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Gretchen Bleiler Personal message

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Being a professional snowboarder is a dream come true.

Greetings,

This is my personal message to you. I am paid to travel around the world and snowboard! I have visited Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany, France, Japan, and all parts of our country through snowboarding. I meet people from all over the world who, like myself, have a love for the outdoors. But being a professional snowboarder is not just about snowboarding.

Competition is expensive.

Sponsors are essential to a professional athlete. In order to get noticed in the business side of the sport it is crucial to be professional. This involves creating stand out resumes and making contacts within the industry. This is a never-ending process, as you can never have enough sponsors.

Once a contract has been created, which involves negotiating skills, between yourself and your sponsor you need to keep track of expenses.

A sponsor gives out a certain amount of money to their athletes to travel and compete. Therefore, it is imperative to keep track of all of your receipts. It is also a good idea to present your expenses in a professional manner. The most efficient way to do this is on your computer.

When traveling to another country, it is always a more meaningful experience if you know a little bit about the country. For example, knowing about the currency they use, the geography, a little bit of the language and also the history.

Finally I am constantly being interviewed.The interviews are generally the same whether it is for a TV program, a newspaper article, or a magazine. When being interviewed, I try to represent my sport and myself in the best possible way. Not many people understand snowboarding. Therefore it is my job to educate them. Speaking clearly, being informative, positive, and energetic all help to make an interview successful.

So as you can see, I snowboard for a living but many other things go into being a professional athlete. Math, English, which involves creative writing, speech, and debate, History, Geography, Language, and Computer skills all play an important role in what I do everyday. Thanks to the education that I have received, I am succeeding. For those of you who want to become a professional athlete, my advice for you would be to work hard both physically and mentally.