Sneakers Mean Nothing & Everything

Sneakers mean nothing, but they also mean everything. And I feel like there's so many levels and layers and ways to peel back this conversation. So, I'm going to just open the floor for you guys to chime in in the comment section. I'm going to say what I got to say. And again, no notes, no script. We just going to talk. We going to rap. We going to have some fun about this topic. So, if you don't know, my name is DJ and this is the DNA show. On this channel, I love talking about sneakers, but most importantly, putting you guys in the best position financially so that way you can have assets that can then buy you more shoes and you can retire early. So, if that's something you're interested in, make sure you guys hit that subscribe button and join the fam. Now, this is something that we talk about all the time, we hear about all the time, everybody has their thoughts and their opinions. And again, I don't think there's a wrong answer, and I don't think we should shame anybody for a certain thought or mindset. We all have a different life. We all have different scenarios. We all have different perspectives and that's completely fine. But I think to be able to have conversation and understand each other or maybe change how we think or perceive something or not judge someone or whatever it may be. That's what it is, right? So there's plenty of times, right? Prime example like people that buy fakes and everything. Great. You can do that over there, but I don't do that over here. Right? That's a conversation that a lot of people talk about. Good for you and not for me. I'm going to go do this over here. Right? Same thing with sneakers. I feel like sneakers, they mean everything to a lot of people and at the same time they mean nothing to a lot of people and some people they mean everything and nothing to them at the same time. So there's a balance between both and there's people that come in and they project on other people based off of their thoughts, their opinions, all this other stuff, and they just chime in in the comment section. And then it's like, bro, you're not even really a part of this subculture like this. Like why are you even commenting on this topic? like stay in your lane and go worry about whatever it is that you have going on in your life. Like I'm not going to personally come into somebody else's world and start talking mess for no reason and then just leave and I have nothing no care no nothing about that world. Like it it it's a waste of my time, right? It doesn't make any sense. But again, there's people that are like that. So when it comes to the sneaker space, I happen to have this pair on the floor. I don't know why. Yeah, these don't really I guess these mean everything, but they mean nothing at the same time, right? Each shoe has its own value, its own storyline, its own arc, its own memories, its own everything. So, I'm going to try to dump just some things off the top of my head. And again, if I miss some stuff, let's have some conversation in the comment section. Maybe I can make a part two of this video, whatever it may be. So, sneakers should not be the most important part of your life at the end of the day. That's what a lot of people say. But I always tell people, sneakers changed my life. So, let me tell you how sneakers changed my life and how I was able to leverage sneakers in so many different ways to get to where I am today. And again, if you don't want to be where I am today, great. If you do, then you might want to listen cuz I have a couple things that I've learned over the years. I've been doing the shoe game for 20 years strong. I've made multiple seven figures in the sneaker space with reselling content and then rolling that into real estate and all the other things. So, basically with sneakers, it was a love for me as a little kid. Actually, speaking of that, hold on. I have this pair right here. This is my baby pair. This is my original pair of black metallic Air Jordan 5s. This is where it all got started for me as a young one coming into the game. I was born in 1991, year of MJ's first championship. The Air Jordan 6 Infrared is my favorite sneaker of all time. If you didn't know, now you know. So, this shoe got it all started for me. Since then, we have seen multiple styles, cuts, iterations, retros, versions, you name it, of all the original models that have came out over the years. Okay. Now, for me, I was in that era of when the original models were coming out, there was, you know, four, maybe five different shoes, colorways of that model each year that was coming out. Then the next one would come out, boom, boom, boom. And my parents would get them for me. I had them as a kid. I was laced up. But then once I got to high school, my parents said, "No more. you got to figure it out. So, because of that, I had to go and figure out how I was going to get money to get the shoes, right? Because by the time I got to that point, they said, "We got one pair of shoes in high school, so you get one pair of shoes in high school. We'll get you a pair for Christmas each year if that's what you want." And I said, "Cool. Let's do that." So, technically, it was like a Christmas present and not even like a pair of school shoes, which is a whole another topic, but which I I feel like maybe I should have got two pairs of shoes each year, right? One for Christmas and then one for the school year. Wouldn't that make more sense? But either way, I got one pair of shoes each year. So, I would always have them uh during that time. The CDP packs, the 11s, the Concords, the cool grays, like all that stuff was coming out. So, and a playoff eights. Uh that was the type of stuff that was coming out during that time. What else was like the fire reds, black cats, different stuff like that with the threes and the fours and everything, the flips, all that stuff was coming out early and the BMP pack. Like, good time, good era. So for me, this is the reason why sneakers have meant so much