Why TOMS Founder Blake Mycoskie Chose ENOUGH Over Everything
by Dave Knox | Forbes | Published on Jan 06, 2026, 10:00am EST
Blake Mycoskie built TOMS Shoes into a $650 million empire, pioneered the "buy-one-give-one" model that revolutionized social enterprise, and made over 40 of his first employees multimillionaires. Yet three years after selling the company to focus on family, he found himself in a dark place—depressed, isolated, and questioning whether financial success could ever feel like enough. Today, he's channeling that hard-won wisdom into ENOUGH, a new lifestyle brand that is fully owned by a nonprofit with a mission to help millions of people understand that their inherent worth isn't tied to external achievements. In this exclusive interview, Blake shares how he recovered from post-exit depression, why separating your identity from your business is critical for founders, and how the philosophy of "enough" paradoxically unlocks better performance and sustainable ambition.
Dave Knox: What is the premise of ENOUGH and why did you decide to launch it?
Blake Mycoskie: It ties back to TOMS Shoes. For people who might not be as familiar, I started TOMS Shoes in 2006. At that time, I was 29 years old. I'd started four or five other businesses, just small businesses, and then I was down in Argentina and saw a lot of kids that didn't have shoes. I wanted to do something to help them get shoes because I heard they needed shoes to go to school, and I came up with what I thought was a really simple idea. It was actually not even a business—it was a project.
The idea was if we sell a pair of these shoes that they make in Argentina in the U.S., then we would come back and give away a pair to a child in need. We called it the Tomorrow Shoe Project, and that's where the name TOMS comes from—the word tomorrow. We started selling out of my apartment in Venice, California, and we got a couple of big media articles—Vogue Magazine, LA Times—about what we were doing and how it was so unique that we were giving something away every time we sold it. It really took off.
It became a business and became the fastest-growing shoe company in the world for three years. We ended up giving 100 million children shoes. The valuation of the company was about $650 million when I sold it. Just an incredible experience as an entrepreneur—to build something that was successful financially, that made over 40 of my first employee’s multimillionaires, and to give away 100 million shoes to children is the dream.
Knox: That's an incredible journey with TOMS. What happened after you sold the company?
Mycoskie: I sold the company. I had two kids. I was traveling all the time. I wasn't really around enough, and I really wanted to focus on them and not work so much because I'd been working so hard since I was 18.
Originally Published on Forbes
No one prepared me for what life would be like after selling TOMS. Three things happened. The first thing is I lost my sense of purpose. Every day I woke up excited to work because I had this purpose of helping these kids get shoes that desperately needed them. The second thing was I lost my community. I had 350 employees scattered all over the world that had become like best friends from building this company from the ground up—they were really my family.
When I sold the company, I had a dream of moving to the mountains because I love snowboarding. I moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, so I wasn't in the same city as all my friends. I didn't have my purpose. And in Wyoming in the wintertime, for half the year, it gets dark at 5:00 p.m. That's not good for one's mental health if you're used to living in California in the sunshine.
What happened was I started to get depressed. I had never experienced depression and really didn't know what to do. It was initially really frightening because I didn't like the way I felt. I didn't like the way I was engaging with my family. I had low energy, all these things I'd never experienced. I panicked, and I think I did what a lot of people do when they sell their company and all of a sudden have a bunch of money—I tried to throw money at the problem.
I built the dream house and got the classic cars and took the vacations and did all these external things to try to feel—now I know to try to feel that I was enough—but I didn't have the words for it back then. The more I did these external things, the worse I felt. My depression got worse and worse, and it got really scary. I got to a really dark place.
Knox: How did you navigate out of that dark place?
Mycoskie: That was about three years ago. From that place, thankfully, I hit rock bottom and realized I needed to re-evaluate pretty much everything in my life. I went to a facility, got an amazing therapist. There, I really worked with what is called a core wound, and I realized that my core wound my whole life was that I never felt that I was enough.
No matter how many tennis matches I won as a college player, no matter how much money I made in business, no matter how many people I helped with TOMS Shoes, I never felt that I was enough. That was affecting every aspect of my life. When I tried to feel enough by doing all these external things with the money, it made it worse because nothing worked, and when nothing is working, that's when you really panic. That's why I got to such a dark place.
Once I recognized that was a wound that existed for me, then I went on a year-long journey to heal that. I did a lot of different therapies, went to a lot of different places, went to India for several weeks—really took this seriously. The goal was to reprogram my subconscious and my neural pathways around this limiting belief. I did it and started to feel better. I started to feel peace that I'd never felt in my life.
When I was in India and really feeling better for the first time maybe in 10 years, I realized I had this beautiful meditation and this download of, wow, I'm not the only person that feels this way. A lot of people don't feel enough every day. Especially young people because of social media—they're constantly comparing themselves to everyone else.
