Charlotte Young Bowens is the founder of Conscious Gear, an emerging outdoor brand committed to celebrating body diversity in the outdoors with outerwear and outdoor gear designed by and for bigger-bodied outdoor enthusiasts. Charlotte started the business after a health scare where she learned she had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, borderline diabetic and was morbidly obese. She knew things had to change. What started out as 2 minutes at a 2-mph on a treadmill, evolved into crossing the finish line of her first 50-mile ultramarathon a mere 16 months later. Charlotte believes the outdoors belongs to everyBODY. Conscious Gear will ensure that bigger-bodied outdoor enthusiasts have adequate gear and activewear to explore outdoor activities of their own choosing. Bigger Bodies Matter.
Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Charlotte Young Bowens about how bigger bodies can go barefoot.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
– Why you don’t have to be a certain size to try minimalist shoes or barefoot running.
– How going barefoot might cause some aches and pains at first, but ultimately, your body will adapt.
– How traditional sports shoes are not designed with bigger bodies in mind and why that’s problematic.
– Why people with bigger bodies need to focus on goals for themselves, not society.
– How our bodies are capable of doing amazing things if we try hard enough.
Connect with Charlotte:
Guest Contact Info
Twitter
@consciousgear
Instagram
@consciousgear1
Facebook
facebook.com/conscious.gear
Links Mentioned:
conscious-gear.com
Connect with Steven:
Website
Twitter
@XeroShoes
Instagram
@xeroshoes
Facebook
facebook.com/xeroshoes
Episode Transcript
Steven Sashen:
If you’re a larger person, then going barefoot or being in minimalist shoes is horrible for you, right? Maybe not the way you think. Maybe not at all. We’re going to find out more about that on today’s episode of The MOVEMENT Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body, starting feet first. Those things are your foundation, by the way.
And we break down the propaganda, the mythology, and sometimes the flat-out lies you’ve been told about what it takes to run or walk or hike or play or do yoga or CrossFit or whatever it is, and do that enjoyably, do it efficiently, do it effectively. Did I say enjoyably? Trick question. I know I did.
Because, look, if you’re not having fun, you’re not going to keep it up. So do something different so you’re having a good time. I’m Steven Sashen, your host of The MOVEMENT Movement podcast. We call it that because we, and that’s all of us, are creating a movement about natural movement, letting your body do what it’s made to do without getting in the way of that with technology, quote, unquote, “technology” that actually gets in the way of that.
And you don’t have to do anything special to be part of what we’re doing here, but you can help out by going to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. You don’t need to actually join anything. There’s no secret handshake or special code or money you have to pay. Nothing.
That’s just the website where you’ll find all the previous episodes, all the ways you can find the podcast, all the ways you can interact with us on social media, where you can do things like give us a review and give us a thumbs-up and give us five stars or whatever it is. Look, you know how to do it. If you want to be part of the tribe, just subscribe.
So let us jump in. Charlotte, do me a favor. First of all, welcome. Tell people who you are and what you do.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Welcome, everybody. Thank you, Steven, for having me on the show today. I totally appreciate your time. My name is Charlotte Young Bowens. I am the founder of Conscious Gear. It’s a company that’s focused on providing outdoor gear and apparel for bigger bodies.
I tell people how I started the business is that I had a health scare many years back. And the doctor said I had high blood pressure, high cholesterol, I was borderline diabetic, and I was morbidly obese.
Steven Sashen:
But other than that, everything is fine.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
You know. Okay. And the doctor was nice enough to say that the next time you have a health scare, you might not wake up. And so I decided I wanted to wake up. And one of the things I did is I went to the gym. And the only thing I could do on that first day was go for two minutes at two miles per hour.
But I tell people that with a little persistence and using my minimalist shoe routine, 16 months later, I crossed the finish line in my first 50-mile ultramarathon.
Steven Sashen:
Sweet.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
As a woman in a bigger body, curvier, taller body. And so I’m here to say that bigger bodies are the new norm, but that bigger bodies can do amazing things. And that I really want people to understand, just hop into it. That’s all I want you to do. So yeah.
Steven Sashen:
First of all, I love that. I did an interview with Heather Vincent, who’s a researcher in Florida, who spends a lot of time researching women who are… Well, not just women. Women and men who are heavier.
Her research is very interesting. I’m going to cut to the chase with this one. Many people think… I get emails all the time from people saying, “Hey, I weigh 300 pounds. I weigh 350 pounds. I weigh 400 pounds. Will your shoes work for me?”
And it’s a really entertaining question for a lot of reasons. Sometimes they’re asking because they’ve worn shoes where the foam just compresses so quickly that it just stops working almost immediately. And we don’t have that issue. And sometimes they’re just worried about joints and everything else.
And, of course, Heather’s research shows that many heavier people actually have better running and walking form than those who don’t because, frankly, they’re not able to move… They have to move efficiently because they’re just trying to move so much mass around.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Absolutely.
Steven Sashen:
Which is completely contrary to the way most people would think. But once you spend a moment, it’s like, oh, that makes total sense. So when you’re working with someone… Or actually, in terms of providing gear or working with someone… Actually, let me start there. How are you trying to get the word out to people for whom your message and information is valuable?
Charlotte Young Bowens:
I think, for me, the number one way I’m going to be doing it is just doing things like this, podcasts to share my story. I do want to share that how I got into minimalist was, initially, I was wearing some thick-sole gym shoes at the gym on the treadmill.
And then one day I forgot them. And so I was more committed to doing the workout because I was like, “If you don’t keep this up, you’re probably not going to keep this up.” And then I was on the treadmill barefoot. I just said, “Forget it. I ain’t got my shoes, so I’ll just do it barefoot.” It was one of the best walks of my life.
And I learned a couple of different things. What I want people to understand is, yeah, your body is going to have aches and pains and things, and mines did, but you’ve got to understand what those aches and pains are about. Allow your body to readjust and adapt. Our bodies are so amazing at adapting.
And I have found that what I love most about being a minimalist barefoot runner is that my feet get to touch the earth and have a relationship with the energetic energy of the earth, which is why I really feel like it’s a spiritual lesson for me that I was able to do a 50-mile ultramarathon in a bigger body. Yeah.
I want to just start spreading the message. Don’t be afraid. Because there is this misnomer. And doctors do prescribe to bigger bodies, gym shoes that are super thick.
Steven Sashen:
Right.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
And in a bigger body, you can’t walk in those. You can’t run in those shoes because you do have a lot of mass, and your foot is constantly trying to figure out how to navigate all that cushion and the way it cushions. Our bodies are different.
