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Claiming a Seat with Bimma Williams
121 Plays1 year ago
This week Bimma Williams from @claimastories hops on the pod. We talk about growing up in Louisiana, how sneakers impacted him at a young age. Learning how he found his motivation for success. How he maneuvered with-in sneakers and found his calling. Dropping his own shoe and the reception behind it. Finding the void he felt was in this industry and creating change. His love for helping others succeed and the difference between mentorship and sponsorship. Also Much much more!
Where to Find Bimma:
Socials: @BimmaWilliams
Website: https://claimastories.com/
Newsletter: https://claimfreedom.ck.page/newsletter
Podcast Linktree: https://linktr.ee/myfirstkicks
Music by Gordon Bombay: https://thegordonbombay.bandcamp.com/... something and tell him we sent ya!)
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Special Episode with Bima Williams
00:00:00
Speaker
What's good, everyone? Welcome back to my first kicks. This is episode 170, and this week I bring to you my conversation with Bima Williams. Man, you do not understand how long I have been trying to get this interview. You know, I having the chance to pick Bima's brain as a fellow podcaster and also just a fellow creative is and was a special
Bima Williams' Journey and Inspirations
00:00:30
Speaker
opportunity that I could not pass up so this episode to commemorate hitting 170 episodes of this podcast is a special one and I'm very excited for everyone to check this out because you know we touch on his path and
00:00:52
Speaker
just the way he was brought up into now currently pursuing his dreams and helping others pursue their dreams, which I find extremely fascinating. I mean, we talk about seminars where I've tended most of them minus outside of one, but I'm very, very excited for y'all to listen to this conversation.
00:01:21
Speaker
I've got to pick his brain a little bit in complex con and I got that on video, but not to this extent. I feel like I was able to touch on questions that since that conversation at complex con that just ruminated in my brain where I can be like, all right, you know, let me come at the, at interviewing him at this perspective.
00:01:48
Speaker
It was very interesting. And it's also, this episode is very special because I wanted to commemorate that this podcast has reached to any 20,000 listens, which is a big milestone.
Podcast Milestone Celebration
00:02:03
Speaker
You know, starting out this podcast, I did not even think I'd get five or six listens a week. And now I'm, or have been in the years, the years of 20,000
00:02:19
Speaker
individual listens, I don't know. I was gonna say 20,000 people, but that's 100% wrong. So shout out to everybody who's ever listened to this. Shout out to the new listeners that are coming in to check out this Bima episode. Shout out to listeners in the future that are just binging every single episode and being like, wow, this is crazy. So if you are a new listener,
00:02:47
Speaker
Please be advised that the full video of this podcast will be on YouTube and if you just look up my first kicks on YouTube, you'll find it instantly. Hit that subscribe button. Put that thumbs up on there on this video specifically and leave a comment. It'll help me and I will greatly appreciate it so.
Social Media and Projects Promotion
00:03:11
Speaker
Onto where you can find Bima. You can find him everywhere at B-I-M-M-A. Williams. W-I-L-L-I-A-M-S. Sorry, I'm doing this by...
00:03:25
Speaker
straight-up memory and uh... you of course you if you haven't check out his podcast bars and nuggets check out claim of stories uh... try to cop a pair of the claim of story socanis uh... and also his upcoming collab with well their upcoming collab with clark clarks the drop in a wallaby which is also very fire uh... and he also does
00:03:53
Speaker
seminars and offer a talk for entrepreneurs or classes for entrepreneurs, which are very interesting as well. So give it all a shot. Hit up claimastories.com. You know, try to claim a seat. And you know where to find me. I am who is Hasa all social medias. Follow the podcast at my first kicks pod. Follow the podcast on TikTok and my first kicks. Like I said earlier, like and subscribe on
00:04:23
Speaker
YouTube, my first kicks on YouTube, trying to get those numbers up. And if you have a my first kick story, would love to read it to a guest. So my first kicks, pod at gmail.com. Or if you just want to say what up, hit me up.
00:04:40
Speaker
I'm here, I will talk back to y'all would love to see some interactions on all the posts that I post on every single social media platform, it would be great to see some more engagement, and if you listen to
00:04:56
Speaker
My episode last week with Joe, you know, I would love some more engagement. So shout out to y'all. Episode 170, 20,000 listens.
Influence of Bima Williams on Host
00:05:09
Speaker
And now my conversation with Bima Williams. Hey Bima, welcome to the podcast. Yo, what's going on? Bima here, so happy to be here. Thank you for welcoming me to your platform.
00:05:19
Speaker
No, man, this is this is a long time coming because I am persistent as fuck. I mean, three years ago, I started this podcast. I'm going to tell you a little, little, little story. Yeah. Three years ago, I started this podcast for years. Right. Three years, three years. We'll go with three and.
00:05:39
Speaker
You were one of my like, as I'm learning how to become a podcaster, you were one of the influences I instantly came across, you know, the your story about claim of stories and starting claim of stories has always been something that I took to heart because I was a little, you know, person with a nine to five being like, yeah, I really want to, you know, talk to people about sneakers, like on wax all the time.
Bima's Early Motivations and Inspirations
00:06:08
Speaker
And
00:06:08
Speaker
When I first found you, I first found claim of stories. I mean, it was like, yo, you are living the future me. What I want to be like, I remember rolling in the complex con and you had the van. It was a van, right? Yeah. Yeah. That van was fire. Storyteller. Yeah. And
00:06:33
Speaker
But the one thing that I always loved is that, the one thing I'm gonna tell you is that ever since I started listening to podcasts, it's always been white faces, white faces, white voices. And it was hard to see yourself in these situations of being like, oh, I could talk to, you know, I listened to Tom Segura, I could be the next Tom Segura, you know, something like that. But you were the one person that I was like, you know, Bima could do it, I could do it, let's jump into this, you know?
00:07:01
Speaker
That's big. I appreciate that, man. That's a part of why I do what I do is just, you know, like I came up and I didn't see a lot of creatives that look like you and I, and especially didn't see a lot of creatives that were monetizing on the other side of it. And so I was just like, what can I do to be to be the change that I want to see essentially? Right. So that's just the that's just the path I've been on. And I'm happy to hear that that connected and resonated with you.
00:07:29
Speaker
No, yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's connected with a lot of people because you're out there. I feel like I went from Nazi, like you had to find you to now you're like, yo, I'm here. Let's get it. I do think because one of my favorite interviews that you've ever done, and I think I took a lot from, where it gave me that motivation to just keep going was that Tyler interview. The Tyler interview in France, Paris?
