Reinvention - Embracing a New Chapter Later in Life - Kirk McCarley : 157

Kirk McCarley's journey of resilience and transformation follows his post-heart bypass surgery efforts to redefine his life through fitness and coaching. Embracing challenges, he shares insights on personal growth, leadership, and the importance of connection across generations.

Kirk, author of Thoughts for My Kids...and Other People's Kids, is a seasoned executive and passionate coach helping clients build confidence and reach their full potential. He holds multiple coaching and HR certifications, works as an ESPN Production Assistant, and leads group cycling classes. Married for 44 years, he and his wife, Cindy, live in Florida with their family and rescue dog, Ivy.

• Kirk's early fascination with sports analytics and broadcasting
• The shift from HR to a coaching career
• Overcoming health challenges post-surgery
• The significance of physical activity for mental health
• Kirk's approach to holistic coaching
• Writing a book aimed at sharing wisdom with younger generations
• Observations on shifts in leadership and workplace dynamics
• Encouragement to embrace curiosity and connections with others

Let's enjoy his story.

To connect with Kirk: https://theseedsowercoach.com/

Chapters

• 12:30 Navigating Generation Gaps With Empathy
• 23:33 Leadership in Remote Work Balance

Transcript

Daniela SM: 0:01

Hi, I'm Daniela. Welcome to my podcast, because Everyone has a Story, the place to give ordinary people's stories the chance to be shared and preserved. Our stories become the language of connections. Let's enjoy it. Connect and relate because everyone has a story. Welcome my guest, Kirk McCarley, faced a profound turning point after undergoing heart bypass surgery. His journey of resilience and transformation led him to embrace fitness and coaching, redefining his purpose along the way. Kirk, author of Thoughts for my Kids and Other People's Kids and you have to listen because it seems like a really insightful book he's a seasoned executive, a coach, with a passion for leadership, connections and personal growth. He will share his shift from HR to coaching, the power of staying active for mental well-being, his insight on leadership and generational wisdom. This was a lovely conversation filled with valuable lessons and a fresh perspective on embracing change. Let's enjoy his story. Welcome, Kirk, to the show.

Kirk McCarley: 1:14

Thank you, Daniela. My pleasure and joy to be with you today.

Daniela SM: 1:18

Yes, and I know you have a story, so I want to know why you want to share your story.

Kirk McCarley: 1:22

I want to share my story because there may be some others whose shoes I've walked in and others who may walk in our shoes my shoes as well. So if I have something to share that's going to resonate with somebody out there, then this is going to be a successful program for me.

Daniela SM: 1:41

Perfect. Thank you so much. It is very important that people share their stories. It always helps others, and so when does your story start?

Kirk McCarley: 1:50

My story starts probably at inception. I'm a native Texan, grew up in Fort Worth, texas, had a great childhood, I would say, to the typical things that kids did back in the 50s and 60s. I developed an interest in sports as an adolescent and I played, but I would say what fascinated me just as much is the statistical narrative that went along with that. I was fascinated with mathematics and numbers, what things would average out to, to kind of talk about the story of the games that were taking place. Fast forward into college, I was rooming with a broadcast communication major and he did real well in his career. After we graduated he recognized the gift I had for working with numbers and understanding sports analytics and so when he got a broadcasting gig doing football college football he asked me to join him. So I did that. That parlayed into a career. I'm still doing so. Concurrently with that, I was an HR person human resources. I was an HR person, human resources and late in that career I had designs on doing something different. I don't have notions of retirement per se, although I draw retirement income but my notion was what is something that's related to this that I can embark upon? So I hired a coach myself and talked about several different things, going into as a vocation, eventually, about the third meeting I had with him. I want to do what you do. So that began to launch that journey.

