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- [00:00]
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- [00:12]
Yasmin Vesugin
How did I not know Rack has Adidas?
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Blake Mycosky
Cause there's always something new.
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- [00:59]
Yasmin Vesugin
Hey everybody. Welcome to here's the Scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Vesugin. It is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and traditionally this is a day for community service and thinking about how to make the world a better place. So I have been thinking a lot about mental health recently and how we can normalize conversations about our mental and emotional well being. That is why I wanted to talk to Blake Mykowski. Blake is the founder and former CEO of toms, the shoe brand known for pioneering the Buy one, give one model. For every pair of shoes you purchase, TOMS gives one to a child in need. The program and the company was hugely successful. They've donated more than 112 million pairs of shoes to people around the world. Blake sold toms back in 2019 and then we didn't hear from him for a while. Now he is back with a new nonprofit called Enough, through which he aims to promote mental health awareness. It's inspired by his own struggle with depression, which we talk about and a lot more. So enjoy our conversation and we'll be back tomorrow with regularly scheduled here's the Scoop programming. So I wanna bring in Blake Mycosky. He is the founder of TomShoes with the former title of Chief Shoe giver, which is my favorite thing I've ever heard in the entire world.
- [02:17]
Blake Mycosky
Thank you, thank you.
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Yasmin Vesugin
And you've got a new campaign going as well. Welcome, by the way.
- [02:21]
Blake Mycosky
It's nice to be here.
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Yasmin Vesugin
You are launching a mental health initiative and cultural intervention to help others navigate a healing journey when it comes to mental health and it's called Enough. Yes, what is it?
- [02:35]
Blake Mycosky
So Enough is very simple. It's a bracelet that I created for myself after I Recognized that for so many years, no matter what I accomplished externally, I never felt that I was enough. And unfortunately, after I sold Tom's shoes years ago, I got very depressed. And here I was kind of at the pinnacle of my success. I was married, I had kids, I had helped 100 million children get shoes. And yet I went into the deepest depression I've ever experienced. And I recognize now, after a lot of therapy and a lot of work on myself, that it all stemmed from not feeling enough. And so once I really started to heal that within myself, I wanted to help others. And so we just are launching enough where we sell these bracelets and 100% of the profits fund mental health organizations, which is something that I've become really passionate about. After going through such a hard time.
- [03:29]
Yasmin Vesugin
How does a guy like you not feel like you're good enough?
- [03:32]
Blake Mycosky
I think it's something that, you know, happened when I was really young. I think there was no, like, big t trauma that I had, But I just think that, you know, I was a competitive tennis player, and as good as I was, I still lost a lot of matches. And, you know, I didn't get the girl that I wanted in junior high or high school and didn't feel good enough then. And, you know, there was a bully that told me I wasn't very smart growing up that I have a very specific recollection of. And I think that I just went into kind of, I'm going to prove myself to the world and to myself from some of these negative experiences I had in childhood. And I did a very good job at it for a long time. You know, I had a lot of success in business and then Tom's, and I helped a lot of people. And I think that's why ultimately had the depression afterwards was because I accomplished everything I was told to do, and I still didn't feel good enough. And that was the scariest moment of all because there was nothing left to do. You know, I'd already done all the things, but that's what forced me to really go inside, to really start looking at this negative, you know, kind of limiting self belief that I was constantly repeating in my head, I'm not good enough, I'm not good enough, and then to change it. So one of the things that I did that is so simple but very profound is for 40 days, I did a meditation where I simply just said, I'm enough. I've always been enough. I am enough. I've always been for 20 minutes, 40 days in a row. And I believe and my psychiatrist believes, who does a lot of research on the brain, that I re patterned my neural pathways.
- [04:57]
Yasmin Vesugin
You know, sometimes being in the news business, we're going 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And it's sometimes in the quiet moments that I do get down and depressed. And it's why I want to keep going all the time. So I don't have those moments by myself to reflect on the things in which I feel like maybe I'm not good enough at.
- [05:12]
Blake Mycosky
Right.
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Yasmin Vesugin
And I think a lot of founders probably feel like that as well when they sell off their companies, their brands. You're going 100 miles an hour.
- [05:19]
Blake Mycosky
Yeah.
- [05:19]
Yasmin Vesugin
And then you sell toms.
- [05:20]
Blake Mycosky
Yeah.
- [05:21]
Yasmin Vesugin
And you probably woke up and went, okay, yeah. Now what do I do?
- [05:25]
Blake Mycosky
I've actually written about this and posted several times on social media about dopamine addiction.
- [05:30]
Yasmin Vesugin
Yeah.
