Apparel Redefined Chats with Chad McLean from Mental Joe Apparel

John LaRoy, CEO of Apparel Redefined, chats with Chad McLean the founder of Mental Joe Apparel. Chad shares his journey from his childhood in Billings, Montana, to a successful real estate career and mental health issues. Inspired by ketamine therapy, he pivoted to creating Mental Joe. The ultimate goal is to provide the very best American-made athletic apparel and products, all while raising money for Non-Traditional Mental Health modalities.

Chad discusses the challenges of starting a business such as Mental Joe Apparel, including trademarking and fulfillment, and highlighted the success of selling $24,000 worth of apparel at a conference. He emphasizes the importance of teamwork and delegation, advising entrepreneurs to focus on their strengths.

John praises Mental Joe‘s mission and the impact of their unique designs.

Key Highlights

• Chad McLean’s Background and Military Service 1:54
• Chad’s Entrepreneurial Journey and Mental Health Struggles 5:20
• John LaRoy’s Connection with Chad and Psychedelic Healing 8:17
• Chad’s Entrepreneurial Challenges and Successes 10:36
• Mental Joe’s Mission and Future Plans 35:42
• John LaRoy’s Insights on Entrepreneurship and Team Building 37:54
• Chad’s Advice for Entrepreneurs and Final Thoughts 42:51

Presentation Transcription

Curt Anderson 00:02
Hey guys, welcome man. Do we have an amazing, incredible show. John LaRoy, Apparel Redefined, dude, it looks like you’ve got a new like, a wonderful setup, a new studio. What’s happening here at Apparel Redefined?

John LaRoy 00:13
Don’t want to one up here, but I just did. So

Curt Anderson 00:17
now let me, let me correct you. I know you do want to one up because it’s really, it’s really, it’s really, it’s not it. Now, the thing is, I said the buyer. I set the buyer so low that it wasn’t too tough to beat. But man, you have, what a great background for Apparel Redefined what’s what’s going on with the new studio.

John LaRoy 00:31
Well, yeah, special thanks to Ben. Ben Walters, our new hire, one of the first tasks, you know, he he was watching some of our stuff during the hiring process, and he’s like, you just need to do better. So I’m like, alright, well, not do better. So he’s what he came up with on a very limited budget. But yeah, it’s working out great. So

Curt Anderson 00:51
well, hey, kudos to Ben and me. Can you do me a favor? Send Ben over to my place so we can, like, do something with this? Because, like, I desperately need some help. So alright, let’s dive in. So man, what an honor, what a privilege. We’ve got our dear friend Joe. Mental Joe is the company that we’re going to be talking about. We’re with our dear friend, Chad. Chad, happy Tuesday, my friend. Thank you for joining us. How are you? Man,

Chad McLean 01:12
I’m doing great. I appreciate you guys having me on and diving into this and learn a little bit about mental Joe and how we got where we’re getting to. So

Curt Anderson 01:19
yeah, I tell you, I this is an honor, privilege. First off, I want to give a huge, heartfelt thank you for serving our country. What an honor, what a privilege. You’re a hero. I know you’re super modest, super humble, and probably don’t want to hear that, but you are definitely a hero to us. So thank you for your service. What I’d love to do is like you’ve gone man, what a great walk of life. You’re just sharing that Billings Montana, you corporate, you know, served our country, corporate career, entrepreneurial journey. Give us a little the 10,000 foot overview, as you’d like to say. Give us an overview of who you are, and then we’re going to run right up to like when you started mental.

