 So you're kind of like one of the pioneers of internships that. I was the first. Yeah. First design intern at Nike. I got just as much enjoyment from designing shoes with Scotty Pippen or Kevin Garnett or LeBron or Serena Williams. I remember going to an LA, uh, Chicago game, nine of the players on the court were wearing a shoe that I designed though. Tell me about working with LeBron doing the first LeBron one. Big presentation in Phil Knight's office. I pulled out this, this case that had his logo on it. It just, it escalated to the point where, you know, we weren't going to sign LeBron unless we were here. Now we recently met. So I don't know too much about you. And this is actually great because I'm excited about conversations like this. I get to know a lot of, you know, so I let everybody introduce themselves. I'll let you tell the world how you would like to be seen as. And then we'll go from there and we'll talk about some accolades. And then, you know, we'll get into the story. How I'd like to be seen as, uh, well, I'm a father of three. OK, that's the top of list. Yeah, family is always first. My son would just got back from Austin, actually. Anybody hasn't seen or been to Austin City Limits. OK, that music festival is fire. Like it's 50th anniversary next year. Saw Kendrick Lamar, Lil Yachty. Shania Twain was there. Foo Fighters, like it was crazy to hang out with my son and his friends. It was super cool. So that's that's first. And then people obviously on this podcast would love to know I was at Nike for 25 years, a footwear designer, but industrial designer by education went to a school in Pasadena called the Art Center College of Design. OK, study industrial design. A lot of people ask me, how do you get into footwear? That's probably the best way is to go through product design. OK, we'll talk about the journey in a bit. OK, so, yeah. So 25 years at Nike, been gone since 2019. Now I'm doing just penciling things out on my own, working with different clients around the world, actually. My youngest actually is in. She's a volleyball player at Hawaii Pacific leaving tomorrow to go spend 10 days with her, watch her play. Then I come back for like a couple days and then I go see a client in India and then another client in Korea and another client in China. And that's dope. The work is allowing you to go all around the world and do all these things. Yeah, I love I love travel. I traveled as much, if not more, than anybody else that I know at Nike. Perfect. For me, design is all about empathy. So you have to really truly understand who you're trying to serve, the population you're trying to create for. I don't know how a designer doesn't do that without or how a designer does do that without being a part of that population. So I not only like to go out and be a part of it, but actually like to experience it. And so I've done some pretty fun sporting and I'll jump into anything. People also ask me why I keep training. What am I training for? That's that was the thing I was going to talk about. We're going to get again, we'll get into the evolution of everything. But so you've worked with notable athletes like Pippin, Kevin Garnett, Serena Williams, the list goes on multiple people over the years. Right? Yeah. And you've done some iconic sneakers, some of the stuff that has become nostalgic, classics, you name it, when it comes to the full wear design side. And then on the other side, I had some questions because I remember you talked about living to like 110 or something like that. So this is going to be very interesting. I think a lot of people is going to learn a lot to help their own lifestyle as well, not only just with fashion and culture and everything, but with health and taking care of their bodies and taking care of their mindsets and everything. Because I think you out of a lot of people that I've spoken to is going to be a great person to have those conversations with. So I love it. I'm excited to talk about that stuff, too. So take me back to the beginning, paint the picture. Where were you at? You know, grade school era, where you were a sneakerhead, what city were you living in, what was the family home lifestyle? What was your knowledge around finances? Like, where were you at in that space? Dang, how long is this podcast? We're going to take a minute. We're going to talk. OK. Get comfortable. I'm here to learn about people. I want to become a better person every time I speak to someone. Amazing. Thank you. Yeah. Super cool. So way back, well, I actually do need to go even back to being born from my father was a preacher, a Episcopal priest, and my mom was a social activist and actress. And so I grew up at a very, actually, well, my father brought in a brought in a female preacher in the early 80s. OK. Didn't go over so well. Do you think about it? In early 80s? Yeah. But he didn't care. And she was awesome. And where was this at? In Seattle. Yeah, I joke. So I was potentially the possibly the poorest kid in the richest community in the country, so I grew up on Mercer Island. OK. If you know where that is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So interesting upbringing. So my father spent most of so he's he was in church in the church until I was a sophomore in high school. When he changed when he changed careers. But so basically my whole life, he was the congregation was was really kind of where he spent most of his time and then much longer story. But should be said, because it's a big part of who I am. My mom was bipolar, so I didn't really grew up with much of a family life. My mom wasn't so much around as an example. I grew up playing soccer my whole life and also racing BMX. And I don't think either parent ever saw me compete in either one. Uh, just that's just how it was. Take me through that feeling too, like being a kid and wanting to be competitive and supported and all those things and where you found that own motivation. Keep going to practice, keep going to things, because there's people out here listening that are going through that right now or went through that same thing. Oh, yeah. Well. I mean, it's I tell my kids all the time now. I'm I'm the parent watching my kids play who's up in the corner away from most of the other parents or if I'm in a group of parents, like I just try to keep quiet, quiet, like cheer for my kid. Just cheer for good play, cheer for competition. If the other side has an amazing play or does something amazing, even if it's against my own child, like I'm cheering for him. Like that was awesome. So I just I just cheer on a cheer on athleticism. And if it's if it's into a organized into a competition called sport, then, you know, I don't cheer for that, obviously. But yeah, I just love I just love play. Like to me, play is the is is the foundation of everything and even creativity. So and and and happiness and all that like play is essential. And so if you're lucky enough, fortunate enough in this world to to be able to be organized into something called a sport, whatever sport that is, then you're one of the few, to be honest. And that's my issue now is that you're it's becoming more of the few because it's a lot of paid to play. So so me growing up, I mean, I rode my bike to get to practice. You know, I didn't have what my kids have, but I try to give them what I didn't, but also stay out. You know, like because that's part of what I was given. That was part of my gift that my parents gave me is, you know, I do wish they were there. But to stay out, like to let me play and learn and struggle and hands on on. Yeah. And my daughter, actually not my middle page, she's twenty one and she's coaching now, coaching volleyball. And and she has some stories that she comes home with. And I'm just I keep telling them like parents are just flat out the worst. Like they're the hardest to deal with. And I've seen too many times where either my kids' friends or younger, like you can tell a lot about the parents just on how the child is behaving in the field or at practice or whatever. So and I've been a coach myself. I've been a referee. I've been an umpire. Like the best thing we could do for our kids is just just back off. Let them be let them be let them play. Yeah. Yeah. So a couple of things that resonated with me, especially when you were just talking about that was like riding your bike to practice. I used to play football when I was young as well. And my parents would be working and I would have to like ride my bike like 30, 40 blocks with my shoulder pads and helmet on like a grade school, middle school, and not every day, but like sometimes and it would be like I wanted to get to practice. I still was determined to go because I was a quarterback. Like my parents told me like you can't miss practice. You can't quit once you start. You can't give up. Like even if you don't like it at the end of the season, you don't want to do it anymore. You got to complete the season. Like that's what they always tell me. Yeah. And then the other one was you kind of seeing what you didn't have is like, okay, if my parents weren't there, I know exactly what I want to be when I become a parent. I'm going to be there. I'm going to do it in my way, but I know I'm going to be there. I'm going to support them. And like you said, you're flying here, you're flying there. And you know, you got a lot of things going on work, but you're like, I still got to prioritize being there with my family and my kids. So I really like that as well. Hey, it's a it's a tough balance. Um, if I'm in town, I'm not missing any sporting event of my child, but I also have to, you know, you know, put food on the table, uniforms on their back, uh, provide for them to be able to play that particular sport. So I have to, you know, travel and sometimes work does come first. It has to because your family needs to come first, so you have to provide, right? Yeah. So there's a balance for sure. Man, some of the single parents that I've that I've known or still know, who somehow are able to do all of that and they're supporting their kids in sport and they're doing other, they're, they're, you know, able to provide, you know, the happiness for themselves and other other ways. Like, I don't, yeah, I think, yeah, the single parents that can balance all of that are my heroes to be honest. Somebody just the other day was asking me, like, who do you look up to? I couldn't really think about it. But now in this conversation, I mean, that's who I look up to are the parents that are just rock stars. I mean, my wife is a pro mom, you know, like she's professional, like one of the best, you know, she's a goat. And you can see it in my kids and you can see it, you know, the responses that my kids friends have when we're around. And, you know, that's them. It takes a village and the people that you put around yourselves and the people you put around your kids. That's that's what makes a big difference. OK, so I got to understand in the family style and where you're kind of going with everything. Now, tell me about the sneakers. Like, where did you first fall in love with sneakers as a as a young kid? OK, so. So I raised BMX. BMX was from eight until 12. OK, I was a state champion when I was 10. And I don't know how many bike shops in the country were doing it, but Vans, you could go to my bike shop and out of the catalog, pick out colors, materials and put it put it together. And, you know, whatever weeks later, they would come to the shop and you pick them up. So I had my my colorway that I always did. And that was like my my signature colorway. And that's how I raced in and biked in. And so, you know, there was a little bit of that. My go to at school was either that those vans or white, white, triple white, high top ponies. OK. Remember ponies? OK. And then also K triple white, K Swiss were part of the mix. Later on early 80s. OK. But I never, to be honest, I never got into Nike. Because, again, I was I didn't have the money. So I was the kid with the duct tape on their soccer cleats, you know. From last, you know, the cleats from last year. You know, we're good enough with duct tape for over the toe. Trying to make it work. Yeah. So so I was never didn't get into all of that. And maybe that's why the triple whites kind of were a thing because it could go with everything. But I was an artist. I was I drew my whole life, like growing up. So I was the kid that I could get by academically, but I didn't like academics. You know, I'd get the, you know, 79 percent on the test, but I have a bunch of little doodles are on the side. Like I finished the test as quick as possible and then, you know, use the rest of the time just to draw and whatever. So it did really well in all my art classes. But design back then wasn't even really a conversation. Right. I mean, let alone sneakers. Yeah. Like that wasn't nobody knew that you designed sneakers. Designed shoes. Just like buildings and stuff. Yeah. I mean, even industrial design wasn't really thought about back then. And so my father actually helped turn me on to to that. We had someone in the church who actually was a graphic designer that went to Art Center, the school that I went to. And then when I was a freshman in high school, there was a counselor that came in from Art Center to my school and basically scared everyone away from the school, except for me. I literally knew, like, that's where I'm going. Yeah. Like I get to think about it now. And I can literally like, like it was yesterday. And my art teacher, I came up to her afterwards and wanted to learn more, you know, get more information. And my art teacher said, basically, there's no one else at this school that should be