My Story

 

The beginning 

It all started with a conversation at church. While talking to a friend who was interested in searching out his heritage, he discovered that he belonged to a tribe. He began to tell me about the tribe in detail and some of the character traits they had. I was so inspired that I thought, "someone should tell this story and it would be cool to make shirts about this or something." From that moment leaving the conversation the idea of Gad Tribe apparel was birthed.

Now as great as that sounds here is the part where I point out that at that time I was recently married and laid off a month after! As if that wasn't enough to stress about let's throw a pregnancy in the mix. Yup, my 5th child was on the way. Yea I said 5th.

With all this taking place I still had this burning desire to start this brand. I couldn't shake it. The Lord even gave me dreams about it. So I had to start.

This is the part of the story where the sleepless nights comes in. I spent many nights just learning from youtube anything I could to start my brand. I learned how to use Adobe illustrator and photoshop off of youtube videos to help me design and I moved forward from there. 

Through the years I failed forward to get to where we are today. The process taught me so much. Some lessons hurt more than others but I believe it shaped me into who God needed me to be. Gods timing is perfect. 

And the story continues....

 

THE MESSAGE

From the beginning I wanted the message to be bigger than a "tribe of Israel". Although that is an important thing in itself I wanted a message that tied to uniqueness. There were 12 different tribes of Israel each distinct from one another. The tribe of gad were warriors, devout and skilled in what they did and believed. They were not ashamed of who they were at the core. So my message needed to carry something along those lines. Something that could reach everyone.

I wanted it to be something that inspired people to be true to themselves, down to the very core. Because I know a lot of people struggle with being themselves everyday. 

One day as I was listening to a message, a quote came to me. "To hate yourself is to criticize God's masterpiece. To not be yourself is to criticize God's genius."

Thats when I knew the message of the brand was to tell people to be themselves. To be real. To be Authentic.

 

Someone once said you are at your best when you are authentic to your core! That is what we believe and strive to inspire people to reach for. As each of us is different in appearance, skill sets, and many other ways we should remain true to ourselves as we discover our sense of purpose. Perhaps you may create or impact the world in such a way that we may never see if you never dared to show up authentic. 

Thats why I strive to inspire authenticity through the brand. I dare you to show up authentic.

 

Founder

Joel L.