Latest / The Growth Project / Episode 332: Sack the Stigma with Carly Silverstein and Brett Gray

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Episode 332: Sack the Stigma with Carly Silverstein and Brett Gray · The Growth Project

• 0:00
  All right. I am here
• 0:05
  with the Sack the Stigma crew. So,
• 0:08
  Brett, Carly, thanks for joining me. I'm gonna let you guys,
• 0:11
  introduce yourselves. I don't think I'll quite,
• 0:13
  do that service as well as you can. So, Brett, why don't you start,
• 0:16
  background intro on you, and then we'll we'll pivot to Carly and we'll go from there.
• 0:20
  Sounds great. Thanks so much for having us on. Corey. My name is Brett Gray. I am a born and raised New Yorker, went to school, at University of Michigan, where we ultimately found, in fact, a stigma. My background is primarily in the merchandise industry, aligned with just creative work I've done, you know, merchandise production.
• 0:45
  I started a few clothing brands myself. I've done merchandise production for a number of music artists, athletes, a variety of other clients as well. And, you know, I bring my business and creative expertise to, sector segment on a day to day.
• 1:01
  Carly
• 1:03
  is Carly Silverstein. I am originally from Atlanta, Georgia. So I went to Georgia for undergrad where I studied psychology with sport management and human development minors.
• 1:13
  And then went on to get my master's in social work at the University of Michigan, which is where I met Jared and Brett, our other two co-founders. To get to Sigma started. And now I am a team clinician and kind of do just sports mental health work in general with a variety of athletes in different areas, doing mental health and mental performance work on a regular basis.
• 1:35
  Cool. Well, I appreciate you guys joining me. So let's start with the beginning. So, how did the idea for for this stigma where did that come from? Who was involved in that process? Was there a specific moment or experience that sort of sparked the idea? Just give us a little bit of the, again, the true origin here.
• 1:53
  How did this all start? Yeah. So myself, Carly and our third partner Jared were all based in Ann Arbor at the time. I was doing my, undergrad. Carly was, completing her master's, and Jared had already graduated, but was still in the Ann Arbor area. And so, I was actually running a different clothing brand at the time called Soho Youth Club, which was a brand focused on providing education and experience for youth from underserved communities.
• 2:23
  And so with each collection and campaign that we would launch, it would be tied to a different philanthropic initiative. And I was always looking to, you know, collaborate with different brands and individuals to facilitate campaigns around different causes. And I believe it was in my sophomore year at Michigan, a close friend of mine connected me with Jared Wrangler.
• 2:48
  And Jared was running a different clothing brand at the time as well called valiant and which is still running. And we came together to really put together what we thought was going to be a one time collaboration between Soho Youth Club and Valiant. And, you know, we sat together at Starbucks on South View in Ann Arbor and, brainstorm, you know, if we are going to collaborate with our two brands.
• 3:10
  What? Like what what is the cause that, you know, makes the most sense for us to unite on and focus? And, we decided mental health and mental health and sports specifically was, was the route we wanted to take. And so, you know, very shortly after Carly was working with Michigan football already. And, you know, the three of us started working on what initially became our first campaign, which, you know, at the time, we really thought was going to be our only campaign, because, again, like this was initially activated as just a one time collaboration between two existing brands.
• 3:45
  We launched our first campaign in February of 2022, and that included a league around 10 or 11 Michigan football players. At the time, we had a officially licensed hat, that was sold at the Emden, and we had another t shirt that went along with it, which was also sold at the time, which is the official Michigan retailer, was the official Michigan retailer.
• 4:07
  And we had these 10 or 11 football players come in and we did a video shoot talking about different mental health related, topics, how it impacts them on the field, off the field, how they, as individuals deal with their mental health. And we launched this campaign. It was like a ten minute video that launched via YouTube with the merch to go along with it.
• 4:27
  And, you know, we've received so much positive feedback from this launch where, you know, shortly after the three of us came together, like, you know, we this is far too important to just kind of die out after after one campaign launch. And that's when the three of us, you know, decided, like, hey, like, we're going to turn the stigma into a brand of its own and really continue to to push this forward because we saw the opportunity to really make an impact and transform the way that mental health is perceived in sports.
• 5:00
  So it sounds like, again, you and Jared coming from more of, the merchandise, creative stuff. Coming from that background. But I want lubes. Carly. Because you needed the mental health support there, right? Like, we need the actual expertise of somebody who knows what they're talking about and can bring this to life in a way that,
• 5:19
  is most relevant and will have the right kind of impact.
