Welcome to the Movement Movement. The podcast for people who want the truth about having a healthy, happy, strong body. Remember, your body was meant to move. Now here's your host, Stephen Sashin.
You want to save the world, don't you? Who doesn't? One of the best ways you can do that is by buying products from companies that also want to save the world, that have a mission of saving the world. That do things like you know if you buy one of their products, they give one to someone in need.
Really good way to do it, don't you think? Okay, maybe not what you think. And let's find out more on today's episode of the Movement Movement Podcast. The podcast where people who want to know the truth about how to have a happy, healthy, strong body beat first because those things are your foundation and where we break down and look at and debunk and demethologize and cut through the propaganda, the mythology, sometimes the outright lies that you may hear about what it takes to walk, to run, to dance, to play, to do crossfit and yoga, whatever it is that you enjoy to do that more enjoy, bleed more efficiently, more effectively for the rest of your life.
I'm Stephen Sashin from zeroshoes.com, the host of the Movement Movement Podcast where our goal is really simple. We're trying to make natural movement the obvious, better, healthy choice the way natural food is. That's why we're saying we're creating a movement and we would like your help because the only way this happens is from people like you who experience the value and benefits of natural movement and share that with your friends. So if you want to be part of our tribe, please subscribe.
Go to jointhemovementmovement.com where you'll find all the places you can interact with this podcast on YouTube and Facebook and Instagram and everywhere else where you can subscribe and like and review and share etc. etc. You know how to do it. I won't bore you with the details.
So let's jump in shall we? Oh, first things first, we always like to start with a movement since it is the movement movement podcast. So here's a really, really simple one that I do a lot of times per day and I really like it and encourage you to do it as well and it goes just like this. Lift your shoulders up towards your ears, roll them back as far as you can and do that.
You're going to be squeezing your shoulder blades together as much as you can. Like really, really squeeze them as hard as you can. You're kind of pulling, I'm pulling my elbows back as well when I do this. You can do this with your arms down, but it will pull your elbows back when you squeeze your shoulder blades together and then let your shoulders go down and then relax and see what that does to your posture.
Should open up your chest. Should realign your shoulders. Do it again. Should roll them back around, pull tightly with your scapula with your shoulder blades pulling together and then let them go down and relax.
If you're doing the seated or standing, it's going to change your posture and see just do that a few times a day. You may need to build some additional strength in your back to hold your shoulders in place and that's a whole topic for another podcast. But let's jump into the issue at hand. This is kind of a follow up to the podcast that I did, the rant that I did frankly about sustainability.
And it's very similar in many ways and fundamentally it's because there are companies who are trying to hyper simplify a message that makes you feel really good and makes you want to buy their product. It makes you feel special when you buy their product and you wear or use their product. Even more special when you see somebody else using or wearing their product because you have this instant kind of like, look at us, we're cool and saving the world. Maybe it's not so simple.
So let's just start with the most classic model that people know, the Buy 1 Give 1, not invented by Tom shoes, but certainly made popular by Tom shoes. I'm not going to say that it's a bad thing right away. Again, I'm just going to say this is not as simple as people want to make it. And I'm hoping that you decide to take a deeper look at the companies that you're involved with and the missions that they have and how they're engaging it.
In fact, some companies right now, it seems like their entire reason for living is because of the social mission that they have. They say that that's why they're founded, that's what they do with their money, and that's their whole reason for being. Either way, this whole sort of giving things to people model is, let's just say fraught with peril and I'm going to confess, we haven't figured it out yet either and I'll tell you more about that in just a bit. But there are a couple of issues that I want to highlight.
The first is a simple one. It's not uncommon that the companies who are giving a product away for everyone you buy are giving away something very different than what you buy. Sometimes a cheap version, sometimes one that just doesn't work well in the place where they're giving them away. Again, suffice it to say, you want to look and see what they're really doing.