Chad McLean 01:54
Joe, yeah, you got it so. Chad McLean, middle child of three kids, an older brother, a younger sister. My brother actually lives out here in Chicago. He’s in the Oak Park area. He wrote for the Tribune and the sun times and various other syndications and papers and whatnot. But middle child of those three grew up in Billings Montana, my entire life, pretty, pretty poor. Growing up was on welfare, the good old paper monopoly, food stamp money back in the day, you know, did that. Sadly, my dad, you know, did not have the tools to help me be the man that I am today. But my dad was an abusive alcoholic, and kind of grew up through through that. Fast forward. Was not a very strong student. I just didn’t care about school. It was boring. Didn’t excite me. There was other things I wanted to do. And then jumped into the military. I would say the cap and gown for me probably wasn’t even on the ground, and I was off to Fort Benning Georgia, which, for those that aren’t familiar, I think it’s fort Moore now, but Fort Benning Georgia was home of the infantry. So that’s where Ranger schools at. And, you know, Airborne School and things of that nature went through. Airborne School ended up going through rip, which is a ranger indoctrination program, and was stationed at the second Ranger Battalion out in Fort Lewis, Washington, through that actually burnt in on a jump, on a night jump over in Spokane. It was a training thing that we’re doing. We’re doing a mass tack jump over the airfield to take over the airfield. And I actually burnt in on that jump. And we’ll get into that probably a little bit later in this conversation. But that’s kind of a very pivotal moment where kind of life in most recently, has kind of showed me where, that’s where life kind of pivoted for me quite a bit. But got out of the military, I just didn’t have, yeah, burnt in, yeah. So my parachute ended up collapsing. Long story short, it was a night jump, and there was a parachute below me, and as I look down, you know, they kind of teach you to run off the canopy. And my shoot ended up collapsing. And then as I kind of slid off the other the canopy of, you know, the other guy jumping, I burnt in. Next thing you know, I’m waking up on the ground. And to this day, I kind of fight with that. I try to figure out, you know, was it a 10 foot burn in? Was it a 50 foot like, where, what height that I burn in, it hit the ground. But when that happened, and again, I know we’ll get more in depth, and it completely destroyed my back. And then from there, like, like, a lot of, sadly, a lot of veterans, ended up popping pain pills and such. So I could still operate and, you know, try to do my job. But did that, ended up getting out. Had no idea what I was going to do with life, and went back home to Billings Montana. Ran my own insurance company. I was one of the youngest all state insurance agents in Montana ever did very well. Ran that for about three years, and then just kind of had an aha. Moment of, you know, there’s a little bit more to life than just sitting behind an all state desk. And moved down to Phoenix, Arizona, and I’ve been down there now for about 20 years. But my time down there got in with Bank of America during the foreclosure crisis, you know, in oh seven through oh nine and forward, and ran it for closure division at Bank of America for almost 13 years, and then kind of played in that real estate corporate market and some, you know, realtor type stuff for almost 20 years, you know. And then again, you just kind of fast forward through all that, you know, just the stress of real estate. And a lot of people think, realize how stressful real estate is, you know, you don’t close a deal, you don’t get paid, so everything’s a very turn and burn a very time sensitive, you know, industry, and I was just, I hit burnout mode, you know, I was making really good money, I was making really good bonuses, but just completely burnt out and tired. And roughly about four and a half years ago, almost took my life. Just wore out, real tired. I was tired of the the chatter that was going on in the brain, and how do I slow this down? And so through that, I call it like I see it. And went to the cuckoo band for a week, you know, I was up there and, you know, didn’t know what was going on or what the next steps were for Cari, you know, and me, I didn’t know if divorce was on the table or or what those next steps were, but she did some research and found ketamine, and started doing ketamine therapy probably about a month and a half when I was released. And through that experience, lo and behold, kind of, I hate saying it, because it’s kind of Woo, woo, right, but kind of had a vision, maybe, if that’s the right, you know, label we want to put on that of go start an apparel company. Again. I was in real estate for 20 years. I had no idea, you know, even, what a a tri blend shirt was, let alone how the hell am I going to put this stuff on a t shirt? I was very novice to it all. But for some reason, I had faith that this was the road we need to take to kind of spread the word of what I’m very vocal about now is psychedelic therapy. And so our brand is there, and you can see some of the shirts. And kind of one I have on now is, you know, we try to have these designs that elicit some conversations from people to be like, hey, like mushrooms and grenades don’t really go together. Why? And so then that opens up the door to kind of tell my story and where I’m at. And what’s really interesting is you find out real quick that we’re all very close, similarly to certain stories of trauma and things that have happened throughout our lives, and before you know it, that individual that I’m talking to is now dipping their toe in. Well, hey, how do I get ketamine therapy? Or where do I go for a psychedelic retreat and things of that nature. So now we’ve kind of become this platform of we use apparel to bring awareness, but the long term goal is to be so profitable that my goal is to write million dollar checks to these veterans and first responder foundations that can use that money then to go help these first responders, these veterans or these average Joes go kill themselves. You know, it’s, it’s so powerful that I think if people remove the labels of, you know, psychedelics, and just look at the science behind it and what it does to the neuroplasticity and the neurotransmitters within the brain, you’ll find out that these things, if used in the right context, can really help people and get over a lot of hurdles that, you know, we tell ourselves in our in our brain. So that’s kind of the quick 10,000 foot version, you know, if, if I can, but feel free to elaborate and poke at me with what you want to go down the rabbit hole on

Curt Anderson 08:35
John, just share a little bit. How. How did you cross paths with Chad?

John LaRoy 08:41
Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s a great story, honestly, but we were talking about this last night and dinner and mutual friend, mutual connection. We got connected through, as we launched our print on demand, vertical started marketing the app, I think Chad, I’m gonna say a sucker, because that’s what we’re talking he landed on our landing page for the app. And, you know, started through an email conversation, really, with Derek. And fast forward, I was probably about what, eight, nine, ten, months ago, maybe, yeah, roughly, yeah, yeah. Gotta be in that wheelhouse, yeah, and yeah. Connected through there started, you know, having, I mean, Chad’s been having regular conversations with Derek pretty much every week, yeah, since they started, and, you know, we’ve been trying to lock down a date for a trip together, and we finally made it happen here. But yeah, just phenomenal guy. The mutual connections that we have and mutual interests and the people that we know and the circles, because I’m, I’m really into the psychedelic healing as well. And a key word you said there too is healing, not treatment, right? You know, you hear treatment, treatment, treatment, and it’s just masking a symptom, you know? And the true healing is powerful. And a lot of the research. Dr Huberman, lot of stuff that I’ve been researching my wife’s in behavioral health. So that was a hot button issue for the past five, six years, and now, with it really becoming mainstream, there’s no doubt that there is measurable lifelong benefits to the correct environment, correct application of these medicines. So, yeah, it’s really, really cool, absolutely cool stuff.

