Transcript of The Mindset That Makes You Unstoppable with Ed McCaffrey

You probably know Ed McCafree, All-American and Stanford, three-time Super Bowl winner, and he is all that big. We're going to go through and talk through all the things that he's doing with McCafree brands. Ed is going to tell us why his mustard is the best mustard in the world, and I can actually agree with that. We're going to talk about and find out how many bones John Elway may have broken in Ed's hands, and we're also going to find out what his favorite route was in football. Ladies and gentlemen, I present All-American human beings, Mr. Ed McCafree.

You're listening to Mic Unplug, hosted by the one and only Mic Hunt. This is where purpose meets power and stories spark transformation. Mic takes you beyond the motivation and into meaning, helping you discover your because and Becoming Unstoppable. I'm Rudy Rush, and trust me, you're in the right place. Let's get Unplugged.

How are you doing today, brother?

I am doing great. Thank you, Mick, for that Very kind introduction. And congrats to Stanley. One, it was an honor to hear that he even knew who I was, but that he's up for the Hall of Fame is pretty cool. Hopefully, he'll get in in a few weeks.

Fingers crossed that he definitely gets in. I'm honored to have you on. Again, been a huge fan of you all of my life, even though as a Patriot guy, the Broncos were always our nemesis. So you guys always beat us. Shannon Sharp has this famous little scene where he's calling the National because the Patriots are horrible. But I've always been a fan of you. And more importantly, not what you did on the field, but what you've always done off the field, and not just post career, but even during your career, you were very involved in communities. You were always a giver, and that's something that I admired, and it stuck with me. So I just want to give you your flowers and say kudos to you for being that all-American human being that you're our brother.

Well, thank you. I appreciate it. If you look back at that video, I was sitting right next to Shannon when he was calling in the National Guard. It's pretty hilarious. I think it was Rod and I were looking at him and wondering what the heck he was doing, but he was having fun, and he's still having fun. But we used to have the best of that matchup when I was playing. Certainly, the tides turned there for a while, and now both the Broncos and the Patriots are looking good. Who knows? They may face each other in a championship game at this point.

As long as it's in Foxborough, though, because we do not win in Mile High Stadium.

Yeah. I don't want to fly to Foxborough, so I'm hoping it's here right here in Denver, Colorado. But also, regarding philanthropy and giving back, I've always just believed it's important to use your platform to make the world a better place, and however you can do that. For me, it was through our foundations and through running football camps, whether it be for 10 years, we did one for young athletes with down syndrome. We've done stuff for kids from military families. Now my son Christian is very involved with his foundation, and he supports the military as well and has a project called the Logan Project, where they're putting in video consoles in the children's hospitals all over the country, and a lot of other NFL players are participating with him in doing that in their NFL cities. It's so cool to be able to be in a position to give back in that way. I know you do as well. So many NFL players do so much good in the community. Sometimes you hear about it, sometimes you don't. You don't really do it to have people hear about it, but certainly it feels fulfilling to me and to Lisa and to our boys who feel that it's important to give back.

So thanks for acknowledging that. I just want to say to anyone listening that if you really look into what all the players and a lot of the coaches and organizations are doing, in my neck of the woods, it's the Penner family. It's the Walton Penner Group and all that they're doing, they're bringing alumni back. They're donating tons of money to schools. They did a thing where they donated helmets to every single public school in Colorado so that the football players are safer. It starts with the owners and the leadership of the NFL teams, but it trickles down to the players. Then those players on those teams feel the same sense of fulfillment when they're able to give back to their communities.

Wholeheartedly. My oldest son coaches high school football at Air Academy out in Colorado Springs. When I told him that I was interviewing you, and I purposely didn't tell you this offline, he was like, Just let Ed know that he inspires me to give. And he's 25 years old, and now he volunteers his time in the communities just because you're someone that's inspired him. So your reach, man, on the philanthropy part But also, a lot of people don't grasp just the time, energy, and effort that goes into that. I mean, you probably spend more time away from home than you do at home, but you're doing it from a giving perspective. And that's something that my son was able to see being out in Colorado, just like how dynamic you are, not just in the Denver community, but across the state of Colorado. And it expands into other states as well. I know in California, you're doing a lot. And it's just something that I'm proud that my son sees that. And that's something that as a dad, as a father, you hope that those principles get instilled in your children, but you never know. But it takes people like you that they can see, oh, it's more than my dad that does these things.

It's people like Ed McAfee. It's people like a Robert Irvine, who I need to introduce you to as well with this foundation. But you guys are providing spark for younger people that when I was growing I didn't see that. But now you provide it so that people see it. So I need to give you kudos for that.

