Kirk McCarley: The ESPN Statistician Who Teaches Communication Through Listening

Tim: 0:08

Welcome to Speaking with Confidence, a podcast dedicated to helping you unlock the power of effective public speaking. I’m Tim Newman, a recovering college professor turned communication coach, and I’m thrilled to guide you on your journey to becoming a powerful communicator. I want to thank each and every one of you for your support. It truly means the world to me. Please visit timnewmanspeakscom to get your free ebook the Top 21 Challenges for Public Speakers and how to Overcome them. Today’s guest is Kirk McCarley. He is a husband, father and grandfather. He is also an executive, career and leadership development coach. He has more than 30 years of executive leadership experience in both the public and private sector environments. Kirk has a solid reputation for fostering individual growth and development beyond the client’s expectations. As an executive and career coach, he focuses on desired customer outcomes, predicated upon the premise that the individual already possesses the ingredients for success. He is also a talent statistician for ESPN, an author and a group exercise instructor. Kirk, welcome to the show. You are a busy, busy man.

Kirk: 1:21

I’m engaged, Tim.

Tim: 1:22

Thanks for hosting me this morning, oh no worries, and you know we’ve got a lot in common and I think that being engaged is really the key to life and I kind of want to get into that. But first I want to talk about the one thing that we have in common that really warms my heart being a grandfather. I love being a dad, but to me there’s nothing better than being a grandfather.

Kirk: 1:49

And the grandkids were here for about five days. They left yesterday, three of them, and it’s an opportunity for me to just pester them, and they dish it right back at their poppy.

Tim: 2:01

Yeah, I love that and you know, for me, I wish I could be around them nonstop for about a week and then go home, take a nap and then, you know, have about a week recovery and then come back at it. But you know, there’s there. Really, to me is nothing, nothing better than being a grandfather and watching them grow and helping them and teaching them.

Tim: 2:24

It’s so much better than being a grandfather and um and watching them grow and helping them and teaching them. It’s so much better than being a parent, because you don’t really have all the the the parenting responsibilities when you’re done with them.

Kirk: 2:34

Here they are. Here they are. They’re yours.

Tim: 2:35

See you soon. Good luck, don’t mind all the sugar that I gave them, that’s right. But we, you know, again, we have a lot, like I said, a lot in common. And one of the things that kind of struck me, you know, after we talked the other day, is your previous blog posts and you, you wrote one, and I’m going way back to 2019. You, you wrote about success you know what success and how you define success and you told two. You told stories about two individuals that were important in your life and it really kind of, you know, made me think about on a deeper level, because I think success differently than a lot of other people, but it really made me think about on a deeper level, because I think success differently than a lot of other people, but it really made me think about it on a much deeper level than that. And how did you come up with this idea that success is more than? Obviously, it’s more than money, but it’s even more than just being happy.

Kirk: 3:45

It’s even more than just being happy. I think contentment is the first word that comes to mind. And those two individuals. One of them was my backdoor neighbor growing up, mrs Clark, and she was like a grandmother figure to me. But I would go to her house, walk in, we would listen to Paul Harvey on the radio. She didn’t have TV and eat Vienna sausages out of the can, but she would clip and hand prune the edging of her yard during the heat of a Texas summer. And the dogs in the neighborhood, they roamed freely. In those days we didn’t have lease laws. They loved her.

Kirk: 4:25

Everybody was attracted to Mrs Clark, but she just had this life of contentment. She knew the history of the neighborhood. She knew what everybody was doing, not so much a busybody but just their history. She built relationship and again exuded joy. She would walk to church six to eight blocks. She didn’t have a car. She’d walk to the grocery store about another five blocks. We’d pick her up every now and then but she just exuded a quality individual. I termed her to be successful. And that’s in the heat of Texas right.

Tim: 5:02

I termed her to be successful, and that’s in the heat of Texas right.

Kirk: 5:05

That’s in the heat of Texas. It was 100 degrees and she would go in between 2 and 5 in the afternoon but then come back out in the evening when it was only 98.

Tim: 5:16

God bless her. God bless her. But you know, I really think you hit something there, the whole idea of connection, and I think we miss out on today because I think back to my childhood. I had people in my neighborhood where I could just walk in their house and you know, we don’t have that really today and I think sometimes we probably have to and should do that, but that takes away some of that connection.

