[00:00:10] Ellington Brown: Welcome to SpeakUP! International with Rita Burke and Elton Brown! Today we have as our guest Nick Adkins, and he is going to read an excerpt from his book, How a Pair of Socks Became a Symbol of Love and Connection. Mr. Adkins, the virtual floor is yours! 

[00:00:39] Nicholas Adkins: All right! It's good to see you, Rita and Elton! Thank you for having me on your podcast. Today, I'm gonna read a little bit from the book, Pink Socks, How Pair of Socks Became a Symbol of Love and Connection, and I'm the, I've chosen something from chapter 10 in the book, and I tell you, the book took me a while to write, and there was a period where I had to walk away from the book for about a year.

It's just because of life events and so much going on. I was questioning this message, you know, is the world really full of good? So much bad stuff happening? I had to kind of take a break and say, do I really still believe this to be true? Here's what I wrote.

Is it over? Do I really believe the Pink Socks message the world is full of good? When you believe it, you see it. Keep doing that. Some days, I just don't know, and those are the days that I know I have to get back out there. I have to go to the post office. I have to put some pink socks into the flow. I have to hand write that welcome to the tribe note. I have to gift a love more sticker to the next person I see along with the admonition. All we have to do is show up with love and kindness. You're already doing that. Just keep doing it. We can't give up ever. What we focus on is what we see, the macro of the news, fire hose of fear, the distortion in the algorithms to steer us apart.

We must stop focusing on these. The magic is in the micro, in the small things is where we find the vastness of love, where we find each other, where we find ourselves. We can't always control governments and politics. What we can control is how we interact with each other one person at a time, one smile at a time, one connection at a time.

One pair of pink socks at a time. Keep doing that. 

[00:02:49] Rita Burke: More, more, more. The magic is in the micro. Thank you so very much. Now the voice you've just heard is that of Nick Adkins! He's a founder of Pink Socks Life, which is a global movement focused on spreading love and a kindness. He is here to share with us more about Pink Socks and to talk about his book.

Nicholas believes that our world needs more reminders of our shared humanity, and there's so much more that I want to tell you about our guests today. But we, as we say and think of international, we prefer if he tells his own story. So with that, I say to you, welcome to SpeakUP! International. Nick Adkins!

[00:03:50] Nicholas Adkins: Thank you, Rita. It's good to see you! 

[00:03:54] Ellington Brown: Pink socks started off as a, personal thing and then all of a sudden it blew up to a global phenomena. Can you talk little bit about, that to us please? 

[00:04:10] Nicholas Adkins: Yeah. So in, in back in 2015, I was involved with a healthcare, it's tech startup in Portland, Oregon. Nobody ever heard of this before. We're going to a giant conference in Chicago that year in 2015. And so I said to my CTO, Andrew Richards and one of the other co-founders at at that company, I'm gonna go and get. 50, a hundred pairs of these pink socks with these mustaches on them.

I'm gonna wear them. I wear a kilt. I don't wear pants. I stopped wearing pants in 2012, so I told Andrew, you know there's gonna be 42,000 healthcare IT professionals there and suit and ties. You don't wear a suit. Wear some blue jeans, wear brew pub shirt. Put on these pink socks, roll your pants up a little.

I'm gonna have pink socks on. You put 50 pairs in your little bag, 50 pairs in and in my bag. And we're gonna roll into the McCormick Center there in Chicago, and people are gonna come up to us and say, Hey, what's your story? You know, we like those socks. What's the story? And I say, well, I'm Nick, and this is Andrew.

We're gonna form connections this way. And, and we did. And immediately upon entering the hall, um, people were coming up to us and we were getting invited to come, you know, say, oh, come meet with our CEO, come meet with our chief medical officer. I mean, we're talking like companies like Walgreens, Intel, Microsoft Dell, et cetera.

And we used the hashtag hink socks. Always one word, always plural. And that hashtag went viral at the conference and took over. And, um, we made some great connections and we had fun. And this is back, you know, 2015. This is back when Twitter was fun. And so we were tweeting and taking pictures of people in their pink socks and it was just great.

And so we did that for the remainder of that year, that conference cycle in 2015, traveling to different cities, doing different conferences. People would say, oh, it's the pinksocks guys, you know, come over here. We wanna talk to you guys. And so it really was just kind of a gorilla marketing effort, if you will, that first, that first year in 2015.

