Love More, Fear Less: How a Pair of Pink Socks Sparked a Global Movement

What if one spontaneous act of kindness at a hotel pool could spark a global movement? That's exactly what happened to Nicholas Adkins, founder of Pink Socks Life Inc. and author of Pink Socks: How a Pair of Socks Became a Symbol of Love and Connection.

Nick went from suit-and-tie healthcare CEO to Portland hippie after one week at Burning Man, and that pivot led him to a simple but powerful truth: real human connection is the antidote to the fear-drenched, algorithm-driven world we're all swimming in. Over 300,000 pairs of pink socks later, he's still proving it every day.

Find Nick at pinksocks.life and on Instagram at @pinksocks.life. The book is on Amazon, with all proceeds benefiting the Pink Socks Life nonprofit.

Want to be a guest on Drink O'Clock? Send us a message on PodMatch here: podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/drinkoclock

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:36

We are finally live. This has been one of those days, man. You know, just my PC needed to restart because it decided it needed to do an update that I've been avoiding for a while. And then uh software issues. We had to switch software, and you know, thank you, D script, for for ruining a good thing. But anyway, positivity. That's the whole point of this podcast. Uh, Drink a Clock podcast. I'm your host, Rob Valencius, and I have the pleasure, the absolute pleasure of having with me Nicholas Atkins. Now, Nick, can I call you Nick?

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

All right. Nick, you're the founder of Pink Socks Life Inc. Uh, you also recently wrote a book, right? Pink Socks, How a Pair of Socks Became a Symbol of Love and Connection. And he's got it right on the screen for you people watching on YouTube. Welcome to the show, brother. Look at that.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

It's love more, fear less. Rob, hey, brother, it's good to see you. Thank you for having me on your show and letting me share the pink socks story with your audience. So it's uh, and hey, I'm listening. I'm kind of grateful we had that the hiccups in the beginning because it gave us it gave us a real reason to go get a drink. So cheers. True.

unknown 1:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Cheers. Salute. So the way we like to start the pod, and I think it's important, right? Well, one, we're gonna have to eventually talk about that sick beard you got. Uh, you know, but for starters, let's let's talk background here. All right. Talk to me a little bit about growing up. Um, you know, what was it like for you? You could tell us kind of, you know, where if you want, um, and uh lead me up to the point where you know, we get to the pink sock story, but don't go into it yet because I think you know, I want to spend a little time on that.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

All right. Well, hey, listen, your beard. All you gotta do to get to this point is be lazy. All this is is lazy. If you will stop cutting that thing, it will grow.

SPEAKER_00 2:35

I you know what though? I need to train it. Mine does this, so I look like a hobo. I need to like, I need to train. I have beard oils in the comb and stuff. I gotta, I just gotta, I I gotta commit. I'm I'm I guess I got uh beard commitment phobe in me. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Oh, I cut mine about twice a year. So I'll take about that much off every six months. And I I have this recurring nightmare of through the years where I'll wake up and I've in the nightmare, I've cut my beard off. I've shaved. And then the first thing I do when I wake up is I grab my face and like, oh God, it's still here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Like, all right, all right, it was just a dream.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Like, you know, I've gone all Sid Barrett, you know, like shaved or shaved my eyebrows. I'm like, oh god, what have I done?

SPEAKER_00 3:23

That's funny, that's great.

SPEAKER_02 3:25

Um yeah, so I live in Portland, Oregon, and I grew up in Tennessee. I was born and raised in Memphis, uh, just behind Graceland. My mom was a friend of Elvis's stepmother, Dee Presley. And so it was kind of wild, you know, being 1970 and riding my little twin with the banana seat bike and the chopper forks up and down the driveway in Graceland. So um that is so cool.

SPEAKER_00 3:59

Yeah, my mom is a huge, huge Elvis fan. She actually has an Elvis room, um, where and she's a um my mom's a yard sailor and a thrift shopper. Oh, nice. And she's got some of the craziest shit that she's got from she's got an Elvis lamp, Elvis dolls, uh, you name it. She got she got it. And uh her birthday is the day that um Elvis died, August 16th.

SPEAKER_05 4:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

So um we uh it's we we mourn that, but also celebrate at the same time every year. So I want to take her to Graceland.

SPEAKER_02 4:33

You should listen to something. When I was a kid when and when he died, um the land across from Graceland used to be just a big field. Now it's souvenir shops and all kinds of you know stuff. But it used to be just an empty field across the street. It had a little stream ditch, you know, running across the middle of it, and we used to take our bikes and play like we were evil can evil and build plywood ramps and jump over this ditch. And I was doing that one day, and and uh all of a sudden the the traffic going in both directions in front of Graceland on Elvis Presley Boulevard, right in front of his house, stopped. People were just stopping in the middle of the street, getting out of their cars and walking up to the gate. And I was like, hmm, that's odd. So I pedal my, I think it was a Huffy. I pedal my Huffy as fast as that thing would go. And I keep sliding into the into the garage, all star-skin hutch, you know, come running in the back door. And there's my mom standing in the living room in front of the big giant console television, crying with her mascara running down her eyes. And she looks at me and she goes, Oh baby, Elvis is dead. Oh no. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

So it's it's a day I I know my mom, I know my mom is it's it's on the list. I want to, I want to take her out there one of these days.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Yeah. Um Memphis, great town, good barbecue, lots of good people, good southern hospitality. Um, and then I spent most of my adult life in Nashville, where I was a healthcare executive, a suit and tie guy. So I didn't look like this at all. Uh, you know, it was custom suits, cuff links. I was that guy. Did not have this.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

And um I work in the Medicare world now. That's that's where I'm in.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

So yeah, yeah. So I was the COO of a of a national healthcare company based in Nashville, operating in 37 states, and and we did uh uh a lot of a lot of a lot of billing. So we were a practice management software company in medical billing. So very different world. And so in 2010, I went to this thing called Burning Man for my first time. Burning Man's a shit, okay. It's a week-long event in the desert of Nevada, and about 70,000 people from all around the world descend on the desert, and they sign off on this social contract, if you will, these 10 principles that we're gonna abide by so this thing doesn't fold in on itself by the end of the week and go all Lord of the Flies on us. And uh so 2010 was my first time to go. And um at that time in Nashville when I was the suit and tie guy, we were trying to decide what to do with the company, whether we wanted to sell it, whether we wanted to merge with another company, whether we wanted to take on some more debt, build out some things. Well, some things to decide. And I said, Well, listen, I don't really know what my vote is on this thing. I'm gonna go to this thing in the desert, and I'll come back and I'll have an answer. So off to Burning Man, I went and came back, and now I'm in the boardroom. I came back, you know, it's in blue jeans and a t-shirt and Tevas and I hadn't shaved. And they said, Well, how was that Burning Man thing? I said, It was great. And they said, Well, what's your vote? I said, Sell it, I'm out. They're like, What are you gonna do? I said, I'm gonna move to Portland, Oregon and become a hippie. And that's what I did.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

So I hey man, that's a hell of a story. Uh I was in Nashville two years ago. My company, um, we do these like big events. So we have um, we're a brokerage and we have you know insurance agents all across the country. And uh, we rented out uh the Titans Stadium, which um honestly was one of the we did three different stadium tours, and that was the coolest one.

