved back to Alabama and we're back at the same property in the sticks. So it kind of felt isolating, but not even, it didn't even, the school year didn't even start yet. And my father said, I actually received another job opportunity. We're moving to Florida. So we're moving to South Florida. So we moved to Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, and this is now 85, 86. Skateboarding is like the boom is happening. Tony Hawk, the Bones Brigade, you know, like Steve Caballero, Mike McGill. Like I went to school and everybody had skateboards and like, you know, it was, it was going off in Florida, even though that's a little bit behind California. It's still like, it was happening. And so I wanted to get like a, you know, a wider skateboard, a legit skateboard. And so I got a board and started skating to school. I lived pretty close to the elementary school. All my friends and I would, you know, skate after school and we got really into it. I lived in, my family lived in Florida when I was in fifth, sixth, and half of seventh grade. Then we moved back to Alabama. Father got transferred again. It was all around like chasing my father's career. Our whole family was just in tow. And I remember thinking I didn't have any say over the move back to Alabama. And now I'm living my best life. I'm in junior high, I'm hanging out at the movie theater parking lot and there's like an ice cream store and there's skaters everywhere. It's like out of a movie. And then I'm imagining we're moving back to that same old property in the like boonies and there's no skateboarding going to happen. And now I'm like fully in, I'm into the music. I'm into the culture. Like I'm hooked on skating. We moved back to Alabama and we didn't, we didn't move to the sticks, but it was still a really rough transition. So seventh grade, I really struggled and I ended up getting held back and which was a good thing. I was a little young for my age. And then in my next class in seventh grade, my second time of doing seventh grade, there was a few skateboarders in that class and there was like only a few skateboarders in the whole town. So to have one skateboarder and one other person that was kind of interested was like exciting. So I had a few skate friends at school in junior high and seventh and eighth in Alabama. And it was harsh though. I had like long blonde bangs and everybody at my school was like involved in the future farmers of America. It was like such, such polar opposites. It was really, really gnarly to be honest. And it was tough. I struggled in those, those years and you know, I really struggled the fact that I had no say in it and I, I just, I had no voice and my, you know, my thoughts about the whole moving and transplanting just wasn't ever taken into consideration. And I felt like, you know, it kind of took me a long time to recover from that. Um, but anyway, I found my groove and found the skaters across town and there was like probably 10 or 12 of us in the whole town. This is like a pretty sizable town too. I mean, it's not Kansas city size, but it's like, you know, it's like 50,000 people in the town, but 10, 10 skateboarders, which is pretty, that, that shows you what, how thriving the skate scene was in Alabama and how it wasn't thriving. There wasn't a, there wasn't a skate shop and there wasn't a skate park for sure. So, you know, we had to build stuff, but we built ramps and you know, one dude already had like

Kids didn't have. And then so I started traveling around the southeast and skating in contests. I started winning contests. I started getting affirmation of this feeling that I had. And then I started dreaming of the next phase, you know, and it was kind of like, you go to Atlanta, you go to South Florida, and then you go to California. So I started dreaming and I started going to South Florida and I started going to Atlanta and skating on the weekends and, you know, kind of cultivating relationships with people in these areas. And then I ended up, you know, school was really a struggle for me. I wasn't focused on it and I didn't have an avenue. I couldn't see an avenue where I would go through high school into college. There was nothing that I wanted to do per se, but I was completely obsessed with skateboarding. And when I say that, I don't mean it at an unhealthy level. It was like I was, I was, it was everything in my mind, but I had so much drive that I wanted to do something with it. It wasn't like it just distracted me from doing anything good. It was like, this is going to be the vehicle that I use to provide a living for myself in some way, shape, or form. Like that was, that was it. And I basically just dreamt of it so much that I was like just checking boxes. So when I was just, just turned 17, I ended up leaving school, high school. And I was not doing well in school and it was looking like I was gonna be there for another year and I was gonna graduate like at 19. And I was like, that's just not gonna happen. I really got to get out of here. I was just buying time until I was responsible enough or until society was ready for me to be on my own and I wouldn't get in trouble somewhere. And for sure, you didn't have to be forced to move again. That's always no fun. Well, at this time I wouldn't have even gone along with that. I was, I was, you know, from probably 15 or 16 onward, I was pretty much independent. You know, I was, you know, I had a roof over my head. My parents provided that. And occasionally I would try to, you know, work for a board or work for some, you know, gas money or something. But I was already hustling and I had a job. I worked at Burger King and saved up and bought a car. And I already discovered my ability to work and get money for the things