And then in 2016, it was time to go back to that same big conference. And that year it was gonna be in Orlando instead of Chicago. And I was talking to Andrew on the phone. I said, listen, we can't. Go back to that same event with pink socks. We need to do something different, something new. It's kinda like Elvis Presley, right?

There's young cool Elvis and there's fat old Elvis. I wanted the pink socks to kind of go out as as young Elvis. And about the time I said that on the phone, somebody sent me a DM on Twitter and said, Hey Nick, did you send pink socks to somebody in the Netherlands? And I was like, no. Why? And so I looked, there was a guy in the Netherlands that had sourced pink socks on his own and was gifting them to drive awareness for the work that he does with Alzheimer's and dementia care.

And then somebody else immediately sent me another message on Twitter. Hey Nick, did you send some pink socks to somebody in Wales? Look that up. There's a guy in Wales who had sourced pink socks on his own and was gifting them to drive awareness for the work that he does with ataxia, which is a rare disease.

It's at that moment, Elton and Rita, that we knew that Pink Socks had gone organic. It had become something way bigger than we thought it was, and. So I said Andrew, um, scratch what I just said about ending the Pink Socks. In fact, get a bigger bag 'cause we're gonna take more pink socks this time. So that's what we did and we just continued to have fun with it through 2016 and just, you know, lots of connections and it was good con for everything.

We had fun with it. And then in 2017 I got a call from the TED people that say, Hey, listen, we'd like for you to come do a a TEDx talk in San Francisco. I was like, well, what do you want me to talk about telemedicine? Because that was one of the primary use cases for the technology that we created. 

[00:08:08] Rita Burke: Excuse me a second, Nick, that was gonna be my next question.

[00:08:12] Nicholas Adkins: Okay. 

[00:08:12] Rita Burke: Talk to us about your experience on techs. So share that experience with us please. 

[00:08:20] Nicholas Adkins: Okay. I mean, do you want me to finish that thought and then answer because those are two different things. Okay, so they asked me to come do this talk, and I, I said, would, would you me to talk about telemedicine?

They're like, no, we want you to come tell the story of the Pink Socks movement. And I was like, whoa, whoa. It's not a movement. It's just a bunch of happy, smiley people gifting each other pink socks. And they said, no, it's a movement and we want you to come on the TED stage and tell that story. And, um, that really changed everything Rita, that, that Ted talk in, in San Francisco.

And, and they said it would, the Ted people, you know, they have a. They have a program, a protocol, a plan. They, they've done this many, many times. And, uh, they, they actually sent me a book that's like a workbook that you have to follow. And for six months I had a speech coach out of LA that I would meet with once a week over video and, you know, practice and practice and do it the TED way and, um.

And they said, listen, you know, you, you think you've got traction now, but once this goes out, you're, you're just gonna go. And it did and I'm very grateful for the Ted people that invited me to do that talk. And, and, and that really did change the trajectory for, for Pink Socks Life. Yeah.

[00:09:40] Ellington Brown: That is a wonderful story. It's amazing how things can start organically and kind of like have a life of their own. 

[00:09:50] Nicholas Adkins: Yeah. 

[00:09:51] Ellington Brown: And you're just amazed at the speed that some of these projects, move and in your case, happen to be rather, rather large. 

[00:10:01] Nicholas Adkins: Had this, I got, I got in, you know, because of that, I started getting invited to go do talks in, in Europe and you around the world and, and just growing this thing.

And the NHS, which is the hospital system in, in England, they latched on to using pink socks to help drive awareness for. Patient engagement, patient quality, and you know, so here we found ourself gifting pink socks to doctors and nurses and techs all throughout different n HHAs, NHS hospitals around England and Ireland.

So it was just mind blowing, um, how quickly people adopted and gravitated to this ethos of gifting and connecting one-on-one with something as simple as a pair of pink socks. Right. 

[00:10:48] Ellington Brown: So why do you, why do you believe that these small human gestures, you're giving, pink socks, away to these individuals?

So how do you see them creating such, a, powerful connection and can you describe one or two manifestations? 

[00:11:15] Nicholas Adkins: Certainly, yeah. So the, the first, there's two design elements on the Pink Socks. Now there's the puzzle piece and the mustache. In 2015 and 16, the original Pink Socks, also known as the OG Pink Socks, only had the mustache.

