I'm really excited to be receiving the L'Orealist Action Sports Person of the Year award. It's a huge honor to me because it consistently aligns with the ideals that I have been advocating for since I was 11 or 12 years old. L'Orealist as an organization is one that has such a deep history with involvement with youth in sports. Coming from Mandela's legacy, I think he was quoted to say that sports are a uniting factor among people and that is exactly the message that I've been speaking about. And so having an organization that aligns so closely with my ideals recognized me in this way is a huge honor and it is also part of my mission to help contribute to the next generation of kids globally and especially in the domain of sports and especially in the context of young women in action sports. Thank you. I'm so flattered. I think that for me receiving awards is only a small part of the big picture in the sense that it is a huge, huge honor to be recognized in this moment but it is more symbolic of all of the hard work that goes into it. So I don't want to simply be celebrating this beautiful trophy here today but also to be speaking to the value that sports as a whole have brought to my life and to help contribute that love and that passion, that joy, confidence, resilience, everything that sports have taught me to more people.
I don't want to be the only person receiving this award. I really want to be sharing what I've learned with other people. So it's an honor to be up there with the greats and it's also an honor to be the first free skier to ever win this award. But with that said, I am not doing it alone and I do it with the intent of sharing all of the passion and love and joy that I get to enjoy today with everybody on a global scale. I think that it's very easy for people to assume that things in my life are simple and that they just happen to me. When in reality it's anything but that. For example on the plane ride here I did homework for eight hours straight. This morning I ran seven miles. I recently got named to Stanford honor roll for my academic achievements this year and I continue to train every day even though I'm at school and I'm the only person who is or the only free skier who's training year round at Stanford.
And so with that said I think that there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that people don't have to see and oftentimes those are the hardest parts. So I would not say that things come easily. I would say that I work very very hard for them and I'm grateful for the opportunities that I have and for the awards and achievements that I've been able to be recognized for but a lot goes in. Actually that one was an interesting one because I had to miss that event but I also had to miss my high school cross country state championship and that was a big deal to me because I had to go back and run Iin my opinion but of course I couldn't because I was concussed but that was a big part of my responsibility as well. I hoped to contribute to our team standing and to be able to race the next day so that kind of just speaks to the different responsibilities that I have beyond just one facet. I just feel like I'm a lot busier now and things are more difficult.
Other than that I'm pretty much doing, I'm pursuing the same passions. I'm still involved in fashion, I'm still doing school full time, I'm still skiing, I still hope to be the best I can, I'm still talking about the same things and spreading the same message. So honestly not a whole lot has changed in terms of my professional life but I think that between then and now I've matured a lot as an individual as anybody does between the ages of 16 to 19 and so yeah I think I've developed a bit in my personal life but for the most part I've stayed consistent. For the most part they're not true. I mean I don't really pay that much attention to them because 90% of the time people are just making things up so I can't really respond because I have nothing to say. There's no foundation in the first place so I'm not super worried about them.
And then the other 10% you know they're outweighed by the thousands of positive comments that I do get and I find massive award in being able to inspire even one young girl so I think I used to struggle a lot more than I do now. It's hard for a 15 year old to read those but when you're 19 and you're 4 years in you just grow a thick skin and deal with it. Hi, how are you? I'm a little bit of a bad guy who is a little bit of a bad guy. I'm a little bit of a bad guy who is a little bit of a bad guy who is a little bit of a little bit of a bad guy who is a little bit of a bad guy who is a little bit of a bad guy.