Maybe it's because I'm pushing thirty or because I'm the mother of two children who are becoming increasingly aware of the world around them, but I began to feel like I wasn't doing enough of anything worthwhile with my time. It's what drew to into finding my purpose and in turn what drew me to Blake Mycoskie's book, Start Something That Matters.
By now we have all seen those cute slide-on shoes with TOMS stitched on the back. We know they're simple in design, relatively inexpensive, and somehow always manage to be in style, particularly on college campuses worldwide. Unfortunately, if you're anything like me, that might be just about all that you know. But not for long.
The first thing Start Something That Matters lets you in on is that Toms is not your typical company and wild-haired, board-short-wearing Mycoskie is far from a typical CEO. An acronym for Shoes for Tomorrow (which above all finally solved the mystery as to why a guy named Blake would have a company called Toms), Toms ensures that with every pair of shoes purchased a child in need receives a pair of shoes too. It is instant charity for a generation of people who want to give but usually don’t have the first idea how to go about it. The simplicity of the concept is incredible; one for you, one for me. When you really stop to think about it, it’s amazing that no one thought of it before. What might be more amazing is that Blake Mycoskie doesn’t want to hide his secret to success, but rather he wants to share it in hopes that everyone will be inspired enough to start something of their own that matters. Which brings us to me.
Last summer I decided to start a book club. I realize that this isn’t the world’s most original idea and that on paper a book club might sound boring and old fashioned, but I like to read and frankly I needed some kind of social life in the worst way. To be honest, I tend to join things rather than start them, so even beginning something felt like a huge obstacle. I set up the meetings to be once a month and the first meeting was held in July. Two meetings later and we were up to twenty people. Because of our shared love for books and wine we decided to call ourselves Reading Between The Wines. We are a diverse group of women from all different walks of life, ethnicities, religions and political parties who get along amazingly. That might not sound like that big of a deal, but the thing is, typically women aren’t very kind to each other. The sad reality is that movies like “Mean Girls” are more fact than fiction and all you have to do is turn on any reality TV show to see the image of women as catty backstabbers, who see each other as competition rather than friends. Women have fought long and hard for so many years for equalization and to be seen as being just as intelligent as men, but turn on the TV and it’s hard to find anything other than Kardashians or The Real Housewives of Wherever displaying not much more than woman-on-woman hate. And yet, once a month I sit in a room full of women who could have easily let their differences get between them but instead chose to focus on what they have in common, in our case a love of great books and great wine. It gives me hope that together we can change the grotesquely inaccurate stereotype of women and bring the importance of intelligence and friendship to the forefront.
I don’t have a product to sell or give away (at least not right now), it’s attitudes and prejudices that I want to change. We have big plans for the coming year, including a book drive in January with all books to be donated to the library at the Women’s correctional facility, because women should be kind to each other no matter what their situation in life is. In addition to our New Mexico branch, we have expanded to Georgia, Ohio, Iowa, and Oregon with hopes of more branches in the future. It’s still pretty fresh, but I already owe much of my inspiration (as well as figuring out the practicalities of a non-profit) to Start Something That Matters.
Start Something That Matters is enlightening and informative, and my only complaint is that it has a tendency to drag at times. Mycoskie recounts the start-ups that inspired him and cites quotes and passages in a way that can often read a lot like a college term paper. If you’re expecting a biography of a man, Mycoskie is quick to let you know that this is the story behind the company, not the story behind the story. In fact, very little of his personal life is revealed at all, aside from an occasional short, well-placed anecdote.
Whether you want to start a for-profit business like Toms or change the world in whatever way you choose, Start Something That Matters is worth a read. Mycoskie offers up so much information, advice, and even free sites to get you started that literally all that’s missing from the book is his hand reaching out to physically shove you in the right direction. This isn’t taking business advice from Donald Trump or any of the hundreds of questionable CEOs of questionable companies, this is taking advice from someone who is truly practicing what they preach (so much so that he recently trimmed down the unnecessary excess in his own life and now lives in a two hundred square foot sailboat. Can you picture Donald Trump living on a tiny boat? Yeah, me neither). Start Something That Matters is equal parts refreshing and inspiring and will undoubtedly leave all aspiring entrepreneurs shaking in their Toms.