Curt Anderson 10:28
So Chad, let’s go here, if you don’t mind me, you know, I want to take you back to 2020, you know, you’re very can candid, very transparent, and just kind of put it out there. And what I love, you know, a couple things, you know, if you don’t mind me, sharing, you know, you said, you know, you mentioned your dad. And you know, if, if you know, say, for folks, you know, there’s challenges where you know your dad gave you the tools of, maybe, hey, this is how not to act, or how not to be a father. So he actually kind of did you a favor of, like, hey, you know, do, do otherwise, right? 2020, you know, you had the where wherewithal. And I’m going to give you a label courage. You had the courage to say this isn’t going the right direction. I don’t like what where I’m going. I need help. What was going through your mind at that time? Like, how did you have the courage to seek help and to get to where you are now?

Chad McLean 11:15
Well, I think the seeking help came through holding the gun to my head, you know, intention on the trigger, and the wife calling the sheriff’s department saying, hey, my husband’s trying to kill himself, you know. So I don’t, I don’t know if it’s so much courage as like it was, I felt like that was a way out. I just, you know, I did the traditional therapy I’ve done all the talk therapy. I was on some kind of SSRI or some kind of mood controlled substance, right for a good portion of my life, let’s say 20 years. And so with that, like, I just I knew my thought process wasn’t normal. I knew the way I viewed things wasn’t normal. I was a guy like I could plan for every bad outcome of any meeting, anything that was going to happen. Like, I could tell you every scenario that was going to happen that was negative, but could never tell you anything positive about maybe something that was coming through the pipeline. I was always planning for the worst possible outcome. And so my mind just it did that for, you know, a good chunk of my life. And I was just, I was wore out, you know, I mean, in 2020, you know, covid, covid, hot, political environments, hot, you know, everything’s on fire, you know. And I just, I just, I hit a breaking point, you know, through just different conversations and just knowing that, you know, okay, I’m not doing this corporate real estate. I’ve got mental health issues. I’m a loser. I’m a bum. Best way for me to do that is just, you know, take my life and move on, and hopefully my wife and my two sons at the time will have a better life without me. And sadly, I think when you talk with folks that have had that thought process, that’s the thing. It’s not that we want to kill ourselves or we don’t want to be around. It’s I am better off if I am gone. And that’s truly not the story, right? Like they need us around, but in our own minds, we figure we’re a burden on these people, so if I can be done with myself, then I’m less of a burden to everybody else. Well, alright,

Curt Anderson 13:11
very powerful dude. Thank you for sharing again. Thank you for your Candice, your vulnerability, your honesty. Let’s dive into mental Joe, and I’m going to pull up your website in a couple minutes, but I’d like to share you had a vision, like, Dude, you know, you know, military, guy, corporate foreclosures, you’re crushing it in real estate. And all sudden, like, I mean, that’s a, you know, that’s a pretty 180 turn, right, or whatever. It’s

13:33
a degree turn.

Curt Anderson 13:34
It’s a huge, you know, I’d say a minor pivot, if, if I could. So, just what was going through the mind, you know, at that time of, like, Hey, I’m going for this. You mentioned your wife, Cari, you know, you know, the support system to kind of get this entrepreneurial journey off the ground, sure, what was going on through that time?