SPEAKER_02 8:49

You know, they're building they're building an even bigger one now.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Yeah, they were working on it when we were there, like you could see it, and um, I think they said it was gonna be done either this year or next year.

SPEAKER_05 9:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

Um, but it looked really nice at the time, and it was still had a long way to go. Um, but we we really enjoyed it, and everyone was so cool. Like that was the only place that they allowed us to, we were on the field. Yeah. Uh they were given the tour, they're like, go ahead, run around in the end zone, and you know, we're like catching passes in the end zone. And um it was it was a unique experience there. But um you were from I'm from Philly, so you know, Southerners are just it's a different, they're just nicer in compared to us.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

I've got lots of friends still live in in Nashville and in the South. My kids and the grandkids who are in Nashville, so I frequently go back. And um, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:45

It's an up and coming place at this point, man.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Uh you know, a lot of people it's already there's no coming to it, it's already up.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Yeah, that's true. That's true.

SPEAKER_02 9:54

Real estate prices now are are worse than California. They just intense, man.

SPEAKER_03 10:02

Just yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:05

I was shocked when we were down uh what's the main street called? Broadway. We yeah, so we were on Broadway, and it was it was a Wednesday night, and I'm like, uh, you know, we'll go down and check it out. It it you could have fooled me. I thought it was a Saturday night.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

It was insane. Yeah, Tootsie.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

It was summertime.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

It was summertime, but it it was running in the Grand Old Opry and Tootsie's and Roberts and all the stuff all the way down to the hard rock on second. I mean, it's nonstop. Seven nights a week, man.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

It's it's it was wild down there.

SPEAKER_02 10:42

I always don't go to Broadway, though. You only that's when people from out of town come to see you and like, oh, I'm gonna go out and Nashville it up. Then we go there, but uh people who live there don't really go downtown too much.

SPEAKER_00 10:57

I guess it's yeah, it's it's it's like here, right, Philly. We're not gonna take you to to see the Liberty Bell, you know, or or go to Pat's and Geno's for cheesesteaks because that's the where the tourists go. You know, we we we have our every Philadelphian has their their cheesesteak spot. And uh, you know, there's typically a top three, so we're gonna we're gonna take you there. Well, that's you know, they they will they will definitely beat the shit out of you if you don't say it correctly down there. They they mean business. I don't I don't know what it is, man. Uh especially if I'm I'm sure they deal with a lot of like 2 a.m. drunk guys that are like, oh, without with kind of sorta, and they're like here, you know. Uh but listen, so all right, so Burning Man. Um you know, I've seen I've seen um social media stuff. Like, what was that like?

SPEAKER_02 11:51

It was just like that. It was like everything you've seen and everything you haven't. It's people I've been six times now through the years, and I don't really feel compelled to go back. I think of Burning Man, Burning Man at this point. Um but when people ask me what it is, I say what 70,000 people having 70,000 unique experiences. Whatever it needs to be for you is what it's gonna be. And it's very true. And you know, wonderful music, uh art, it's unbelievable, massive-scale art installations that people bring and build out there. Uh sense of community. Um, and it's in the desert, in the middle of nowhere, you know, the high desert. So you have to survive this thing, number one. You have to uh, you know, it gets 115 degrees you know, in the daytime. There's no vegetation out there, it's no dry lake bed. Um, and the temperature can go down in you know in the low 40s at night. So it's a pretty big temperature swing. So and the party's going 24-7 a whole week. And you you just you come home from the first one and you start thinking about all the things you saw on all the DJs you danced to and all this, and then you see online the bigger picture of what was out there, and you realize, oh shit, I only saw about 10% of it.

SPEAKER_00 13:28

Damn, it's that big.

SPEAKER_02 13:30

It's vast. It's vast. Like, yeah, I forgot to sketch all and like, oh, you know, nine stages. I'm like, try, you know, 1500 stages. Just you can't do it all. It's fun. So uh, and so what I talked about, there's these 10 principles in the book chapter one. I get into a little bit of the Burning Man piece, and I I list the 10 principles, but I'm not gonna list all of them right now, but some of them are like radical self-expression, radical, you know, self-reliance, community, leave no trace, which is you know, pick up your trash. Um gifting. It's a principle of gifting. And it's really that ethos of gifting that Pink Sox life is based on. And so when when when you and I, and most of us, we think about you know, gifting, someone gives you a gift, right? So I say, hey Rob, I I made this bracelet for you. Here I'd like to give you this. And I give this, and you feel compelled to give me something back, right? Like it there has to be some quid pro quo. There has to be this reciprocity, it's like a knee-jerk reaction that we have to, oh, you gave me something, I gotta give you something back. Well, true gifting is uh you just saying yes to the other person's gift, accepting the other person's gift is your gift to them. And as I said, ethos of gifting. We're in our 11th year now. We just had our 11th birthday on April 12th. Over 300,000 pairs of these have been gifted all around the world in the past 11 years. Um there's design elements on here, the mustache, hit a bar mustache, and this puzzle piece. The puzzle piece represents the power of connection. And I hope you can read the front label here. It says, the world is full of good. When you believe it, you see it. Keep doing that. And that's kind of the Pink Sox tribes mantra is that, you know, yeah, the world is full of good. Come on. You know, what we focus on, right? You know, we the lens that we look through here, what we focus on and what we put our energy on is what we see. It doesn't negate that the world is also full of some shit, some awful things. Because it is. But if we put our attention and our energy into focusing on the good things in the world, oh man, that's so much all around us. Well, that's where our energy goes, and that's what we really see and how we show up for ourselves and for each other. And the logo love more in the book, love more. Love more, what? Love more, fear, less. That's the rest of it. Love more, fear less. And I tell you, Rob, you know, you and I'm talking as we were pre-funking here before you hit the the go live button. Um, you know, we're getting fire hosed, fire hosed with fear. Just nonstop. The algorithms are just working overtime on each of us to keep us in a state of perma crisis. It's chaos. It's just on and on and on, it's fear-based. And so, you know, the invitation is to put this down, get off our phones for a minute or longer. Take out our earbuds and say to the guy next to us on the bus or the train in line at the post office, the grocery store, say, Hey, how's it going?