00:07:57
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It was in Paris, France,
Significant Interview Reflections
00:08:00
Speaker
man. That was a that was a great time. And it's like, because me and Tyler are around the same age, I feel like he's like one year older or younger than me, one of those. And he talks about like, do it like it was like a lot of it just like, why what's stopping you just do it. And you are the antithesis of that. Yeah, you got I mean, Tyler's very, you know, I was talking about this last night, I have an accelerator that I
00:08:27
Speaker
that I facilitate with other creatives. And what Tyler speaks a lot about is not editing yourself out of ideas before you try them. Like a lot of us will get in our heads and we'll edit these ideas before we even put them into the world and know if they can succeed or not. And I think that's such an important thing that I've been practicing myself is just like, try it. Like there's nothing wrong with trying things, experimenting, failing, trying something else.
00:08:57
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, before we jump into that, though, I'm gonna hit you with the question that I ask everybody each
First Sneaker Story and Cultural Influences
00:09:05
Speaker
week. And that's what's your first kicks? What's that first pair of sneakers that you absolutely needed to have? But the funny thing is, I asked you this at ComplexCon. So I'm gonna just cut into this video where I asked you this question now. What's your first kicks? What's your first pair of sneakers that you absolutely needed to have?
00:09:19
Speaker
In life? In life. It was Jordan Nines. I remember it was Jordan Nines because my cousin, Tranisha, she played basketball and she was a couple years older than me.
00:09:30
Speaker
And to me, she was the dopest, swagged out, whatever, dripped out person, whatever word you want to put on it. That was an easy to me. And I was like, it was Christmas time. I was a kid. I was like in third grade. And I was like, mom, I want these. I want these. I didn't know nothing about sneakers, none of that. I just wanted to be like my cousin. And that was when I realized adult sneakers are different than kid sneakers. Because hers had the red button with the detail art on the back. And mine was just a red button.
00:10:00
Speaker
That's too funny. That different, yo, but I mean, kid sneakers, kid sneakers during that time were undefeated. Like, you were just getting, you were like, yo, I was looking, I was looking fast. You know, and then they had completely different details, completely different materials. Now the kids' shoes are like almost one to one. Yeah, exactly. Right, but they was cutting corners on my shoes. Yeah.
00:10:24
Speaker
That was a great answer, man. Our conversation at ComplexCon, you gave me a lot of insight into your process in a short time. And I'm very gracious for you giving me that time, especially after you interviewed IDK. And you're like, I will still talk to you. I'm like, that's crazy. No, I just believe, like I said, I'm about it.
00:10:51
Speaker
If I tell you that's the way I'm going to show up and help, I'm going to take the time to do that. Why else are we there? Why else are we at complex time? Why else are we in that close proximity to each other? We're community, right? To me, there's no hierarchy. We're community. Speaking of community. No, yeah, for sure. Speaking of community,
Upbringing and Creative Exposure
00:11:13
Speaker
I'm very curious about like how you grew up. I know you have your shoes right there. So I know you grew up in Nola. So what was growing up in Nola like? Yeah, so I actually grew up just outside. I grew up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I grew up going to a lot of college football games, whether it was SU Southern University. Shout out to the Jaguars.
00:11:34
Speaker
or going to LSU where I ended up going to college, going, you know, support my Tigers. Right. And so I just grew up in a community that was really much about two things. It was about college football and then it was also about oil and gas. Right. And so when I really kind of got like my creative
00:11:54
Speaker
light bulb or just was able to really tap into my creative side was when we started, you know, I was my mom and we would start going to New Orleans and like I saw a whole other side of Louisiana and I saw a whole other side of the world because it was completely different than the rest of Louisiana.
00:12:13
Speaker
And it was it was so inspiring and eye opening. And then and I felt like, oh, like I kind of felt a bit like seen and I felt like I was seeing things of like people that look like me doing creative things, whether it be like cats having art shops or cats, you know, cats having assignment shops or putting on events and these parades and like so many different things were happening in New Orleans.
00:12:41
Speaker
And when I would go back to Baton Rouge, I loved it, but that just wasn't there. That's just not what the scene is. And so I would grow up in that duality of trying to appease my parents and going to school and all that stuff, but I wanted to
00:13:02
Speaker
I wanted to be a creative, but that wasn't a terminology we used back then. Nobody even knew what that meant. So I would grow up like a normal kid. I grow up in, well, I wasn't a normal kid. I was in the sneakers very early. Yeah, I was just going to ask. You talk about you wanted to be a creative. Where did you show your creative, what was your creative outputs?
00:13:28
Speaker
Yeah. So for me, the sneakers was that first thing that just really tapped in with me. And it was about the storytelling. I remember just so many different stories. I remember like, O5 when SB was just like,
00:13:48
Speaker
hitting and everything from Boca Juniors to Diamond Dunks, Dinosaur Juniors. Goodness, there's so many. That pink box era was crazy. The pink box era. And you had to actually hunt for things, and you actually had to figure out what shops had what. I remember I would leave work at lunch, and it would be like an hour and a half commute there and back.
00:14:16
Speaker
to go get some sneakers. Damn near about to get fired trying to go get some sneakers, bro. What was your first job? My first job out of my first job, I was 14. I was working at a water park called Blue Bayou. If you ever heard Wayne rap about Blue Bayou, shoot, I'm forgetting the line. But Blue Bayou is just like this water park that everybody went to in the summertime.
00:14:46
Speaker
And I was 14, and I was like working in a chicken shack. And this is going to hurt a lot of feelings, but I went to work every day in Space Jam 11s. I destroyed those shoes. Damn. You were fresh, though. You were fresh. You was in there, fresh. I destroyed those shoes. I was working at a chicken shack in oil and grease. I was like, what is wrong with me? I would never do that now.
00:15:13
Speaker
But I was a kid. I didn't know no better. I thought you was going to be like, I work at a chicken shack. And let me tell you, it's going to hurt a lot of people. That chicken ain't real. No, that wasn't the case. But yeah, man. And then when I got into school, I was just working at some data entry gig. And so I knew sneakers was still in me. So I was just like, I'm still going to collect and do my thing.
