When you go to Bunchies, you walk into a store, you talk to an informed salesperson, they give you great information about what's going to be perfect for you and your feet, right? Okay, we're going to find out more about that on today's episode of the Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong, buying, starting feet first because you know those things are your foundation. And we break apart the propaganda and the anthology, sometimes the straight up lies you've been told about what it takes to run, walk, hike, play, do yoga, crossfit, pay up with your kids, whatever you like to do and do that enjoyably and effectively and efficiently. Did I mention enjoyably?
Yeah, I know, it's a trick question. I said all the time. So I'm up to the session here and coast for this. I'm also the co-founder and CEO of Zero Shoes, go to zeroshoes.com for awesome footwear.
And we call this the Movement Movement because we're turning a movement about natural movement, letting your body do what it's made to do. If you want to be part of the movement, it's really easy. Go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. There's no secret handshake, there's no cost, no obligation.
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So, Joe Burnham, welcome. Thank you. You might notice Joe is wearing a Zero Shoes T-shirt full disclosure. He works here now.
We will get to that in a bit. But Joe, prior to working here, tell people what you did. I was a F-word sales specialist. I mean, the part where you were dancing in a time nightclub.
Oh, well that one, okay. So, yeah, so you were a sales specialist at a store. Let's just say it's a three-dimensional store. Yes.
Why don't we love? But, you know, your story, I would argue is indicative of many places. I mean, since you've been talking to the retail council, we have now, have you heard anything different than what your experience was? If anything, it's probably that our side did more as far as training goes.
So, I feel like we received more training. He's putting air quotes in training. We'll get to that one. Adjust this a little so you're afraid of it.
Okay, so let's just start at the beginning. I'm assuming growing up and what you're growing up, the idea of selling footwear was a fantasy prank. Oh, absolutely. Does anybody else have that dream?
What young American boy doesn't say astronaut, then shoe salesman? There we go. That's right. I was getting in touch with my inner-type buddy.
Oh my god. I totally forgot. Holy moly. That's embarrassing.
I actually wrote an episode of that show. What? So, it looks like all the things you discover are moving the amount. I have so much in air.
That's not... Anyway, it looks like... Okay, so no. So, if you did not grow up wishing this someday, you would be checking out people's feet, figuring out what she was right for them, and away we go.
Somehow, God's name would disagree. So, it was actually a point in life where everything is like, I knew it'd sort of fall apart, life was a train wreck. I needed some place to land and just find a figure of things out. Can you say life was a train wreck?
Please tell me your previous job was not train conductor. No, no, it was not that kind of train wreck. It was not that kind of train wreck. Because it's an old Stephen Wright joke, I'd like to die.
I hope I die pleasantly in my sleep, unlike my father's pet bus passengers. I totally destroyed that. It's a mundane morning, so I'm entitled to destroy a joke. I was looking for a gig.
I was walking around town near one of their big stores in downtown Denver, and I thought, you know what, I remember growing up and loving the outdoors, and loving getting outside, and camping, and doing all this kind of stuff. I should just apply there. I mean, like, when I was a kid, I used to love it when we'd go to the Oregon Grand Prix Company. pizza company.
It was a pizza company on West Alameda and right next door was the original version of this store. I'm stuck on the working grinder pizza so you know I have to ask. Did it have a monkey? Yes.
I don't recall petting the monkey probably because I was so obsessed with after dinner and after pizza I would get to go next door and check out all the equipment and hang out. So you were more obsessed with that. I had to work with it than petting a monkey. At that point I had to like kind of call all and pet take the rules and put it in the monkey.
I know. One of my post retirement fantasies is somehow getting to play with a baby chip. Not the same as a monkey but no less. There you go.
I like to do a sorry to say who doesn't have that on their bucket list. Everybody that I know does. And I have a whole story about pet the monkeys from when we were in India and that's for another podcast. So you're walking right down to how you decide.
I see the place I'm like all right I'm going to apply. I went they didn't even have like they weren't even like listening to themselves the time at the time. But I went ahead and applied about some great memories there at least it's a place that I have to come in a little bit of time to get some things out. That sort of thing.