Well, thank you. I'm glad to be a part of it.

Yes, sir. So, Ed, I talk a lot about what I call my be cause. It's that thing that's deeper than your why. If I were to ask you, Ed, what's your why? You probably tell me all the cool things that you do. But if I said, but why? What's the deeper reason? I call that your because. So if I were to ask you today, like Ed McAfree.

Here's the real truth about AI. Ai didn't change my businesses because it's cool. It changed my businesses because it removed friction. My teams move fast. Podcast production, media deals, leadership development. We have systems everywhere, and for a long time, speed meant chaos. Then we leaned into Zappier. Zappier is how we stopped talking about AI and started deploying it. We use Zappier to connect the tools that we already use every Every single day. Leads get enriched automatically. Workflows trigger without reminders. Systems talk without meetings. And here's what matters. You don't need to be technical. You don't need IT. You don't need complexity. Zappier is built for real teams doing real work who want real results. No hype, no buzzwords, just time back and momentum forward. Join the 3. 4 million companies already automating with Zappier and transform how you work with Zapier and AI. Get started for free by visiting zapier. Com/mic. That's Z-A-P-I-E-R. Com/mic.

Verwandle deine Leidenschaft mit Shopify in ein business und knack Umsatzrekorde mit dem Checkout mit der weltweit besten Conversion. Du hast richtig gehört. Der Checkout mit der weltweit besten Conversion. Der legendäre Checkout von Shopify vereinfacht das Shoppen auf deiner Website bis hin zu Social Media und überall dazwischen.

What's your because?

Why do you continue to have this passion and the purpose that you do in life with connecting and impacting others?

Yeah, that's such a great question. I think people think about that all the time and sometimes maybe reevaluate and potentially that cause could change. But I've always been part of a team. I love being part of a team. I love providing value to other people. In terms of our businesses with McAfee Brands LLC, we're in the business of making good food taste better. Everybody eats, everybody Food brings families together. Food brings people together. It's something that we all share. It's usually a happy time when you're able to celebrate with other people and sit down and break bread with them. It's It's a real simple goal, help make good food taste better. When I was an athlete, and my wife Lisa played soccer at Sanford, I played football, we'd walk down to the market and grab a sandwich, and it was a turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomato, onion on a Dutch Crunch Roll, if you know what that is, we'd go down to Molly's Stone Market in California, down the street from campus, and I'd have the same sandwich every single day. After a while, Well, it gets bland. I would put spicy brown mustard on it to make it a little more flavorful and taste a little bit better.

I was eating really healthy, non-fat turkey burger and chicken and really lean protein sources. It was a way to make my meal taste a little bit better, brighten up my day just a little bit. It's a little thing. We're not reinventing the wheel here. We're not some huge tech company. We're just trying to bring a little bit of joy into people's lives like it did for me when I was trying to eat really healthy. That's the goal. Then we branched into healthy snacks this past year. The goal of McAfee Brands, when it comes to our healthy snack category, is just to make healthy food taste great because most healthy food, especially packaged goods and snacks, they don't taste all that good. You add protein to them and they get mediciney and chalky. It took us probably five years to finally create a great tasting healthy snack. We have what I consider to be pretty good flavors in chocolate chip, cookie dough, fudge, brownie, and birthday cake. But they taste great, in my opinion. Now, I'm biased because when it came to taste testing our mustards and our horseradish sauces, it was me that got to do all the taste testing, which is the most fun part of it.

We went out to various manufacturers and tasted hundreds of different iterations and flavor profiles until I came up with the ones that I liked the best. The mustard and horseradish sauces were created before my kids were born. This was back in the '90s when I was still playing. But our healthy snacks, we found an incredible manufacturer that created a phenomenal product for us recently. But my kids, I have one coaching for the dolphins, one playing for the 49ers, one playing for the commanders. My son Dylan is helping me with the business now. He's an outdoor and they all eat really healthy and are athletes. But they're for athletes. They're for anybody who wants to just eat a little bit healthier but doesn't want to choke down a stick of chalk while they're trying to eat healthy. But I guess, going back to your question, being a former player is part of a team, being a coach who coach many teams, being a CEO of a small business requires the help of a lot of a lot of people. We have a website team. We have a great ops team, an accounting department. We have a PR marketing team.