And so you end up having a more unfulfilling experience with getting back into being physically active because of your shoe. What you probably need to do is just throw it off. Take them off.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. It’s funny. What you’re highlighting is, of course, the message that all of us who are into barefoot/minimalist talk about, but people really don’t think about it until you’re in the situation that you’re describing where, when you have that extra mass and you’re dealing with a cushioned shoe, and the cushioning is not going to be able to really support you properly, there’s more instability, there’s more issue, and you’re not getting the feedback to adapt to that instability.
And you don’t want the instability to begin with. But if you’re going to have it… It’s a vicious cycle where you’re unstable and then you can’t adapt properly because you’re unstable. What’s so amazing to me is that, given the statistics about overweightness, for lack of a better term, in America, I’m somewhat shocked that this isn’t a much bigger conversation, frankly.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Well, we live in a very anti-fat society, so that’s why we’re not really having these conversations.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, that.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Yeah. So yeah, that’s number one. But I do think that we’re starting to have this body positivity, size-inclusivity conversation, which I hope some of this other information will also start to rise, bubble up to the top too as well.
Steven Sashen:
Okay. Let’s just cut to the end of this story. So how do we get Lizzo on board?
Charlotte Young Bowens:
I think we just go to Lizzo. I would imagine that she would be more than open to having this conversation and more than happy to support the… elevating the conversation around it. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Well, I think the phrase you had, “Just go to Lizzo,” that’s the challenging part.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Yeah. Well, that’s true.
Steven Sashen:
She just stopped returning my calls since she got famous. You know how it is. And I’m not joking when I say that because we have a bunch of celebrities who are wearing our shoes, many of whom can’t promote that because they’re sponsored by bigger shoe companies, which is really annoying because there’s pictures of them in our shoes, even though they’re getting millions of dollars from some big company.
But seriously, I can’t think… Obviously, short, skinny, white guy has less of a chance of getting through to Lizzo than you do. Just FYI. Hint, hint. Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge. I’m just saying.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Will do.
Steven Sashen:
All right.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Duly noted. Let me say this. Let’s just look at the fashion industry and the fashion foot industry, particularly as it relates around performance shoes. They are designed for skinny white boys who run.
Steven Sashen:
Right.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
And skinny African dudes that run. You know what I mean?
Steven Sashen:
No, no. Skinnier African dudes that run.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Okay. Faster. They are not designed for women, bigger bodies, differently-abled folk to really… Because there are times when I buy a brand-new shoe and I’m like, why is my ankles hurting? A brand-new shoe.
You just said that it has all these features and amenities and all the things it’s supposed to do to help me run faster. And the first time I wear it, my ankles are hurting. It’s because you didn’t design it for me in mind. You didn’t have me in mind when you were designing it. And I get that now.
And so I think that’s the message you need to say to all these celebrities. Look, you can continue to support Nike, Adidas, and all these other ones. Look, do you, Nike, Adidas, but understand that there’s another option too, and that there’s enough to go around. And you shouldn’t have to feel like you got to pigeonhole yourself because people are scared of a little competition. So yeah, that would be my advice.
Steven Sashen:
Well, I got to tell you, some of the bigger companies are scared of the competition. Oh my gosh. When we were 1/20th of the size that we are right now, we were a tiny little company, and we were getting… Well, I’ll say it this way. We had a $1.5 million order. It was going to be the biggest order we’ve ever had from a major retailer.
And coincidentally, the day that they were going to click submit and place the order with us, they got a call from a multi-billion-dollar company saying, “We don’t want Xero Shoes in your store.”
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Oh, man.
Steven Sashen:
Because earlier, we had been in an iconic local store that the big companies used just to see what’s happening in the market.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Oh, I see.
Steven Sashen:
And we had them during a holiday weekend, and they freaked out. And it took us a couple of years to get over that and get back into… Actually, four years to get back into that store.
And we hear it now. It’s a fascinating thing. But be that as it may, I want to back up a giant step in the conversation. When you got on that treadmill barefoot, it was life-changing, obviously, but you said… I can’t remember how you phrased how great it was, but you also talked about the aches and pains part.
Can you break that down? Talk about both sides. What was the part, more specifically, that was so wonderful for you? And then let’s talk about the aches and pains so we can address those more specifically so people know what they might have to expect or what they might be able to avoid with a little new information.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
I think when I first started walking on the treadmill barefoot is that I did feel some aches and pains in my knees and my ankles. But I’ve always been of the mindset, okay, this is a signal that something’s going on in your body.
Now, what I want you to do is just go for another minute. If it continues or gets worse, then we stop. But if it doesn’t, then you get to keep moving. And what happened was it stopped. And so I kept moving.
What I’ve always learned too, as a woman in a bigger body who does long-distance running, is that there will be points in time when you will have aches and pains. Of course, pay attention to them. But I tell people, give it a minute. Sometimes your body is just in the process of readapting and adjusting so that you can feel good again.
But we don’t ever give it enough time. We hear the instant pain, we do the instant stop. And I tell people, no, just keep going. Let’s see what happens three to five minutes from now.
And I will say about minimalist shoes, I remember something you said earlier today is people feel like they’re not going to fit. The beauty of these shoes are they’re designed around a real foot.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
And so whatever body you’re in… I have found that I never have… I used to have so many issues with width and how it wraps around my foot with other shoes. But with minimalist shoes, I’ll buy my size and it’s always 100%. Never have any issues. Zero.
Steven Sashen:
The point that you made I love, which is essentially… I’m going to reframe it to use the sensation you’re getting as feedback, become your own coach, listen to what’s going on. And the thing that I’m going to highlight is when you do feel one of these little aches or pains, and you approach it with a sense of curiosity, what your brain is going to try to do is shift something, move something a little differently to get you out of that.
You don’t want to just keep doing the same thing and pushing. You want to listen and let your body adapt. My story, I don’t know if you know it, and I don’t expect that you would, is, my second barefoot run, I had a giant blister on the ball of my left foot from my first barefoot run, which I didn’t even know that I had until after I finished that run.
And it was like, oh, that’s weird. Big blister on the ball of my foot, on my left foot. But my right foot’s fine. That’s interesting.
So my second run, when I still had this gaping hole in my foot, and I thought, let’s take a 10-minute run. And if I can’t find a way to do it where it doesn’t hurt, then I’ll stop. And if I can find a way to do it where it doesn’t hurt, that means I’m probably not doing the thing that caused the gaping hole.
But what I paid attention to was my good leg. I paid attention to the right leg. What’s it doing correctly? And then at the 9-minute-and-30-second mark, my left leg got the hint. And suddenly, everything was infinitely instantly better and never went away.