Figure out what I want to do next in life and low and behold they contacted me a couple months later and were like interested in interviewing and some interviews and something like that. Like five hundred and something people that apply when they weren't posting a job and they ended up hiring I think 16 of us when it was all said and done. Well and early on I ended up getting sort of like slated in footwear and I think some of it's because we did this. Our big interview or main interview was a group interview and so it was like 30 something candidates in the room and I made it like two of those and we were broken off into teams and we had to like pitch a product and somehow my group ended up just being handed a shoe and being told we need to pitch the shoe and it was it was shortly before Steve Jobs died.
I went full on Steve Jobs Apple presentation mode like I didn't have the black shirt on but I because I didn't know what was happening but I got that I was like all right we've got all of our exciting news for today. We have some amazing new technological breakthroughs that are going to wow all of you today and as we get started talking about this fascinating. Right there he was never that. I mean he was just saying it was never that.
And I think that there was a little bit of me coming through. Yeah. I wasn't quite as I started introducing like I would like to introduce you to our chief a sole engineering officer. So and so who's going to come up and talk about the design of the soul of the shoe and then someone who's going to talk about the upper and they went through highlighting all of these features as we went through the process.
I would have been a fan of the US sports bra. There we go. We will not get into some of the questions I got asked while those just where I work in women's concerning sports bras. I'll share with you another time.
Definitely hear that afterwards. That will be the outtakes. So they called you back. They said we want you in because they put you in for the next step.
Yeah, just throw you in the floor. In fact, they have two training sessions for footwear. They're like I think it'd be 10 total hours. It's five hours a piece.
We had two five hours for the marathon training sessions. Not about marathons. Yeah. Yes.
And so what did they actually teach you in those in the 10 hours? So they sort of started with foot biomechanics. Really? They did exactly that.
They talked about how the foot and in movement, they would talk about the foot and how to do an emotion, a good gate. You come down on the heel and you work your way through the entire foot. Sort of having a minor pronation and pushing off of the big toes. It has an angular movement there.
And as your foot comes down, it basically everything softens. It turns into a bag of bones that help it absorb impact. And then it goes taught to spring you off. And yeah, so that's where we began teaching this.
It was actually a guy that had, and since then this company is upgraded, upgraded their entire training. So it basically all follows the model that this individual had. But he grew up in a town that, to the foot where was the industry that they did. He had built the shoes and done all kinds of things with shoes like most of his life.
How old was he? He was about six years old. So he grew up in the era where everything you just said was already a generation deep. I mean, but let's just do his job when he was in his mid 20s.
So that would have made that one. So that would have been early 80s by that point. We were already into the idea of padded L-A to L-L, much control, art support and etc. So now it makes sense.
If it was like 80 years old now, then I would say, how the hell did he think that? Okay, I keep growing up in that environment. God, all that stuff. You know, swallow the cool edge.
Just believe what he was being taught because that's what I did when I sat there and I listened to it and I heard all of this stuff. And then realizing, okay, so if you're coming down on that, that keel and it's round, then some people are, and I didn't put together the idea that, oh, it's because you're landing on something round, you're going to end up rolling off in one direction or the other. Well, there is even if you are landing mid for a foot, there is a rolling, but it's side to side, not back to front. So you land basically on the outside of your foot-ish and then you roll towards the inside.
So you start with what's hell-subination, the outside of your foot, roll to the frontation, and you do. The last thing, assuming you have normal feet and not more to toe, where your first toe is shorter, then your second, you do, that last motion is your big toe, which engages your arch. But anyway, suffice it to say, he's teaching what your company is essentially taught. Yeah, and you guys are all drinking the cool edge.
Absolutely. God, and you didn't have any sense. Like you just said, you didn't have any sense to question or think, well, what? Yeah, I did.
Well, I mean, this is a guy that's been doing for a number of years, which had an amazing knack for looking at people's feet and to grab something and they were thrilled with what they brought out for him. So it had a lot of gift that way. And so I actually not just in those two sessions, but like in the weeks that followed, once I was on the floor, I kept myself in earshot of him, like, religiously for like six months to just like soak up and sponge up as much as I possibly could. And so the joke became that I was like the junior version of him and sort of became one of those key people on the floor.
So when people weren't sure what to do, they would come to me and ask me, what do you think about this? This is what's going on with the footage. It's going to not much. So what kind of things were people selling?
Were people selling? Were coming to you saying how do we deal with this? And so what kind of things they were coming to do with? And so they would come in and it would be things like this person is complaining about some media only pain or this person is talking about.
So it's some aches in their hips. And or it would be, I'm just, this is what looks like it came straight out of bedrock. What the heck can I put on this thing? Or, yeah, they're just starting and stopping cars with their feet.