at your school except for Aaron, except for me. And so that validated it as well. So I started a conversation, but you had to the average age starting there was 24. So most people would already graduate a full university before they started Art Center. Some people had even been in the industry, whatever design industry they were in before starting that school, because you also had to have a portfolio to get accepted. Like you still do. So there was definitely going to be a process. I thought I was going to do. I didn't want to be who I am today and think back and listen to all the people talk about, you know, the Oregon Ducks and fraternities and parties and blah, blah, blah, without having that experience. And I did have to have basic undergrad studies taken care of for Art Center to graduate. So I went the plan was to go two years at Washington State. OK, I barely got through one because I kind of I I got it all out of my system. I got most most of it out of my system in high school. Not going to I was lucky to I guess it was because I had this vision. I'd always tell kids like like you got to put a vision out there. Whether that vision changes throughout the years or not, it doesn't matter. But you have to have something to chase. You know, what is that dream and it can be anything. But just you got to have that North Star to to guide you. And so Art Center was always that for me all the way through through high school. And then one year at Washington State, I was there when Pledso was quarterback. So I mean, it was the football, the atmosphere, the school is OK. Academically, it was fine. I was getting done what I need to get done, fun party and whatever. Like I said, got all out of my system and then went down to Art Center two years of night classes to build up the portfolio. And then and then started the day program. And I've always had I've always been a goal oriented person when I was younger. If you had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, it was to be a father of a family that had, you know, kids who were super happy, that I was able to provide for them. We could travel because I never traveled. I never got on a plane with my family. And so I wanted to be able to provide that from a family. And that was obviously like always traveling. Yeah, yeah. Now my kids are extremely well traveled. They love it kind of going all over the place. But sorry, if I started the philanthropic, like that would be one of them is like helping kids that wouldn't otherwise have the opportunity to get out of there. That's what I was going to ask you. So your first time like traveling, where did you or how did you feel when you kind of got there and started seeing other parts of the country, the world, whatever it may have been at a young age, because I preach the same thing like you got to get out. You got to go see. Because sometimes like you're hating on the situation that you're in in life. You go somewhere else and you're like, man, I got a good where I'm at. I'll never forget been to Indonesia many times in Jakarta, one of the most populated cities. And we're driving home after a hard day's work. And on one side of the street, most people would call it some people might call it a slum. Some people might call these people homeless. Some people like everybody has their own kind of definition for it. But if you and if my guess is if you were to see or like you would want to dig a little bit deeper, take a little bit more notice to realize that yeah, they're all built out of found objects, you know, pieces of wood here and there, but they're kind of nicely put together. There's care put into how this and there's they're swept, you know, and they're they're out there on a little milk crates, propped up, you know, a nice board, you know, a clean board. And they got a couple, you know, they're sharing a beer out of like makeshift little glasses. And they're laughing their asses off, like having the time of their life. And you're kind of like it's just like this interesting kind of dichotomy. And then on the other side of the street, we're heading into the the Ritz, like the one of the nicest hotels. And we're driving in and I look at all these business people just looking miserable, straight face, not even like just miserable, like not even happy walking into, you know, this beautiful hotel about to go eat, you know, amazing food and they don't look happy at all. Like that's just kind of interesting to me. So I try to like just take in that's one of my things is there's three things we can talk about. Some you can sprinkle throughout, but in my Instagram, I even have it with sponges, dominoes and butterflies. And if you were to ask my kids, hey, what are your what are the three things you're done before you can even finish? As soon as you said three, they'd be like sponges, dominoes, butterflies, even some of their friends. But sponges, because just to soak up, like use all the senses that you're born with. I've been blessed to have all five. And so I try to use them all the time and soak everything up around me. And equally important is to then share those experiences with other people. And if those people haven't had those experiences, then they can soak them up. They can take that from you and soak it up. And then that enables you to take in more. But if you don't squeeze out for other people, or if you're just doing it for people that have also had those experiences, then it doesn't really, I don't think you have as much opportunity to replace with new experience. So I always try to, you know, do what I can to be connected with people that that haven't had what I've been able to have and and and do what I can to help inspire them, mentor them and help them dream of things they never thought possible. So never leave the sponge full. Exactly. Always be looking to, you know, suck up and squeeze at the same time and have a good balance. Just like everybody looking for balance in life on other things, but it should be the same way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Did you adopt the mindset of the three pillars to your life? Over the years, like I have my life is kind of a constant focus group. And so I have these hypotheses. One about life, one about family, one about being a father, one about the projects I'm working on, whatever it may be, that multiple hypotheses and I'm constantly bouncing life off of them, either consciously or subconsciously along the way, those things have just kind of developed. And I've, you know, they've stayed with me because I keep banging life against them and they only get more cemented as those three things. You know, they haven't changed because I do feel like they're that important, at least to me. And I think they, you know, so the sponge is about soaking, you know, your experiences, soaking up life, being an active participant in life, just always being aware. My kids, it's funny, like we'll be driving somewhere on, you know, wherever we'll be driving. I'll be driving one of my kids so like a sporting event like one of their games or something. And they're there, they're on their phone and I'll just joke. I'm like, well, did you see that? I'll kind of look out the window and they'll be like, yeah, whatever. Like they know I'm just, you know, goofing on them. But that's kind of, you know, it's like, yes, you can be, you know, you can learn a lot through this, but for me, the better learning is, you know, all around us. And then the dominoes is about, you know, constantly building opportunities and building, you know, it's like stacking the dominoes so that, you know, one can knock over the next. And you don't know where they're going to go. You don't know who else is going to come along to add other dominoes, but the importance of constantly building those and then and then continuing to create the momentum to keep them knocking forward. I've given this talk to kids and I say, you know, don't be the kid that says, well, it's a dumb idea, right? Because all you did is just pull that one domino. And now one domino falls and the other ones can't go anywhere. Always create, continue to create positive momentum in life. Not easy for sure, you know, because life is tough at times and more difficult for others than for some. And so life does get in the way. But just if you can kind of continue to create even just a little bit of positive momentum. And I think about that too, like the domino effect of you have a problem and you're trying to find the resolution to solve it, whatever it may be. Like, for example, I'm looking to get a studio space and the next to that and I want to grow and scale the brand and all these things just for like on the business side. So what can I do to add more dominoes? I'm going to lay out every single option that I have. Who do I know? Can I get a space for cheaper? Do I have to go on the website and find it here? You know, what are the different options for me to find a space at affordable price? Can I partner with somebody? Those are all dominoes. And yeah, it seems like it's more work. But at the same time, you're laying all those, you're keeping the momentum going. And then you'll get to the final result you want for that topic. And then next thing you know, you're putting some more dominoes up doing the next thing. So I see that's how I resonate with what you're saying. Totally from that, you know, that topic. Yeah. And you just got to put it out in the world because if you don't, I mean, other dominoes won't come. So just by you saying that as an example, like, you know, I didn't know that. So who knows? Maybe tomorrow I bump into somebody and we're talking and they're like, yeah, I have this warehouse, not really sure what to do with it. It's super cool. I'd love to get somebody great in there. I'd be like, yo, I know who is, you know, looking for something. So I'd connect the two of you together. Yeah. If you had never said that, then that wouldn't happen. If, you know, how I, how I came upon even sitting here was a series of dominoes, right? And that came from me being aware and being, you know, sponging up life around me and being an active participant, getting out on Instagram, being a part of that and being aware of the responses that I'm getting and being communicative. And then the butterfly at the end of all this is that butterfly effect. So it's the little things that I've had so many, I've been blessed with so many moments in my life where it's like just this little thing that happens and you think it's insignificant, but literally can be years and years later. And you find out that you, that one little thing had a significant effect on someone's life. And it's also crazy too for me. I'll be in like, I always tell people I get excited for the bad times because I know something's good is coming. Like it can't always be good, right? There's got to be bad times to come. But a lot of people get down on those moments. But then there's also times where you're in the moment of a thing, whether it's good or bad, and you don't realize it until a way later. And you're like, seven years ago, this was the pivotal moment. And it could have literally been like the day you decided to walk outside and go down the street and you bumped into so-and-so, which is a part of the domino and all this stuff. But like, it's crazy how that stuff works because in those moments, you don't get it, you don't understand. And then later it's like, this is all coming to make sense now. It's just a wild process. Totally. And that's its life. And those are why I kind of try to boil things down to those three and just kind of live with those in mind. So, okay, we got a good idea of mindset, family. Now, everybody's going to be interested about the Nike journey. How did you even get in the position to get the first job at Nike? And then we'll talk about like bouncing around a bit because I know everybody has so many different positions as they work there over the years. And I won't talk about the struggles and all the other things like that. Yeah, so... Sorry to interrupt the podcast, but I had a quick question. Are you guys interested in taking your shoe game to another level but you just don't know where to start? I built a full program just for somebody like you. The six-figure sneaker head. It's an eight-week program that takes you through all the steps that you need to know. You have a full community where you can engage with everybody else that's going through the same program as you, have monthly live meetups where you can connect with me and other members on the inside. And we set goals for each other and held each other accountable. Also, we give away a free pair of shoes every single month with different challenges. If this is something that's for you or you're looking to take your game to the next level or even flip your sneakers to turn that into real estate, this is the place where you need to be. I can help you with finding loans and remodeling properties and getting yourself on the right path to become a millionaire if that's something that you desire. If this sounds like something for you, hit the link down below in the description and get signed up today. This is more than just sneakers. I wanna see people grow and succeed in all aspects of life. Let's get back to the podcast. Sorry, I mentioned that I was a goal-oriented person so wanted to be a father growing up and I also wanted to be a dedicated department to my profession or whatever that was to the point where I was one of the best and known in the world for it. So, and I didn't know what that was. This is when I was a kid. I didn't know what the profession was gonna be. I didn't know what the definition