that I wanted. So I was really starting to navigate life through my own, you know, like direction, you know, I wasn't really getting any inputs from my family. So at this point I'm, I'm really just focused on California. And so. Sorry, was your family at all, like, were you, were you raised in church? Did you have any sort of faith framework at all or was it just sort of, you know, kind of that wholesome family environment and you, you know, you were doing your own thing? Yeah. Yeah. That's a great question. I didn't even really have a wholesome family environment. I was the youngest of four kids. I was the youngest of four kids and my parents, by the time I was, you know, we were four years apart or three and a half years apart. And so by the time I was in like junior high, my parents were in the midst of their careers. There was a phase. There was a phase in, in like elementary school that we went to church and there was a phase in junior high that we went to church. And it was probably for like six months to a year. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free Retirement Defense Guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. My mother was, my mother was definitely a believer and you know, she, she read the word and she was in her Bible. She grew up, her mom, her mom was very faith-based in her teachings and in all the ways she raised her children. But they lived in an abusive home. The father was an alcoholic and very abusive on every, all of the kids, my mom included. Um, so I kind of grew up in a pretty dysfunctional home and there wasn't a lot of, um, structure and there wasn't a lot of guidance and love and encouragement. My mom gave me that when she could, but she was so busy trying to help take care of us as far as like financially and to help my, my dad, even, it was just their, their arrangement was interesting. And so she was gone a lot and she was focused on her career and that's where she found freedom. Um, and I didn't spend enough time in the church to really have a foundation for faith. So I, I knew the premise, but I also grew up in the South, which, you know, the South has its own stereotype for Christianity. It's, it's kind of like, there's this, you know, church on Sundays, but everybody's doing every football and beer rain every other day of the week. Yeah. And there's also, I mean, I saw so much kind of corruption and, and manipulation and, and, you know, hypocrisy in, in the church. And there was a scandal in Alabama. It felt like almost every, you know, like couple of months I would hear something about a pastor and an affair. And then it was, there was so much gossip and drama in this small Southern town that it kind of like the portrayal of it. I couldn't get a clear view of what it actually was. Um, you know, my mother's, my mother's relationship was like, it was the only thing that made sense to me. And hers was just like this place of humility, surrender, and praying for support and identifying that she didn't have the means to control the world and that she didn't have the means to control her own world and that she needed to surrender, you know, consistently for strength, love, encouragement, things that she wasn't getting in her relationship with my father and things that were just tough, you know, and I didn't really understand how difficult the human experience was at this time. You know what I mean? All I want to do is skate. Right. So I got a, like a glimpse of, of, of what that relationship with the Lord might look like, but it wasn't enough of it and there wasn't enough inputs for it to really stick and for me to have any foundation of faith or any feeling of faith. You know, I remember telling her that I didn't believe in God and it was really like, it was really, you know, I should have said more like, God is so distant that I can't even comprehend that idea. That's really what I should have said, but I feel like I was in this like phase of like shock, you know, almost like Howard Stern shock radio is what I was doing to my mom. You know what I mean? Like, I don't believe in God. I'm sorry to tell you. I don't believe in God, you know? And the funny thing is, is I'm reaping that back now. My kids, you know, a few of my kids at different times have told me that and my mom was heartbroken, you know, because I said it so bluntly and it was almost like I didn't have, I didn't have empathy for what that may, how that may make her feel. And it's true. I did it. I was 15 years, 16 years old and I couldn't even grasp that either. You know, I wasn't emotionally mature enough to know that my words may hurt her and there's no need for them to be said. Yeah. You know, and I, I remember saying it in the room I was in in my house and stuff. And I, it's a regret of mine. It was a, you know, a selfish, kind of unnecessary thing, um, act to my mom. So my mom was so, uh, sacrificial and so serving of myself and my siblings. Like she would do anything for us. And so, you know, I've, I've since apologized and we've made up, but, um, that was pretty much the home life and that was my faith base. Um, so fast forward, I save up for, you know, some money. I moved to California. I don't, I have like a few hundred dollars. I get to California with $150 and I'm living on the streets. Like it's a really bad plan. You know, um, my mom was heartbroken again because she knew my plan was haphazard and she knew it was dangerous and it was risky and she had no reassurance that I would even survive the plan. It's like a really, you know, your 17 year old son's moving to San Francisco to live on the streets. That was my plan. And that's like a, I don't know. I mean, it'd be hard for one of my kids to come to me and tell me that's their plan. You know? Um, so I

