Teroka

Time Magazine

Blake Mycoskie wanted to get away from it all. After founding and running four businesses and losing by a sliver on The Amazing Race, he escaped last January to Argentina, where he learned to sail, dance the tango and play competitive polo. He also visited impoverished villages where few, if any, children had shoes. “I was sitting on a field on a farm one day, and I had an epiphany,” says Mycoskie, who had taken to wearing alpargatas–resilient, lightweight slip-on shoes with a breathable canvas top and soft leather insole traditionally worn by Argentine workers. “I said, I’m going to start a shoe company, and for every pair I sell, I’m going to give one pair to a kid in need.”

He spent the next two months meeting with shoe- and fabricmakers in Argentina and named his self-financed company Toms: Shoes for Tomorrow. He modeled his product after the alpargata but used brighter colors and different materials. “No one looked twice at alpargatas, but I thought they had a really cool style,” says Mycoskie, 30. “I’m a fan of Vans, but they can be clunky and sweaty. These aren’t. They fit your foot like a glove but are sturdy enough for a hike, the beach or the city.”

A Texan who religiously reads biographies of the likes of Sam Walton, Ted Turner and Richard Branson yet ends his e-mail messages, “DISCLAIMER: you will not win the rat race wearing Toms,” Mycoskie had never worked in fashion. With a staff of seven full-time employees (including former Trovata designer John Whitledge), six sales reps and eight interns, he debuted a collection last June of 15 styles for men and women, as well as limited-edition artist versions. They quickly found their way into stores like American Rag and Fred Segal in Los Angeles, where Toms is based, and Scoop in New York City. By the fall he had sold 10,000 pairs, averaging $38 each, online and in 40 stores.

So, as promised, he returned to Argentina in October with a couple of dozen volunteers to give away 10,000 pairs of Toms shoes along 2,200 miles of countryside. “I always thought I’d spend the first half of my life making money and the second half giving it away,” says Mycoskie, who calls himself not ceo but chief shoe giver. “I never thought I could do both at the same time.”

Not that he’s turning a profit. “Selling online has allowed us to grow pretty rapidly, but we’re not going to make as much as another shoe company, and the margins are definitely lower,” he admits. “But what we do helps us get publicity. Lots of companies give a percentage of their revenue to charity, but we can’t find anyone who matches one for one.”

Toms already has orders from 300 stores, including Nordstrom, Urban Outfitters and Bloomingdale’s, for 41,000 pairs from its spring and summer collections, and it will be entering Australia, Japan, Canada, Spain and France this summer. The company will introduce a line of children’s shoes called Tiny Toms in May and will unveil a pair of leather shoes in the fall.

Mycoskie is planning a second shoe drop in Argentina later this year, with more to follow in Africa and Asia. He says 240 customers have told him they would pay to volunteer on shoe drops, so next year he hopes to launch a company offering $2,000 vacations consisting of two days of sightseeing and four days of volunteering. “All these other businesses and deals have been preparing me for this,” he says. “I believe Toms is going to give away millions of shoes one day.”

Source: TIME Magazine

Gabriel Cade Thompson

Gabriel Cade was born and raised in the tiny alternative community of Celo, North Carolina. His father is a doctor and his mother is a nurse. In addition, they run a small farm with goats, chickens, rabbits and fields of blueberry bushes. Cade has one brother, Jason, and a twin sister, Emily.

During his first two years of high school in Mitchell County, Cade was a competitive figure skater, a member of a singing quartet and was part of a symphony orchestra (having played classical cello since he was seven years old). He also studied jazz and ballet dancing. He then transferred to the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics for his junior and senior year. As the school required community service, he spent two summers working for World Changers, an organization that assists in building homes for impoverished individuals. Graduating in 1996, he then traveled throughout Europe where he eventually began volunteer teaching English in a small town in France while also leading adventure trips for students.

