Laura Schmidt’s positive attitude is obvious the minute you meet the bubbly entrepreneur from Prairie Village, even if you don’t get to see the happy words that appear on the toes and soles of her socks.
Schmidt is the inventor of notes to self socks, which sport such sanguine phrases as “I am confident,” “I am strong” and “I am perfectly me,” and are available at more than 1,000 retail stores across the country and at notestoself.com.
The idea of optimistic socks occurred to Schmidt on New Year’s Day 2011, during a road trip with her husband and three children.
“I had my feet up on the dashboard, my shoes off and just socks on, and I was reading a book about positive thinking,” Schmidt recalled. “And it said that a really good time to say affirmations was first thing in the morning and last thing at night. Because the subconscious mind is most open when you’re just starting your day or just winding down.
“So I thought, ‘What if I put the positive affirmations on the toes of socks?’ Then, at least twice a day, you’d be training your mind without even trying.”
Schmidt was already running a longtime direct-sales business out of her home, but couldn’t resist trying her hand at putting self-encouraging sayings on as many feet as possible.
In late 2011, Schmidt called on an independently owned Hallmark store that agreed to carry notes to self socks in two of its locations. From there, she was able to place the product into a large network of independent Hallmark stores, along with many other retailers, including hospital gift shops.
“The stories are the things that are so meaningful to me,” Schmidt said. “Women have sent me pictures of themselves getting chemotherapy with the ‘I am strong’ socks on.”
In a January 2013 plug on NBC’s “The Today Show,” the show’s style editor, Bobbie Thomas, bestowed her approval.
“It aired on maybe a Friday, and that weekend we got like 100 Web orders, which was humongous,” Schmidt said.
Schmidt’s goal is to have sold or donated a total of 1 million pairs by the end of 2014. In February, notes to self was one of eight businesses recognized by the Kansas Small Business Development Center as an Emerging Business of the Year.
Schmidt’s advice to other entrepreneurs?
“It’s important to really just believe in yourself and have the courage to put one foot in front of the other and keep exploring possibilities,” she said. “I could never have imagined this success. I just knew it was a good idea and I wanted to share it with the world.”
(photo courtesy of Susan McSpadden / Johnson County Community College)