of being the best of that would be or being known for it because being known for something doesn't mean that you're a part of popular culture and everyone knows you. Yeah, you can be known for some bad stuff too. Well, yeah, that's true too. But now I'm talking about good stuff. No, no, no, for sure. But people do that. They wanna be known and then they put theirself in the wrong position and now they're known for something in the opposite thing. Great point. Yeah, for sure. So I wanted to be kind of an expert in my craft. Again, whatever that would be. So that was like long, that was long-term goals. And then Art Center became a goal. And then when I got to Art Center, I wanted to, once I figured out that I wanted to be an industrial designer, I actually had a bunch of, during night classes, I took always one term. So Art Center's eight terms. There's three terms in a year. Every term in night class, I made sure there was, I did at least two transferable courses. So credits would be transferred so that when I got into this day program, that would open up opportunities for me to do other, to do electives. And then they also had a school and a sister campus over in Switzerland that I wanted to go to after my fifth term. So I had this all mapped up before I even started. And so all of these credits that stacked up, I wanted that to then pay off my fifth term. So I only went over with the mandatory credits I needed. And then that opened up time for me to travel while I was there. And then the other goal was to have two internships. One internship with a product consultancy and another internship with a company that had an internal design office or design studio. I didn't know who those were gonna be because I was just getting started, but that was my goal. So when that, and that was gonna happen after between my seventh and eighth term. So I wanted my other goal was to have a job offer before I graduated. I didn't wanna do the, I didn't wanna have the stress of graduating and then going out, hitting the road and trying to find a job, doing all the interviews and stuff. Cause I figured an internship is the best interview possible. And so I took a lot of time to figure out what are the two places that I thought if I were to get a job offer from them that I would actually want to work there. So the first was IDO, IDEO, World Famous Product Consultancy and the one I wanted to work for is down in San Francisco in Palo Alto. And the other one I found out was Nike because I was visiting Portland, visiting my girlfriend, my wife now. And what year was this at the time? 92. And just before, cause I also got a little thing from that. Like you were talking about your goals and how you had it all planned out and mapped out. And I always wanna stress that people are listening, people are watching. It's very important to, like you said, the north stall have the direction, all the different things. You gotta have a plan. You gotta have some type of plan. And when you have those and you know, hey, this leads to that, that goes here. I go to the next college from here. I can do these things to advance to the next credits, whatever it may be. It's a lot easier to go through your day by day when you have the vision in mind and you know like what I'm doing today, before what and all those different reasons. So that was a huge thing that people may have listened to or seen and may not have, they're like, oh yeah, he was just achieving his goals. But it's important to map that out. So did you just like write it on paper? Did you have it in your head? Like what was that? Yeah, it's always, it was always in my head. But I agree with you on a percent and whether it's a plan, you call it a plan, call it a map, whatever. It's, and those things, I think some people get scared away from it because they feel like it's gotta be perfect. And like if they don't, they're a failure. If they don't, if they map something out or plan something out and they don't achieve that, that they're a failure. Well, we're not saying that that map, like you can say, hey, I wanna go to X, Y, or Z. Like that's where I'm headed. That's my North Star. I mean, things can change along the way, right? I sometimes look at it like climbing a mountain, like climbing Mount Everest. There's very little keeping, I mean, in reality, there's very little keeping from anybody getting to the top of Mount Everest. It's resources, it's time and money, or the two probably biggest things. So if you wanted to climb Mount Everest and I gave you all the money that you needed, then it would just be a process, right? And I would bet you knowing who you are and what you've already accomplished, if that was a goal that you had, you would get it done, right? Because there's, you can do the research, you can do the education, you can figure out how to get that to get from point A to point B. Now you can get to the top of Mount Everest and realize like, I mean, this is cool and all, but I guess that's not what I wanted. I actually want to go over there. That mountain looks cool. And then you make another map, another plan, start heading over to that mountain. You might get down Mount Everest, start heading up the other one and be like, get a phone call. You're like, I'm over at this mountain. You're like, oh, that sounds even cooler. So they're like, but always having that vision and always having that map, always having that plan, I think is super critical. And so for me to answer your question, that was always out there that what I'm actually, things are getting better now, but after leaving Nike of being there for 25 years. So my, so backing up again a bit. So visiting Megan, my girlfriend, my wife now, her family's from Portland. I went to the Nike store, the only one that went on salmon, Nike town. And they were good one. That was a better one. I know, right? That store was way better. They used to have the vacuum shoe in there. So sick. That was a great time. You walk into the tennis room, you can hear tennis, you hear the basketball, you hear the like the screeching of the, like every room that you went in, like it was way more, now it's just like bland. You don't even get good drafts. So like, it's not the same. Yeah, well. Okay, so yeah, you go in the store. So they had the Deschutes sandals in a big fish tank, like submerged in the fish tank. And then they had design drawings of the Deschutes sandal underneath. And I was like, I never even thought about it. And I was an athlete growing up. So I was like, that's why I was in the Nike store because I'd never been and wanted to go. And then I'm like looking at it. Again, sponges, right? Like go to the Nike store and then just soaking it all up and seeing those drawings and thinking I never even thought about Nike as an internship opportunity. I wonder if they have internships. So I literally went to the front desk and asked like, hey, where's Nike, you know? And the person there didn't know but she handed me a brochure that had the address on the back. She had never been when it's like 20 minutes from here, right? Yeah. That's one thing that hasn't changed. It's just growing and got bigger, but it's always been in the same location. Since 93, I think it was, but I still have that brochure. I could have, if I knew we were gonna get into this I could have brought it. I gotta post a story about it at some point, but I still have that brochure. I forget, like back then we didn't have the internet. So, but somehow I found the phone number and I just called Nike, tried to get to the design department, ended up finding out through a friend of mine at Art Center who had graduated and actually she started working at Nike. I called her, found out who the head of footwear design was, got ahold of him. I mean, I'm just, it's all about cold calling. Like you just got to, I'm not the most outgoing person for sure, but I know I got to be that if I want to get what I want, right? So, I got to get in those uncomfortable situations to get what I want. And so, long story short there, I ended up getting an informational interview with the head of Nike footwear. I forget that first visit. I think it must have been during the summer. So that informational interview was during the Thanksgiving holiday. So, I was back in Portland with my girlfriend for Thanksgiving and I come down with the flu. 102, 103 degree temperature felt miserable, but I'm not gonna cancel the interview, right? I'm just not. So, I still went, had the informational probably nowadays thinking about that. I probably shouldn't have, but I think he didn't get sick afterwards, but so I sat down with Dave Scannoni and we talked about Nike, talked about design, talked about the fact that they didn't have an internship program at the time. Nike didn't, nobody, there were no interns at Nike, but he said that he always wanted to start one because he knew the importance of an internship program. And he said, why don't you go do your internship at IDO first? I wanted to do it the other way around. I said, do the one at IDO first. And then during that process, I was like, stay in touch and then we'll have you up after. And I was like, okay. But I mean, the many things can happen between now and then. So I just stayed in touch with him. I kept sending him some of my work and I was putting a cool little presentation, mail it off and just stayed in correspondence with him. And he created this internship program, sent me a letter saying, hey, we wanna have you here. I mean, it was a paid internship. I still have that letter. So you're kind of like one of the pioneers in internships at. I was the first. Yeah, first design intern at Nike. That's crazy. That's dope. Yeah. And this is when Nike didn't have an internship. My school, the best design school in the world said, do not even bother. They don't do internships. And if you were to ask my mom right now, both my mom and father have passed, but if you were to ask my mom for sure, how to get me to do something. Tell me not to do it. 100%. I like that, okay? And so, yeah, it's not just so, so I guess sometimes it was to go against the grain, but it's more about just like the challenge of it and just to prove, not really prove people wrong, it's to prove to others that you can do things that otherwise weren't that possible. And it's an interesting topic on that too because a lot of people, that's their motivator. Everybody has a different motivator, you know? Like whether it's like proving people wrong, proving yourself right, whatever, represent for your family, they want the money, they want the fame, everybody got their little thing that they want. But I think I kind of got that same thing into me too because I've heard over the years like, oh, you're not gonna be able to do this, this and that, right? And people are like, yeah, you got a great supporting cast. Like how could somebody say that? And I'm like, yeah, my supporting cast is gonna believe in me because they know what's up. But like at the same time, not everybody does. And then to have that mindset and go in and be like, nah, I'm about to go get this like, cause you can hear it the opposite and what happened? It's like, oh, you can't do that. And then be like, man, maybe you're right. Maybe I can't do that. And then you just don't go after it. 100%, one of the best compliments I ever received. So after, I feel like, let me just quickly finish. So first intern at Nike, and then during that internship, I was offered a full-time job before leaving, but obviously full-time job after graduating. So I had one term left at our center. How old were you? 24. 24? Okay, cool. Okay. Yeah, 94, so I was 24. And so before I accepted that, I actually called IDO, called my manager IDO cause I had an amazing time there too. And I said, hey, look, I don't want to be presumptuous, but I just got an offer, full-time offer from Nike. And if you guys were considering me or if I thought that if there was ever an opportunity, just wanted to let you know that. And so my manager, we got off the phone literally like 15 minutes later, called me back and said, we'll match their offer. And I was like, here's the 24-year-old. My parents were involved and they were stoked for me and all that. But I'd already grown up to the point where I was very independent. So I knew this was my decision to make. I didn't really have, I talked with Megan about it for sure, because I actually got engaged, asked her to marry me when I graduated on the same graduation day. So this was our life. So did we want to do life in California? In Northern California, in San Francisco, or life in Portland, am I gonna be designing who knows what at the consultancy? And actually one of the people that I worked with at the consultancy had been working on designing toothbrushes for a whole year and he was not happy. So I was like, so that way to do I potentially want to do that or do I want to know that my worst day is designing shoes for athletes. And for me, it's always been from elite to everyday. So I got just as much enjoyment from designing shoes with Scottie Pippin or Kevin Garnett or LeBron or Serena Williams and all the other countless elite athletes that I worked with. As much enjoyment from working with them as I did, working with everyday athletes, whether they're young kids or going to a high school and just feeling the energy and talking to the kids about what sport means to them, what family means to them, talking to a high school football team from Texas. Like in a locker room in Texas, one of the top high school, amazing, right? So I knew that was my worst day at Nike. Like that would be the future. I'm like, that seems pretty good to me and get paid for all