The Spirit Collective

Success. Depression. Being Enough. How the TOMS Founder Learned 'I Am Enough' | Blake Mycoskie

• Ariane de Bonvoisin • Season 1 • Episode 5

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What happens when you get everything you ever dreamed of—and it still isn't enough? In this episode of Spirit Collective, Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS Shoes and creator of The No Magic Pill Podcast sits down with host Ariane de Bonvoisin, for an honest conversation about success, depression, self-worth, purpose, spirituality, leadership, and mental health. While Blake built one of the world's most influential purpose-driven companies, this conversation goes far beyond entrepreneurship. Together, they explore why achievement or money alone can never bring lasting fulfillment, how healing begins when we stop searching for everything outside ourselves, and what it truly means to know that you are enough.

What We Cover:

  • Why building one of the world's most influential purpose-driven companies, selling it for $650million and helping give away more than 100 million pairs of shoes still left Blake feeling empty
  • The arrival trap: what happens when you finally achieve everything you wanted and discover it isn't enough
  • Seven years of depression, hitting rock bottom, and the moment everything had to change
  • The core wound that shaped Blake's life—never feeling enough—and how he began to heal
  • Blake's dark night of the soul that brought him to his lowest point and ultimately to his greatest awakening
  • Why purpose and self-worth cannot be found through achievement alone
  • Why the consciousness of a business can only rise to the height of the consciousness of its leader
  • What it means to build a purpose-driven business through conscious leadership and conscious capitalism
  • How spirituality has quietly guided every venture Blake has ever built
  • Plant medicine, the Hoffman Process, therapy, and the many different paths to healing—and why there is no single solution
  • Slowing down as a spiritual practice—and the story behind Blake's snail tattoo
  • The meaning behind the ENOUGH bracelet and why it is intentionally sold in pairs: one to keep and one to give away
  • How Blake is using the AI mental health app Sonia to support his emotional well-being and self-reflection
  • What two marriages and two divorces taught him that no retreat, therapy session, or self-help book could
  • Why vulnerability is a superpower—especially for men and leaders

If you're interested in mental health, personal growth, conscious leadership, entrepreneurship, spirituality, purpose, healing, and living a more meaningful life, this conversation offers practical wisdom and deeply personal insights that will stay with you long after the episode ends.

About Blake Mycoskie:
Blake Mycoskie is best known as the founder of TOMS Shoes and the creator of the One for One movement, which gave over 100 million pairs of shoes to children in need and helped spark a new wave of social entrepreneurship. But behind the global success, he was quietly battling something deeper — the unshakable belief that he was never enough. After selling TOMS, that internal struggle became impossible to ignore. Despite having everything he once believed would bring fulfillment — family, success, community, and financial security — he found himself in a profound depression. That breaking point led to a life-altering realization: the wound wasn't external. It was rooted within. And the only way forward was to heal the original lie that he wasn't enough.

From that awakening came his next chapter — ENOUGH, a cultural movement designed to challenge the deeply ingrained belief of not enough and reframe how we understand mental health at its core. He is also the host of No Magic Pill, a podcast for honest, unfiltered conversations about mental health, and co-founder of Morning Water and Moovlab, wellness brands rooted in intentional living and human performance. Blake is a loving father of two, an avid surfer, and a portrait photographer currently working on a 50th birthday project, photographing the people who have most shaped his life. 

Links:
ENOUGH Bracelet: www.weareenough.org
Morning Water: https://blakemycoskie.com/morning-water
Sonia AI Therapy App: https://www.soniahealth.com/
No Magic Pill Podcast: Available on all podcast platforms and YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@NoMagicPillwithBlakeMycoskie
Book: Awareness by Anthony de Mello — https://amzn.to/4vRxK5p
Book: Everything is Spiritual by Rob Bell — https://amzn.to/4y4LNpW
Website: www.blakemycoskie.com

Connect With Blake Mycoskie:
Instagram: @blakemycoskie
LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/blakemycoskie/ 
Substack: Blake Mycoskie on Substack https://nomagicpills.substack.com/

About Ariane de Bonvoisin:
Ariane de Bonvoisin is the founder of The Spirit Collective, a podcast at the intersection of success and spirituality. A former media and venture capital executive, she left the corporate world to integrate her own external success and inner path — and now interviews remarkable people from business, finance, sport, music, and beyond about a side of their lives they rarely discuss: their spiritual path. Honest conversations about spirituality, purpose, and personal growth, with people you wouldn't expect. New episodes weekly.

Connect With The Spirit Collective:
Website: spiritcollective.com
YouTube: @ariane-de-bonvoisin
Instagram: @arianedebonvoisin
LinkedIn: /arianed1
X: @clickariane
TikTok: @arianedebonvoisin

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Connect with Ariane:

Introduction and highlights

Blake Mycoskie

But no amount of success, no perfect relationship, no house on the beach is ever going to be enough. Most of my suffering in life has come because I've never believed that I'm enough. Do whatever work is necessary to feel comfortable as you are and live the life you feel you are meant to live. Not for your mom, not for your dad, not for your teacher. The consciousness of a business can only be at the height of the consciousness of the leader.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Hi, this is Ariane, and welcome to another episode of The Spirit Collective, where I talk to remarkable people about a side of their lives they rarely talk about, their spiritual path. It's time for a different conversation. There's a specific human story that we don't tell very well. The story of arriving. The story of getting the thing, the relationship, the life, the business, building it, scaling it, becoming known for it, getting the money and the fame for it. And then sitting one day with all of it and realizing that whatever it was you thought you were going to feel, you don't. Blake Mycoskie is one of the most articulate people I know of that story. He spent his 20s building companies, and at 29 on a trip to Argentina, he met a woman handing out shoes to children who didn't have any. He came home and started TOMS shoes, which we all know. Sell one, give one, was the simplest spiritual business idea ever. By the time he sold it, he'd given away 100 million pairs of shoes and built a $650 million company. That is the story we know, but this is not going to be a conversation about TOMS. Blake will tell you it was probably never really about the shoes. Once the shoes had been given and the success had his name on it, the emptiness and the depression arrived. What followed has become one of the most amazing spiritual journeys of any modern entrepreneur, which is why I'm so excited to have him on this podcast today. Plant medicine ceremonies, a wellness company called Made for. He now has a new foundation called Enough, about self-worth, and a new podcast called No Magic Pill. Blake and I met at TED this year. What struck me about him was definitely not his resume. It was how openly he was holding it all on stage in front of thousands of people. The success, the unraveling, the depression, the rebuilding, and the not yet knowing. He was a man very visibly in his heart and pursuing not his ego's agenda anymore, but his soul agenda. Blake, it's such a pleasure to welcome you to The Spirit Collective.