Kirk McCarley: 3:39

Now, the obstacle occurred about a year after that. I'm a spin instructor. I teach group exercise classes. I was working out at the gym and all of a sudden, the world went black. The next thing I knew I was laying on the ground with paramedics and EMTs above me asking me what's your name? What's your date of birth? What's your name? What's your date of birth? And to make a long story short on that episode, four days later I was having triple bypass surgery for something that was undiagnosed at that point in time. I use that as a launching pad, because I had a choice then, daniela Okay, I can wither away, or I can resolve to make myself a better version than what I am currently. I took that pathway the latter, and that's where my current journey, I believe, really began to launch.

Daniela SM: 4:36

So you like sports, but mostly the statistics. Then you went into HR and then you decided to be a fitness instructor.

Kirk McCarley: 4:45

Well, I had been a fitness instructor prior to the time I made that decision, so I've been leading classes for 16 years or so now. So that was concurrent with being an HR person, being a sports statistician and, of course, teaching spin classes.

Daniela SM: 5:03

So quite well, diverse and balanced that you were doing HR, which is people, and on top of that you did exercise, which is healthy and very good. I don't think too many people have these kind of balance.

Kirk McCarley: 5:16

Well, I joke and say I'm 67 years old and still trying to figure out what I want to do, so I'll do a little bit of everything.

Daniela SM: 5:23

There is a lot of people like you over there, me included, and so then you were doing exercise and this happened to you and you had an operation, and then After that I started a rehabilitation program and I was on a fast track with that.

Kirk McCarley: 5:38

At-home nurses would visit me and are you getting up and walking around the house? This was a week post-op. And I said, yeah, I walked a couple of miles today. And are you getting up and walking around the house? This was a week post-op. And I said, yeah, I walked a couple of miles today. And they said you did what. I said, yeah, I just felt good enough to get out and do that, but quickly.

Kirk McCarley: 5:54

About that time I also realized unless I begin to re-engage, I have a propensity towards clinical depression. I'm going to get myself depressed, towards clinical depression. I'm going to get myself depressed. So I did some self-talk at that time. What are you going to do to become a better version of what you had been before that time? So I set some goals. One I want to get back to work at the job I was doing within three weeks of surgery. I did that. Two weeks after that I was back at the gym beginning to work out. Seven weeks after the surgery I was back leading spinning classes. So I was getting the body back into condition. The mind goes with that as well, that mind-body connection. So that naturally tended to launch me into the thought process of if you're going to start this business that you talk to your coach about, you better start making plans to launch that now. So it was at that point in time that I began laying the groundwork to go into coaching.

Daniela SM: 7:02

You decided to always exercise what pushed you to do that.

Kirk McCarley: 7:05

I've just always had a propensity for exercise. I played sports in high school and of course, we were made to exercise then, but beyond that point in time I developed a habit. I'm going to continue to do this, regardless of somebody making me, and so, as a result, regardless of somebody making me, and so, as a result, I ran until my back got to the point I couldn't run. In my early 40s, I'd like to say, I competed in running events. I took part in them. I don't know how competitive I was, but there were goals that were there in order to finish a 10K or a half marathon or whatever the case may be. Later, when I couldn't run anymore because of my back, that was the transition into spin classes and then eventually cycling, which I still do to this day, and set goals for various rides that I want to do with groups. So that's become kind of my motivation my exercise now.

Daniela SM: 8:05

Okay, it doesn't happen that people after having triple bypass operation that they can actually be as active as you are.

Kirk McCarley: 8:12

Oftentimes it does not, but one of the things I shared with my surgeon and my cardiologist as I was going through that process of getting prepped for surgery is my goal Even then. I want to get back to being able to compete, to exercise. I don't want to sit on a couch and do sedentary, light type exercises. After that surgery took place, that was in 2014. At that point in time, I'd done nine century bike rides that were monitored. Since then, I've done 17 more. So I set a goal I want to pick up the pace and I want to get to a better place than I was prior to having had this surgery.

Daniela SM: 8:58

And how many weeks were you resting after the operation?

Kirk McCarley: 9:01

Five weeks. Okay, I've got coronary artery disease. That's a gift that I've inherited.

Daniela SM: 9:08

I like when you say that you inherited a gift. That makes it all very positive.