And so this whole idea of listening… I wonder if this is an obstacle for people who are in bigger bodies, that maybe some of them have made it a habit not to pay attention, to not listen to some certain feedback or signals. And then I wonder, if that whole process of listening might be a bit of a challenge. But I also wonder if it might be helpful across the board once you start paying attention to your feet, what that does about the way you’re paying attention to the rest of your body.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
I do think that, when you’re in a bigger body, you’re struggling already with a society that’s constantly bombarding you with negative messages about you being in that bigger body.
I think you also get into that victim mentality. So if you’re going to hurt a little bit, you’re going to use that as a reason for why you’re not going to move anymore. And so what bigger bodies have got to do is just say, “Look, this is not about nobody but me, that I’m recommitted to me. I’m getting ready to get to know me.”
I think I really want to spread the message that our bodies are so freaking amazing. You know what I mean?
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
You can’t tell me, as a bigger-bodied woman who does ultra-fucking-marathons after sitting on her ass for two decades, eating processed foods, smoking cigarettes, severely depressed, you can’t tell me that our bodies are not… can be capable of whatever it is we want them to be capable of.
And that being in a bigger one, because society would like to make you think that because you’re in a bigger body, you can’t do certain things, we need to continually dispel that myth that great things can happen. But we also got to be willing to be a part of that process, listen to our bodies. They take time to adjust.
My body has… We have a full-on relationship. She cusses me out sometimes. You know what I mean? We go back and forth. But if I’m good to her, she’s good to me. And I’m like, yes, we got this. So I just want to be a voice of encouragement to people. Don’t give up. Don’t give in to the hype. It’s a lie. It’s a big, fat lie. You can do great things.
Steven Sashen:
We both chuckle at the idea of separating you and your body, of having a relationship with her, but I think that’s actually a really valuable thing to do is to play with that, whether you’re running or walking or doing anything, just to play with that, whatever it is, second-person approach to yourself.
Because if we really look carefully, that’s, in many ways, more accurate as an experience. There’s this sense of me, and there’s this thing that does stuff. I’ve actually spent time referring to myself with… This is way before the whole pronoun issue. I refer to myself as “it.” It’s like, “It’s having a thought. It’s doing this. It’s doing that.” Which is a really interesting thing to do for a couple of days.
It makes people feel weird around you. But just to do it internally, in a way, after a little while, it feels a little more accurate to say, “It’s having a thought.” Because if you notice, “you” quote, unquote didn’t make that thought arise. It just showed up. You didn’t make yourself cross your legs that way. They just did.
This is a really good experiment for people to play around with thinking of your body or your mind or both as independent entities just to see what you learn from doing that. I think that’s a really cool thing that you just pointed to.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
I tell people there are times when I’m doing my ultra-marathons where there are miles I don’t remember at all. I don’t remember my feet hitting the ground. I don’t remember my body moving through space and time. And I say that it’s Little C. I call her Little C. She must take over.
Steven Sashen:
I love it.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
She must do the work. She must somehow say, “Well, this is when I need to come in because that Big C, she probably couldn’t do this without me.” So yeah, I do think there is… I don’t know. I love the fact that… I wake up in the morning, I’m like, “Little C, what are we going to do today, girl?” And let her tell me.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, that’s great.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
I think you’re right. I think if people would entertain that for a minute, they might really discover something magnificent about their relationship to our bodies. Because I don’t think we have these kinds of relationships with our bodies.
Steven Sashen:
Well, we rarely have any relationship with our bodies, certainly not one that’s-
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Well, this is true.
Steven Sashen:
… that’s great. There are some people who don’t know what’s below their neck, which I’m not even necessarily saying is a bad thing. There are certain people where that’s the way they should be.
I had a good friend who went to Harvard when he was 15. And he was dating a woman who was from this new-age university and was a psychologist and was always complaining to him that he was just in his head. And he, of course, took that on as a bad sign.
I went, “Dude, you’re one of the smartest guys on the planet. Stay in your fucking head. That’s what you’re here for. You’re really good at that. The body stuff, you don’t do that very well. That’s okay.” Ironically, when he got over that idea… I think maybe she dumped him. I don’t know if he dumped her. Doesn’t matter. He ended up with a woman who was equally really, really brainy and did not criticize him for being really, really brainy, quote, in his head. And they’re fine.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Absolutely.
Steven Sashen:
Good time. There’s a book, I wish I could remember what it was. It was a story about a guy who was… He was probably dating, maybe married to someone, I think just dating a woman who was convinced, again, that he was always in his head, wasn’t attached to his feelings, and made him go to therapy.
And he was in therapy five days a week. And after a year, the therapist said, “I don’t see there’s anything wrong with you.” And he says, “Then what do you recommend I do?” And the therapist says, “I would go to Eastern Europe where the women don’t think that knowing your feelings is really important.”
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Hello.
Steven Sashen:
So he did. He went to somewhere in Eastern Europe, met a wonderful woman who never says, “What are you feeling?” They’ve been married for 30 years.
Anyway. Now, I’m not suggesting that it’s better or worse, frankly, to have no relationship with your body. I guess where I’m going is it’s an interesting thing to experiment with and see what you discover and see what works for you.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Absolutely.
Steven Sashen:
I got to back up to another piece. So you went from being on a treadmill for a few minutes, and then we skipped all the way to 50-mile ultra. I’m guessing there was some stuff in the middle.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
In-between, so I went back to my shoes on the treadmill and discovered I was having pains again. And then something dawned on me after a while. “Remember that day when you didn’t bring your shoes in?” And I just went back to that.
And then I started saying, okay, let’s go outdoors. And I started with gym shoes because you’re really socially conditioned to put those gym shoes on.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
It’s just the messaging that you’re always getting all the time. And also, people think if you’re a Black, bigger-bodied woman, they might probably think you’re homeless, walking around without shoes. So you’re thinking about how the world’s going to contextualize you being in bare feet. So you got all that stuff. But as I went into the trails-
Steven Sashen:
Wait. Hold on. Hold on. Again, as a medium-skinny white guy, I can assure you it doesn’t make a difference whether you’re a big Black woman or a skinny white guy. If you’re in bare feet, they think you’re homeless.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Okay. Okay.
Steven Sashen:
Hippie or homeless, depending on your hair.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Right. So then I started doing trail running. It was so funny, my experience with trail running. I used to always carry my shoes. And for the first mile or two, I would wear them. Because, again, I’m just like, I don’t want people to think I’m weird.
And then I would take them off. And then I would do the rest of the run. And then right as I’m getting at the end again, I put the shoes back on again. Be normal again. Yeah. Because it was like, people are going to think I’m weird. I remember, for many months, I really worried about people thinking I was weird. And then at some point in time-
Steven Sashen:
Go ahead. No. At some point in time? Because I was going to head in that direction. Keep going.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
But then over time, I just started to say fuck it. If the park ranger is going to arrest me for being barefoot, then I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.
