Collecting kicks isn’t a hobby, it’s a lifestyle. The time you have to invest in checking release calendars, attempting to acquire new releases, attending conventions, going to the mall to fill out raffle tickets, cleaning off your shoes, and a million other things is substantial. If you’re really about it, it’s not something that you can do halfheartedly.
Thankfully, there are many great benefits to collecting kicks. Believe it or not, there are several skills you can pick up along the way and life lessons that you’ll learn. “Ross is full of shit” you’re probably muttering to yourself right now. “How can something like collecting sneakers teach you anything?” I’m about to tell you. Pull up a chair and grab your 320z Haterade. Here’s what you can learn from collecting kicks.
Patience
In today’s ADHD, Internet-heavy world, patience is in short supply. People can’t even sit through a 15 second Instagram video without getting twitchy and needing something else to do. Thankfully, sneaker collecting will force you to be patient. Not only do you have to wait for release dates that can seem like they’ll never come, you have to wait for prices to die down on the resale market or you’ll wind up gouging yourself trying to pay the price for whatever limited kicks you want. Patience always has been and always will be a virtue, and you’ll be forced to learn it in the sneaker world, unless your parents pay for everything you do.
Money Management
One of the best things the sneaker game can teach a young kid is money management. Saving up for kicks, buying and selling kicks, you name it. Money is always changing hands in some way, shape, or form in the sneaker game, and especially if you’re young and don’t have a ton of spending money, you’ll get good at it fast. Many a young sneakerhead has built a whole collection off of a few pairs that they saved up for and then turned into even more pairs (or a giant stack of cash…shouts to resellers). You’ll learn a lot about the ups and downs of the market, and what the value of a dollar is.
How To Network
You ain’t shit in the sneaker game unless you have a strong network, and you won’t be able to have a strong network if you don’t know how to make connections. You’ll have to tune up your people skills to make sure the right people rock with you, and the bigger your network is, the better. Europe-only Air Max release you really want? If you’ve built that strong network, those Air Max might not be as far away as you might think they are.
Organization
When you’ve been in the game for a while, you’ll start amassing a pretty large amount of kicks, which will force you to get good at organizing (unless you want boxes of sneakers strewn all over your crib with no rhyme or reason, or you think losing some heat is cool). Although this is a simpler skill to master than the three above it, it’s useful nonetheless, and is something else you can take from the sneaker world into your everyday life. Staying organized is never a bad thing.
So there you have it. Don’t say you can’t learn anything from the sneaker game, because that’s flat-out not true. Patience, money management, networking, and organization are all real-world skills that can translate into anything, and they’re skills you can acquire through sneakers.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some sneaker stacks to organize.
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