00:15:40
Speaker
I had a small subset of friends that were part of that, that sneaker streetwear community. And, you know, a lot of athletes on campus from Tyrus Thomas to Big Baby would always, they'd be like, yo, what you got on your feet? Where do you get those from? You know, so we were the kids that was like really early on a lot of that stuff in Louisiana. Yeah. I mean, that's wild. It's like, were you making lines back then too? Or, or did a lot of your friends come from lines too?
00:16:09
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I was, you know, I was camping out like I'm camping out overnight, you know, picnic seat, red bull, sunflower seeds, you know, water money in your pocket. You got to have homies because it gets crazy out there. If you solo dolo, don't do that. But I remember there was a crazy launch when space jams came back out.
00:16:34
Speaker
When they retroed him again, it was just like 2008. And me and a couple of the homies went and waited in line for the release at the mall. And I remember going to the mall. I had like a G in my pocket. And there were like hundreds of people in this line. I got there early. I got there the night before. So we were in the front of the line.
00:16:59
Speaker
They, it was so packed that we almost were like smashed against like the opening, the opening door or whatever. And, um, and I just remember there was a worker that didn't know, didn't know what the hell was going on. And they opened that door.
00:17:17
Speaker
And it was fucking mayhem. All I know was we was just sprinting up escalators to the, uh, I think it was the champs
Sneaker Culture and Parental Perceptions
00:17:27
Speaker
is where we went. Oh, you, it wasn't like you were, you weren't able to stay inside the mall. You had to stay outside the mall. They did not let you in the mall.
00:17:35
Speaker
Whoo. That was no, because no one's in the mall. They don't have like a lot of security. Nothing's open. They don't want random people walking through the mall yet. So I remember sprinting up the escalator. I think somebody got somebody at fail. I don't know what happened to them. I feel bad. And I just remember giving some money to the cat before me and giving some money to the cat behind me. And I was just like, yo, whatever happens is like, get me these sizes. And I think I left them all.
00:18:03
Speaker
I left the mall with like eight to 10 pairs of stuff that day. And I had to walk out one of the side doors, because I was one of the first. And I remember we walked out, and my homie was picking us up, and they had cats looking at me. And I was like, yo, we got to go. I was getting them from my homies. It was me and my homies, so I was making sure they had their pairs, too. So it's all you take care of the family. People are looking at you like you are.
00:18:31
Speaker
lunch meat. Oh, yeah, it was. It was because that's, you know, that's the era where Jordan 11 space jams like, you know, it's it's that's that's a lot of money on the line. Oh, yeah. I think it was. Is it during that time they film just for kicks or no, no, they filmed sneaker heads, I think. Right. Yeah. Around that, around that. And then they talked about that one kid dying for a pair of lemons or something like that at the end. And it's super sad, but super sad that
00:18:59
Speaker
that era of like, you know, it was pandemonium at every single Jordan, like high level Jordan launch was not a fun time. I'm not like, it's just like worrying about stuff behind your back and stuff. You'd be like, yo, can I trust this person? It's tough. Like that was tough. It was a tough time. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's not that that's the scary stuff, man. You gotta be, we gotta be careful about that stuff. Like I don't know. You don't want anyone losing their life over no sneakers. Yeah. When you were, when you were buying so many, I mean, you buying, it sounds like you were,
00:19:30
Speaker
You were racking up. All my money. That's where all my money went. My mom was like, bro, what is you doing? I was just going to ask, like, what was the reception from your parents when you're like, just have a stack of sneakers? Like, what was that like? My mom, my mom just, you know, she, you know, I love my mom. She, she worked at a chemical plant.
00:19:49
Speaker
And she just wanted me to go to job, you know, go to school, get a good job. You know what I mean? And she, she for life or her never understood the sneaker thing until now. Right. Like, like, and I mean, now, like for past 10 years now, right now, you know, not right now, but like, you know, like during, during this time, it's like, you know, at that point she couldn't, there wasn't a, there wasn't a route for me to go work in the industry. There wasn't a route for me to,
00:20:15
Speaker
to monetize a podcast. It wasn't a route for me to then become my own personal brand within the industry and figure out how to do any of these things I'm doing now. And so, of course, you're a parent. She's looking at me crazy because she's like, what are you doing? She's like, we don't... And she didn't come from an era where you got to get paid for the things you actually passionate about.
00:20:41
Speaker
That wasn't like, that was a thing. That was like, that's a, that's a hobby to her, you know? So I understand, I understand exactly where she was coming from, but now I get to say,
00:20:50
Speaker
Now you see where that money went. All them pairs, all them pairs. I mean, I'm a first generation immigrant. So my mom's perception was like, are you making a store? Every single pair that came in, you got a store? I'm like, no. This is all for the toe. It's crazy. There's no explaining this to parents. It doesn't make sense.
00:21:19
Speaker
Especially like the older parents where they're just like, oh, we work to give you a better life. And you're like, sneakers. That's what you want to do. That's what you want to do. Until you show them how you can really make a living off of it, they don't believe you. Even then, they barely believe you. Were you aspiring to work in sneakers in high school? Or is it just like a turn of events where
00:21:47
Speaker
you saw Elaine open up. Yeah, no, this was never opportunistic for me. This was always a part of my DNA. So, you know, me and my friends had a couple of different ideas. Like we had a streetwear brand when I was going into college. A friend of mine was a designer and she had come up with this kind of idea called the dope game. And she was really, really, she still is to this day, really talented when it comes to graphic design. And I just had a bit more acumen around like different marketing
00:22:17
Speaker
stuff and ideas and stuff like that. So I came in to help with those things. And so that was one of the first things. And like I said, we were the kids that were raised on Complex Print magazine. So that's how we got the introduction into the flight club existing in New York. Our senior year, our senior trip, we went to New York and
00:22:41
Speaker
We were the only ones that ended up going to flight club because, you know, some of these other kids wanted to go, you know, some of this other stuff. We're like, no, we try to go to a flight club. We try to go see Union like this. We we we about the sneaker life. And it was which which flight club was the sorry. It was
00:22:57
Speaker
Was it the one on Green Street, the smaller one? It was the Green Street one. It was the Green Street one. So you actually got to talk to Chris. If he was there, I honestly don't remember who at the time. But it just was changing. It changed so much. And I was like, yo, it'd be dope if we had our own.
00:23:19
Speaker
store or if we had something like that, but we just didn't know. We didn't have the acumen to do any of those things, but we tried, right? And so we ended up doing that for a minute and then
00:23:33
Speaker
As I got older, that dream faded because I was just like, yo, I don't know. This ain't really going nowhere. We couldn't figure out how to scale and actually make money from this thing. I ended up just focusing and going, do this data entry job.