There's about 20 of us altogether that are working really hard to grow our business. It's being part of a team together. It's working together to be part of something bigger than yourself to provide value to people. I guess that gives me fulfillment. I love working with other people. I love being part of a team. I love trying to provide value to people in this world. We do it through our food products company. There's lots of ways to do it. We run camps in the summer, which we still do with our family just because we love football. My kids had such a great experience at camps growing up. We wanted to continue to give back what we knew about that sport. But I guess it all comes back to being part of a team and having some control and direction in terms of where we are going with our business and with our team and being able to help others become better while I'm learning at the same time and getting the right people on the bus. So we have a wonderful team. It's fun to work with the people. I'm lucky. I'm blessed to be around a lot of wonderful people who are great at what they do.

Putting them on the right seats on the bus, making sure everyone is using their skill set to the best or the ability, challenging them, and helping bring out the best in them. They help bring out the best in me. For a while there, when I was retired, I've been retired multiple times, it gets lonely, and I did some things on my own, but I found I just love working with other people and sharing in those successes and overcoming those adversities together.

Totally agree. The mentality that you have is spot I talk a lot, and one of my mentors, Carl Esther Crumpler, was coaching me last year. He was like, Mick, you talk about joy, you talk about happiness, but what about fulfillment? Shouldn't that be what you measure? And it totally changed my outlook, not just on me as a human, me individually, but also my teams. And so we started focusing on what fulfills us. And a lot of that went to getting people in the right seats. I can admit, I got it wrong. Putting people in the wrong seats. They're loyal. They're going to do the job, but that job might not have been fulfilling to them. It might not have been the fulfillment. So I think you're talking about that as a leader is spot on, man. So kudos to you for that. I want to go back to you starting McAfee Brands and what that really meant for you. And what was your true purpose of saying this This was what you were going to do, but then putting the energy behind it because a lot of people have a bunch of great ideas, and a lot of people start a bunch of projects and they never complete.

What was your commitment to it?

Yeah, well, in the beginning, I had a business My business partner, who I worked with in the '90s. I was still playing, man. Broncos were still lining up against the Patriots. My business partner, Ty, had done other projects. He did Serial with Fluty Flakes. Maybe you've heard of those. He He's worked with John Elway and worked with Josh Allen, worked with all these players over the years. But back then, it was Ed's Endzone O's. It was me jumping through a little cheerio. It's cool. But I did it partially to raise some money for our foundation at the time. Some of the proceeds went to our foundation. We still donate some of our proceeds today to Charitable Endeavors, which is a cool way to just raise some money for good causes. But we're a for-profit business now. But for 20 some years, we had Ed Zenzonos for a couple of years. We had Eddie Mac and Cheese for a couple of years. We had some other food products. But our mustard is the best in the world. It really is. I didn't do a whole lot for the business. I was coaching. After I was done playing, I was coaching.

I work for some other companies and some other industries, and I never really even attempted to grow the business. My business partner ran it, and we had just this phenomenal product that sold even long after my retirement. It's the longest running food It's a product that my business partner has had in his pipeline. It's because the product is phenomenal. It's not just the fact that there were a lot of Broncos fans that bought a collectible. It was that maybe in the beginning, that was the case, but over time, this is a really incredible premium product. It tastes really good. Today, I'm known either as Christian or Luke's dad, or the mustard guy. The mustard guy. We sell mustard. Ty had worked Newman's Own, and we took that fun approach of putting my picture on the label, and we had fun with it. But after I was done coaching, I had to make a really tough decision on whether I wanted to grow the business or whether I wanted to let it ride. I decided, after working with Ty and restructuring our company and hiring Ty back to work with me, that we really had some potential here.

There was a great opportunity I love that people loved our product, and I thought, You know what? We could do more with this. People really love our product, and we can create other products that people will love. We're in a good position to do it. It starts with having great suppliers, having great manufacturers, having people, great distributors. But we had to grow a team. It wasn't going to happen just with me and Ty working out of our house. I really decided to invest in the growth of our company. We know When you're an entrepreneur, it's always a risk. You have to invest. But to invest, for me, at least, I have to believe in what we're doing. I believe in who we can bring together to help grow our company. I knew I had a rock star in tie, but we decided to increase our reach from just brick and mortar to online sales. But it all started with just having a phenomenal product, and me seeing this as an incredible to work with other people to create more phenomenal products that bring value to people by making the food taste better. We created a website, run on a PR team, brought an official accountant, hired a couple of other people to work with us, signed agreements with major distributors and other major retailers.

But it did take a huge investment in a belief in what we were doing. I brought people into our company that believed in what we were doing and that found that fulfillment by growing our business and creating new products. Again, it's simple, but it's making people's food taste better. Everybody eats and everyone wants their food to taste better. We're in an interesting position where we can do that because we have phenomenal manufacturers that we work with that will create any products that we want. We made that decision about a year and a half ago, and we've more than doubled our sales in a year. It was due to really just incredible teamwork and a belief in our vision and our mission. But that's always the goal. Everything we do... When I was a player, everything I did was based on whether or not it would help our team win a Super Bowl. Will this help our team win a Super Bowl? If it didn't, I wouldn't do it, whether that meant getting your sleep or eating right or getting treatment or studying the playbook. Whatever I did was to help me become the best player I could be to help my team win a Super Bowl.