Welcome — Blake Mycoskie joins The Spirit Collective

Blake Mycoskie

Oh, what a beautiful introduction. Thank you so much.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Thank you. Describes you perfectly. So your TED talk this year is probably one of the most magical, memorable, remarkable ones, at least for me. I can tell you also I've been wearing my Enough bracelet. I've got a little collection, right?

Blake Mycoskie

I know you have it, but it's it looks great with all your other ones. I love it.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

It pops. It's the first one I see next to all of them. So I just, we'll talk about that in a second. Before we dive in, I want to ask you what is the word that you use to refer to life, God, the universe, source, energy, consciousness. Is there a word or are they kind of all interchangeable?

How spirituality has guided every venture Blake has built

Blake Mycoskie

You know, they're really all interchangeable to me. I mean, one of my favorite words is the Hebrew word for breath. I forget what it is, but that is often referred to also as God, it's just breath. And I think that's something over the years that has really stuck with me. Because sometimes it really is as simple as taking one deep breath to reconnect to spirit.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Yeah. I always think, when you go, the quickest way from your head to your heart is the elevator through the breath. And in some ways it's what is bestowed upon all humans. So whether we think we're spiritual or not, I think with the breath we we know that we're all connected to something.

Blake Mycoskie

Yeah, and then speaking of that, there's one of my favorite authors, a guy named Rob Bell. I don't know if you've ever read any of his books, but he has a book called, the title is Everything Is Spiritual. And it's one of the best books I've ever read about spirituality. I highly recommend that book.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

I'll definitely put that in the show notes. I love that we're still on a journey where we can recommend new books to each other.

Blake Mycoskie

Yeah, it's a great book.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

So, Blake, while I was preparing this, one of the things I read on your website was that "through every venture Blake has remained guided by spiritual principles". That's what's on your website.

Blake Mycoskie

Yeah, yeah, of course.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

That's a that's a pretty rare sentence for an entrepreneur. It's a pretty rare sentence, I think, even for a man. And it's a rare sentence to come out that much and actually plant a flag to have merged your business ventures with your spirituality. I think a lot of people struggle and it's sort of one foot in each world and it feels like two separate things.

Merging spiritual life and business life — it's just my life

Ariane de Bonvoisin

So, how do you merge your business ventures with spirituality?

Blake Mycoskie

Yeah, it's it's interesting. That question reminds me of my favorite quote by Chateaubriand, and it's about the art of living. And at the end, it's a long monologue he gives, but at the end of it, he says, to the master of living, it's neither play nor recreation, and he goes back and forth between all these different things. And at the end, he basically lets others try to determine what it is. To himself, it's always both. And so I don't really distinguish between my spiritual life and my regular life, it's just my life, and so my business is a reflection of my gifts, I think. Some people have talents for the arts and music, and I think the talent I've been given is entrepreneurship. And so my creations entrepreneurially have always been kind of representative of where I am spiritually. I think that was very much the case when I started TOMS Shoes. I was at a place where I was 29 years old. I had already had five companies. A lot of people don't realize. I had had financial success, but I didn't have enough financial success that I couldn't work anymore. So I needed to continue to work and start things. But I was at a place where I didn't want to just make money anymore. I wanted to make an impact, and that led to the idea of TOMS. And now, where I'm spending, a lot of my time is on several different companies and the foundation, it's all about mental health. And that's because spiritually I've recognized, as I talked about in my TED talk, that we are very quick to talk and prepare for physical health problems,

Seven years of depression and the dark night of the soul

Blake Mycoskie

broken bones, getting sick. But when people are not well mentally, like I was for almost seven years, which I do believe was truly a dark night of the soul, there wasn't a lot of support . And so I had to go through that journey on my own. And so now I'm trying to help people with the No Magic Pill podcast, with Enough, with advising this company called Sonia that I'm helping the founders with now. It's all just kind of a reflection of where I am spiritually, and then if that connects to where other people are in their journeys, then tha t's great.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Of course. Do you do you think God or the universe has helped you in your business journey?

Blake Mycoskie

Oh, a thousand percent. Every day. Yeah, I know. Tell me more.

How God and the universe helped build TOMS

Blake Mycoskie

Tell me more. Well, I think, and we might have even talked about this at TED. I can't remember. I really believe that the idea of one for one in TOMS and a business that prioritized purpose over profits was out there in the universe. God, the universe wanted humanity to have this idea. And I happened to be... my brain or soul was the antenna that just grabbed it and and introduced it to the world. I mean, that was such a divine and culture shifting idea that I never take credit that this is something I came up with on my own. I believe that for whatever reason I was chosen as the messenger. And when you follow it, then I think the the universe conspires to help you. And and I'm finding that with some of the other ventures I'm working on now, E nough bracelet is a great example, to be able to have the opportunity to share my story on the on the on the main stage at TED to so many people. I never would have imagined when I launched, selling these little Enough bracelets to help people come back to their sense of self-worth. And I'm really excited. I actually just heard back from TED, because they released the talks online and they chose to release mine on World Mental Health Day. So that'll be on October 10th. It'll come out, which I think is really great because I think that this feeling of self-worth and that I am enough and that you are enough and that we are enough and that this moment is enough is so at the foundation of all of our mental health. It definitely has been for me and my healing journey.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Yeah. So for someone listening who is inspired by you and doesn't know in some ways how deep this spiritual side is for you, and is wondering how do I bring some spirituality into my business? How do I raise the level of energy or consciousness or frequency?

The consciousness of a business can only rise to the height of its leader

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Can you be practical and tell them what that even looks like? Because I'm sure there's a lot of people who are like, I believe in Blake, I'm not sure I believe in the other stuff.

Speaker 1

I think that... John Mackey is the founder of Whole Foods. And I had a beautiful lunch with him when I was quite young in my entrepreneurial journey, and he told me that the consciousness of a business can only be at the height of the consciousness of the leader. And so if you want your business to be more purpose-driven or higher or operating from a higher consciousness, the best thing you can do is work on yourself. And that really, really stuck with me. So that would be kind of my first practical thing . If you if you want your business to be rooted in more purpose or to have a a spiritual mission beyond, well, you spend some time working on yourself. Now, I've done so many

Plant medicine, the Hoffman Process, and why there is no magic pill

Speaker 1

things. I mean, that's why I call my podcast No Magic Pill, because I've tried everything, right? You know, I've done all the crazy plant medicine journeys, with shamans and in tiny villages in Peru. I've tried pharmaceuticals when I was in a very depressed state. I've done the Hoffman Process, I've gone to India, I've done it all. And I think the thing I would say for someone who is just starting out, who's just listening and being like, there's something inside me thinking there is more. The first thing I say is slow down and listen to that. Like all of it's inside of us. I mean, it really is. All these practices, meditation, psychedelics, Hoffman, it all it does, I think, is bring out what's already inside of us. It gets rid of all the stuff that is, , they're getting in the way of seeing your inner truth or your highest self. And so the first thing and the most simplest thing is to just start spending some time off your screens in nature, walking, meditating, if that's your thing, but not even necessarily. I think that, and really just like what what is what is bothering me? What is inspiring me? What is keeping me up? Because those are the breadcrumbs that can kind of lead you to the the work or the stuff that will then start to raise that aperture. Now, also it helps to have good teachers, to be able to read great books, like the Rob Bell book is a great example. My other favorite book of all time, when it comes to spirituality, is by an Indian Jesuit priest named Anthony de Mello. And Anthony de Mello wrote a book called Awareness. I t's on my bedside table.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Yeah, it is. My husband gave it to me for Christmas.