00:23:51
Speaker
hated it hated it because I still dress like me but I was still I was going to work with folks that you know were 10 years older and they were super nice people but they had kids and they were wearing like pleated khakis and hard bottoms and polos and actually don't get me wrong I still get a polo off today but you know what I mean it was just different and so it wasn't until I
00:24:15
Speaker
I decided to do this passion project where I was, I was documenting the running community in Louisiana. I grew up a runner. I still run to this day.
00:24:24
Speaker
that's always been a duality for me is like I run, but I love sneakers from a lifestyle standpoint. And that's what actually got me back into that actually got me into the sneaker industry was cause I got recruited off the internet. You know what I'm saying? So, but it wasn't opportunistic.
Career Transition and Mindset
00:24:41
Speaker
It was in some ways in spite of myself, but then also I just been genuinely interested in, in it, you know, beyond just the, the, the hype of it.
00:24:51
Speaker
No, yeah. It's funny because I wanted to be like, that sounds just kismet, to be honest. It just sounds like once you get back, not backed into a corner, but I understand what you're saying.
00:25:05
Speaker
once you're doing a job or doing something every day that just doesn't satiate that creative side. It's miserable. It's terrible. No, no, say it plainly. It was miserable. It was miserable. You know what I'm saying? It wasn't about satiating. It was miserable. I'm doing stuff that I have. This is the most boring work a human could do that like now AI, we would never do this work.
00:25:29
Speaker
And I was literally there just for a paycheck, fam. And so I just, for me, and I know for some people, and I'm not, we got to get paid. So I don't hate on anybody trying to get their money. But for me, I was like, this is not, I can't do this. I have to figure out how to do something that I'm actually interested in, that I can excel at, that is creative. And so I knew, I didn't know how it was going to materialize. And that's the thing I want to share right now is like,
00:25:58
Speaker
A lot of times we don't know. Anybody that tell you they know, they lying. Nobody knows. Nobody knows anything. You can't predict the future. And sometimes you just got to lean in on faith. You just got to trust it. You got to do it. You got to lean into your own intuition. And sometimes it'll work out. It doesn't work out all the time. But sometimes it works out. And that's where I was at. I was like, something got shaped.
00:26:23
Speaker
that I mean, that's because I've been there several times actually might be there right now. But the but how do you because I've always been a big proponent of like setting myself up for success, right? And when because I always look at it like you're just jumping into the deep end, there's no
00:26:43
Speaker
You don't know what's at the bottom of this lake. You don't want to know. Yeah, exactly. So how did you get into the mindset of like, nah, I'ma just jump in right now.
00:26:58
Speaker
I was inspired by a homie of mine, actually. So my best friend lives in New Orleans, Jared Cohen, and he has this wealth management firm. So we connected just because we homies and we went to school together and all that stuff. But our interests are slightly different. So his interests, we both want to get money, get money. But he wanted to get money from the financial side. And I wanted to get money from the creative side. But both of us want to impact
00:27:25
Speaker
you know, black and brown community from from that perspective. So at the time he had moved to Houston and he was doing this thing, you know, as far as I was concerned, he was like in his pocket. He knew his path and he was he was going. He'd come back to visit and he'd tell me where he had going on. And and I was like, damn, what the hell am I doing?
00:27:42
Speaker
I'm sitting here every day complaining. I ain't doing nothing that's related to what I'm interested in. And here's my homie bringing it to life, doing his thing. And so I just started to try to start reading some books. I remember reading Jim Collins, Good to Great.
00:27:59
Speaker
That was helpful for my mindset. I had to do a lot of work on my mindset because my mindset was not in a strong place. I'd say I had a weak fixed mindset and I had to figure out how to get a growth mindset. Didn't even know what that meant at the time. And so starting to read some of these books where it started to unlock a little bit in my mind of what was possible. So a part of it was that the other part was like my dad at the time had gotten cancer.
Family Challenges and Career Inspiration
00:28:29
Speaker
and it ended up being terminal cancer. And, and I just started to realize like, fam, like you, you, you don't want to sit around and let your life just like your life could go like that. And you're going to sit around every day and just complain that that can't be it.
00:28:44
Speaker
And so it was a combination of those things that started to shift my mindset where I was like, nah, it's about action now. I'm not going to let another day go by where I don't try to do something to try to make it better. I don't know where I'm going. But in my mind, I position it as like it was scarier to me to be gone tomorrow and not having tried to do something that was aligned with what I was interested in.
00:29:12
Speaker
And that was one of the biggest unlocks for me. That happened in 2010, 2011. When I made that, that was the shift. And that's the way I've operated since. Because I'm like, ain't no way. Ain't no way knowing what I know now.
00:29:28
Speaker
that I can make a lot of these things possible. Nah, man, that's amazing. I feel like a lot of people need to hear that in terms of just like jumpstart. Somebody needs to record like clip this, just play it every morning. The biggest thing, like the biggest thing if I can get across to any creative is the mindset.
00:29:48
Speaker
like for sure everything else is hard everything else is just baseline heart the hardest thing is here because we will talk ourselves out of so many things before we even try them just because of our mindset we'll get in our head in this negative self-talk i'm not good enough
00:30:04
Speaker
or I don't know enough, or nobody cares, or people don't like this and that. And the only thing that is true is what we tell ourselves. Perception is our own reality. If I believe I'm not capable of those things, they won't happen. The moment I decided I was capable of something more than where I was, then other opportunities start to show up. I started to see things differently that I didn't see before. No, yeah, that that's like super eye opening because I think
00:30:30
Speaker
The hardest part is we are like, I feel like the way the world is built.
00:30:37
Speaker
is always to teach you how to be negative about like, Oh, you can't do this. You can't do this. And it's the people that are that like, that push past that are the people that are always pushing forward towards success. Like, I feel like and I've always said that like, even in high school or like in school settings, it's like it's how much you know how much these books tell you how much you were able to memorize. But like,
00:31:01
Speaker
the extra the extra part of school is the people you meet the network you you build around it because you can just you can pass all the tests not talk to a single soul and you just gonna end up being the same place you graduated at you know like you're just gonna be by yourself with a degree like
00:31:20
Speaker
All those degrees, you remind me of the college dropout skit. But no, it's a combination of those things. I say in two part, one is delusion. You got to be delusional because what you're trying to do, I'm sorry. It's not to your friend group.
