Janice Porter: Hi, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode
of relationships rule. My guest this week is Dr. Keith McNally.
And I'm quite excited to talk to him and I'm being completely
distracted by his legal structures behind him. So I, I
have a, I have a nephew who's very much into Lego, an adult in
there for nephew who's very much into Lego. And so I find this
really fascinating because it's another whole world that I
haven't really gotten into yet. So sorry about that. But it is
what it is. I want to tell you a little bit about Dr. Key. And
then we're going to get into the conversation. He How did we meet
we met because somebody asked if I was interested in having in my
podcast him on my podcast, but I think we had been on a
networking event together as well, that a bunch of people I
met there were very cool people. And there are podcast people as
you are. And Dr. Keith has a three podcasts that he has
developed over the past few years. And we'll get into that a
little bit. But he's a US Marine that. And I'm not sure and I
will ask you this in a minute. If the reason for your attempted
suicides, one or both of them was PTSD type of situation. But
you were in a low place at one point or twice in your life and
things have and you had a heart attack that you survived as
well. And so you, I don't know, I'm gonna get you to tell me
this, you turned your life around in so many ways and made
other people well, as well, because of what the work that
you do. So I know that in during the horrible pandemic, you
needed people to talk to, I think we all need people to talk
to you. And it's just a question of, you know, how who, what, and
you actually reached out on LinkedIn to people, so I'm gonna
get you to tell that story. So welcome to the show. First of
all, I'm going to call you Dr. Keith, or just keep,
Dr. Keith McNally: you're gonna call me Keith, because this is
gonna be a casual conversation sounds
Janice Porter: good. And something else was gonna say,
Can't remember. So start there start with telling me about, you
know, where you were, what happened, and how you you know,
how you brought yourself to where you are now, to amazing,
Dr. Keith McNally: okay, that sounds like a good point, you
know, a good place to start. So I blame my life on COVID. And a
lot of people will say that in a very negative way. But I'm gonna
flip the coin and say, in a very positive way. And so it, we all
recognize the situation COVID brought upon, you know,
basically the world and so all of us were dealing with it in
very unique but very specific ways. And many of us lost loved
ones, friends, homes, money, jobs, you know, whatever it is,
whatever, you can put a name to it, you probably lost it. Um,
the other side of the coin was that, and this is what I was
finding when I when I was having this conversation. So and we'll
get to how I got there was when people were waking up in the
morning, and they may not have lost a whole lot. But in a
sense, they had lost their identity, meaning that when they
looked at themselves in the mirror, they weren't either
happy or proud of what they were seeing. And so everything that
they had accumulated career wise, basically, you know, in
life, whether it be the houses, the cars, the money's no longer
held the real value that it thought it should have. And
either side of the coin, people were making intentional pivots
and changes to do something about their life, whether to
survive it, and thrive through it, you know, the chaos of COVID
or to align themselves with a better version of themselves
that they really wanted to be proud of, and find value in and
my story regarding the COVID situation was, you know, through
a set of variables, I had lost my job and it happened to be at
the tail end of COVID through the quarantine. And
unfortunately, I was unemployed for 12 months and being now 54
going on 55 So my younger 50s That took an incredible hit on
who I was as a person as a dad. You know, me career, I'm losing.
Basically I'm trying to hold on to white knuckled you know fists
With everything that I was losing, and it wasn't working,
and so yeah, I had thought and made the attempt to take my own
life. And so, and that was the second time in in 12 years. So
2013 and 2021. Were specifically, it wasn't
necessarily around post traumatic stress. Now I am a US
Marine and I have a combat background, I was an I was
directly in infantry, and specifically in mortars as a
Marine. But that I'm not going to credit any of that passed to
why I took, you know, took the attempt to take my own life, you
know, it made the attempt, it was really life circumstances
that I was never fully prepared for. And because of that, I felt
the only way out, the best way out was to literally be out. And
so that's really kind of the nature of my story.
Janice Porter: Had you been were you primarily an introverted
loner kind of person.
Dr. Keith McNally: You actually, I actually call myself a misfit.
And so you know, growing up, you know, grade school, middle
school, high school, college, never really fit in, I'm
definitely an introvert. My parents divorced when I was 10.
And so, all the chaos that was involved with, you know, my home
life really kind of stuck with me. And so I didn't develop
friendships, well, or if I did, I didn't develop many of them.
So a lot of what I lacked was was resources, you know, family
resources, friends, the ability to connect, the ability to
socialize, basically, in a very, what would seem a very natural
way that most kids, college students adults do, I have never
really developed those skills until basically, a couple of
years ago. So, right, so.