So when people come to you with those things, what would you then recommend? I mean, what were you pulling off the shelf that was then making them go, you know, yeah, that's right in hand and you might not even know you might. Yeah, quite a bit of a bit of it was based on, for me, a lot of people came to use some foot shape. Like the bedrock footer, like somebody who basically had like a toothpick coming up the bottom of their shooting strap or leg.
It was about knowing and understanding the amount of volume inside of different shoes and being able to sort out what is actually going to have in the room for this person, what isn't. When it was things like, you know, hit, paint, a lot of that gets credited to like sort of over-supernations here on the outsides and so you put some stress on the IT bands and so it was trying to find something that might invite people to not necessarily roll so much on the external side. It was like in media me pain and stuff like that. It was more of an over-pronation to how can we prop the feet up a little bit that way or how can we throw some, you know, some post-market insults or something inside of their.
All of those kinds of things that are designed to fix and balance out. It was balanced out these problems because this is how a foot is supposed to work and we're going to force all feet to work according to this model. I'm guessing the proof of what you're doing would be people putting something on being the store knowing that feels comfortable. It was always comfortable or I can move around and it doesn't bother me.
I didn't have customers who come back after the fact and go, oh my gosh, that was the most amazing thing. I don't hurt you. I used it. I did.
I did. So I actually had people come back and I would say now that I was just figuring out, okay, we created a problem by putting this elevated key along here. And so we created that sort of problems. I'm trying to undo all the problems we just made with the corrections that I'm coming after the fact.
And so that's how I do it afterwards. That's how I view it today. No, that's interesting. It's one of the things that I say is if footwork companies are doing such a good job, then why is there a multi-billion dollar market for aftermarket products to fix the job that those shoes are doing?
Because the shoe companies have 50 years to figure it out. Why haven't they? Well, I think they probably tell you this because we're all especially individual snowflights with unique feet. So we've got to get stuff that matches to your feet.
Although that doesn't make sense of why a post-factor is all that's exactly the same for every person you pull it off. Well, it's even funnier because if that's true, then they could be the ones selling all the different insults instead of turning it over on money to some other companies. So there's a bit of a cognitive glitch there. So this was going well for you to take it.
Yeah, I did very, very well in their model and they liked me and I was doing great in the store. And they were having as many hours as they possibly could. And so everything seemed to be going fantastic. So it sounds like there was an inciting something, incident or burgeoning is something that made you start to think differently about what you did.
Yeah, and it really all comes back to a 10-12 year old and one of those spinner wheels where you can win prizes. So I was hanging out with it also about funnel cakes. No funnel cakes. Okay, so it wasn't a comfortable.
No, it was actually an outdoor retailer, an outdoor retail convention event, an ex-voe for retailers to come and discover all the new products and make place in order. And that sort of thing. And so I was hanging out with my kid. It was the November ones.
And they had a bunch of ski stuff. And my kid was really in the scene at the time. And so I wanted to bring in the check out all this stuff and show it off. And so we're wandering around the rest of the show and checking things out.
And then they see a spinner and they're like, oh spinner. And off the kid goes. It was like, you know, I'm just like tailing behind them. So by the time I get there, they're already spinning away.
And they've got a couple of employees from this company talking to them. I think I know this company. I think you probably do. I'd be incorrect in guessing it was my company.
Yes, it was your company. All right, now it's all coming. How did this spinner land issues? Anyway, so I'm like the kids having a great time.
I walk up, I start talking to the person standing to boot. They start twisting the shoe around and doing all this stuff and talking about all this hyper flexible movement stuff. And being a super well-trained footwear fitting professional who'd been doing this at that point for like seven years. Because you know, it was one of those transition jobs.
It just didn't work. It was just a couple of months. Yeah. I'm looking at these things and going, there's no way on earth.
I could ever wear that. And I would simply die. If I tried to put that on my feet, I would be so freaking miserable. And I'm not saying any of this out loud, but that's everything that's going through my head is as the shoes showed off to me.
But at the same time, staff people would be in super cool. They'd be like, oh, they want a pair of shoes. You're going to have to come up for offices because we don't have the kids shoes here. And so they invited us up to the offices here in Brookville.
And I was like, all right, you're super cool. My kids excited tonight. We're going to go up. And so we come up and I try on some stuff.
You didn't try to put it out of the effort. I didn't. I didn't. I was here too.
