132: Steve LaRosiliere/Hustle For Good
“If you’re unhappy with your life, change it”
These days, using action sports as a tool for social mobility and mentorship is a fairly well known practise. In 2005, when this week’s guest Steve Larosiliere founded his organisation Stoked, it was new territory.
Stoked was founded as a result of Steve’s own experience of mentorship and his ambition ‘to use action sports to teach 21st century skills to urban youth.’
15 years later, Stoked has helped thousands of disadvantaged kids across the States, while Steve’s experiences in running the organisation have given him a unique take on social entrepreneurship and the power of action sports as a transformative tool.
I’ve been following Steve for a while and we caught up in early August 2020 to discuss his life and career. The result is a quickfire chat that covers the above and also takes in issues of race, identity and nationality, using the wider global conversation as context and backdrop.
Listen to the episode here:
Show Notes
- Steve’s Hustle for Good podcast
- The beginning of Stoked
- Financing Stoked in the early years.
- Definition of mentoring
- How William Wimsatt was an inspiration for Steve
- How Steve’s community gave him opportunities
- “If you’re unhappy with your life, change it”
- How 9/11 shaped Steve’s change in path
- The systems and institutions that are in place to hinder the way to the American dream
- Democratising the feeling of action sports
- Social entrepreneurship
- Making the most of Covid restrictions to redefine mentorship
- Trying to bottle up the feeling of landing a trick
- Blackout Tuesday
- What’s next with Stoked
People Mentioned
- Tony Ferguson
- Salema Masekela
- William Wimsatt
- George Donohue
- Tony Hawk
- George Floyd
Places Mentioned
- Whistler, BC
- British Columbia
- New York City
- United States
- Ukraine
- Haiti
- Jamaica