From Heel Strike to Health: Minimalist Footwear Will Change Your Life with Steven Sashen
The Energy Blueprint Podcast
Ari Whitten
4.7 • 751 Ratings
🗓️ 28 June 2025
⏱️ 105 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, I’m speaking with Steven Sashen, who founded minimalist shoe company Xero Shoes with his wife Lena Phoenix in 2009.
His philosophy? Modern footwear is actively hurting you.
In this discussion (which was so fun and informative thanks to Steven’s lighthearted approach to his work), we explore what the shoe industry has been hiding about arch support, cushioning, and elevated heels, all while knowing these features actually increase injury rates.
Steven's company exists because he wants to change people’s lives, and after 16 years of challenging the footwear industry's biggest myths, he's revealing how traditional shoes weaken your feet, destabilize your balance, and even contribute to falls that kill older adults.
Get ready to rethink everything you thought you knew about what to put on your feet. This conversation could literally save you from decades of unnecessary pain, injury, and disability.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, this is Ari. Welcome back to the Energy Blueprint podcast. With me in this episode is |
| 0:12.6 | Steven Sashen, who is the founder of Zero Shoes. That's spelled X-E-R-O-S-Ues. He's actually the co-founder along with his wife. Now, this is a podcast that is |
| 0:27.6 | sort of unlike any other podcast I've done in the sense that it is about 10 years in the making. |
| 0:34.6 | About a decade ago when I was just sort of getting started online and |
| 0:40.3 | Stephen was really just sort of up and coming getting started in his business, zero shoes. |
| 0:47.3 | He reached out to me, he saw me somewhere online and reached out and sent me a free pair of his |
| 0:52.3 | sandals, which I think were the pretty much |
| 0:54.9 | the only shoes they were making at that time or at least maybe one of two or |
| 0:59.1 | three options and I wore them around for a while and basically we had discussions |
| 1:05.6 | we had awesome discussions I really loved talking to him and hearing his |
| 1:09.8 | thoughts he's as you'll hear in this episode, extremely knowledgeable and just a really fun, really clever, |
| 1:16.6 | really funny guy. |
| 1:19.6 | And so I always really liked him and this was sort of based on the idea that, you know, I would have him on my podcast, I would be an affiliate to promote |
| 1:30.5 | zero shoes and that sort of thing. And basically through my own sort of neglect of the situation, |
| 1:40.7 | it just never happened. It never materialized. But meanwhile, I've been wearing zero shoes for |
| 1:46.9 | years. I've been a huge fan and advocate for minimalist footwear for many, many years, even though |
| 1:52.4 | I've actually never done a podcast about it, it's sort of been on my to-do list for a very long time. |
| 1:57.9 | And well, now I'm finally making all of that happen. I'm doing the podcast on |
| 2:01.8 | Minimalist Shoes. I'm hosting Steven reaching back out to him making this thing happen |
| 2:07.9 | that's sort of 10 years in the making. And it's all really, really cool and really fun to actually |
| 2:15.1 | sort of bring it full circle and bring that to completion |
| 2:19.5 | after all these years. |
... |
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