Like, yeah, this is ridiculous. It's not a word. Day before Thanksgiving 2018. We come up here.
Yeah. And I ended up walking out with a pair of shoes. I'm sorry to put them on. What happened?
I put them on. Well, that's interesting. I'm not sure. Okay.
Well, it feels good enough now. I can stand on some of these bouncy things. Okay. Little slack locks and other things that happen to be here in the trying on space.
It's like, all right. Well, I didn't have that immediate, loud, blown away moment. I think I had so much skepticism about the whole thing. I thought, all right, it's enough.
I'll give it a shot. I'll see how this works. My kid was like, I want them. And was happy as can be and running around often to do whatever.
But I'm deeply skeptical. I'm like, all right. I'll wear them around the house for a little bit and say, I feel like I'm like, all right. I thought, well, I've got to go to a dentist department.
The dentist is walking distance. I'm going to walk to the dentist. And so I walked to the dentist and back and thought, okay, that was necessarily what I did. And so I wore them more and more around.
And then finally, about a month after I got them, I was like, all right, I'm just going to wear them for a day to work. And I am certain I'm going to come home and my knees are going to be filling me and I'm going to be miserable. But I'm like, I've got to go and like find this out. I will deal with misery.
And that's true. I mean, like six months before I found the shoes, I attempted to run a marathon. And made it to mile 17. And it was one of those big cushioned, you know, super foamy shoes.
Yeah. And made it to mile 17. And my knees said, we hate you. We're done.
And they just were, I was dying. And then I was like, all right, but I'm stubborn. I will finish this marathon because I said I was going to finish it. So I hobbled the last nine miles.
And I made it. I finished. Yeah, because that's important because that's important. I was finishing regardless of whether your body is going to tell me.
I couldn't get out of bed the next day. But anyway, I can deal with some stuff. I'm like, I'm going to go to work and I'm going to find out how these things feel. I'm sure I'm going to be miserable when I get home.
I got home at 9 and fell great. And I was like, I don't know what this is. I don't understand it. It doesn't make any sense.
But I'm going to keep wearing them. And like a month later, I was applying for a job at a different shoe company. And embodies some of our principles, but not all of them. I'm not sure I knew this, but okay.
Okay. Yeah. They do have that foot shaped toe box going on. They are like, okay, now you're flying.
I know you're flying. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
I got an interviewer call back or anything like that. But wait, hold on. Hold on. Hold on.
You put on our shoes. You're walking around. You're feeling good. You go to work and then you think it's going to suck at the end of the day.
You feel great. And then you apply for a job at another company. That's what I want everybody. But I want everybody.
We paid money. You have already hired that one. I would have come over then. But you guys weren't quite ready.
So anyway, I put on a pair of their shoes for a day. And even just any cushion underneath my foot, a few hours in the day, my whole body began to feel miserable and disjointed and out of place. And I'm like, this sucks. I'm actually really glad I didn't get the job.
Because, you know, I'm from the miserable. But, and so at that point, from that point on, it's been like nothing but zero. So what was it like you're at the store? You're wearing our shoes.
They are not selling our shoes. I imagine that might have started some interesting conversations both from customers and from employees. So employee employees were asking me about them all the time trying to figure out what the heck it was and why I was wearing it. And how people were like, wait a second.
It goes against everything we've heard you talking about and training us and teaching us and telling us. And they're like, what the heck happened? So there was that whole line. And so I had to start rethinking my entire selling process that way.
And I have lots of customers. Like, oh my gosh, where did you get those? And so I'd be like, oh, these are from zero shoes. You can't buy them here.
But if you had up to Broomfield, out of their offices, they do sell them. And I'm sure that was totally fine to imagine that you're turning my money and seeing people up here. Well, it got really rough that way. It didn't get really rough.
I mean, I was just honest. And my managers at that point, they valued what I brought to the floor and the rest of the team and all those conflicts and nothing. They were willing to give me some slack. But there were times like we did have a minimal shoe on the wall.
That was the minimalist one. It was the minimalist one. I think it already moved away from being a truly minimal shoe to having a four mill drill. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. There was another one by a company that starts with M. It's so, I was like, I'll say that was narrow.
So we're like, we should talk about my feet. They were too narrow for my feet. Yeah. Well, and we would sell those.
And basically I would say, okay, this is what we have in that range. If you want a good one, you need to go up. I'm not going to argue with that. Okay.