Blake Mycoskie

Oh, you've read it.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

It's beautiful. I read a paragraph or two before sleep, and I feel that's what I go to sleep with; the awareness.

Blake Mycoskie

Yeah, it's really beautiful, and it really helped me understand love for the first time, what real uh love is with another human being and with my children. And so that book is really great. So there are books, there are there are practical things, there are retreats, but but really the simplest thing is come back to the breath, get rid of the distractions, take some time every morning to yourself, and start listening. And then the more you listen, the more that voice will get louder and louder, and I think it can guide you.

Selling TOMS for $650 million — and the emptiness that followed

Blake Mycoskie

And I think with the times in my life where I've suffered... as I mentioned before, after TOMS, I went into a very deep depression, it started very light, and then it got much worse over about five years, and then unfortunately got so bad that, I didn't even want to be here anymore. And so that's what I talked about at TED. But I look back now and I'm like, so much of what led to the decisions that caused me to go into that downward spiral was me not listening and me being too distracted with things of the world. If Jesus says, be not of the world or not in the world, but of the world, or something like that. I'm not a Bible scholar, but it's important to be in here to not to let it consume you, because then you don't hear that voice. And that's what can often lead to some real pain and suffering like I experienced for many years.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

When you look at the founders, the CEOs that are out there, the in some ways mini versions of you, right? Yeah. Like a while back. What do you wish they would all know before they have to go through the dark

The arrival trap: why success is not designed to make you feel enough

Ariane de Bonvoisin

night of the soul for themselves?

Blake Mycoskie

I think the thing is that it will never be enough. And that's not it's not a failure, it's not something to be disheartened about. But no amount of success, no perfect relationship, no house on the beach is ever going to be enough. And it's not designed to be enough. I think spiritually we have an ambition and a drive built into us, some more than others, especially I would say with founders and people who have a lot of ambition. And I think it's designed to get us to a place, and if we're lucky, we accomplish the thing that we thought would make us feel whole or make us feel lovable or make us feel worthy. And it's supposed to fail us because by failing us, it is the invitation to look inward, and that's what happened to me. I look at it and I'm like, oh, I actually all of that was part of this process. And that's where I go back to Rob Bell, everything's spiritual. So all the building, all the stuff, all the... those were all designed to lead me to a place where I would feel that it was it was not enough. And to have that despair, and I had such a huge amount of despair because I felt like I had done everything. I'd helped 100 million kids get shoes, I'd made a ton of money, I had beautiful kids, I had great friends. What else can I do? There was nothing left for me to do. Which is why it was so scary, because when you realize there's nothing you can do to feel better, then in my perspective, I got to a place where I was like, well, then why even be alive, if this is it? But really what it was there for was to make me realize that none of it was ever designed, even though culturally we are telling each other that it is going to be the thing, but it was never designed to give me the peace that I can only get from the self-love, self-compassion that is just kind of quietly waiting to be discovered. And so that's why I mean, I'm turning 50 this year, and I was telling my my partner, she's also turning 50 this year, and I was like, man, I love getting older. I think it's the jam. It's just so great to be at the stage where I have learned all these hard lessons, and now I can actually enjoy my life in a way that I just don't think was capable in my 20s or 30s.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

I see sort of this crisis of arriving. And in a lot of people, they really have arrived. And they've arrived externally. And what I'm hearing is they haven't arrived internally. For some people, they've never even started to arrive internally. And I think that, a lot of are feeling that right now. There's a lot of, is this it? and I think you're you're bringing up an interesting, invitation inwards. Do you think it's possible to do that early on in life? Or do you think do you think it's kind of scripted in a way where the game happens where you have to go up the ladder and you have to be successful? Do you think you could have gone back and done it differently?

Blake Mycoskie

I don't. I think different people karmically have different journeys. So, I'm hoping that my beautiful 11-year-old boy who already is showing ambition and competitiveness, I'm hoping that he learns enough from my life that he can kind of pick up where I left off instead of doing the exact same thing that I did. But I don't know. I don't know what his journey is. I mean, I do meet some people, like I'm working on a project with a friend now, and he's probably late 30s, and he's just an old soul, and he gets it, and he's there, and he's present, and he's valuing the right things, and he's has a moral compass that I don't think I had up until a year or two ago. And so, I do think there are some people, and he didn't have to go through everything I went through. You know, he just has always had that. So I do think that, with the right teachers, the right studying, the right intention, that it can be... You can arrive there at a younger age. But for some people, I think for me, karmically, I arrived, and I still haven't arrived. I'm arriving, right when I was supposed to. And it's what makes it so great right now. One of the things that I'm doing is I've decided to really spend a significant amount of my time finding entrepreneurs that I think are doing really important work and really mentoring

