#8 Possibilities Kirk McCarley ESPN, Life & Career Coach Shares His Story

Welcome to the Mike Hartman Show. Mike is a performance coach and former Stanley cup champion with the New York Rangers. Topics on this show are focused around stories, mindset and champions. Mike will also go into details about helping you with your pain points and struggles and finding motivational solutions on how to have the mindset of a champion. Now, here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Welcome to another episode. Today we are on the series possibilities and I'm happy to have Kirk McCarley here. Kirk, how are you today?

I'm well, Mike, and my pleasure to be with you.

You know, you have that northern accent. I'm just kidding with you.

Well, I appreciate you all saying that.

Now you have a southern accent people make fun of. I'm in Charlotte, North Carolina. People make fun of me as well. They go, boy, you're definitely the North. But I want to talk to you today. You're a career coach. You're a life coach. I don't want to get too much into your story because you're going to tell it. You're also have done work on espn, which is really exciting and you've done a lot with your life. But it all didn't start out that way. So why don't you share your story? I'm going to shut up as people would rather listen to you anyways than me. So let's hear your story.

Well, thank you, Mike. I don't know about that, but let me start with a diary of a wimpy kid, dorky kid almost, if you will, nine years old, so uncoordinated that the principal of the school had a conference with my parents and encouraged them play some ball with Kirk. He's really not very good on the playground. So it's funny, in life you run across obscure figures, characters who make huge differences. So there was a kid that invited me to play on his basketball team and it was in a rec league, a peewee league, if you will. I had no idea what I was doing, but my parents thought it would be a good idea and it took the heat off of them having to play catch with me so much. So I was terrible at nine years old, uncoordinated, didn't understand the theory behind the game, but I was intrigued because there was a scoreboard there and it had numbers on it and I've always loved numbers and I'll get to that in just a moment. Well, I stuck with basketball and pudgy kid and lo and behold, I started to trim up and slim up and got pretty good at it. By the time I was in the fifth and sixth grade and so much so that played on the middle school, junior high teams and on into high school and got to play some high school ball. Just fell in love with it. But I still had a love of numbers and started to have a love of sports at that time. Sports in general. This was back in the days in the late 60s, before there were calculators. There were the ticker tape calculators that accountants used to add things up. And I would look at the box scores of baseball, basketball games and football games. And I like the numbers, the averages. I didn't have a calculator, so I started doing some division by longhand and pretty soon memorized numbers so I could tell you 4 of 20 was 20% and 4 of 21 was 19% and so on and so forth. And people had some amazement at that, but there really wasn't any use for it. So fast forward went on into college and I was a gym rat there. Hung out, played a lot of basketball. And another obscure figure enters my life. I lost my ball at the gym. I was frantic looking for it. And he was in one of those college fraternities that I was suspicious about because it's a lot of drinking and partying in my mind that didn't really fit what I was looking for, but lost my ball. He spent 30 minutes in the gym helping me find it and later on invited me to a. To a party. So I went. Thought he was a nice guy. Lo and behold, I became a fratty at that point, which was Instant Fellowship for $0.50 per member per month. That wasn't bad. But more importantly, Mike, fraternity party. I met a girl there my junior year of college who would turn out to be my wife. And 42 years after that meeting, we're still married, we're still together, have had a couple of kids. Vocationally, I was the rush chairman of the fraternity and that lent itself into a career human resource management for me. So I was an HR executive for most of my life. Espn. I roomed with a broadcast communications major and we had several of those at our college university in North Texas to give a plug for the mean green. But he ended up being the first broadcaster for the Dallas Mavericks when they got their expansion franchise in 1981. Later he moved to San Antonio with the spurs, but he also sidelined with a company that was broadcasting Southwest Conference football. What was that at the time? That later merged into Big 12, but he had a gig. He asked me if I would fill in and do some statistical work for him, providing him information and data throughout the course of the game. There's that numbers again, the memorization of the mind. So I said, yeah, that sounds like fun. And I signed up with him and I did it. The Southwest Conference folded in 1995. 1996, he gets a call to be play by play for a new network called ESPN2. Drags me along. And 25 years later, I'm still plugging away with ESPN, backtracking just a little bit. I began college as a broadcast communications, or rather journalism major and had a teacher that said, you're pretty good at this, Kirk, but it's hard to make a living. So she persuaded me to switch majors. I went into business administration. It complemented hr. But the funny and ironic thing of all that, as a statistician with espn, I've had the opportunity to affiliate with the Football Writers of America Association. I write a column in our local paper here. So I'm back around to where I started 45 years ago in college doing writing, doing statistics and loving life and career coaching, an offshoot off of what I did in hr. So that is a capsule of my story and the sacred intersections, some of them, that I've had along the way.