SPEAKER_03 17:18

Yeah, my name's Rob. What's your name? Hey, I'm Nick. Hey, Nick's good to see you.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

Just that moment of connection is what we're all craving. And that's a fact. You know, this need, this craving to connect with other humans, it's in all of us. It's hardwired in our brainstem back here. It's in our DNA that we want to connect with each other. And when we give ourselves the self-permission and the space to do that, that's where the magic happens. And that's really what Pink Sox life is is all about. It's a celebration of true authentic connections. It's this is a connection. This is connectivity. You and I are using a platform right now for connectivity so that we can have a connection.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

Correct.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Yeah. And so, like I said before, before you hit record, you know, we were kind of riffing and betting each other, making sure that we weren't AI, that we're real people. Uh and, you know, so these moments of connection, especially in the world that we're in now of AI, become so, so important. And so we can't miss each one of those opportunities to connect with someone. And the back of the label on the pink socks has the instructions. I don't know if you can read that, but it basically says, hey, every time you wear these, you're gonna make somebody smile. Somebody's gonna see these and go, hey, those are cool, those fucky, or hey, I like your socks. That's the universe tapping you on the shoulder saying, stop what you're doing, get off your phone, stay on the bus and at the stop, and connect. Don't miss each one of those opportunities to connect with someone. Because you're gonna have them throughout the day, whether they see your pink socks or they see your sticker, or maybe you're wearing whatever hoodies or a t-shirt or whatever. Um and you know, Rob, hey, listen, if pink socks isn't your thing, that's okay. Encourage people to find what is your thing and go all in on that. Maybe it's a hat, maybe it's to dye your hair purple, maybe it's a button, it's a fun tie, you know, whatever your thing is, then get somebody to say, hey, that's cool. Boom, do it. And don't miss each opportunity when someone connects with you because that's they're reaching out to connect. Don't just ignore them or don't just say thank you and keep walking. Remind yourself, okay, this is this is it. This is what I'm here for. I'm here to get this connection and say, hey. You know, it's a reminder that we're all in this thing together, right? That we see ourselves in each other. There's a lot of that in the book, you know. And uh the book has the backstory, goes a little more into the detail of the Burning Man thing, and tells it, you know, how we what's happened to us, you know, as a Pink Sox tribe around the world over the last 11 years and where we're going, what we're doing, and who we're helping. Uh we're a 501c3 nonprofit. And all the proceeds from the sales of the book go to the nonprofit to help support its mission. And um, you know, I routinely, you know, I give away pink socks every day because I carry a little backpack with me full of pink socks. And if I don't have that, I always have these in my kilt, these stickers. And, you know, someone will say, Hey, I like your hat, or oh, I like your beard, or oh, I like your socks, or oh, I like your kilt, whatever it is. You know, I stop and I say, Hey, I'm Nick, what's your name? And I say, I'm Bob. Hey, Bob, it's good to see you, man. I think I got something for you. If I don't have the pink socks, give them this. I say, listen, all we have to do is show up in every now with love and kindness. You're already doing that, just keep doing it. Deal and I go, deal. Boom. Give them this. Do you want a hug? Of course I want a hug. Yeah, it's a hug. I mean, I just came back from Home Depot and gave away three of these and got three hugs, right? It works. It works every day. And the more you allow it to work and just let it, um, it's magic. So gotta move out of this.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

I was gonna ask you, I was gonna ask you for your elevator pitch for pink socks, and you just you just hit me with all of it. So I'm like, ah, I don't even need to, we don't even need to go into the elevator pitch.

SPEAKER_02 21:41

I mean, that's it, man. Just all about love and kindness. And just keep doing it.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

I look, I think it's important in in you know the world that we live in today. There's just it it it's tough to come by, and it's you know, it's not necessarily uh like think about our generations, right? I mean, I I so I'll be 40 too. You got Me by a little bit, but you know, we grew up at a time I grew up in a time where there wasn't cell phones and then there was cell phones, but I also grew up in a time where there was no social media to when it was just starting to come around. But in high school, there really wasn't social media, so I don't like I I know I talk about this on every podcast because I feel like it just hits in every single different uh area. I have a fear for our kids. I don't have kids, but I hit the generation of kids that are growing up, and it is all fear, it is all hatred, right? Because the algorithm's like, watch this guy punch this guy in the face, or you know, why watch the all these people get into this this fist fight or watch you know the this dog die. Like just just crazy stuff that you really shouldn't like. Why why do we why do we need that? But um, you know, I I really agree with the principle of of what you're doing. I it's I think it's important for us as humans.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

It's the phone. It's you know um. I've seen probably more than half a dozen shows now at the sphere in Vegas.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

And it's amazing every time you go in there that people go the whole concert filming it instead of being in the moment, in the now, in the experience of it. You know, there's professional photographers and videographers that are gonna put stuff online. You can watch this later. It's not your job to be the photographer, to video document the event. You paid a lot of money for that ticket. Come have the experience. Get lost in the music, get lost in the show, get lost in the communal experience, the vibe of this.

SPEAKER_03 23:54

People don't know that anymore.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

You see a lot of that now. A lot of people that are just, you know, they're at the show and they're just filming the whole time, but they're not like they're not being present.

SPEAKER_02 24:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:07

You know.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

Yeah. I mean, I'm talking, you know, it's it's a thing. So uh I'm grateful that I was able to experience uh my teenage years and my younger years without phones.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

I agree, man. It's like anymore, you can't even like you know, pick your nose or you know, pull a wedgie out in a store without someone taking a video and you show up on Twitter and it's like, watch this guy pick his ass. You're like, come on, man. I thought no one was looking. I had a wedgie. Yeah. This is CVS. It's not like I'm, you know, anywhere, you know, you do you do the one look, you know, like come on.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

We'd be I believe we'd all be a lot better if if these phones went away.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

But I unfortunately I I don't see that probably happening. In fact, I see probably we're gonna get to a point as a society where we're gonna be more I think they were talking, and this is just a a report. And look, I don't know. We were talking conspiracy theories before this, and I I was hoping we would get into it at some point because I love talking conspiracy theories. Um we're getting to a point. I don't well, I don't know if this is a conspiracy, but I saw some stuff that says we are gonna get to a point as a society where we'll be more robot than human, right? We're gonna it's the have and have nots will be the augmented and the non-augmented, right? Like, I mean, just look at something like Neuralink, which is helping people, right? But they're gonna at some point realize that Neuralink could also maybe just make you tap into the internet with your brain and be super smart.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

Yeah. Yeah, we have no idea. We have we have no idea what's about to happen. I mean, the the AI that we're experiencing now that we're engaging and interacting with.