because I had to, like everybody else, go out and earn the money and find a way to buy the shoes that I wanted to be able to afford the sneakers that I wanted, create the lifestyle that I wanted. I just did it at a younger age. I hear the story all the time. I didn't I couldn't afford it then. My parents couldn't afford it. and whatever it was. I couldn't get these in high school, which again, I feel like was kind of a choice if you wanted to go hustle and grind back then, but that's a whole another topic. Either way, you couldn't get it when you were younger. Now you're an adult. You have quote unquote adult money and you're going back and buying all the shoes that you didn't have before. Great. For me, same thing. I was getting all the stuff. I tried to keep things on track based off of getting the new drops. And then I fell in love with collecting even more because now I could go and spend my money on doing it, which caused me to start flipping and hustling and be able to literally take all the money that I was making from sneakers and turn it into more sneakers and just grow my collection. So, I fell in love with the game of collecting and trading and and just hustling and grinding and and copping kicks and cleaning them up and getting the value out of them and rocking them to school and then going to sell those and wear and get another pair and try to complete a different set, whatever it may be. At the time, the Dorreer collection was just starting. There was a lot of things that had just begun. The Ben series was like just on the rise. You had a lot of stuff with in the beginning phases of all these different series and stuff besides, you know, the OGs and everything. So, it was a good time. CDP packs, all that stuff, you name it, right? So, for me, it meant a lot. But when I got to college, then I, you know, merged into building my business, as some people know, some people don't. I had one of the top sneaker resell businesses online, top 10 competitors with some of the best sites. I was ranked on complex, and I was doing numbers. But most importantly, I was doing all of this just so I could build my collection. That was the only thing. I was just trying to make more money so I could build my own collection while I was playing football in college because I was trying to go to the league and I was like, "Oh, I'll start a business one day, but I don't even know if I want to open a shoe store or not." And at that time, it wasn't the cool thing to do because you got to remember this was 2008, 2009, 2010. So, for me, that was kind of like a baby origin story to this, but it meant a lot because, yo, DNA fam, I know you guys are into sneakers, so I'm going to assume that you're into investing as well, which means you're probably also interested in leveling up your life. I think you definitely need to check this out. I just launched my DNA show community. Inside, I've dropped my entire hobby to hustle program and I've helped tons of people turn their passions into profit. This is going to be a place where sneaker heads can connect, share game, and grow together. So, don't wait. Hit the link down below in the description to get instant access, and I'll see you guys on the inside so we can run it up. I was just having so much fun. I was meeting so many people, and I created so many connections. And I think that was the part, especially in the game then, that I talked about in a video not that long ago about keeping the sneaker culture alive. I think in this in this world, I think back then it was so cool cuz we camped out, we met friends, we built relationships, we stayed in touch, we went to the next release, we talked again, we would go get snacks, whatever it may be, and come back to the release and and have fun and bring stuff for each other and help each other trade and get different sizes and stuff. And it was just a just the I don't I don't want to say family environment, but it was just a fun community that was being built around sneakers. So, it started to mean a lot. And when you have a sense of community in any world, in any aspect, I feel like that's important. I feel like that's important to anything, whether it's shoes, cars, Pokemon cards, whatever, sports, sports team, you name it. And everybody's always got something to judge about why this is not cool. And if you're a grown man wearing another man's jersey and like, bro, who cares? Like, it's a sense of community. It's fun. Again, I'm an athlete. I'm going to rock my homies jerseys. I'm going to rock the Steelers jerseys. Like, I'm going to wear that type of stuff. It's fun. Like, it doesn't not make me a man or whatever. Like, that those type of narratives that you hear, you see these little subnarratives that come into all these different categories of collecting or different spaces or whatever. So, I'm just open having this conversation and just want to talk about it and touch on it because it's just always something that people always have something to say about. And it's funny because once you start digging deeper into it and people realize like they're not a part of the community, they're not a part of the culture. They're not a in tune with it. And then they say, "Well, I don't want to be." Right? Well, okay. So, then why are you so worried about what we doing? Right? That's the thing. Why are you so worried about it? Right? So, it's a it's an interesting one uh to see and hear as things go on. So another thought that I had with this was why it means nothing, right? I think you can create an amazing collection, amazing relationships, all those things. And I think that means something, but I think the collection side, it can also mean nothing and mean everything at the same time. And the reason why I say this is I've been able to leverage my sneakers into multiple assets, angel investments, stock investments, real estate investments. Um, and with this, I can take a shoe and have this shoe means the world to me. I love this shoe so much. I'm never going to get rid of