Kirk: 5:52

growing up I remember all those neighbors.

Tim: 5:54

Yeah.

Kirk: 5:54

The Richardsons across the street. I’d walk in their house and take maraschino cherries out of the refrigerator. Mr Corn across the street, he was a fireman.

Tim: 6:17

We were aghast when his garage burned down one year at Christmas. Mrs Payne across the street music teacher. I can go through the whole and the need for connections for us to become successful with her life. However, she chose to live it as opposed to trying to think about what society has defined as success. You know money, status, those types of things and understand that there’s different ways to define it and live our lives.

Kirk: 7:02

I’m a wealthy man and I’m not by virtue of monetary or possessions, but it’s my connections and my relationships and the variety of tribes that have allowed me to be a part of them, to come in and enter into their lives, and new tribes are being formed all the time. I did a bike ride in Lake City, florida, this past Sunday and met a woman who again elderly, but she was the race director. She happened to have some spare burritos from some of the people who had finished earlier Tim. It was the best burrito I ever had in my life. It was a Cuban guy who had finished earlier Tim. It was the best burrito I ever had in my life.

Kirk: 7:45

It was a Cuban guy who had made it and he included plantains as part of the ingredient, and just getting to know this woman who I’d never met before, I’m going to count her in my acquaintance list. Another one, then. More riches for me in terms of that connection.

Tim: 8:05

And if we take that a step further, you know, when I say you’re a busy man, and I think that’s that’s kind of ingrained in who you are, to be busy, to be involved in many different things, to make these connections to you know to be I wouldn’t necessarily say fulfilled you may say that for yourself but to to try different things and to build all those other different connections. I mean to expand your life and to expand that network and those connections is put that way.

Kirk: 8:37

Today is a perfect day for me. I taught a spinning class at 6 am. I’m here with you now. Later on I’ve got a coaching client to meet with after we get done with this call, and then after that I’m on the road to Tallahassee to go work college basketball this evening. So I incorporate all these various elements of life. I call it a perfect day.

Tim: 9:05

Well, I’m glad you brought up that you’re heading to Tallahassee. I was going to ask you if you had a game coming up. This is where I really want to spend a little bit of time here, because I’m fascinated with one of the things that you do and your story and how you got started with this the whole statistician gig that you have with ESPN. Let’s get into that and talk a little bit about that, and not only how you got started in it, but the role that it has in number one communication and how we as listeners and viewers take in an event, but the lessons it can teach us in our own personal lives in terms of interpersonal and professional communications.

Kirk: 9:52

Well, to kind of get started with it, I’ll preface it by saying I’m a dork, I’m a nerd, I love numbers, I love arithmetic and math, being able to make a calculation. But I was also an athlete and I played sports. I played basketball, but what I was really intrigued with was statistical.

Tim: 10:14

That’s a hard word for both of us Statistical.

Kirk: 10:18

Statistical aspect of sports, not just basketball, baseball, baseball in particular, because there are so many metrics that go into that. Well, I grew up in a day when we didn’t have electronic calculators, so it was longhand division to figure things out, and I got pretty good at that, to the point I can memorize that 14 to 24 was 58.3 percent and 14 to 25 was 56 percent. So what am I going to do with this skill?

Tim: 10:52

Well.

Kirk: 10:53

I still had dreams of playing in the NBA. That didn’t happen, but went on to college and happened to room with some people who were, with a guy in particular who was a broadcast communication major, another guy across the hallway who was an IT guy, and then a third guy who just had a general knowledge of sports in general. So we would sit around and watch the baseball game of the week Kurt Getty and Tony Kubek and we would critique what they would say on the air oh, that’s an obvious statement, kurt. Tony, you can do better than that. And so we would talk over them. What was that going to parlay itself into?

Kirk: 11:36

Well, one of our friends became a talent broadcaster and in 1989, when he started broadcasting college football in what was then the Southwest Conference, he asked me to be his talent statistician and that’s when my journey on that ride began. So this is season 36 for me. We moved over to ESPN in 1996. He has since gone back. He’s a professor now of broadcasting and media communications at school. I continue to work for ESPN. Our other friend across the hall is in his 41st season now. I believe it is as the statistician for the Dallas Cowboys.