00:31:40
Speaker
That shit ain't possible, you know? Coming out of Louisiana, going work at Saucony, going work on Yeezy, going work at Nike Entertainment on collaborations, that shit is not possible. Where we're from, it's not. And there's so many things working against you. And so the imaginary willpower that you have to conjure up to navigate the hurdles that you're gonna navigate, like it's a real thing. And then on top of that, where I'm an introvert,
00:32:07
Speaker
And at that stage of being an introvert, I did not like introducing myself to people. I did not like talking to random people, so I did not have the network. So I had to also learn those things and figure out how to get to those places where I could put myself out there without feeling awkward or feeling judged and all those things. But those are two of the components that you absolutely have to figure out how to dial in. I'm curious, how did you find out or how did you
00:32:36
Speaker
How did you navigate high school while being an introvert? I had extroverted friends. But how did you get to that point where you were like, all right, like did they, did they just bring you in? Was it always like them bringing you in? Okay. Extroverts always find introverted friends. Here's the reason why extroverts like to talk to extroverts talking. Nobody hears anything. They get annoyed with each other. You need an introvert.
00:33:04
Speaker
You need, you need a me. Somebody's there just being like, you need someone to just go listen. And so, um, you know, funny enough in high school that, that, that kind of is what happened. But I also was, was, I was in sports. I was, I was a runner, so I was on a team. So I already had like a natural kind of baked in, um,
00:33:26
Speaker
network of folks and friends at that point. But I didn't really hone the ability to try to grow from an extrovert standpoint till I was well out of college. So it wasn't until I was like 24 where I was like, OK, I need to start putting myself out there. I need to try to start figuring out how to speak to people that I don't know, grow my network,
00:33:55
Speaker
get some mentors and some advisors. And one of the ways that I did that was you got to put yourself in uncomfortable situations. And it's one of the biggest hurdles that I encountered as a creative because I was like, man, I don't want nobody to reject me. I don't want to try to somebody snub me. To me, that was the biggest fear.
00:34:19
Speaker
And I remember, um, it's so funny cause it has nothing to do with sneakers, but I was going to this, um, this running club once a, once a week on Tuesdays. And I just was like, I'm gonna just try to meet some people. And, um, these folks welcome me and I started to
00:34:40
Speaker
make some friends and I was like, okay, this bet. And then from there, I started doing my blog and started just putting myself in a situation where I was interviewing, so I was interviewing people back then, but not like in this capacity, it was more so just written.
Overcoming Introversion and Networking
00:34:58
Speaker
And so it put me in a space where I started to have to get comfortable engaging people. And that is literally how I started to cultivate
00:35:09
Speaker
my comfort level of meeting people. That's wild. I mean, I could tell you, I don't know if I've told this story on here before, but there was a moment. So I thought I was always good with people, but I realized I'm not an introvert or an extrovert. Like I'm cool going out a lot.
00:35:28
Speaker
and introducing myself to people. But I do have a social battery. I feel like extroverts are just like, we out every night. And I'll be looking at people and be like, nah, nah, nah, nah, I'm staying home. But there's this moment. So one of my favorite rappers is POS from Minnesota. And so I saw him live. But before that, I was
00:35:53
Speaker
becoming a, I was like kind of friends with him on Twitter. And so I go see him perform and funny enough, Lizzo opened for him. And so I'm talking to Lizzo and I had like a weird interaction with Lizzo and I'm like, why is this like being weird, whatever? Cause I've talked, I've spoken to artists before but I've always kept it like about the music. Now I'm meeting somebody who I like their music but we've talked about other things so we have a rapport.
00:36:19
Speaker
And when I meet him, it was just awkward. I was like, what is going on? And I realized it's me. It was just me. The way I was approaching it, it wasn't like, yo, it's cool. We already have a rapport. We friends. I felt this weight of, oh, his music changed my life. I got to make an impact.
00:36:48
Speaker
I think I put so much pressure on my head that on my mind about it that it caused me to be like this like shut down version of myself. Yeah. And so as I kept like, after night go went on, whatever, I was just like, this got to change. And
00:37:07
Speaker
I just left. And I was just like, I spent like a month just being like, okay, next time I'm like, I was just like, let me that was like the most awkwardest situation I've ever been. And, and like, it changed my way of how do I approach people. And from then now, I mean, podcasts and as you can see, I've made you I might have been the most approachable person you've met at complex.
00:37:28
Speaker
Yeah, you can get in your own head with a lot of this stuff. And also, it's just like when you meet people that you admire, that can also be a challenge, too. But I think you also we also have to realize that these folks are also humans and they have people inundating them all the time. And so we can't really take these things personal if that interaction doesn't go how we have created how it should happen in our head. Right. Like it's about being present in that moment and, you know, allowing it to be what it's going to be.
00:37:57
Speaker
No, yeah, I think the hardest part right now is like.
00:38:00
Speaker
I don't want to, every time I introduce myself, tell everybody about my podcast. But at the same time, I'm like, I gotta tell everybody about my podcast. You gotta tell them it's part of what you do. Do you, do you, like, do you do that? Like, are you, are you, like, especially when you were first early starting off, like, when you took the leap and you're like, all right, now, well, this is the other leap. You know, this is, this is the, I'm Bima, I'm doing my thing, you know, leap, but like,
00:38:29
Speaker
When you got to that point where you also like forward about like these are my intentions, these are who I want to talk to, like how much of that did you put into ether and like in conversations as conversations happened? Every conversation. You don't have the luxury of not putting it in every conversation with your livelihood, right?
00:38:48
Speaker
You can't be cute about it. Like this is how you this is how you get paid. But also the thing that I try to remind people is that I don't do podcasting just for myself. I do podcasts because I'm actually trying to change the lives of the people that are listening to it. Right. And so if I'm not doing my job of promoting it, talking about it, trying to grow it, trying to get into these different places, trying to be disruptive. Right. I'm letting a lot of people down.
00:39:13
Speaker
who are trying to get this information, right? And I'll be that upfront with the people that I would have on the show, right? So when we were recording Melody Assani and we were recording James Whitner, we were recording Jason Mayden, you know, and some of these folks, Woody, you know, we would be a lately mate. We would be very upfront and be like, yeah, this is a podcast, but this is what this podcast is to do. This is what our listeners are. This is where they come from. They come from just backgrounds just like you, right? Like we came up from nothing.
