Harnessing Inner Courage and Leadership + Resilience with Kirk McCarley (part 2)

Ever wondered how to uncover your unique "secret sauce" to tackle life's challenges? Join us in this thought-provoking conversation with the insightful coach Kirk McCarley, as he shares his wealth of experience in reigniting passion and resilience. With over three decades of coaching under his belt, Kirk enlightens us on the transformative power of forward-thinking and the art of asking the right questions. Personal anecdotes, like that of a bride managing her anxiety with humor, reveal the strength found in embracing and overcoming one's fears. This episode is not just about confronting anxiety and depression but also about empowering yourself to find your path forward.

Prepare to be inspired as we preview Kirk's forthcoming book, "Thoughts for My Kids and Other People's Kids," a treasure trove of wisdom aimed at Gen Z and millennials. Through engaging stories, such as a mayor receiving candid feedback, Kirk illustrates vital lessons on leadership, communication, and self-awareness. He also candidly shares his aversion to sales, shaped by childhood experiences like selling Thin Mints as a Cub Scout. As the release of his book approaches, Kirk leaves us with a humorous yet heartfelt reflection on the value of curiosity and genuine connection, inviting listeners to stay engaged with Reignite Resilience for inspiration and practical ideas to fuel their daily lives.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. Resilience where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.

Speaker 2 0:41

Welcome back to part two of our two-part interview with Kirk McCarley. We are so excited to dive right back in. Kirk is going to walk us through some additional tools that he uses and recommends with his coaching clients to help them navigate through this journey that we call life. The Seed Sower Coach, over 30 years of experience as an ESPN employee and over 37 years as an HR executive, kirk is going to give us some more insights, some more tools, some more knowledge that will help us continue to excel.

Speaker 3 1:15

We hope you enjoy the biggest thing I will describe to someone that's considering being coached is I'm focused on where you want to go, not so much where you've been. That's important because that's your experience and you're going to draw from that. But I love the metaphor of why Wayne Gretzky was the great one in hockey. He had a way of intuitively skating to where he felt the puck was going to be, and he did that better than almost anyone, or certainly the people he was playing with in his era.

Speaker 3 1:54

I work with clients. They have a certain secret sauce or ingredient within them that allows them to resource that idea. My job is to ask the questions that will bring that out, get them to thinking about it, working towards hmm, I've never thought of that before and then eventually maybe a breakthrough, an aha moment of I'm going to try this. And then, what do you need to do in order to attempt that? Who do you need to visit with? When are you going to do it by? So the accountability starts to kick in?

Speaker 3 2:32

But the biggest distinction just simply responding to your question, pam is the forward thinking and the other thing I am very disciplined about trying not to give advice, which is what a counselor would do. I think you might want to do this. I'll ask a question, I'll tell a story, maybe from a standpoint of giving a frame of reference. That may be helpful, but ultimately the client needs to choose what they want to do and as a coach, I offer the objectivity. I want what you want, what you believe is best for you. I'll help you get there, but I bring you the objectivity that the people who are very close to you husbands, wives, kids they don't have objectivity, they have great advice, but they're part of the plan as well. What you decide is going to impact them, and that's certainly a consideration, but that does create a little bit of haze on that process.

Speaker 4 3:32

Yeah, I love it.

Speaker 2 3:33

I absolutely love that piece of it and I think that is one of the benefits in you stating or recommending, like getting a coach and getting a counselor, because you have that opportunity to reflect and do the work for the things that we often like to just shove under the rug and get to later. But we never get to it later on our own, life just pulls it up and makes it bubble up for us. And then having that clear path and understanding of how you're going to achieve the things that you've set out to achieve in the future, and really having a coach by your side to assist in that, because oftentimes we get in our own way. Yet again, it's either if it's reflective or futuristic. We tend to still get in our own ways. We're great that way. The humans are so talented, it's just human nature.

Speaker 3 4:21

It is Well, there you go, that we are. Yeah, we are.

Speaker 2 4:25

We are. I love it. Kirk, you also work with individuals in the space of like anxiety, in addition to the depression, like. Based off of your experience and I know you touched on like the PTSD piece of that Touching on the anxiety piece talk to us a little bit about your work in that space and how that has become part of your purpose and your work moving forward.