Tim: 12:27

Wow, wow. And so let’s just hone in on something before we go any further Relationships and connections. Right there, right, I mean, you’re roommates and you had something in common. One goes off to do something and say you know what I’m going to call my buddy? This would be a great gig for him. We could work together. If you don’t have that connection, maybe we’re not sitting here today.

Kirk: 12:49

Absolutely, and in fact, even in our everyday conversations, statistics enter into it. The fourth member of our group turned 65 a couple of days ago. We all wished him a happy 65th birthday, but we broke 65 down into congratulations on being 13 for the fifth time oh, that’s funny, that’s funny.

Tim: 13:14

So, yeah, we won’t even, won’t, even I’m I’m not there yet, but but no, uh, that’s awesome. So so talk about what you do and the entire process Because, again to me it’s fascinating. For anybody who hasn’t done it, it’s a lot harder than it looks, it’s a lot more difficult, there’s a lot more that goes into it. And, kirk, I think I told you the story the Baltimore Orioles I don’t know if they still do it, but they used to have the thing where you could pay whatever it was, to go in a booth and they would give you a bunch of stats and you could broadcast an inning, they would record it for you and you could take it home. I thought I could do it. There’s just no way. There’s so many numbers, there’s so many other things that are going on, and baseball to me is relatively easy because it’s slow moving. Now you’re talking about basketball and football, where things are happening really, really quick and you’ve got to process information. You as a statistician, has to process the information, get it over to the play-by-play and color guy.

Kirk: 14:23

The preparation and I want to give a shout out to the talent, the broadcasters, the color analyst, the homework they do. But the knowledge they carry and what they have to familiarize themselves with before they go into a broadcast is just incredible. And where they really earn their paychecks is during the third quarter of a game. That is a 25 point blowout. They’ve got to carry that to the end. There’s not people listening. They’ve moved to another channel. Now they’re not watching anymore. And then’s when they have to come up with the stories that continue to make that broadcast live and make it meaningful for the poor souls who are still there, glued to it, watching it and listening to it. So shout out to those guys. First of all, I’m the silent partner. As a talent statistician, I supply information to whoever is talking. So what is going to enhance what they’re discussing at that point in time? Obviously, you’ve got to have information that’s going to keep the watcher, the listener, glued to it.

Kirk: 15:32

That was a 12-yard run, first down. That’s the second three-point shot they’ve hit in a row. They’re now 10 of 10 from the free throw line, those kinds of things. I’ll hand cards and information or point some things out, but I’ll also include some things that are maybe not showing up on live stat broadcast, and that is this is the fifth run in basketball of this game. Let’s say, florida State, who I’m doing tonight, has had a 10-0 run, has had a 12-0 run, but their opponent, whoever that may be, has had runs that they’ve owned of 7-0 and 15-2. So what that’s painting a picture of is a game that has been a series of runs. It has not been smooth, it’s been erratic and it’s had its ebbs and flows. To give a feel to the viewer of what’s really happening there. So my job is to enhance whatever is taking place for those guys and allow them to appear even more intelligent than they already are.

Tim: 16:40

And how much preparation for you as a statistician goes into it? Or do you just go in and just whatever plays out plays out, or do you do research on certain players and look for trends that you think may be coming or things of that nature?

Kirk: 17:01

So we’ve got a tough contest tonight. We’ve got Miami coming into Tallahassee to play Florida State. Miami has not had a good season. They’re 6-19 this year. Laren Yeager, their former coach, resigned. They were a Final Four team just a couple of years ago, as you may recall year. They’ve got one player who has been key. They’ve had a key injury that has taken place.

Kirk: 17:29

So what are we going to build to make this game interesting, make it competitive? It may be a storyline of what are they doing to prepare for next season. What are we going to see tonight? Who are some players that have maybe not seen a lot of time up to this point? I’m going to acquaint myself with those kinds of things to be prepared. Then you’ve got watch list. There’s a certain player that may be 10 points away from a thousand points for the career. We’re going to track him, those kinds of things to give a game, which otherwise may not be that impactful, a little bit of flavor, variety to keep someone engaged.