And I was honest with customers. I was like, if you want something that's going to be more durable, if you want something that's actually truly involved, it doesn't start attacking in this art stuff or do this weird shape, you know, some of these factors. This is where you want to go get it. And so I'd be sending customers up here on the regular.
And a lot of them would be coming and looking for something like that. And so I kept telling our customers who are just at the name of the website company. It's not like no one figured it out. And again, this is one of our favorite retail partners.
We've been having a great relationship with them. In 2019, recently, yeah, 2019, they picked up the Z-Trail kind of as a test. And within eight weeks, we're like, hey, we're a mainer here. And we're like, no, we actually need to sell some of that stuff.
But I know that in the old resort, they were selling out of it before they even knew they had it before we were walking and asking. And then Elena and I, we walked in and we were looking for it. And we said, we actually said, do you know what the zero issues are? We're looking for zero drops.
She was like, no, zero issues. You guys, we have those. And then we turned around and we were on an end cap. We just had a whole wall, basically.
And the people on the floor didn't even know. So, yeah. And then we began it. And it's very different now.
Yeah. So, yeah. So, so you're still running a couple of things. You're still putting people to us.
You're doing it. Oh, he's 19. Yeah. And so, but all these conversations happened.
And I'm having to start rethinking how I go about doing my entire footwork or something process because I can't just like keep putting people in the same stuff and feel good about it. And so, I actually got to a point where when people would come in and have some sort of issue or problem, and then we'd complain about something's bothered in this way or that way. My standard response, we think, all right, I would ask, are you training for something right now? And if the answer was yes, I'd like to just try and like resolve the problem for this race.
And then come back and talk to me when you're done and we'll try and find a long-term solution. Yeah. Or then I would ask, and then the other question I would ask is if they weren't or training for something that moment I say, all right, do you want a band-aid or do you want to move towards something that will actually result in the issue? Clever.
And I mean, it's begging a question, but I assume most people would say, let's resolve it. Actually, no. Most people were like, like, they're all Americans. They're all like, I want the quick fix.
I don't want to have to take time to adapt to something or experience something different. So, a lot of people would be like, no, I want to just make me feel better right now. Right. That's nothing.
Yeah. But a number of people would be like, all right, let's talk about this and we start talking about gait and adapting gait and we start talking about some of the biomechanics that way. And then some of them shifts and some of the things that are involved in a shift from a traditional shoot which is going to force that heel impact to something a little more mid-foot, that kind of thing. And so how you land and how you move these over to all those kinds of things.
During this process, were there representatives from, well, I want to say normal typical shoot companies coming in and pitching you on what they're doing and how to sell their stuff? All the time. And that's where you learn most, if you're not learning from somebody at your store or from something to stand down to the company you're learning from, the manufacturers and the people are representing as well. And the manufacturers and the people are representing as well.
So there's always clinics going on and people will come in and talk about the new line and the new product and go forward and qualify customers and all of these different pieces and run through sales exercises and all that sort of stuff. So they're teaching you how to regurgitate what they're believing. Exactly. And was there any time, was there any time, was it consistent with what you would learn to begin?
Oh, yeah. And was there any time after you started kind of questioning the whole everything they were saying, did you ever say anything or just listen politely and walk out or how that would have been on? Usually I listen politely and it was kind of that way. But then I'd be wearing my zeros and so I would kick on questions and start, you know, is that my spark of conversation on occasion where we could talk about them?
I'd talk about sort of my experience that way and some of the shifts that had happened. And just try and pop a little, I'm sure. Oh, yeah. They decided to take their donuts or bagels or whatever they brought in back.
Holding around into holes. That's the requirement is round hole food. Yes. Because you know, you bring sales people coffee and they're going to sell your shoes.
Wow. So were you getting any special promotion things? Were they doing anything to try to motivate you to sell a particular shoe as well? Sometimes not in the shoe department so much because there's a limit on how much employment you can get into like a gift format.
Sometimes it'd be like a raffle kind of deal where you can win a pair of shoes or something like that. But nothing promotion like if you sell this mini, you will get plenty of that sort of stuff. Other parts of the store where they had stuff that was less than 50 bucks. They could do that.
So I now have a massive collection of headlines because our store always won the headland competition. Have you not heard of eating? That's what I do with my shoes when I get to this. I sold everything on eBay and I will be able to do it again.