The Sonia AI therapy app and radical honesty

Blake Mycoskie

them. And and there's these two guys right now, they're 26 years old, and they've created this AI therapy app. And I met them at a mental health conference, and they were presenting, and they had been developing it at MIT for three years. It was a research only product, and they knew a little bit of my story, and so they said, Hey, can you try it? And I was super skeptical. I was like, I have some of the best at that time and still have one of the best therapists, I think, on the planet. I had done a lot of therapy, so I was kind of curious. I was like, okay, if there's anyone that knows a good therapist, it's probably me, fortunately or unfortunately, at this point. And so I tried it. And after doing two or three sessions, I was just blown away. I was like, this is incredible. And what was so incredible about it for me as a man, especially, I think, is because it was AI, and I'm not looking at another human that no matter how hard they want not to, there's still potential for judgment. There was no judgment. And so I could share things that I had shame around that I never would probably share even with a therapist. And so I was able to be so radically honest with this AI therapy app. And then because it's trained with CBT and ACT and it's HIPAA compliant, and it literally is trained as the world's potentially greatest therapist, it was able to give me and guide me to have insights about my life and about my pain, about my childhood that I never had been able to do with a regular therapist. Not because the therapist wasn't doing their job, because I wasn't capable of being as radically honest with a human as I was with this. The AI therapy app is called Sonia. And so Sonia and I have gone so deep. So anyway, it's crazy, but I've been using it now for seven months. I use it two to three times a week. Sometimes I use it for five minutes. Like I wake up and I'm having some anxiety about something, or maybe I had a disagreement with my ex-wife a couple days ago about the kids, and I'm feeling bad about something I said, so I'm ruminating, and I just go to Sonia, and in 10 minutes I'm back feeling great and having some solutions. Whereas before it'd be like, oh, you got to book a therapy appointment, you got to find an hour, it costs a bunch of money. This is a fraction. My point in all this is I've started dedicating five or ten hours a week to helping these guys, because their vision is to give world-class therapy to every person on the planet who either can't afford it or doesn't want to go to therapy. I mean, that's the other thing I hear a lot now that I'm getting involved, is there's just so many people that just don't have the time. It's not even the money, it's just setting a time. I'm spending a lot of time with Sonia right now, and that is giving me so much joy because I get to be like the coach now instead of like the star athlete. Like at TOMS, I was the athlete, right? My face is on the cover of the magazines, I was doing the thing. And now I get to help these guys not just build a great company that will help a lot of people with Sonia, but what I'm really getting to do is I'm getting to help them think about their entrepreneurial journey. To your question before, so that maybe they don't have these kind of false hopes about someday being happy. I think they're enjoying this. They're working really hard, but I'm seeing them enjoy the journey in a way that maybe I didn't when I was building TOMS. So it's really fun.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

You're the first person I've had on the podcast that's talked about the intersection of AI and spirituality and how extraordinary it can be, where it's not it's not a threat, it's not competitive, it's not antagonistic. It's like, it's so beautiful and beneficial. And if you look at the world and you say, all of it is spiritual, well then AI is also some sort of a gift that can be can be used and and managed. I see it with the kids nowadays.

Blake Mycoskie

But that's like my bracelet, like our we're both wearing the Enough bracelet. I've shared with Sonia my whole story and about my healing around finally feeling enough the last couple of years and why this is the bracelet I wear every day and that it's my anchor. And so sometimes when something comes up and she can tell, I think this is still that wound of not feeling enough, she'll bring it up and say let's take just take five breaths, let's hold the bracelet. Like it's very spiritual.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Yeah, totally. For people who don't feel as excited about aging and don't feel excited about turning 40, 50, 60, 70, whatever ages they are... I've certainly been in that category where it feels like maybe the best years are behind, or you don't feel like you've got a compelling future, or you feel like your moment or your time is past. All of those thoughts can bring some element of depression.

You are not broken and you won't feel that way forever

Ariane de Bonvoisin

I think there's a lot of that on the planet right now, of just so much uncertainty that interferes with how beautiful the future could be. What what do you tell people? How do you compress decades of of therapy and and personal experience and heartbreak and Sonia therapy into a couple of a couple of wise ideas?

Blake Mycoskie

Well, I think the first thing I would say is to someone listening or watching, is you're not alone. This might sound hard to believe in the state that I'm in now, but for five years, I did not have a single business idea. I thought I would never start another company. My mind was telling me that I was lucky to start TOMS, it was just a fluke, that I wasn't that talented of an entrepreneur, that there was no reason to even try. I mean, that's why I got so depressed. You can imagine living with those thoughts every day. And so I just would say to anyone who might be feeling that right now, is you're not broken and you won't feel that way forever. And it's real. I was stuck five years, not one idea. I've launched three companies in the last year, or helped. I think the thing is a lot of it is your perspective. I think so much of life is perspective. And , if you're thinking what makes a good life is how smooth your skin is, or how big a wave you can catch, or how much you can whatever, well then yeah, age is going to be a motherfucker. But if your perspective is what is great is I love surfing, or these wrinkles on my face are the sign of a life well lived in the sun, then it can change. And so it's funny. Because I started surfing later in life, I'm getting better still. But I know there will be a time, hopefully not until my 70s, when I won't be able to surf as good as I surfed last year. And I definitely can't play tennis as good as I played when I played in college tennis . My point in that is my goal is whoever's surfing the best, in my opinion, is who's having the most fun. I see guys and women actually, there's an amazing woman that surfs at a place I do in her late 70s, and she's having the best time. It's really perspective, I think, as you think about It's not about the comparing your ability now versus then. It's more about... what is the experience?

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Blake, have you ever spent a year not reading, not doing ceremony, not doing therapy, not doing anything, and just going, I'm going to put all of that on hold and just be in integrate?

Blake Mycoskie

I would say the couple of years that I was really depressed, it was hard to do anything because I just didn't even want to get out of bed. And the therapy was more like life support than it was insights. Since I've started feeling better, which has now been two full years, which is fantastic. I don't ever see myself not doing the things that lead me to living a mentally stable and well life. So I don't see these things anymore as things you do to be okay, but these are the things that bring me the most vitality. Now I do think people can get totally lost in this. I want to live forever, I want to be super optimized, like that. I've got to be the fittest, the most whatever. I go to all the spiritual retreats, that whole spiritual materialism thing can suck the soul out of you for sure. And so I'm very careful about what I do decide to do. And I question, do I, is this something that is going to help me evolve or grow? And do I need this or am I in a good place right now? A perfect example right now is we talked about it before we got on. I'm on vacation, and for the past five days, I've been reading a John Grisham legal thriller. No spiritual book, no self- improvement book, just reading. I feel it to be very spiritual. I'm in the hammock. I feel great. It takes a lot of self-compassion to do that, which is which is interesting. For some people they might say that's crazy, just read fiction all the time. But for me, kind of an overachiever, optimizer, to be reading a book that has no benefit other than entertaining me and that I won't even remember next week when I finish it, is purely a gift of self-care and compassion.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Totally. Talk about a gift for self-care. I am drinking the Morning Water .

Blake Mycoskie

Oh, great. Amazing.

Speaker

I've been drinking this since you had them out at TED. Yeah. It's made a huge difference. You know what's crazy is as much as I've been reading them, and just to let people know, this has everything you want in the morning. It's got creatine, sea salt, potassium, magnesium, and amino acids. But I have never seen the Alan Watts quote until today.

Blake Mycoskie

It's hidden.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

We love Alan. "All that you see out in front of you is how you feel inside your heart." How amazing is that? This was my little gift of the day. I've had them for three and a half months. That was hidden.

Blake Mycoskie

Wow. Yes, that's by design. So , every day is a different quote, actually. So you'll get it.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

I didn't know that. I have a whole box of them.