Kirk: 18:09

Florida State is still potentially a tournament team. They’re maybe coasting on the bubble right now at 15-10. So what have they finished in recent seasons? What can we look for as the ACC season winds down at this point in time. So I’m looking at those kinds of things. I get game notes, I study them, I come in as prepared as I can be and more often than not the preparation goes for naught because something else unexpected has taken place.

Tim: 18:43

Well, I would say that preparation is whether it’s used or not, preparation is one of the number one. It’s one of the things that we can control and if we don’t prepare, that will definitely show. So I don’t know that preparation is for naught. It’s your knowledge, you’ve got that Nobody can ever take’s it’s, it’s it’s going back to coaching.

Kirk: 19:10

It’s like a coaching meeting. Well, start where I’ll start, with a client. What would you like to focus on today? And I’ve got a series of things that we may touch on. Very rarely do we get what I’ve prepared for. It’s something else, but it’s the preparation and the idea of being ready.

Tim: 19:28

Yes, yeah, so so do you have conversations with the, the on-air talent, prior to or prior to the event, so let’s say, the games today? Have you spoken with them before today, or were you just talk to them briefly before the event and kind of get their ideas of what they’re looking for? How does that process work?

Kirk: 19:54

In basketball, baseball, softball putting football aside for right now. I know the guy I’m working with tonight. I’ve worked with him a time or two. Good guy, very comfortable. I’m LinkedIn with him and I’ll ask him is there anything in particular that you want me to watch for for you? What can I do to enhance the experience for you? And I’ll get a few notes from him. I’ll concentrate and focus on that.

Kirk: 20:23

Football is a little bit more involved with that. We work the same crew week in and week out generally, and kind of an example of how that works my cousins is the talent broadcaster that I work with in college and professional football. We had the Fiesta Bowl Penn State and Boise State and Boise State, coming into that game, had an incredible statistic of when they rushed for 40 carries. They had one premier running back, ashton, gentry, gentry. But aside from him, when they rushed for more than 40 times in a game, they would have remarkable results. Well, they lost the fiesta Bowl to Penn State 31-14. At the end of the game I pointed to Mike 40 rushes. We looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders.

Tim: 21:14

We’ll live to fight another day, exactly exactly, and you bring up football as a, for example, Super Bowl was a couple weeks ago and it wasn’t nearly the game that I think anybody thought it was going to be, and when the I’ve forgotten the player’s name from Philadelphia who intercepted the pass and scored a touchdown on it, and he was the first person to score on their birthday score a touchdown in the Super Bowl on their birthday. Okay, but what struck me was that they number one, that they had that and that the only other person that was playing, from my understanding, that had a birthday that day was Saquon Barkley, and so I think that they were. That was a piece of information that they thought that they were going to end up using, but it got used on somebody else.

Kirk: 22:06

Sometimes I’ll get lucky and extract something like that, but somebody else on the crew got lucky that day and they tracked that and they shared it and the producer bought it and they passed it on to the talent and it was announced on air.

Tim: 22:23

But see, for people that may not necessarily be, you know that, into sports and and listening and watching on TV and those types of things, that to me is something that is is is number one. It’s fascinating and critical for telling the story of the event and getting people invested into listening, you know, getting closer to the TV or turning it up or what have you with the radio, and really kind of making them feel the event.

Kirk: 22:56

It makes it personal. Yeah, and we feel that connection. It’s a warm feeling and this is a real person. He has birthdays, besides making millions of dollars as a player and being in front of millions of people on television.

Tim: 23:14

Right.

Kirk: 23:14

And not to mention the people that are watching it live in the Superdome.

Tim: 23:20

So, during the game football, any game, it doesn’t really matter and things are getting tight, what’s the mood, what’s the back and forth in terms of you and the talent in terms of getting information quickly or I don’t want that information, I want this how does that process work and does it get heated, and how do you all deal with with those emotions in the moment, knowing that this is something that’s fast moving. There’s not time to talk about it, it’s do it and get it out because of the broadcast sometimes tim, there can be too much information.

Kirk: 24:01

If it is an exciting game, the game is going to speak for itself and you can over-talk those events when maybe just allowing somebody to drink it in to hear the crowd noise On radio. We go through a lot of preparation as best we can so we can have the crowd noise coming in to give that vibrancy to the broadcast. I remember this was years ago. The too much information. Chris Schenkel, who was a wonderful broadcaster years and years ago for college football it was a Michigan State game and a running back ran for a long touchdown, 60 yards. There was the crowd noise, the pause, the hesitation, and Schenkel said and he did it against the wind, oh, it had nothing to do with anything.