Because why my selling shoes I think are bad for people to someone and then I got a 50 bucks. Or I make a day up so I was on. So, yeah, I literally can't imagine. I get what you're saying and I can see how you could, in a certain sense, compartmentalize these ideas.
But man, I have a hard time doing that. When it became increasingly difficult this time when it became more and more difficult and the more I knew and the better I felt. And like when I went and I ran a Spartan Ultra. So it's a 60 or 50k 60 obstacle race.
I love 60 obstacles. I hate the anything with the K at the end. If I could just do the obstacles. It was like, remember, you're not on this.
I don't think you remember network battle the stars? No, it was basically just all the celebrities doing obstacle course things. And basically, it was like a Spartan race without the running. But there was also a team thing.
So it was a tug of war and other crazy things as a kid. I was like, I'm gonna become famous just so I could be on that show. I think I'm gonna redo that show. So anyway, so you're gonna have to find time.
So, but at this race I did this race. And so longer than that marathon that I had run a year and a half before, 11 months after I put on zero streams for the first time I ran a pair of teraflexes. And I... Over your head?
Yeah, there we go. There we go. I popped up in the morning. Body felt great.
You know, throwing some clothes and went to drinking with friends. Which is exactly what you want to do the day after you've drained every bit of nutrient out of your body. Yeah, I can see that. So again, so it's getting more and more difficult.
And it was their point where you just went, I can't do this. Oh yeah, yeah, it landed in the spot where it was like, yeah, it was too much of an internal conflict. Putting stuff into people, into products that I didn't believe in. And that I didn't, you know, it was not...
I just didn't feel good about what I was doing that way. And there was some other factors that made me just also a compound at once. I was just like, all right, is zero hiring for anything? Anything?
We had you cleaning bathrooms. That was a little bit of a... Yeah, I was giving a little tiny toothbrush. And most people start on customer service side because they just need to understand how to deal with people.
Yeah. And our products since, like you said, you know, a lot of people with the idea of something that would actually be beneficial. I'm not sure. You know, I mean, people have ideas about what they think is valuable.
They just have to keep trying the same thing over and over and over and looking for a different version of that same thing. So to learn how to talk to people about it being very different, something different story. Is there anything else about the whole, you know, care and feeding of a shoe sales person that would surprise people or shock them or infer it to them that we left out? No, because I touched on, like, literally there were days where people brought us coffee.
It's like, if we're going to bring out a couple of people with often say, hey, that's a recommendation. And so we, you know, recommend a couple of students and be like, oh, I want to bring up their thing. Just a little more variety. And they were literally days.
I was like, all right, this brand brought me coffee this morning. I'm bringing one of their shoes out now. There's a guy, I think it's a Dharvesty University named, down, Shaldana. He's a Kugga psychologist.
And he talks about reciprocation. He gives something, something they feel obligated to give you something back. And that little thing you can give can be a little thing. It's really shocking how effective that is on human beings.
And we feel guilty if we don't do something because we just got a donut or a cup of coffee. I'm known for being immune to things like that. This variation I think actually, like, I were in Hawaii before we got married. This right after 9-11, like two weeks after 9-11 for friends wedding.
And all the hotels, restaurants were empty. And so we went to this five-star restaurant for a brunch. And I got to get an automated. And there's a guy, the other guy has a thing of caviar, right next to him.
And I mean, a comment about the caviar being right there. And he said, yeah, they moved it here because when it was just with the other seafood on the buffet area, people would take, like, tons of caviar. But they put it next to me. And if you're really self-conscious, and they don't do that.
And I'm kind of a schooner. Yeah, I know that is true. I just love the caviar. I can totally do that.
I think it's probably the other thing to talk about would be the response because everybody's trained in a certain way of thinking about all this stuff. So I remember one day I had this super-fit young woman come in. She was getting ready to go to Vietnam. And she was getting back packing for Vietnam.
And so she wanted something super live, super pliable. People kept putting her in, like, some big boobs and shoes that were clunky and out of these soles. And she was like, this doesn't feel good. This was my feet.
I don't like this woman. And so I came in and was just talking in this thing to her. And she was like, yeah, she's this ultimate yogi kind of like. And she's like, I hate shoes.
And running through all this stuff. And I finally was like, okay, this goes against everything I have been trained and told to suggest that I should do right now. But let me go grab you something. And at the time, we had some some people, and their trail runnages.
And so I brought her up here of those. She put them on. And she was like, this is it. Like that.