Kirk McCarley: 9:15

It really is a gift to some degree, Daniella, because I think back, had I not gone through that episode that I did, which is a wake-up call, I may not have been as motivated as I was to get into coaching and to push things further in my life.

Daniela SM: 9:32

Getting to coaching. What type of coaching?

Kirk McCarley: 9:35

I do executive development coaching, I do leadership development coaching, I do leadership development coaching and I do career coaching. Having said those three things, life always intersects those vocational areas, those professional areas we're engaged with, about their health, about their finances sometime, about what they do from a leisure standpoint, spirituality, relationships all those areas that we all intersect with In addition to what do you need to do to make your job better, to find a different job, to improve yourself professionally. So it covers all those areas but typically begins from a career and work standpoint. You just started to do that. I've been doing that for eight years now, Of course, starting your own business those of us that have done that that takes some patience at the front end.

Kirk McCarley: 10:31

How do I get clients? How do I go about doing that? Having to do the administrative things, establishing an LLC, what are my rates going to be? How am I going to market myself? How am I going to network? And the marketing and networking, for me at least, I tend to be more on the introverted side. So, my gosh, I don't want to go out there and have to sell myself. That's some self-talk of well, do you want to have some clients or do you not want to have clients Figure out a way to do that. Learn to compensate with some of the things that are not as enticing to me.

Daniela SM: 11:08

It's very difficult to do that. When do you get the opportunity to talk to people?

Kirk McCarley: 11:12

I will get referrals from other clients that I've worked with Use social media. I blog a lot. I'm also in the process of writing a book which is going to be coming out this fall, which will become another marketing tool to get my name and my ideas out there.

Daniela SM: 11:27

How did you decide to write a book?

Kirk McCarley: 11:30

I have a column in our local paper it comes out monthly talking about observations from a leadership standpoint, communications, maybe sports, a variety of things like that the publisher said to me. He said you write pretty well. Have you ever thought about writing a book? And that was the catalyst. Plus. I've got these blogs that are on my website. Thought has come to mind. I need to bundle these together and do something with them. That's what this book is is a compilation of those vignettes, short stories, tales which I hope are going to connect with some of the readers, which I'm targeting millennials and Zs with that, because I can remember what it was like for me 40 years ago and I wish I'd had a good book, parables and advice that I could resource to apply to some of the situations that I was confronted with and had been confronted with through the years. So that's what the design of the book is intended to do.

Daniela SM: 12:29

Yeah, that's wonderful. And how do you stay updated with the generations? How do you know? You know what worked with you then and now the people are completely different and the rules are completely different as well.

Kirk McCarley: 12:41

Observation is one of the things Try to read a lot, keep up with social media and I'm fortunate I've got a 33-year-old and a 29-year-old son and daughter, so I watch what they're doing, how they and their spouses are going about doing things, and pick things up from that resource. Plus, I picked up a lot of clients that are in that generation as well, so I learned things from them what's cool, what's not as cool. I'd like to be cooler, but I think I'm doing okay.

Daniela SM: 13:14

Uh-huh, well, that's super interesting, isn't it true that we always learn from our kids one of the many advantages of having children.

Kirk McCarley: 13:20

Particularly when your children are adults. One of the challenges is we've reached that point, then, where we're not giving advice so much anymore, or at least I'm trying to discipline myself from offering unsolicited advice. So a lot of listening, a lot of hearing, giving a lot of space for them to express what's on their mind. I pick stuff up from that.

Daniela SM: 13:44

And interesting that you bring that up. It's true, you have to discipline yourself.

Kirk McCarley: 13:47

There you go.

Daniela SM: 13:48

Give unsolicited advice. It's difficult, and especially when you have expectations. Maybe it's easier now that they have their own life and perhaps they have their own partners, versus when they were maybe young, in the 20s. Do you think that it has evolved Well?

