Rob Dyer - Founder of Skate4Cancer

On this episode I have Rob Dyer as my guest. Rob is the founder of Skate4Cancer and has completed 4 cross country skateboarding marathons in his life. He's skateboarded from Los Angeles to Toronto, across Canada, across France and across New Zealand. 

Rob does this all in the name of cancer prevention and awareness. Throughout his days, he's partnered with organizations like Princess Margaret Hospital and Wellspring to fight back against cancer.

In high school, Rob lost his mom, two grandmas and a friend to cancer in a relatively short period of time. This pain inspired him to take action.

"The initial idea came from people in my life going through cancer. So often when we think about diseases like AIDs and cancer, and we feel they are larger than us."

Over the last 12 years Rob has been able to create a community for people battling with cancer and lending support to the friends and families of cancer victims. He's inspired thousands of people and supported many more along the way.

Currently as you read this, Rob is biking from Toronto to New Orleans to raise money for Wellspring, an organization he works with dearly and proudly supports. Rob has reached 95% of his fundraising goal and could use our help to surpass it! Today is the last day he will be accepting donations.

We start off the podcast by talking about what inspired Skate4Cancer. The first 25 minutes is a discussion about his skateboarding marathons and the lessons he's learned from them. 

At the 25 minute mark, we talk about the value of giving back to other human beings and if Rob will do Skate4Cancer for the rest of his life. We wrap up the podcast by talking about Wellspring and his current project, the bike ride from Toronto to New Orleans.

Notable Sections in the Podcast

2:10 - Where Skate4Cancer began. Rob didn't want cancer, a disease that so many people feel powerless about, to have power over his life. So he did what he knew best and started skateboarding. 

11:50 - "We put our dreams into small boxes and it we don't make it we say it's a failure."

15:45 - Rob's view on overcoming obstacles and how there is no one set method to overcome all the obstacles we will face in life. Each one is unique and will come with its own set of difficulties that we will have to courageously face dead on.

27:00 - Rob on giving... "It's an addictive thing. It's something as humans that is built into us. It's what makes us human is being able to affect the lives of others... it's what we're meant to do."

Rob can be found on Instagram @ robdyerS4C