• 5:22
  Is that right? Yeah. That's so one of my good friends who worked with me at football knew Jared really well. And then I kind of met Jared a little bit. Because I was just a couple months, I think, in at the time in Michigan. And I've always been really passionate for a lot of various reasons about athletes and mental health.
• 5:41
  And that overlap and just the importance of that. And so when I heard that they were interested in starting this, I was absolutely on board and kind of like, that's my kind of section in this all is the mental health side of things, of when we do campaigns, kind of the content based off of those campaigns and,
• 5:57
  I will never be the voice of the athletes because I want the athletes to be their own voice.
• 6:01
  But kind of helping give that voice to the athletes and it kind of being integrated into that system. But hearing about what their needs are and trying to understand those needs and incorporate that into the work that we do, I think is really important. And so the three of us balance each other out very well in that entry level stage of the business side of things.
• 6:19
  The overseer and the philanthropy, communications, mental health side of things, which is nice, that we all kind of have our strengths that we bring to the table. Yeah. Very cool. Did you expect to get the kind of response that you did, with the initial launch of it?
• 6:34
  yeah. I don't I don't know that we even had much of an expectation.
• 6:38
  I think it was really like, you know, let's, you know, like, I think internally we thought that we were doing something that was really cool and something that was, you know, very much so needed.
• 6:46
  obviously the hope was that any campaign that we were putting together, which would be successful in some form, but I don't think we expected to receive such positive feedback to the point where we would be like, hey, like we have a, a, an entire new entity on our hands.
• 7:01
  You know, not just, a campaign that would kind of phase out after, after an initial launch, like most of the other campaigns that, so each club had launched at around that time,
• 7:12
  I think I in a sense, came on board with it wanting to be a bigger thing, too. I am someone who's like, gets really excited about that type of stuff.
• 7:20
  So I, we, I, like Brett said, I don't think we had any expectations, but we were hoping it would be soaked up. Well, and I think the responses that we got were really exciting.
• 7:31
  Well, talk to me. I, I know we've, we've obviously touched on it. This is, about mental health and sport, but be direct.
• 7:39
  What what's the mission? What's the purpose? Of the company. I think really our goal, and this is kind of from the mental health side of things, is we want to create conversations through various activity. So whether that be merchandise, whether that be video campaigns, whether that be live events, I think we really want to spread awareness, spread resources, spread understanding, give that voice and create conversations.
• 8:03
  Really stigma is broken through conversations and through normalization. And so when we can kind of create something that people actually want to talk about, then that spreads awareness and a lot of different ways. So I'll give two stories if that's okay. That I think are good representative of that. Something that's I think really important to all of us is there are a million and there should be awareness companies in the world, like the more awareness organizations and conversations that are had, the better.
• 8:29
  I think always taking the approach of working together and having more and more and more is better, because then more people reach, right? Like the more people that do this type of stuff, no more people get reached in the long run. But something that I think makes our consumer different. And again, the more people they do with a great but that makes our someone special is I always want there to be an action item that goes along with everything.
• 8:50
  So every time there's a video campaign, there's a worksheet that goes with it. Every time there is a, event, we have something that's kind of a take home in some way. So it's like an action item after the conversation. So you start the conversation and then it's like, now what? There's something to actually do about it. And so people will use it in their curriculum.
• 9:08
  They'll watch the videos for example. And then they'll talk about it and have a conversation around the video. And then as a group, fill out the worksheet, which has been cool. I've gone, gone to go to my former high school, we've had other high school coaches or clinicians reach out and be like, hey, can I use your worksheet for this presentation?
• 9:26
  Where we do a deep dive, on that. So my two stories, I think that go along with this mission and purpose really well are one, the first campaign that we did, we made nine and eight shirts. So nine and eight is a suicide lifeline. And we kind of made shirts and sweatshirts and jerseys that made it look like a jersey number.
• 9:46
  But it was to raise awareness of what, nine and eight was. And at the time, really not a lot of people still to this day, not even a ton of people know exactly what that is. And so for one, we had a player at Michigan who wore his Sock the Stigma shirt before and after every game, and he was really struggling for a long period of time.