SPEAKER_03 26:02

Once that hits quantum AI, we won't even know, Rob.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

I look, all I'm saying, uh it's it's a blessing and a curse, I think, right? I mean it's it'll it'll it'll make us more productive in some avenues, but in in others it's gonna The best thing we can do is unplug, go to the park, take the dog for a walk, enjoy the sunshine or the rain, look at the flowers, talk to people along the way.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

Take your shoes and socks off, put your toes in the sand or in the grass and ground.

SPEAKER_03 26:44

Remember what's real. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Yeah, there's there's something, you know, we're talking about love, right? There's just I'm a dog guy.

SPEAKER_03 26:52

Yeah, me too.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

There's just there's just something, you know. I have two dogs, Captain and Morgan. And uh might have a problem. I don't know. Uh, but there's something about when a dog looks at you. Oh, there you go. There you go.

SPEAKER_02 27:08

Hey, what are you doing? I was I'm hanging out with Jack and Jack.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

There's just something about when a dog looks at you. I was experiencing this before the podcast, I was I was petting my boy dog who I love him to death. He compare my girl dog's smart as shit. He's not the brightest. He's very smart when it comes to getting treats. He he knows how to play the system.

SPEAKER_05 27:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Um, and and me and the wifey talk about it all the time. But we're I'm just petting him. I'm looking at him, and he's looking at me, and I I just I know he loves me. And, you know, I'm I'm telling him I love you too. You know, we're I'm I'm just I I actually saw a story recently that said, you know, dogs actually do react uh cognitively when you tell them you love them. They they know they they can feel that. And uh I'm just telling them I love them, and I I'm like, I don't know if you you fucking get it or not, but I feel like there's this we there's a weird bond with with your dogs that I they just know, you know, they they can feel it.

unknown 28:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:04

Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

It's like an electricity. I know.

SPEAKER_02 28:06

I know. And so then I have a I have a little Norwich terrier now, and she's about oh, 16 months old. And I got her, you know, when she was a puppy, and before her, I had another Norwich from the same breeder up in Idaho. And and and my my dog's name now is Nugget, and the one before her was Katie. And Katie lived for 15 years and three months. She died in my lap. And along the way of of our relationship, one night I was Katie was in my lap, and I was having a little conversation with her, and and I was like, you know, Katie, I yeah, I love you so much, and you know, uh I just hope that I'm letting you live your best life and that I'm taking care of you and protecting you and keeping you safe.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

And all of a sudden she said to me, Oh, no, Nick, you know, you you've got this wrong. It never was about you taking care of me. It's about me taking care of you.

SPEAKER_02 29:24

It was like, and that changed my relationship with her. Like, I was like, oh wow, you know, she really and even nugget now, I understand the relationship. You know, these little fur babies of ours, they're they're not pets. And yes, we love them and take care of them and keep them safe, but what they're really doing is they're our guardians of the galaxy.

SPEAKER_03 29:52

Yeah. I feel that you're you know Captain and Morgan, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Captain and Morgan, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:00

So Captain and Morgan are your little guardians of the galaxy. They're they're around your orbit to keep you safe, to keep you loved. And you just show that back to the, you know, you just mirror it with each other, but you know, they came into your life to to keep you safe and loved.

SPEAKER_00 30:17

Yeah, I have two, so so they're they're Brussels Griffins. I don't know if you've ever seen that, but they um do you watch TV at all?

SPEAKER_02 30:27

No, I don't have a TV.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

There was a um a commercial back in the day that Samsung did. It was a Super Bowl commercial, I think. Uh, but it was uh dog gets adopted and he looked like Chewbacca. Oh, great. That's what my dogs look like. They look like either a Chewbacca or an Ewok. It it depends. Okay, so they get super furry.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

So Nugget looks like an Ewok. Hang on. Let me let me let me just say here, I'll show you. That's in fact, yeah. I often say she looks like people are, oh, she looks like an Ewok.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Yeah, we call I we call them our bearded babies because they have beards. They're uh they're beard dogs.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

Well, here I'll just here's a great old picture of of Katie.

SPEAKER_03 31:17

Yeah, but look. Oh shit, yeah, definitely. Right? Those guys are so cute.

SPEAKER_02 31:26

Wow. And she doesn't shake shed, right? So she's hyperallogenic and does not shed. It just grows like hair. It's crazy. She's like a little teddy bear. When I first got, I had a chocolate lab before I had Katie, and his name was Jack. And I also got him when he was a puppy, eight weeks old, and he made it to a little over 13. And and so when I switched to a small dog to Katie, um, I told my kids, I said, I called him up, I said, I said, listen, you know those old guys that they get a little dog and they carry the little dog everywhere they go? Dad's that guy now.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

We have uh here, if you can see this, these are this is a bit of an old picture, but uh so Morgan, Morgan's the smaller one, Captain's the guy with the the kind of the black and are they related after? Yeah, so Morgan is uh his older sister. So she's uh it was in a litter a year before him. And uh I we got Morgan, so we met Morgan when she was like six weeks old. So I'm I um I found this breeder, the wifey found these this breed on Instagram, and uh, you know, then we're we fell in love with them. I'm like, you know, I'm I'm a big Star Wars guy. Uh that's that's like that's like my thing. So I'm like, all right, well, let's get one. You know, we've talked about getting a dog. So uh I found this breeder, she's about an hour away from us. And and the cool thing about Philly, I don't know how Nashville is, but the cool thing about Philly is you can go an hour, I could go 20 or 30 minutes away and I hit Standard City, Philadelphia, right? People everywhere. I go an hour in the opposite direction and it's Amish.