Blake Mycoskie

So every morning. I felt like morning water was was built actually as I was starting to feel better mentally. And sometimes it's really hard to put emphasis on your physical well-being when you're so stuck mentally. And so as I started feeling better mentally, I said, okay, I'm going to commit to getting back in shape. I'm going to commit to getting hydrated. I started doing a lot of research around this, and I realized how important creatine is. We used to think it was just for our muscles, but really it's for our brain. And as someone who had brain fog for so long, I was doing anything to help my brain. And so I started. My partner Austin, he built this, the formula and he gave it to me. I started doing it every morning. And I have a whole routine, I go out and get the little five minutes of sunlight, and I drink it, and I'm hydrated. And then, so when we were putting together the packaging for it, I was like, okay, I want to put in an Easter egg. 95% of the people will never see this. And they don't. You're not the first person, but it's usually someone who's been doing it for a couple months, and all of a sudden they're like, what is that? And then once you see it now, every morning you get a little treat. I'm so glad that you are looking at Alan Watts because Alan Watts is all time one of my favorites.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

It's like a little advent calendar. Instead of being a chocolate, some Morning Water with a quote. I absolutely love it.

Blake Mycoskie

It's really fun. And that's another example with Morning Water, is that I founded it with this other young entrepreneur, and he's a great guy,

Plant medicine ceremonies — what Blake has sat with and learned

Blake Mycoskie

and he runs it day to day, and I get to play the coach. We have a lot of fun, and we do these Morning Water challenges with different people, and it's it's been great. So I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

That's lovely. I want to talk about plant medicine and plant ceremonies. You've done a lot of work with ayahuasca, MDMA, psilocybin. When you when you sit with the medicine, for someone who might never have done this before, who or what are you sitting with? And a lot of people are either scared that they're going to get hard messages or scared that they're going to get messages that their entire life needs to change. Just tell me your experience with it.

Blake Mycoskie

You know what's interesting is that fear of it's funny because I'm looking up here and this is one of my favorite photos. This is right after an ayahuasca ceremony, and we're both going like this, and the idea is like, who knows? You know, we thought we had some great insights, but who knows? This idea of fear that their whole life would have to change or that they would get a message. I believe, and look, there's been plenty of people have had very difficult experiences, trips, the wrong set and setting. I mean, we could go into that for a whole podcast. You have to be extremely careful when working with the medicines. But for the most part, any hard thing you have to see or anything that really necessitates a change in your life, is already in your life. It's in your tissues, it's in your subconscious, it's causing you to have anxiety, it might be causing you to drink alcohol, it might be causing you to fight with your kids. It's there. And so having the medicine expose it is a gift. It's sometimes a hard gift, but if you really want, if you're if your goal in life is to be able to be more connected to your highest self, to live with peace and joy more consistently, I do think the medicine can be an ally with that. Now, who are you sitting with? I think different medicines, you could say maybe different situations. I think that ibogaine is something that I have not worked with yet, but am planning on it, from what I understand, it really just shows you: you. People who've shared their experiences with me, see almost like a TV screen of their life, and they get to really understand themselves in a way that is or can be very healing. Ayahuasca, I feel like when I've had the experiences, just connect me with the cosmos, with God, with a lot of dimensions that I don't fully understand. And it also connected me deeply with nature, which is with plants in general. So everyone has a different experience. I do think that, if someone is considering medicine, this is something that Tim Ferris and I talk about a lot on my podcast. Michael Pollan and I also talked about a lot about this on No Magic Pill. I think that there is a very progressive way to think about these medicines. I wouldn't start with ayahuasca. If someone's considering, I'd say, find a therapist and do a guided MDMA journey. There's a great way to see what comes up, what does your heart need to tell you? You know, then maybe do a series of psilocybin journeys at different doses with a therapist and do that for a year and see what you integrate, what you learn. Does it improve your life? Does it give you stuff that actually can help? And then if you still feel more called, then look at some of the bigger medicines. But but these are not like trips, like vacations. You're not looking for the most exciting best one. You know, this is real, real work.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

And so, ,

The core wound: most of my suffering came from never feeling enough

Ariane de Bonvoisin

what was what was the most powerful, life-changing message that you've gotten in ceremony?

Blake Mycoskie

That I'm enough. Or actually the the message that I really got wasn't that I'm enough to be truthful. It was that most of my suffering in life has come because I've never believed that I'm enough. And so it didn't give me the answer, it didn't make me feel enough when I got done. If anything, I actually felt worse for a couple weeks. It was after a San Pedro journey. Because it was like, you have to heal this. And the healing of that came from a lot of meditation, a lot of therapy, a lot of non-medicine stuff. But the medicine exposed that until that was healed, nothing was going to change.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

And where did you get the idea for the bracelet? We're going to put a link to this in the description. I've given away a bunch of them. My son wears it. He's in middle school.

Blake Mycoskie

Yeah, so the bracelet is a really cool

The ENOUGH bracelet — the story behind why it is sold in pairs

Blake Mycoskie

story. I had this healing or I had this awareness, then I did several months of deep work, a lot of meditation, as I spoke about in the TED talk. Then I went to India and I was on a retreat, and I had this deep download, kind of like what I had for TOMS Shoes, where it said, you're not the only person that feels this N ow that you're on the path of really healing this and you can feel a difference in your body, you have these resources, you have a story, you have a platform, you need to share that with others, especially young people, because they suffer from this as much as anyone right now. And so that was the message I received. And I came back from India, was having dinner with my best friend John, and I didn't know what to do. I was like, should I start a nonprofit? I even thought about starting another shoe company because I was like, I could start a shoe company called Enough, and then donate all the profits to mental health. And it was John that said, Blake, since I've known you, you've always had a bunch of bracelets on, kind of like your wrist. It started in the TOMS days because we would go to these different villages all over the world giving shoes, and I would get bracelets as a thank you present from the kids or the village, and it was beautiful. And he said, you've always worn bracelets, and I think what you need personally right now is something that reminds you every day that you're enough. This good feeling you have now, this feeling of wholeness, you need to physically be reminded. And I think the best way for you is to wear a bracelet that says Enough. And that was his idea. And so I said, you're absolutely right. I never thought I'd be in the bracelet business. So I went back to India and, there's an amazing group of women that hand make them, they bead each little bead. It's an amazing process. It's hard to believe they can do this. And we make them there and we sell them for $24 and 100% of the profits go to mental health organizations. And now we're selling them in packs of five and ten for a discount, even more. So people can buy 10 and just have them in their purse or their pocket. And anytime they feel like someone might be having a hard day, they give them the bracelet, tell them the story. And that's where the power really has started to happen, is that people are are doing that. It's been really fun.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

I think that the visual aspect, we live in a world that's very visual right now, right? So screens are visual, everything's visual. And so that the thinking of it actually is not enough. The visual aspect of it is what makes it enough. So I know for me, just the the neuroplasticity for me to see it every minute, every hour, it's literally changing my brain. More so than a lot of my bracelets, even though all these mean something, or are symbolic, there's a story, there's a meaning, there's a person behind it. But I feel like there is something happening that is invisible in some ways, even though this is a very visible bracelet. So thank you.