Some companies, they're not giving away a product but they're engaging in some sort of philanthropic activity where there's, and again, I don't want to single out specific initiatives, but there's one where companies vow to give away some percentage of their net revenue. I don't have to be the one who explained this one to you. Net revenue or net profit is a very tricky number to determine and therefore a tricky number to calculate and a tricky thing to see what the impact of that could be. If you find companies that are giving away a percentage of their gross sales or their top line sales, that one you should be able to track and they should be publishing that information so you can find out what they're actually doing, but often that doesn't happen.
Again, you want to really look more carefully and I guess what I'm really encouraging you to do is not just fall victim to a simple marketing ploy that makes you feel good but to dive in and see if in fact the company that you're working with is really aligned with what you want to do and obviously I'm going to hope that you find that we are. But again, I'm not going to say that we figured it out and we really would love your feedback to see how we can prove what we're doing. Again, I'll tell you more about what that is in just a second. But let me tell you some of the reasons why the whole buy one give one thing is frankly a little tricky.
One is simply that by giving something away, it doesn't necessarily empower people who often feel a better sense of ownership when they do something, when they work to get something or have to actually buy something. That's the thing number one. The thing number two I alluded to before that you might be giving a product to someone that in the area that they are isn't necessarily as useful as it would be in some other physical location. It's not a tricky one.
A third is depending on what the product is that's being given away. It may actually suppress or depress the local community for that product. So for example, I'll use shoes. If you give away shoes in places where there is a local shoe making economy, it may depress the local shoe making economy, which is not obviously a great thing.
There's some research that shows that the best thing you can do for certain communities is actually just give them money to start the businesses that they think are most valuable. There's some evidence that that may be good, but it's still in the works. The good news is there are a lot of people, economists and people who are involved in philanthropic organizations, who research this to see what the best way to help save the world is from a capitalistic perspective, if a business is a before-profit business, but they want to help in a way that's typically a nonprofit way. Sadly, the simplest thing I can say is there are no answers.
There is no one definitive thing. So let me jump in and tell you what we're doing and why it's challenging and again, see if you've got any ideas. So first things first, we've been giving money away to the Tata Māda Children's Hospital Fund. Since practically the day we started the business, we actually started donating to a different organization supporting the Tata Māda Indians in Mexico and then there were some issues with that organization.
We found the Tata Māda Children's Hospital Fund. They've been a nonprofit that's been helping the people of the Copper Canyon since the 70s, if I'm not mistaken, and almost everyone who works with the organization is a volunteer. So the majority, the majority of the money that we're donating is going to help support the Tata Māda with healthcare, with medicine, with food, with education, and we've been a very proud sponsor of the TCHF since again, we almost started. We've been giving away a percentage of the actual sales of certain products that we have because, well, the reason that zero issue started was in part from the inspiration from the Tata Māda who run in minimalist sandals, made from scraps of tire and some leather and some scraps they'll put on their feet.
And since that was our inspiration, that's why we wanted to get back. And we started just by donating a percentage of the money that we made, not profits, but the just top line money that we made from our, what's what I'm looking for? The, like not do it yourself, that's part of it. The custom made version of our do it yourself product.
When we first started zero issues, all we were selling was to do it yourself, sandal making kit, and then quickly we decided to help people who couldn't do it themselves by doing a custom made version of that for an extra like $20, I think, or maybe $25. And we were giving away a percentage of the sales of that product to the TCHF. That product became less and less interesting to people once we started making ready to wear versions of our original do it yourself sandals, so our cloud, now our Genesis sandals. And so we switched that to donating a percentage of the sales from our do it yourself sandal kit so we could help.
And sometimes we make additional donations and we also on our website invite people to make donations to the Tata Māda that they make directly and then we forward those to the Tata Māda Children's Hospital Fund. We also do giveaway shoes. We give away shoes to one world running and souls for souls, both of whom do something similar to what Tom's would arguably is give shoes to people who seem to need shoes because they need them to get to work or to get to school or to function where they are. And again, not a perfect process, but we are working with these organizations and trying to find out everything they're doing to be the most helpful that we possibly can.