00:39:43
Speaker
It's like you have an opportunity to impart some wisdom to actually help them on their journey, right? And I think especially black and brown folks, it touches folks on a different level when you say it that way. And so I very early on realized like no one's ever gonna root for me as hard as I'm gonna root for me. So if I'm not rooting for me, how in the world is anyone else gonna do it?
00:40:09
Speaker
You know what I'm saying? You can't expect someone else to be the champion of what you do if you're not even a champion of what you do, right? You gotta be proud as hell about it. I always give DJ Khaled some shit, but here's the thing. Don't nobody promote DJ Khaled better than DJ Khaled.
00:40:29
Speaker
when he walking around with signs saying, you know, Drake on my next album, or, you know, like, no one better. No one's better at the self promotion than him. And that's it. And some folks see it as corny. But I guess what? DJ Khaled ain't worried about how he can pay.
00:40:45
Speaker
Definitely not. You know what I'm saying? And that's when we think about when I talk about creatives, like we got to get out of our heads of like, Oh, you know, it sells yours.
The Art of Self-Promotion
00:40:53
Speaker
It's corny or it's like famous commerce. And if you want to get paid, you got to talk about what you do and you got to figure out how to get comfortable with it because otherwise the opposite is you not paid. I mean, the
00:41:08
Speaker
That's like, it's so true. I mean, I will be the first person to tell you, I think DJ Khaled's corny, but he does get his, like you, you will get everything that he's selling in one shot. Like you go be like, yo, all right. He's putting out an album though. Or like, oh, he's putting out Jordan five. Like, you know, it's coming out. So it's very true. It's, I don't know about integrity. Like it's like, do you, do you lose integrity by doing that all the time? Or is it just because
00:41:37
Speaker
because it's about you is that your identity now of like, oh, like my whole thing is like, I don't want to, I'll be playing straight up with you. I don't want to be called a grifter like at any point in my life ever.
00:41:55
Speaker
Here's the thing. People are going to say what they want to say anyway. You can't control what they're going to say. They're going to say what they want to say anyway. What I say is when it comes to that, you got to get more creative about how you go about it, right? So subtle things to promote yourself, right? If you have a, if you got a streetwear brand or you got a podcast, make a podcast t-shirt, put your homies in it, tell them walk around complex.
00:42:23
Speaker
You get what I'm saying? Make a guerrilla marketing sign. Put that thing out there, right? Put some booklets over at your favorite sneaker shop, right? Everything then has to have to come from your mouth, right? Enlist some other folks to talk about it by giving them something that they might repost it. You know what I'm saying? Get a little more clever with how you go about the promotional side so it's not only coming from you.
00:42:50
Speaker
And that'll lighten some of that low. The reason why artists do collaborations on albums is not because they actually always want to do a collaboration song, but because they know people are going to talk about it as well. It has a word of mouth aspect to it. And so when you're working on your podcast, a part of interviewing and having someone on is the opportunity for them to also then talk about
00:43:17
Speaker
being on the show and that conversation and help sharing that, right? But then there's things like, I don't know, a seating kit, a mug or something like that, sending people just whatever you could do to try to get creative about spreading the word and the message about what you're doing.
00:43:33
Speaker
So it always, marketing promotions is always gonna be an aspect when commerce is involved as a creative. If you are an artist, that's different. If you wanna be an artist that exhibits and things like that, that's different. That's different. You go through the gallery route, all that stuff. You still gotta figure out how to sell it though. Yeah, true. Where did you learn a lot of this stuff? Because I feel like
00:44:01
Speaker
You've worked in such big companies, and I feel like you've been around such big activations and cool stuff, and you got to release two sneakers. I still need a purple pair. But you've done a lot of these things, but what are some pivotal stories from each moment of your life where you're like, I'm going to take this in, and now I'm going to craft this into a bigger thing and lessons learned?
00:44:29
Speaker
Yeah. So when I was coming into Saucony, like I had a, I had a strong, strong understanding of social media. So this was 2000 leading up to 2013. So 2012 was, it was a big year and I was, I had my own blog and I had a mentor and she was, she was getting paid to do social media at the, the tourism board in Baton Rouge. And so she gave me a lot of game on like the strategy.
00:44:59
Speaker
behind social media. And then at the same time, I also was just seeing things and trying different things. I'm a sampler. If I see it, I'll try it, spin it, you know, put it into play and see what I can learn from
Marketing Strategies and Social Media Impact
00:45:10
Speaker
it. And then when I got into Sakani is the first time where I got around other marketers. And, and I wasn't, I'm not a traditional marketer. I didn't, I didn't, I don't have a marketing and advertising degree. So everything that I have is purely from application is purely from experience, trial and error.
00:45:29
Speaker
And when I got in, what I realized was that I was more savvy than a lot of people when it came to social. So I used that as a strength, but I started to learn from them the other stuff. So the stuff when it came down to seeding, when it came down to planning out the length of a campaign.
00:45:50
Speaker
when it came to creating digital web pages and email strategies. So one of these things was like when we were working on collaborations, the performance team would work with this agency and they would give them a deck
00:46:07
Speaker
And in the deck, it would say, you know, what we're promoting this new running shoe. And this is like the objective behind what we're promoting. This is the audience we're trying to get in front of. And this is the idea for what the images in the campaign is going to look
Creation of 'Originators Only' Program
00:46:23
Speaker
like. And that was my first time ever seeing someone premeditate what
00:46:27
Speaker
a campaign was going to look like. I was so used to doing it in the moment. And I was like, okay, this is interesting. Bet. And then in that same building was another company called Sperry. And Sperry had this homie named Pervy and she was doing some stuff with influencers, right? And so I'm like, this is interesting. And they like seeing them, them sneakers and product and stuff like that. And so
00:46:52
Speaker
I don't have anyone that's telling me what I can't do. And so again, I'm a sponge. I'm not trying to perfect. I'm just trying to aggregate things and bring them together. Yeah. So I had this opportunity to pull together this program called originators only. And this was 2015. And this was at the time where Socrates is a smaller brand. We couldn't compete with what Puma and Nike and Adidas were doing. They were going the big celebrity
00:47:19
Speaker
personality creative route. So Kanye, Rihanna, Drake were the big three in that regard at the time. And I knew it was going to change the whole landscape of what was happening in the marketplace because up until that point, it was really what was really selling in our marketplace was
00:47:39
Speaker
concepts and New Balance. New Balance was moving heavy, Diodora was moving heavy, and Saucony, we were doing really, really well. But I was like, yo, we got to get creative because we don't have that type of budget. And so I was like, Pat, I'm a pull all of these things that I've been absorbing and learning, and I'm gonna make this program. And so the program was going to combine social media strategy, influencer marketing, affiliate marketing, and product creation.