• 10:05
  But he wore the shirt before and after every game and is now open up and said that that was what gave him enough comfort, because he knew that somebody cared enough to make it and somebody cared enough to buy it. So he wore that as like a comfort blanket until he was able to get the courage to go and talk to somebody about it.
• 10:22
  And so wearing that shirt helped him find courage and find comfort and realize that people actually did care because he would see other people wearing it. To get that help. And then another example that was kind of like an individual example. Another example was I was at a Georgia game wearing a 9.8 stigma sticker, and I had a professor come up to me and he was like, oh, what's nine, eight, eight?
• 10:43
  Like, what are you wearing? And I explained it was a suicide lifeline, what it was. And he was like, wow, I didn't even know that existed. But because I now know that exists, I'm gonna put that on all my lecture slides. So my one conversation, because I was wearing a sticker with one person, now impacts multiple 300 like 300 people lectures from here on out every semester that he teaches.
• 11:05
  And so that's kind of our goal, right, is to educate and to teach and to break that stigma through conversations, whether it be every time I wear my socks, the stigma sweatshirt, the majority of time people will ask about it, and then I get to go on my little yapping blurb of or what it is and the importance of that.
• 11:20
  Or it could be me wearing a sticker and saying a resource or on the Instagram. When we do different campaigns, like we did a mental health playbooks campaign. What's in your mental health playbook? That was kind of a topic of conversation of what are your skills, tools, coping mechanisms that you use specifically as an individual to navigate life's ups and downs?
• 11:39
  Or what are your red flags and signs or some signs that you seen other people that may need to access their playbook or you need to access yours. So creating that educational resource, or the last one or the one we're doing right now is the emotional roller coasters campaign. Normalizing, having a conversation, having an emotional roller coaster of a year always, every day can be a tone, emotional roller coaster.
• 12:02
  So normalizing that you actually experience 27 different emotions a day, like those types of conversations, I think help people of all ages, whether they're athletes, former athletes, non-athletes, use that to have a conversation to normalize, to teach, to educate, and to just create that safe space where we're providing comfort, providing a place for people to open their voices and giving someone enough support, hopefully, for them to at least feel seen and feel heard.
• 12:28
  Yeah. Very cool. And again, the stories are great. I think they they help kind of bring it to life. And I was hoping that you guys would share a little bit of that and just how it's been personally meaningful, for you, how you've seen some of that impact. So, I think that's awesome. In the current landscape of college athletics, and despite the fact that, you know, schools like, Michigan and some of the ones that we work with here in Annapolis, like they have all of these resources, how in the world does there continue to still be a stigma with how much information is out there these days?
• 13:01
  And I say that knowing that there still is. Right. Like I'm working in these spaces just like you guys have been in.
• 13:07
  Why do you guys think that still exists? Like what's still what are still some of the challenges are the barriers, to truly sacking the stigma, something that we've been internally discussing a lot lately and trying to really focus in on is the reality of the fact that these athletes are almost perceived as superheroes by, you know, fans and and for lack of a better term, regular people who are watching them every week.
• 13:34
  And so, you know, they're from, you know, the majority of people are looking at them as like, hey, like they're just going to go out there and perform. They're my favorite player. They're expected to perform. And forgetting about the fact that they are actual human beings with emotions and feelings, just like, you know, every single other human being out there.
• 13:53
  And so I think a big component of what we're trying to do is, you know, humanizing them and giving them a platform to be like, hey, you know, you might have seen me rush for five touchdowns, but I also am struggling with this, this and that. And I also, you know, have a family and a life. And I'm a real human being outside of the sport.
• 14:12
  And so I think that's a big component of it. And I think that also trickles down to athletes feeling less comfortable and less willing to be vulnerable and open up about what they're sharing. Because, you know, you might admire the guy who's, you know, throwing five touchdowns a week, but as soon as he says, hey, I'm I'm struggling off the field, like not necessarily knowing, okay.
• 14:32
  Like, are they going to bench me for that? Are the fans going to not like me for that? You know, I think it's there's a lot of pressure put on athletes. And I think that, you know, the again, regular people around them, oftentimes don't acknowledge the, the human nature of it and the fact that, you know, these are regular people at the end of the day.
• 14:51
  And so, you know, that's definitely something that we're trying to lean in more and, you know, provide a platform for these athletes to open up and be like, hey, you know, I am human, I am I am a regular person just like you are. And, you know, the fact that they have such big audiences and platforms largely because of, you know, their performance or what people typically follow them for, opens up a massive opportunity for us to be for us to to again, really break down the stigma.