like, are you kidding? I get paid to go to sporting events, talk to athletes, travel the world, design footwear. I'm not kind of a no brainer. So this is like first year, this is what you're into. Yeah, pretty quickly. I mean, they throw you into it. Okay, so at that time, it's Pippin and Garnett at the beginning of that time. So that all blew up when, I mean, obviously Michael, Eric was working with Penny, like just at the very jump. Oh yeah, Penny Hardaway's with Pop and then Barclay and all this stuff. Yeah, Barclay, but Eric, Barclay never was really part of the process. Anthony was. And then other athletes started kind of coming into the fold and signature shoes were starting to become kind of a thing. And to me, it's just more storytelling. It's just an opportunity for Widen and Kinney, the advertising to tell more stories about the athlete, who they are, what they represent, and for us to design product around that. To me, that's what people gravitated towards. So you would talk to Widen and get the idea of the story? No, no, no. Kind of like Vice versa. Or like you would kind of carry it. So that was, so actually, Megan, she ended up working at Widen and she ended up becoming a production assistant. She even, she worked on the freestyle spot, which is super cool. So a lot of my friends were the creatives there. So sometimes they would have ideas. Fun Police was one of them that we shared a lot of energy between the two of us. Widen and Nike basketball, that was amazing. That was such a good spot. Oh, can you explain to them what Widen is? For everybody who doesn't know what Widen and Kinney is? Oh, Widen and Kinney is, so Dan Widen and David Kinney, the two guys that partnered together to create an ad agency back when Phil was creating Nike and essentially they got together. Nike was looking for an advertiser, Widen and Kinney was looking for a client and they just started building together. And they literally hit it off and created some of the most iconic commercials that we know. Yeah, I don't even know if I would say some of. Basically, yeah. The most iconic commercials we know when it comes to, especially Nike. Yeah, but not even that. If you go back and like what they're connected to and then the popular culture that then went on, living in the connective tissue that went on growing into other areas that Widen was essentially created. Yeah, crazy. So that you are definitely gonna be, you're going researching all this stuff, understanding the environments, the athletes and then coming back with a good story to tell for the shoe. And then obviously Nike is heavy on storytelling when it comes to products. And then you were communicating with Widen. You would be in communication or you have somebody else be in communication with them on just like the whole. I mean, again, I was just, I was friends with these guys. I mean, we were having, you know, spending weekends together, dinners together or our kids grew up together. Some of them are still good friends of mine. So it was just a kind of a part of us. Just a part of life, yeah. Yeah, so, but yeah, the whole, I mean, we could talk about the design process but essentially, you know, it is, I try to express to people that design, good design is form following function and that the perfect marriage between the two. If any one of those kind of falls off, then it's just simply bad design. I mean, if the shoe doesn't perform, you can't, you might say you like the way it's styled. You like the way it looks, but if it doesn't perform as equal, it's just simply a bad design. Like that's just by definition. So the first signature athlete you designed for was who? Wisconsin. Scotty Pippin. And what was that like when you like submitted your first design and you're like, oh, I hope you like it. Oh, dude, I actually did share a story of this on my Instagram, but now that I have somebody to like to kind of play it off of. So they thought, so Scotty loved the big bubble, right? So he went from, I was going to mix up the much of the more, which I brought in the full length. Yeah. Air shoe. Air more. More. Yeah. Okay. So he's wearing that and loved it, by the way. And then Michael working with Tinker, I keep forgetting to ask Tinker, which was the first shoe that had Zumaire in it. But Michael was starting to play and wear test Zumaire. And then again, I forget which shoe it was that finally made it in. And he was telling Scotty, you got to get out of the big bubble. Like you got to get into Zumaire, it's better. Okay. And now all of a sudden, well, so he's saying that unknown to us at Nike. So all I know. I was just talking like in the locker room. Yeah, yeah. So all I know is what I've read about Scotty, what I've heard about Scotty from media or sports marketing at Nike or whoever, telling me who Scotty Pippin is. So I'm designing the Pippin one with story about him. A lot of people, including him thinks that it's 33s, like the jewels on the side are 33s. They're not. When Scotty said that, I was like, oh, that's cool. You know, I didn't say it like, sure. Maybe, hey, maybe subconsciously it was. I don't know. But again, it's in my, one of my posts, but it's actually just, I took the air bubble and tried to explode that as if it erupted. Yeah. All over the shoe, like an explosion. Because that's how I saw him play. He was so smooth. Like lava can be flowing out. The air is just flowing. So he's got the style, the game, the flow of the game. And then just like out of nowhere, like he just erupts and just, I mean, his dunks are thunderous, but they don't look like they're just like this. He's so slept on when it comes to that. What's that? He's so slept on for those moments. Oh yeah. And everything was crazy. Crazy. Exactly. And to me, that's like this sleeping volcano that just erupts, the flowing, the lava might be flowing and then all of a sudden just eruption and the lava goes everywhere. So that's, and so if you look at the rendering, that's why it's also red. It's red and orange. So there was no orange in the bowls, right? It was like I had it, like it was lava, hot lava red exploding all over the upper. That's kind of where that design came from. So I'm going through this story with him and he's all into it until like the third board in and I have a picture, because I used to do 11 by 17 boards. That's how I'd travel. I had this cool case that I would take with me and I flipped through these boards, storytelling boards. You used to like board up to Chicago. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, by myself, just with sports marketing because all this, it'll just be easy. Oh, he's going to love it. Don't worry about it. You're going to be good. You're going to be amazing. And I flipped down, I have like a stack of boards and I'm flipping through one, flipping through the next and then I dropped the next board and there's an image that took a full length airbag and photocopied it and that's what's on the board. And he, I don't know, he was really tired. He's super mellow. Like he's super chill. His heart rate must be like in the 30s. And so he's just like really like laid back. I'm like, I'm wondering if he's even like listening and he's like, yeah, I don't want that. And I'm like, what? What do you mean? He goes, yeah, I don't want the bubble. I don't like that. And I'm kind of like in the sports marketing guys sitting there going, I don't know, like this is on you. Like, I don't know, I'm just here. And I was like, well, but you've been wearing the shoe the whole, yeah, I don't want it anymore. And this is like basically going into production. Like it's, oh, a hundred percent. Well, that's why. So it was too late because the way the calendar rolls out and we wanted to get Scotty elevated into a signature level, there was no time to basically redesign anything. So that's why we, that's why it went to retail with the bubble. And then he, and then he played in a zoom. I, we took it and basically filled the bubble in with foam, but then dropped in a full length zoom bag. Okay, so the actual shoe would then essentially never came out. No, there's a lot of, there's chatter on Instagram about like, I think a lot of people would love to see that come out with the promo version. Yeah, the one that he wore, which I think would be super cool. Yeah. Okay, so you kind of like shut down but at the same time, you're like the business side is like, no, we're still going to make this happen. Yeah. But that was my coming with the next design. Oh, that was a good story. So, so he ends up wearing it. He's super cool. Like, and it wasn't a bad, it just, he was just chill. It was just a matter of fact. He was like, yeah, I don't want that. So we figured it out traveling back and forth. He was amazing to work with. He's super awesome. And, and so working towards the second one, I'm going to games and pretty quickly as he's even, even in the zoom era one, he's saying, yeah, I don't know what's going on. I have to like, every time I get pulled out, I have to re-time my shoes and the shoe laces are getting longer. The shoe laces are stretching. I'm like, what? So I'm at one of the games and I go back at halftime and he shows me the shoes. And the, like he just pulls them off and the laces are like super long but the ice days are actually like closing together. And it looks like you and I wore it for like three seasons but this is just one half. And I'm looking at it and I'm like, oh my God, what's happening? If you look, so every stitch on an upper, like if you stitch two pieces together and imagine like if they're stitched together like this, the stitching, it can only be so strong. So even if they, even if those two pieces and materials slip just half a millimeter, that's half a millimeter. I mean, that's tiny. But if you have, I haven't counted them all, but 14 seams up the side of one side of the shoe, 28 together. So that's 20 or 14 millimeters. Like, that's a lot. So now it's not the laces that are stretching. It's actually the shoe that's stretching every time that he's like banging in it, stretches a little bit, stretches a little bit, has to retie it, stretches a little bit. And so. And it's tying it tighter and it's stretching more. It was, even with the, there's a backer on the inside that we would use to make sure that the upper state as stable as it could, but even that was stretching. So in this, so that's on the performance side. And then at the kind of the cultural side, the aesthetic side, what was happening in the marketplace? I don't know if you have any of the shoes, but in 90, so that shoe came out in 97, that's Pippin' 2, so 96, 95, like what's kind of happening in the marketplace around 95, 96? Like dude, the more stuff you could put on a shoe, the better it was selling. So the trainers, the straps, the swooshes, I mean, there's like, how many swooshes can you put on a shoe? How many, like it was crazy. And I've always been one about like, like you got to figure out, like you got to, as a designer, you have to basically predict and to create the future. Right, 18 and months in ahead. Yeah, so I'm like, so I'm like this, everything, like all this crazy stuff happening at retail, like this thing's gotta, I mean, there's gonna be a time where like enough is enough, right? So I wanted to create the other side, the total opposite. So Zigg went to everyone else's egg. So the performance was get rid of seams. On the aesthetic side, the cultural side was clean it all up. So essentially that's what created the shoe. And then I took that, and then also going from being kind of an explosive player, like telling the story about being that explosive player, which he is, but to your point, he's kind of asleep. Like you don't notice that about him. What you do notice about him is just that sleek, smooth, flow of the game. Just constant flow. Like he kills you or he would kill you with that flow, that relentless flow of the game. Cause it just non-stop dude. Non-stop dude. He was one of the fittest. I think he was, he may have been one of the fittest athletes in the game ever, ever. And he took care of himself, massages every day. Like he knew how to take care of himself to be at the top of his game every single time. And so that's basically what created that shoe. And we also talked about other cultures. Cars kind of came into it. Now, after years later, it became way too cliche, but I actually don't know, I've never looked into this, but I can't think of another shoe before the Pippin II that was designed inspired by a car. You know, it was a 52 Mercury. So you did the car before Jordan Brand got into it really? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, Tinkered the Jordan 11. If you know that story, there was a convertible that Tinkered was inspired by, but it wasn't a specific car. It was, you know, just a part of that, but... Crazy. So you got, you're working with a single player at the time, or you're working with multiple players at the same time? Because also, wasn't KG supposed to be a Jordan athlete? I don't know. I heard he was supposed to be one of the original team Jordan athletes when it was like baby Ray Allen and all those guys. Like he was on it because of potentially... I've never heard that, but... All I know, he was fricking, can we swear on this? He is so awesome. If there's one person, I still, like I'll throw a Scotty to text everyone as well. But if there's one athlete that I would love to, well, Serena too, but if only one athlete to get back in touch with and just to be a part of his or her life, again, it would be KG. That guy, the energy, the enthusiasm, just so contagious. He called me. So another funny story about presenting, going through the... I don't know, we're to the KG too or something. I was going through the boards, flipping through them, flipping through them. And he's the opposite of Scott. Like he was all up in his chair and he was just like... But after a while, he was looking at me and not the boards. And it was almost like looking, like trying to look into me. And I finally stopped him, like yo. Yeah, you good. Like KG, like what's up? And he's like, he used to call me Merlin because he said I created magic. So it's like the wizard Merlin goes, yo, Merlin. How do you do this? How do you come up with this? And I was like, well, like the same way you do basketball. Like I don't know how you do the things that you do on the court. I just, that's just what I do. Like, I don't know, I take what's around me inspires. Again, it's like, it's not a whole lot different on the court. Now I'm thinking out loud about it. Is that he athletes, and I think that's also part of what made Nike special back in the day is I didn't know anyone at Nike. When I was working up into the early 2000s even, I don't think I worked with anybody that was not, that I would consider like, wasn't an athlete at a competitive level. I consider everybody an athlete, just whether or not they're kind of allowing themselves to be, but at a competitive level, everyone was an athlete. And what you learned about competition and about teamwork, about adaptation, being a change the game on the fly, like he was doing that on the court and taking things in as they come, like being a sponge in the moment, right? Being always being aware of what's, of his surroundings. And I relate to him that design wasn't a whole lot different. Like, and I loved working with, I love working with athletes that happened with KG2, where they'll, I try to get people to, you can tell when somebody's thinking and so I'd ask people to think out loud. It's like, what's going on in your head? There's something, you're thinking something. What is it? Like think out loud, it helps me. And then they'll tell me. And they may again, you know, back to the butterfly thing that may think it's insignificant, but those are the moments that I love the most is sometimes there's really good golden nuggets of insights in those moments and those things that they didn't think were all that important. And then the next time I would come back and when I would present, I'd be like, yeah, you remember when you said that, this, that or whatever it was? And they're like, yeah. Like, well, this is what I did with it. This is what it meant to me. This is how I interpreted what you said or this is how I interpreted what you did or what, how you live or this thing. And like, you're trying to understand them both at a performance level and as a personality so that my goal was always like, if you took all the logos off of the product and dumped them all onto a table, like kids would be, oh, that's the Barkley, that's the Penny, that's the Jordan, that's the Pippin, that's the Cheryl Swoop. So you say your favorite, yeah, was KG, like working with him. Who was like, or if you don't want to say the person, what was the worst person or situation when it comes to designing? Because it's hard to make hits after hits after hits, you know what I'm saying? Like, now everybody can just go out there and just make bangers. I sure didn't. And I went to KG was the best to, he was pretty good to work with. He made the process move for you. He would come to campus and just like sit down and want to learn how we would color the shoe up and he went on to play. There were times where we would leave him alone and he'd be clicking away, changing the colors of his shoe. That's dope. Yeah, he just loved it. And I wouldn't say the worst but the one person that just wasn't, didn't want to necessarily get involved was. Today's partner is ShopDNAshow.com. Are you tired of wearing low quality gear? I completely understand. I made a personal mission to go out and find higher quality stuff and give it to you guys at an affordable price. And not only because of that, I have to wear this stuff every day. And I don't want to be wearing cheap clothing all the time. So I want to make sure that you guys know about it and our understanding that we have a lot of cool stuff coming out as well. Hit the link down below or panned or wherever it may be. It's going to be ShopDNAshow.com. There's new drops every single month. I'm excited to see you guys in the gear. And now let's go ahead and get back to the podcast. Didn't want to necessarily get involved was Barkley. He was like, you're not going to tell me how to play basketball. So I'm not going to tell you how to design the shoe. No, I was kind of like, and I talked to Eric about it too. Like he never got involved with Eric's work. And he was right. He never, he always wore what we created for him. He was always very appreciative of it. He was like, I just need to check. Are we good? Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I mean, royalties, that is a funny thing. I think it was the Pippin Five when Scotty was finally, like finally, the whole time he thought I was making royalties on the shoes like he did. And I forget what that came up, but he asked me. He's like, well, you don't make royalties? Like, no, I make a paycheck. Like, oh man. Okay, how do you really feel about that? Whether or not I should have made royalties? Oh, that would devastate the industry. You wouldn't be able to, because you can't, everybody would want basketball or running or people would be making the wrong decisions for the wrong reasons. Do I think there should have been or should be a more fair share to design and to create into the creation process? Yeah, without a doubt. Or like some type of bonus or something? Like, is there like a, you know what I'm saying? Like, there's no way you just like, oh, I just made this classic. We're making numbers. We're making this shoe year after year. They're retroing it. It's like, it's dope. But it saves. I was like, just like. Yeah, but it's a skin. Like I, if you were to ask me my favorite shoes to ever work on. Yes, there were some of the signature shoes, but at the same time, they were some of the 65, the bomb force is one of my most favorite shoes I ever created in some of the, the ones I'd get the most pleasure out of seeing or got the most pleasure out of seeing on the court were the $75 shoes that, like, oh my God, there's, I remember going to an LA Chicago game, nine of the players on the court were wearing a shoe that I designed. Dope. And like, I think most of them were $75 shoes. What was the shoe? Back there was probably the Maestro two or three, I forget even the name of it, but I forget all the names of the shoes. I was about to say, how many shoes do you think you've even designed that went out into production over the years? The majority of them. I mean, very rarely did he design something and didn't do the retail. So like a hundred or like how many, like what do you think would be the amount appears? Yeah, probably. I mean, a hundred is a lot. I mean, think about it. Well, I mean, well, yeah, but. But it's a 25 years. I mean, on the average, let's even basketball, you know, between, I was doing three to six shoes a season. Okay. Three season, sometimes four seasons a year. I mean, I don't know. Somewhere out there. I have no idea. That's crazy though. To think that you designed all them shoes and like you made a shoe that somebody, it went out into the market. It went out to a player or whatever. And that shoe became a story to somebody's life. They bought it and they made a memory in it. And it's hard for you to even remember all the words you designed just up the top of your head. Like there's some key moments, but like it's wild how in those moments, you're putting a lot of effort into creating those products. And then, you know, as time passes and you get all these things, it's just like, oh, another drop in the bucket kind of thing, right? So I'll tell you again, the pleasures that I've had from this career. So, Serena, I mean, she's told me, I think she would say to somebody else that the shoe that she wore, the flare, she went on to win six more majors. And I believe she would say that was in part due to the shoe. Just based on all the conversations that we had over the years and her trainer and her, both her parents or sisters, like what that shoe enabled her to do on the court, I think she would definitely give credit to the shoe. Then, you know, Scotty Pippin and working with him and, you know, being a part of him getting some championship rings, actually being in the locker room after the second to last one that they won and leaving the arena with him and Larissa to go out that night, like to be a part of that and to say that the shoe was a part of that was amazing. And I don't wanna say one was better than the other, but at least equally, I've literally met people that will tell me stories about the shoes that I designed and literally how they changed their life. Exactly. And not even like kind of like put them to where they are because they changed their behavior so that parents would buy them or, you know, they did something special in the game or whatever it may be. And that's the stuff that's just like. You start to see your impact. Yeah, and that's, well, how's it gonna go? The other direction, like for me, that's the impact of sport. That's the impact that Nike was having on sport, that White and Kennedy was helping to have on sport, that our footwear is having on sport, the connections that we were making. That to me is the, that's the risk that we're, I think we're currently at, we're at this tipping point both from a performance sport point with NILs. So all of the money that's now trickling down and literally changing people's decisions. And then also on the reselling, like what issue actually means to somebody from an aesthetic standpoint. Cause in that, it's like it's being pulled apart and both are like in this kind of strange situation. Like money is kind of the route to kind of ruin in the culture in different ways from the production to the consumer. I would think, yes, I think so. I think decisions are made for the wrong reasons and that's why like I would never have wanted to, you know, to have royalties on my shoe. Like it just doesn't, you end up making the wrong decisions. Money is the route of all like, do I want to have more money in my bank? Yes, but I want to have more money in my bank so I can do things more with my family and my friends to create more memories and to create those stories. At the end of the day, the only thing that matters to me in what I think life is all about is the stories. It's the stories that matter. It's why I'm sitting here. It's why you're interested in who I am in my story. That's why I'm interested in you and your story. And at the end of the day, like if we really want to get down to, you know, solving big kind of human issues like race being one of them, racism. And like it is that empathy and it's about caring enough to know what someone else's story is. If you go see a grade school and when these kids, if they haven't been affected by, and I think it affects genetics. So if these kids' genetics haven't been affected and if their environment hasn't affected them and you look at how they look at each other, how they approach each other. The only thing they care about is like, yo, you want to go play? Right. And if you want to go like kick ball, you want to go play hand, you want to play hoop? What do you want to, you want to go skate? And if they're like, yeah, no, I want to go play Legos. Oh, cool. I'll go play Legos. You know, like it doesn't, people just, they just kids just want to play. And that to me is the, that's what I said at the beginning of this, is play to me is the foundation of everything. Creativity, happiness, all like you name it, success. So, so that is what I think Nike is, is all about or should, like that's where we need to get back to. And I think we're at this, actually for all everybody listening, think to yourself and we'll just use basketball. How many kids is K through eight? How many kids do you know that play basketball? Not compete, only play. I never competed in basketball, like in an organization. Dang, yeah. We used to just go hoop, just kids, like back in the night. Any kind of tweak the rules, load the hoop, you did it, whatever, like you do different things. Yeah, we played the game. How many kids K through eight, do you know play the game of basketball? If they compete, if they're on a team that competes, they're not in this conversation. Right. Only kids that play basketball. Right, just because. The majority of my friends, we all played basketball. Very few. I grew up, actually the high school I went to was, the community was one of the best high school or best basketball communities in the country at the time. High school was number one. So to compete, like you're putting in some serious work. Yeah, you committed, yeah. All my friends played basketball. That's all we did, driveway, my house, someone else's house at the park. Basketball, skateboard, BMX, you name it. Like that's what I did. And that's what all kids did. How many kids do you know today that play basketball? That's wild. Yeah, I just think about that. Like I remember a grade school I used to pull up and whenever we would get there early, and if it was a nice day, because you know, it'd be raining here, but whenever it was those nice days, bro, where was out there breaking a sweat? Whether we was playing bump or whatever before school started, like, oh, we got time to get a game here. Like, what's the quickest game we could play