And that I was actually not, you know, I had a room and had a kitchen and was like actually on the up and up. And then I got an opportunity to ride for a small company. They offered me a sponsorship deal and I took it. They wanted to turn me pro because my name was kind of on the rise, even though it was, I had no business turning pro when I did. And then I had... No, that was experience. It wasn't the first company I turned pro for. So I rode for this company called Experience, super small from San Francisco. This guy was doing it out of his house. And it wasn't stable. And then I skated for them for about a year and then I got an opportunity to ride for a company called Invisible that was based in San Diego. And then I moved down to San Diego to be closer to the company and learn how the company worked and operated. So I spent almost two years in San Francisco. And now I'm 18, almost 19. I live in, I moved to San Diego. That company was right next to a magazine, Transworld Skateboarding Magazine at the time. I started hanging out at the magazine all the time and meeting these legendary photographers and like having glimpses of pro skaters that were like a big deal. And it was crazy. It was crazy to see. And every opportunity I got skating, I would try and really like give everything I had and I continued to build on that, overcoming my fears. And one time I went to this schoolyard in San Diego and jumped from roof to roof and the roofs were the opposite pitch. I did a kickflip from roof to roof and this is like 94. Yeah, 94 and maybe even 93. It came out in 94. And I went back to the magazine. I remember the photographers and everybody being so excited that I did it. And I was kind of like, whoa, that's so cool that they're excited on something I did. You know, I felt very validated. Anyway, I came back to the magazine like a month later and was just coming in like a normal day to hang out, sit on the couch and kind of like shoot the breeze. But everyone was acting kind of weird. And then someone handed me the magazine and I was on the cover of the magazine. So it was like two and a half years from being homeless on the streets to being on the cover of one of the biggest magazines in skateboarding was like a really fast trajectory. Yeah, it was pretty wild. And I remember just sitting down thinking like, whoa, this is like the realization, the realization of my dream. I'm holding it in my hands and I kind of didn't even know what to do with it. I was like, whoa, this is insane. But that was like tasting blood. I was like all in at that point. I started pushing myself further. And then I started developing an ability to skate handrails. And at this time, there weren't a lot of pros that were skating handrails. There was a handful. And that's like basically sliding your skateboard down a rail at a schoolyard or, you know, in a city landscape. And I started learning all these different tricks down handrails. And then I started off with like small rails and I started adding stairs. I started pushing myself more and more and more. And then within a few years, I was known as a handrail skater. And I continued to push myself as far as I could physically as I unlocked these different levels. And I started dreaming in video, video parts. So in skateboarding, you make a video part and that's where you take your best tricks over a two-year period. And then you curate them to a song and you kind of take the viewer on this dramatic journey of highs and lows and slow-mo sections. And then if you have like a really, you know, heavy spill or a slam in there, you know, you're grabbing the viewer's attention and you're able to communicate with your fans and with skateboard enthusiasts worldwide. I was able to communicate through these videos. And it was basically like me expressing myself on my skateboard doing tricks and then dreaming of how to film them certain ways in order to curate them together to give and provide an emotional experience for the viewer. And then I really honed that skill over several years. And then that became the tool that I would, you know, kind of solidify my career, launch other careers and launch businesses. And so I used this medium of videos to kind of tell my story. And, you know, in 2003, I think, I got asked to do a little story on my life. And I went to visit Nate. Maybe it was 2000. Yeah, 2003. Anyway, 2001 with me, I think you came again when the cover of one on one. Yeah, you came to another church. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. 2001 and 2003. So at any rate, to back up a little bit in 1995, I was traveling, just did a Europe, my first Europe tour. And I was traveling, driving from Philadelphia to California. We stopped in Chicago to skate the city and we met some local skateboarders in the city. And those guys invited us to a house party that night. And to back up a little bit even more, when I was 15, almost 16, I got into drinking and smoking weed. That was like what everybody in 9th grade was doing. And that's what I thought I needed to do to be cool. In the summer of 9th grade, I was in a friend's garage and we'd been partying all night. And this friend's parents were out of town. It was like everybody camped out at their house for a week. It was like a party house because the parents were gone. And I remember after like a night of partying, I was in the garage smoking a cigarette and I was sitting in a lawn chair and I remembered like smoking the cigarette and thinking about my dreams. And I'd already realized this dream to go to California. And I remembered seeing the cigarette. For some reason, I was like looking at the cigarette burn as I like took drags of it. And I imagined that it was my life and that if I didn't