I thought, I want to go back and figure out a way to help people know that they are enough and that this moment is enough. Feeling enough doesn't mean that you're complacent or mediocre. It's actually a feeling of peace that allows you to perform well.
Knox: How did that realization lead to ENOUGH?
Mycoskie: I came back to the States and thought about everything I did with TOMS and how we really made a huge difference in the world with that, and I came up with this idea for this bracelet. I'm wearing one here—it's this hand-beaded bracelet made in India. I wear it every day as a reminder that I'm enough, but more importantly, I give them away to people to share that message with others.
We are in the process of building this organization. It's actually a really interesting model too. ENOUGH is a nonprofit that actually owns a for-profit business. That business makes the bracelets and sells the bracelets and operates like a regular business, but 100% of our profits go to the nonprofit that then goes to mental health organizations.
It's really, I think, hopefully a case study someday in how to start a social enterprise that is 100% for the public good and not necessarily to make shareholders rich. I'm excited about the structure we've created. It's also one that was pioneered by Newman's Own salad dressing.
We launch in January, and my goal is to become a massive fundraiser for mental health nonprofits all over the world with this.
Knox: Let's rewind and think about that journey you went through with TOMS. Now that you've figured out that wound, you think about those highs and lows of entrepreneurship. What would you have done differently during your journey of building TOMS if you knew now about yourself what you didn't know then?
Mycoskie: It's a great question. I think I would have enjoyed it a lot more. A lot of what I was doing—and I think what a lot of entrepreneurs who maybe struggle with this do—is we're just trying to stay above water because I didn't have a healthy sense of self-worth and enoughness.
I was constantly trying to have the next accomplishment, the next magazine cover, the next award for helping in Cambodia or Guatemala or Ethiopia or all the places we were. That was what was feeding me in really the same way that sugar might give you energy for a little bit, but it's not how you want to build your diet. That's the way I think about it.
Now knowing that I'm enough whether this project works or not or whether you guys like it or not, I have a sense of peace. I actually have a sense of security that is actually, I think, going to help me perform even better as an entrepreneur this go-around because I'm not influenced by day-to-day reactions, successes or failures of a marketing campaign or an employee. To me, there's a security now that does not come from the success of the business but is within me that then allows me to think much more strategically and long-term and not just chase the highs as you mentioned.
Knox: The identity of a founder often gets tied to the entrepreneurial venture that they're behind. Sometimes it works out great and you have an amazing exit, and a lot of times it doesn't. How should entrepreneurs think about the separation of those two things?
Mycoskie: That's really hard because you're right—most businesses don't work. If your whole identity is caught up in your business and your business doesn't work, then that is saying to you, maybe you don't work or maybe you're not valuable. I think it's super important—and this is why I'm so focused on talking and speaking to high school students and college students—that you really do the personal development work so that your identity is not so connected to your output from business.
The thing is, it's great to use your personal story and your identity to build a business, and I definitely did that with TOMS. But I'm not TOMS. TOMS is an entity in itself, and whether TOMS is successful or not doesn't mean I'm successful or not. I think it's really important to have really great community, really great friends, investing time in hobbies and other things besides just work.
I think it's fine to have an identity as an entrepreneur because an entrepreneur is, in some ways I believe, a way of looking at the world, a way of entering into business, but not the specific business. You see a lot of entrepreneurs that have five failures and then a big success. They didn't let their identity be connected to the businesses that failed. They had their identity of "I'm the type of person that sees opportunities that others don't. I take risks, I start businesses, and I believe one day one of those is going to be successful."
I think that's the attitude and the mindset you want to have versus, "Oh my gosh, this one idea is my whole identity." I'll say one more thing—entrepreneurs, be very careful not to fall in love with your idea. What I see is entrepreneurs become so in love with their idea because they think that's the only entrepreneurial idea they'll ever have.
Then when the signs start showing that this idea is not going to work, they still give it an extra two or three years of their life or remortgage their house or ask money from friends. They're so connected to that idea as their identity that they don't make good decisions about when it's time to say, "This isn't working, I'm moving on."
I always say love what you do, have passion, but your idea isn't your soulmate in business. It's one idea, and I promise you if this one doesn't work, if you're the type of person that's an entrepreneur, you're going to have another one. You've got to know—that relationship with that idea has to be thoughtful and not "it's my only idea."
Knox: Related to that, your original purpose was putting shoes on kids—that great mission. Along the way, you pioneered that business model of buy one, give one. I think all of us have seen many pitch decks that was "the TOMS Shoes for this." How did you think about that original purpose, then a business model that evolved? Was there a time that you realized that business model needed to change and you could maybe still live the purpose in a different way?
Mycoskie: With ENOUGH, we are following the same model. When you buy a bracelet for yourself, you are committing to give one to someone else.
At TOMS, it was one for one, meaning you buy one, we give one. Now, the one for one is you buy one and you commit to give one. What's cool about that is every person who wears a bracelet is also a giver themselves. They get the joy and the experience of sharing that message whether that's with a friend or a stranger or a parent or a daughter or son, depending on where they are in life.
