Skateboarding legend Tony Hawk shares the advice he always gives his 24-year-old son

Teaching @rileyhawk the important life lesson at age 5: how to set up a skateboard.

A post shared by Tony Hawk (@tonyhawk) on Oct 10, 2016 at 11:04am PDT on Oct 10, 2016 at 11:04am PDT

“You’ve got to keep trying to do something new or something better. Even if you’re on top of the competition circuit, because that only lasts so long.

“If you rely on the tricks or the style that got you there in the first place — the judges are very harsh, and they expect you to keep improving. You’ve got to to challenge yourself in other ways, too.”

Hawk said his son grew up practicing skating different styles, and has kept that up.

But Hawk learned the importance of variety from experience. Specialization probably helped him become the first skateboarder ever to successfully complete a 900-degree aerial spin in 1999; it may also have worked to his detriment.

“I’m mostly known for skating the bigger ramps, and so when my popularity started to rise, people said, ‘Well, he’s just a vert skater,'” he told Business Insider.

“So I learned how to street skate to an extent, because I wanted to do everything, and to skate pools, and other terrain. If I go to a skate park, I know there’s something that I can do there that hasn’t been done or is good enough to impress a crowd. Those little tricks are important to be a relevant professional.”

Hawk’s advice may be just as useful for non-skaters: Recent research suggests generalists — people who have bounced around between different roles and even companies — are more likely to become top execs than specialists are.