Chad McLean 13:51
Yeah. I mean, it was just a struggle. It’s like, where do you start? Right? Like, what T shirts do you put it on? What are you looking at? Hats? Are you looking at hoodies? So then it’s just, you know, it’s the whole licensing setup. I gotta get wholesale licensing. You get this pricing, and then you gotta get all these other licenses with the state of Arizona, and I’m an and I’m a nonprofit on top of that. So then I’ve gotta file for all that. And then it’s like, Okay, we have this really cool logo that we don’t know what to do with. Let’s go trademark it. So then we go trademarks. It’s all this stuff. I had no clue what I was doing, but I literally just kind of stumbled through it all, to be honest, and we started getting some traction. You know, before you know it, we’re doing a couple different posts here on social media, and we’re creating, this is probably in two and a half years. This is probably our fifth website. It tells you how anal I was with, like, what are we doing? It tells you, I don’t, I didn’t know what I was doing, right? But just kind of fumbled through it, you know? And we started building a community where people were looking at us and going, Hey, this guy’s kind of authentic. He kind of calls it like, he sees it like we’re kind of interested in what he’s saying. And before you know it, people are. Buying T shirts. And I can still remember I got my first order. I was like, holy shit. Like someone really liked this design. They actually bought a shirt. Hey, babe, you know, we’re not going to get rich, but damn, we sold a shirt. And then there was a big maps conference. Maps is stands for multiple disciplinary association of Psychedelic Studies. Rick Doblin is the founder of that so they had this huge conference up in Denver, and it was really kind of a jump off point for us. We didn’t know if we’re going to be a sink or swim, but, you know, we went up to this big conference, 15,000 people, and brought a bunch of apparel. I drove from Phoenix all the way up to Denver, pulling a trailer, and said, All right, well, let’s, let’s see what we can do. And in three days, we sold close to $24,000 in just t shirts. And so at that point, we said, Okay, we’ve got something. People understand what we’re trying to accomplish. People dig the designs. And for me, it was really kind of cool to see people walking up to the booth and they look at a design, or they look at a t shirt, and they just chuckle, because in the psychedelic ecosystem, everything’s, you know, just vomit, tie dye in your face. It’s not these little subtle designs that have a little bit of a mushroom here, or a little bit of something here, or a hidden message. And each shirt we try to, you know, have some kind of a hidden message or a meaning behind it, so it elicits that conversation. And then just from there, we just kind of keep creating designs. We keep kind of growing and so, yeah, so mental Joe, you know, we’re roughly been at this about two and a half years, and it’s, it’s been a wild wake up call, but I’m learning every single day and and now, because of, I’ve gone through some pretty traumatic therapies with psychedelics and stuff. I look at things as failures now as a, as a way to learn, as opposed to before the old Chad was I failed, therefore I’m a loser. I’m not good at life. I’m not good at this other stuff. Now I’m like, give me the failure sooner, so I can learn quicker. So lot of different mental changes in this last four and a half

Curt Anderson 16:57
years. Yeah, as a, as an entrepreneur, you get a PhD really fast in those learning opportunities, right? Yeah. So, John, let’s go here, man. So, you know, we have the privilege, you know, you talk to all sorts of entrepreneurs, day in, day out. We’ve had numerous entrepreneurs. Everybody has their their their journey, their challenges, their struggles. You know how what’s going through your mind as you’re hearing Chad story, his entrepreneurial journey.

John LaRoy 17:22
It’s a lot to navigate, right? You know, it’s when you have someone that’s really purpose driven and they have a really solid Why, it’s really converse because a lot of people get started for the wrong reasons and they don’t know their why, and that’s reflected in the message, the brand, the employees. You know your your network of people, but when you start with the why, but you don’t know how to do anything else, it’s difficult, right? Because you’re so vision, you’re so purpose driven, and you can see years off into the distance of what it’s how, what it’s going to look like, how it’s going to impact other people, yeah, and the positivity it’s going to bring for real, authentic, positive, positive positivity, not just financial reward, but then that road in between now and there isn’t very clear, right? You can see the end or where you want to be really clearly, but you can’t see the path right last night, like you see the timeline, but you don’t see dates, and you don’t see details. You see it, but exactly, you can’t make you can’t put your lens on and make it clear, right? So what I hear is like, how can we help that person? How can we help this person make that timeline clear? Hit those milestones, hit those goals, turn, turn the vision into reality, essentially, right? And in this world, especially with like these unique designs, print on demand is the perfect solution for right, like the psychedelic look, where there is, you know, color vomit on there. It’s a big risk in the screen print world to throw a 15 color design on a t shirt and commit to a 265, piece minimum and not know if you’re going to sell any right? That risk is completely mitigated with high quality print on demand through DTG and, you know, you throw it on the site, you can see if your community likes it. And you can also be able to market to certain different verticals, right? Because I think you’re very unique in the psychedelic community, where you’re not your traditional, you know, Woodstock. I don’t have, I don’t have the dreads and the nose ring and the purple Not, not that. That’s the entire community, right? But there is a segment of the community like that, yeah. But the more mainstream this gets, you know, the more popular micro dosing and corporate retreats and all this type of stuff. There’s a different segment of market that might not run to a full color design like this, right? So we have the ability to convey a message across multiple different verticals and through apparel, right? You know, like the power of branded apparel curve we always talk about, like the ability to carry that message, and what this message that Curt, or, I’m sorry that Chad’s wearing right now, can mean multiple different things from multiple different people. Um. The power of wearing it on your shirt to let other people know, like, Hey, who is that guy? What is he doing? And then there’s a vision and a purpose behind it, where he’s giving back to the local community, first responders, veterans, to be able to participate in this ritual and medicine that they wouldn’t otherwise have access to. And really, you know, potentially lose 1520, 30 years, or their entire life, because they can’t deal with that trauma. So it’s just an unbelievable mission, purpose and vision, and the t shirt is the avenue to get him where he wants to be. And I’m just really honored to be a part of it, to partner with Chad and his vision. It’s really it’s really impactful. When you’re able to work with people that have a really clear vision, and it’s not just word service or coach speak, we’re talking a little bit about last night. It actually means something, and you can see the direct impact of his work really quickly. So yeah, the print on demand, service, just in time apparel helps him get to that finish line, which is just another starting line, a lot quicker. Yeah, yeah.

