What started as a habit in the Virgin Islands has become part comfort, part sneaker preservation and part lesson from my father.
I have sneakers that I wear to drive.
And I have sneakers that I want to wear when I get where I’m going.
Those aren’t always the same sneakers.
If you’re really into sneakers, you probably understand exactly what I’m talking about.
You get dressed. You put together the fit. You know which pair you’re going to wear.
Then you get in the car and realize you don’t necessarily want to drive in them.
Maybe they’re uncomfortable behind the wheel.
Maybe you don’t want to crease the toe box.
Maybe you don’t want the heel rubbing against the floor mat.
Maybe they’re white and you don’t want to scuff them against a pedal.
Or maybe you simply want them to look as good when you step out of the car as they did when you left the house.
So you drive in something else.
I call them my beaters.
And I’ve been doing some version of this for a very long time.
Growing Up in the Virgin Islands
This habit takes me back home to the Virgin Islands.
I would drive in one pair of sneakers and change into my good sneakers when I got where I was going.
Back then, I don’t know if I thought about it as deeply as I do now.
You had your everyday shoes.
And you had the sneakers you wanted to keep looking good.
The good pair didn’t need to take unnecessary abuse.
But there’s another part of the story that has stayed with me.
My father taught me to always drive with shoes on.
He had served in the Navy and later became a captain in the Fire Department, and preparedness was important to him.
His thinking was simple: if something happened and you needed to get out of that vehicle quickly, you needed to be ready.
That stuck.
So did the memories of learning to drive our 1979 Jeep CJ-7.
It’s funny how something as ordinary as putting your foot on a pedal can bring back a memory from decades ago.
The Habit Never Left
Fast-forward to 2026 and I still think about what sneakers I’m wearing when I drive.
Part of it is comfort.
Not every sneaker feels good behind the wheel.
Some shoes that are incredibly comfortable for walking don’t necessarily give me the same feeling when I’m working the accelerator and brake.
I want to be comfortable. I want to feel the pedals. I don’t want to feel like I’m fighting the shoe while I’m driving.
But let’s be real.
There’s another reason.
I don’t want to mess up my sneakers.
If I’m wearing a pair I really like, why unnecessarily crease them for 45 minutes sitting in traffic?
Why scuff the side against a pedal?
Why rub the heel against the floor mat?
Why arrive with a mark on a clean pair that wasn’t there when I left the house?
That’s when the beaters come out.
I’ll drive comfortably, get where I’m going and change.
Because when I step out of the car, I want to look good.
More importantly, I want to feel good.
And sneakers have always been part of that for me.
It’s Never Just About the Sneakers
That’s probably the part someone outside sneaker culture might not understand.
People sometimes look at sneaker culture and reduce everything to collecting shoes.
But the relationship is more complicated than that.
We have sneakers for different moments.
Sneakers for work.
Sneakers for travel.
Sneakers for the gym.
Sneakers for walking.
Sneakers for special occasions.
Sneakers we don’t mind beating up.
And sneakers where we’re looking down at our feet every few minutes making sure nobody stepped on them.
Some pairs carry memories.
Some represent places we’ve been.
Some remind us of people.
Some simply make us feel good when we put them on.
That’s personal style.
And personal style doesn’t begin when somebody else sees you.
It begins with how you feel about yourself.
The Moment You Step Out
I’ve spent a lot of my life thinking about sneakers, culture and the messages we communicate without saying anything.
Your sneakers communicate.
Your clothes communicate.
Your hat communicates.
Your hair communicates.
How you carry yourself communicates.
Before you introduce yourself, people have already received information about you.
That’s part of personal branding too.
It isn’t just a logo.
It isn’t your LinkedIn profile.
It isn’t your website.
It’s how you present yourself to the world.
And sometimes something as simple as changing your sneakers before you get out of the car is part of that presentation.
You know how you want to show up.
My Father Was Teaching Something Bigger
But when I think about why I still keep driving sneakers around, I eventually come back to my father.
Because his lesson wasn’t really about shoes.
It was about being prepared.
Put something on your feet because you never know what might happen.
Be ready.
Decades later, I’ve added my own reasons.
Comfort.
Protecting my sneakers.
Personal style.
Wanting to look and feel good when I arrive.
But underneath all of that is a habit that started a long time ago in the Virgin Islands.
That’s one of the beautiful things about getting older.
Sometimes you discover that these little things you’ve been doing your entire life aren’t really little things.
They’re routines connected to people.
Places.
Lessons.
Memories.
Culture.
I still have my beaters.
I still have my good sneakers.
And yes, sometimes I’m still changing shoes when I get where I’m going.
The reason has changed a little.
The habit hasn’t.
And every once in a while, when I look down at my feet behind the wheel, I think about where that habit started.
What’s something you still do today because of a lesson someone taught you years ago?
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