make a change and I didn't do something with myself, that I would be sitting in a garage just like this in 20 years. And I would have, life would have passed me by. So I stepped on the cigarette, stepped on the cigarette, put out the cigarette, woke up the next morning, told the guys, I'm done drinking. I'm done smoking. I'm focusing on skateboarding. And at this time, it was kind of like I was on fire for something, you know, it would have been good if it was the Lord, but at that point it wasn't. I was basically on fire for skateboarding and they called me the next week. All my friends called me the next weekend. It was kind of like they were like trying to pull me back in. And I was like, no, I'm really done. And so I quit smoking and drinking from 15 or 16 to 16 all the way to 30. So I am just so focused on skateboarding in this career. And you know, it's a pretty selfish path. I'm just full, fully, you know, I'm in the zone in my early twenties just thinking about how I'm going to, you know, make a way for myself. But anyway, I'm going 1995. I'm 21 or I'm 20, I think. Yeah, I'm 20 summer of 95. I'm driving back from Philadelphia. I stopped in Chicago, meet some skateboarders. They invite us to a house party. And we ended up staying at their house for a few days, but they invited us to a house party. And at that house party, there was, you know, everybody had a keg and everybody was drinking. And it was like, you know, a full on normal party. But I didn't drink. And I was just thinking about what I was going to try to skate the next day in Chicago and what I was going to try and do there. I was filming for this, like, would have been the, it was the toy machine video, would have been the biggest video of my career or video part of my career. And I was just like dreaming in that. And there was no way I was partaking in what they had going on. There was one girl at the party that also wasn't drinking. We struck up a conversation watching television and we had a long debate. She was a Christian and we had a long debate. And then we ended up like, you know, kind of having a connection. And I spent a few days in Chicago and I hung out with her on the nights I was there. And then I came back to California and she wrote me a few letters over the next few months. And I wasn't really thinking anything of it, you know, like she'd just moved there for college. She'd just started college that week and she had moved from the Seattle area to Chicago for college. She was also 17 when we met. So I'm 20, she's 17 and she starts college. We communicate a little bit and then she took a trip to visit California on our, on our winter break. And then she came to see me in California and we ended up getting along amazingly and started dating each other. And then I started going back and forth to Chicago and she started coming back and forth to California for the next six months. She got through her first year of college. She moved to, she moved to California and her name is Joanne. And, and, you know, a year or so later we got married and I wasn't, I wasn't a believer at the time, but my wife was. And we had long debates about her

phase or I wanna learn or I wanna grow or I wanna evolve. And then like a year and a half later, a year and a half after we got married, we got married in 97. And then in 99, I went to a funeral. And you know, my wife had, she'd been meanwhile, like in her faith, you know, next to me praying for me, but I didn't really know she was praying for me, you know, she would tell me occasionally and it made me feel a little strange, you know. And you know, my mom's been praying for me the whole time, you know, the whole time, my whole journey. I'm like, I'm jumping off, I'm jumping off buildings and going down rails and I'm like homeless and I'm living the most, you know, it's not a partying lifestyle, but it's still really dangerous. Right. And you know, and she, she gets that that I'm passionate about that and I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do, but she's loving me from a distance and praying for me constantly. So at any rate, I went to a funeral in San Jose. It was a skateboarder who passed away from a heart condition suddenly on Mother's Day in 99. His name is Tim Brosh. Anyway, he was a really gentle, amazing guy. Like it's one of the, you know how a lot of times you go to a funeral and everybody talks about how amazing the person is that passed away and sometimes you're kind of like, oh, they're really stretching the truth here. But this was one of those people that you didn't actually have to stretch the truth. He was a really solid guy and apparently he was a believer and I didn't know that. So the people that were getting up and sharing were sharing about this better place that he was in and that, and pretty much all of the whole setting was about how good he was, how selfless he was and that he was in a better place. And so really the framework was really that if anybody had some stuff they were carrying, it was like a time to maybe check it, you know, and, and I was thinking to myself, oh wow, what if I were in that box? They would not be saying I was selfless. They would not be saying how good of a guy I was and they would not be saying I was in a better place. So that was the initiation of this, or not the initiation, that was the initial like conceptualization of things are off in my life. Like I am not living a life that is, I'm not living a giving life. I'm just here to take. And so that was the first step and then quick, and also I was in a room, hearing these testimonies about this guy, like these guys just telling stories about how awesome he was. And there was so many skateboarders at this funeral that we got put into separate rooms. We're