Speaker 3 4:47

Well, once again I'll reflect back to where I was and sometimes the anxiety and the panic attacks can reassert themselves, but it's not nearly as bad as it was at that low point in time when it was coupled with the depression. The anxiety related and panic, for me related a lot to self-worth, the value, that comparison, the limiting beliefs that would kick in and sometimes just horrible thoughts of what the future was going to bring, because I was having a difficult time dealing with it. But once again, a good friend of mine, who is a social worker, counselor herself, who has gone through the experience, she said a couple of things that were really helpful. One this is a condition that tends to afflict people who are highly intelligent, first of all, and the reason for that is because we're thinking about things and we're analyzing it. And what does this person think of me? Oh, I just said something and we just get into this analysis, paralysis, which is basically what that is.

Speaker 3 6:03

A second piece of advice that was very strong is, she said go towards your fear. Is it a fear of connecting with others and thinking that you're going to have a meltdown during that time of interaction? You may have a meltdown, but you will not have the opportunity for that meltdown unless you go and confront that and take it in a lighthearted manner. This is a part of who you are, how you're wired, and I saw a wonderful example of this at a wedding I went to.

Speaker 3 6:38

This was a couple of years ago. My wife's best friend, son, was getting married and his bride had a full-blown panic attack during the wedding ceremony. Oh wow, she laughed her way through it and it was so courageous and I was so proud of her and it spoke to me so much as to how she had the wherewithal to deal with it effectively and she was embarrassed later, but she was always also laughing about it. So another example of we've got that fight or flight. Yeah, let's fight. We can rest through all the energy we put into that later on and she was a wonderful example of doing that. It's beautiful.

Speaker 2 7:22

That's so big One of our early episodes, I think. We talk about resiliency and humor, and so again, it's just being able to find that tool or technique. It doesn't have to be complex and complicated, and you don't have to unplug from reality for hours or months on end. Sometimes it's finding that tool in the toolkit that's going to take you through that moment, and then you just get to the other side of that moment and then continue moving forward.

Speaker 3 7:50

Yeah, both of our parents were fortunate and I've talked to my wife about this. But we were both teased. We had siblings and the parents would create a light environment for things and we've taken that on through. So we have a lot of laughter and we've taken that on through, so we have a lot of laughter. And I've asked her because I've heard her siblings tease her. I said did you ever get tired of it? And she said I just kind of got used to it and that's kind of the way it is. But we've got a very intimate relationship her and I, based on the history and the stories and almost the teasing that goes with it. We were in Europe I'll tell this story Last month had a great cruise in the Rhine River but we went to one of the vineyards in Germany and we were wine tasting, a Riesling, and I have no level of sophistication whatsoever. I don't know the difference between a fine yeah, a fine vintage and Boone's Farm, you know. But you know, she kind of brings my culture up just a little bit.

Speaker 2 8:58

Only certain listeners will understand that, but yes, so we've got some great friends here.

Speaker 3 9:07

As a matter of fact, we're going to supper with him tonight in a little bit, but he is like who I would be if I had sophistication. He needs to be on the cover of like a GQ and he just knows how to do the right things, including sniffing and swirling his mind. Just right, when I do it, it's kind of like this, it's everywhere.

Speaker 3 9:31

My wife said I'm not going to take you anywhere because you're embarrassing me. So, getting back to the story, we're at the wine tasting in well, I think it was Kobylensk and there was a guy across from us and he was doing the swirl and I just kind of started laughing and she looked at me. She says I know what you're doing coping through that, we're coping through it.

Speaker 4 9:57

Love it oh my gosh now you're.

Speaker 2 10:02

You're on a cruise with a group of refined individuals that are swirling the swirl, sniffing the sniff.

Speaker 3 10:11

Yeah, here I am. You're on a cruise with Kramer. Get over it.

Speaker 4 10:18

Okay, that's what a cruise would be like with Kramer. I love it. That's so true.

Speaker 2 10:22

You just open it and drink it. I think, just being in that space, like you're tasting Riesling, I mean, absolutely Do it however you wish. I'm going to give permission to everyone. Just do it however you wish.

Speaker 3 10:35

It was a wonderful Riesling too, but that's what they told me. I don't know.

Speaker 4 10:39

I guess it was, I guess it was good, I guess. Oh my gosh, one box wine. You've tasted them all.

Speaker 2 10:51

Yeah, I was going was gonna say we don't need to live in a world of comparison let that race link be unique in its own.

Speaker 4 10:55

Exactly, exactly, exactly. I love it. I love it. Well, I love the use of of humor but, like natalie and I said we have, we definitely use that in different times over the years when we've gone through challenging times and, oh my gosh, just the best, really the best medicine for for getting through through things like that. So I love it Beautiful.

Speaker 2 11:17

We've used humor or just simply laughter, not even humor, because I don't know if any words were said or spoken, so it doesn't have to be. Sometimes we often laugh through those tense moments and all we have to do is look at each other and that's it. We're done.