Well, that's great. That's a great story because it hits home because I tell people that, you know, as a leadership coach, it's good to chase your dreams, but don't chase money. I probably. I don't want to speak for you, but money wasn't even. You weren't even thinking about money. This was something like a statistician and the numbers of something you love to do.

Much to my wife's chagrin sometimes. But she. I love her to death. She's extremely supportive and has been through all the challenges we faced throughout our time together. But. But she was one that recognized this gift I had and she encouraged me. She said, you need to do something with that. And opportunity presented itself. Possibility did. And I jumped into that as a sideline and it became a bit of a brand. Here's our HR director. Oh, by the way, he also works for espn. He does statistical work.

That's so great. And then I worked with. I happened to be here in Charlotte and it was. I can't remember how I. How I met this gentleman. His name is John Vasallo. And next thing I know, he is working with me and doing different things. We had a training facility here in Charlotte and we became good friends. And he's done a lot with ESPN because the other, you know, I think it's espnu is out of Charlotte, North Carolina. And I started meeting Meg Righteous. I met the voice of ESPN and so many great people. So it's a really a great company and a great place to. To work for. And they're such. They're such good people. You have to be proud. I mean, here you were, they told you, you're the scrawny kid, as you said early on, and you love sports. And now you're working with probably one of the top sports networks in the world, espn. I mean, do you ever. You have to pinch yourself sometimes. Like we say, possibilities, like anything's possible. But do you ever say, wow, like, you know, boy, look what I'm doing. Just because I love something.

I really do. I've had a blessed life. And what I do in coaching, I absolutely love as well. I have an opportunity. Had an opportunity this morning before we went on air. I taught a spinning class doing that as well. So for me, life is just fabulous. At 64 years old, and for those that are in my generation and still trying to figure out what you can do sometimes the good Lord has his plans for us later in life. And I can look at Tom Brady and what he's doing at 43 and so many people that launched later on. Patience and perseverance is so much a part of it.

That's so true. That is so true. And I'm a Tom Brady fan. I was never a big football fan, but I watch football. But just to leave it there, like I do his workout program as well as mine, he takes care of himself and he acts like a champion. That's the thing he has. And I don't want to go off topic too much. This is all about you. But he has that champion mindset that all of us can learn from. He doesn't get too high, doesn't get too low. He celebrates the win. Okay, then next, you must see that in sports. I mean, you're around sports all the time. I mean, you must see some of these guys that are just. You look at them and you say, boy, that's a true champion.

Inspirations for me, just to hear their stories and little clips and bits of pieces of it. And you really pinch yourself in those moments of accessibility. And it's like, wow. Unbelievable.

Yeah. And you realize, though, at the end, they're just still just normal, good people. I remember I brought my girlfriend around to the New York Rangers, and I used to tell her about, like, Eddie Oldchuck, who's on NBC, is one of my really, really good friends and have a bunch of friends, Alan May. And I said, oh, that's my buddy. She goes, oh, yeah, I'm sure. But then when she meets them, she goes, boy, they're really down to earth. They're fun, they're funny. They don't have big egos. They're just really good people. And. And I'm sure you see that a lot.

People that are so inspirational and just bites. And like you said, Mike, very, very humble and down to earth. And you would not know their stories unless you have that opportunity. Just listen to what they've experienced and what they've seen and who they've rubbed elbows with in football and hockey and some of these other sports, who they butted heads with.

Right. So now you can tell. You're so calming. I know how you and I were connected. We got connected. And I listened to you and I said, wow. Because I know your background. More of the life coach, career coach, espn. And I said, you know, we have to have Kirk on the show, number one. I'll tell you why you're a true pro with what you do, because you're very calm in your voice. I'm sure people are going to listen. That's the first thing they may have thought of. Well, I did. That's what I look for. Boy, he's very calming. And also, you let. Within this industry, sometimes when I interview people, they don't realize when to stop talking. And you listen very well. I'm sure that's part of your coaching tactic. And then you answer the question. So thorough. So tell me a little bit about your career coaching business. I want to learn a little bit about that.

