 quick story that has absolutely nothing to do with the content of this video. When I was growing up as a child, I religiously parted my hair down the middle. Like, this was a part of my personality until one day, someone told me that it wasn't cool to do this anymore. No. In fact, it hadn't been cool for years and no one told me. So then I started, you know, doing the hair swoosh that we all know and love. And I've recently been informed that this has now gone out of style. So I thought I'd try to be trendy today and see what I think about this. It's been a long time since middle-part Joe has made an appearance, but we're back, baby. Hello there, my beautiful, lovely, intelligent internet friends. Welcome back to my channel. Thank you so much for joining me here today on Footless Joe, where I am Joe, and I am still missing a human foot, a meat foot. I have a foot, but it's plastic. Also, it gets holes in it, which is kind of weird. I don't know. Does your foot get holes in it? I really hope not. So one of the questions that I used to get constantly, especially before I had my prosthetic leg is what do amputees do with the other shoe? Because people could very clearly see that I only had one foot. So what did I do with my right shoe? Like did I just chuck it out? Did I donate it? Is there perhaps some kind of amputee shoe exchange that I participate in? My answer to that question, I actually made a whole video about this a while ago, right up here is generally speaking, for most, blowny amputees, for most above knee amputees, we still need a whole pair of shoes. We need the two shoes because many of us use prosthetic legs. Now that is not true for everybody. There are some people who choose not to use prosthetics. There are some people who prosthetics simply don't work for because of medical reasons or pain, but even a fake rubber foot needs a shoe to walk around in public. So my answer back then was I do need both shoes. However, even I can see in the viewfinder that these are like different colors because I walked with one foot for so long before I had my prosthetic leg that like you can tell which one's worn. However, recently some of my circumstances have changed and I realized I am indeed in need of a single shoe, specifically a single running shoe. So let's talk about how I got that one single shoe. Before we continue on, if you wouldn't mind hitting that subscribe button, maybe that like button. If you're feeling extra generous hitting that bell notification so you get notified when I upload new videos or go live, that would be fantastic. So what I have in front of me here that I have not open yet because I saved it for this video, and yes, I am very excited about this, is hopefully a single shoe that will work well for me. But why would I need this? Many of you guys know that I recently got a running blade that I am so freaking excited to bring home. I've got a couple more days until I can actually like hold it in my hands and go for a jog or really just really start learning to run. You got to start slow. And something that my friend Onika pointed out is that when you are running as an amputee, you only need one running shoe because you can't really put a shoe on your running blade. So as soon as I realized this, I knew that I was going to have to find a way to get a single running shoe, mostly because the only athletic shoes I have have like a big old hole in the toe, I'll take care of it eventually. But this would be no good for running. So when I realized that I was indeed going to be in need of one single shoe, I thankfully thought back to a video I made a couple months ago in which I talked about how Zappos, the shoe and clothing company recently announced that as part of their adaptive clothing and shoe line for many brands, they would now be selling shoes one by one, no longer by pair. And so I thought I would see how this actually works. I gave it a shot. I ordered a single shoe online, which is a little weird. At checkout, the list of options is crazy long because it's like seven women's right side, seven women's left side. And I had to be very conscious about which shoe I was choosing. But without further ado, let's check this out. Also, I don't mean to be brandishing scissors at you. It's just, it's just that's accidentally what happened right there. My bad. I've never had a reason to buy running shoes before because I could never run. And that is changing. And that's, that's really cool. So let's see how a single shoe comes packaged. So far, so normal. I'm really excited. Check it out. I ordered the right side. That was like the most important thing to me. Look at this pretty color. Oh my God, I have a running shoe. Not running shoes, a running shoe. Now as I'm trying this on, I want to make it clear, Zappos did not sponsor this video. I am not affiliated or partnered with them in any way. I just think what they're doing is really, really cool. And this fits freaking perfectly. Bam. Check that out guys. One single, glorious running shoe. This actually feels super comfy. I will write down in the description down below which shoe I got if anyone's interested in any running shoes. There, I just hit myself with the shoelaces. And it is really cool that I didn't have to pay for a pair of running shoes when I really just needed one side. Like that is really helpful budget-wise for those of us who do not need both sides. It's really cool that this is an option. And the other cool thing is when I initially heard about this, I wondered if it would just be like off-brand weird shoes. That was probably a weird thing for me to think. But not at all. They have brands like Nike and Brooks and all different kinds of things in their single shoe store and their adaptive clothing line in general. So check it out. Again, not affiliated. I'm just really excited about them. Now speaking of Zappos, I had the awesome opportunity to sit down with the head of the adaptive department and hear a little bit more about the story behind adaptive clothing, adaptive shoes. It's actually really fascinating. If this is something that you feel like you just tune out for, I would encourage you to just listen to the next couple minutes because I think what they're doing is really, really awesome. And the reason why they're doing it is pretty fantastic. So without further a shoe, yes, I do think I'm pretty punny for coming up with that. I would like to introduce you to Dana Zumbo from Zappos. There's no playbook. There was no resources really that