When I did the TED Talk, I added the puzzle piece to represent the power of connection, pink Socks, connecting people all around the world. And why I did that, Elton, why I added a puzzle piece is because. Very early on I had a, you know, a gestalt moment. This aha moment of what it was really all about, you know, in 2015 it was just a bunch of people gifting pink socks to each other at conferences and having fun and going into 16, same thing.

And I got invited to do a talk at Stanford. Down in California and at the med center, and they were having a conference that was patient led, which is great because all the speakers were patients instead of doctors or tech people or industry people. It was a conference all built on empathy and humanity and compassion and connection.

So, uh, my talk really fit in there. Well, and right after I did my talk. Think this is 2016, so this is pre COVID, so we're not really used to seeing people walk around with surgical masks on. But a gentleman came up to me in the lobby of the auditorium, in the foyer there and said, he came up to me, he was about my age, and he was wearing a blue surgical mask.

And he came up and he said, hello, my name is John and I really enjoyed your talk. Do you have a minute? And I said. Hey John. I'm Nick. It's good to see you. I absolutely have a minute. And so we went over to the side and John started to tell me his story. And this act is actually chapter two of the book is John's story.

And John proceeds to tell me how he is the recipient of a lung transplant. Both lobes of his lung had to be removed and he had to receive a new set from a donor. And I tell that story in chapter two, and as as. As John is sharing his heart, speak of this story of this donor story. Tears are running down his cheeks and the blue on the mask is turning dark, where you can see the tears staining it, and I'm crying and I'm holding space with this beautiful story that John is gifting to me that John is sharing with me.

It's in that moment that I knew what Pink Socks was really all about. It was about shared connection. It was about connecting with some person, one person at a time sharing space, listening, hearing, feeling their story, their heart speak. That's when I knew it was about connection and the book is really a story, a collection of stories of Heart speak along the way through these years now, almost 11 years, and I wrote the book, it was published last November, sort of 10 years. It, it's really a book that wrote itself over those course of those 10 years of stories that we have all shared along the way in the Pink Socks journey.

And there's stories of heart speak, there's stories of loss and pain, all the things that life brings, but it's a reminder that if we can get out of our minds, out of our heads, if we can lay this down for a minute, stop doing this. Take our EarPods out, connect with people, you know, everybody's got a story to share.

All we have to do is stop and listen. And when we do that, there's magic in those moments because you know, Rita and Elton we're, we often confuse connectivity. This with connection. We're drowning in connectivity and we're craving connection each, each one of us, everyone on this planet. It's hardwired in our brainstem.

It's encoded in our DNA that we crave connection with other humans. And so when we realize that and we give ourselves the self permission and the space to hold space with another person who's also craving connection. That's where the magic is. And in those moments of true, authentic connection in real life, standing in line at the post office, on the bus, on a plane, at the grocery store, at the gas station, in those moments of saying, Hey, I'm, I'm Nick.

What's your name? Elton, oh,Eltonl, it's good to see you. Boom. That right there. So many times that leads to the other person saying, well, hey, do you have a minute? Well, yeah, let's just, I'll, I'll catch the next train. Yeah, I'll, I'll be late to this meeting. Yeah. Obviously I've got time. I want to, yeah, I wanna, I wanna hear it.

And you sit down and what we discover is, I mean, this is around the world, not just the country. What we discover in these moments of one-on-one, when everyone is away from the polarization of their teams and the political ideologies and geopolitical boundaries, what we find is that we are all so much more the same, so much more similar than we are different.

No one wants war. No one wants chaos. No one wants to be fire hosed with fear constantly and be in perma crisis. We all want love. We all want kindness. We all want connection. And when we give ourselves the opportunity to do that, magical things happen. And that's how we heal the world. One person at a time.

[00:17:07] Rita Burke: Yes. I, I like that. That is very tender. It's very touching. It's very emotional. And you talked about doing a presentation at the conference and then John comes up to you after Nick and wanted to chat with you. Tell us about what you talked about that prompted that connection with John. What did you talk about to that conference?