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Blake MyCoskie

Meet Blake Mycoskie, once, a participant in a reality show a few years back, also a co-founder of TOMS Shoes (shoes for Tomorrow). He’s idea was inspired by a traditional Argentine shoes and challenged by the continent’s poverty and health issues, so he created TOMS with a singular mission: to make life more comfortable. Have a look at his website, and try to see what he’s doing, and how, you can support, and maybe you’ll be inspired by him. Maybe you’ll be able to be our very own version of Blake.

Life is hard. Although it shouldn’t really be that way. We encounter problems every freaking day, and most of the time, we get distracted by the whole thing, and we can’t really see any way out, even if its right there in front of us. Some solution may come as something that will take us some time to execute. Some, are just something that we choose not to do.

1. A simple friend, who has been dating the very same girl he fell in love years a go. His first love. But he doesn’t know if he would ever, be able to make her happy. If he would be able to have a life he wanted for so long, and a life with her, without having to let go either one.
2. A torn friend, who has got a girlfriend, and loves her just as much, but am still in love with his ex-girlfriend, and can’t stop thinking about her 24/7.
3. A confused friend, who hasn’t been in a relationship for such a long time, that she doesn’t really know what sort of person would be able to make her happy, and if she would ever find that someone.
4. A heartbroken friend, who was left just like that, and haven’t been able to recover after so long. He still thinks that there is hope although the one he loves, has already move on with someone else.
5. A strong-minded friend, who is in a relationship she don’t know whether or not its real. She loves him, but can’t find the right words to tell him. And end up, driving the guy, and her heart, away.
6. A devoted friend, who has been in a relationship for so long, with someone she doesn’t really see herself loving, still. Someone who she figured would sweep her off her feet one day, and that if she give herself a chance to be loved, she’d love back. But it is still something she is trying to figure
   out.

All this and so much more. These are my friends. These are the people that I know personally. And these are those kind of people that are happy with their life. Who doesn’t cry in front of people. Who sees life as one big opportunity to seize. I used to be like that. But now, I’m not so much like that. I want to change. I’m trying to change.

You see, there is a big difference in between moving on with your life, and just, moving. Doing things. But both would end up, making you feel good about yourself.

I am not the in the state in which any of my advice should be taken seriously. I haven’t even figured it all out yet, in terms of my own relationship problems. And if I could even call what I have/had, a relationship. But I do honestly think, that it takes a lot, to pick yourself up, and yes, as cliche as it may sound, again, only you can do that for yourself.

You have to do things not necessarily for yourself. Sometimes, you have to do what ever it is that would make you happy. And that list, goes on and on and on. I don’t think, for myself, that by forgetting what I used to have, would make me happy. I think that by knowing, what I had to do, which was to let go of what I had, what made me happy, what made me whole, would make the other person happy. Because that other person wanted to leave. And if that person is happy that way, that is enough for me to be happy.

Surround yourself with people who believes in you, and know that you would do just fine. They may appear ignorant, but at least, they have faith in you. Genuine faith. That somehow, you would be able to pull it off.

If people were to ask me, how I was able to stay strong up until now, and still have my feelings, and faith, and integrity intact, I would say, I have people, who somehow, not only knew that, but actually believed in me.

Although in life, I have everything, except for that one thing that I want, I am happy that way. Maybe, just maybe, I want to cry, and not hold it inside. Maybe, that is how I see myself being strong. God knows.

So now, it comes down to this. In order to find a solution to our problem, you don’t really have to look that far. Just look inside yourself. Do what you think is best for yourself. And have faith, and know, that what you are doing, is the right thing to do. You don’t need to have a back-up plan, you just need to know that you know what YOU are doing.

I’m all smiles for now. Maybe its because of someone new. Maybe its because of the world cup. I don’t really know. But I think I’ll be OK soon.

Why can’t we all be like Blake? Lets not let our world stop because of our problems, but lets just use our problems to move our world for the better.

“.. our problems.. how do we make it stop? well, we don’t. we use it to move forward ..”