Chad McLean 21:07
I mean, for us, right? I was struggling with that fulfillment piece quite a bit. And along this entrepreneurial row that we all drive, I think with in our society, it’s Go, go, go as fast and hard as you can and put your head down. Well, I I’ve done that. But same thing that burnout comes and you start making mistakes because you’re so in the woods that you can’t you can’t zoom out. So there’s been plenty of times, and I’m kind of in a pause mode right now with social media and a couple other things, just so we can kind of tighten our foundation up. And there’s certain things that we’re trying to, you know, tweak it not. And so finding, you know, John and his company, you know, it just made sense. You know, for me, I was, I was doing everything from the social media to, you know, the design work to hiring GDS to doing the manufacture, all of it. And it was just too much. And so I paused, and I read a book by Dan Martell, and he, he talks about, you know, having stuff done 80% done by somebody else is 100% better for you, right? So it’s like, okay, it might not be the Chad way, but I need to separate that, and I need to look and, you know, set my expectations for what I’m expecting. But like John said, I didn’t have to go print these shirts and now hold stock of this stuff in my garage and hope it sells. Now it’s, it’s a very clean product. It’s still on a shirt that we like in our in our customer base likes, and it ships out and it’s done. It’s off my table, and I don’t have to worry about it. Now I can go focus on another part of my business, because now I have a team that can do that for that fulfillment portion for me, and now I can play with designs differently, right? Like I can throw something out there, like my wife might like a woman’s design or something. Okay, let’s throw in a crop top and see what happens. We sell two. We sell two. Probably didn’t pay for the design, but you know, now we know that’s not going to sell on a bigger market. So it’s, it’s helped us pivot quite a bit to focus on some other things in our in our business. Well,

Curt Anderson 23:05
I love that. In what I’m hearing, you know, John, as you’re saying that print on demand, these the flexibility gives you so much. It gives you agility to be more adherent to your customers, more accommodating as a as an entrepreneur. It allows you to take more risks. And like you’re saying, Chad, you can laser focus on what you do best at you know, whether it’s a marketing piece or some of these other pieces, it takes a village to raise a to raise a business, right? Takes A Village raise a child, takes a village to raise a business. So when you can align with other subject matter experts, like the team and apparel redefine it just helps elevate your business. I’m going to share my screen real quick, and I want to take a peek at your website. I’d love to share it with everybody. And can you see my screen?

John LaRoy 23:46
Yes, sir, we got it. And All right,

Curt Anderson 23:49
let’s go a little bit wider. And Chad absolutely love this. So a tagline that I found, you know, conquer the battle within changing lives one shirt at a time again. What an admirable cause here. Just share a little bit about your website, and I’m going to, as you’re chatting, I’m going to navigate and just show folks, you know, some of the product that you offer

Chad McLean 24:10
here. Yeah. So I mean, currently, middle Joe is, we’re a non profit apparel company, you know, and that’s my first pitch. I always tell people, like, Hey, man, we can take in kind work. So if you want to help us out, give me a little sweat equity. And, you know, you get a little tax write off, you know, at the end of the year for you. But, you know, our website, there those some friends there the gentleman in the run DMT shirt, believe it or not, that’s Marcus McGee. He’s a UFC fighter that it’s fighting this November, in the top 15 bantamweight out of Phoenix, Arizona. So, you know, got some fun friends that really understand this, this plant medicine ecosystem, that that come out and give me their time to go do a little photo shoot. But, yeah, you know, that’s, that’s kind of our page. There the conquer the battle within. I It’s, it was a tagline that just made sense. It was something that it said really easy. You could understand it. And people got. It right away, and we trademark that so we own we own that saying, and that’s ours, along with our logo and everything. But we try to make an easy kind of page to digest here, to let people know immediately what we’re about and where we’re going with this. And as you scroll down, you know you got some of our favorites, and kind of gives you an idea of where we’re at, and we’re kind of opening up our design book, and again, to John and his team, you know, that’s helped us, you know, like, look at things of okay, we still want to be very psychedelic, focused on the therapy, but now we can open up our design book to say, now we have some politically incorrect type shirts, and we’re going to have a kids line and a couple other things to kind of grow our brand, because again, at the end of the day is, if I am profitable, we can now write checks to help, like I said, veteran your first responders, your average Joes, go get these therapies. But that’s our main page. There our tab. We’ve got a tab up top there. It’s called resources. And the reason I really love this tab, and again, we’re trying to curate this and make it as clean as possible and get better with it. But as you can see in the drop down there, you got mental health organizations, you got retreats, you got tension and trauma exercise, which I’m a coach of. And the reason we put this there is I was the average Joe. I was confused. I didn’t know who to trust. I didn’t know what psychedelics were, to be honest, and I didn’t know where to go or who had all the right information. So just through talking with people, and having conversations and understanding with people that hold these spaces, that’s why we created this resource tab, to kind of show people like, Hey, here’s some foundations, and a lot of them are veteran centric. Of hey, these are people that hold these spaces in certain countries or certain states in the US, that you can reach out to and understand their programming and how that space is held for you. Or, you know, we’ve got articles and podcasts and videos that talk about these subjects to give people a little kind of, you know, as I call it, they’re on the fence, so they’re kind of peeking over the fence. They want to learn about this stuff. They want to understand it, but they don’t know where to go. So we figured, you know, if people are on our site anyways, and they’re going to buy a hat or a hoodie or a t shirt, like, let’s give them an opportunity to have some education behind this stuff so they walk away having a different perspective of these said medicines, if you want.