Steven Sashen:
No. Sorry for interrupting, but you were heading exactly where I imagined, which is I want people to realize that if you are going to spend time barefoot, and I’m not saying that you have to, but it is terribly fun.
The story that I love to tell is I’m usually barefoot, but if I do wear shoes, they’re mismatched colors. And I’m in the pharmacy line at Costco a couple of months ago, and there’s a guy behind me. And he says, “Hey, your shoes don’t match.” And the pharmacist, without looking up or missing a beat, says, “He’s wearing shoes?”
But the point I want to make is you probably… I don’t know anyone who has really gotten to the point of being oblivious or really… How do I want to put this? Not being self-conscious about being barefoot in public. But you get to the point of either being a little… What’s the word? Not adversarial, but having a little bit of, “Yeah, I’m barefoot.” Just a little bit of an attitude in your mind. Or that kind of, “Screw it. I don’t really care what people think.”
And so you’ll have that self-conscious moment and then just go, “No, I’m enjoying this. I like this. I don’t care.” I’m probably never going to see these people again. They don’t know who I am. Well, they do know who I am around here.
But more importantly, I think this is an important thing because some people who want to try, even trying minimalist footwear, let alone going barefoot, will be a little self-conscious and think that that’s a problem. And I’m going to suggest that it’s just a feature, not a bug.
And the opportunity is to roll with that and be the kind of person who bucks the system because you’re getting benefits, you’re enjoying it. And if you want to be proselytizing and tell everyone why, that’s fine too. But I think there are so many times where we fight with our internal experience, and this is what we were talking about around pain.
And this is another opportunity to welcome that and question that, and be curious, and investigate, and see what happens. Because I definitely go on phases where I… There are certain stores where I reliably get hassled and then allowed to be barefoot. They’ll stop me and then I’ll explain what’s going on, and they’ll go, “Whatever. But next time…”
And then I go in barefoot the next time as well. But sometimes I’m just not in the mood to deal with it and I put on a pair of shoes, and that’s cool.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
Okay. So you started going outside, you started doing trails. Again, we still got a way to go before we get to a 50-miler.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
And so then I thought to myself, having grown up in a very Christian household, Jesus was barefoot.
Steven Sashen:
Come on, Jesus wore sandals. You’ve seen the pictures.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Well, the Jesus sandals or barefoot. I just feel like barefoot is Jesus sandals, but anyways. And I went to YouTube, and that’s when I found you. And I was like, oh, so there are crazy people like me out there, and it really does… This is real. I’m not making this up. I’m not some freak of nature.
It was so comforting. It was like, okay. Oh my God. I just remember how liberating it was. I was like, “I’m not a freak of nature. Thank you.” I’m many things, but I’m not that.
Steven Sashen:
No, that’s a really good one too because the people who are doing this, especially the barefoot people, there is that… Finding that you’re not alone or you’re not the only one is really helpful. But it’s also, from another perspective, human beings like to be part of groups. They don’t like to be outside of a group.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Absolutely. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
And so when we talk about the whole idea about natural movement, I keep saying there’s going to be a certain point where we hit critical mass, where there’s enough awareness, there’s enough people doing this that even the doubters are not going to see them…
We’re not going to be the out-group. We’re going to be a growing in-group. And then people are going to want to try it. They’re going to go, “Okay, I’m familiar enough. Let’s give it a whirl.” And then the experience is so profound, then they become part of the in-group, and then we become the in-group. That’s the way these things happen, and that’s all we’re trying to make happen. Okay. So you got over the weird part. We’re still not-
Charlotte Young Bowens:
So I Googled. I found you. I’m not a freak. I bought some of your shoes. And then I went to a training run. It was the second to the last training run before the 50-miler. And several people were like, “Oh, you’re a minimalist.”
So they affirmed me. They didn’t make it seem weird. They felt like, oh, you’re one of those, but it wasn’t a bad “one of those.”
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
And they were like, “How is it?” They were really curious too. And then that let me know, oh, I’m going to do this. And some people are going to know about it and some people won’t, but I don’t care anymore. And I just became committed.
I can’t stress enough just how good it has felt for my feet to be close to the ground. I don’t know how to explain that. It’s spiritual. It’s energetic. I just can’t. I don’t know how to explain it other than that. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
A friend of mine says, especially on trails, walking in our shoes, he goes, “It’s instant meditation.”
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Yeah. I do think it’s that too. For sure.
Steven Sashen:
Basically, in a way that is just bringing your attention to something on a regular basis. It focuses your attention. It’s not that you’re not thinking, it’s not that you’re in la-la land.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Oh, absolutely.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. It just does this thing with focus that is simultaneously aware of what’s happening in your feet, because that’s what your brain is wired for, but also really aware of the environment at the same time. So there’s this simultaneous inside-outside awareness, which is unusual for most people to experience.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
I do think I’m in my moments more. I love feeling the way my foot will wrap around rocks and leaves and quirks in the trail and technical stuff. Because I remember when I wore shoes, I was worried about my ankles.
Steven Sashen:
Right.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
But then as a minimalist, it’s just a natural way my body would adapt, adjust, and keep me moving, and be all right. I didn’t fall or I didn’t get injured. I tell people that I think, knock on wood, I’ve been injury-free because of my lifestyle. And I’m a big girl. So if anybody should be getting injuries, it should be me.
Steven Sashen:
The only serious… for lack of a better term, serious injury I’ve had since I got out of big, thick, padded motion control shoes was a couple of months ago. And it had nothing to do with my footwear or anything.
I have a compromised spine. So my L5-S1 are way out of whack. The bones are practically touching each other, etc. And I was just doing a warmup drill and just twisted as I landed on one foot, and it nailed my sciatic, and my sciatic just lit up my right leg and went, “And we’re done.”
And that took just a while to unwind because I’ve just got this major problem. But the joke is that I’ve had doctors for 15 years tell me I can’t run because of my back. And here I am, one of the fastest 60-year-olds in the country.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Right. Right.
Steven Sashen:
So the fact that I had that one weird little thing that had nothing to do with barefooter shoes, it just had to do with my physiology, that’s it. Other than that, maybe a tiny little tweak where I took a day off.
There’s a guy… I was in a panel discussion years ago, and this guy says, very accusatorily, “You barefoot people say that if somebody gets an injury, it’s just because they have bad form.” I went, “Yeah.”
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Wow.