• 15:20
  And, and, you know, shift the narrative around mental health.
• 15:23
  I think, too, you think about the culture in addition to all of that, 100%, like the expectations that they have and the fears of getting benched if they were to like, talk about their mental health, that they're struggling. I think a lot of the stigma also comes from culture.
• 15:37
  So thinking about where do people come from and how they were raised? I think we're still very I think we always will be in some ways, obviously, hopefully it's lessening, but in a lot of ways, we're still in a world where our the older generation is very much like, no, you have to be tough all the time.
• 15:52
  You can't open up like, I hear that all the time. Like, no, my parents told me I had to be tough. I can't talk to you about this or I'm the man of the house. I have to suck it up. I have to figure it out. Or even females saying like, no, like I have to be strong. I don't want to be a typical girl.
• 16:05
  I don't want to be emotional. Like I have to be strong. And so that locker room environment, seems a lot of times from coaches is one what is a culture that they were brought up in their household and in their culture in general. And then when they get to a school, a high school, a college professional level, whatever it may be, the coach creating that environment, I think it's also really hard to because mental health is invisible a lot of the times, like sometimes there are physical symptoms that come along with it of lacking, well, physical symptoms and emotional mental health symptoms are very much so overlapped.
• 16:39
  But it's not like a broken bone. When you're in a cast and it shows up on an x ray, or it's not like you do your ACL and you're on crutches, that's very different. Versus mental health is a lot of times like, yes, physically you might feel very, very different and it might look different to some people who know you really well, but you usually can't walk on the streets and be like, hey, they have a mental illness, they have a mental illness, they have a mental illness, or even just like they struggle with mental health.
• 17:03
  And so I think normalizing well, win. Everyone has mental health. We don't all have a diagnosis, but we all have mental health in some way. But that's not normalized as much. So I think that stigma also comes from well, if you can't see it then it's not real. Then I need to push through it or I need to play through it.
• 17:21
  Or even with injuries, athletes play through injury all the time. I think it's the same thing with mental health. It's like, should they be playing through this concussion? Probably not, but they are. And they're being told to. So it's the same in a lot of sense, the same stigma that comes with mental health as well.
• 17:35
  I think just it feels like in the landscape of 2025 and college athletics, with how things have changed so rapidly in recent years, with players being paid now nil, like all that kind of stuff, it almost feels like the general public's view of athletes, like it's just making it harder on them because now it's like, well, you're
• 17:52
  not entitled to feel anything other than like, you make $1 million, go play. Right. And like their physical health or mental health, like none of that is a big concern. For the person who has $100 on an FanDuel bet on this game. Yep. What I mean, I like all of that I think has kind of calloused the general public, too, as you guys mentioned, sort of just view, student athletes like this is still an 18 to 22 year old kid who's developing and has a life outside of sport and all the things you guys mentioned.
• 18:27
  So, it just feels like, man, it's 2025 and things have progressed so much. And yet in some ways it feels like in sport especially, it's just like we're stuck in neutral with how we view this type of stuff. So when you hear people say all the time, like that's their job, that's what they're supposed to be doing, that's what they're getting paid millions of dollars to.
• 18:47
  I'm like, yeah, well, yeah, it's your job to go into work every day and you have days that you don't feel well, like we all, I think experience that. Like, yes, that is their job. When you get to the professional level in a lot of ways. But now, like you said, with the initial stuff that makes it their job to in college.
• 19:03
  And so that's, I think the hard piece of it. And the other factor of it all too is, yes, on paper that's our job. But you don't have someone watching you do your job every single day, or a crowd of people watching you do your job, but it's just as important, like all of the jobs are just as important.
• 19:18
  And so I think it's realizing that, yes, that is what they were born to do in a sense. But that doesn't mean that they're not that they're prone to not having any issues that go along at home. And then you sprinkle in just the magnitude of college where they're at today. And, what can feel like the weight of the world on these athletes shoulders?
• 19:39
  And then literally, like, you know, how sad is it to hear that college kids receive, like, death threats? I was about to say that. Yeah, for, you know, missing a field goal or performing poorly or whatever, in the eyes of the general public, like, it's pretty, it's pretty crazy to imagine. So again, it's just it's cool what you guys are doing.
• 19:57
  Tell me more. I guess, about, you mentioned a couple of the campaigns.