00:48:06
Speaker
So what that meant was from a social media standpoint, we were going to roll out a whole digital campaign telling stories around these different influencers that just really rock with Sockity. On top of that, we were going to tap influencers that were on YouTube because no one was working directly with
00:48:24
Speaker
folks that were viewing on YouTube in fact, folks were like, oh, these cats are corny. They working in mom's basement, whatever, whatever. Super disrespectful to creators at the time, whereas now it's completely flipped, right? Now it's completely different. Everybody's doing it now. Yeah, and bringing them in house. Bet.
00:48:44
Speaker
This all started at Saucony. Nobody could take credit for this. They could just go look at the receipts. So then affiliate marketing, because I, at the time, we couldn't, you couldn't really say how you could monetize social media. There was no real direct way to show how you could monetize working with an influencer.
00:49:03
Speaker
So I said, bet. The influencers taught me this. They said, we get paid from y'all for my reviews through affiliate links. I said, bet. And then the fourth thing, I said, we're going to go one further. Y'all are going to design your own sneakers. And we're going to sell them on Sockiny.com. Bro, so I put together this whole campaign, and we shot this video. I brought all of them to Sockiny.
00:49:28
Speaker
10 of them in a in a in a single weekend. It was like Homer Simpson and
00:49:34
Speaker
Bull. Bull it. Yeah. Tony, Tony, Tony D2 Wow. T Blake. It was a lineup of cats. Yeah. And we had all of this engagement because I told them they could film the whole thing. And they came and filmed in the office. And I got them on the treadmill. And then I gave them materials to create their sneakers. And so it was the first time you started to have kind of this 360 approach when it came to that. And we did an activation.
00:50:01
Speaker
on Newbury Street at Johnny Cupcakes, we took over the whole store and made it a Saucony store. This is all stuff I did for the first time.
00:50:12
Speaker
That's wild, bro. That's so wild. This is all stuff I did for the first time. Experimenting. Experimenting. Now I had guidance. I had some folks that had to lean in. So I had teammates and colleagues that I was like, this is my vision for it. I don't know how to execute it. You know how to do a store takeover. So I need you to come and actually make it real. You know what I'm saying? But I was able to quarterback and lead that campaign. And the results were being featured on different platforms like Hypebeast, selling out these shoes in five minutes.
00:50:41
Speaker
And then all of the engagement and views that we saw then on social. And then down the line, we ended up launching a sock and exclusive program that was successful because we had done that. And the biggest thing was when other brands started doing it.
00:51:02
Speaker
That is first of all, yes, I remember all of that and it's wild because one thing I was well, I was curious about it like when it first when that first happened was like how much of this is a result of like the sneaker community on the forums because like during that time it was like the forums were slowly dying. It was like now we're getting sneaker YouTubers because it was the first part like this was like the beginning of YouTube and
00:51:31
Speaker
It was just interesting to see a brand like jump in and be like, yo, we got this, you know, we here, you know, I mean, as a brand, you want to be a part of a community that's unserved.
00:51:43
Speaker
Right? Because then you can, but you got to be about it. Can't be transactional. Right? Right. And so in my eyes, it was like, yo, if we can do this, let's go all the way and let's really be a part of it. Unfortunately, that's not what ended up happening after that. And I ended up leaving, but like that, that was a real thing. And like it really would have taken off if, you know, the plan would have gone and the investment would have come from the corporate level. But that's one of those examples where like, I always say Soggy taught me,
00:52:13
Speaker
so much of what I know today from a marketing perspective simply because they let me try things, simply because I got to experiment. Yeah, it's funny because I've only missed one seminar you put on. And so it was the one that just happened recently. Ooh, you missed one. I missed it, yeah. I was so upset I missed that one. But one thing I feel like
00:52:43
Speaker
the I feel like you stress leveraging your network and the idea of mentorship where you just talk about mentorship is like I've never had mentorship but do you feel like mentorship can come in different
00:53:01
Speaker
like different styles instead of. I didn't have mentorship until I got to Sakani in that regard, right? In the sneaker space, right? So sometimes you got to make up your own mentor. Sometimes you got to be mentored from afar. Sometimes you see something that Joe Fresh does and you're like, that's actually dope. You know, borrow that. You know what I mean? That's mentorship, right? If you see something that James Whitner does and you're like, that's dope. I want to steal a piece of that, right? That's mentorship. Mentorship doesn't always
00:53:31
Speaker
be a conversation sometimes, right? Sometimes you need to be listening to the interviews to see what they're saying. That's mentorship. Alaylee may take time to do an interview. Go listen to it. Pull the insights. You know what I'm saying? Go listen to old Virgil interviews. Go listen if you appreciate the genius of creativity from Kanye West. Go listen to it. They leave it out there, you know? Pick the right interviews on that one. Maybe the ones before 2015.
00:54:00
Speaker
All right.
00:54:04
Speaker
But yeah, I think, you know, for me, it's like stop making stop making excuses for why we think like we aren't where we are. Interviews exist. That is a form of mentorship. Right. Now, what you might want might be sponsorship and sponsorship to me from a person is somebody taking an interest and putting me in play. That's different. Right. Somebody might might come up and it might be like being like, I think you'd be really great for this. I'm going to make you an introduction. I'm a double down that they need to make sure you there.
00:54:34
Speaker
they need to make sure you're a complex con like Mark Sperling did for me last year, right? That to me is personal sponsorship. That person saw me, has been seeing me put in work, and they think I'd be a great contribution to the show, right? So
00:54:48
Speaker
That's what I mean when I say that is we can't let it be an excuse. Don't let anything be an excuse. If you want it, you got to figure it out because everybody else has come before you. They've had to figure it out too. Some have had more abilities and opportunities perhaps, but they still had to figure some stuff out.
00:55:10
Speaker
No, yeah. I'm very curious of like, where does your hustle mentality come from? I would say the things that I want to do and the experience that I want to have in life,
00:55:31
Speaker
it requires me to do certain things. That's kind of it at the end of the day. And that the biggest part is I know what I'm here to do. I know that I'm here to teach other creatives how to what I call claim their
00:55:50
Speaker
claim their creative freedom, right? So I know that that's what I'm here to do. That's who I'm here to serve. I'm here to help folks figure out how to get clients. If that means they want to do Collapse, that's what I'm here to help folks figure out.