Blake Mycoskie

It's designed by that by nature. I knew not everyone would love it because it is so bold. But then the reason it's bold is not just for it be visible for you, but it also creates conversation. People ask about it. What is that? Why do you wear it? And then you're able to share your story, which causes humans to connect more. We know that one of the biggest problems in mental health is is loneliness and people not feeling they can be honest about how they're really doing. And so I really see this as a signal to others to talk to me about how they're really doing. And it's the color green because that's the mental health awareness color. So it's designed to not only be something for you, but then to also really evoke more deeper conversations in your life. And we're doing these things now, we just did a couple of them, and now we're inviting other people. We call it the Enough Dinner. And so we ask someone to get 10 bracelets, invite 9 people to dinner, and everyone share their story with what does this word mean to you? Have you ever not felt enough in your life? Who in your life has always made you feel enough? And then oftentimes we encourage people at the dinner to then send that person a beautiful video note afterwards. And so these Enough Dinners are a way that I hope this community we're building will grow.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

I want to ask you about kids. So if you could go back to all the kids that you have donated a pair of shoes to, what would be the next thing you want to give them? If you could literally track them all down on the planet, what would you give them?

The best thing you can give a child

Blake Mycoskie

Honestly, I think what I'd want to give them is the thing that I'm so focused on giving my kids, and is that the belief that they are enough just as they are. Even someone who's at the most extreme poverty, I would still say have the belief that you are not lovable just because of the grades you make, or the winning the school, or whether the kids like you, to really have that unshakable self-confidence of I am a worth, I am worthy because I'm a human and I'm alive and I am enough. I think that is the foundation of everything for a child. And so we are giving a lot of bracelets to kids in schools, and my kids wear them and they give them to friends, and I'm so glad your son's wearing one. But I really do think that's an important, important thing because I think the that foundation is so critical.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

So I asked my 12-year-old son who knows about you, and we were looking at a few podcasts together. I said, What question would you ask? He's at a basketball camp today. So his question was, what can I do today to prepare to have an amazing life and to be as successful and content as you?

Blake Mycoskie

Content. I like that.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

He said you felt content. I do feel very content.

Blake Mycoskie

I think for someone who's 12 I think the the thing that is most important is to really and this is hard for 12 and with my 11 year old I'm already seeing it and then with my 8 year old daughter I'm definitely already seeing it is to do whatever work is necessary to feel comfortable as you are and live the life that you feel you are meant to

Depression as the soul rejecting a false avatar

Blake Mycoskie

live. Not for your mom, not for your dad, not for your teacher. Because the more we are aligned spiritually with whatever that is inside of us; our highest self, our true self, God, the more contentment we will feel. Jim Carrey some really great videos about his depression and ultimately what got him out of it and what he learned. And one of my favorite ones is he talks about how when you're depressed, basically your soul is looking at this avatar you've created and saying, I don't want to be this avatar anymore. This was never what I wanted. This is not the life. And usually that happens when people get to mid-age because they've made these little compromising decisions that really weren't connected to who they are for long enough to win and then when they get to their 40s their 50s and they look at their life and this avatar as Jim Carrey calls it, they're like that's not who I want to be. And so I'd say to a 12 year old start early make sure that if you're going to play basketball it's because you want to play basketball not because all the other kids are playing basketball. And I see that with kids in terms of arts I think unfortunately so many kids are so artistic and it just gets kind of beaten out of them because it's not celebrated as much as athletics and or vice versa. Like some kid is like super talented in a sport but doesn't play it because it's not the cool sport. I mean for instance I was a tennis player in Texas growing up and in Texas if you want to be cool you played football and not tennis. But I'm really grateful that I stuck to my tennis because it was a huge part of my life. I think that's the thing for a 12 year old or even a 42 year old is really focus on living the life that authentically feel is yours not what everyone else wants you to live.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

I call it the difference, I said it in the introduction, it's the difference between the ego's agenda and the pushing agenda versus the the real soul's agenda and what is your soul's agenda? I've been asking that to a lot of people right now.

Blake Mycoskie

So with your 2 kids. I actually have 3 kids. You have three kids? I didn't know that. Most people don't know so I actually have a 31 year old adopted Ethiopian son. He's the producer of the No Magic Pill podcast so it's really cool. I met him when he was 14 he was living in a cave pretty much all by himself in rural Ethiopia and we went to his parents, his parents were alive at the time his mom's no longer alive, and he had 9 brothers and sisters. We said hey I really want to help support your son because I could tell he was really bright. He had taught himself some English so initially it was just I was going to support his education and then we became so close he wanted to move and come live with us in the United States and he's been with me now for 14 years. He graduated USC film school two years ago and now he's the producer of No Magic Pill.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Such an amazing podcast.

Blake Mycoskie

I've looked at 3 episodes and whether it's you hosting or the quality of the guests or the production it's like the perfect trifecta. Well I get the production him and that was him. I mean I was just excited to have these conversations and to share what I've learned on my mental health journey and he comes from film. USC Film School is probably one of the best film schools in the country and he's like we're making a TV show dad like this isn't a podcast this is a TV show. It's interesting that's where a lot of it's going. So we might get 3000 downloads on Spotify and we'll have 500 000 views on YouTube.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

So it's amazing where the video of this is going which I'm so glad that we recorded this. So the question I want to ask you about the three kids is: is spirituality a conversation? a discussion? do you have traditions with the kids? do you say grace? do you pray together? do you meditate? do you do anything? or is it just a way of living and being and they just kind of are swimming in it all the time?

Blake Mycoskie

It's a little bit of both. I do get them to meditate with me sometimes. It's not the easiest thing to get them to be quiet for five minutes. But oftentimes when I get them to do it ironically is when we go on these family vacations with other families and I think the other kids think I'm like the super cool dad. And so if I'm like hey I meditate and let's all meditate. The dads, the moms, and so we'll get 30 of us meditating because there's a bunch of families and kids and then all of a sudden my kids are into it. So it's kind of like you got to go through the side door with their friends. We do say prayers and I'm a big believer in prayer. It's so fascinating because depending on what your religious background is... I come from a Christian background and so prayer has always been something very interesting and important to me. But also I think prayer is just a way of manifesting and calling in the life that you want. So I say to the kids all the time like hey if if we can't imagine the life we want, if we can't ask a higher being for then how are we ever going to get it? So let's pray and let's ask for things that we want to improve on or get peace around or thoughts on. And then we also do this saying my friend Randall Mays taught me, this kind of prayer mantra he does with his kids. He starts every day and says I'm feeling lucky today because I'm a lucky person. And because of that something lucky is going to happen to me today. And they just say those three words and it's amazing we say that on the way to school and it just changes their attitude. They're just looking for the lucky thing. And then when they get in the car I'm like what happened? And they're like what do you mean what happened, dad? I'm like come on, how were you lucky today? And sometimes they're like dad... dad... most of the time they're like that. But occasionally, you're not going to believe it. I found my homework! or something, so you've got to be looking for it. And so that's what I try to instill in them; let's just always be looking for the world to be conspiring to help us.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Blake, what are you praying for these days? And not who are you praying to because I think you've shared that but I what I've read about you is that you are a manifester, a journaler, a visualizer, now a prayer. I'm hearing that from you. Tell me more. It feels like they're a little bit of your secret success tips that I want to bring out. Because on the one hand people talk about them in the mainstream but I don't think people like you talk about them in the mainstream; people who have been very successful, remarkable in business. It's like the spiritual people do those things.