• 20:02
  Carly, talk a little bit about the the recent one, I guess. Just give us an idea. What's the the purpose behind the campaign? What are you trying to do? I know you mentioned, like, hey, we want to just start a conversation, but what does that actually look like?
• 20:13
  If I'm if I'm somebody who, you know, clicks through the, the Instagram like, what am I going to see? What am I going to hear? And ultimately then how okay, how are you guys measuring success in what you're doing? Yeah. So I think in general, Brad will be able to answer the measure of success a little bit better.
• 20:33
  I measure success on if one person gets any, I say. I mean, we both all three of us think this. Like if one person is reached, that's one life saved or one life impacted that success unto itself. That's not business success, but that's life success. And so I think that that's a huge piece of it too. I'll get to the emotional roller coasters campaign.
• 20:54
  I'll use an example quickly about what I talked about with the playbooks campaign. I was able to, like I said, to go back to my high school and speak about it, and we did a whole hour long session where we talked about we watched a video, we would talk about the video. We would hear what they said, we would discuss what it means to them, and then we would start to fill out that worksheet.
• 21:16
  So that was really cool because it was specific, tangible things. Same thing with this emotional roller coasters campaign. Like we want. These athletes are telling stories about and time that they experienced an emotional rollercoaster or times that they feel like. We talked about how it's very normal to experience multiple emotions in a day. So when you think of an athlete, they might be nervous before a game, but they also might be really excited.
• 21:41
  They might be sad that their season is over, but they are thankful that it happened. I talk about this with the clients that I work with all the time, like, and a lot of times it's really like a, oh, like, I am allowed to be like thankful, but also like frustrated. Like, that is very normal to be frustrated, like frustrated.
• 22:00
  You might not be playing as much, but grateful that you're on the team like those normalizations of that is like, oh, like I can experience multiple things. It doesn't have to be one or the other. And so we hope that for this emotional roller coaster campaign, they're hearing this and the normalization of yes, it is normal to experience 27 different emotions.
• 22:19
  That's one of the stats that we have them talking about throughout the day. And then hoping that people will fill out the worksheet and kind of map out their emotions and what they feel a certain thing. So they have the ability to go and circle which emoji that they feel like. So that might be more directed at kids, but like, how are you feeling today?
• 22:35
  What does that physically feel like? So when I'm happy, there's a smile on my face. And I think just that self-awareness piece of how you feel in certain situations and what puts you there or what keeps you there, if your goal is to, you aren't going to be happy 24 seven you shouldn't want to be happy 24 seven because then you wouldn't appreciate if you were never sad, you wouldn't appreciate the happy.
• 22:56
  And so that's another conversation that we have. These athletes talking about is understanding that failure, sadness, frustration is why you appreciate the good things that happen to you. Like you need the negative moments to appreciate that. So, kind of having those conversations is the conversational piece, but then also doing that self-reflection with the worksheet or with the therapist after you watch the videos or whatever it may be.
• 23:21
  That self-reflection piece of these are emotions that I feel. This is how I feel that, and the feedback has been really great of the athletes really like doing it, which is cool because they're sharing their stories.
• 23:33
  We actually had, an athlete reach out asking to do a soccer section at his camp. And so that is a great moment of he and his quote was, tagged someone makes mental health cool, which that probably has its pros and cons in a sense too.
• 23:47
  But like mental health? Cool. In the sense of like, yes, starting that conversation. And so that I think is a great way to measure success is do the athletes want to be a part of it? Is it something that inspires them and drives and motivates them? And that has pretty consistently been a yes. And then when I've done presentations, from the presentation standpoint, I got an email from the high school that I went back to saying that it was ranked their best presentation all year because of the content that they were able to watch and relate to.
• 24:13
  And so that was also really awesome to hear, because the kids like the content and they like hearing what these athletes have to say. So I think that that's one way from the more mental health standpoint. Well, better. But I mean, you can comment on the success piece as well, but also talk a little bit of just about, you know, what do you what are you trying to accomplish through merchandise.
• 24:35
  Right. So different channels here, right. We have like the campaigns and videos and so on. But then, just the representation of supporting the campaigns through by wearing, you know, a t shirt, a hat, whatever. Just the, you know, how meaningful is that? Yeah, absolutely. I'm glad you bring that up. I wanted to kind of dive into that a bit because I think, you know, when we were introducing the statement, we might have brushed over a little bit.