not even in the main hall. I'm just sitting in a room staring at a wall with a speaker in the corner. And when you can't see people, you can hear it when, you know, when you can't see things, you can hear it so much better. So I was hearing these cries and these wails in such a way that it was like touching my soul. It was like, it was all purposeful where I was put, you know, what was happening. Anyway, I started, and this is crazy and I don't even know what, there's got to be a name for this, but things that I had done, lies that I had told, and things that I had kept secret and stuffed like down and down and down and kept stuffing down and down and down. They all started flooding to the surface from childhood. And I was just like trying to navigate all of this emotion and all of this sin and all of this, like, just debauchery, all of this stuff. And I couldn't, I couldn't bear it. I couldn't deal with it. I just fell out of the chair and fell on my knees and started crying, asking the Lord to help me. And so at that point, my wife puts her hand on my shoulder, a preacher comes over and says the Lord's prayer with me. And I asked, you know, God and Jesus to help me. I can't carry this burden, like, and I don't know how to keep going. So I had this like very radical, radical saving moment. And it was very interesting. When we left the funeral home, I felt like, you know, Tom Hanks on the beach of Normandy, you know, when he's like, it all goes quiet, but your senses are like really heightened. I had this like euphoric state of understanding how small I was in the world and how selfish I had been and how grateful I was. I had this amazing, amazing, overwhelming feeling of gratitude. So my wife and I, this is on a Friday, we went to our local church, which was the North Coast Calvary Chapel on a Sunday. And they started off with the 10 Commandments. It was like day one, commandment one. It was like, church just started and glad you're here. It was crazy. I was like, basically, yeah, I was basically there to get the like kickoff. And then they did at the end, they did an altar call and, you know, I raised my hand and, you know, I wanted to make sure it was official. And it's funny. I feel like I'm such a sinner. I'm such a sinner and I'm so, I grew up so much in my life being on the other side, even though I'm not anymore and I try not to be, I, every time there's an altar call, I say the prayer every single time, you know, and it's, I know I can't be saved, you know, hundreds of times, but I like, I see it as a way of surrendering one more time. And I don't mind it, you know, and I, you know, I don't care what anyone really says about it. It just is a way for me to like, just spend a moment and go, yes, I believe this. Yes, I surrender my life. Yes, I want you at the center of my life. So my wife and I went to church quite a bit in those years. We didn't have kids yet. And it was awesome. And I was on fire. And this is, this is 99 when I got saved. And I put out a cross board in 2001, maybe even earlier than that around that time period anyway. And a lot of people told me I shouldn't do it and um, and that it was like, like being a Christian wasn't cool and that I was going to ruin my career. And I was like, I don't care. This is what I believe and I want to share it. And then it sold like crazy. And then everyone told me I was in it for the money. It was really funny. I just remember like that hit the first time I ever seen scripture on a board and I don't know if there was someone that did it beforehand, but I feel like that was definitely groundbreaking. And especially like, you know, you had Danzig, like I learned all the music my parents didn't want me to listen from your stuff. And so when I told my parents, look, he's got, you know, when people seen that John 3 16 on the board, I was like, wow, God reached Jamie. He could reach anybody. And not that you were a bad, you know what I mean? But yeah, it was always great. I really relate a lot to what you were saying. I kind of felt like a piece of furniture moving around a lot. I went to four different high schools. My dad was a pastor. Um, and I think they were trying to protect me from skateboarding because just before we move on, you were saying about, you know, it's different than like other sports. Uh, it was more of an identity for me and I'm sure it was that way for you too. So it just gave me so much encouragement when first of all, you got saved, but also when your board came out and had graphics on it like that, I was just like, wow, this is incredible. It's like blew my mind. Well, I, I don't think, you know, I wasn't a huge skateboarder. I had a, I did skateboard poorly, um, very poorly. But I get that there's sort of an outsider status to skateboarding, right? It had that sort of fringe element to it, at least when I was growing up. Like it wasn't a mainstream sport. I mean, I grew up in central Illinois and you know, the mainstream sports were baseball, football, you know, basketball, and that's what you did. That's what the cool kids did. That's what the, you know, the big men on campus did. And the skateboarders were sort of the fringe folk who, uh, were kind of cool, but weren't really part of the mainstream sort of thing going on. And so skateboarding had its own culture to it. It had its own sort of pocket. And uh yeah, it was just a really interesting sort of little niche. And so, um, yeah, that's sort of my experience with it. But I think it also brings with it a whole separate, at least my experience with it, again, which is nowhere near as deep as either of you two. It was a little bit anti-institutional, if that makes sense. And so because you were on the fringe, you didn't really want to re-engage with the mainstream kind of vibe. And from my vantage point, the little that I did with it and then just the things that I was also involved in, which I went more the weight training route than the skateboarding route. But back when I was doing it, weight training was its own culture as well