And off she went. And the manager watched her head out with a pair of those. And she was like, what on earth are you doing? She's going to go in.
But it was like the cyclist. She's going to injure herself. She's going to do this. And I was like, it's the only thing that was working for her.
And so I'm going to trust that she knows her body enough to know what it can do and can't do. She was like, I never did. I wish I had some follow. That was one.
I really wish I had some follow-up on. Yeah, that would be good. That would be this really good. Now it's just nearly people hanging in.
It's going to be very disappointing. Absolutely fantastic. I died on the trip. But it was one of those bosses that went off.
And she was trying to stop us with her feet like for instance. We already got through. So, happily we've just heard from tens of thousands of people who've done things like that. And she was like, that's a big deal.
And had great times. So anything else we left out? I don't think so. And now the R&I is really, really expanded what they're carrying from us.
They're having great experiences with us. Have you talked to people who you were with back then and seeing what they're having in their mind? Oh, yeah. I go back in.
And actually, it started happening even before I left. I hold bandaid analogy. One guy was getting ready to go and do the training for all the new footwear hires. I just want to make sure I get this right.
So when people come down and do this, then they create a set of problems and a set of problems in this whole chain effect. So all of these technologies that we built out are just trying to undo the problems we created by this original, raising up the key. I was like, yep, you've got it. And he was like, okay.
And so that's what he trained the new employees on. Oh my God, that's brilliant. I mean, it really is my fantasy as what we're working towards is getting people to understand this natural story so that it's the counterbalance, not even the counterbalances. The thing that pulls me right out from underneath is this idea of the 50-year-old intervention of padded, mucher, all the way to the other side.
And it really is going to start. I don't know if it's going to start, but one of the critical components of that is the people on the floor because somebody walks in the store. They don't know what they need. They don't know what they want.
They've only seen one thing for 50 years or as long as they've been alive. And they're really... And they maybe have read a magazine that reviews some product or they've heard from a friend who said, you've got to try this. This is the most comfortable thing I've ever worn.
Right. But by large, I mean, it's amazing. And we have so many people email me and go, hey, I can write articles for you. I don't want to do that.
And they always come back with something saying, well, you need a good support. And they're like, oh, how did you come to that? When you looked at our brand, this is just where people's mind naturally go. And I just added an article today that was talking about this is because a planet fasciitis is too much running or too being too heavy.
It's like, no, that's not at all. And this whole thing about getting a little article, but it's just amazing to me how so deeply ingrained these things are, these ideas that should come as a goodness. The people who then go and do research will still bump into these old stories and repeat them as if they're true. And this is the thing we're trying to eradicate.
And obviously now you're here helping do that. Yeah. I can't think anything else else. This way, if anyone else has any questions, what's here more from Joe?
Yeah, I was telling her email. Got to go to Joe at zero. That was easy enough. So, too, thank you so much for this story because we haven't really done this even though.
I mean, I knew the gist of it, but not all the details which makes me want to stream. But that's a total pleasure. And of course, pleasure having her. Oh, even better.
No, one last best thing of the group. Okay. So the guy that originally trained me in all this stuff sent me a message like a month ago saying, is zero hiring? Oh my God.
Are you kidding? No. Oh my God. I just told you this.
And I also told you this. When I do that information, I say, I think that we were following up on a couple possibilities. I'm not going to ask that since then, but we'll ask. Yes, we will ask this.
That's scary. So just his process over time and his evolution, as he's discovered, moving for himself, he's gone in the same place. Really? I mean, this really is the answer to what's going to take is people who just hear nothing.
They get curious. They try. They have the experience in which you have the experience. It's all over.
So awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Thank you. And everyone else, thank you for any questions or follow up for Joe. Once again, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com, find all the previous episodes, all the place you can find the podcast, pretty much every fine podcast, and all the ways you can interact with us on social media, on YouTube and Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, et cetera, et cetera. Any questions from me or recommendations people you think should be on the show, the including people who think I have a little cranial reorientation syndrome.
I'm happy to have that conversation with people who think I'm completely full of it. And just drop me an email, move, mov, e at jointhemovementmovement.com. If you want to find some great shoes, like Jo's been talking about, like I've been talking about, they're running zero shoes.com, xeroshoes.com, xeroshoes.com. If you're a computer accident like that, you'll still get to us.
But most importantly, just go out and have fun, and live life-free first.