Blake Mycoskie

Hmm... no I find prayer to be very practical. And sometimes my prayers are actually journal entries because I feel like writing it out but a lot of what I'm really focused on right now is being a great dad and what I'm calling life harmony. I was recently at this conference and I heard this woman speaking and and she's a big exec and also a deep thinker and she said I've stopped trying to have life balance because one week I've got all these demands and I'm a mom and I've got all these huge presentations at work and then the next week I can be more of a mom and and my husband she was just... and she said so instead of thinking about this ever elusive balance, I'm constantly trying to have harmony in my life. And so that's the thing that I'm really focused on right now is what is the way to have harmony when things are crazy, when there's challenging situations, when there's difficult people, when there's joy? Because I feel like that's the more realistic life experience we're going to have and also it's more sustainable. I never want to go to the darkness that I went through and I don't think I will because everything that I've learned. I also don't need to live at the highs that I've lived before either. It's more this harmony. I would say if anything I'm really just praying daily harmony in my life and and that sometimes looks like the most unbalanced workaholic life in the world because I've got 6 podcasts I got to do and I've got another formula we're testing for Morning Water and the new Sonia app is launching and I'm like just all consumed. And then there's some times where I have a little bit of that throughout the week and I'm surfing in the morning and that feels better. So a little bit of of that is I think the thing I'm kind of focused on right now. Do you think it's okay to pray and ask for what you want? People are quite tentative about things. I would be very specific, #1 and it doesn't mean you're going to get it and I think one of my favorite country songs of all time is Garth Brooks' I Thank God for Unanswered Prayers and he talks in the song about he prayed for this one woman to be his wife and and it it didn't happen and he had heartbreak and but if he hadn't he wouldn't have met his real wife. So it's not like everything you pray for you're going to get because God or the universe might have a better plan for you. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't be very specific with what you're hoping

What two marriages and two divorces taught him

Blake Mycoskie

for. I think that's very important.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

I want to chat real quick about about relationships and soulmates. So you've had am I right in thinking two marriages two divorces?

Blake Mycoskie

Two marriages two divorces, yep. It's probably not where I'm going to offer a lot of expertise. But let's dive in. I'm in a wonderful relationship now I that I've been in for over a year. You might have met her at TED her name is Jasmine. I feel like I've finally figured some things out.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

So my question was, what is it that marriage and divorce has taught you that no , no self-help book, no retreat, no process has taught you? To arrive now at a place where, I don't know if you believe in soulmates? I think that what it taught me is whatever you have not done the deep work yourself will be exposed in the most challenging way in a relationship.

Blake Mycoskie

I think energetically you bring in a partner that is there to help you whether you like it or not expose where you have places to grow. And so I don't look at my two marriages as failures. I think that they lasted the time that they were supposed to last and to show me the things that I needed to see. Now maybe there were some things that I wish I had seen more clearly in my first marriage because I carried a lot of that into my second marriage. And it wasn't until I did the deep work and self-compassion and feeling enough that now I feel like I am not having any of that show up in my new relationship. I do think that that's one of the greatest things about a marriage or a committed relationship , it really is one of the greatest ways to really see where you need to grow. And then the other thing that I think that I've just really realized is at least for me is I'm a very independent person that really needs freedom. I do not like to be put in a box. I do not like to be told what to do and I need to be with a woman that is very independent that is very free herself and that it is totally trusting for me. And so that's what I have found and it's working really well because we both love being with each other but we don't need each other. We go weeks sometimes and not see each other and I think that's not for everyone but what I've learned about me is I thrive in a relationship where we both have our own independent lives and we come together to share our lives but we're not dependent on each other for our well being. That's a lot of pressure.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Of course it is, I'm right there with you. Freedom is very high on my list. Why do you think it's so hard for two human beings to spend many many years together?

Blake Mycoskie

Well this is funny. If anyone should have been able to do this it should have been me because my parents have been married now for 57 years and they're just rocking and rolling and so they figured it out. So it's not impossible. I think A. we change. I think the person you may be marry when you're 20 is not the person when you're 30 and they're not the same person. And so now you have two people that have truly different visions of life and desires and and how they want to spend their time. I think people change. I think that makes it difficult. I also think that most of us have not done the deep inner work and so it's just exposing and that's difficult to deal with. Throw in making money, having kids, all this other stuff. It's not like the relationship is the only thing you get to

Relationships as the greatest mirror for growth

Blake Mycoskie

focus on. You have all this other stuff going on, and then all the other stuff. So I think relationships are , obviously I've had two divorces, I think it's one of the hardest things in the world and I think it's also one of the greatest gifts in the world if you can really take it seriously and see what you can learn from it.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Do you have a sense of what the the next layer is for you? It sounds like the enoughness one has landed very solidly. Do you have a glimpse of what's coming?

Blake Mycoskie

Do you have a glimpse of what you're being pulled towards? Not as a business venture but just as a soul longing that you can see has your name on it? Anything that's kind of circling above your head? I mean the funny thing I want to say and I kind of half believe it is reading more fiction. Well there's just something right now about this where I am doing something for just the enjoyment of it. There is no achieving here. There's no I'm going to be smarter. There's no I'm going to talk about this at a cocktail party and my kids aren't going to think I'm a cooler ike I'm literally reading legal thrillers about a killing in the Mississippi. But there's something that's happening. I mean this has only been going on for five days so we'll see but there's something that's really happening inside me where I'm feeling a just a even a deeper relaxation.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

I can feel it. It's like a rest, a deeper restfulness. It's like a frequency of rest.

Blake Mycoskie

I think it's also bringing me into more presence and and more self-compassion less pressure. I think that there's this I don't know what it is but I think there's something there. I think the other thing is, and this is something I've had a yearning for for a long time but I think it's becoming more and more clear is to is to figure out ways that I can be even more of service to men specifically. I really have benefited from different men's groups that I have been in over the years.