You were baptized into Christianity as much as you did. Yeah. You know, I agree with what you're saying. Unfortunately, I, during this time period, slipped into workaholism in a major, major way. And then when workaholism didn't work, you know, I kind of started navigating the business landscape of skateboarding very similar to the way I did skateboarding itself. I took the same fearless approach, but put myself, my family, and my savings at work. I mean, excuse me, at risk by continuing to double down and to not take any chips off the table. And so, you know, I had a very successful skateboarding career that led to a very successful business career. And then in 2008 and 2009 when, you know, the economic bubble burst, it affected and impacted our business and all businesses really in a major way. And then the landscape, I had a footwear company that I was running for a while. The landscape in skateboarding footwear shifted to the mainstream brands like Nike, Adidas, Vans, Converse. And so all of the independent footwear brands were no longer as relevant. And so sales dropped off a cliff. And so I had been doubling down, doubling down, and I got voted entrepreneur of the year by Ernst and Young. And I had these accolades in business, but didn't have enough experience, longevity, or wisdom to know when to fold them or when to sell the company or when to take chips off the table. And I got a bigger house, got a bigger building for the company, you know, just kind of continued to grow and expand as if the sky's the limit. And then the house of cards all came crumbling down. In 2013-14, the company had been hemorrhaging for several years, and I pretty much almost lost it all. And so I'd worked my whole career, I'd worked my whole career to create this empire that, and I'd worked tirelessly too, like 12, 14 hour days, longer sometimes. And I'd worked myself, yeah, and I developed a reputation in the industry for like being relentlessly. 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And I used to take pride in that reputation as if it were like a gold star. And it wasn't until the house of cards came crashing down and then I wasn't getting paid at all and I had to live off of savings, which wasn't very much, that I really went to a dark place of, you know, indulging in the comforts of the world in a way that was not healthy. Hung out there for a while and was like, Instagram came out around this time and I was like, you know, posting my greatest hits on Instagram to be celebrated and have this like spike of relevance, feeling of relevancy and getting this, you know, everyone talks about a dopamine, but I was like grasping at straws to feel like I had value because everything that I had gotten attention for and having value in had just crumbled around me. And I was trying to figure out what do I have left? And I was like, oh, I have this career. I have this. I have all these highlights that I've done. But then I'm just playing my own highlight reel, you know, on Instagram like Uncle Rico from Napoleon Dynamite. You know, I'm living in the glory days and this is affecting my relationship with my wife hugely and I'm not being a good husband. I'm not being a good provider. I'm really losing the plot gradually and I'm in denial of what's really going on. So I put pretty much my whole life in the ditch in my early to mid-40s and my relationship with my wife was at the edge of a cliff. The business was at the edge of a cliff and it took me really like about to lose it all, all, all, not just part of it. It was almost like I was a gambling addict and I was ready to gamble the last stake that I had. At any rate, I finally woke up again, fell to my knees in a church service, went up to the front and got prayer and then got myself into a 12-step group, got myself into a men's group at the church and then started rebuilding myself more in line with God and then identified the identity crisis that I was having. And here's really what it is. I was a professional skateboarder and influencer number one. I was a business owner and, you know, whatever, number two. I was a father because I had kids and I needed to take care of them. I was a husband and lastly, I was a child of God. And it's easy to see that my identity was pretty much upside down. So I started developing patterns and habits of identifying that I'm a child of God and I'm so blessed and I'm so, and I need, and there's so many things to be thankful for first thing in the morning. And that's where my identity comes from. And then I'm a husband because my wife is my life partner in this, on this earth. And then with, and when I'm her partner, I can then be a good father. And then I'm a skateboarder and a business guy. And if there's any time in the day left to influence others, that's where I am. So having this identity crisis and pretty much like putting it in the ditch and having to completely transform my life to be in line with Christ and be able to develop a system and a habitual process of walking in the light on a daily basis was like life changing, life changing, transformative. It was like the greatest thing that I ever could have done. And then now I can identify that the company crumbling around me was like the best thing that ever happened to me. It went from being the worst thing that ever happened to me to being the best thing that ever happened to me. And now my, now my mess is the message, you know, and I'm able to, I'm able to sift through