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\nTOMS founder Blake Mycoskie struggled with severe depression after selling his charitable shoe companyHe tells PEOPLE that he didn’t feel like he was “enough,” and eventually sought professional helpMycoskie is selling beaded bracelets with the word “Enough” to support others struggling with their mental health; proceeds will go to mental health charities<\/p>\n
By the time TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie<\/a> sold his charitable shoe company in 2019, he had helped donate more than 100 million pairs of shoes to children in need. He was looking forward to freedom.\n<\/p>\n But the transition didn’t go smoothly. \u201cWhen I sold TOMS, I really wasn’t prepared for what was going to happen,” Mycoskie, now 49, tells PEOPLE exclusively. “All of a sudden, I did not have a purpose anymore. My whole purpose had been helping children get shoes around the world, and building something to make the world a better place.\u201d\n<\/p>\n He was left with an unfamiliar emptiness.\n<\/p>\n “I started feeling depression<\/a> for the first time in my life,” he says, adding that he \u201cdid lots of things to try to fix it,\u201d like building his dream house and trying out new hobbies.\u00a0But “nothing was working,” he says. “It got really, really bad about three years ago.\u201d\n<\/p>\n TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie.<\/p>\n Chris Orwig<\/p>\n After he moved to a San Francisco suburb, \u201cI started feeling totally hopeless, and not really wanting to be here anymore,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cMy self-talk was constantly negative and mean. Mental illness, it\u2019s so real and it’s so invisible \u2014 because to everyone else my life looked great,\u201d he says. \u201cI lived in this mansion in this really fancy neighborhood, and my kids were doing well and in this great school and everyone looked at me like, \u2018Man, you’ve had the greatest life since you sold TOMS.’ \u201d\n<\/p>\n But inside, Mycoskie says, \u201cI just felt so alone. I remember dropping the kids off at school and then going to a park and crying and not answering anyone’s calls,\u201d he says. “The scariest part is it’s in your head and when you get sick, it takes over. That’s why, unfortunately, we lose so many people to suicide. They just can’t get past those neverending horrible thoughts. I was there and I felt it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n The Enough bracelets come in a two-pack, with the second bracelet intended for a friend or loved one.<\/p>\n Ridgeline<\/p>\n Mycoskie shares that the \u201cbest thing\u201d he did was tell people, “‘Hey, I’m struggling. I can’t control my thoughts. I’m having really bad ones. I’m not sleeping.’ ” With support, “I got help,” he says. He worked with a psychiatrist and psychologist and\u00a0did \u201ca lot of therapy where we looked at every little step of my life.\u201d\n<\/p>\n And in December 2024, Mycoskie had a breakthrough. He realized, \u201cI have never felt that I’m enough. I’ve been constantly trying to prove to myself and to the world that I’m enough.\u201d It started in his youth when he was a competitive tennis player. \u201cI always worked harder than anyone else. My drive was insatiable, and I beat myself up so bad when I lost tennis matches.\u201d\n<\/p>\n With TOMS, Mycoskie said he thought if \u201cI start a business that helps the world and I give 100 million children shoes, then I’ll be enough. I did that and I still didn’t feel enough. I sold the company and I had all this money and this family and this house and all this stuff and still didn’t feel enough.\u201d\n<\/p>\n That feeling, he says, \u201chas been at the root of all my depressive symptoms and all the things that I’ve been experiencing for the past seven years.\n<\/p>\n He was advised to meditate for 40 days, telling himself \u201cI am enough\u201d \u2014 a practice he “hated.” He says it felt like “the dumbest thing I’ve ever done.” He wasn’t feeling better; he felt silly.\n<\/p>\n All proceeds from Blake Mycoskie’s Enough bracelets will go to mental health organizations.<\/p>\n Chris Orwig<\/p>\n But on the 28th day of meditating, \u201cI felt lighter in my body.\u201d A few weeks later, he was in India to meet with another man who struggled with severe depression, and “had this very clear, calm vision,\u201d he says. \u201cI’m not the only person that suffers from this. This is actually a cultural sickness. Our whole culture is designed to make us not feel enough, whether it’s social media or it’s capitalism or it’s ‘If you buy this, you’ll be enough. If you have this relationship. will be enough.’ \u201d\n<\/p>\n \u201cGod answered my prayers. The suffering that I went through, everything I experienced, all that pain. was so that I could feel it, so I could help other people maybe not feel it,\u201d he says.\n<\/p>\n That’s w he and a friend came up with an idea.<\/p>\n The Enough bracelets come packaged with a poem.<\/p>\n Ridgeline<\/p>\n