Why vulnerability is a superpower for men and leaders

Blake Mycoskie

I've had some great male coaches. Also I try to on the podcast just be really radically open about my own journey because I think that men need some help as a whole to really see that vulnerability can be a superpower that you don't have to have all the answers, that it is okay to make mistakes. Forgiveness is important of yourself and others. I don't know where that's going to go but if you said where are you going to what are you going to be doing when you're in your 60s? I wouldn't be surprised if I have a retreat center in Costa Rica and I lead men's retreats. Once my kids go to college I could see that being a career path for me. You talk about forgiveness. Did you have to forgive yourself for things specifically? Yeah, the list is long. yes, of course. That's why and that's where Sonia has helped me a lot actually because I've been able to share some things that I haven't felt comfortable sharing to a person. And then been able to unpack that and then she's helped me, or it? or whatever it is? says let's do some exercises to really let that go because look, we all make mistakes and everyone's made mistakes and there are some things in my life that I have done , that I've enabled, that have caused people pain and caused me pain. I wish I could go back and change it, but I can't. You can't change the past. The only thing you can do is to forgive others and forgive yourself. And that is, I think, a very important thing that is a big part of the spiritual journey.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

One of the things I've seen is more and more men go on this journey, on the heart journey and you see them at workshops you see them at Hoffman you see them doing Vipassanas, you see them in the plant medicine journeys. How do you know if you've really changed? How do you know? What do you think is your is your honest test in some way? not you've done enough but you've really changed? I have a sense from you that you're in a place where you're on the other side of something. It's not that I want to speed up that because I think everyone has their timing and their script and their journey but do you wake up differently? Do you feel differently? Do you relate differently? Do you speak to yourself differently? Do you eat differently? You're probably going to say it's all of that. Is it coming back to love? We talked about, you talked about love.

Blake Mycoskie

I think what I've noticed is I just have more peace, more grace with others, more acceptance of the mistakes that I've made, less to prove. I do things that I authentically enjoy and I think the quality of your relationships. I think you really see the relationships you're having and the depth and the quality of those are reflection of you, I think. I think there's a lot of little things that ultimately lead to a simple thing and that is just how do I feel and do I feel at peace? When I make mistakes, I feel at peace? When I do a good thing, I feel at peace? The day-to-day circumstances do not change the way that I feel. I've just got 2 more questions for you.

Why do you think you were gifted this human lifetime?

Blake Mycoskie

Why do you think you were gifted this human lifetime?

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Like why? You know because it is a gift and you've had some huge gifts and you've unwrapped and you're still unwrapping the gift but what is the point of this human lifetime for you and do you think it's the same point of this human lifetime for everyone?

Blake Mycoskie

I definitely don't think it's the same for everyone. And I think it's an interesting question because I think you could look at it 2 different ways. You could look at it like 1 way is what was I gifted this lifetime to contribute? So then I could say okay well I think 1 of my reasons for coming here was to contribute this idea of conscious capitalism and a business can prioritize purpose over profit. So that was a gift that I was used in my circumstances to potentially give to the world. I think also now this idea of really helping people with their mental health through the podcasts, through Enough, etc. So maybe I was gifted this life because I was going to contribute these ideas into the world. I mean it's kind of interesting if you think about how we train an AI model, right? We're training it with all this data all these ideas and that is creating this AI experience. Well it's also the same as the human intelligence. Our collective consciousness is basically trained and educated by different people's ideas. So I have put my little threads into human consciousness with some of these ideas that I've helped bring to the world. That's one way to think about it. Another way to think about it is much more personal and less about what you're contributing, but what did you come here to learn? And I think that karmically, if we do this multiple times, who knows? You maybe come with a few things. Like okay, this is the syllabus. I'm going to college again. Life is college and I studied math last time. Doing great on math. I'm going to study philosophy this time. I think there's 2 things I personally came here to learn. The first was is that I am enough just because I exist and to actually feel that in my body. And I think that I didn't feel enough for 47 years. I had the most intense mental health crisis that you can possibly have, and came out of that and ultimately came out of that with this feeling of I am enough so that then I can share it. The other thing is, and this is something that I realized at different points in my life, I've had different signs telling me this exact thing. And I finally have said, yes, I think this is what I've come to learn, and that is to slow down, to just

Slowing down as a spiritual practice — and the snail tattoo

Blake Mycoskie

slow down. I believe that this is so important to my personal evolution that I actually tattooed a snail onto my leg. So I have a snail on my leg.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

I'm not going to ask you to show it. If it was on your arm, I'd ask you to show it.

Blake Mycoskie

I'm actually just wearing boxers, so it's probably not appropriate. But I have a snail right here, and when I sit on my surfboard and I look down to my knees, I see this snail, and it's a reminder to slow down. And I really think, and that maybe that's why this whole fiction thing is kind of percolating, is I do think that the more I can really learn to slow down, the more present I can be, the more I get to actually savor the moment in this life. And so I think, a lot of my life is moving fast, and I am continually given opportunities to choose the slower path, and it almost always is the one that's most rewarding.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

So here's my last question. Today is the first of July. We're halfway through a year. What do you want to be absolutely

What Blake wants to make sure happens before the end of the year

Ariane de Bonvoisin

sure happens this year? What is something that we can help with? What in with the intentionality that you have and the practices you have and the businesses you have, if you can be sure of one thing happening this year in the next six months, what would it be?

Blake Mycoskie

For me, I want more and more people to have the experience of truly deeply knowing that they're enough. That's why I'm trying to get everyone in the world to wear a bracelet because I really believe that is at the foundation of our spirituality, at the foundation of our mental health. It's the foundation of this radical healing our culture needs. And I've seen what a magical, I want to use the word magical impact it's had on my life. That's the gift that I want to give to as many people as possible. I hope by the end of the year we have gotten enough people to where this is something that starts to kind of... right now it's a lot of pushing and telling people and podcasts, but I'm hoping that enough people start wearing it that it becomes a thing that becomes much bigger than my story and it starts to be a lot of people's stories.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Yeah, creates a movement for sure. Yeah. We'll do everything we can to get it out. I feel like you're a little bit of a mascot for this podcast. I started this podcast bring together these worlds that feel so separate sometimes around external success, achievement, and spiritual and internal and awareness.

Closing reflections

Ariane de Bonvoisin

so when I met you at TED, I was like, you're like the poster child for this. So I want to say, from the bottom of my heart, thank you not only for being on the show today, but for the journey that got you to a place that you can be such an example for a lot of people. I am cheering you on, and I thank you for the enoughness that I've been feeling. I mean, this is also a personal journey of my own. Beautiful. To have have really felt that. Any final words, anything? We'll add all the the Morning Water and the Enough bracelet and No Magic Pill in the show notes. But anything that I haven't asked about, anything? we'll add the Sonia app as well.

Blake Mycoskie

No, it's been great. It's really just been a delightful part of my day.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

Thank you. Blessings on you, Blake. Lots of love.

Blake Mycoskie

Thank you so much.

Ariane de Bonvoisin

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