in three minutes? Like, let's play something right now. Like, we used to always be playing something, walking in class sweaty, like. Oh, yeah, for sure. Like, it's crazy. I didn't even think about that. Yeah, so that's, to me, that's where Nike needs to... A lot of people, it's in the, you know, a lot of popular culture news articles, whatever, like what's going on with Nike. For me, it's pretty simple. Just get back to sport. Sport and redefining, now redefining sport to what it used to be, which included more play. Sport wasn't, now, like to me, sport is defined by an organization. It's defined by competition. So how do you pull that back out and broaden that pyramid, if you will, because that base of play has just been dwindling and shrinking. Now, everybody's like, play video games. Like, that's the new word. Yeah, and people are like, I don't have a problem with that. Yeah. In fact, the future that I was predicting, which I would love to create, I want my grandkids, which are not, I don't have any grandkids, but my unborn grandkids to be in high school, playing any sport they want to be able to play. And then being told by their coaches, Kate, by the time you get home, the playbook's going to be downloaded. So make sure you're practicing tonight, after dinner and after homework, at home. On the video game. On the video game. That would be dope. If you, yeah. And by the way, we got some, you know, Sarah here, she's spent, you know, the last all weekend programming, you know, your competition for next Friday. So you make sure you're playing them and not somebody else. We know that you want to play this high school or that high school, but we're playing high school X on Friday. So you need to be. That's crazy. Loading them up. That's a billion dollar idea right there. It's literally all possible. I was, we were working with a friend of mine was at EA Sports. I have all, we could do a whole another podcast about the future that I wanted to create and what that would have done and why, you know, the notices you'd be getting on this about the shoes that were being dropped and what would happen in that experience when you walked into the store. It would have been, it's all still possible. So that's to me, like, that's the Nike we need to get back to. Tell me about working with LeBron, doing the first LeBron one. That was, I can't even, it was such a blur, is a very compressed timeline for sure. I can tell you there was at least one month that I lived in Portland at my house with my family, but I was waking up super early to get to work and then coming home late. So I was waking up before anybody else did and then coming home after everybody, but all the kids were in bed. So the other was a month there that I didn't see my kids and then I spent a month over in Asia. It was crazy, but I was excited. I knew it was a moment. I actually, Lynn Merritt took me out to go see LeBron, just go meet him, see him. Cause at the time, a lot of things were happening. So much signature product was in the marketplace and not a lot of it was working. And so this idea of doing a signature shoe for a high school athlete that has not even proven, it just wasn't really happening. So you went to his games out there when he was in high school? Yeah. What was that feeling like? Cause like for me... Sorry, I didn't go to any of his games. I went to his practices. Oh, okay, okay. But that alone, like his first practice and seeing LeBron working harder than anybody else, getting in an argument with his coach because he felt like he was cheated on during this kind of this drill that they were doing, but everything was a competition, certainly was for him. And he was having an argument because he felt like he was cheated on that he deserved more points or whatever it was. I just remember him like being that upset about it, like sincerely upset. And I'm, here's a kid that like, you know, he's gonna be one of the best, you know, coming into the game. Like his future was pretty well set, at least for the next coming years anyway. And for him to have this attitude was remarkable. And then after practice, training with trainers because he wanted to break all of the NBA records in the combine that they do. Like he was a whole nother level. And it wasn't just so, it wasn't. And by the way, this isn't Instagram didn't exist. TikTok didn't exist. Social media didn't exist. This is just him being him. So I was like, this guy's different. Yeah. And I'm certainly not a good scout. There's been some players that surprised me and there's been some other players that thought we're gonna be amazing and they only made it a couple of years in the league. But there was something uniquely different about LeBron. So there was an article that was written about LeBron and that whole signing of glory and the effect that she had on LeBron's life and what she did to again, build that village around him to make sure that he was doing what he needed to be doing, steering him in a very difficult environment. She's that single parent that I talked about at the beginning of the podcast. Like she's my hero. I mean, come on, LeBron is not even in, you're not wearing those shoes without Gloria. LeBron is not LeBron without Gloria. And it's like Jordan and his mom. What's that? Like Jordan's mom wasn't a single parent but like his mom was also in that pivotal, you know, type of person. Absolutely. So to me, there's any whether it's a mom, a grandparent. So I mean, it's like the environment that is created for someone to succeed is critical. And I saw that the first time I met with LeBron and then we went back to his place and like Gloria was there in her engagement and her sincerity and her care for what was potentially going to be happening with her child. Like, yeah, nothing was going to happen without her. So that was also very significant to me. So yeah, working with him and that whole process, he was great. Again, well, not again, I, there's, we could go, we could roll up to Grant High School right now and there's some 18 year old kids that are not awesome. And they're not going to be worth $100 million next year. Imagine those kids and what they'd be dealing like, who they would become overnight if they won the lottery of $100 million. It would be over like, they wouldn't know it. They would reckon. How LeBron is, how we, like what he's been able to do when it all started, when he was, you know, a teenager, he and his friends would do a basketball tournament where the entry fee was school supplies. And so you bring school supplies to enter your team and then he, they would put all the school supplies together and then they would give those school supplies out to kids that couldn't afford some supplies. As a teenager, I don't know how many teenagers, you know, in high school right now that would even think about doing that. And on top of that, knowing that they're going to be worth what they're going to be worth and be one of the best in the game and all like, so that's a special person. And I knew I wanted to be a part of that and to be, to do everything I can to help enable that to happen. And that to, well, back then, now, today, I mean, I love, I've incredible respect for Adidas. I had a lot of respect for Under Armour and I thought they could have done some amazing things. I think they screwed up a couple of things. Why is it a hat? What's that? Why is it a hat? Well, maybe because I think they're now making too many decisions based on money. I think they were doing some amazing things. But anyway, LeBron belonged at Nike. So it was my job to- He had offers from other brands. Yeah, everybody was after him. Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's right. Because he had the Adidas. I remember you had the Pro models and all this stuff. That's right. In fact, one of my longest time friends, David Bond, we were Nike basketball for a long time. My friend with him today is to work with him. He was at Adidas. So he's, he and I are competing against each other. And he has a way about doing things that I don't, I'm a very sensitive person. That's, yeah, it was tough. It was one of the hardest times in my life because I was getting just, there was just a lot of pressure. So- And I just wanted to do my thing, right? I didn't want that external pressure because it didn't, it wasn't going to change. It wasn't going to change. Like it just made things worse for me. I don't, I don't, I like to do things for the right reasons. I feel that. So from the design side and the business side, what do you think made Nike land LeBron as an athlete? That's a good question. Some people tell you it's the money. Reebok did offer him more. Apparently Adidas offered him less, whatever. It's all hearsay, right? But I was there when the first time I met him and we had to, we had to compress this timeline. So I, you know, I told LeBron, I said, we're going to get to know you from a personal personality wise to know what the shoe is going to look like. That's going to take a process, it's going to take time. But I also needed to know pretty quickly on a performance side, what he wanted out of a shoe. And I said, what's the most important thing on the performance side of the shoe for you? And he said, comfort, like right away. I'd never heard that before, which is music for my ears because I love doing something that'd never been done before. So if you go back, Google anybody listening, can Google LeBron James, senior year, St. Vincent St. Mary and look at all the shoes that he's wearing. Everybody thought that that was because, you know, maybe some of them were, but a lot of those shoes were being sent to him by us and Nike basketball, even competitor product. Because I was trying to get feedback from him. Also, you were buying competitors' products, sending them to him and say, hey, try these out. Yeah. And not to say that all of them, but obviously the PEs that he was getting. But I needed to know this information. You know, what's your favorite, most comfortable shoe at the time was the Ditas Pro model. Yeah, I remember him rocking those, the Pat and Leather 3. They were nice. They're solid, I didn't like the way they looked, but they were a solid performer and super comfortable. And I started, I told him at that moment, I said, we will make you the most comfortable basketball shoe you have ever played in, period. Like, that's what we do. We listen to the voice of the athlete and we would create, you know, what they were looking for and actually surpass their expectations. So I knew that was, and for me as a designer, like that's just a process that you just have to go through the process and believe that the outcome will be that. And so that was the belief. And sure enough, cut to months, you know, a few months later, big presentation in Phil Knight's office. We were the first one to really use his office, had it all built out. Super cool, super amazing. Had all the shoes lined up and, but they're all size nine. Gloria happened to be size nine, which was hilarious. Okay. There was one, so we built this 12 shoe display and there was one colorway that came back. There was like this field boot colorway, colored leather that didn't come off exactly the way we wanted it. It looked a little weird. Just looked off the colors, but you couldn't not present it because there were 12 stands. So we had 12 colorways and 12 stands, like, we're gonna have an empty stand like we could do it. I'm not kidding you. It was as if we snuck into Gloria's closet, stole a pair of her leather pants, cut her leather pants and put that on the shoe. No way. Her outfit that day was literally the same color. And so she grabbed those shoes. As soon as we pulled them out, she grabbed them, put them on. She's like, oh my God, you know, these are amazing. LeBron's like having to watch his mom put on his shoes. And he was kind of getting antsy. And I said, so LeBron like walking, and I would walk, I always would walk athletes through the process. I want them to be a part of the process. So no matter where they were in the world, no matter where they, if they had come to Portland during a certain time, they could see where in the process they were, or where their shoe was. So I had the whole process on. So typically LeBron, we would have, like we would get your reaction to size nine. And everything was good. They would make it in your size. So I told LeBron, I said, you know, clearly we can't wait for that. So we went ahead and opened your size already. So I pulled out from underneath the table, we had been just presenting, like they literally had been sitting there the whole time. He just never saw them. I pulled out this case that had his logo on it, well, the lion logo. And I had it turned to him. So I opened up the latches and I opened it up and it were his size in that color that you're wearing. And pulled them out and put them on, like he was jumping up and down. And I had stood up. We were basically, he was on the other side of this table. He put them on stand up, I stand up. We're kind of behind the chairs and everything. And he looks at me and he's like, Coop, these are the most comfortable about, like, and he just stops mid-sentence. And Gloria was like, that's what you said you were gonna do. And I'm like, look, you signed with Nike and this is the process. This is what we do. We listen to what you need. We listen to what you want and we make it happen. And that was it. Like it was over, like done. Case closed. He was gonna go over to sports marketing, sign the deal and that's where things got a little funky at that point. And he'd left campus without signing and other things happened, which I've yet to tell anybody about that. But