SPEAKER_02 33:10

So you have this like Pink Sox friends in in Philly and around Philly over Pittsburgh in between.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

Exactly. Pittsburgh's close to it's it's the same, it's the same thing, right? So I I found um I found this breeder and she was kind of up in the middle of nowhere. Uh, she had a farm, and uh, I think I chose her because she talked about um getting she gets her puppies familiar with other dogs and other just thing, living things, horses and and donkeys and stuff. And I'm like, well, that's the type of dog I would want. I want something that that's used to other things, right? So uh we went up the first time and we met Morgan. She was six weeks old, and uh, I wanted the smallest one of the litter. She was the smallest, but damn, I'll tell you, she's uh she she was she was a fierce little girl. Uh and but she's fucking she's so smart and uh she's super intelligent and just um she'll let us know if she's not happy and she knows how to piss me off. And uh Captain was a year later, same thing. We met him at six weeks. Um, and I said, I want the biggest, chubbiest guy, the litter. And this this guy comes out, just eats, eats away. I'm like, that's that's the one right there. We want him. And um, you know what, dude? They're the nicest dogs outside of to each other, because sometimes they'll beat the shit out of each other, but it's they're just playing. But um, they're the nicest dogs on the planet, they would never hurt a fly. Yeah, uh, Morgan's nipped at me a little bit when she was a baby. We nipped that in the butt, you know, pretty quickly because it she's she's one of those I I she thinks she's an alpha, you know, like she's outside just rubbing her paws, making sure everyone smells or scent, you know, type shit. And uh, you know, but nicest dogs on the planet. I'm I'm really happy that we we went with the the breeder we did because they would never hurt a fly. Like we take them anywhere. They love every dog, they love every person, and they just you know, you do like I take I take her for a walk every day at the park down here, and and she wants to say hi to all the dogs, you know.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

So many people are trying to train their dogs to to heal and to walk beside them, but like, nugget, that dog doesn't want to say hi to you. It's trying to learn to walk without saying hi, you know.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

Oh yeah. And that was just see, that's the nice thing too, is when you get them young, like when you get them a puppy, and uh I look, I'm I'm all about adopt adopting too, you know. There's nothing wrong with adoption. Yeah, I I I like to have a little baby that, you know, I I can bestow upon them what I want them to do, how I want them to do it. And um, you know, I just it's the same thing. It's it's your mantra, right? Spread the love. And if you pour love into the dogs, you know, that's what you're gonna get back, and that's how they're gonna react to the world. You know, it's not gonna be apprehensive and scary. Now, some breeds you can't really help it with, you know, sometimes it's in it's it's in their DNA, but you could do your best to do whatever you can to make sure that they just love everybody. And it's one thing I'm proud of with our dogs. You know, Morgan, she just turned 10, and Captain just turned nine.

SPEAKER_02 36:24

They don't really they don't look like attack dogs.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

So no, no, not at all. But you know what? Sometimes there's the little dogs, they have that Napoleon complex, right? Where they, you know, they need to make sure people know my dogs don't give a shit. They're just all over the oh yeah, Chihuahua, the the evil dog, whatever you want to call the devil dog, people like to call him. Um, we like all dogs here. Uh the big, small, medium, whatever. We're we're big fans of just all dogs. Um, but yeah, so um talk to me about your um hotel coffee moment in San Fran. You know, I know that that was uh a big moment for you.

SPEAKER_03 37:07

Have you read the book? I have not read the book. Okay. You got that off the website.

SPEAKER_02 37:14

I got it off the website. Way to go.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Now, if it's in your book, you don't have to go into vast amounts of detail. We want people to buy your book.

SPEAKER_02 37:22

Yeah, I'm I'm I've we do want you to buy the book, absolutely. Uh you know, it's a collection of heart speak, a reminder to get out of your head and move back into your heart space, which already knows the answers and knows the way. Um but yeah, so when um you know I moved out here and was doing a great job of being a hippie for a few years, and then uh I got involved as a as a co-founder and a tech startup here. And we created the world's first open API for asynchronous video file management in a HIPAA stack, which is a healthcare privacy thing. Yep. And um, you know, as most startups, all startups have to do, you have to go raise money. And the best place to raise money is down outside of San Francisco. Uh so one of my co-founders and CTO Andrew Richards and I were in San Francisco, and we were sitting out at the pool that morning having coffee. It was a beautiful morning. The Phoenix Hotel, which is a classical motel that's down in the hate, it's in the I'm having a brain cramp.

SPEAKER_03 38:48

Anyway, uh it's the booze.

SPEAKER_02 38:53

It's the booze. It always creeps. It's not the best neighborhood in any way, but it's the and they recently sold this place, so it's it's not even a thing anymore, which is a shame. Uh, but it's a phoenix, and so we're sitting at the Phoenix, and um there's this couple, you know, sitting next to us out by the pool, older couple.

SPEAKER_03 39:17

And you know, I had on so so tell me back up.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

You know, so when I moved out here, like a month, yeah, maybe a month after I moved here, I met a burner that owns a kilt company here in Portland called Stumptown Kilts. And he said, his name is Johnny. He said, Hey Nick, have you ever worn a kilt? I said, No, he goes, You want to try one? I said, Yeah, he goes, come over, you know, blah, blah, blah. You know, hooked you up. That was June of 2012. That was the last time I wore pants. So I only wear kilts and I only wear their brand. That is awesome. Day one of uh wearing a kilt, Rob, I discovered you have to wear fun socks. You know, you can't be that geek in the Bermuda shorts with the knee hide dress, black socks. You can't be that guy. So I went and bought all the fun, funky socks I could find. T-Rexes, pugs, tacos, corgies, sasquatch, unicorns, rainbows, you name it. That's the way to do it. Yeah, yeah. So I had all these fun socks that were you know, kill. And that day at uh the Phoenix, I was actually wearing some robot monkey socks. Uh monkey head with a kind of a robot hat on. And those socks were actually yellow, they were pink, they were kind of yellow with a red band at the top, their knee highest. Anyway, so this the solder couple next to us, uh, they're from Israel. And they're retired. And uh the guy's name was Shlomo. And Shlomo loved these robot monkey socks. And I was like, I mean, his smile was infectious, and it's just so and it was their first time to San Francisco, you know, they were doing the tourist thing and all that. And and I said, hey, Shlomo, don't you guys don't go away because I've I got something. And so, because I knew back in the room that I had brought another pair of those socks, brand new one, still with a tag on it. And I'm saying, I'm just gonna gift him some some of these socks, you know, because he's digging on them so hard. I've so go back and I said, Shlomo, these are for you. And you would have thought that I gave Shlomo the keys to the city, you know. Like, on behalf of the city of San Francisco, I'd like to present these wonderful robot monkey socks to you. And uh I hope the picture is still up on the website of of us together with Shlomo and at the Phoenix. Um it's in the book. It's not on the website. Uh so when we got back from that trip, you know, and I kind of sat with the experience and I asked myself, I said, well, gee, Nick, you know. That was amazing how happy someone got over being gifted a pair of socks. This is a lot like Burning Man, you know, give somebody a gift with no expectation other than just to give them a gift. And they gave me so much joy back by just accepting the gift. I was like, what if you know, you know you do this at Burning Man all week, gifting, gifting, gifting, you know, this whole decommodification, nothing's bought, traded, or you know, sold. It's all a gifting economy. Well, could you what if you could you gift at scale, you know? Could you really see what that did? And so uh we were trying to think, you know, oh man, nobody's ever heard of us. We're raising money, we've got a really cool thing, but we've got to get on the radar screen of all the you know the hospitals and you know, people who are gonna use the tech, other startups, et cetera. And so I got online at Googled and I found this association of healthcare IT professionals. And they were having their annual conference, you know, their Super Bowl event of the year. And it was in Chicago, 2015. And I saw said to Andrew, I said, listen, I'm gonna go get, I'm gonna go get a hundred pairs of pink socks. And he goes, 'He goes,' the ones with the mustaches on them? I go, yeah, those. He goes, Well, why those? I go, because out of all the funky socks I have, I get the most. Hey, I like your socks when I wear those. I said, So, Andrew, you're gonna put 50 pairs of these pink socks in your little backpack, and I'm gonna put 50 pairs in my little backpack, and we're gonna go rolling into the McCormick Center in Chicago, and we're just gonna show up. And I said, you know, there's four. 42,000 people there in suits and ties. I don't own a suit and tie anymore. I'm not going out and buying pants for this thing. I'm rolling up in a kilt. You don't wear a suit either. Just wear some blue jeans and a brew pub t-shirt, or maybe roll your blue jeans up a little so they can see your pink socks. And we're just gonna go in there. And every time somebody says, hey, what's what's the story? You know, with these pink socks. We're gonna say, Hey, I'm Nick. This is Andrew. What's your name? We're gonna connect and go, hey, wait a minute, we got something for you. And we'd reach in our bag and we'd say, These are for you. And they're like, What? And Rob, remember 2015. So this was back when Twitter was fun, right? Yeah, you know, you had a bunch of grown-ups, like we were like teenagers playing on Twitter, you know, give away pink socks and people wearing their pink socks. And we started using this hashtag at that event, hashtag pink socks. Always one word, always plural. The hashtag took over at the event, it went viral. I don't want to get too much into this story, but that's like chapter one of the book. Is uh we gave a guy who's like the guy on social media um in the healthcare space. We ran into him as we're walking into the convention center, a guy named Dr. Eric Topol out of San Diego.