• 24:59
  But, you know, at the core of what we do is being able to design and, and sell, merchandise products to then pair that with social media campaigns. And so the campaigns that Carly was referring to, we've, you know, for two plus years now, we've been working very closely with University of Michigan and University of Michigan athletes, to work with student athletes on campus.
• 25:23
  Bring in, you know, close to ten athletes, a campaign and, allow them to basically, you know, have this platform to share their stories and reflect on their experiences based on whatever the specific theme of the campaign is. But merchandise has been. Definitely one of the most powerful tools that that we've utilized since our inception.
• 25:45
  Because, you know, merchandise, it's really it's it's an awareness tool on as a fundraising tool at the same time. And so essentially we're designing what we are hoping to, create is high quality, cool design products, because at the end of the day, it's like, you know, the the merchandise is not going to be powerful. People aren't going to actually wear it.
• 26:08
  And so it's how can we create cool products that people are actually going to wear that simultaneously double down as a, as a piece that's raising awareness for whether it just be mental health in general or a specific theme like under the mental health umbrella, like we've we've kind of leaned into. And so with merchandise specifically, you know, in our early days when we were first getting started, we had some of the biggest stars of Michigan football wearing, you know, the stigma gear for the game after the game and their press conference, you know, on the field in their warmups, whatever it might be.
• 26:43
  And the reality is, you know, there's millions of eyeballs on them. And so it's like, if we can create product to give them where it's not just getting kind of thrown in a pile in a closet with the other million t shirts that they get, and it's something that they're actually going to want to wear because of the design and the quality of it.
• 27:00
  And something that they're going to be proud to wear because of the calls surrounding it, we can ultimately reach so many people like, hey, so-and-so was wearing this shirt. This is raising awareness of the suicide crisis lifeline number. Now, you know, that can turn into, you know, we had college football on Fox tweeting, you know, and there's millions of views on that tweet talking about, hey, JJ McCarthy is wearing this before a game.
• 27:21
  And so, you know, I think and then the the other piece which Carly was kind of hitting on was it allows other people, the people who actually wear the products and purchase the products to feel seen, to feel heard and to feel comfortable with whatever it is that they might be dealing with. And so
• 27:36
  the additional component is we, we and we can kind of dive further into this, but we now have established the fact, the stigma Fund at University of Michigan, which is a partnership between the stigma of Michigan Medicine and the Eisenberg Family Depression Center.
• 27:50
  And so now you take a merchandise piece that we're releasing, you know, the athletes are wearing it. They're able to raise, you know, significant awareness through their platforms and their thousands or millions of followers that they have. And, you know, anyone else who purchased it is then kind of serving as this walking billboard of raising awareness for whatever that specific cause might be.
• 28:10
  Simultaneously, as we're selling them, we're able to donate a portion of proceeds to the Sock the Stigma fund to then push forward and raise funds for mental health related causes right now in the surrounding Ann Arbor areas. And hopefully, as we bring this to other campuses or other teams, you know, it's the same thing. It's like, you know, we just want to raise awareness and simultaneously raise funds to then kind of push all of this work forward.
• 28:34
  Yeah. Very cool. And I can say, you sent me you sent me a hoodie. I rocked the nine, eight, eight hoodie. And I had I had questions, right. So I'm already an ambassador of the brand. I've had some conversations. I've impacted my my couple of people. So, you know, we love that. And exactly. It's like Carly was hitting on before.
• 28:52
  It's you know, one conversation can can do a lot more than you think. And you know, I wear the we have a set Sigma 988 football jersey. And you know the amount of I wear those to Michigan games all the time. And the amount of times I'm asked like who wears number nine eight, eight. Like what is that jersey.
• 29:07
  And it's you know, right there. It's like, that's exactly why I'm wearing it. You know, I want you to ask that question so I can then, you know, educate you and inform you of this available resource. And that might lead to, you know, hundreds of more, thousands of more people then being educated on that. And so that's exactly why we do it.
• 29:22
  And so we put a lot of thought into, you know, again, I hit on wanting the designers to be cool and wanting the quality to be on point, but also just putting a lot of thought into like, how can we spark conversation from this product? Because that's such a such a big factor of of, you know, what can really make our merchandise release successful?