Kirk McCarley: 14:04

I remember times with both my kids when they were 14, 16, 18 years old. Come on in here, let's have a talk and share some things that have been observed and present advice. Share some things that have been observed and present advice. Now it's much more carefully considered, starting from the standpoint of may I say something or may I say something about what I've observed, and oftentimes the answer is going to be nope. Okay, they may come back six months later and say you mentioned something to me six months ago. You wanted to say I think I'm ready to listen to it now.

Kirk McCarley: 14:42

So there's a lot of patience that goes with that, I find. But again, a lot of observation, and we've got to be tolerant enough to allow them to make their mistakes, as we made our mistakes, as we were growing up as well, and our parents my wife and I, mine were, I think, very patient with us. They would point things out here or there, but there wasn't a whole lot of unsolicited advice and I know there were times they just wanted to turn their head and look the other way, and they probably did, but they. Let us make our mistakes.

Daniela SM: 15:20

It's not only mistakes, but just how to conduct yourself with other humans. I think and you were very fortunate that you have your in-laws and your parents that actually didn't offer unsolicited advice. That's not the norm.

Kirk McCarley: 15:35

I remember this when my parents would talk and I was growing up during the Vietnam War and we watched it on TV and just how horrible it was. And one thing I did pick up from that is they would make commentary similar to what many of us tend to say now. They said back then so glad I didn't grow up. Now you guys have got so many challenges that you're facing, I don't know what this world is coming to. I hear my peers say the same thing and I watch.

Kirk McCarley: 16:08

Particularly the teens and the Zs and maybe the millennials look at that and shrug their shoulders and say if that's how you feel about it, why do we even want to try if things look futile? So positivity not being Pollyanna necessarily, but positivity there is a future, there are things to aim for and, refreshingly what I find particularly in that generation, there's a real yearning to want to have impact on society in some way, shape or form. I hear so many say I don't want to be stuck in an office cubicle. I want to be doing things that are going to have impact on the climate or hunger, or bettering the lives of others, dealing with poverty, different things such as that. So to feed that positive fuel that is burning within them.

Daniela SM: 17:05

Yeah, interesting. That says that everybody will be fine, that things are always challenging, but people always find ways of solving issues, and they're different every time. And that's life.

Kirk McCarley: 17:16

The world has always been a good and a bad place. It's no different now. There are amazing things being done, but there are also some things that make our heads spin.

Daniela SM: 17:26

Yes, I had a guest who says that life doesn't get easy. It gets interesting. That's a good quote.

Kirk McCarley: 17:33

Along that same line and, speaking of coaching, I like what somebody shared with me. It was in order to be interesting, be interested in others.

Daniela SM: 17:43

Okay, so life doesn't get easy. It gets interesting if you become interested in others.

Kirk McCarley: 17:49

Interested in others is a blessing because of the stories that they have to bring and the knowledge that you gain. It's how I've got a book now. It's just listening to what others have said and observing what they've experienced, what I've experienced, what people have done. It's fascinating.

Daniela SM: 18:06

But this is also a certain aid. As you become older, if you work on yourself, you become a better listener, but when you're younger, you were just thinking about you all the time, and so I think that you forget the other people, unless you have a very superpower of empathy.

Kirk McCarley: 18:24

Me, me, me, me, and that can continue on. I remember a talk and this is in my book that I was listening to. This was many years ago. I was losing focus on what was being talked about and so I started examining myself why am I not interested? And sort of asked myself, why am I doing that? I started keeping a tally because one of the things I noticed was the speaker was using a preponderance of the first person pronoun. A lot in the presentation, in fact over a 15-minute sample size that I tallied that on the first person pronoun, I, me, we was enunciated 126 times. That comes out to once every seven to eight seconds. Now somebody was sitting next to me, looked and asked me what are you doing? No-transcript, in order to be interesting. So that insular thought that it's all about me can sometimes penetrate into our everyday conversations and makes the distinction between perhaps somebody you want to be around and listen to and someone else that you just assume not.

Daniela SM: 20:06

When you're telling a story, it's obviously your story. It is difficult to put somebody else besides I or me, but I guess not to use it as much. Is that what you're saying?