SPEAKER_03 45:16

Um and I said, Dr. Topel. And he's like, Nick.

SPEAKER_02 45:24

We followed each other on Twitter. You know, I had a handful of followers and he had a gazillion. This guy was like, you know, God on Twitter and the healthcare space. And he says, Hey, I listen, I really like what you guys are doing up there in Portland with this video thing. And I was like, I go, Do you mind if I quote you on that for Twitter? He goes, I wish you would. And this is a guy who you know, he only does his own content. He doesn't retweet stuff, you know. It's like I'm like, and I gave him a pair of pink socks, we got a picture. I showed it to him and I said, Are you okay if I tweet this? And he goes, Yeah, tweet it. So he walks in with his handler, and they go in, you know, into the conference. I hit tweet. We walk, you know, 10 feet in, open the doors, and other things. I looked down at my phone and I said to Andrew, Holy fuck, Dr. Topel just retweeted my tweet. Wow. Instantly, people were coming up to Andrew and and me saying, Hey, we're we're from Intel. We'd like for you to come meet our CMO. We're from Dell. Would you like to come meet our CTO? We're from Microsoft, would you like to come to our pavilion and you know like that? All because Dr. Topel had retweeted this tweet, and people wanted to know what is the story with you guys that Dr. Topel would retweet you, or what is the story with these pink socks? So we went from nobody knowing who we were to taking over the event, and we made a lot of great connections, and some of those people are still connections today. We we we call those people the OG Pink Sox tribe, the original gangster. Um because the original, you know, Rob, the original Pink Sox back in the day, 2015 when we first started. Only had the mustache. And then in 2017, I got invited to go do a TED talk in San Francisco. And I added the puzzle piece to represent the power of connection, pink socks connecting people all around the world. Because by that time it had become a thing. In fact, when the TED people called me and said, hey, we'd like for you to come do a talk in San Francisco in October 2017, I was like, Well, what do you want me to come talk about? Telemedicine? Senior doctor with video, because that's kind of the main use case or application of our technology. And they were like, No, we want you to come tell the story of the pink socks movement. And I actually laughed at her. I was like, What? There's no movement, it's just a bunch of happy smiley people gifting each other pink socks, playing on Twitter, having fun, you know, making new connections, and you know, and she goes, No, it's a movement, and we want you to come tell the story because we believe it's a story we're sharing. And I was like, I'm in. And yeah, and it really, it's really never looked back after that. And again, it's built on this ethos of gifting that somebody's once upon a time you met someone and they gifted you these pink socks. And it's just a token, a reminder that, yeah, I was in Vegas or I was in Nashville, or you know, I was in the airport in Denver, and I stood by this guy, he had these pink socks, and I commented, and next thing you know, he reached in his bag and he gave me some. And wow. And then I looked it up and I was like, oh my goodness, they're everywhere. And oh, look at all this they're doing. And you know, we're helping other nonprofits, and now we're helping schools. Um there's two chapters in the book. I really, you know, I don't want to spoil that story, but there's two chapters how we got involved with schools. A first grade teacher in El Paso, Texas, Celine Blancas, is the one who's who really started all that. Just a little bit about that on the website. Um but yeah, you know, we're helping teachers pre-K all the way through high school teach kids what they call the social emotional learning curriculum, teaching kids about kindness, empathy, connection, compassion, cooperation, anti-bullying, you know, all the things that grow good humans for the world. And so now we're, you know, I think 34 schools in nine different states. Uh we have a pink size school outside of Philly in Royceford, Upper Royceford, UPE, the school district. Uh, an elementary school there.

SPEAKER_00 49:54

And Royersford?

SPEAKER_02 49:56

Royceford outside of Philly.

SPEAKER_00 49:59

Yeah, I I grew up in that area.

SPEAKER_02 50:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:02

Yeah, I grew up King of Prussia, Bluebell, yeah. Yeah, Collegeville, that whole area. That's my mom lives in uh in Norristown. So we're it's right down from Royersford. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:13

Yeah, I've actually been to that school a couple of times. Beautiful country out there, farmland, rolling hills. And there's a fourth grade teacher there, Brian Akins. He's the one that invited us to that school and got Pink Sox and involved at his school. Um super cool dude teaching fourth graders Zen meditation.

SPEAKER_00 50:34

That's cool.

SPEAKER_02 50:35

Right? How to ground themselves and how to, you know, stay regulated.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

See, that's the type of shit that they need to teach. Right. Not the they're doing it at Royceford, bro. Like, not not fucking. I I cannot tell you, I'll be 40 in my adult life where I used trigonometry to solve uh a real world problem, you know, or or algebra. I mean, algebra maybe not like these are the things they need to be, they need to be teaching you with your money. Be kind, regulation, and be grounded.

