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@kristen.aldridge : Before Blake Mycoskie founded @toms, he didn’t know much about fashion, retail, shoes, or anything related to the footwear business. In 2006, he was traveling to Argentina when he serendipitously met some women who were in the country to donate shoes to children, so Blake offered to help. He spent a few days going from village to village, witnessing the intense pockets of poverty just outside the bustling capital. It was heartbreaking. • He wanted to do something more about it, and that’s when the idea for TOMS was born. The concept was simple: For every pair of shoes sold, he would give a pair of new shoes to a child in need. No percentages. No formulas. Most of the local shoemakers there called him crazy and refused to work with him. But Blake finally found someone crazy enough to believe, and together they worked out of a small “factory” - a room no bigger than a garage, surrounded by roosters, burros and iguanas - to create 250 samples which he packed inside a duffel bag and headed to America. • After posting an ad on Craigslist to find some interns to help, one by one, he started selling the shoes. Today, more than 60 million pairs have been donated to children all around the world, and his company has since applied its one-for-one model to other ventures. If Blake would have given in to all the people that said he was crazy, the world would have never received his beautiful gifts. • “Setbacks and fear are inevitable. The thing that distinguishes the ultimate successes from the ultimate failures is this: What do you do with them?” • Keep pushing. Keep believing. And always remember that you can do well AND do good. 💫