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Blake Mycosky
I really believe I had a dopamine addiction for a long time because of all the excitement and all the external validation follows your toms. I sell the company had the super high dopamine hit, and then I'm like, now what? And I'm living in Jackson Hole, which was my dream because I wanted to be snowboarding every day. But I don't have a purpose. I don't have my community anymore, and I don't have all that dopamine, you know, that was coming in. And it's one of the reasons I think I got really depressed. And so one of the things that this kind of journey of really healing and kind of finding a way to feel that my worth and my value isn't just tied to my external accomplishments, but just who I am as a person and to do what I really hard work. I mean, it's not easy work to do these meditations and to sit quietly with yourself. But what it's done is I'm not so dependent on the stimulation and the constant going and going and going. And I can honestly say I enjoy my life so much more. Like, I have not felt peace like this ever. And it really all started when I finally just said, I'm enough, and you're enough. And this is silly. We're all enough. And then that's really what led to this whole idea of selling these bracelets and getting this message out there.
- [06:40]
Yasmin Vesugin
I want to see the bracelets.
- [06:42]
Blake Mycosky
I brought you some. Thank.
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Yasmin Vesugin
Oh, my God, I'm so excited.
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Blake Mycosky
So here's the box for you.
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Yasmin Vesugin
I'm so excited. So for those. Those that are listening and not watching, it's this beautiful green bracelet in which it says, enough and these are made where?
- [06:53]
Blake Mycosky
In India. So handmade in India. And these amazing women make them. They hand bead every single one. And we sell them in pairs because I think a big part of the experience of healing this is also sharing this with someone you care about. So you wear one and then you give one someone else. And there's this little. There's this little poem in there, and it starts with, I see you, the you behind the you. Not for anything you've done or anything you're going to do. And it goes back to, like, now you have a bond to that person. Like, when they're wearing the bracelet, they remember that you gave it to them. And so if they're having a hard day, then that's the person that they could call. And so I think that a lot of what our mental health crisis in this country stems from is loneliness and not really feeling like you have someone. And just if you have one person can make a big difference in the trajectory of someone's situation.
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Yasmin Vesugin
There's folks that would say it's a bracelet.
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Blake Mycosky
Yeah, I know. Just a bracelet. I know.
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Yasmin Vesugin
How is that going to solve my problems?
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Blake Mycosky
Exactly. And I'm not saying it won't raise mental health awareness. Yeah, well, I think in terms of awareness, I think that, you know, we've designed it to be, you know, distinctive. And I learned this from TOM shoes. I mean, when I launched toms, people were like, is that a, like, indoor house slipper? You know, like. I mean, it was a shoe that didn't look like any other shoe. And the thing about it was, though, before you bought your first pair, there were a lot of people that thought these shoes were. They were ugly, they weren't for them. And then, you know, the right people started wearing them and it became cool and fashionable. But I think I'm trying to think about what I learned from that with the bracelet, is that if we have something that's distinctive, that's unique, all of a sudden you're standing in line for Starbucks and you see someone else wearing one, you might say something to them.
- [08:33]
Yasmin Vesugin
That's true.
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Blake Mycosky
You might have a conversation. And so the idea is, yes, this is not going to solve our mental health crisis, but eight out of 10 young people don't feel that they're enough in our country. I mean, that is a crisis. I mean, the alarm should be going off. If we can just even have that go from 8 to 10 to 6 to 10. Just by creating the opportunity for people to have these conversations and to share this and to be seen by each other. That's a start.
- [09:00]
Yasmin Vesugin
I talked to someone over the break about the accessibility of mental health with AI.
- [09:05]
Blake Mycosky
Yes.
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Yasmin Vesugin
And there are a lot of pitfalls when it comes to using AI with mental health therapy, especially with young people. You know, that has to be worked out, and we've seen it play out in very negative ways. But there are some upsides, positives to using AI with, with mental health that you've actually engaged in as well.
- [09:22]
Blake Mycosky
Yeah. So I've recently. One of my favorite things as an entrepreneur is I get to advise and mentor other young entrepreneurs. So there's a couple founders that started this AI app called Sonia S o n I A dot A I and I' met them at a mental health conference and I was really impressed by their commitment to bringing access to people who couldn't afford it or frankly, don't even have time for it. I think that's one of the reasons why people don't do traditional therapy is it's really hard to, like, see your therapist on Wednesday at 2 o' clock and then you've got a work meeting and then you're embarrassed. You don't want to go into your room. There's all this, you know, stigma still around therapy. Yeah. So they've built, you know, they call it emotional support. And I've been trying it, and with Sonia, I find like 10 minutes every morning is amazing because I can check in. It's also like kind of therapy and almost like life coaching in a way, because it remembers everything that you tell it that makes you feel good or don't feel good, and then it recognizes the patterns and it's always available. I mean, that's the thing that's so powerful. So I do think that it's never going to replace the need for traditional therapists. And traditional therapists definitely have, at least today, an advantage of seeing so many different patients and bringing so many different experiences into the room. But I have found as someone who's struggling with mental health, that this Sony app has been so helpful to me. And that's why I'm, you know, donating my. Giving my time to helping these guys see if they can, you know, reach more people with it.