Curt Anderson 27:20
Yeah, I love it. And so let’s and what I’d like to do is, I want to, let’s dive into the business side of things. Let’s talk about some of the products. Like you said. You know, you come up with some fun there’s a lot of creativity. Just share with us some of the different product designs and what we I’ll cruise around here and just share with us some of the thoughts here behind your designs. Yeah.

Chad McLean 27:37
So this, I’ll talk about that middle one with the gentleman that popped up there, and he might look familiar to some people, if you watch that, but his name is Mike Gabler. Mike Gabler is a close friend now we talk quite a bit. Love the dude to death, but he was on the CBS series survivor, and was the season 43 winner of survivor. And what was really cool is, Mike wanted one a million bucks. What he did with his million dollars is he donated his million dollars to all veteran non profit foundations or companies, and we were a recipient of that. It’s also Mike donated us some money. And to what was even more interesting that you know, can I connect dots and tell people where some of this plant medicine stuff can go. If you’re paying attention, is we had no idea how we were going to get to the maps conference. I had to pay for booth, I had to pay for tickets, I had to pay for apparel. And that’s, you know, we were close to 2025, grand Out of Pocket, Credit Cards, a whole nine yards out of nowhere. I am 60 days out from this conference. Shit in my pants, going, how are we paying for this. What are we going to do? No way. Mike reaches out and he jumps us a check for 25 grand. And I was like, Oh my God. Like, yeah, this is what we need. So little things like that within this ecosystem. Ecosystem happens to me all the time. So that’s, that’s Michael there, the the buffalo into the storm. Design is is a big seller for us, and the reason for that is, when you go through a psychedelic therapy experience, you have no idea what you’re getting into, right? Like you have the courage enough to go set with this medicine to say, Okay, I’m open to see what medicine is going to show me that I need to deal with, or what are my shortcomings, right? And so if you even zoom out further, and you realize that buffalo is one of the only animals that’ll actually put its head down and run through a storm to get through the storm quicker, we kind of came up with our our psychedelic buffalo, right? Like you’re going to go set with psychedelics. You don’t know what’s coming, but you’re willing to put your head down to drive through to go find out what you what your shortcomings are. So hints into the storm are psychedelic buffalo. So that’s kind of where that comes from. The you look at the other one there, that’s kind of a fun one, the bufa, all various toad. It’s the Sonoran toad. And what a lot of people don’t realize is that toad. Toad creates DMT in the little psychedelic sacks that you see in that design are sitting right behind the toads eyes. And so it’s funny. I live in Arizona, where the Sonoran Toad is and lives, and people always talk about, don’t pick up the toads and lick it right? That’s kind of the the running joke in the desert. But when you secrete the the venom from the sacks, and you smoke it, it is DMT, and it creates a psychedelic experience like no other. It’s we kind of call it the god molecule, if you will. Or we kind of call it the the rocket ship, but that’s kind of a shout out to Da Vinci. If you look at that design, that’s kind of the toad there, but that’s the ultra various man, the da Vinci. And so we kind of did that with our Toad there. So again, kind of, if people are paying attention, there’s some subtleness and some some hidden meanings to some of our designs. But in that one’s we have our basic, you know, that’s just our our conquer the battle within, to talk to our veteran community, again, that that doesn’t want to talk or wear the loud and bright, you know, psychedelic. And we’re kind of pivoting on some of that too. We’re getting in designs, as you can see, one there, don’t believe everything you think, right? We’re trying to just have some of these saying ones, or we’re going to get to real clean, you know, just t shirts that might have a one word saying on it that says, Believe, right? So now we can talk to a completely different audience. They understand what we’re doing, but you know, they can’t wear the grizzly mushroom shirt to work, per se, the Kennedy shirt there. I have a connection with the Kennedy campaign, so we did some stuff for them. That shirt that you’re on there with Marcus is our as our shout out to Star Wars and the Mandalorian there of you know, this is the way, and he’s got mushrooms on his armor and and things of that way of just, we try to have fun with these, but we still try to tie in some kind of psychedelic meaning behind this. And like I said, Marcus is a close friend, so we actually hold his collection on our website for him. And we’re just getting ready to launch, I think, a couple of hats from Marcus in a hoodie as well. So we’re branched out in a lot of different ways. We’ve got a buddy, Scotty Hasting, who’s an up and coming Nashville country singer, that we’re doing hats and T shirts for as well. So though we are very psychedelic centric, we we’re kind of all over the place, as far as different people that are peeking over the fence that fighter pilot one there, that that you’re on there. Kurt is a group. His name is Wiz. Matthew Buckley is his name. His call sign is whiz. He was a a Top Gun graduate in at the Navy fighter pilot out there. Yeah, in Miramar so but he is in the psychedelic he actually holds space. He is one of the people that we have on our resource tab that veterans can go to and and go set with it. But we do apparel for for the the group no fallen heroes, and that’s, that’s a hoodie that we release, along with a T shirt and hat combo that we’ve got with these guys as well. And we’re getting ready to launch, I think very soon, probably a heavy hoodie for winter. That’s kind of our our Sun hoodie that we’ve done with them. But we’re, we’re getting in that space where we’re starting to collaborate with other foundations. Because my kind of pitch to these foundations is, why don’t you go focus on the healing? Allow me to hold that space of having apparel. We’ll hold it. It brings us some different eyes to our website. And as we sell this, you get the profit. So you go market it, will hold it, and we’ll do the apparel side for you, and then, you know, at the end of the day, we’ll cut you a check for what was sold, you know, so go heal people. Let us focus on this. So as you can see, there’s that tab there that says t shirt collab that we just kind of pushed out, that people can go on to and if they’re curious and they want to collaborate with us, they can fill out this little online form that gives me kind of an idea of what they’re looking for, what they want to do. Do they have artwork? They not have artwork? And just, you know, it’s a very, it’s a very new process for us, but we’ve already had two or three people filling it out. And so, you know, again, navigating from doing real estate to now, I’m having a thing online saying, hey, we’ll come do your T shirts, you know, let us know. So we’ve done stuff with that hockey one there that it’s Ryan Malone at Pittsburgh Penguins. He was, you know, I think he’s a Hall of Famer for the penguins. We did that design for the Malone Foundation. We did some hats and things for him. So it’s, it’s kind of interesting some of the different lives and different avenues of people that have reached out to us from, you know, Danny Carcillo. He’s, you know, he was a two time Stanley Cup winner for the Chicago Blackhawks. You know, he’s, he’s kind of a buddy of ours, and we sent some shirts and stuff to him. So it’s, it’s really interesting to see the different people that are in this space that really understand what we’re trying to do, and we’re trying to be that lift for a lot of people that have like, Hey, you guys, go hold the space in healing. Let us worry about the apparel for you.