00:56:03
Speaker
I have that, I don't have it from a fear place. I don't have the fear of I'm not going to make it. I have it from an inspiring place. I move out of inspiration now and love because I know that every time I actually share something, I know it's actually going to change the trajectory of a creative that once was where I was, or I was once where they are now.
00:56:27
Speaker
And so that's why I get up and do what I do, man. I know it's bigger than me. And so how could I be so selfish to keep all that information to myself? And I had friends that told me that to my face. That's why we friends. It's because they were honest with me. They told me that you've been doing these things. No one knows how to do them. You got to share this information. And it changed a lot for me. I mean, look, you helped me a lot in general. So thank you.
00:56:57
Speaker
It's interesting because we live in a world where people, I mean, the term has been thrown around for years now, gatekeeping, and people gatekeep their success.
Sharing Knowledge and Community Growth
00:57:09
Speaker
But is it out of fear that somebody's gonna move past the progress that initial person has pushed forward, or is it fear out of they're losing their spot? I mean, I think it could be a number of things, right? Like you think about,
00:57:27
Speaker
Think about it as far as like, let's look at it like Nike versus Adidas, right? There's a competitive reason why they would gate keep. You know, Nike wouldn't want to share all the things that they're working on because they wouldn't want Adidas to then take those things and then best them. So some of it can come from a place of being competitive.
00:57:44
Speaker
Another part could come from a place of scarcity. Some folks believe that there are only a few opportunities in the marketplace and that if they give up too much information, then they can't maintain in a spot. And then some folks just don't believe that they need to do it. Some folks are selfish, sorry. And today some folks are selfish, right? But personally, one of my mentors and folks that I look up to is James Whitner.
00:58:14
Speaker
And James on Gatekeep, that's what free game exists for. That's why he created it in the first place is to share the information because when you're solid about what you're building, you're not in a place where you feel like somebody's going to come take that from you. It's yours. You're doing this for the community. Nobody's coming to take it. I'm giving information so somebody can figure out the next thing, what's authentically meant for them. And so that's why I'm always comfortable giving away the information I give.
00:58:44
Speaker
My win is when you come and tell me, like, you know, Bima, I just landed this sponsorship. Bet. Go ham. You know what I'm saying? Like, it means nothing for me to be the only one at the table. No, yeah. Especially in sneakers, I feel like niche industries, it's like built on gatekeeping. And it's like ingrained in this, where the best
00:59:10
Speaker
It's like when you get to that point, you got into the club, the bouncer let you in, and you looking at everybody else on the outside like, aha, I'm in here. And I feel like that's, especially with sneakers, I feel like that's such a thing that just is spread throughout. But have you seen an instance where
00:59:34
Speaker
somebody did that for you, especially within sneakers. Where someone like gave me an opportunity or where someone like. Minus outside of, I was going to say minus outside of the conflicts con hosting gig.
00:59:49
Speaker
Um, yeah, for sure. You know, um, I think somebody that doesn't get enough flowers, um, especially as, as an ally is, is Brendan Dunn. Um, you know, Brendan and I met like 2013 at like some full locker ball, um, or maybe it was like 2014, but you know, we were very early in our careers. I was early a sock and he was early at, at, um, uh, soul collector. And, um, we've just, you know, been, you know, Colleagues and become friends over that time.
01:00:19
Speaker
And when I was doing my, uh, the, the first season of the claim of stories podcast, Brennan was one of the first people that reached out and said, we're going to do, we'll do a story. Um, and I'm going to connect you with a writer on, on, uh, so collector, and we're going to do a story about the podcast. Right. And so, um, that's the other thing where I, why relationships are important. Right. Um, but that didn't come because, you know, it was transactional. It came because we, we have relationship. Brendan is invested.
01:00:47
Speaker
It made sense. It wasn't a handout and he had seen me put the work in. And so that was one of those instances where it was just like, wow, somebody really showed love. Now the other thing too, the other reason why I don't have a problem giving out information is because I know how hard it is to take action. And so if I give you the information, now I know it's on you. What you going to do with it?
01:01:15
Speaker
Are you going to wake up on the days you don't want to wake up? Are you going to do the things that are hard? Are you going to be disciplined, right? Because I could give you a whole playbook and there's so many people that still won't do anything. So to me, it's like, it's whatever to me. I give you everything.
01:01:36
Speaker
As they say, you can teach a man to fish. No, wait. What's the story? What's the phrase? You can bring a man to water, but you can't teach him how to fish or something like that. I don't know. I said it wrong in my head. And now I can't get it out. That's funny. Oh, man. So at the end of the podcast, hopefully you remember the story that you told me at ComplexCon. So this is Jordan 9, I think, right? It was the Jordan 9. All right. People are going to listen to this and be like, these guys don't even know.
01:02:04
Speaker
Maybe so. I want you to think about that moment where you're about to open that box with the Jordan 9 in it. And now you're you, older you, behind younger you, what would you tell younger Bhima before they open that box?
01:02:29
Speaker
Man, you just don't know what type of ride that's about to send you on. I would also say it's okay to have something that you're passionate about.
01:02:44
Speaker
even if other people don't understand it yet. It's totally okay for that to just be your little piece of joy. And one day, it might unlock something super special. But for now, at that moment in time, this might just be your niche, but
01:03:03
Speaker
Boy, oh boy, you have no idea what ride this is about to send you on. You're about to make your own van, bro. This is going to be your ticket to do great things in the world to actually help other people. And by helping other people, you get to unlock some fantastic things in your own life.
01:03:27
Speaker
Yeah, I still shout out to my mom and my cousin for my cousin for the inspiration, my mom for getting the sneaker. And that's when they had a little red button on the back of the nines that didn't even have details in it because I had the kid size kicks.
01:03:43
Speaker
They just put it like basically. It's literally a red button. Yeah, it's the top of a Coca-Cola bottle. You're just like, here you go. It's literally a red button. And then I look at my cousins and they got, you know, it's got a whole graphic design. And I'm like, where is mine? So but but yeah, man, I'm so happy that sneakers have been a part of my life in that way. And that that I've been able to figure out how to to to make it a career and that I've been able to figure out how to help other people.
01:04:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, you've helped me so much and hopefully you continue to help me as we maybe have become friends, but thank you so much for jumping on. And for everybody out there, you know, we say each week, wear your kicks. Peace.