Steven Sashen:
“You nailed it.” So here’s a weird question that popped into my head. When you’re out running, whether you’re doing a race or just bumping into people in the gym or on the road or whatever-
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Okay.
Steven Sashen:
… I’m guessing that there are some people, if you end up talking to them, and they see you running, they will say something about how you’re inspiring. Am I incorrect?
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Yes. Yeah. A lot of people.
Steven Sashen:
And how do you respond to that?
Charlotte Young Bowens:
How it usually goes is that people are like, “Oh my God. I’ve been thinking about that. Tell me about your experience.” And then I share a little bit about my experience. And then they’re like, “I don’t know if I could do that.”
And I tell people, “First of all, I can’t hear that. I am a bigger-bodied woman who does this and does this well. And my body has adapted. And you’re significantly smaller than me.” I don’t know. I can’t hear that. I just can’t. Because there’s no way that you can say you can’t.
Steven Sashen:
Right.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
I can say I can’t and the world will accept that. But from you, no. And so I think, in many ways, I challenge them to rethink how they think about it.
And I always tell people, I do this for anything, I said, start small. Walk to the mailbox and back a couple of times. Walk to the corner and back. I tell people I started at two minutes at two miles per hour. So you can’t tell me you can’t.
I hope I inspire them to try. And people generally do. They’ll come back to me. “Yeah, I got my first pair, and it’s been good.” And I’m like, “Good. Good. Good for you.”
Steven Sashen:
Because the whole idea, when someone says you’re an inspiration, on the one hand, it’s a bit of a compliment, but it does create that separation. It does create that thing where it’s also a weird sort of insult. And then it’s like, oh, I’m only inspiring because you would think that someone like me can’t do the thing you just saw me do.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Yeah. I think I don’t internalize it that way.
Steven Sashen:
Okay.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Although my more fat activist friends would. They’re like, “Why do they feel like they need to respond to you that way, Charlotte?” Blah, blah, blah.
Steven Sashen:
Well, the whole inspiration thing is just such a weird concept for me in general. It’s like if I’m really an inspiration, then that should make you inspired to go do something, not just say something where, again…
Whatever you’re thinking, that’s not the important part. It’s like, are you doing something by seeing this? Is this really motivating you? I hate that word too. Is this literally inspiring you? Which is about getting that in-breath, inspiration, to then do that out-breath, going out and doing something. That’s an inspiration.
And I wonder how many people… What’s been your experience from people seeing you and then making that change and going, “Screw it. I’m going to do this too?”
Charlotte Young Bowens:
I always think about it as a journey. And I use the parallel, being queer, because I’m a queer person as well. And coming out is a process. And I think coming into minimalist is a process and that we all have our own journeys. We’re all going to do it our own way.
People are going to extract whatever inspiration they want to from me and throw the rest out. I honor the fact that… I just want to be able to give you another option to say there might be another way. And that if you instinctually, in your mind, innately felt like, “Maybe this is speaking to me,” I want you to know that that’s a real voice.
Steven Sashen:
Go ahead.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
I just want to honor their journey as it is. I don’t feel like I need to inspire anybody. I just feel like I’m just a conduit for what you already knew, really.
Steven Sashen:
Perfect. That’s brilliant. I love that. And FYI, when I was with my now late father and was going barefoot in places where he, a very socially conscious person, was not happy, he would’ve been much happier if I told him I was gay.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
I figure that might be true for most people. I think that’s still true to this day. People might be more happy that I’m queer than I am a minimalist. Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
I remember in college I was dating a woman who my dad did not approve of. And he kept asking, “Are you seeing anyone?” I kept saying, “Yeah, I’m still seeing Jenny.” And he’s like, “That’s not what I meant.”
And finally, one day, he says, “Are you seeing anyone?” I said, “I actually met someone new.” He goes, “Oh really?” I said, “Yeah. And I think you’re really going to like him.” And he says, “That’s not even funny.” I said, “I’m not kidding.”
That was my relationship with my dad is always undercutting his things. He used to say, “Well, I want…” This is an amazing thing that he used to say, which was… So I was raised technically Jewish, let’s say. He said, “Well, I want my grandson to be bar mitzvah’d.”
And I said, “That’s assuming that (A) I get married, (B) we have children, (C) it’s a boy, (D) he’s raised Jewish, he lives to be 13, he gets a bar mitzvah. And you live to see any of this, old man.”
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Wow.
Steven Sashen:
He had a very particular way things had to be, and I was never those things. So this was yet another in that equation. And I will say, sadly, the only thing he really understood was business things, money-related things.
And so, sadly, he died about seven years ago and didn’t get to see what Xero Shoes has become. It would’ve made him very happy.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Aww.
Steven Sashen:
I don’t have a thing about pride. He would’ve just been happy, which would’ve been nice. When we were on Shark Tank, he invited all of his socially conscious friends over with my mom to watch the show, and they were all impressed. And that gave him social cred.
I don’t have this thing about being proud. But for him, it was a big deal that we were on the show. And I’m glad that the show and us gave him that. But anyway, that’s a giant tangent.
I had another question. So when you’re out doing a 50… Well, there’s another thing that I imagine people are thinking, and I don’t know if you’ve encountered this or not. Do people think that you’re out doing these things in order to become a different-bodied person, to become thinner, to lose weight, like that’s your real motivation? And if so, how do you deal with that?
Charlotte Young Bowens:
I do know that being in a bigger body, people think, oh, she’s out here to lose weight. What’s also interesting is that even though I’m bigger-bodied, I do find that, honestly, white men are intimidated by me. And they have this need to pass me by super fast as if they’ve passed the fastest Black person on the planet, which I’m probably the slowest one, but anyways.
And how I deal with that is… Oh, this is what happens. People will be like, “Well, how long have you been doing this?” And I’m like, “Oh, this is my maybe sixth or seventh.” And they’re like, “Well, isn’t it you’re trying to lose weight?” And I was like, “I’m just trying to be healthy.”
And I said I allow Little C, which is my body, to decide what size I’m going to be. I take care of her. She takes care of me. I tell people that the truth about me is that when I go under 200, my performance plummets.
When I stay around 200 pounds, I’m fast as light. If I go over that, I plummet. So my body has re-regulated itself to say that this is a sweet spot for you as it relates to being able to be physically active and optimal performance.
People do struggle with that. I’m like, I just do what my body says is the right thing to do. And I said, you have to understand too, the statistics are out, nearly 70% of US adults are overweight or obese. That means that bigger bodies are the new norm. Will you guys please stop asking me these stupid questions?
Steven Sashen:
So true. That’s so funny. People act like it’s still an outlier when it’s not.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Yes.