Kirk McCarley: 20:15

That's what I'm saying. Keep it in my consciousness.

Daniela SM: 20:17

Yeah, similar to when you're doing a cover letter. I get a lot of hiring and I get to see those. You can see the I's on the whole page the most.

Kirk McCarley: 20:27

Recommendation. Count them how many I's are you's versus you's Y-O-U? You can see what has been done, what the achievements have been. I've read and there's I, but I've read about your organization and what you've done to create a great work environment. A work environment such as that is rare, and you're to be commended for the steps you've taken, particularly with your innovation, to cause these things to happen. We all love to hear about ourselves and you're just playing right into that as an example of how you would respond in a cover letter or in a conversation.

Daniela SM: 21:03

Yes, the young people tend to say, oh, I don't want to play the game. And I always said it's not a game, it's a strategy.

Kirk McCarley: 21:16

Is there another word that you would use for that? I love games and I like the competition of it, and there are so many different ways to play the game. You can play the game by becoming unique and differentiating yourself and becoming noticed by maybe being a little bit different. Perhaps everybody in your group is doing things one way. What if you took the path of least resistance and approach things in an alternative method? I used to coach people when we were distributing paper resumes. How about you send a purple resume or green resume? You may get thrown into a trash box, but then again you may get noticed and somebody's going to admire you for the courage that you had, for the gumption, for the thinking. A little bit out of the box, you may get that job interview.

Kirk McCarley: 22:04

As I've interviewed people throughout my career, which I did a lot of in HR I would always find that in the first three to five minutes and many interviewers would agree with this a decision is being made. I either like the connection I'm feeling with this individual or I don't. What would really be unique to me is if I made that decision within the first three to five minutes and after 25 or 30 minutes they said something that was unique, it was bold, it was different, and I became fascinated because they went outside the normal pattern and it was oftentimes this is a person to bring into this organization because they're going to add some value. They're going to add some diversity, some uniqueness, some different ideas, and that's part of what makes a synergetic team.

Daniela SM: 22:55

Question about leadership. So have you seen a change since you were a young employee to now?

Kirk McCarley: 23:03

I would like to think it has. I think there's a greater propensity of awareness. Women in the workplace 45 years ago, almost now, there were women that were in work environment, but not in leadership roles so much. It was administrative roles, maybe office roles. Now we see so many women that are leading organizations. With that. I think that's been wonderful, not only for diversity but different viewpoints, different perspectives.

Kirk McCarley: 23:33

The other thing, more recently, particularly post-COVID and during COVID, is remote work and the old school concern is how am I going to know if this person's doing their work? We've had to shift the way we measure that. It's also interesting we talk about reading staff is how some individuals miss that connection that live that in-person. So how can we balance that out? So you'll have hybrid jobs where you come into the office twice a week, work from home two or three days a week, whatever the case may be on that, to kind of get that connection balance that goes with it. So a lot of leadership adjustments, a lot of focusing more on the whole person versus just what they are in the work environment, because most of life occurs outside of work. It still does.

Daniela SM: 24:31

Yeah, thank you for that summary. In the past you need a manager to manage, but now the people are working remotely. You don't need a manager, you need leadership. People should move from managing and controlling to a more of a leadership approach.

Kirk McCarley: 24:45

For some people it's hard to make that distinction. I'm managing well, which means I know what the rules and the procedures are. I know how to get this product done. I've been doing it for years and years and I do everything according to the book. The leader understands the book, but also how big their box is within that. In other words, how can I get the same or better productivity out of this individual by thinking outside the box a little bit, by giving them some different assignments to diversify their work, to make it more interesting to them, to enrich their jobs, to broaden their experience and to build them up to where they can be a future leader in the organization.

Kirk McCarley: 25:34

So succession planning becomes so important. Who is going to replace me? And not so much I'm threatened if I develop this person because they may be getting better than I am, but rather what kind of an asset can they be that I can move on and promote? They may even become my boss someday, but when they do become my boss, remember how well I treated you on the way up. Remember me too. So it becomes very fluid in that realm.