SPEAKER_02 51:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

I I I couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER_02 51:12

Uh in fact, he he just published a book that is for other uh school teachers called Chill Skills. That's um basically sharing his curriculum with other schools around the country. Brian Akins, A-I-K-E-N-S, Brian, B-R-I-E, and and Royceford, Upper Royceford Elementary, UPE.

SPEAKER_00 51:38

So shout out to the shout out to you, Brian. That's that's that's really where what we need to do because I gotta tell you, man, some of these kids they grew up with an iPad, and it it's that's they're not learning much from a from a connection standpoint. Throw this thing up.

SPEAKER_03 51:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:58

Um so yeah, man. So the world is full of good. It's all around us, right? It's it's around you. It's in Philly, it's out of Royceford, it's everywhere. So don't don't be fooled by the algorithms and media and the news and all the fire hose of negative stuff. It's so much good all around. People doing great.

SPEAKER_00 52:15

Especially with kids. Kids are like innately pure and good. And and you know, like they see um they see the the good in things when when they shouldn't. And you know, when we get older, obviously it's it it kind of it can flip on you, especially if you have um some traumatic experiences, I guess. But um, you know, I I think it's important for people to go through those stages of of failure and and things like that, because at the end of the day, when you come out of that, you know, that person is different than the person that that stepped into that that shit storm. But typically you walk away a better person, you know, and and then um, you know, I I believe strongly in in karma and uh, you know, I think what what you get and what you put out, you know, um, it's gonna come back, you know, at some point. And I I don't know, uh, you know, I know we had talked it to kind of I don't know what your your thoughts are about death, but I've interviewed some interesting people uh that has changed kind of how I view things. And I've read some books about the afterlife that have changed kind of my the traditional view of of what I used to think. And I do think that um, you know, you're here for a reason, and you know, you're gonna most people come back, you know, and and uh, you know, we all have objectives in life, and uh sometimes they're cut early and sometimes they're not. And you, you know, um, you know, but it it's it uh who knows? By the time you know, it's you can't fucking tell anybody, so yeah.

SPEAKER_02 53:55

You know, I'm like saying I'm 61. I'll be 61 in July. And what day? July the 7th.

SPEAKER_00 54:05

On the 17th. Yeah, man. Summer birthdays, baby.

SPEAKER_02 54:08

Yeah. Cheers to that. Yeah. Cheers.

SPEAKER_00 54:14

It's a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_02 54:16

And um, you know, I think what I've learned along the way so far is I really don't know shit.

SPEAKER_00 54:26

I couldn't agree more.

SPEAKER_02 54:27

I don't know. In fact, I like to preface before I start talking about something I like to preface with listen, I really don't know, but here's what I think. I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 54:45

Because by the time you do for half the shit, it's either too late or you know, whatever. You know, and you don't think about that shit in your 20s either. You know, it's it's when when you're in your late 30s, that's I I probably think about death more just because it deal with old people, right? I deal with seniors all the time.

SPEAKER_02 55:02

But my daughter, she I've got two kids, and my daughter's my youngest. And I guess I don't know if she's 17 or 18. We were on a camping trip outside of town here of Mount Hood, just looking at the mountain and in the middle of nowhere, and just she and I with these zero gravity chairs and the stars out, just the mountains glowing in the moonlight. You can see the Milky Way rotating around us.

SPEAKER_03 55:29

And you know, we're just lying there looking up and she asked me, she said, she goes, What do you believe?

SPEAKER_02 55:41

And I said, and I said to myself, I've been waiting for a long time for her to ask me this question. Because now she's not really a kid anymore, you know. And uh I said, well, Clementine, I said look at all of these lights, these stars, these planets, man, just I said, I believe that what we're looking at each one of those points of light.

SPEAKER_03 56:13

Those are planets and stars that light's coming from so far to reach us. I believe most of what we're looking at out there is the past.

SPEAKER_02 56:31

We're looking at things that have already died, but to us they seem very vibrant and bright and alive. But some of this has reached us, those things are already gone. And I believe our life's a lot like that. I believe that what we're experiencing is our now to life is something that's really it's already happened because if you're out there in space looking at our little light, our little pinprick of light in the night sky. They're also looking at something that died a long time ago. So I believe that what we're experiencing is now something we're just catching up with in each moment, but it's really already happened.

SPEAKER_03 57:17

And so now all we have to do is make an intentional choice of how we show up with that in each now.

SPEAKER_02 57:28

And it is a choice, and it is intention, and it is a meditation, it is a practice to show up with love and kindness and to let go of fear. You know, Rob, love and fear they coexist in every now. They're always there. We have to choose what we want to focus on, what we put our energy into. And the more we focus and put our energy into love, the less loud fear is in our heads and our lives. And the understanding that we're all in this thing together. That um, and like I said, you know, we're over 300,000 pairs of pink socks, and that's that doesn't include a gazillion number of stickers, hats, t-shirts, there's been ties along the way, jewelry, hoodies. I mean, there's no telling there's really no true accounting of how many people have some pink socks gear. Uh it's the reality is when we engage with each other, when we have a true authentic connection in real life, like said at the post office or in line at the grocery store or wherever on the bus, when we when we get ourselves away from our teams, our sides, and we connect just one-on-one, what we find to be true is that we are all so much more alike, so much more similar, so much more the same than we are different.

SPEAKER_03 59:16

And that's that's a universal thing around the world.

SPEAKER_02 59:19

And when we get, hey, we all want love, we all want peace, we all want to go watch our kids play soccer or football, we want to go have a pint with our mates, right? These are the things we all want. And so that message of showing up with love and kindness and loving more and fearing less and not missing true authentic connections, um that's not a new message. It's a message that's been handed down through time, and it's a message that transcends I you know political ideologies and political geo-borders. It applies to all of us. And when we accept that, acknowledge it, be grateful for it, and start giving ourselves the self-permission and space to practice that with ourselves and then with each other.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:21

Magic. And but it's an intention. And when we start doing it, and you know, because you're already doing it, it's not work.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:32

It's just a flow. It's easy, it's easy to open that door for somebody. It's easy to pick that piece of trash up that wasn't yours, throw it away. Where, you know, just it's easy to say good morning to somebody when you're walking by. That's why I love going to Mexico. You know, we it rains so much here in the winter, and it's good to go south and see the sunshine for a while. And what I love about Mexico is you're walking down the street every morning, and everybody you go by, it's you know, Buenos Dillas, Buenos Tillas. They feel compelled to say it back, you know. And you know, we've lost that along the way here to walk by people and you know, in downtown Philadelphia and just say, hey, good morning, good afternoon, hey, hello, you know, because everybody's got their earbuds in and everybody's looking down on this. And I mean, even you know, I was taking a nugget for a walk yesterday at the park, and I kind of kept track of how many people that I'd walk by uh and I would say good afternoon, hello, to and they just couldn't hear me because they had, you know, they were into a podcast or music or whatever. Um so yeah, we got to get off these phones every once in a while. Just just give ourselves a break. That's a gift to give yourself that break. You know, just the more you you know, the more you give yourself that break. I've noticed a year or two ago, I really got serious about limiting, you know, and especially social media.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:02