Steven Sashen:
And I imagine there are people who come up to you who are overweight who still have that same thought.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Absolutely. That’s the part that hurts. I’m like, “Babe, that body right there is amazing. You got to tap into it.” And I tell people, look, I was in my 40s when I started. What? Never athletic.
I tell people I spent over 20 years sitting on my fat ass, sedentary lifestyle, smoking cigarettes, eating processed foods, depressed. Who would’ve ever imagined? Who would’ve ever wanted to envision this moment now with me being in this bigger body and doing these amazing things? No one, not even me.
Steven Sashen:
Well, there’s another part to your story that I find very interesting, which is that your doctor gave you this prognosis, and that started to change things. But I’m willing to bet that you got a similar prognosis at some time in the past. This could be wrong.
Well, let me say it differently. I’m always intrigued when someone has one of those moments of like, “Oh, no, now things are different. Now I’m going to do something different.” And my question is always, why that day and not the day before or the day after?
And I don’t know that there’s an answer to this one, but since you had one of those “aah” moments, if you look back, was there a time before where that thought just didn’t make it to the surface? How do you think about that moment in retrospect?
Charlotte Young Bowens:
I think, for me, I was a single mom and I was too busy raising my kids. By that point in time, they were grown. You’re working class, trying to put food on the table for your three kids. I don’t care how many times you go to the doctor, you’re not listening to anything.
Steven Sashen:
Right.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
You got other things that are way more important, and your health is the last one on the list. Okay? So I just never listened. I remember them saying, “Oh, you got high blood pressure.” I remember those moments. I vaguely remember them.
I think when you’re younger, information comes in a different way because you’re like, “I’m young and I’m invisible.” When you get into your 40s and your kids are grown, I think information comes in differently. And I think, for me, I would say my depression really was the piece… It had gotten so bad. I was in suicide ideation and everything.
And so when I had the health scare and the doctor’s like, “You can die,” all of a sudden, I had to say to myself, well, do you really want to die? You’re thinking about this every day anyways. Do you really want to die? Here’s your opportunity. Here you are in this moment. He’s saying if you continue to do what you do, you can actually kill yourself. Do you really want to die?
And I think it just woke me the fuck up. I just said, no, I don’t want to die. And no, I don’t know how to fucking live, but I don’t want to die. Just timing is just a moment… I tell people, life is this experience. And then there will be these little bitty cracks that you cannot predict. And then, all of a sudden, there’s a breakthrough. But you couldn’t have predicted that moment.
I tell people, I can’t even tell you… Like with the trails, I remember there’s a point in time I was on the trails one day and I was saying to myself, “God, I’m not suicidal or pressed hardly anymore.” You know what I mean?
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
It wasn’t like I wasn’t trying to, but there’s something that happens when you’re out moving your body on a regular basis. I believe the biochemistry is definitely changing. The blood is circulating in such a way that your body is responding and saying, “Yes, let’s live. Let’s do this.” And then you’re like, “Yeah, this is pretty good. I like this.”
And you’re like, how did I get here? And I tell people, there is no single moment. It was accumulation of a lot of little bitty tiny moments that got me to where I was at. I tell people my blessing around my experience is this; when I went to the gym that first day, I fell off the treadmill two times. Then this guy came over who worked there and said, “Look, ma’am, can I help you?”
And I thought he was trying to flirt with me. So I was a little mad, had a little attitude. But then I was like, “Yeah, you can help me.” So what he did, he said, “I’m going to turn this machine on two times because we’re going to figure out some things about where you are in terms of your level of fitness.”
He said, “I’m going to turn the machine on. I’m going to keep speeding up. And when it gets too fast, let me know. And then I’m going to turn it off.” So he does that. The second time, he’s like, “I’m going to go at the speed that I think is just comfortable for you and not too fast, but I want you to go for as long as you can go. And then I’m going to stop the machine. Just let me know.”
So I tell him, “Okay.” I go. I go. And I’m like, “Stop, stop, stop.” And then he said, “Look, good job.” He said, “Tomorrow what I want you to do,” he said, “I want you to get off the treadmill, come back tomorrow, and do the same thing. What you’re going to do is you’re going to go for two minutes at two miles per hour. This is how you set the machine to make that happen.”
And he said, “But what I want you to know is that, in time, you will go faster and you will go longer.” What he did was he seeded in my soul something. Right?
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
We didn’t know on that first day that I would do a 50-mile marathon, 100-mile marathon years later. But in that moment, he just honored me for where I was at. He said, “Good job. Come back and do it tomorrow. But no, you’ll go faster. No, you’ll go longer.” And I tell people, that was the miracle of the moment of my life.
Steven Sashen:
(A) I’ve got goosebumps, (B) I’m on the verge of crying because that’s one of the sweetest things I’ve heard in quite a long time. Everything about that, both just coming over and being caring, and the intervention that he made was perfect, not just for you, for everybody.
That’s exactly the way to approach it. Do a little bit. If it hurts, stop, come back, and try again till it feels good. Do a little bit at this speed. If it feels too much, stop, slow down, come back.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Yes.
Steven Sashen:
And just know that it will get better. And there’s one other part I add, which is, in the learning, especially in the learning to move differently, there’s going to be some moments where it feels, quote, “frustrating,” which is actually your brain laying down new neural pathways.
And so frustrating is a sign of growth because you’ll notice that you’ll take a couple of days off, you’ll come back, and you’ll do the same thing, and it won’t feel as frustrating. So then you have to remember, oh, I learned something while I was resting. That’s a critical thing to know.
These little bouts of what I’m doing, that’s the intervention to tell my brain, “Let’s change something.” Then the change happens when you’re resting. So put all those three things together, that’s all you need to know to start wherever you are and get wherever you want to go.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
There were always moments when I couldn’t get from three to six miles, six to nine miles, nine to 15 miles, 15 to 25. You know what I mean? But like you said, I would have these difficulties going on. And then when I just stopped and just rest, next thing I knew, I would go out…
I could never get a nine-mile. Nine-mile was my struggle. Then I would go out and do that nine-mile. And it was as if I had been doing a nine-mile all my life. You know what I mean? Or running 20 miles. I remember 20 miles then was my next new sweet spot.
When you rest and dial in and pay attention to your body, I’m here to say it will reward you. I promise you. I’m so here to say, I promise you, it really will, and that your body will respond no matter what your age is and what your physical size is.
Steven Sashen:
I was at a lecture from a well-known ultramarathoner, and someone said to him, “I’ve run a 50-mile race, I want to run a 100. What do I need to do to train for that?” And the guy says, “Nothing. You’ve already done all the training. It has nothing to do with your training at this point.”