Curt Anderson 34:54
Man, what a great line. You know, you do the healing. We’ll take care of the apparel. And so Chad, what did you. Know, did you ever see yourself getting into the apparel business?

Chad McLean 35:04
Not only did I not see myself getting into the apparel business, I didn’t see myself ever promoting or talking about psychedelics, you know, I was at the end of the day. I was a Montana kid, you know, I was a dare kid. I was one of the kids in high school that went around to elementaries and said, you know, no no to drugs. You know. So the fact that, you know, I’ll be 47 at the end of this month, but I feel like I’ve, like, I’ve just started life again. In this last two years, things have really started picking up for me. And, you know, back in the day, it was all money, you know, I was always a top one or 2% guy in real estate. There wasn’t a bonus I probably ever missed. I was just good at it, but there was no purpose behind it. It was just money hungry grab. How do I step on your throat to get up the ladder kind of a thing, and now I’m okay. How do I help people heal? How do I talk about this enough that opens the eyes to that kid in Kansas that goes out to a shop and numbs himself out in a bottle of JD because he can’t talk about his feelings, because our society has told him that’s inappropriate, right? And it’s really cool. It’s it’s the other side of the business that people don’t get to see with mental Joe. We have people constantly, if not daily, that reach out to Carrie and I that say, Hey, I’m really interested in ketamine. I’m really interested in a retreat, or, Hey, what is this micro dosing thing about? And so we’re kind of coaches. I don’t want to say we’re mentors, but we’re kind of guides and coaches to help people navigate this water that they might not have any information about. One of my couple cool success stories is I was on the grunt style podcast, and we’re all pretty familiar with grunt, style and their brand, and I went down to that podcast. And, you know, next, you know, I’m getting calls from veterans that are very curious about this. And I got a call from one veteran. He’s a Vietnam veteran, 72 years old, has lived with the trauma of, you know, 50 plus years of Vietnam War. And he did ketamine therapy after hearing my podcast, he went and sat with ketamine in the valley there of a ketamine clinic we recommend. And he called me back, I know, a couple weeks later, and he said, Chad, I don’t know how many more years I have left in my life. I’m an old man. That door is starting to close. He goes, but I can promise you, whatever time I have left will be the best amount of time I’ve ever spent on Earth, and so when I get that feedback from people, that’s the drive to keep going and keep talking about this stuff. Because whether it’s one person or 10 people, it’s changing that life for the betterment, and we call it the mycelium network, in this little ecosystem. But I feel like we’re building that little army of mycelium that people are slowly talking about our brand because we’ve helped them and and that’s how we’re really grown, is really just by community and word of mouth, changing

Curt Anderson 37:48
one shirt at a time. And thank goodness, you know your story wasn’t over in 2020 and you had a lot of work left in you. So thank God you know Carrie and other people that loved you got you through a difficult time. And so, you know, and it’s a privilege for John and I to hear this story. John, as we wind down, your thoughts, take away from this incredibly inspiring story with Chad. What are your thoughts?