Kirk: 25:01

But it’s lived in infamy, at least in our minds.

Tim: 25:05

Oh my gosh.

Kirk: 25:07

You could have just let that happen. Yeah, you’ve got the iconic calls jack buck of ozzy smith. Go crazy folks, go crazy. Kirk gibson, the call on on that home run joe buck with David Freeze in the World Series against the Rangers and we will see you tomorrow night. Just that combination of the right things said at the right time. Yeah.

Tim: 25:36

And, like you said a lot of times, that’s you know you catch lightning in the bottle and you get lucky there, and those are the things that live on for forever and what people actually maybe remember about the game or the event.

Tim: 25:51

Even if take Kirk Gibson as a, for example, you see him running the bases, but what you really remember is that call. You remember the sound, the words in the announcers saying those things and it’s I can’t believe what I’ve just seen Iconic, yeah, yeah. So it’s again. This is is really fascinating. And so how do how do these things kind of translate over into, you know, the regular people world in terms of communicating and sharing information in in a in a way that let’s just let’s just take a business environment where you know one person is counting or another person to do something so that they can do what they need to do. How do we get people to understand number one, the importance of connection and knowing how to actually communicate with somebody in a particular tone, using particular words, with an importance of making sure that things are getting done, importance of making sure that things are getting done, Tim, when I coach people.

Kirk: 27:08

I’ll preface it sometimes by saying we’ll talk about interviewing, for example, job interviewing. When I speak to you, it may sound like I’m broadcasting a game, so forgive me if it’s like that, because that gets it built in my DNA.

Kirk: 27:24

It’s been mostly a blessing, particularly with public speaking, because I get like hours of osmosis just hearing these talented people how they speak, how they pause, how they hesitate, the vocabulary, the synonyms they bring up are just incredible. But in the everyday world one of the things that I’ve noticed we don’t allow enough time for quiet time, for pause, for hesitation, and when I speak with clients I’ve got to get myself comfortable with the fact I may be giving this person five, 10, 30 seconds to process and we get uncomfortable with that dead space. But what I found more often than not the person comes back and says thank you for not pressuring me, for making me feel relaxed, make me feel comfortable, because so many times I get into too big of a hurry and my mouth is speaking faster than my brain can think and I stutter and I skip over words and I get flustered with that.

Kirk: 28:38

So, slowing down the pace, I really build that into it. I’ve talked to people today about Dean Smith and the four-corner offense. They don’t know what I’m talking about because we have shot clocks now in basketball. But that was a strategy back then to change the tempo, change the rhythm, change the cadence.

Tim: 29:00

Well and it’s funny that you say that because I do a lot in the golf space and it was brought up to me a number of years ago you know, if you watch how Tiger Woods plays, he moves very, very quickly from the tee to his next shot, but when he’s walking from, you know his fairway shot to the green. When he gets about 30 yards away from the green he slows his pace down, slows his pace down, slows his heart rate down and then really starts to concentrate on making the putt and reading the putt, because of of how important you know the heart rate is, how important you know controlling nerves and controlling movement really is in putting and, like you said, the same thing goes with with communication. Slow down, take a deep breath and think it through before you just start spouting things off tiger applies some visualization there as well the great golf instructor instructor.

Kirk: 30:04

I believe it was Harvey Pinnock who taught Crenshaw. Probably Tom Kite down in Austin would scold people for using golf carts. You need to walk the course because you get a feel for it. The contour and, like Tiger, as you’re getting close to the ball for where you’re going to hit your next shot, you get a feel for what. The topography is what the wind feels like, what the external elements might be, as you begin to visualize in your mind what’s going to happen next.

Tim: 30:40

Yeah, and I think we could all take a page out of that book in how we go about a lot of things that we do, especially from the connection networking, interpersonal relationship perspective, and take a step back and don’t be so quick to judge and actually listen to what other people are saying as well.

Kirk: 31:05

I like to visualize where I am and my family, my friends. They criticize me because I don’t use GPS. I love a map, a paper map to pull that out.