it. It's my grill. Ah, it's worth so much now. I don't know what I should do. H, but I'm still going to wear it. And then which is a whole another topic because everybody is always like they think I never wear my shoes cuz they look cute in the cases. But you got to remember I know how to take care of my shoes. I actually clean my shoes and I put them back. And also I don't need validation from the internet to say that I wore my shoes because everybody knows me that no I wear very expensive, very cool, very whatever in your book. It's just shoes that I love and they're part of my style and what I'm wearing for that day. And then I go and clean it up and I put it up. But I don't need to take a picture and put it on it. It's like the same thing with going to the gym. Some people need to go to the gym and take a photo and post it to confirm and hold themselves accountable. That's great. And other people, they can go to the gym, grind, get the physique, do all the stuff they want and never post it and just be be cooking on their on their own, just doing their thing, running it up and and taking care of theirelves. Same concept with sneakers. You don't have to post everything. You can give the internet what you want to give the internet. You don't have to do all the everything. And it's funny because people same thing say, "Well, you're so connected on all this stuff that you this is all you care about and this is all all you do is shoes." No, that's all I post about on this platform because it's about sneakers, right? So, people can perceive something and then not understand something that I have a life out of sight of sneakers and other things going on. And most other sneaker heads are the same way. That's why I align with a lot of sneakerheads that have other things going on in lives. Most of you guys are with families, working hard jobs, in transition between one or another, uh training or uh uh training uh moving from one city to another, trying to figure out how to do that, downsizing your collection. You're going through a tough breakup right now. There's a lot of stuff that's going on for you guys. You might have had a great income source and things are starting to be tough right now because of whatever it may be, job layoffs, you name it. Or you you had a good uh investment or something that was going that's no longer working for you and you got to stress about that. But then at the same time, you love your sneakers and you're trying to figure out like, damn, bro, I got to make a sacrifice because I want to get this pair of shoes, but at the same time, I got to take care of my priorities and I don't have a Instagram following and all these things. So, I'm trying to go through these struggles and these battles. I understand, bro. I have talked to you all y'all. I have experienced a lot as well. But I'm saying sneaker heads, I feel like this is going off topic, but it is at the same time. Again, you know, I just be rambling, but sneaker heads, shoe collectors, whatever. I'm going just call everybody sneaker heads. sneaker heads that are really uh true to the game that I have seen have what I don't know because there's a there's a partial gatekeeping thing that I think should be happening also with this but I feel like a lot of them that have empathy that have been in the game for a long time that don't need to um I hate when people always say oh oh you posting that you trying to flex no I'm just sharing my love for some shoes and I happen to have a pair of that other people want and I wanted them too and I got them. I'm not I don't care about flexing on you, right? But the people that are in that part that have been in the game for a long time and they have empathy for the younger collectors, the newer collectors, the people that are just getting started, those are some of the best collectors, sneaker heads, people to be around. And you realize there's so many parts of the game that translate to other parts of life, other parts of the world. every element. And people hate when I say it that sneakers are like stocks, sneakers are like real estate, sneakers are like that. I didn't say it's the exact same thing. But what I am saying is there are aligning things. There are comparable conversations. There are stepping stone fundamental things that you can learn from the shoe game. And this is why I think it means everything because to some it may mean nothing. But I learned the entire foundation of all my investing strategies, all the stuff that I do, building my portfolios, creating my network, getting more assets, and accomplishing a lot in these spaces because of sneakers. If you remodel at home or if you refurbish a pair of shoes, at the end of the day, you're taking something that was messed up and beat up, you're fixing it, and you're creating a bigger value in that thing that it is. So, if it's a pair of shoes that is dirty, you clean them up, you fix the suede, you you get the scuffs off the shoe, and now they're worth $100 more, you've created equity in the shoe, and you go and sell that shoe for $100 more. If you buy a home and you put money into the house, you do the same thing, you fix it up, you fix the bathroom, you fix the kitchen, you repaint the outside, you do the landscaping, next thing you know, the house is worth $100,000 more and you go sell the house and you make $100,000. So again, it means nothing to some, it means everything to others. And I think for the ones of us that it means everything to, we have to stay strong in our core that this is something that means something to us and we don't care if other people don't think it means something to them because those same people have different priorities. And it's not wrong. It's the priorities that they have. And I'm not mad at their priorities. Do what you do. What you eat, don't make me You hear that? You've heard that statement multiple times. Right? So again, and take what I say with a grain of salt with all would you like. Great. Fine by me. I'm going to still go