[00:17:32] Nicholas Adkins: Yeah, my talk that year was on empathy and how important empathy is in healthcare. Both from the provider side, the doctor, nurse side, and the patient side. That everybody has to work as a team on the care team and that everyone is working as a care team. That it's not us versus them. It's not the doctors versus the patients.

We're all in this together and that, and when we realize that, that it's not us versus them, it's we together. That's where empathy has the space to show up. And so that was was my talk in 2016 and, um. I believe that's what prompted John. He said, this is somebody I wanna share my story with. And he did, and I'm grateful for it.

And like I say, chapter two is, is John's story. The book is, is available on a hardback right now, and the Kindle version, which is the ebook version. And I, I really, you know, recommend getting the hardback because throughout the book, our QR codes that you can interact with your phone, you know, you can take a picture and it takes you deeper down the rabbit hole, if you will, tells you more of the story.

And there's a QR code at the end of chapter two that allows you to hear the story in John's word. So I wrote chapter two from My heart, and if you go down the QR code at the end of that chapter, you'll hear and, and see the story from John's heart. So I, I really. Recommend getting the, the hardback version, just so you have the interactive capabilities to engage more with the book.

And you can, there's pictures in the book that you can go down, you know, see the original post. Like we have five astronauts that have pink socks com. Commander Hatfield, the Canadian. Astronaut that was on the International Space Station, playing the guitar, singing David Boy, he's got pink socks. You can see his original Instagram post through his QR code.

Deepak Chopra has pink socks. You can see his posts through the QR code. So it's just a fun, interactive way to see more of the story. But, uh, John, I, I don't want to tell you. All of John's story on here because No, it's very art wrenching. It's very full of arts speak. It's a tear jerker. It's, it's probably difficult for me to even tell that story without getting choked up.

Um, but you know, basically he shared who his donor was and, and, and just how, what a beautiful gift. What a beautiful gift. You know, someone who lost their life and. John was alive because somebody gifted him their lungs. 

[00:20:15] Ellington Brown: Well, you know, many people want to change the world to be a better place.

Let's hope so. So what does, pink Socks teach us about changing the world from the ground up as opposed to top down? 

[00:20:36] Nicholas Adkins: Right. Well, our logo is is love more, love more fear less, right? So gazillions of stickers, hoodies, t-shirts, all the kinds of gear, necklaces, you name it. This love more message and this love.

More fear, less love. More fear less. Let's just love more. Okay? This is, this isn't, this message of, of love is an old message. It's nothing new, right? It's been handed down. For millennia through generations across time to show up with love. And maybe we just need a reminder, and that's what the book is for.

It's a reminder that says, Hey, listen, let's love ourself. Let's give ourself the space that we need to love ourselves, to be patient with ourselves, to be grateful for what we have and where we are. To give ourselves forgiveness and grace. And when we do all of those things now, we've provided the space that we can show up and love someone else and give someone else grace and compassion and forgiveness and patience and all these wonderful things.

But it all starts with us, and that's what the book is a reminder for maybe throughout all the things that life brings, especially now when the world can seem so fractured. Polarized in dark times that a reminder that, hey, you know, we're all in this together and none of us are alone in this. And it's not unique to any of us.

It's a shared experience that we're all going through this thing called life. You know, some days it rains and some days the sun shines and we just have to keep going. And that's part of the experience and that's really what the book is about, about how we each can show up loving ourselves. Providing space to love each other one person at a time.

Let's just start one person at a time. 

[00:22:29] Rita Burke: Concur. I concur with you, um, Nick, that the love begins with itself and on SpeakUP! International. We seek to inform, to inspire and to educate. And there's no question that your story is doing that for us. Nick, who or what would you say is responsible for the person that you are to?

[00:22:54] Nicholas Adkins: You know, that's an easy question to answer. I and, and my go-to, you know, the, the, the one I always throw out is my dad. But, you know, if you pull back from that, I'm so grateful that I was raised in a family of love. Not everybody can say that. And so I understand what a gift, what a treasure, what a blessing, how rich my life is because I was raised in a, in a family that was full of love.

Um, but. I'm grateful that, you know, he modeled what a loving, kind human should be like, and my mother too, but very close with my father. Both my parents passed away and, but the real person who's responsible for the person I am today is me. We're each responsible for how we show up in the world. We can't really give too much credit.