• 29:40
  Yeah. So, so I guess, you know, based on that and you just mentioned some of these things, but how could our listener support, the mission, you know, if they wanted to, to help out or get involved to learn more about you guys? Like what? What can I do? Where would you point them?
• 29:56
  we did our first live event, a couple of weeks ago, but every time we've done a live event, we've come in person somewhere. Every time that we've posted something, we every single time we have someone reach out saying that they want to get involved in some way, which has been really special to see, I think, if anyone ever wants to help out, they're more than welcome to reach out and then in general to just getting involved when you buy anything Michigan related, a percentage of proteins, good proteins proceeds go to
• 30:23
  the SAC, the Sigma fund, which like I said, impacts. And Brett was saying, the Ann Arbor area and research and resources, for the Ann Arbor community. But something I think that's been cool is a ways to get involved are. Yes, by watching by doing like teachers can use this in curriculum. Clinicians can use this with their clients, purchasing any of the merchandise and spreading awareness that way.
• 30:49
  Sharing, on social media because people can watch it that way. And then in terms of bringing it to schools, something that we found to is with all of this initial stuff, athletes have to get paid in order or have to do something in order to get paid. So we've found a really cool partnership, which we want to continue to elaborate on in a variety of places, is they actually want to be doing this type of work, like they don't want to always just be doing something because it's Coke or it's Pepsi or it's whatever the brand is.
• 31:22
  This is something that's actually meaningful to them. So yes, they're getting paid for it. But we are able to team up with collectives, and the collectives unto themselves are able to pay these athletes to be able to support a service that's really exciting to them. And continues to spread awareness.
• 31:39
  the the easiest thing to do for, for most listeners is check us out on Instagram at The Stigma. And check out our website sector sigma.com. And there you'll see a lot of the videos that we were referencing earlier in this conversation. Right now featuring mostly Michigan student athletes, hopefully in the near future will, you know, include athletes from other schools or teams.
• 32:02
  And, you know, we just really want you to engage with the content, hopefully take away something from the content. And again, the, the shop is open on site, the sigma.com, for anybody to purchase gear, which obviously raises awareness on its own and doubles down as, as a fundraising tool. And so, you know, every purchase that that comes in is, again, not just turning into this, this walking billboard for, for an incredible cause, but simultaneously raising funds for it, to push our work forward.
• 32:31
  it's awesome. Just quickly want to clarify. I can support the University of Michigan by buying Michigan stuff. The general sack, the Sigma stuff. Is that going to Michigan and where's that headed? That's probably going to apply to our listeners here. So I want to make sure.
• 32:46
  Right. If they you know, you tell, you know, some Clemson or some South Carolina folks like they're supporting the University of Michigan and like, I don't know, Mike. Yeah. So I'm glad you bring that up because that's actually something we've been wanting to introduce at a much greater scale. We've kind of, you know, because we've worked so closely with Michigan.
• 33:06
  We fell into this bucket of like, we're constantly churning out new Michigan products. And, you know, there's, a lot of people out there who are like, hey, like, can I just get a black and white hoodie or something different? So your, you know, one, being able to support mental health related causes, not just in Ann Arbor, but also be able to represent, you know, the brand and wear gear that's not just you know, pledging allegiance to a fan base that you don't necessarily root for.
• 33:30
  And so, you know, in terms of proceeds, we don't have many that unfortunately right now don't have many non Michigan products on our website. The products that we do have on there, some of them are collaborations. We've collaborated with incredible organizations like Zelensky's Hope, the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. And so those collaborations benefit their respective organizations.
• 33:53
  And we're working now to introduce much more, you know, neutral colored products that can, you know, cater to anybody, regardless of who you're a fan of. And so we're going to work to kind of hash out what the fundraising beneficiary of that will be. You know, as we're continuing to try to work with other universities, we'd like to replicate the model that we've established at Michigan and create, you know, funds on those campuses.
• 34:15
  So it's like, hey, you know, you're a fan of insert whatever school you're going to directly support the mental health resources on that campus by you purchasing. But, yeah, in terms of just the neutral color products, we're we're still hashing that out. And for the listeners that are that are not Michigan fans, we're we're sorry if you're disappointed, but come back, come back soon and, we'll have some more products for you.
• 34:35
  We're working on it. Trust me, I it is in we're it is in the motion. I've been driving, Brett and I've been working on this for a while. So, with that being said, and also I think, too, it's important to notice that, like, it helps our initiatives too. So any of the non licensed products also help us be able to continue to run the campaigns that we're doing at different schools or for the segment to itself.