You know, I'd get on there and I would say, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:05

And I could literally feel the algorithms turning in my brain. Like, okay, I'm being manipulated right now. And that was as soon as I would realize it, I would say, okay, that's it, done. No more for the day. Because that's what's happening. I mean, then you know, the tech company's even telling us now, yes, that's what we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:29

It's like when you speak out loud and then you have a marketing ad on your phone two seconds later for that. I mean, that's the shit that fu that's the shit that fucks with me. It's like you're you're having a conversation and then I have YouTube TV. Two seconds later, it's a commercial on YouTube TV. And I'm like, come on, man, come on.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:49

We're we're on Instagram, pinksocks.life is the website and the Instagram account, pinksocks.life. So if you want to see a bunch of happy, smiley people on Instagram and Pink Sox, go there and follow us. But uh, you know, I'll say something like, Oh, you probably need to change the air filter on the thing that you see, you know. Next thing I you know, get on Instagram. I'm I'm getting all of these ads about from HVAC companies. Just because of a sudden I need to get a new filter.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:17

I mean, now I'm or if you Google anything, you're screwed.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:23

Yeah, dude, you're definitely cooked.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:25

So that's awesome, man. Well, look, it it's uh I didn't look anytime I don't get to 95% of the questions I have, it's a great interview because uh if I'm going through my whole list, it's not normally a good Phoenix is in is in the Tenderloin in San Francisco.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:43

I was kept thinking it's getting I kept wanting to say the Castro, but it's not the Castro, it's the it's the Tenderloin, which is right next to Castro District.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:52

Got it, got it.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:53

That's it. They recently sold that hotel, but it was it was a classic, man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:58

It's it's tough when they get rid of the classic. Yeah. Um but yeah, listen, it was a pleasure having you on. Do me a huge favor. Plug yourself away. I know you mentioned a couple things, but make sure everybody knows where they could find.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:12

So listen, come to learn more about Pink Sox Life and what we're doing. Come to the website, pinksocks.life. Pinksocks.life. That's also the Instagram account. Follow us there, join us, get some good vibes from seeing happy, smiley people around the world. Pink socks Life, the website is also where you can get socks. We provide them at our cost by the dozens. So if you order pink socks via us, you'll be getting them one dozen, two dozen, three dozen at a time, et cetera. Because it's not just about wearing pink socks, we want you to gift pink socks. Because as I've said, instructions on the back label, every time you wear these, you know, somebody's gonna connect. You're gonna want to have some of these to gift to someone. And this is important. This rarely works, like almost never, to go up to someone and say, I'd like to give you these. No. The person that you're gonna gift your pink socks to, they will come to you. It's the person that comments and says, Hey, I like your pink socks. Boom. Hey, I'm Rob, what's your name? And they'll say, Hey, I'm it's good to see you. I've got something for you. But that's where you gift them. And it's magical. And uh the website is also you can donate and help us. I said we're 51c3 nonprofit. All donations are tax deductible. It's also where you can find the book. And there's a link on the website or on the homepage, can't miss it. Talks about the book, shows you how to get the book, and all the proceeds go back to the nonprofit to help us support our mission about spreading the love of kindness around the world. So we're grateful for you, Rob, because you're helping us right now. We're grateful for your audience.

unknown 1:05:59

So

SPEAKER_00 1:06:00

Oh yeah, man. Any way we can spread the word? Now I'm an audiobook guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:06

Yeah, you know, Rob, I tell you. So uh the book is on Amazon in hardback and paperback, and it's all it was also on the Kindle version, the not the audio version, but the Kindle version, the electric version. And um Yeah, we had to take that down, the electric version.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:26

Because Jeff Bezos did this weird thing recently where um there was no there was no royalties on on on the ebook, the Kindle version.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:42

It went from, you know, having a royalty to about 40 cents because everybody that signed up for like Kindle Prime or whatever got unlimited e versions. So I'm like, wait, you're you're just giving away our book now. And so we're I'm supposed to record an audio version um and that whole Kindle ebook debacle is kind of I've kind of stepped back and go it's unclear whether I want to do that because again, if he's just giving it away to prime subscribers, it's not helping us as a nonprofit. And the other thing that's nice about the book, Rob, is um there are QR codes throughout the book. And everywhere you see a QR code, you can go further down the story, further down the rabbit hole of that chapter. Like maybe it's it's it's hearing that, you know. I mean, be sharing a story of Heart Speak about a person, and if you want to see the story in their words, you go down that QR code. Or like we've got you know, five astronauts now that have pink socks. So if you want to, if you see a picture of one of the astronauts, you want to go see the original post on their Instagram account, QR code, and it takes you to their page. Stuff like that. It's fun. So having the having a physical book is is a nice interactive piece. And also, you know, as pink socks has grown through these years on this ethos of gifting, people gifting each other pink socks. We're also encouraging people to gift the book, right? So get a book or two and read it. If it speaks to your heart, keep one with you. And the next time you have a really cool, authentic connection with someone and you've gifted them their pink socks or give them a sticker and got the hug. Say, hey, listen, I got this book for you. And if it speaks to your heart, they'll get a copy for you to keep. Give this one away. Just pass it on to the next person, like I just gifted you this one. And that's how it's going. It seems to be working, so I'm grateful.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:52

That's awesome, man. Well, look, um pleasure having you on. Uh, my podcast is drink a clock pod. Anywhere you listen to podcasts, drink clock podcast, anywhere that exists, it should be there, hopefully. And um, you know, this episode will be up soon, man. So thank you. I know we had a lot of tech issues, and uh, but it was it was a pleasure having you on, and I really appreciate you hanging out today. I know you're a busy guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:15

Yeah, listen, the the next time we have a pink socks meetup in Philly, I'm gonna make sure I reach back to you so you can show up and uh meet some really cool people on their pink socks in Philly, and we just it's no business talk. It's we always pick an old G dive bar, and we go drinking, and it's a bunch of happy, smiley people who like to give hugs. And uh you'll meet some new friends for sure. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:39

Absolutely freaking Lulu. You count me in.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:41

Yeah, brother.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:42

Thanks, man. You have a great night. Thank you.