Anybody in our past or even in our now, and we can't blame anyone really for our failures, our mistakes, those are ours. We have to own those. You know how we choose to show up in this now and every now, every day. That's up to us. It's an intentional choice that we have to make regardless of what's happened in the past, regardless of what may or may not happen in the future, those things do not exist.

The past and the present future. Only thing that exists right now is now and in the now there's only love and that's it. And in that now. I mean, if I'm sitting on a train and somebody sees my pink socks and comments on them and I say, oh, hey, I'm Nick. What's your name? They say, oh, I'm John. Hey John. It's good to see you.

I've got some pink socks for you in my bag. I gift them the pink socks. We get to talking. I always say, it's good to see you. I said that to, to both of you. I don't say, Hey, it's good to meet you. There's different energy in those words. Do you know that some people will go their whole lives in this dimension, in this time?

Never having someone look at them in the eyes in the now and say, it's good to see you, Rita. It's good to see you fill in the blank, whatever their name is. There's so much power, so much love and humanity in those words. Because when I meet someone, when I see someone and I say that I'm outside of the construct of judgment, there are no biases.

I don't know where that person went to school, where they didn't go to school, where they work, where they don't work, how much money they have, how much money they don't have. None of these things are relevant in the now. Only thing that matters in now is love and to hold space. And so it's very powerful to say it's good to see you.

And that is a gift that we give each other. Like I said, some people are never gonna have someone say that to them and hold that space for them. Seeing them just as they are right now in everything exactly perfect the way it should be. No judgment. And if we can keep doing that in each now. Trying to repeat it, practice it, do it over and over and over.

It becomes easier. The more we do it, the more we show up with love and compassion, not judgment. Just have to keep doing that over and over and over. Yeah. 

[00:26:23] Ellington Brown: You have delivered many beautiful stories of how these pink socks has changed individuals lives. What I'd like to know is how has these stories, your Pink Socks, have they, how have they changed your life?

[00:26:48] Nicholas Adkins: Oh yeah. So before Pink Socks Life, I was a serial entrepreneur. I was a capitalist. It was all money, money, money. And I'd never been involved in a nonprofit. Uh, all of my ventures were for profit and. Pink Socks has been really a blessing for me in allowing me to let go of, of capitalism, of chasing money.

It's really let me lean into not worrying about the money because the money really isn't important in the big picture here. The money will take care of some self somehow, but what's more important is how we show up for each other in the world. How we show up for ourselves, what we're gonna contribute, what we're gonna give versus what we're gonna take.

And so it's really changed, changed me for the better. And I'm grateful and that's a gift that I'm grateful for every day. And I think the universe for, you know, I. Follow this hashtag Pink Socks on all the social media platforms every day and see wonderful, happy, smile people gifting each other, pink socks around the world.

And, uh, that brings joy to my heart. And so it's a good rake from having to watch all the negative news or have the algorithms churning in our head on social media to see, oh yeah, you know, this. It's like this label on the socks says the world is full of good. When you believe it, you see it. Keep doing that, right?

I read that from the book that's on the label of the pink socks. And so you, you know, it doesn't mean that there aren't bad things in the world. There's terrible things in the world. It's awful things in the world, but there's so much more good in the world. And you know, it's like when I put my glasses on, you know what?

This lens that I look through, we can either look through the lens of love. We can look through the lens of fear, and I'm choosing to wear this lens of love because what we focus on is what we see. And so I'm grateful to see a lot of people doing good things in their communities and their workplaces and their schools all around the world.

How they show up with, with love and kindness and using pink socks as, as a tool in their toolbox to, to make connections. 

[00:29:15] Rita Burke: I so agree with you about the importance of touching people's lives and seeing them and feeling them and hearing them look at the empathy that we communicate or we give to others by, by doing that.

Now, Nick, could you think of a time in your life when you had to say enough.

[00:29:47] Nicholas Adkins: Many times. Oh. Um, I, I think either one I'll just share because it's relevant to Pink Socks Life and, and our nonprofit. And what we're doing is, and, and I won't go into this much because I know we don't have time, but in the book, in chapters five and six, I talk about how we became involved with schools in the U.S.

Pre-K, so little kids all the way up through high schoolers. And we're now 34 schools in nine different states using pink socks every week to help teach kids what they call the social emotional learning curriculum, which is basically these attributes of kindness. So kindness, empathy, compassion, cooperation, anti-bullying, inclusion, diversity, you know, all the good things that grow good humans for the world.