and live my life and do what I do. And I care about y'all. But but I can't be worried about y'all all the time because I hear so many different answers and so many different projections and all the other things, right? And everybody has an excuse as to why somebody has something that they don't have and well they got different there's all the different narratives that we hear online. There's so many ways that we can go with this. All I'm saying is sneakers are a beautiful thing. They create community. You can learn from it. It's a generational thing. There's no one-sizefits-all. There's so many different ways you can collect or be into shoes or art or the things around sneakers, the environment of sneakers, sport that comes with the shoes, you name it. The cleats, the whatever. There's so many different ways to go about it. There's no one clear-cut blueprint. There's no one clear-cut answer. Everybody has their own aligning things. And that's something that I have learned from this game that I think I hope that we can continue to pass on to the new generations and not hate on the new generations and show love to the new generations and warm and um welcome them with warm arms because I was in a position where people was trying to hate on me when I was starting when I was young, right? and I still have people hating on me to this day. So then you realize at the end of the day there's always going to be somebody mad and hating about the thing that you love. So to some it means everything. To others it means nothing. Now again make wise decisions. Don't go spend your last on a pair of shoes when you got multiple other ones. Be strategic. These are things that I teach and you guys know. Again, my entire hobby to hustle blueprint, everything. I have given you guys access to. So, don't say you don't have the resources because go dive deep into the channel if you need to. I've given you guys a ton of free resources and paid resources. And sometimes people don't pay attention unless they're paying. And that's okay. If you got to pay to pay attention, that's what you got to do. A lot of people have a lot of free resources and they don't take advantage of them because it's too accessible. It's free. It's right in front of their face all day. Oh, okay. Next day I'm going to do it. Oh, the next day I'm going to do it. And then they don't and they're in the same spot, which is a whole another topic about life and everything. But sneakers itself, they mean everything. So you guys know about the the Revas Trainer One, right? One of the most valuable shoes. No, the most valuable shoe in my entire collection. It's probably worth like $40, right? Nobody wants it. Okay, cool. Maybe even $20, right? But that shoe in particular, I was in a car accident. The car rolled seven times down the freeway. I was covered in blood. I was laying in the middle of the freeway, eyes rolled in the back of my head, one shoe on my foot, body scarred up, tore up, rips in my back, eye cut open, ear split open, mangled on my foot, road rash all down my side. That was the most valuable shoe because I lived that day. After that, I survived and I had one pair of shoes. I had one shoe left. They found the other shoe on the freeway and brought it to the hospital a couple days later. to complete my set covered in blood. And that shoe means means everything to me. Means the world to me, right? That's the shoe that if something's going wrong, I'm putting that shoe on for the day. I'm wearing that shoe because I can have that reminder, right? So, just because we have all these shoes and all this other stuff, I've had this conversation multiple times on the channel before, but just because we have all this stuff at the end of the day, yes, it is just shoes, right? I get that. I get that. But some of these shoes hit a little bit harder than other pairs. And I know that all of you guys have a similar feeling with some of your shoes, whether it's that deep or not as deep or whatever you want to call it, but there's something that pulls that string and makes you feel that type of way, right? Because that's that's what I love about shoes. That's the part of the game that you cannot replace. You can't replace it. And you can never you can't you can't again you can't point the finger. You can't judge. You can't whatever because you have the same shoe in your collection that hits like that for you. It's just a different shoe. So it may not mean anything to them, but it means everything to you. Vice versa. You see that shoe and you're like, "That shoe? That's your grill?" And then I'm like, "Yeah, that's my grill. You can have my Nike Mags. You can have my red October. I want to keep all my organ stuff, but you know what I'm saying? You can have some of these samples. You can But them black revas trainers. Nah, bro. They say you could. They said if you had to get rid of everything in your collection, you can only keep one shoe. Guess what? That's the one. that's the one I'm keeping and I'll rebuild. I'll do it again. And that's the thing, too. That's where I think I never touched on it because I started talking about something else earlier, but sneakers, they can you can leverage your collection and you can understand once you do it. But so many people have a hard time getting over the hump. And I'm here to tell you, I'm here to tell you, I have done this multiple times. And I I just showed you guys I did it again buying another property and I'm doing it and I'm going to show you guys the we're filming this uh the show right now. We're on episode five and there's this it's a six episode series. When you have a Grail or a very expensive shoe or something you took a long time to get and you had it and you enjoyed it and you create a lot of memories with it and there comes a time where you're ready to take that next step in life to go to buy your first house to make that big investment to put that down payment to do those things and you know you have access to your sneakers and you're not in a position