So that's our story in that way. But here's the bigger picture, the thing that I really want to talk about and the thing that I kind of titled but didn't open this whole conversation with. And that is we like to say our mission is our mission. So let me say that again, it's kind of like the movement movement.
Our mission is our mission. I think Laina came up with this phrase. And the point is that our mission is to make, as I said, natural movement, the obvious better healthy choice. I mean natural food currently is I sometimes half jokingly say that my goal is to become the gluten free of footwear.
We want to make this idea of doing what your feet are supposed to do, letting them bend and flex and move and feel the world. This is the natural thing to do. It is the better thing to do. And we know that we are the young upstarts in this idea.
But we would love it if all footwear, frankly, is made based on natural movement philosophy, wide toe box, your toes can spread and relax, load the ground for balance and agility, super, super flexible so your feet can bend the way they're supposed to and soles that let you get feedback from the ground because that's the way your body is designed. There's a reason you have more nerve endings in the soles of your feet than anywhere but your fingertips and your lips. And so your brain can get that information about what's going on down there so it can effectively and efficiently control everything in between. So our mission, oh, and then, well, we're backing up our soles of the 5,000 mile warranty.
There's no reason why you can't make shoes that are long lasting instead of this idea of something that wears out in a couple hundred miles. So this is our mission is to change the world by letting people have the benefits and fun of natural movement and to do something else to try and build a business based on the idea that we're here to do this other thing is frankly a distraction. The mission of changing the world by letting people have the fun and benefits of natural movement is frankly big enough. And this is the thing that we don't want to be distracted from that.
We don't want people to think that we're here just for some ulterior motive. Our motive is our motive. Our mission is our mission. And we would like to believe that when the company is so aligned with the mission that it doesn't need to do something extraneous to have a reason to exist, that that's frankly a better way to go.
And it's a tricky thing to do because there aren't many companies, there aren't many products that by their very nature can change the world. And I know when I say that we're trying to change the world, it can sound hyperbolic, it can sound extreme and exaggerated. But boy, let me just tell you some of the things that natural movement can have an impact for. Many of you may know it was a little over three years ago today that my father who had been wearing big big shoes his whole life tripped over a little ledge on a hallway, fell down, broke his hip and was dead a couple weeks later helping elderly people regain their balance by using their feet.
This is something that we're looking to see the research that demonstrates what we've heard anecdotally. But there's a lot of reason to believe that this could be really beneficial that instead of getting elderly people in big big shoes and walkers, get them out of their shoes or into something like zero shoes, something truly minimalist where they can start to use their feet, get those signals going up to their brain and help with their rest of their body. Same thing with we have, again, let me say this way, if you look at the reviews on our website, you'll hear anecdotal information and I know it's anecdotal, I'm not going to say this is scientifically based right now. We would love to have the money to do science and do research on these things that I'm mentioning.
But I'm just suggesting that there's reason to believe that natural movement could have beneficial effects in some of the following domains. And so elderly people are getting their balance rate and just basically people keeping their balance all along and keeping the ability to move naturally all along. There may be, there's reason to think that people who have Parkinson's may be helped by letting their feet feel things. And the reason I say this is because there are a couple people who've done research where they add some vibration to the soles of people's feet or to their ankles and feet.
And that seems to help with Parkinson's symptoms. It also seems to help with elderly people who were getting their balance. And I've written a blog post about this years ago that you don't need to have magic vibrating in soles, just take off your shoes and go for a walk outside on uneven and unusual services. And that'll give you the same kind of stimulation.
And if you're going to be doing something in shoes, then something where the shoes let you feel around, or maybe even zero shoes, plus our Naboso Insoles from Dr. Emily Splickel or our new Naboso Trail sandals, which give you that extra stimulation. Again, even that is not the same as being barefoot on unusual and uneven surfaces. But whatever you can do to get more stimulation could be helpful for things like what I just mentioned.
