None of my accomplishments have been easy. My main battle is just trying to stay on my skateboard. I’m determined to win year-after-year, and that’s what I’m gonna keep doing.

I am definitely very careful of how I look when I go out. I spend more time in my room getting ready than half the girls I know! It’s like, when I’m out in public, people are looking at me, and that’s a big deal. I have to have clear skin and a fresh outfit every time I go out.

I’m not perfect. I do get acne breakouts. For me, stress causes my acne, but it’s so hard to get away from it. When I first got going, we would go do autograph signings and that kind of stuff. I was in the skate eye alongside my peers, but I didn’t really worry about my skin because skaters are dirty. We’d skate, we’d do our thing, we had breakouts, and that’s how it was.

But I have to admit I was a little self-conscious, like “Oh, man I have, a few zits on my face.” The thing with acne is that it’s distracting. You’re getting ready in the mirror, brushing your teeth, and you look up and you have acne. It’s not a good feeling because you know people are gonna look at it.

And it’s a big thing in high school, too. If you have acne, you’re gonna hear about it. People are gonna say, “Oh, I can’t look at his face.” No one wants that. It’s brutal. It just puts more stress on you, and so it makes you break out more.

And I know stress. Like right when we started filming my show, we had the Winter Formal. I was excited, but also nervous because they were filming it. It was the first time I’d been around the cameras. I was pretty stressed out. I didn’t know how everything was gonna work and I ended up breaking out the worst I’ve ever had. My whole chin, everything, pimples everywhere. Man, it was like the end of the world!

That’s when I started using Proactiv regularly. I found out about Proactiv years ago, when I was twelve or thirteen. I didn’t even know what acne was. I was like: “Yeah, whatever, I’m not gonna break out.” So I kind of brushed it off…and then I started breaking out.

Some of my friends were using Proactiv, but I was a bit skeptical. I ended up trying it anyway because I was like, “My face already looks horrible, so whatever.” Within a week of starting to use Proactiv, my acne was clearing up. And it’s easy for me to keep up with: just three steps – that’s the whole cycle of Proactiv. I was like, “Okay, cool. I can do this.” And I do. After I skate, I just take the bottles out, wash my face, and I’m good-to-go. I use Proactiv every day and my face looks great.

It’s a big deal to keep your skin clear. It just makes you feel more confident. It makes it easier to talk to people. I’m not scared to say that I like when I feel like I look good. I like that. It’s reassuring.

I’ve learned how to keep my stress low with positive thinking. And I use Proactiv to help keep my skin looking good. Breakouts are no longer part of my life.