John LaRoy 38:12
I mean, how many times I’m speechless, but this time I am a little bit, I mean, it’s just, it’s powerful again. We had great conversation last night, talked about its history. I’ve always been super interested in combat community, the Special Ops you know, that type of stuff, the training you know, the the strength through grit, the camaraderie, everything that you you know when you work out together and you go through hard together, like what that does to create team, you know, from the athletic side, growing up and just being able to talk about that. But then also, you know, when you’re around alphas, and you you don’t want to let anybody else down, but you know, you you bury stuff internally and learning how to deal with that stuff at some point, because either you do or you don’t, and like what you just said about this guy having the best, maybe last year, last five years, hopefully 1020, whatever it is that’s a that’s a gift that it’s, it’s free to give, and the best gifts are free to give. You know, but it’s, it’s an unbelievable to be the recept, the recipient of that gift, and you’re doing that, you know, that’s awesome. That’s awesome, man. And you know, having that ability to grow and be able to give that gift as many times you possibly can, if we can help you on that journey with apparel, man, that’s, that’s amazing. Yeah, I

Chad McLean 39:42
appreciate that. Thank you,

Curt Anderson 39:43
yeah, and that’s what John talks all the time about, you know, you’re not selling T shirts or material, you know, per se, it’s, it’s, it’s the memories. And as you mentioned earlier, you know that brand promise and what an incredibly admirable, you know, admirable cause that you’ve created Chad to help. People this, this 72 year old Vietnam veteran. Are you kidding me? Right? You’re changing lives, and you’re allowing people to say, You know what? You know, I know it’s cliche. I’m not okay, right now. You know that it’s okay to not be okay, and there’s a better way to get through this. Last question for you, my friend, you mentioned, you know, your entrepreneurial journey, again, going through military, went through corporate you’ve, you know, again, we encourage everybody catching this. If you miss anything, go back and hit the replay button, because this is a incredibly powerful conversation. Check out mental joe.com Great website. All the information that you’re offering there. You’ve talked about, you know, having those great partners, vendors like John and the team at apparel redefine best business advice that you’ve received going into your entrepreneurial journey, or that you would like to share with maybe a young entrepreneur that’s just starting out. What’s the best business advice that you feel that you’ve ever received?

Chad McLean 40:52
Man, I would just say, try to find that best team right? Don’t realize that you you can’t be an expert in every field. There’s just no way find your strengths, find out what you’re good at, do those things, and then slowly, try to put the other pieces of the puzzle together. Like I said, I’m I’m really good at the marketing. I’m really good about telling my story. I’m really good at shaking hands, you know, kissing babies and networking. I’m really good at all that stuff. That’s part of the real estate background, right? That has brought me to this point, but I’m not good at the marketing, and I’m okay at the apparel stuff, but I’ve got a heat press at home and a hat press at home, and that’s not my expertise. But if I can have a team like John’s do that for me, now I can focus on something else. So I would just say, don’t try to be an expert about everything. Give yourself some grace and realize that you don’t have to go 100 miles an hour. It’s it’s okay to pause, don’t quit. It’s okay to pause, reassess and then re engage.

Curt Anderson 41:47
Excellent advice, my friend. So Alright guys, we’re going to close out and so Chad, thank you. Man, what an honor. What a privilege. It was for me to hear your story. Keep firing on all cylinders. Man, just think of how many people need to hear your story. Wear a t shirt of yours. Wear a hoodie, wear a hat, and just you know, get that message out there that there are alternatives to have a better life. And again, just like you mentioned with our friend, our Vietnam veteran, 72 years old, you’re changing their life. So hey, John, how about a round of applause for our dear friend our guest today, Chad McLean, so John, thank you for this opportunity. Guys. Check out apparel. Redefine John, anything you want. To close this out with,

John LaRoy 42:26
no. I mean, this was an amazing episode, so honored and grateful to have it. Have this conversation, and thank you for your time. Kurt and look forward to the next one. Yeah,

Curt Anderson 42:38
it’s going to be, you know what? We’ve got some amazing, incredible guests coming up. But John, it’s gonna be tough to top this one. Don’t tell anybody, but it’s gonna be tough to top this one. So guys, we just want to wish you an amazing day. If you are struggling, you know, if there’s any challenges, reach out. You know, there are people that are help you, just like Chad shared with us, go out and get some help, and again, buy some T shirts. Man, it’s a great way to spread the message. So we will see you on our next episode. Chad, thanks again. We appreciate you. God bless you guys, and we’ll catch you at the next next episode.