That's the attitude we have with Mccaffry Brands. Everything we do is to help bring new creative premium products to market that make people's food taste better that provides them value. If it doesn't, then we won't do it. If we believe it does, then we will do it. So far, that's been our recipe for success, if you will.

That's why you are a phenomenal leader, man, because that's the mentality that it takes. And you've talked about your mustard being the best mustard in the world, and I will cosign on that because I've been able to have it and sample it as well, too. What goes into creating the best mustard in the world, aside pleasing Ed McCaffrey's palate. What goes into making that happen?

Oh, we could sit here and talk about that all day. But for me, I consider myself a supertaster. Now, anybody can claim that, but I love food. If anything, I have to try to eat less food because I love food so much. So when we started with our line of mustard and horse radish sauces, again, it was to make the very healthy, bland foods I was eating taste better. But so many people have hundreds and thousands of recipes that they use horseradish and mustard for. But you want to use the best. We're a premium product where we use healthy ingredients, which means we need to get really high-quality ingredients to be able to make our mustard. Then we have to have an incredible manufacturer who we found that will help us create our flavor profiles until we get the one that we like for whatever category we have. Right now, we have six SKUs. We We have spicy brown, we have yellow, we have chipotle, Sriracha, we have horse radish, smoky horse radish, and we're coming out with a whole bunch of more creative sauces and mustard products in 2026 and 2027. But for me, I've really found a lot of value with our manufacturers who help secure the best premium ingredients and have, honestly, the manufacturing facility, because these are multimillion dollar facilities.

I mean, tens of millions of dollars to create the type of facility that can make premium products with the healthiest ingredients. It took a long time to find the right manufacturer that is reliable, that's accountable, that you can work with. We were very We're very lucky. With the manufacturers that we work with, with our mustard and horseradish products are the best in the world. We rely on the collaboration with mustard makers, that whose families have been in business for hundreds of years. I don't think you just make the best product in the world by chance. We relied on hundreds of years of experience in families who have made mustard and horseradish sauces. We really lucked out with our manufacturer. We really did. Now that's at a very high bar for all of the other manufacturers that we work with. By working with our original manufacturer, have been to understand what it takes to be able to deliver consistently premium products. It's not just the actual quality of the price, not just the taste. It's being able to deliver that consistently. But then you get into the business side of all of the contracts that we have with the suppliers that provide the ingredients to create the mustard in the plant.

Then you get into distribution and pricing and negotiating with retailers and online. It's a whole to-do, which is why I had to bring in a lot of extra people who had expertise in all these different areas to help me run the company. As founder and CEO, I oversee all processes, but make sure that I bring in people that have expertise in different areas so that we can continue to grow. But for me, it's down to the people. I have to really identify the best people for us to work with. And so far, so good. And that's preparation. It's due diligence, researching the people that you're working with. It's determination, being willing to work through all of the different issues that you might have running your business. And it's a little bit of luck. I'll admit it, a little bit of lucky that the people that I partnered with ended up being really good, high-quality people that care about their businesses and our business as well.

I think you can discern that in certain people. This is me giving you another shout-out. For the mustard, because I do agree, and I'm usually not a mustard guy, especially Dijon, but like, yours is amazing. The perfect binder for crabcakes is your mustard. And when I'm out in Colorado, I always stop at a spot with my son, and my turkey sandwiches always have to have your mustard. So I promise you, this is me talking to the viewers and the listeners. When he says it's the best, he's literally not lying. So, Where can people get the Mccaffry brand products?

Well, first of all, thank you because we do it for you. We do it for people who find some value in having a great tasting quality product. That makes me so happy when I hear that. Every time someone enjoys our product, it puts a smile on my face. So thank you. And send me your recipes as well. We love collecting recipes, and we'll, at some point, put them on the website just so people can share some of the things other people are But in terms of finding the product, in Colorado, we sell at KingSoupers. In city markets, we sell at Safeway and Albertsons, so you can find them on the shelves of those retailers. We sell online with Amazon, and we sell on our website, mecaffrebrands. Com. So the easiest place to go is just to our website, unless you live in Colorado. Now, our protein bites have been selling in King's Supers. We're hoping they're in Safeway next year. They are at Dix Sporting Goods. Dix Sporting Goods has been an incredible partner We're in 200 stores nationally, up to 400 stores next year nationally, and we have all three of our SKUs: Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, Budge Browning, and birthday Cake are all on the shelves at Dix Sporting Goods stores.

