When starting a new adventure, the last thing you want to do is invest hard earned money on a hope and a prayer that you might just make it back. On one hand, this is the thrill of entrepreneurship and on the other it is the reason why so many people fall victim marketing schemes and failure.
 
Return on your investments is everything.
 
In the beginning, you don’t know what you need because you’ve never done it before. You might have assumptions about what you will need like basic hygiene necessities, toys and maybe a few outfits but as you start doing it, but you soon realize people start requesting certain things over and over and over again, some of which are really odd. 
 
In my case, it was always specific shoes. I am in awe at the requested straps, colors and styles both in athletic, day to day wear and night out on the town. There is truly something for everyone.
 
Unfortunately, shoes do not come cheap and the variety is part of the allure. Things like name brand crocs, vans, clear heels, ballerina slippers, open toed nursing shoes, wedges, muddy sneakers, nike, Birkenstocks, adidas, stripy sandals, Gucci stilettos and more add up quickly.
 
As a perpetual barefoot person who ran almost a half marathon in Vibrim toe shoes the concept of putting my feet away in general was out of the question entirely. I LOVE the grass between my toes and have dirty feet on a regular basis. My feet are tools to carry me from place to place and nothing more. Shoes have always been, and to a great extent always will be constricting and pointless.
 
Ever since I was super young, I have gone through great lengths to avoid wearing them unless I really needed them in heat or on rocks. Even in those cases, I would find the most airy, open, stretchy and available option. Shoes have always been status symbols and a means of control. They are optional to me. Pieces of clothing which I considered for the elite. It was wasteful spending on image, pomp and circumstances rather than form and function.
 
Fast forward to my first few years in the industry exploring foot fetishist in the prime and glory. Let’s not even discuss what we do with them behind closed doors and private chat rooms because that is a separate conversation on its own. I came to realize that feet and shoes were big business and if I wanted to make it in this industry, I would need to expand my viewpoints let alone my shoe collection.
 
This is where I began. What a better place than a thrift store to explore all the different sizes, shapes, colors, and styles of shoes! Most of these shoes have been worn by other people, and therefore fit my wide natural feet a little bit better than something right out of a box. Luckily for me, there was a thrift store near my old home that happened to be within three blocks of a very seedy strip club. Normally, this was the type of place in town that you would avoid going to at night but during the day it had the most spectacular hidden gems.
 
This thrift store was the place that I found my very first fetish item which happened to be in the household goods section. It was a paddle that I guess the people at the store thought could be a great decoration for your kitchen? It was made of solid wood, and had the words, “attitude adjuster” on it. Definitely not something I would ever have hanging in my kitchen but it caught my eye as something that didn’t quite belong here.
 
So for $.99 I couldn’t turn it down and figured I would take a chance. At the very least, it would be a fun talking point or decoration to my room. That paddle ended up amassing more than $1000 in total income over Skype shows, custom videos and other online activities. It’s pretty hard to believe that something so hidden and yet so obvious ended up becoming a treasure to many patrons and friends behind closed doors.
 
I was able to find even more diamonds in the shoe section. For less than five dollars I bought my first pair of stripper heels and black stilettos. I found my very first pair of leather thigh high gogo boots and my very first pair of studded flats. Some of the shoes I kept in my closet for years and other shoes I ended up retiring and giving away again for another life.
 
The lesson here is that in the mediocre world we live in there are hidden clues and gems hiding away right in plain sight, right in front of us that reveal who we are and what makes us human. It may be a simple piece of kitchen decor, or an outlandish pair of fuzzy, clueless sandals but either way, it was the risk that made it all worth it. It was the risk to buy something out of my comfort zone so that I could find a way to connect with other people and explore myself at the same time.
 
So here I am almost seven years later coming back from the thrift store today once again looking for sexy tops and new items to add to my collection. I think this is probably one of the best kept secrets about what I do. Nobody has any idea when I come to that counter why I am buying the things that I am buying. Strangely enough, half the time I don’t even know why I am buying the things that I am buying. Maybe there’s a little bit of divine intervention whenever I go there looking for things, specific things that people have mentioned to me in the past or things that I might be interested in myself. 
 
The adventure is never over when it comes to this kind of job and I love it.