Daniela SM: 26:04

Hopefully, hopefully. You talk about remote working, but a lot of companies are taking away that, which I don't know. I thought we were moving forward and it seems that it's not happening.

Kirk McCarley: 26:14

In some organizations that is the case, many of those. There is a reason for that. We need to be able to respond to our customers in person because they crave that and the mission is still, or should be, oriented towards an optimum balance between meeting employee needs and meeting customer needs, and hopefully both of them are in congruence often a lot of the time. So it can be driven by that. Sometimes there's still the manager mentality that kicks in. I can't see what they're doing. I need them to be here to watch them. But again, where a job lends itself to being remote, data input that goes into it or analytical work, it would seem counterintuitive to allow them to continue to work in that kind of a frame. I do talk to some remote workers that actually miss the office environment to have that physical presence, if you will. So it's finding that balance.

Daniela SM: 27:16

Yes, for me it's good. I work two days from home, three at the office, so it's a balance. I get really busy in the office, so the times that I'm at home I'm going to recharge for the next day to be even stronger. Well, I know that when I was doing it for five days, I was depleted by the third day.

Kirk McCarley: 27:33

If I may share kind of an exaggerated example of that. I was in Champaign, illinois, this past weekend working a football game Kansas versus Illinois and so I was there. I was present Three years ago, right after COVID. Many of the broadcasts that were being done in sports were being done remotely, so I was observing the game on Zoom, just as you and I are talking right now. I could see everyone else that was on the broadcast crew that was in a Zoom box similar to what we're in.

Kirk McCarley: 28:08

You would lose the atmosphere and the flavor and the feel for where you were because you were indoors, you were in an insulated environment. You're also subject to having an accurate connection and if the connection goes down you're sunk for who knows how long. But to be in an environment such as we were in on Saturday night, where you hear the crowd, you see the crowd, you smell the environment, you feel the coolness in the air, you smell the popcorn there's something to be said for that. So people ask do you prefer working remote? In some ways I do. I don't have to get on an airplane and travel someplace. I can sleep in my own bed. It's less time consuming. But there's nothing like being live for an event and feeling all those senses at work.

Daniela SM: 29:05

Of course. It's like when you had meetings with your friend over Zoom. That was silly. You need the connection, of course. Yeah, yeah, that's like when you had meetings with your friend over Zoom. That was silly. You need the connection, of course. Yeah, yeah, that's a great example. So we know that you are moving forward with a book, that you are continuing coaching people and you are giving classes. You're still a spinning instructor, anything else.

Kirk McCarley: 29:23

Still a spinning instructor. I had a class this morning Still doing that in Destin Florida this morning, Still doing that in Destin Florida. The book will have come out in fall of 2024. Great present in January for Valentine's Day, or something for graduation for someone who's getting out of college, one of your kids, to go on and bone up on some things that may be helpful for them. What is the title? Thoughts for my Kids and Other People's Kids my two kids, my six grandkids, but we're all other people's kids too. So it's a book for any of us between, as the Fort Worth Zoo sign used to say, fun for ages four to 84. This book is for everyone.

Daniela SM: 30:14

Oh wow, excellent, Excellent, all right, so we will put that in the show notes and also your link for your website, how to find you and how to get in touch with you. You have Instagram and LinkedIn.

Kirk McCarley: 30:26

I've got a LinkedIn, I've got a Facebook, so I can be reached on that. Kirk McCarley, perfect Love to hear from some of y'all that have listened in today.

Daniela SM: 30:35

All right, wonderful. Thank you so much for the conversation and your story.

Kirk McCarley: 30:39

Thank you, daniela, it was my joy to be with you. Thank you.

Daniela SM: 30:42

I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I am Daniela and you are listening to, because Everyone has a Story. Please take five seconds right now and think of somebody in your life that may enjoy what you just heard, or someone that has a story to be shared and preserved. When you think of that person, shoot them a text with the link of this podcast. This will allow the ordinary magic to go further. Join me next time for another story conversation. Thank you for listening.