I do. What's up, you gonna tell us or we gotta wait for the movie? He'll wait for the movie. I will say I stopped. I was walking down the hall with Mark Parker telling him about what was happening. Cause I found myself, I was literally in the middle between Nike sports marketing, the head of sports marketing and LeBarad's agents. And I was in the middle of this. I was explaining it to Mark as we're walking in the hall and Phil is literally two steps in front of us. And after I kind of explained things, he literally, Phil stops in his tracks, turned around. He's like, are you trying to tell me that we'd now have designers talking to the agents? And I was like, Mark's like, don't worry about it. Like he just said that and it turned and just kept walking. And I was, I didn't know what to say. Like it is what it was. And Mark's like, don't worry about it, whatever. But yeah, the rest is kind of history and things worked out as well. So how many, also, did they ask for you to do it? Or did you just like, hey, I want to work on this project? Well, I was headed Nike basketball at the time or designed for Nike basketball. And now that was another thing because the business wasn't going to be doing it. I kind of forced it to happen. That was a little funky. But I was like, I went out and saw him. I'm like, we have to do something. Like we can't just, we were going to do a PE of another shoe. And I think LeBron actually would have been okay with it at the time. But then when everybody else comes in, everybody's going to be doing a shoe, like it just, it escalated to the point where, you know, we weren't going to sign LeBron unless we did something special. Right, right. And just doing a PE of a particular shoe. It's literally like the Jordan one, but with the LeBron one, like similar story. Honestly, crazy. Well, then the kind of the crazy thing was, and I knew this at the time that that was when I was going to, that summer I was leaving to go, take my family over to Europe. And my job was to start the footwear design office for Nike in Europe. And I didn't tell LeBron that until after, which didn't go over very well. But that's all right. Because Ken Lake came in and crushed it. Shout out to Ken. Oh yeah, Ken dude. Such a talent. So, okay. All this is happening. Now, we're going to switch it up a little bit. But where did you get into the whole like, some people call you a health freak or whatever you want to call it, right? Where did you get into that? Like, was this already happening throughout your life? Was this going on kind of like midway through Nike? Like, where did you, because you know, like a lot of athletes, a lot of stuff going on. You could easily become a product of that environment. Say, hey, I want to take care of myself. I want to do better for myself. It was always a part of my life. Athleticism, human performance was always a part of my life. I was always fascinated by it. What enabled one person, two human beings, what enabled one person to do one thing and the other person simply couldn't do it. It was always fascinating to me. And then at Nike, being around these people, like in working with these people, like working with somebody for months, even I think years, then finding out they're an Olympic at, like they went to the Olympics or something. They looked like a normal person to me. So all that was super fascinating. And then being around the environment of these elites and what they do and what they go through and being a part of that also added to that. And then, yeah, I've always kept, I've always kind of tweaked things along the way. And I always try to stay ready for anything. I always want to be in a situation and physically capable of doing something if the opportunity comes up. So one, I don't know why it just popped in my head, but hanging out with Gary Payton during a shoot, there happens to be a basketball there, basketball hoop there, basketball, he's dribbling, I'm goofing, we end up in a little bit of a one-on-one. And I kind of, I'm like backing him down or feel like I am. And I do a little move on him and I'm not a good basketball. I'm like, okay, I was okay, but I wasn't like a, I didn't ever play competitively, but I do a little move on him. I run around him and I get one step, like one dribble, one step. And I'm like, oh my God, I'm about to score two points on Gary Payton. He's doing pretty good about myself. And it's like, just out of my hand, about to touch the glass. And here comes this hand, like out of nowhere, from over my head, just like really, and the ball just goes sailing across the room and Gary lands on the court, laughing his ass off. And I'm like, ugh. I thought I had him. Yeah, just thought I had him, not even close. So what is your day-to-day like now and like you said, you're planning to live to 110 years old. How do you even track it? Like, you know, the trajectory of it, the outcome, the goal, the North Star, and then also like, what are you doing in your day-to-day life? What are you eating? You know, what are you doing? Yeah, so metrics. So I do a Dexa scan, which is a low-frequency X-ray machine you lay down on it, does body fat, what's that? Apex, yeah. That's my guy. Jared? Joel, Jared and Kaelin, yeah. Yeah, that's my big bro. Okay. I've known them for a long time, bro. So I've known them since their place was as big as this. Yeah, when they had their original office. Yeah. So I used to train with them when I was in college, when he was at the Dolphins. Okay. Way back. And then when he went to the Raiders and everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, those are so Dexa there. That's so funny. But yeah, Dexa scan. I was just there last week. Tell them what it does for your body. Yeah, so it's to your body, I guess, for whatever. If someone wants to make a physical change, whether it's improving their performance, losing weight, changing their diet, whatever it is. One I've never, last time I stepped on a scale was probably, well I had a doctor's office for a physical, which I think is ridiculous, but I don't have a scale. We don't, I've never owned a scale. I've never bought a scale in my life. Never had one in my house. But at Dexa, we'll tell you the more important things of body fat, lean tissue, where that body fat is, because that's critical to your health. So that gives you a great metric to just baseline against. So I know what my Dexa, over the years, I know all my Dexes have been. You go once a year, or would you do? It's worked out to be like once every two years. Okay. Because bone density hasn't changed that much. Yeah, so it gives the full metrics of your body composition. So like you said, bone density, where fat, muscle, everything like that. And then from there, you can look at the sheet of paper. It breaks down all the numbers for you and you can make the decisions. I should do XYZ workouts to get these results that I need to impact this area of my body, wherever it may be. Exactly. So now I have numbers that I want to adjust. I do blood work. So I have those numbers. How often? Depend, probably once a year. Okay. Well, once a year, I will probably do certain blood markers, a full panel, every couple. I just did one last week, a big panel. And so then I know that I've done genetics. So all my GenX are obviously done. So I use the blood work against my genetics and that's critical. I was just talking to my friend about this. That was critical. He was telling me about that. He was like, you're genetics with your blood work and those two can really determine a lot of different outcomes. Like no matter if you know the other parts of the workouts and stuff, but if you don't know that information, because this is what insurance companies keep away from people and then that's how they make their money and they know these things and the metrics on the back end, but they don't want you to know on the front end to be able to track your own life. You've really measured down that rabbit hole. They can measure your success rate of living in the lengths and how it does different things. That's all, I'm interested in this stuff. We could do a whole nother. Right, but yeah, okay. And I would, I would have to do it for sure. Because to me, it's all part of this ecosystem. It's all part of this, yeah, it's all part of it. So that being the footwear performance, blood work, nutrition, environment. So stress is stress and toxins are the things that we have to mitigate or not mitigate, manage. So stress can be good. We need stress in our lives. Stress creates change. It can create positive change. It can create negative change. So you need stress in your life, but you need to be able to manage that stress. To be able to manage that stress, you need metrics. I don't know how, if you don't know how stressed out you are, whether that's physical stress, mental stress, how do you know what to adjust? And then also toxins in the environment, whether it's food toxins, environmental toxins in the air, being pollution or something else. Again, you can't manage it if you don't have those metrics. So that's where blood work can come in. And so the things that, there's things that we just, there's things that I can't control. And I have a very amazing, I live a very amazing life. There's, and I'm able to afford amazing things that enable me to manage a lot of things that other people can't. So unfortunately, the majority of our population are a significant amount of people live in food deserts, what are called food deserts. Food deserts are when you have less access to fresh food. And also another problem in our country is that donuts are still cheaper than apples. Right, right. So, I mean, yeah, again, we could go through down rabbit holes. I'll try to avoid the rabbit hole. And then the stuff on the vegetables and all the other stuff that you got to deal with that too. Even though you're thinking you're eating something healthy and then you got to deal with all the other stuff with the pesticides and the waxes and everything else that come along with it. A hundred percent. So even if you live in holidays, what's that? My wife is vegan. I'm part-time vegan. Part-time vegan. I'll work it out. Vegan when I want to be. But I'm learning a lot just over the past couple of years, especially with food and everything. The Mediterranean diet is kind of like more of my favorite style. But I really I got rid of dairy like the past year and a half in particular. But yeah, it's interesting here in that too. So like, what's your diet? I mean, like Mediterranean is probably my go to. But if you were to label it, but. So there's a couple. We're already 140. And this is like the beginning of another podcast. And we buy me, man. Yeah, yeah. But so there's the five facets of human performance. There's sleep. There's mindset. So how do you sleep? And when you wake up, what's your mindset? Then what do you eat? Your nutrition? And I include hydration in there. Then how do you move about the day? And then last one is how do you regenerate? So an act of form of recovery sleep is an act of form of recovery. So all of those things work together. I would argue that most people are doing fairly well and at least one of those. And then and then they're also probably falling down and a couple of them. But you can improve in all of those and you can get metrics on all of those and and again. And they all relate. So. So how you build a system for daily life to to maximize those five things to help you perform at your highest level. There's foundational things that that we can all do to be better that aren't that difficult. So we all generally speaking and there's always outliers life is a bell curve, right? So there's outliers. There's people that are freaks on each side. Right. And then but the majority of us are kind of in the middle. You know, one side or the other, but kind of in that middle. So for the most part, we should all start trying to get eight hours of sleep. Now, how well you sleep, the quality of that sleep can be determined by a bunch of different things. We know scientifically that drinking alcohol before you go to bed destroys the quality of your sleep. I don't care if you put your head down at 10 o'clock at night and you wake up at eight o'clock the next day, 10 hours later, your quality of sleep was terrible. You don't need an aura ring to tell you that, right? We know that. But I think it's for some people who have an aura ring. This isn't one. But they can start realizing like, oh, my gosh, what I've read all these years actually does affect me. I know that, you know, if I drink a glass of wine at dinner, I'm not going to sleep as well as I would if I did. So do you drink? I don't. OK. So I drink like once or twice a year, maybe that's kind of yeah. And it's been like that like my whole life. Yeah, there's a plenty of times where I've gone a year without drinking or two years of drinking. It's always like, oh, we went out of town or a cabo with the friends and have a drink or something. But yeah, I'm kind of like on that. I'm almost at the point now where I'm like, I'm almost about to just be retired with drinking because at this point I don't even. So only wine and tequila and only some tequilas, by the way. The good tequilas. The good tequilas is natural. Like it's a natural process. Right. Everything else is literally a poison. So I try to live my life. You asked me about my diet. I try to live life with limiting the the known toxins, poisons that I put into my body and trying to limit and manage the stress that's around me. I want positive stress, right? So I try to bust my ass in the gym when I'm in there. But then I know that, you know, if I have a stressful day at