Charlotte Young Bowens:
That was a gift for me too. One of the things that happened early on in my running was this woman said to me, well, if you could do a 5K, you could do a 10K. She said if you could do a 2K, you could do a half marathon. If you could do a half marathon, you could do a marathon.
And then right before I did my first marathon, I learned about ultramarathons. So I took that philosophy and said, well, damn, if I could do a marathon, you mean to say I could do an ultramarathon? And there I was, on the path.
Steven Sashen:
I love it. So what’s next for you, Charlotte?
Charlotte Young Bowens:
I’m now trying to build this business, which has really taken away from me being outside as much as I would want to be, which has got to change because, for me, being outdoors-
Steven Sashen:
Hold that thought. I’ve wanted to do a video that’s a guy in a suit and tie walking through a typical office space saying, “Do you love fluorescent lights, Excel spreadsheets, and sitting on your butt all day? If so, you’re a perfect candidate for a job in the outdoor industry.”
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Absolutely. Now I’m just like, I’m going to do a crowdfunding campaign next year to raise some money so I can hire a team, and they can take care of stuff so I can get back outdoors more. And really, 2023 for me is about spreading the message that bigger bodies are the new norm and that your bigger body can do anything that you want it to do.
Steven Sashen:
I love it.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
It’s time for us to rise up.
Steven Sashen:
Well, I’m hoping we can help you, and I know that we can. There are some things we’ll talk about offline.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Okay.
Steven Sashen:
Look, I want to add another piece to the mix here. You’re talking about people getting outdoors. And this is a big… oh, boy, for lack of a better term, let’s say conversation in the outdoor industry about lack of diversity, which is their coy way of saying not enough Black people out.
And I’m curious about your thoughts about that. I was hanging out with these guys. They did a trip up Everest, it was an all-Black trip up Everest. And I’m hanging out with all of them. And I said, after this whole thing about inclusion and diversity came out, when all the magazines had Black people on the cover and all the ads were Black people, did you feel like that was helpful or just pandering? They went, “Pandering.”
I said that’s the way it seemed to me too. But I’m curious what your perspective is about the outdoor industry or just people getting out in general, and the Black community.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Man. One of the things that happened last year is I was part of REI’s Embark program, which was for minority outdoor founders. And so we were constantly having this conversation.
This is what I feel like, particularly as it relates to Black people, that we have some healing to do in this country. And some of our most traumatic moments have happened outdoors. You think about a Black man hanging from a tree. That is not something that allows a community to want to go outside and partake in outdoor recreation activities.
Steven Sashen:
Not so much. No.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Part of our underground railroad system is that we ran for freedom through the woods. You know what I mean? But scared for our lives. So there’s some healing as a community that we got to do around the outdoors. But I feel like that’s our work to do.
But also, I need for white folks in the outdoors to just be open to the fact that you’re going to see diverse people in these spaces. I always have this all the time, I’m running barefoot, I’m a big Black woman, people think something’s wrong. And the park rangers, every time people come up to them and tell them, “Oh, there’s some Black lady. She’s lost.”
They laugh because they’re like, “This woman is out here every day. She’s an ultramarathoner. So what are you talking about?” And then they try to quiet them down.
I think there is space… I think we all have to do some healing around just being comfortable with one another in the outdoor spaces. I think it’s going to take time. I think there’s some specific healing that has to happen for those… Those of us who are African American have a history, enslaved ancestor history within this country. And it’d be great if we would do something like they did in South Africa like, I don’t know, reconciliation or something for Black people.
The verdict is still out. I have found, as now a new outdoor industry founder, that the industry has a lot of systemic racism in it, and I was super surprised.
Steven Sashen:
It absolutely does. Well, look, athletics in general does.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
This is true.
Steven Sashen:
It is interesting to me that so many of our most revered athletes are Black athletes, and yet that’s not an inspiration. That, in certain ways, seems to perpetuate this divisive thinking in a way that’s very peculiar, frankly.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
It is.
Steven Sashen:
I think some of it is just having the conversation so that people can understand what the experience… I hate to say it this way. What the experience of being, let’s say, a Black person in the outdoors or a Black person in certain circumstances can be like.
Because humans, as a rule, we tend to think that whatever we’re experiencing is what other people experience. That’s what we’re wired… And unless we can really understand someone else’s experience in some way, it’s always a little out of reach.
I’ll never forget talking to one of my friends/sprinting coaches, a guy named James Davis, who’s a former world champion, 4×400 meter runner. James is a very interesting guy. James is a very dark-skinned Black guy whose resting face is, “I’m going to kill you.” And his smiling face is male model. This guy is gorgeous.
And he’s married to a white woman. I said, what’s the most difficult thing about being a Black athlete or being Black in Colorado, where there’s just not a big Black community? And he says, “I’m one of the fastest men in the world. My biggest fear in life is that my wife will leave her handbag in a store. I will find it, pick it up, and run to give it back to her.”
And he says, “I’m perpetually aware that I can’t move quickly around certain kinds of people.” And that hit me so viscerally to have to have that kind of self-monitoring awareness and to have to limit who you are in that way, again, that just makes me want to cry, but it really woke up some idea in my mind that just didn’t exist before.
I had two Black friends in Boulder. And my joke about Boulder… Well, I have a few. One is it’s a very diverse area. There’s every different kind of white person. There’s rich white people, really rich white people, and super-rich white people. But the other is, there’s more actual Africans than African-Americans. I don’t know if it’s actually true, but there is a big African community here.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Oh yeah.
Steven Sashen:
But I had two friends, Black guys who had dreads. They were nothing alike in any other way. One was celibate, the other had slept with every woman in Boulder. Maybe not every woman, but a lot of them. And one day, the celibate one is walking downtown in Pearl Street, and a woman walks up and slaps him. And his response was, “It’s the other one.”
Charlotte Young Bowens:
You got the wrong one.
Steven Sashen:
So I said to him one day, “So what’s the most difficult thing about being Black in Boulder?” He goes, “Oh, I have to drive to South Denver to get a haircut.” Little things like that just wake you up to an idea that you just never had in your brain that just explains… These little things explain so much.
Because we all feel different in some way. But until we understand how we each feel different, it’s all just a little ephemeral. It just doesn’t feel real. And then you become aware of your prejudices, you become aware of when you’re prejudging someone, you become aware of all those things.
Anyway, I’m, to be honest, not massively optimistic for humanity. Individual humans, I’m okay. As a group, I’m not so optimistic. But I hope that conversations like this are helpful.
My God, look, 1980, I was one of three white break-dancers in New York. All my friends were Black. And I go back to DC or New York, and I get on the subway, and it’s like, “Oh my God, Black women. I haven’t seen one of those in a long time.” And it’s just comforting.