- [10:49]
Yasmin Vesugin
All right, we're going to take a very quick break, and we have more with Blake after the break.
- [10:59]
Blake Mycosky
Tonight's meal, Tilapia surprise. With boiled cabbage, begin cooking steps 1 through 50 now.
- [11:05]
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- [12:01]
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Blake Mycosky
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Yasmin Vesugin
And we're back with here's the scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Bisougi and I'm here with Blake Mykowski. I want to talk about the future of social entrepreneurship a little bit, especially because of what you created with the movement. I would say that you create with toms, this kind of buy one, give one.
- [12:33]
Blake Mycosky
Yes.
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Yasmin Vesugin
There's other companies that have followed your lead. Wary Parker.
- [12:36]
Blake Mycosky
Sure.
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Yasmin Vesugin
Bombus as well. But amidst that, it seems as if you've seen a lot of entrepreneurs, founders, billionaires, millionaires, drifting away from that model and away from, I would say investing in philanthropy.
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Blake Mycosky
Right.
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Yasmin Vesugin
Or donating. What do you make of that happening and why is it?
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Blake Mycosky
I really wish I had a good answer for this. I had so much hope after we started toms or as you said, Warby, Parker, Bombus, but lots of companies just in general, whether they were doing a one for one model, just we saw more companies and investing in giving back their communities, you know, really focusing on people, not just profits. And then it seems like in the last, I don't know, five, seven years, it's kind of gone backwards. Yeah, it's interesting. I haven't been as aware and involved in business because when I was suffering, I literally had no capacity. I mean, it's really amazing. Like for seven years I did not have one business idea and I've been an entrepreneur since I was 18. In the last nine months, I've co founded three companies that are all launching in the next year. And enough mental health initiative in nine months. It just shows that like if you're depressed, it's so hard to have self confidence. I didn't think I could ever be an entrepreneur again. I say all that because I really haven't been that involved in the last seven years in the business world. And I don't really understand why it has seemed to go backwards in terms of corporate social responsibility.
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Yasmin Vesugin
But you think about what people have actually gained from corporate social responsibility from giving back.
- [14:14]
Blake Mycosky
Yes.
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Yasmin Vesugin
Do you ever have conversations with founders, with business owners, with wealthy people saying why don't you give back more?
- [14:23]
Blake Mycosky
Yeah, I mean I think the thing that I have, I try to in a non preachy way. My, I have a lot of high net worth friends and, and I see sometimes what they do philanthropically and I'm just like, hold on, this doesn't make sense. Like if you just take 5% of your net worth, you're earning so much more money than you ever spend. Why would you not enjoy giving it away now?
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Yasmin Vesugin
And what do they say?
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Blake Mycosky
And some of them, and some of them like, well, I've set aside naming names half of my worth. So when I die it's going to go to this. And I'm like, but you're not going to get the joy of experiencing. Like, yeah, the giving is the fun part. You know, it's funny, one of my good friends, Sarah Blakely, she's a founder of Spanx. Yeah, Amazing woman, right? She gave me the best advice about money I've ever heard. She said, Blake, money should be fun to make, money should be fun to spend and money should be fun to give away. And I really think people don't realize how fun it is to give money away. Like I'd say I've had some of my greatest experiences and joys being a philanthropist or even just doing crazy acts of kindness for people that have, that have brought so much more joy than the cost of that. And, and, and, and you know, I might write another book about that someday.
- [15:34]
Yasmin Vesugin
Even for people that don't even necessarily have a lot of.
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Blake Mycosky
No, no, it doesn't. That's the whole point. It's so proportionate, but it is, it.
- [15:40]
Yasmin Vesugin
Almost for those people that have a lot of money. Yeah, they're just trying to hold on to it.
- [15:44]
Blake Mycosky
It's interesting, you know, but that's money in religion and politics are things that people, you know, sometimes are just better not talking with friends about because.
- [15:52]
Yasmin Vesugin
But what do these friends say to you when you say, why not, man?