• 34:57
  So that's a huge piece of it. Awesome,
• 35:00
  So let's, you know, push to a close on this. Just tell me more about kind of the big picture like vision. You know, you look down the line a couple of years and what what do you hope you have accomplished
• 35:13
  I think the biggest thing is, you know, we want to ultimately transform the way that mental health is perceived in sports.
• 35:19
  We want athletes to feel comfortable speaking up about what it is that they're dealing with. We want our athletes to feel comfortable embracing the fact that they are human beings outside of their sport. And, you know, not be afraid to say like, hey, you know, regardless of what you watch on Saturdays or on Sundays. You know, I deal with this, this and that, and I'm a real person, too.
• 35:41
  And so I think that, you know, in order to accomplish that, we're looking to expand our efforts outside of just University of Michigan. We're looking to work with hopefully dozens or hundreds of more universities, high school teams, professional teams, to then, you know, basically leverage those existing platforms to amplify this message, and create a, create a worlds and a space where athletes are comfortable, for lack of a better term, the regular people at home are, you know, like, hey, I look up to so-and-so player on so-and-so team.
• 36:12
  And if they're talking about mental health, like, maybe I should be talking about my mental health too. Or maybe I should be acknowledging that, you know, it's okay to not be okay and you're not alone in whatever you're dealing with. And so I think it's really a matter of scaling our efforts, working with additional programs, and ultimately fostering an environment where we can we can stop the stigma and, and, and, you know, make everybody feel more comfortable and heard with whatever it is they might be dealing with.
• 36:38
  Yeah. And inclusive of obviously all sports, hopefully all ages, all levels I think is really important too, of tackling the stigma. Yes, the stigma sounds like a football terminology, but we don't just work with football. We're sacking the stigma across athletics as a whole, so and across like when you see it, across athletics, talking it also across the regular population too, because in some ways, other people are involved.
• 37:04
  And so like for the live event that we did, almost everyone in the audience was, the average student, but they wanted to come and hear the panel. So, in addition to everything he said, I think it's more partnerships, more, awareness working with a variety of people, continuing to unleash those campaigns that are educational, but also hopefully having like a consistent event or consistent public speaking engagements, etc., to continue to get out in the community and hopefully in the long run, raise a lot of money that can go back to help mental health, whether it be through a scholarship perspective, a research perspective, whatever the school organization, team, group wants to be using
• 37:44
  it for. But hopefully in the long run, that's our goal that we can continue to get. We can educate, but also give back to that community. So yeah, very cool. As a guy who now has, you know, a four year old, an 18 month old at home, like looking down the line and hoping that this gets better and starting a new sport, right, so that they have better experiences.
• 38:06
  Like, obviously very easy mission to get behind. So, I'll give you guys opportunity. Any final thoughts before we kind of close out here?
• 38:13
  thank you so much for, for having us, because, you know, like we were hitting on earlier, it's, you know, if, if one person listens to this and they're impacted by this and, you know, can, you know, find interest in or passion and what's that the stigma is doing?
• 38:29
  You know, it's it's it's a win. And so in as, as we continue to fight against the stigma around mental health, that's, you know, we we appreciate you providing us with a platform to share. You know, our journey and kind of what we're working on. And, you know, just thanks so much for having us on.
• 38:47
  Yeah, I took it that I was going to say, like, you people like this are the reason that the stigma is being sacked. Like, this is the reason why change is happening. And creating that platform in those conversations is really special. So thank you so much for that. And I think the cool thing about this too, is it can be something that you can do on an individual level.
• 39:06
  So I hope people hearing this can go to the website and either interact with it and hey, I'm kind of needing to like reflect today. Let me see if those worksheets are available or I want to watch some people talk about this. So like normalize my feelings or it can be a bigger group effort of wanting to start something on their campus.
• 39:23
  But either way, hopefully it's an impact in some way. So thank you for one, the work that you do, because mental performance is huge in this world and it makes a huge impact on thousands of people, millions of people. And thank you for providing us a space, to give shine light on a topic that we deem is so important.
• 39:43
  Yeah, absolutely. Brett Farley, thank you guys. And again, just for our listeners, at Sector Sigma on Instagram or Cipher sigma.com. Appreciate you guys. And, talk to you soon. Thank you. All right. Thanks so much, Corey.