Speaker 4 11:32

That's it, we just know. We just know, yes, yes.

Speaker 3 11:38

This is going to be terrible to say, but I want to say it anyway. We live in a small market from the standpoint of media and so I work with ESPN and you know I work with some people that you know got some experience and we've got to put on production nationwide. So part of my entertainment is at 10 o'clock watching the local broadcast and the camera's there and the news anchor is looking here and I'll go it's over here. That's always fun it is and my wife will say quit picking on these poor people.

Speaker 4 12:18

It's the little things that bring us joy.

Speaker 2 12:21

Don't take that from us, oh my goodness, I love that, I love that, and no one's harmed in our own coping techniques that we use. It's fine, not at all?

Speaker 3 12:34

Not at all. Well, this was the same. You know the background when media was much less sophisticated and I remember as a kid growing up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area we would have the midnight news broadcast and it was typically after high school football games, just before the Indian would come on TV to sign you off for the night. Now I'm really dating myself. People are over 50. They get that. But the person who was broadcasting had kind of a wry and dry sense of humor and so he said a lot of you have been writing in and saying you want us to give you the high school scores at the end of the night. Here they are, and that was it.

Speaker 2 13:18

Oh my goodness, that's it.

Speaker 4 13:20

Done, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 13:25

Oh my goodness, humor is definitely a tool.

Speaker 4 13:28

If you all do not have it in your tool belt, it's one that you should add Movement, engagement, writing, humor, all things that can help you when you're feeling that anxiety, feeling that depression, any of those, any of those moments in your life. They're all great tools in the tool belt to just try and find what works best for you. Yeah.

Speaker 3 13:50

My friend gave me another ingredient Pam and Natalie, or it was words of wisdom. She said you can only get so down, and so often the technique was you can't panic any more than you're panicking now. So you've reached that point. It won't get worse than that. There'll be more episodes, but it won't get worse. Yeah, that's helpful and it'll pass.

Speaker 4 14:16

It will pass. That's good advice. Yeah, absolutely Beautiful.

Speaker 2 14:20

Kirk, you gave us a little bit of a teaser about the book. Yes, it's almost complete. Would you share with us and the listeners what's the book about and what has that journey of writing a book been like for you?

Speaker 3 15:31

book about, and what has that journey of writing a book been like for you? It's entitled Thoughts for my Kids and Other People's Kids, which is all of us, so it's got some components of a book of Proverbs to it to some degree, because there are some thoughts and counsel to our younger folks that are out there and I'm particularly targeting Zs and millennials. But it's going to resonate with a lot of different people. Things I've observed about leadership styles, ways that people have approached that effectiveness in communication. I'll share you one example. I had a mayor years ago when I was working in municipal government and his counterpart, another government, had developed a reputation for tension. The other individual what do people think of me? Which is a very open and vulnerable question to ask. The mayor said to him at that point in time ask me that question again and I'll answer it.

Speaker 3 16:43

So he was affirming that he really wanted to get an answer to it. So he did. The mayor said you come across as angry, you come across as a little bit belligerent, a little bit off-putting and, as a result, people are uncomfortable being in your presence. He thanked the mayor for sharing that. I don't know the degree that that helped, although soon thereafter he was not in public office anymore and I think he chose not to and I'd like to think maybe he realized I need to do some self-work here if somebody I respect is saying that of me. So that's one tidbit, one example I talk about experiences that I've had, what I've learned from those experiences? Things about helpful rhetoric, how do we communicate, how do we listen? Well, we were talking about very early, pam, you mentioned the me, me, me syndrome.

Speaker 3 17:45

I was attending a presentation once and the presenter. I was losing interest in what she was saying and I was curious as to why I was losing interest. So the statistician in me, I started making a tally the number of times she would use a first person pronoun in her presentation. It was 126 times in a 15-minute window, which came out to once every seven or eight seconds. There was a person that was sitting next to me, one of my colleagues. What are you doing? He asked oh nothing, but I was working on an early chapter of my book and the point of that was when we are me and not other focused, we lose that connection with others. It's said to be interesting be interested in other people first, and that expands your knowledge of things. So those are some of the subjects and a couple of examples that I utilize or go to in that book. But my gosh, the thing has grown to. There's 365 pages in it.

Speaker 2 18:57

I don't have that much information, apparently you do and there's some pictures too.

Speaker 4 19:04

Okay, I love it. All. Right, do you have an idea of when it will be coming out for our listeners?