all of that and, and going through, you know, addiction and going through, you know, just really being addicted to the world, being addicted to relevancy, taking identity and skate, being a pro skateboarder first and foremost. And I still struggle with it. Some days I like, you know, if somebody recognizes me or somebody gives me some sort of props, I want to take credit for it. But what happened is I drank my own Kool-Aid and I had put myself at the center of my life instead of Christ, you know, not even my wife or family, you know, people say family first. Like I wasn't, I could have said that, but I was really putting myself first and what gives me the feeling of gratification, which is mostly, most of my life it was working. So I'd taken so much identity in my work that it was who I was and it was so unhealthy. And so it took my world crashing around me to, for me to wake up and to start living a different life. Now I have like, you know, six years or so of sobriety and focus. And I've been in a men's group where very similar to the 10 commandments, I started this men's group and they started the first day I arrived, they started a series called Authentic Manhood, how to live, how to live a life in modern times following the principles of the Bible. And it was like, and it was like a 12 week course. So I feel like God connected all these dots for me and it took me a while to wake up and see the breadcrumbs. But when I finally did, now life has, you know, has been so different. I've gone through therapy in order to process the feeling of neglect as a young child and not having the, you know, validation and the love that I could have gotten in my home. And then I identify how that created an unquenchable thirst for validation from others. And, you know, now I'm in recovery of all of that. And, you know, and whenever something is challenging or I'm struggling, I can go to the Lord. I can pray. My wife and I are praying together consistently for whatever struggles we're having with our teenage children. You know, pray together, stay together. We're really, we're really about that. And my wife and I lead a young adults group and I'm in a men's group. She's in a women's group and we're really plugged in at our local church in Encinitas. And that is life-giving. And that is the difference. And we try.

I serve when we can, do home builds and anything we can do to serve. So, yeah, that's where I'm at. I mean, I'm still in the business game, but it's appropriately. I spend my time, my devotion to the Lord is first and foremost in the morning, and then I'm trying to be the best husband and father I can. And then I'm, you know, then trying to use the time I have that's appropriate to run the business. And I still skateboard when, you know, time permits. But skateboarding and business are no longer my priority in life, which I'm so grateful for. Once that change happened when you talk about, you know, the order that things were in your life, when that happened, how did you view skateboarding afterwards? Did you love it more? Was it like more pure? Did it feel like everything was like more in sync, like maybe it was when it was simpler when you first started and didn't have all the other things? Like, how did that look for you afterwards? You know, I don't think my relationship, well, I don't think I had a really clear view of what it was. I think I really just saw it for something that has helped me provide a life for my family and something that I enjoy to do. But the biggest thing was identifying what it was not, you know, and what it was not, was not my source, my primary source of identity. And that's something it had been, you know, and I know a lot of professional athletes struggle with this. You know, just, there's that documentary, Michael Phelps documentary called The Weight of Gold. And it's just about Olympians pushing their whole life for that one chance at the gold medal. And if they get it, they're on top of the world for a brief moment in time. And then what are they? And if they don't get it, if they don't get it, their disappointment is overwhelming. It weighs more than they could ever imagine. And that consumes them in life and they become suicidal because that's primarily what they're living for. I can identify with that documentary so much because skateboarding was that to me. So it was really just like, I almost took a break from skating. I definitely took a break from Instagram. And now I post like once a month, maybe. Like that was like really, I had a really unhealthy relationship with validation. And, you know, and I live a more simple life now. I'm no longer like a high profile pro skater, you know. I'm not on TV. I'm not known everywhere. You know, if I go to a skate park, no one knows who I am. You know, maybe like three guys over 30, you know. But all of that is, it's peaceful. You know, it's peaceful. And sometimes, sometimes it's a little sad because the ride's over in lots of ways. But really, you know, being on fire for the Lord and having a relationship and learning to like just lead a co-leading a young adults group. Just being able to share some of what I've learned with people in their twenties and thirties is like so life-giving. I leave that as if I just left the best skate session ever because I'm like able to contribute on something that really matters. You know, skateboarding is cool and people get hyped on it and it, it's motivating and stuff, but it's not what life's about. And so I feel like, and I don't even know if I answered your question, Nate. I think, I feel like it, I just had to discover what skateboarding was not. That was really it. And skateboarding is beautiful. And, you know, rolling around on new wheels at a, at a skate park is