It’s like these conversations, I hope, are valuable. I hope they’re important. And the simplest thing is… I have a joke. One of our Black employees, whenever there’s something that happens, some racial thing that happens, we end up talking about it for a few minutes. And then our last line is always, “And we just changed the world.” And away we go.
It’s half joking, but I think it’s also not entirely untrue. Just by having an honest conversation, I think that goes a long way.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
And I think also, by extending grace and to understand that we’re probably all more alike than different.
Steven Sashen:
Absolutely.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Really. It’s so amazing when I talk to people and they’re like, “Oh my God, we have so much in common.” Like, yeah.
Steven Sashen:
If we could just get a handful of Republican congresspeople to admit they’re gay, we’re going to go pretty far. If we could just get Lindsey Graham to finally come out of the closet.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
You know there’s a gay Republican organization that I’ve been aware of for over 30 years. So I always thought Republicans knew they were gay. But anyways, I don’t know.
Steven Sashen:
Well, suffice to say, if there’s… Look, if you’re a Republican, these are just jokes. Take it that way. But there are some comedians who joke about that. It’s like if you hear a Republican trying to do anything that’s against gay people or Black people, he’s gay and dating a Black guy.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
That’s usually the coming-out process. Yes. That’s what it looks like. That’s my theory. Whenever you have so much resistance against something, it’s probably because it’s your story and you’re afraid to share it with the world. Come on out.
Steven Sashen:
I think that one’s pretty much a given. I think “thou doth protest too much” pretty much covers it. If you hear someone really that adamant about something that they have no personal relationship with, they’ve got a personal relationship with it.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Absolutely.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
You wouldn’t invest that much time and energy.
Steven Sashen:
No. Anyway, Charlotte, if people want to find out more about what you’re doing, and more importantly, be part of what you’re doing, help what you’re doing, how can they do that?
Charlotte Young Bowens:
They can come to my website at conscious-gear.com. And I’m on Instagram: consciousgear1. I’m also on Facebook: Conscious Gear. Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, all Conscious Gear. You just put it in.
I’m now on the algorithm, so it knows exactly where to find me. And I do hope people… I feel like it takes a village to raise a business. And so I started the Quarterbuck Campaign to say that I want 40,000 villagers to invest $25 into Conscious Gear because you think bigger bodies matter in the outdoors and because you want to support a business for the long haul, because entrepreneurship can be a lonely road.
Yeah. Check out the website. It’ll have all the updates, information, events, all the stuff that’s going on. I’m excited about spreading the word. I feel like this is a calling. And I’m excited for the change that’s going to result from our efforts, really. And I thank you for bringing me here, bringing me on.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, no, no. Oh my God. My pleasure. I’m so glad that we got to connect. This is just an absolute treat. And whatever we can do to be helpful, please let me know, again, when we get offline. I have some ideas that I’ll share with you.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Okay.
Steven Sashen:
And I hope people do go check out what you’re doing and support what you’re doing because given how divisive everything has become in the last few years, this is an opportunity where we can start making a little headway in reconciling that.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Absolutely.
Steven Sashen:
And those little things, like you said before, it’s those little things that add up. And then one day, you’re looking back going, “Oh my God. I can’t believe I used to do that thing or think that thing. I just realized I haven’t had that thought or done that thing in ages.” And that’s the way it happens.
We’re never aware of the process until we get a certain distance down the path and look back and go, “Holy crap, I can’t believe how far I’ve come.” And that’s what we’re trying to do.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
I want to leave you guys with one little saying from my mama. From the time I was a little kid, she said, “Those are the only two feet that you got.” So make it your business to take care of your feet and understand that they are your foundation and they are the thing that will carry you throughout your entire life.
Steven Sashen:
I love your mama. See, because mine was always, “Marry a nice Jewish girl.” And that was a whole different story. And happily, my parents got smart. And when I introduced them to Elena and I said, “Are you okay with Elena being your daughter-in-law even though she’s not Jewish?” They said, “We just see that as you guys have been together, you’ve gotten happier. In your past relationships, you started out happy and got less happy. And that’s all we care about is your happiness.”
And I pointed at them and said, “All right, what’d you do with my real parents?” No, your mother was absolutely correct. And this whole idea of taking care of your feet because those are your foundation that will take care of you, that is the message.
And happily, parents are getting that about their kids. And I’m waiting for them to realize that it’s true for them too. Because I think a lot of parents think, well, it’s too late for me, but let’s just get my kids right. It’s never too late. And you said that before too. And it’s true.
We get emails from people who are in… I’ll tell you my favorite email. I love it whenever we say, “And we’re done,” and then we keep going. Years ago, I wrote a blog post. Some guys had done some research where they made these magic vibrating insoles and had helped people who had… I think it might have been Parkinson’s, have better mobility.
And I said, “You don’t need magic vibrating insoles. Just off your damn shoes and go for a walk outside.” I got an email from a guy, he was in his 80s, who said, “I was looking for the magic vibrating insoles and I couldn’t find them, but I found your blog post. So I decided to put it to the test, and that was two weeks ago, and I just threw away my walker.”
It’s never too late to discover that you can have your feet support you for as long as you’re up and about. You can build strength in your 90s if you start doing weightlifting exercises or even just some pushups and sit-ups and squats, etc.
Anyway, I think everything we’re talking about is there’s always a little thing you can do to make that little change. And someday, we’ll all look back and we’ll see it was a huge change. Charlotte, thank you, thank you, thank you. Again, this has been-
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Thank you. Oh my God. You have really filled me up. Whoo! So much joy.
Steven Sashen:
And anything we can do on the entrepreneur side. Because I’m lucky enough that I’ve been on this road with my wife, which is the most satisfying thing that I’ve ever experienced.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
That’s awesome.
Steven Sashen:
But know that if you have any entrepreneurial issues and questions or are feeling alone, give us a shout. We’re happy to be part of that journey. And for everybody else-
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Thank you.
Steven Sashen:
Everyone else, just a reminder, go back to www.jointhemovementmovement.com to find the previous episodes, all the ways you can interact with us. If you have any requests or suggestions or comments or criticisms, people who you think should be on the show, including if you know someone who thinks that I have a case of cranial rectal reorientation syndrome, I’m happy to talk to them, see what happens. That would be a fun one.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
That would be fun.
Steven Sashen:
Every time I find someone who thinks I’m completely full of it, I go, “Hey, do you want to have this conversation in real time?” They go, “Oh, no.” I go, “Scared.”
Whatever you can think of, you can drop me an email. I’m at [email protected]. And most importantly, between now and whatever is next, go out, have fun, and live life feet-first.
Charlotte Young Bowens:
Yes. Amen.