this morning i logged onto facebook and saw someone's status saying that they were "so excited to see blake mycoskie", founder of toms shoes speak tonight on campus. being the toms shoes lover that i am, i did the most silent squeal i could in the library and immediately texted all of my friends in an effort to get them to come with me. luckily enough, one of my best friends who i hadn't seen since summer made his way from UNCG to attend, so i was truly stoked. up until that point, i didn't know much about the history behinds toms shoes. my boyfriend got me a pair of black canvas ones for my last birthday after i mentioned how "cute" i thought they looked. i knew the whole "one for one" deal where when one pair of shoes is purchased, one pair is given to a child in need, but honestly, i just thought they were cool-looking and needed them. little did i know how foolish i would feel tonight after i learned the entire, amazing story behind the company. three years ago, blake was sitting in his office cubicle job when he looked around at his dreary surroundings and boldly decided he needed a break. so, he went to argentina. why argentina? well, no big deal really, he was just on THE AMAZING RACE (favorite show ever) second season and remembered how beautiful he thought argentina was. thus, he spent his self-proclaimed vacation there, where he played polo and relaxed for a few weeks. one day while sitting at a terrace in beunos aires, he overheard two girls speaking english. excitedly, he introduced himself. (this would soon easily be the best day of blake's life, without even knowing it.) the girls explained how they were volunteers who helped around the poor outskirts of buenos aires. they were currently organizing a "shoe drive", where they went around for weeks on-end getting fancy stores in the city to donate shoes to the drive. blake, the curious guy he is, tagged along that day with the girls, and saw the giant impact the volunteers made when they handed out shoes to the children who had never had a pair before. as happy as he was, he became concerned by the end of the day with the thought of who would carry on this shoe drive after the volunteers left. and voila! the rest was magic. with help from argentenian shoemakers and friends, blake transformed his idea into a humanitarian, entrepreneurial phenomenon. one LA times front-page headliner, a spread in vogue magazine, hundreds of interviews, and thousands of enthusiastic buyers later, blake is the definition of success. actually, he has re-defined success. he has proved that business is not all about making dirty, cheap deals with corporations and being an elitist C.E.O. who could care less about their product...he brings an element of passion to business. not a passion to make money, but to go out and help kids who are too helpless to do anything on their own. customers of toms shoes have helped deliver over 500,000 pairs of shoes to children in argentina, south africa, and ethiopia, as well as run-down areas in the US. these little, colorful shoes symbolize an effort to give kids the opportunity to attend school (as shoes are required by the school) and to protect them against terrible foot diseases developed all too commonly in their environment. blake describes toms shoes as his "soul mate" in the business world, and assured me that his genuine character and kind heart has started something beyond traditional business. i simply cannot get over how awesome his idea of starting toms shoes was. i am jealous, for lack of a better word, of how driven and admired he is for what he does. growing up with a dad as a business-owner, i couldn't tell you all the intuition i've gained from my dad's words of advice about the business world. with all the little ideas i have of what i want to do in future floating around hectically in my head, it was truly a treat to wind down and listen to blake mycoskie's words. he doesn't know it, but he infused more inspiration into one room than i'll probably ever witness again.

ps. buy a pair of toms shoes!