And, um. You know, I never, there was never a plan for us to become involved with these schools. And that's, I think that's a beautiful story for your viewers to when they get the book to, to dive into that, uh, of how we became involved at our very first school, I will tell you, was in El Paso, Texas. We got involved with the first grade teacher there who, who we found, and I can't tell much of that story, but because it's way too emotional.

But, um. You know, one of the, one of the things that I found difficult as, as running a nonprofit, you know when, when you're running a for-profit business and you're going around to the venture capitalist asking for money investors to invest, and you know, you show, you pitch it and you show 'em and they say, no, you just go to the next one.

It's just business, you know? You really don't take it personally Well. What I've discovered on this, you know, running a nonprofit and say, Hey look, we've got all of these schools. Would you help us? Well, when people say no to that, I, you know, I take it personally, I don't take it as personally now as, but I was taking it really personally.

It's like, what? You know, look at all of these school teachers and they're growing good humans for us and they're teaching these kids to love themselves, to love each other that so they don't become so disenfranchised one day that a kid shows up with a gun at school. We don't need to spend, you know, all of this money on bulletproof backpacks and bulletproof glass and steel doors.

Let's support these teachers who are teaching these kids to, to love each other. Be kind and you know, so when, when people would, I'd try to raise money on that and I'd get some nos. Take it real personally. And that's the point where I just had to say, okay, Nick, enough, you've got to, you, you have got to.

You've got to go back to putting your business hat on here and not take this so personally and you know, 'cause there's so many good causes out there for people to invest in, you know, to, to donate money and to be philanthropists and to support. I mean, just a huge long list of nonprofits that nobody's ever heard of.

And so we, um. You know, my personally, I think I had to say enough to taking it personally. And, you know, our, our main mission really at, at Pink Stock's Life is to support other nonprofits who are doing good things. Nonprofits that you've never heard of. I mean, everybody's heard of the Red Cross and United Way and all the big ones, but there's so many little ones like us.

Um. That that need to be, have their voice amplified, whether it's helping feed hungry children in Chapo Hill, North Carolina, whether it's a women's shelter in Denver, whether it's a homeless shelter in San Diego. Uh, breast cancer screening for women in India. I mean, on and on. There's a long list of, of nonprofits that we said, look, we built a stage.

We've gifted over 300,000 pairs of these, and there's probably a gazillion stickers. There's really no true accounting for how many people are in the Pink Sox tribe. But, uh, you know, it's a lot and a lot of social media reach do that. And so we say, look, we built a stage. We invite other nonprofits to come up and play on it and, and wear your, we're gonna give you pink socks and you go feed hungry children today and you go help homeless people today and, and wear your pink socks.

And when you post your pictures on TikTok or Instagram or Facebook or wherever you're posting, wear your pink socks and use our hashtag and everybody will see the work you're doing and will celebrate you and will help voice amplify the good that you are doing in the world. So if you've got listeners that are nonprofits.

Please reach out to me. We wanna help spread your message. You know, we're all in this thing together. That's the power of connection. And we wanna send you some pink socks. We wanna give you some pink socks that you can wear and take pictures of you and your happy, smiley face, doing great things in the world.

And, um, you know, social media, Rita and, and Elton. It's, it's so much. Hey, look at me. Look at me. Look how cool I am. Look at my cool vacation. Look at the foam on my latte. It has a heart. Oh. Pink Socks is an opportunity for you to celebrate someone other than yourself. It's an opportunity to say, look at what she's doing in her town.

Look at what he's doing in his community. Look at what they're doing. And if we can all celebrate and clap and be cheerleaders for each other, we amplify the good that is happening around the world each and every day. 

[00:35:07] Ellington Brown: Nick, kindness sometimes is seen, can be seen as soft. Secondary. So what do you say to people who, um, underestimate the strength and courage it takes to lead with love?

[00:35:25] Nicholas Adkins: Yeah, it's, there's, there's a chapter in the book and the, the title of the chapter is called The Darkness, and I, I would encourage that chapter is the answer to your question and I'll try to paraphrase, but basically it was an interaction that was gonna go really bad. With someone. And, um, I had a choice to make.