where you can um use other cash because you don't have a ton of excess cash just another 70,000 sitting on the side or whatever. I was in that position before when I first started. So because of it and I had so much tied into my shoe game, I went and sold shoes that I thought I never would sell. But I turned that money from those shoes that I loved so much into over a million dollars just off of selling some shoes. And then guess what? The rental income, like I talked about before, if you guys want to put yourself in position to have extra income to be able to buy your shoes and buy your life and your time back, that income got me the shoes back that I had got rid of that I really felt like, damn, I wish I wouldn't have got rid of those or I need to get those back or whatever that, you know, the word is that everybody I was able to get those back and I still have my memories and I still have all my fun. I still have all the things, but now I got assets that go along with it, right? So for me, the reason why again I say it means everything because it can change your life. It can change your life. And a pair of sneakers, I literally those Revas trainers when I got in that car accident 2013, I couldn't write a full sentence, let alone a whole paragraph. Mind you, I was in the middle of college, the top of my game, physically, mentally, going crazy, ready to go. Lost it all. They thought I was going to need roundthe-clock help for at least a couple years, and there was going to be a lot of things that I wouldn't be able to do by myself for the rest of my life. When I came back home, I was in quiet, dark rooms. I had a traumatic brain injur injury as well. When I came back home, I had my shoes. I had my business still, but I couldn't run it. And I had a very successful business running that came to a halt because of that. And my mom was helping, my family was helping trying to help me at least fulfill the last orders before and kind of shut things down for a bit before I started got, you know, the business back running again. But the sneakers for me was a form of mental therapy. When I was going to I had over 200 therapy, physical and mental therapies. It was about 200 220 something physical and mental therapy sessions in a year. Yeah. Every day. one or two, multiple, whatever, trying to get my body, my mind back right so I can go back and play football, run my business, try to be successful, live a normal life, all those things that everybody wants to do, right? But one of those things with my memory challenge that I had because I had to play like certain games. I had to do memory that I had short-term memory loss. So, I they would be like, "Hey, we're about to leave." Or like, "Hey, get up. Go brush your teeth." Cuz initially I needed help with that stuff. Then I got to the point where they would say, "Hey, we're about to do this and then they'll come back in the room and then I'll be like, "What's up?" And they'd be like, "We need to leave. I just told you we're leaving in like 20 minutes and I'm like, "What? I don't remember that." So, I had to go through a lot of these things. But again, what I did with sneakers, just how you see them all lined up on the wall and stuff like this. I played a game with myself mentally. How can I remember where every shoe is at? How much I got it for? Where it's placed on the wall, third row over, four pairs down, colorways, models, numbers, everything, right? To some, it's just a shoe. To others, it means everything. That helped me tremendously with my memory, my function, my ability, because it was the physical therapy that I was doing, all those other things. Don't get me wrong, but adding that into my thing, to my workflow, whatever you want to call it, to my list of to-dos for therapy, it kept me on it, kept me all the time, keeping my mind working, trying to get back, trying to get better, trying to do it. And I will forever, forever be grateful for those moments, those times, the I'll never forget that time because it helped me so much. But I didn't come on here to get emotional. But sneakers can mean everything at the end of the day. That's all I'm saying. So if it means something to you, whether it's shoes, whether it's anything in life, I promise you there's somebody else out there that you probably don't know everything about, just like you probably didn't know everything about me in this conversation that you might have a different perspective on it. You might have a different outlook on it. You might have a different respect on it. Whatever. Whether it's for you or not, that doesn't mean you need to go bash it or whatever, right? It's you do you over there, but I'mma be over here doing me. That's cool with you doing that over there, but I'mma be over here doing me. Not saying, "Oh, you this, you that." Okay, I'm over here. Right. No, just just stay over here. Focus on your stuff. Like, you be good over here. You know what I'm saying? If you see something over there, cool. That's not for you. Just keep it pushing. Don't even say nothing. You good, right? So again, I can go on this topic about forever. I don't know. We're already running up. I feel like we've been on here too long. I appreciate you guys. I love y'all. We We already hit 400,000 subscribers. We're on our way to 500,000 subscribers. Again, you guys know I know way more than just sneakers. So, if you guys want to join the community, I have a private club that I teach you guys everything. My my playmakers club, you guys know what's up on the inside. You guys will hear about that at the end. There's probably another video after this. If you haven't already and you made it this far into the video, hit the subscribe button, bro. Or sis, I'll see you on the next one. I'm out. Hey, just a quick reminder again, the link is down below in the description to join the community if you have not already. It's all going to be inside. You're going to love it. Trust me, I've helped hundreds of people with this. I cannot wait to help you as well.