- [15:56]
Blake Mycosky
I mean, some of them I will say, have Stepped up. You know, I'm thinking of a couple people in particular and I think that they are seeing the joy of it. I think also one of the ways that I've shared is to try to. Your kids involved? You know, mine are pretty young now, but my 11 year old's starting to think like, okay, we could either buy this or we could do this and we could give this so we could help this person. He's been very involved in like the creation. Besides the bracelets, we also sell like T shirts and hoodies and hats. And so he's been very excited with all his like 11 year old buddies, like making sure our hoodie is super cool. And so we also are doing that on the wearenough.org website. But yeah, I think it's, you know, you just gotta, you gotta unfortunately show people what's in it for them. And what's in it for them is the joy of giving, the connection of teaching their kids something that's super important. But I agree, I, I hadn't really thought about till this interview, but I do feel that just as a culture we've become less philanthropic in the last five, seven years.
- [16:49]
Yasmin Vesugin
Well, and you're going full bore on this because with enough, you're giving 100 away.
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Blake Mycosky
Yeah, I've, I've made a lot of money. I've been really blessed and I am in a position where I can give 100 of the profits. And I committed because sometimes as a startup organization it'll take a little while to be profitable. So I said, I said, okay, I'm going to put aside $3 million that a million dol to our nonprofit partners whether we make a profit or not. So we know that we can, you know, have these relationships with people like Active Minds or NAMI or Project Healthy Minds or the Kevin Love foundation that are doing amazing work on the ground. They know they're getting at least a million dollars every year for the next three years. Hopefully we're going to have incredible profits and donate tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars.
- [17:31]
Yasmin Vesugin
When you talked about how this is giving you more of the freedom that you didn't necessarily have with Tom's because you actually had to make money off of Tom's.
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Blake Mycosky
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was, I mean, I mean, you had to hustle. Yeah. And I had no investors, so it was all my money. So for those first, you know, four or years, like every dollar that came in was going right back into buying inventory, making payroll. Yeah. This is a much less stress environment.
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Yasmin Vesugin
What is the one thing you want to leave folks with. When it comes to mental health awareness, and especially for individuals that are struggling, knowing what you have been through and the success you've achieved, I think the.
- [18:03]
Blake Mycosky
Number one thing is if you're really struggling, please ask for help. I can't say that enough. It is really scary when your mind is not being kind to you and when you feel like you're losing yourself, it can really spiral fast and it really almost killed me. And so if anyone is listening right now, there is hope. Please reach out. There's amazing resources. Project Healthy Minds, one of our partners has a lot of online resources. But whether it's reaching out to a therapist or a friend, at least tell one person how bad it is if it's really bad. So that's the most important thing because I think that that can help prevent a lot of bad things happening. A little less heavy than that is I think that no matter where we are in our life or what our goals are or what we're trying to accomplish, there are going to be times when we have imposter syndrome or we don't feel enough. And that's normal. Let's normalize it. That's part of just being human. There's nothing necessarily wrong with you. And there's also nothing wrong with needing a little help, with needing to be able to wear a bracelet or have a conversation with someone about, you know, there are times I don't feel like I'm enough. And I know that deep down when I slow down, I am enough because I'm here, I'm breathing, I'm having this experience. And there's just enough people now that have had success and have realized that that didn't fulfill what they were hoping. So, you know, there's nothing wrong with success, there's nothing wrong with ambition. But it needs to be, you know, kind of in the context of your self worth. Who you are, why you matter to the people that really love you isn't based on your accomplishments. And if it is, they're not the right people for you. And so to me, I guess I just leave it with is that I am so grateful that I had the journey I had because now I really do feel enough. And I really do feel peace and I don't feel the pressure that I used to feel. And that's a nice way to live. I mean, if you're not experiencing it now, I can promise you, like if you and really kind of ground yourself in, you're enough. And it's not relying on your external achievements. It's just a more peaceful, kinder way to live to yourself. And that's what I hope for everyone. That's why I started enough. That's why I'm trying to get as many people in the world to wear the bracelets. And I'm really grateful to come here. And I love the bracelet on you. It looks great.
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Yasmin Vesugin
I love the bracelet. I feel enough. Are you enough today?
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Blake Mycosky
I am enough. You've reached it. Yeah.
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Yasmin Vesugin
Yeah.
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Blake Mycosky
And enough is not a destination to what you said. Like, I guess that's the other thing that's important is a journey. You don't just feel enough the rest of your life, but having a little bracelet, having a friend, having someone to talk to, these little things, they. They really help.
- [20:38]
Yasmin Vesugin
Thank you, Blake.
- [20:39]
Blake Mycosky
Thank you. This is fun.
- [20:41]
Yasmin Vesugin
If you or someone you know is in Crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or chat live at 988lifeline.org you can also visit speakingasuicide.com resources for additional support. All right, that is going to do it for us at Heroes of Scoop. From NBC News, I'm Yazm Basugian. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. And if you like what you heard, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. We'll see you tomorrow.
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Blake Mycosky
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Blake Mycosky
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Blake Mycosky
Fast.
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