I mean, I mean, like, I could have been killed. And, uh, in fact, the people, the bystanders who were watching it, were expecting me to get killed. And, uh, I, a, a, a man who was in deep pain, deep hurt, deep fear, deep sadness. But fortunately he's probably on some type of, drugs, uh, very violent, very angry, very hostile, approached me and I had a decision to make.

Okay, Nick, do you, how are you gonna show up right now? Are you gonna show up with fear? Are you gonna show up with love? This is really, you gotta practice what you're preaching and you gotta do it right now, and you had to make a split decision on split second decision on how you're gonna show up right now, because that's gonna change the outcome of how this thing goes.

And I made, you know. An intentional choice to show up with love and kindness and compassion, and that diffused the situation, a situation that could have been very, very awful. And I listened to this man's story and standing and holding space for his pain, showing up with kindness and compassion, empathy, the outcome. The outcome turned out good, right? So just because someone else is showing up with fear, someone's showing up with anger. I mean, anger is a attribute of fear, right? So there's only love and fear. There's elements underneath, right? So we've already named all, once you know a bunch of long lists of love, you know, fear is anger, rage, the shame, regret.

You know that there's a dark list over here. I had to make a choice. Was I gonna show up and hold space and mirror back what he was projecting out onto me and spewing out onto me? Or was I gonna hold space and love and compassion? And no matter what he said to me that I was just going to calmly stand in love and kindness and compassion, and that's what I did and that made the difference.

And these things are intentional choices. And as I said early, earlier, the, the more we do these things, the more we practice them, the more natural they become, the more instinctive they become, the easier they become. And so I'm grateful that at that point in my journey that I was, was confident enough to stand, stand in love, or that would've been a terrible story, 

[00:38:21] Rita Burke: Sounds that way. It would've been a terrible story. And I am so happy that that was a choice you made to stand in love. Now, you talked with us at the top of the show, as a matter of fact, before we started recording about wearing kilts. That's what you do, your choice of clothing. I wanna hear a little bit more about that story.

What motivated that? And what is it like?

[00:38:57] Nicholas Adkins: Well, it's great. Um, how that happened was shortly after I moved from Nashville, Tennessee to Portland, Oregon in Nashville, most of my adult life, I was a suit and tie healthcare guy, right? Custom suits, cuff links, what didn't have the beard, you know, what was that guy? Uh, and shortly after arriving in Portland, I met, uh, a guy who owns a kilt company to Nick Kilts.

And he said, Nick, do you wanna try to wear kilt? I said, yeah, of course. Let's try it. And so that was June of 2012. That was the last day I wore pants. I walked out with my kilt, I put my blue jeans in the bag. I got home. I took everything to goodwill, took all my pants, my suits. I'm done and, uh, I've never looked back.

And you, you know, I don't know if, if I said this earlier or how much of this we got, but you know, that's when I realized you have to wear fun socks. Is day one of wearing a kilt? I realized, yeah, you, you gotta be wearing fun socks. You can't be the geek in the black kneehigh socks in Bermuda shorts. So I bought a whole bunch of fun funky socks.

Um, t rexes, cupcakes, rainbows, sasco, pugs, you name it, corgis. But the one that really, the pair that always seemed to get the most, Hey, those are cool socks. Um, were the pink ones with these handlebar mustaches. And so that's, that's really how it ended up being in the rest of that story and ended, ended up being Pink Socks.

[00:40:24] Rita Burke: Nick, when. You look into the future, what do you hope the word Pink Socks will represent and, and not just as a movement, but as a way of being in the world. 

[00:40:46] Nicholas Adkins: Yeah. Uh, I, I believe it's gonna continue to grow, grow and keep doing what it's doing, which is, you know, pink Socks Now is, is synonymous with love more.

It's with showing up with love and kindness. You know, I mean, people, when they hear about Pink Socks, they, especially people who know about it already, they already say, oh, it's about kindness, it's about connection, it's about empathy, it's about loving more. Um, you know, when I wrote the book, Elton.

There were really three audiences that I had to write the book to. Three circles, if you will. One circle, one audience. Were the people that already had their Pink Socks. They already knew the story, but maybe they didn't know the whole backstory, some of the details of, of how it all unfolded. So I needed to write a story that was interesting and engaging for that audience.