Kirk: 31:19

Where am I right now, spatially in the universe, in the world, so to speak. Where does this road lead to? I look at the sun. Where’s the sun? Right, that’s to my right. I’m headed north. Well, I make a left turn. I’m going to be headed west. I’ll pull out a compass every now and then and people say, man, you’re pretty primitive. How much wasted time is that? Well, I’m going to see some things perhaps that I would not have seen otherwise. But, more important, I heard an expert, uh, on brain our brain is at age ages talk about this the other day and said that maps and not relying on gps is a major um help as far as warding off Alzheimer’s and dementia and some of those illnesses like that, because you know where your place is. So I’m lost half the time, tim, but I’m trying to fight off. Fight off the aging brain.

Tim: 32:25

That’s interesting. I didn’t know that, but you know, um, maybe I’ll get my. You know, cut my wife a little bit of slack, because, uh, even with a GPS she gets lost.

Tim: 32:35

Um, you know it’s, it’s, it’s a blessing and a curse, I guess I don’t. I don’t know, but but the whole idea of of map is, of having a map, is fascinating because, again, you’re right, most people have no idea, number one, how to read a map or how to use a map or what to even do with it. Since we’ve gotten gps, it’s, it’s, it’s crazy, and I think, you know, from technology in the of itself, I think, has really accelerated the whole dementia, alzheimer’s paradigm, because we’ve stopped doing a lot of things using our brains we watch television, we play on the computer this, that and the other thing, and we don’t again actually interact like we used to in the real world.

Kirk: 33:32

Well, first of all, this is wonderful. You and I get to meet. We’re 500 miles away from each other, but it’s like we’re breaking bread just in remote locations, right. So the technology can be a wonderful thing, but I was having a discussion with some people earlier this week about the onset of AI and I need to have an understanding of it, because that’s what’s happening in the world. But how far do you advance that or allow that? And it’s kind of like. I think back to the Amish. How did they decide? This is where technology ends at this point. I think they have a leader of the community that kind of dictates that, but it’s always fascinating of that particular segment of society how it was decided that they were going to stop at this point. This is okay, but this is not.

Tim: 34:29

Yeah, yeah, it’s interesting. I lived for a long time up in Pennsylvania, just outside of Amish country, in Lancaster, and not truly, you know, when I moved up there. I still don’t know that I truly understand the culture, but not truly understanding it, and watching some of the things that they did, I would think back and say it would be nice if we could just do that all the time, you know. And then I just get right back to you know, plowing right on through and and and knocking stuff out.

Tim: 34:59

So I think, part of it is is is really being intentional with, with how you live your life and how you interact with others. Yeah, because it can be done?

Kirk: 35:13

It can be, but it’s decision points along the way. What are you going to invest yourself in and get involved in with this now and whatnot? I was talking to my wife the other day. I told her. I said I think men have a great advantage over women with technology because we can stick our cell phones in our pockets. Women, if they don’t have a purse, don’t tend to have pockets in a lot of their clothing. It has to be on the top of the table and when messages come up, there it is. I’ve got to check that. So that contributes to the statistic. I heard the other day that the average person in America checks their phone 144 times a day.

Tim: 36:00

Well, that doesn’t surprise me at all. I mean, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was higher than that. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was higher than that. So how do you coach people to be present and not necessarily be checking their phone when you’re interacting with somebody? For me.

Kirk: 36:36

that’s one of the things that truly elevates my blood pressure almost immediately If I’m having a conversation with you and your phone goes off and you stop the conversation and you start checking your phone.

Kirk: 36:43

How do you coach people to truly be present in that situation? I think the Gaines couple, chip and Joanna, the fixer-upper. They’ve got a restaurant it’s part of the Magnolia House franchise down in Waco and one of the rules that they establish is cell phones. They’ve got these pouches that are in the booths or by the tables where people sit are going to be deposited in there when you sit down, because we want you to enjoy your meal, but we also want you to have a conversation with the person you’re with. That’s a ground rule that they have laid out and similarly, in conversations, let’s agree to turn off our cell phones right now. Is there anything that is really necessary that you need to take care of before we enter into this meeting? But I want to devote 100% of my time to you for the next 60 minutes that we’re going to meet and I hope that we can agree to those terms going into it. So it’s establishing what those ground rules are going to be and if they’re amenable to everybody.