like a really amazing feeling, but it's not everything. It's not everything. And I identify that now and I live my life like that now. I skate a couple of days a week, you know, but I pray every day, you know, and that's, that's the difference. You know, I'm, I'm in the word every day. And if I'm not in the word, then I'm slowly drifting back into the world. And I know that. I know that if I go on a skate tour or something, which I try to not do so much anymore, I can't really get in a van because my life is too altered now. I want to listen to worship music. I want to, I want to be listening to podcasts. I want to be listening to something life-giving. So I don't know. There's a, there's a fascinating podcast or not a fascinating podcast, a fascinating passage, sorry, in Deuteronomy. It's one of my favorites. It's sort of an odd passage to point to, but it's Deuteronomy 17. It's where Moses gives Israel instruction regarding the Israelite King. And they don't even have a King yet in Deuteronomy. But what Moses tells them is that the King is to write a copy of the law for himself and have it approved by the priests. And it's one of those passages where if you really sit back and reflect on it, you realize the King has the best position possible in Israel to get a big head, like to make it all about him, to make it all about being King. And what Moses gives him the, you know, the, the injunction is, look, write a copy of the law to remind yourself that you sit under God's authority, that everything you're doing is under the Lord. And then I want you to give it to the priests and make sure that they tell you, you've got it right. Everything about the whole situation is making sure that the King who has this amazing position and does all these amazing things and has a non-trivial position within Israel is put in its proper place. Positioned under the authority of the Lord. Yeah. It's really similar, really similar to Daniel and the Babylonians. Very much. Yeah. But it just comes to mind as I hear you talk about your stories and I even think about some of the experiences I've had, it's like, I resonate with what you're saying. I've made myself too important. And if we don't build in those things to remind us that everything we have is from the Lord and that the Lord is really everything in our lives. And that, if he is not the life and the length of our days, right, we're really missing out on something more that we could have. And so I just really appreciate you sharing brother. And I know we're coming up on time. Any sort of parting words you want to give to folks? I mean, where can they hear a little more of your story? Where can they find out what you're doing right now? Like, is there anywhere you want people to connect with you or? Well, I mean, Instagram, I'm not there very much, but if anyone wants to send me a message or talk about anything or hop on a phone call, reach out via Instagram, it's just at Jamie Thomas. And then, you know, I have a few other podcasts that, you know, interviews that I've done out there. You can just look up Jamie Thomas podcast interview and you can hear more about, you know, I can get into the weeds, you know, in different podcasts about these different things. Like my world crumbling apart. I go into detail on it in some podcasts, you know, we had one hour or 48 minutes or something to like cover a lot of ground, my whole story as well as my faith journey, as well as, you know, all this stuff. So there are, there are quite a few other interviews out there where I tell a little bit more about me, but anyway, I don't, I don't know. I think if you're struggling, get help. There's help out there. Go to a pastor, you know, get some help from your church, join a 12 step group, get a therapist. There's always a way out as long as you're breathing, drop to your knees. Totally. I could say really quick. You kind of hit on something that My battery's at 1%. I'm sorry. That's very unprofessional of me. It's all good. It might be cutting out. Well, the whole validating, the whole validation thing, like that really sticks me right here because James has heard me talk about this even recently. We lost. Go ahead. Nate, we'll finish it up. We'll call it a day. Yeah. I was just going to say the James, you've heard me say this even recently, like trying to always prove the validity of what I'm doing and what God's called me to do. Uh, so I really resonate and relate to that. And I, I just was going to say to him in case I didn't get a chance to ever say it again, how much that helped me that I knew because God, you know, I don't know if I ever shared this with you, but I knew that God showed me in a dream that I was going to have him at my church and my pastors and all the people around me tried to encourage me to set my sights lower so I wouldn't be let down. And I was like, no, you don't understand. Like God gave me this vision. Like I've seen it. It's going to happen. And that's the only time it's ever happened in my entire life. 44 years on the earth and serving God for, you know, since 98. Um, and that just, it's just a constant reminder that I need to maybe revisit that what he's talking about because I might deal with that a little bit. I'm still always trying to prove or validate what, what I want to do, what God's called me to do. And uh, I just was going to say thank you to him because that really was the biggest win for me. Like at that stage of my life. And I think that's what made me pursue ministry and his will even more. You know, it's like I can do this.

Need more of God's power in your life? I'm Christina Patterson, host of the Teach Us to Pray podcast, providing practical tips on how to grow your faith through prayer. Subscribe at lifeaudio.com.