I think what's cool about this whole evolution is I still think there's value in the original one-for-one model that I created that so many people have emulated, but I also think it's important to evolve as an entrepreneur. That's what we've done here—thinking about how do we still honor what I'm known for one-for-one, but in a new way that allows people to be more participatory in what they're doing. I'm really excited about that.
To get back to your question about could you still have your purpose without the model—at TOMS, the whole brand was based on one for one, and I think that had we ever abandoned that, then it would be really hard to stay on purpose because I think that was the promise that we came to people with. Same way that the promise of ENOUGH is 100% of our profits will fund mental health organizations that are transforming and saving lives every day.
Legally, we can't abandon that promise because I've made it in the bylaws of the incorporation documents. That's a promise that we have to keep, the same way that I think TOMS had to always keep the one for one.
Knox: Over the years, you went from solo founder starting this mission to, as you mentioned, up to 350 employees when it was done. How do you think about that mental health journey from when you're a founder, then when you have to be strong for all of those employees that report to you? How do you think about how that changes, and what advice would you give today?
Mycoskie: It is a lot of pressure, especially if you really care about people. I used to call the TOMS staff our family members, not even employees or staff or coworkers. It was a very personal relationship, and that does take a toll on you because not everyone that works at the company is going to work out.
You're going to have to let people go, and people are going to be unhappy about pay, and there's just a lot of stuff that comes up that you're going to have to deal with, and it does take its toll.
I think the most important thing I would give as advice as a company really ramps up is to really continue to invest in your core—what they'd call an executive team—your core people that surround the founder. Ultimately, they become the representative of the founder to whatever department they're in. If it's your head of sales, your head of legal, your head of finance—these people basically are your day-to-day spokespeople to the rest of the organization.
The most important thing to do, I think, to keep your culture consistent with how it started and to also not be overwhelmed by the size of the staff is to have the team that surrounds you be absolutely rock solid and really living the mission that you started with.
Knox: You mentioned ENOUGH is going to be supporting different organizations and nonprofits that focus on mental health. What are some of those organizations that are on your initial founding partner list?
Mycoskie: One of them I really love is Active Minds. What they do is they train high school and college students to be aware and to be able to recognize when a student might be struggling mentally and then to offer group counseling at the high school or at the college. They've trained over 10,000 students to do this.
By no means are they taking the role of a therapist, but they are able to talk to a student in a way that won't embarrass them or won't cause them to have further distress and then to potentially get them the help that they need. To me, I wish I had that when I was in high school or college. I think that's so important.
Then there's another organization called Project Healthy Minds, which is totally different. They're really creating the biggest resource online for all mental health needs. There are actually, surprisingly, so many free services online that can help someone who might be struggling at all different levels.
It could be everything from suicide prevention to just "I'm feeling detached and stuck and slightly depressed, what do I do before it gets worse." They're really working hard to make those resources available to everyone. We also work with National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI), a grassroots organization dedicated to helping those struggling with mental illness.
One of the things I think I'm most interested in with our partners is that they're really doing work on the ground with people who might be struggling to get them the help that they need quicker. I think how these mental illnesses—and definitely mine—escalate is when you're isolated and you don't have someone to talk to. We're really supporting organizations that are helping in that way.
Knox: What have you learned from the advisors that are joining you to build ENOUGH?
Mycoskie: One of my advisors at ENOUGH is Kristin Neff. Kristin Neff is a researcher at University of Texas, and she wrote a great book on self-compassion that has been wildly successful and helped a lot of people.
She did this amazing study with NCAA athletes. What's so fascinating about this study is she was able to show that the athletes that continue to be hard on themselves and have the inner critic—"I can't believe you missed that shot" or "you got to train 10 times harder because you lost that game"—the athletes that drove themselves so hard did not perform as well as the athletes that started replacing the inner critic with an inner coach.
When they started saying when they lost the game, instead of "Oh my god, I can't believe you lost that, you got to practice 10 times harder," they said, "You know what? I am an athlete and I lost the game, and that does not define my self-worth. I am bigger than that game or bigger than that shot. Oh, I choked that match—that was a physiological response from putting too much pressure on myself. I'm going to try to have less pressure so I won't choke next time."
What happened was people who felt enough and lived that way didn't have as much pressure. When you don't have as much pressure, you enter what they call flow state. When you're in a flow state is when you perform at optimal performance.
When I talk about ENOUGH, especially to athletes or even CEOs, it's like this is not about settling. Feeling enough is not about being mediocre. People say, "I want to be more than enough." And I'm like, actually you don't, because when you really feel you're enough just as you are, you remove that pressure, and that's when the creative thinking happens. That's when the performance on the field happens.
Feeling enough is really a performance mechanism as much as it is anything else because it releases the pressure and allows you to enter flow state so that you can perform.
Originally Published on Forbes.com