Well, I also did a podcast with Dr. Irene Davis from Harvard who made the comment that if kids started wearing minimalist footwear, she has reason to believe that we wouldn't have to do this podcast, that we wouldn't have to be treating adults. We wouldn't be treating adults for the things that we treat them now because kids would keep that whole natural movement than going as they aged, as they grew up and wouldn't be running into the problems they have with knee issues and back issues and hip issues and all the things that occur when you put on big thick padded shoes, we're loading forces sometimes increase and are accelerated and go right through your joints, etc. etc.
I'm not going to dive into all of that in this podcast. Suffice it to say, oh, let me add another. Professional athletes, have you looked at, wait, I'm going to have to post it somewhere. There was an episode of Tatchpointo where he posted some pictures of famous people's feet and the two that were most amazing were professional basketball players.
I think it was Kobe and Shaq, actually, and their feet looked like they had stepped on landmines. And part of this is because they've been playing basketball and shoes that squeeze their toes together and are not optimal for their feet. And so we have reason to believe, again, we don't have the science behind it, we just have anecdotal information that if you're an athlete getting into a shoe that lets your toes spread and actually function naturally, lets your feet bend and flex and move and feel could make you less susceptible to certain kinds of injuries, could keep you on the court or on the field for more games each season and maybe for many seasons longer than you would have if you're in shoes that don't let your feet function naturally and therefore don't let the rest of your body function naturally. So all of these, of course, sports is a massive, massive influence into the culture and what athletes tend to wear is what mostly kids, but all of us start to wear because we're seeing these things and they're on people that we admire.
So just imagine if we had not only this grassroots thing that's happening of people wearing zero shoes for every activity you can think of, but imagine if we had professional athletes in a natural movement shoe, imagine if we were able to help elderly people live longer because of natural movement shoes, imagine if we were to help people, oh my gosh, wait, here's another one, one of my favorites, we had a customer who came in who put on our shoes and was walking around outside, we have rocks out there on the sidewalk and roads and our parking lot and he was just amazed at how much he could feel and he was saying things like, oh, I definitely stepped on this rock before, I remember where I was here and I can feel that there's a crack in the sidewalk which is, I haven't felt before but I know where I am on the sidewalk now and this is a big deal for him because he's blind. So this is another place where we think that, you know, again, natural movement can be really helpful. Oh, this is a wacky one or I tell it to you, you might think it's wacky, there's reason to believe that natural movement can help people who are deaf and the reason is if you're feeling things from the ground, the information you're getting from the soles of your feet is going into your vestibular system which is connected to your ear which for certain kinds of deafness is connected to that, those symptoms and therefore there may be some value even for deaf people in feeling more with their feet. So all that said, and I'm sure you're going to think of other applications where natural movement can be beneficial for people, this is why we say we're trying to change the world, this is why we say our mission is our mission, this is why we say live life feet first, this is why we're hoping to get more and more of your help spreading the word about natural movement because we really do hope and frankly, I hope that this happens in my lifetime.
So I'll say that way, we really hope that in our lifetime, lane is in mind, I'm 57 right now, so let's call it between 20 and 30 years now on the low end, that we see that it's not only companies like ours that are growing because people are experiencing the benefits of natural movement, but that other companies come on board and ideally even the big companies decide that what they've been doing really hasn't been helpful which by the way they know and they jump on board as well because it's not about us, it's not about our product, it's not about our shoes, it's not about our company, it's about our mission which happens to be our mission. So I would love to hear what you think about this and what your experience is and any suggestions and advice that you have, so leave comments, leave reviews, drop us an email to move at jointhemovement.com which you can do not only to respond to what we're talking about here, but if you have any questions or suggestions anybody you think should be on the show, that's where you can find us at jointhemovement.com and of course at jointhemovement.com is where you can find all the places to find us on iTunes and YouTube and Facebook etc etc. All those places you know to go to leave reviews and thumbs up and like and share and ring the bell on YouTube and basically like I say if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe. I look forward to what's next and until we meet again, live life, feet first.
You've been listening to the movement movement podcast with host Stephen Sashan. Remember to join the tribe and subscribe at jointhemovementmovement.com