Speaker 3 19:11

I want a fall release date. I don't have a specific time in the fall, but it's fun. You asked me about the process of going through it. I'm learning about Library of Congress and ISBN and publishers and Kindle and IngramSpark and all these various products that are out there and there's still so much more to learn and then, okay, the dog will have caught the bus. What am I going to do with it now? How am I going to market it? And that's not in my wheelhouse. One of the chapters in the book is how much I hated sales, and that goes back to my days of being a Cub Scout, having to sell Thin Mints door to door. And it was about the 30th house of rejection and my box broke down and split on the streets of Fort Worth and I just sat on the curb and started crying my eyes out and I went home and told my mom I never want to go into sales. Here. I am doing it at some level.

Speaker 4 20:13

I love it. Okay, that's exciting, very exciting. So fall release, so not that far off.

Speaker 3 20:19

Not that far off. It'll be here before we know it.

Speaker 4 20:21

All right. Well, you'll have to let us know when it's going to be released and we'll absolutely share that with our listeners. So, thank you, I released and we'll absolutely share that with our listeners.

Speaker 3 20:29

So thank you, I appreciate that Absolutely.

Speaker 2 20:30

Love it. If folks want to get in touch with you, Kirk, how do they get ahold of you?

Speaker 3 20:44

I've still got my St Louis area code 314-677-8779. And I can be reached at Kirk at theseedsewercoachcom. That's also my website, theseedsewercoachcom. I'm on Facebook. I'm on LinkedIn as well for my social media, and then I get to be on some podcasts with great folks such as y'all.

Speaker 2 21:00

Awesome, wonderful, oh my goodness. Any final parting words or thoughts for our listeners.

Speaker 3 21:08

Well, I want to say to listeners these two gals, if you get a chance to be on their podcast, this is a lot of fun. This has been a very comfortable conversation for me. I feel like their questions and their way of doing it. They've just elicited the best out of me. So they are fine coaches as well in what they've done. Thank you so much. I'm extremely impressed with you guys.

Speaker 3 21:34

Be curious would be how I would coach people. Why, what, how does this function? My coach, alan and I haven't done it, but he's got the mind percolating on this has aligned himself with an organization called Braver Angels and what they do is they have people from opposite ends, mostly the political spectrum, and we're polarized duh at this point in time but they'll sit together with that individual and get to know them and understand them. They may still disagree vehemently about politics, but there's a lot more to the person besides that. So that's just one example. People of different faith backgrounds, people who have just grown up different parts of the world, pursue those things to make yourself better and engage your curiosity, love it. Those would be my words of wisdom.

Speaker 4 22:37

I love that Beautiful words yeah.

Speaker 2 22:40

Curiosity. It's a theme that we carry through in just about every episode. I know that's something that continues to drive Pam and I just an hour in the podcast space and the business space. Maintaining that sense of curiosity has been very, very beneficial for us and so for our listeners. Kirk said it Open enough space for curiosity. Those are the words of wisdom.

Speaker 4 23:03

Life is so much more interesting when you are yes, yeah, a lot of amazing people out there. If you just take a moment to ask Exactly, I love it.

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Speaker 3 23:13

There are. And, kirk, I'm talking to you, don't get so full of yourself, son. I love the lyrics from the Kansas song Wayward Son. If I claim to be a wise man, it surely means that I don't know, and that plays into my mind. So how are you going to be a wise man? You keep pursuing wisdom through the wisdom of others, love it.

Speaker 4 23:35

Perfect place to end.

Speaker 2 23:36

Exactly, I love it oh my gosh, it has been an absolute pleasure, thank you. Thank you for sharing your thoughts, your wisdom, your insight and your tips and tools and techniques that we went over with our listeners. I think that's very valuable and a nice reminder for everyone, and if you haven't learned it before, I hope you took out your notebook and you jotted these down, because oftentimes we find ourselves in those tough spots and we don't even realize it or realize how quickly we can get there, but we get to choose how long will we stay there and when will we do something about it. And so thank you for sharing that with us and with our listeners.

Speaker 3 24:10

Thank you so much. I had a blast. This is great. I'll go have supper with Chuck and tell him that I gave a shout out to him as he swirls his wine.

Speaker 2 24:19

Exactly. Yes, I love it, I love it, oh my goodness. Well, theseedswercoachcom, we will leave all of Kirk's contact information in the show notes for all of our listeners. And if you all are interested in learning more about what's happening in the world of Reignite Resilience, head on over to reigniteresiliencecom or follow us on Facebook or Instagram. Until next time, we'll see you all soon. Bye, everyone.

Speaker 1 24:47

Thank you for joining us today on the reignite resilience podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas. To fuel the flames of passion, please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes and, of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.