The second circle, the second audience was a little larger, were people that have heard about Pink Socks, but they don't have their Pink Socks yet. You know, maybe they've seen it on social media, or they've been at an event. They've seen people across the room in their Pink Socks. So I had to write to that audience.

And then the third circle, this larger audience where people that have never heard about it before, and it's that audience that really drove the direction that the book would take because it had to be a book that spoke to all of our hearts. That was common to all of us as humans, and that's what it is.

So Elton and Rita, I wrote this book for you and I know that it's going to speak to your heart and I'm grateful for that 

[00:42:17] Rita Burke: And I really appreciate that you've written that book for me. You have touched my heart. And is there anything that we have not asked you that you would like to leave with our listeners today?

[00:42:32] Nicholas Adkins: Well, I would like all of your listeners and your viewers and the people who read this, don't give up. Don't give up on what you know to be true, that you are loved, even if you don't love yourself right now. You are loved, you're loved by people that haven't even seen you yet, so keep showing up. One day after another day, one boot in front of another boot.

You just have to keep going. We want to see you. We want to connect. Stay with us. Keep showing up with love and kindness. There's so many people around you that are hurting that, that are in pain, that are drowning in fear. They want to connect as much as you do. So please give yourself the self permission and the space to show up.

And if Pink Socks isn't your thing, that's okay. Find what is your thing. Maybe it's a fun hat, maybe it's a flower, maybe it's dyeing your hair, blue or red. You know, whatever that thing is for you, that helps you spark a connection with someone that helps you put this down, take these out and actually talk to someone.

Do that. Do that. And you will see the more that. When someone says, Hey, I like your hair. I like your hat, I like your beard, I like your kilt, I like your whatever. Instead of just saying thank you and keeping going, stop, stop. Because every time someone connects with you, right, then that's the universe tapping on the shoulder, giving you that opportunity, that gift to share space together and connect.

So don't miss each of those, and the more you do them, the easier they become. 

[00:44:18] Rita Burke: Nick, I wanna thank you so much for, joining SpeakUP! International this afternoon to give your wonderful story, I should say, stories of connections being made through Pink Socks and how individuals have enjoyed it.

Not only for themselves, but for the connections that they've made, which I think is extremely, uh, I important. And on top of it, how your organization grew organically. In fact, at one point you didn't even know that it was hitting all these other, no, 

[00:45:00] Nicholas Adkins: there was no plan. 

[00:45:01] Ellington Brown: It just happens. I need all these other continents.

And you're like, wait!, I haven't, we have, we don't even have a website yet. Wait! But they didn't wait. I guess love was moving at a rate that, uh, was absolutely phenomenal and I wish you, all the success that comes with connection and Pink Socks. Rita, do you have anything that you wanna add to that?

[00:45:29] Rita Burke: Yes, um, I've got some Pink Socks. They don't look like yours. I think I'm gonna put them on today to remind them of your kindness and your generosity for joining us and SpeakUP! International. We certainly appreciate that. I feel I feel the love! 

[00:45:48] Nicholas Adkins: Good! I hope you'll email me. I hope you'll email me with both of your addresses so I can gift you some Pink Socks.

And for your listeners, the easy way to find us is this is our website, https://pinksocks.life/. https://pinksocks.life/. That's our website. It's also our Instagram account, so you can see a bunch of Happy Smile people in their Pink Socks. And at the website you can see that Ted Talk that I mentioned earlier. There's a video of that whole talk on there and it's also the pathway to the book.

So if you could just remember https://pinksocks.life/, you'll find us. And we'll find you, and that'll be great. 

[00:46:24] Ellington Brown: If you find the website to, you'll know you're at the right place because there's a huge, huge pair of Pink Socks right when you get there. 

[00:46:30] Nicholas Adkins: You'll see this right away.

Yes. 

[00:46:33] Rita Burke: Thank you so much, Nick. 

[00:46:34] Nicholas Adkins: Thank you, Rita. And thank you, Elton. I'm grateful. It's good to see you! 

[00:46:42] Speaker: Thank you for tuning in to speak up Exclamation Point International. If you wish to contact our guest, Mr. Nicholas Adkins, please be prepared to submit your name, your email address, and the reason why you wish to contact Nicholas Atkins at Pink Sox Life. Mr. Adkins has other social media accounts you can use to connect to him.

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