The orders keep coming in. So far, so good. We've had great retail partners as well. I want to thank all of them. If you want to find our products, that's where you can look.

I will tell you this, too. I was at one of the Dicks in Denver, and I got the chocolate chip cookie dough. It's not supposed to be that good. I promise you, it's not supposed to be that good, brother.

Well, I appreciate. Our first three skews, because we're going to come out with more, but our first three skews, I wanted them to be delicious, no doubt about it. We can't air on these not tasting great. Who doesn't like chocolate chip cookie dough? But it's healthy. That's the difference. You can have these and it tastes incredible for a healthy snack. Plant-based protein, gluten-free, non-GMO, super healthy. A lot of people with allergies can eat eat these with no problem whatsoever, because I know that's a big thing these days, all healthy ingredients. We think they're absolutely delicious. They're in a ziploc bag, as you can see. You can eat one bite, three bites, stay under 100 calories, get your protein intake, or you can eat the whole bag like I do once a day and get 20 grams of protein.

You're talking about one bite, three bite, bro. What happened was I immediately had one bite in my son's car. We get to his apartment and I got a glass of milk and ate the rest of them. I was like, these are healthy, but they taste delicious. So kudos to you and the team and everybody that's involved in making it. Ed, I'm honored to have you on, man. I know you're busy and I got to let you go, but I can't do this justice without ending with my quick five rapid fire questions and Macafree. Ready? Your favorite route to run was what?

Fade route in the end zone.

Knew it. Knew it every time. Your favorite football memory is?

Super Bowl 32. John Elway taking the knee on the last play of the game. We were in the victory formation. Watch that last second tick off the clock. The Denver Broncos won their first Super Bowl in Bronco's history.

Yes, sir. So my uncle played in a Pro Bowl with John Elway's starting quarterback. He was starting receiver. He said in practice, he caught a pass from Elway and it shattered his pinkie. So my uncle no longer has a bone in his right pinkie because John Elway broke it. How fast and how hard was John Elway's fastball, bro?

Well, let's just say he broke both my ring fingers, so he threw pretty hard. He was one of the few players who could throw that come So for the come-back route, after the receiver started breaking down and coming out of the route. So for people that don't know what a comeback route is, back in the day, they were pretty deep down the field, 20 yards down the field, breaking back in a 45 for the sideline. And so typically as a quarterback, you got to throw that ball early. You got to hope the receiver breaks down and comes out of the break where you want him to, because if you throw it late, it's going to get picked. Can't be late on an out route or behind the receiver on an out route. So there were times where I would be coming out of my break, I'd peak and the ball's just leaving his hand, and it would get to me in time before the DB could make a break on it. So I've never seen anything like it. He had a cannon for an arm.

Absolutely. So you are the taste connoisseur. What's something you will no longer eat, though, or that you don't like?

Oh, I don't like the fat. I love steaks. It's one of my favorite meals. I love eating red meat and protein, but I can't eat the actual fat on the steak, so I have to cut it off my steak. I have to eat really lean red meats, and if it's a fatty steak, I'll just go to work on it.

I'm the same way. I eat filet if I have a steak, and I'll go to spot steakhouses and they're like, Oh, you should do this wagyu Or this marbleized rib. I'm like, I'm not going to like it. I promise you, I'm not going to like it. So that's interesting. All right, last question, Ed, and this is probably the most important one for me. As your legacy is being built and You can't speak for yourself, but your legacy can. What's one sentence that you want your legacy to be defined as?

Oh, man. Hopefully, people remember me as a good husband, a good father, and someone who cared about other people.

All-american Ed McAfee, brother. I appreciate you more than you know, man. This has been an honor. There's so many other things I want to talk to you about and ask you about, but I'm going to make sure that I get with your team the next time I'm out there because my son is out there. I'm going to come say hello, or maybe if the Patriots do end up playing in Mile High for the playoffs, I'll come say hello.

Definitely. If you're in Colorado, give me a shout. We'll get together and say hi to Stanley for me, man.

All of you. I will totally do that. We'll totally do that. For ladies and gentlemen, for everybody listening and watching, your because is your superpower. Go unleash it.

That's another powerful conversation on Mic Unplug. If this episode moved you, and I'm sure it did, follow the show wherever you listen. Share it with someone who needs that spark, and leave a review so more people can find their because. I'm Rudy Rush, and until next time, stay driven, stay focused, and stay Unplugged.