were, you know, that gave us enough information. And so we just started reaching out to organizations that served the disability communities. I utilized my own because it was part of the autism community. We sent surveys to all the families and just started asking questions. We talked with people with disabilities that were interested. Once we learned and over the course of the last five, six years, we learned a lot. And you know, it's after the fashion show, brands started reaching out just curious. And that's all like that to me is music to my ears. They just want to ask. And so we're mindful of creating a safe space for them to ask anything because I think there is this, I don't want to say the wrong thing or I don't know how to talk about it. And again, for us, it was a learning, you know, we learned and we learned from people with disabilities. We learned from parents with children with disabilities. And so anytime we can help educate, we know that like that's the key. And so that's really how we started, I think, opening up the conversation with other brands. And it has been like so rewarding. It is even more important today because of everything that's happening. And yeah, the conversations that we're having about inclusivity and diversity and disability, I think it's, you know, something that is is a natural and we can help guide guide them in these discussions. And I think that's what you mentioned is so important because I think I think there's a lot of ignorance. I don't use that in a bad way. I mean, just someone simply being unaware because people feel really uncomfortable asking questions because you're afraid you're going to say the wrong thing. I felt that with many things. I'm like, I don't, I'm just going to not say anything here because that could be offensive. I don't know if that's, you know, and so having, having a space where it's like, no, ask the thing that you're thinking about. I think that's so powerful. We had a focus group. We brought all these people together with different disabilities, kids and adults. And we had interviews that the golden nugget of that, that I look at this gem inside is they saw that they only had to tweak things on some of the products, just very little. Right. Oh, instead of one zipper on one side, you know, what if we put another one and all of a sudden this shoe boot opens up wide and it wasn't recreating the wheel. And the one thing that has come out loud and clear is we just want to wear what everybody else wears. I don't want you to create something that doesn't look like a style that I would wear. And so I think the, what Tommy did with their line, they did that. They, they looked at what products they were going to launch and then they took the line and they added, you know, the magnets and other things to help make it more accessible for, for more people. There's so many aspects of daily life and conversation and going out somewhere that like, that just are tiny little reminders of like, okay, this is different. Okay, I need to adapt here. Okay. You know, and you get used to it obviously, like that that's part of adapting to life and, and, you know, growing and learning, but the areas where you don't have to do that are so important and so refreshing. Like if there's an area of life where you're not reminded that something is a little bit different for you or a little bit more difficult or whatever, that's such a breath of fresh air and it's really so much more powerful than I ever could have imagined it to be in something like clothing that is really important. It's obviously something we use every day. You want to dress and like what you want to dress with, you want to present yourself, how you want to present yourself and to be able to do that so my fashion as you see around you, you might like is really powerful. I think that's incredible. You know, I can, I can honestly say this is the most rewarding if you want to call it work because I truly know it's just so rewarding because as I get to meet people like yourself and, and help change the conversation and, and you know, I know that in the long run it's gonna, you know, really impact a lot of people. Yeah, I know, I know it is impacting a lot of people. I need a lot more people, you know, involved from the brands to the organizations to people of, to all people and I think, you know, this is just the beginning and I'm excited. Thank you Dana so much for taking the time to speak with us. Being totally honest with you before I lost my leg, I didn't really care about anything adaptive. I'd never had a reason to really think about it and so it sounds on the surface kind of like a boring subject but now being someone who needs these things and is involved in a community of people who need these things, it is incredible to see large companies making such an impact for good, making such an impact for change in a positive direction. I put some further links down below for you to check out should you feel so inclined and if you want to know the full answer to what do amputees do with the other shoe, check out my full video linked down below, not above, a below. Don't, don't do it, don't do the hair swoosh. It's really hard for me to keep a middle part guys because I'm so used to just swooshing it to one side or the other. I'll be honest, when I put this down with my other shoes, I'm probably gonna have a few moments of like, where's, where's the matching pair? I don't need another one. Stay tuned in the very near future to see me actually be able to break this in by running, by actually running. I can't wait. Also, like I said, if you want to hit that like button, it does help get out to more people and I'd appreciate it but no pressure. A huge thank you to all of my patrons over on Patreon for making this and all of my videos possible. Your support is invaluable and I am truly so grateful for each and every one of you. Thank you. If you're interested in what Patreon is, I have put a link on screen also down below. In short, it is a way to support the creators that you love and care about and in return, get some pretty cool perks. And to you, right now, watching this video, thank you so much for spending a few minutes out of your day here with me today. You could be anywhere in the world doing absolutely anything and it blows my mind. I'm really grateful that you spent a few minutes out of your valuable day here with me today so thank you. I love you guys, I'm thinking about you and I will see you in the next video. Bye.