work, you know, you got to manage those stresses, right? Like you can't just put a bunch of stress on at the same time because your body's got to deal with it all. So if you have a stressful day at work, is it like, I'm going to do like some super relaxing thing when I get home or is it like I'm going to go work out and like I listen to my body, what's the different thing? I listen to my body. There's, you know, the whoop band is probably the one that's advertised to give you the most kind of ongoing information where the oar ring tells you, you know, how your sleep was. And then it tells you ongoing through the day, but it's, but they're all, it's all about kind of recovery. Like how recovered are you before you decide to do something stressful? I've had three whoops, I think. Two oar rings, Apple watches, you know, like at the end of the day, if you learn how to monitor your own self, you're the best wearable on the planet. But you have to learn about that. So if somebody needs to wear oar ring or Apple watch or whatever whoop to learn or a Fitbit to learn that, hey, this on a my typical day, I do 2,000 steps. That's not enough on my, the day that I, you know, I do all these other things to get 10,000 steps. And that's what I need to do. Like people, it's interesting. If you know somebody who's been wearing a Fitbit for a long time, they can tell you, I mean, down to like 100 steps at the end of the day, how many steps I do, I'll probably be 6,500. Oh, I did 6,600. But you need those metrics. You need to, it's like once you weigh yourself, like I know I'm 200 pounds, if I look the same next year, probably 200 pounds, maybe I'm 195, when I'm 205. If I eat over the holidays and don't work out, I'm probably gonna be 210, like because I know my body. I don't need a scale to tell me that. So it's the same with every other wearable. Those metrics, I can kind of manage on my own, but it's the unseen, the bone density, the lean muscle, certainly the blood work. So that's the stuff that I've been putting into my life over the years and now trying to tweak those. But if my kids were listening, this would be laughing at me, saying like I still eat ice cream, like what I was gonna say about the glass of wine. You gotta go to the Cates. What's that? You gotta go to Cates. Go to what? It's vegan ice cream, but it's good. Oh yeah, I know what you're talking about. Yeah, it's good. But I was gonna say about the glass of wine, like you know that you're gonna have bad sleep, but you love wine. So it's like that balance in life, like that's what life is all about. If you, there's something called a biological age and people are, there's businesses now trying to build startups around this. Yeah. So we have a chronological age. So I'm 53. So, but my biological age of how my body is doing could be much younger, which it is much younger. If I could tell somebody that they're biological age, if they're 42 chronologically, but biologically they're 52 because of all of these things that they do. And they knowingly do them, they can control them. And they're okay with that. They're okay that they might die 10 years earlier because they're like, yeah, but I could get hit by the bus tomorrow, so fuck it. Right. High five, like go keep doing your thing, right? Like I don't, like that's awesome. Like who am I to say like you look like you're 30 pounds overweight, but I don't care if you're happy and you're contributing positive vibes to the world, keep doing your thing, right? Pursue you, right? I think there's a balance there. Like I think there are some people that could be very happy doing that. I think the majority of us sometimes just don't know how good you could feel if you did tweak a little bit of things in your life. But I'm not one to say, I'm not gonna say that to anybody. I think it's hard too because a lot of people want instinct results. Oh yeah. We're very much in this over bullet society. You know what I'm saying? So like it's taking you X amount of years to even get to this point and like you're gonna be so much more advanced with your knowledge, with your movements, everything that you do five years from now. Next year, you know what I'm saying? So that comes down to the what are you training for and what's your why. So people, you know, I'm at an CrossFit gym, crushing it like everybody else and people are looking at me like, you know, like I've had people ask me like what are you training for, what are you doing? Right. And for me, it's literally to be able to not just play with my grandkids when they're little. And again, I don't have grandkids yet, but it's to compete against them when they're in high school. Right. Like you ain't got no chance. I'm still about to beat you. Right? Like, I feel that. I'll be on that same vibe. I'm like, I just want to be an athletic dad. I just want to be an athletic grandpa. Like I just want to be able to still go out there. Oh yeah. I still have dreams of beating my son in a foot race, but now I know it's just a dream. Because he could smoke me out of it. But the moment that it happened, it was after a football practice. And he and I kind of, this is like, yeah, you want to go? He's like, sure. And so we'd run across the field and the day that he beat me, like legitimately beat, got the edge on me, he was kind of like. He was with me. Yo, did you go like, I'm like, yeah, you got me. Straight, like that was it. And then it got, it got bad. There's been two other times, one at Grant High School on the track, challenge him to a true 100 yard dash. And we still had enough time. And he's far enough ahead of me that he was able to kind of look backwards and smirk at me while he crossed the finish line. I was like, that's just, that's just disrespectful. And then another time we were on the sand. And it was a much longer distance. I thought I could get him on that endurance piece. So I was like, hey, you want to go? And he's like, what, to mom? I'm like, yeah. And I thought I had him. I didn't think he was going to get go for it. And he's like, sure. And I was like, okay, I got him. Cause it's long enough, right? So I could outlast him. So we kind of, we were like, who's going to go further? Who's going to be like, we're already going pretty good. And then, and we got closer and closer. And then he started picking up and I'm like, uh-oh. And he kept on going a little faster. I'm like, oh no. And I could just see like the forces that were, like he was able to collect from the brain down to the force from his foot. And then back up to his brain, like that kinetic chain was just beautiful and fluid. Like everything he was needing out of his body was just happening. Me on the other hand, I was like, why isn't my kinetic chain firing the way it's supposed to. And I was like, yeah, exactly. Like I felt like I looked okay, but I could just tell like forces were just bleeding out my ankles, out my knees, out my hips. Like there's no way that force production that I wanted out of my body was going to happen. So therefore he was just a lot further ahead of me than I could, than I could get. But the fact that you could still do that though, it's still a thing. Like that's an accomplishment. I had the opportunity to go surfing behind a boat this summer and they had a, they had a ski, like a mono ski, like water skiing. When was the last time you saw somebody water, like a one ski, water ski, like down, like everybody was surfing. And I was like, I haven't done that since I was like 16. And they're like, oh, you want to, you want to go? You want to try it? I'm like, fuck yeah, like I want to go, I want to try it. Sure enough, I was able to get up and I had the flood of memories and the emotions and the happiness and the joy that was just like that's my, that's why I keep training. From simply just hopping on the water on a random Sunday day and just going out. Granted, I did bite it a couple of times and I think I broke a rib. Oh my God. But it was worth it. So yeah, the bones, but that's it. So on the Dexa, so I have a bone density score that I want to improve and you can improve that by lifting heavyweight. So I want to keep doing that. And yeah, so again, so when the opportunities come up, I ran the half marathon a couple of weekends ago or just a week and a half ago, just had a crazy idea and wanted to do it. Oh, we were in Austin. So here's, this is why I still train. Austin City Limits this past weekend, Lil Yachty, Kendrick Lamar, Major Lazer, you name it. I'm with Megan and I are with our son, Jackson. He's 24, his friends. We're there just bouncing just like that. And I look at my son, I kind of sneak back and I get a look at him. And he's kind of, as it's looked on his face, he's like, oh, my parents are all right, you know? And so yeah, it turns out that his friends are like, oh man, your parents are like, super cool. They're super fun. I just want to keep enjoying life as much as I possibly can. And for me, enjoying life means moving, being active, participating in stuff that, you know, hiking to the top of a mountain, whatever, you know? So. Okay, we've covered a lot of things. I've got a couple final questions with the fire around. These are quick. Okay. It's like, we're gonna be here for two more hours. Nah, nah, nah. If there was, if there was, if I could only like pull one pair out, I'd probably certainly one of them, the GP, the ultra flight, the clear shell. I have a pair that Gary Payton wore, I have a game-worn pair that he signed. Super Sonic. Walked, yeah, Super Sonic's. Walked right by me with them and personally handed to my mom. My mom was the biggest Super Sonic's fan. And yeah, Gary Payton was probably one of her favorite players, loved the smack talk. She's like, and he, I mean, mom's, my mom would like talk to get on him. She was an actress, like she could go for days. And you have to kind of like, you know, make sure, I mean, he was after, it was after the game, thinking he's got to go to home to his family, he's going out with the boys, whatever he was doing. You know, he's not there to, you know, hang out with my mom. So I got to kind of like manage my mom. And she asked him a couple of questions. I'm like, okay, mom, that's good. You know, thanks so much GP. And Gary was like, he's like, look at me like, what's up with you? And he kept on asking my mom question, like he was engaging her and then sticking around longer. And I'm like, he's like the coolest guy ever. Like, he's one of my favorite guys. Even 15 years later, bump into him on campus and he remembers who I am and stops and talks. And it's like, just a, yeah, I'll like randomly see him at the employee's door or something and be like, oh, it's like, I seen him at sneaker con like, I don't know, earlier in this year. And I knew he was going to be there. So I had brought some stuff and I actually had those signed as well. The white and yellow and green pair. And then I had the other ones right there, the Lakers colorway, the black, purple one. And then there, what else? My GP12 or something. I don't know, but I had brought a couple of shoes to have him sign them, but I want to do something with him in the future. Okay, last one. What is the greatest sneaker of all time? What is the greatest sneaker of all time? Most people just like hit you right away, huh? No, it's a hard one. It's a hard one. Cause you think Air Force one, Jordan one, Jordan 11, Air Max, there's a lot of different things. I don't know if you went all the way back to like the moon shoe, like the shoe that like inspired Phil and Bill to keep doing what they were doing. We don't have the Air Max one without like, there's so many predecessors. It's like back when we were talking about the dominoes, right? So you take out any one of these dominoes that people tell you about and are we sitting here? Right. You know? Right. And I can tell you, a lot of people would probably tell you the Jordan 11, that was the worst received shoe in the marketplace ever. I hated on it. Jitri was just talking about that. Oh really? Yeah. In the last part we did, he was talking about how like when he put it out, it was like nobody was liking it. He just pushed. Oh, it wasn't nobody was liking it. It was hating it. Yeah, whatever, hating it. I mean, worst. Oh, that's crazy. Yeah. I could tell stories about that. That's funny. Okay. So you want to hit them with your social media. I know you got some stuff coming. You got your own stories you're going to be sharing as well on your platforms. Yeah. And then you want to make sure everybody follows you on there as well. No, I appreciate it. Would love people to follow me on Instagram. It's just erin.ac.cooper or at erin.ac.cooper. And I'm just sharing stories like we're doing here. Mostly sneakers. I want to get into the performance, the human performance side of things, the wellness side of things. And then I also have a muscle car that we never even touched on that. Oh yeah, he said he was going to race me. I was like, dang, we just met. So to me, like culture is, life is more fun with culture. Certainly with people culture, but sneaker culture, car culture, wine culture. People are into comic book culture. I've been to Comic Con in San Diego. It was amazing. Culture just makes life better. And so that's, so I have, and I don't even call it sneaker culture, but for me it's more about sport culture. Sneakers are just a part of it. And then my health culture and my car culture. Those are kind of my, well, I appreciate it. Thanks for pulling up. It was a great opportunity. I feel like I learned a lot from you. And I'm excited to see where things go with our relationship as well. Yeah, let's do another one. Let's go. All right, I appreciate it. Thanks.