Tim: 37:45

Yeah, and I just think it’s so important. I think that that’s a great approach. It’s if you’re constantly checking your cell phone, you know, if you put this way, if you’re having a 15 minute conversation and you check your cell phone five times, how, how engaged are you actually into the conversation and how much are you actually taking, taking away from from that? If, once every three minutes, you’ve minutes, you’ve disengaged and are not paying attention to it, I think people need to truly understand what that does in terms of the overall communication experience.

Kirk: 38:23

Yeah, it’s saying to the other person you are of secondary importance to a machine, right? Basically, because I’m kind of imprisoned by that to some degree. Before we had cell phones we had regular phones. Of course, I guess, landlines, landlines yeah, they’re still around here and there, they’re still around here and there. But I would create a discipline. If I was meeting with someone and the landline would go off if I hadn’t set up a call forwarding, which I often neglected to do. They would hear it ring and they say aren’t you going to get that? I would say no, you’re here, I’m here. This is important, let’s focus on that, right, and hopefully that created a little bit greater self-esteem for that person that I was having a chance to visit with.

Tim: 39:13

Yeah, and again, another great point, acknowledging something that you know, whatever it is, it can wait. You know I’m not perfect in doing it, but I do try really hard, you know. So I’ve got my phone set up so my wife and my kids have different vibrations and ringtones, and so you know, if it’s not one of those and I’m in a meeting, it doesn’t really matter, it’s, it can wait. If it’s one of those other special ringtones, depending on where we’re at in the meeting, I just let it go. But I also tell my wife and kids I’m locked off during this time. So contact me if it’s an emergency. So I do try and put in strategies and tactics so that it takes some, some of the impulse away, because somebody with ADD, adhd like me, that happens. It immediately diverts my attention and so we’ve got to find ways to to reduce them.

Kirk: 40:24

In and of itself, I remember the days and probably you do as well, tim. The kids were younger and my wife and I would want to go out for an evening, go to dinner, go to a movie. We’d have a babysitter that would come over and we’d say we’re going to go eat at such and such place. Here’s the number. We’re going to be at such and such movie theater If there’s an emergency. Here’s their number. Call us if you need to, but otherwise don’t call us. We trust what you’re doing and everybody seemed to feel comfortable with that.

Tim: 40:58

Yes.

Kirk: 40:59

And we had one episode the babysitter locked herself out of the house and she had to go to the neighbor’s house and call us and get a hold of us. That’s a good story. Now.

Tim: 41:12

It is because now, if we don’t know what’s going on every two? Minutes we’re freaking out. It’s insane. So again, you’re involved in a lot of different things and you teach spinning classes. Is that what it is, spinning classes?

Kirk: 41:31

Spin classes.

Tim: 41:32

So are you this nice and this calm when you’re coaching spinning classes? Because to me, if that were the case, I’d probably just be kind of pedaling along. Oh, it’s great, we’re hanging out with Kirk for 45 minutes to an hour.

Kirk: 41:54

How does a spinning class with Kirk actually go? Well, tim, it kind of depends who you are. Okay, if you come in for the first time, it’s going to be a very welcoming, very encouraging, and if you’ve been in for the 50th time, it’ll be the same way. But I may pick on you just a little bit. I’ve got members of the class that don’t like certain exercises, so what am I going to do? I’m going to present them to them. So, david, who is one of the members of the class he was there today Dave, we’re going to do some jumps, and Dave is obstinate and says I’m not. I said well, dave, you’re depriving yourself of one of the great pleasures of this class. I’m sorry to hear that. And he’ll yell it right back at me. So there’s some give and take and we egg each other on, but it’s a blast. I get paid money, tim, to yell at people at 6 am in the morning.

Kirk: 42:46

What can be better? It’s great.

Tim: 42:48

Well, first off, god bless people being up at 6 am. But that, to me, that’s. I need to get back into it. That’s how I used to be. I would get up at 4.30, go to the gym, go to the office, get stuff done. By the time people would start rolling in, I would already have almost a full day of work being done. That way I could then be free to interact and talk to people and stop in and they come in and see me and those types of things. But to me, there’s nothing better than getting up in the morning and getting your exercise in, getting that heart rate going first thing in the morning and then going on about your day.