I love coaching because as many people will tell you as they get older, you realize what you don't know. And I have such a quest to learn. And the clients I get are a blessing to me because they all have a story, and I'm intrigued, and I want to learn more and I want to get them to where they want to be in their life. You know, the Lord gave us one mouth and two ears. So for a coach, at least two thirds of our time need to be spent listening. Because for clients, it is very rare that they have an opportunity for any of us really in life for somebody to listen to us very intently, intentionally, while we tell our stories and aim for direction. And we've got that direction embedded in our minds. It's just maybe someone asking that right question to trigger it. So that is the sweet spot for me is when I work with somebody and they identify that and you can see it if we're in person or if we're on Zoom or some other virtual type mechanism. But if we're on the phone, you can hear it in their voice as well. And I make money doing this. But the real reward is when somebody gets to a better place in life. It's kind of like the story of the kid that's picking up thousands and thousands of starfish and throwing them back into the sea one by one. And the old man says, you can't possibly be making a difference. And the kid replies, I did for that one. Wow.

That's right. I love it. And I tell people, too, when I get to know them and learn a little bit about them or they work with a company like my girlfriend worked with Chobani, and she came home and she said, well, everything is about a story there. And I said, well, that's how we teach in coaching. Everybody has a story and every story has a struggle. And it's great to hear people's story where they came from. We don't just like to hear superstar stories or, wow, what another great story. There's a lot of struggles. Have you worked with people, I'm sure you have, that had some really deep struggles that was really just challenging for you to try to help them get on track.

I have Mike, and it's important to listen and to hold back any kind of judgment or assessment. So when I was in hr, Human resources, fortunately or unfortunately, I wore that hat. I had to assess so often. Are we going to discipline somebody? Are we going to write them up for this infraction coaching? What's refreshing about it is that element is removed when you feel yourself going down that tunnel of, oh, he said this or she said that. They must be like this. You have to have the discipline to step back, step away from that and say, don't judge, listen to their story. You may learn something. My man, saying that to myself. And yeah, there are sordid tales that are there that are just those agog moments. I can't believe you've been through that circumstance, that situation, and you're here to still share your story.

Yeah. And I know with you, I know you're a little modest, that it's not only just listening to the story, but I know you're very engaged and you're so present in the stories. I remember talking to you a couple times personally about a little bit about what you do, and I. And I envy that. And Kirk, can you do me a favor? Please share. You know, there's a lot of. We have A lot of people out there that would like to learn where they can get in touch with you. If it comes to career coaching or life coaching, please share that with us.

I'm the Seed Sower coach. That's my own organization that I've got the soul shingle out there. And that's an inspiration from a couple of different things. One, the gospel of Luke with the sower of the seeds. And that's what I'm attempting to do. I have the seeds, planting them in the ground. If I can nourish them and allow them to grow and flourish, it's going to be a great crop that comes from that. Secondly, less figuratively, but more literally, I'm a gardener and I plant seeds every year in Northwest Florida soil. That can be a challenge, but I continue to persevere and I'm going to get those darn tomatoes to grow one of these days. So it's a playoff of both of those. Those things. Again, I'm in Northwest Florida. Kirk Sower, coach.com that's the seedswercoach.com My website is the seedswercoach.com and my number is 314-677-8779 with the allusion to that St. Louis area area code, which is where I was before we came here.

Fantastic. Kirk, thank you so much for being here. It's been, it's been a pleasure just listening to you. You're so nice and calming. You made me relax. I mean, that's a gift. I'm not kidding. I had like one. I had one of these days where I've been on the phone and I'm running around and I talked to you and I'm just, I'm relaxed now. I think I could take a nap in a good way. You just, you calm to me and I love that you have a night that calming. You bring that calming energy in and it's, it's great. And I'm sure you pass that energy on to all your clients or anybody that loves to get in touch with you or be working with you.

Well, you're much too kind, Mike, and I appreciate those accolades.

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