Kirk: 43:26

Yeah, I don’t like when the alarm goes off at five, but once I’ve gotten up, gotten there, done the class, all day is still ahead of me. I’ve got my workout in, I’m re-energized and ready for what comes next.

Tim: 43:41

Yeah, and it’s just so important. Exercises number one is not only so important for your physical health. What it does to your mental health and all those other extraneous benefits that you get from that afterwards Not just talk about from the time that you’re exercising, but the rest of the day. What that does physiologically for you and your mental health is phenomenal. Just get up and go, do it.

Kirk: 44:09

Yeah, as I coach people, one of the most important things is movement. I hear people talking about being stuck. How do you get unstuck? Well, the first thing you do mentally and physically move, that’s going out for a walk, going for a bike ride, going for a run, going out for a walk going for a bike ride, going for a run that’s going to stimulate those endorphins and maybe take your brain to a different place than it’s been.

Kirk: 44:38

Oh, I know why I haven’t been able to do this, why I haven’t wanted to do it Right and takes you down a path that’s going to be more rewarding and beneficial to you and for others as well.

Tim: 44:49

Absolutely correct. If there’s one piece of advice you could give to the young professional in terms of improving their soft skills, improving their communication, what would it be?

Kirk: 45:03

I think the first thing is be a good listener. People that are good in sales. They know how to listen well. They know how to ask good questions. I was with my brother-in-law a couple of weeks ago lives down in Texas and one of the things I complimented him on was Don you ask good questions? And he thanked me for saying that. But he also credited it to a career spent in sales.

Kirk: 45:32

Because he says, one of the first tenets of sales is to understand the person that you’re talking to before you ever talk about your product, to identify that pain. So begin at that point and what you may find is the person’s got an interesting story that’s going to enrich your life. You walk away from it and say, god, that was a heck of a story that I heard, really interesting. You’ve enhanced your knowledge base that day. So that would be one big word of advice Listen well, listen intentionally.

Tim: 46:08

One big word of advice listen, well, listen intentionally. That’s phenomenal advice, and you know again if we could just do that. Listening is hard to do because you actually have to turn that voice off that’s in your head, and turn your phone off as well, and be present and be like you said, be wanting to actually hear what they’ve got to say. Not listen to respond, but actually listen to what they’re saying and take it in and listen to understand. It’s so important and it’s a skill just like anything else.

Kirk: 46:41

It has to be practiced and some people we all know can drone on and on and that becomes a coaching opportunity. I’ve had those clients that give their 12 minutes soliloquy and Tim between you and me and our listeners. They’re kind of boring, so at the end of it that’s a great story. How would you say that in three minutes? Three minutes, right.

Tim: 47:07

Right. Well, Kirk, where can people find you to?

Kirk: 47:10

work with you. I’m in Northwest Florida, about a half a mile from the Gulf of Mexico, between Destin and Panama City Beach. I’m at kirk at theseedsowercoachcom is my website Also kirkmccarleyauthorcom for my book Thoughts for my Kids and Other People’s Kids. That’s out on Amazon and it can be found at your local bookstore as well. I’m on Facebook, instagram and LinkedIn too Kirk McCarley.

Tim: 47:39

Well, first off, northwest Florida is a good place to be almost all year long, so I think you’re in a good spot there almost all year long. So you’re, I think you’re in a good spot there, but you know, almost all year long with the weather just had to be kind of kind of where around. You know, certain times you’re willing to bring them up.

Kirk: 47:58

Uh, last month we had four inches of snow on the ground too, which was an anomaly, but it was a lot of fun.

Tim: 48:04

Well, so so you, you, actually we both got our our snow in for, you know, next decade or so, so they, they can have it. But, kirk, thank you so much for spending some time with us. The information you shared is incredible. Good luck tonight. I know it’s gonna be a good game and, um, hopefully we’ll talk to you again soon thank you you so much for having me, tim.

Kirk: 48:26

It’s my pleasure being with you, you take care.

Tim: 48:31

Be sure to visit speakwithconfidencepodcastcom to get your free ebook the top 21 challenges for public speakers and how to overcome them. You can also register for the forum for public speaking. Always remember your voice has the power to change the world. We’ll talk to you next time, take care.