Janice Porter: So you say that you needed people to talk to, to
network with, and you needed to find a job I imagined so that
that's why it started on LinkedIn, and starting to reach
out to some connections that you had there. And I find that in a
way safer to talk to a stranger, you know, it's not as hard to
talk to someone you don't really know, I find, even though I'll
talk to anybody and everybody, I'm an I'm more the extrovert in
that respect. And I can usually get pretty deep with them quite
quickly. But for some people, I think that's much harder. And so
I think, to to reach out to, you know, people that were a name
and on a connection list on LinkedIn, you may not have known
them all very well, in fact, probably didn't. So how did that
evolve and turn your life around? How did that help with
that?
Dr. Keith McNally: It was either a spiritual or subconscious
need. And so I recognized that everything about my life needed
to change. And so how I interacted with myself, how I
how I thought about myself, how I interacted with people, and
when I found about people, so throughout the job search, but
it was really more about making the connection, talking with
people. And like you said, I didn't have but maybe 2000, and
some change people on my LinkedIn connection list. And I
may have only really known a handful of them. Do you know,
no, no, you know, right, not just on a professional basis,
but maybe something on a personal basis as well. But what
I did was just simply tap on the virtual door and say, Would you
like to have a conversation? And that was really the foundation
of it. Now it was at a risk for me? Absolutely. Because of my
introverted nature, definitely a risk. And, but what I was
finding was the very thing I talked about earlier, people
were making changes, and by the nature of humanity, they wanted
to tell somebody else about it. And I just happened to be that
one person, if I'm inviting to a call, just like this, you know,
let's jump on a zoom call. There, you know, as people were
saying, yes, you know, but it was only the people who were
making the investment in their own life and making changes in
their life that wanted to have those conversations. It wasn't
everybody, you know, I got more, you know, people just ignored me
or just said no, blatantly said, no, no, no, thank you never. So
the conversations happen slowly, but as I continued, it was just
something that I needed to do so I can To the process, would you
like to have a conversation? Now, they didn't start getting
recorded. Until I saw the idea that, you know, these people
were sharing. We cried on Zoom calls, you know, people had gone
through some stuff. And they wanted to share their story. No,
I wasn't necessarily being fully open disclosure with my own
stuff. But at the time, it really didn't, I didn't need to
be because they were really sharing their stories. And so I
simply asked the next person, would it be okay to record this?
And somebody said, Yes. And so, with that, first, yes, I started
recording conversation that began with some of the folks
that I did know, personally and professionally, and then grew it
from there. So initially, what was a podcast or basically a
YouTube playlist called level up? Within 15 to 20 episodes,
and I do 40 Episode seasons. I change it to the question guy.
I'm a college professor by trade, I ask a lot of questions.
And the question guy stuck. And so the question guy podcast
became, you know, that series of playlists that started, you
know, these are 2120 22. Interesting.
Janice Porter: So, what were you teaching? By the way? Do you
teach now still,
Dr. Keith McNally: I do I still teach, not at the not at a
college. I, my background is in it. And my doctorate is in
educational leadership. So by all intents and purposes, I
should have gone into an administration, but I'm very
comfortable in the classroom, and so sharing knowledge, yeah,
yeah, I'm very comfortable. So now I work for an international
business solutions company, and I'm a tech I'm one of their
technical trainers.
Janice Porter: Okay. Wow. Okay. And that's so different to this
journey, that you're towards leadership. Right? And
Dr. Keith McNally: very, very different. Yeah. To some degree.
Yeah.
Janice Porter: So one of the things that, that I noticed on
your bio, was that you that topics that you like to talk
about, and this is the one that jumped below, they all did, but
this one jumped out at me discuss strategies for actively
building creating and nurturing meaningful connections, because
that's what I'm all about to I'm all about relationship building,
and, and business built on relationships, relationships
form that, you know, you form a trust with people, people can
trust, if you refer somebody to them, it's going to be the right
person, etc, etc, all of those things. So what would you say
are the, the, the, the best strategies for doing that?
Dr. Keith McNally: Well, everybody's gonna have their
unique take to that. And so what I, what I did is, I learned
about people, I made it my purpose to learn about people.
And so earlier, when you kind of, you know, read off pieces of
my bio, I do have three different conversations that's
actually grown to five and will grow to six by the end of this
year. And because my hashtag is commerce, all conversations that
matter is my hashtag to one of them that I use in conversations
for change, because everything begins and ends with the right
conversation. And that's kind of been my, my, my gut. Since all
of this began. And I mean that to say, the first set of
conversations were all about people's personal story. And
that's what the question guy is all about. Right? Because of
their transformation. People actually create business models
from their own personal stuff, became coaches, speakers, or
book authors, and are now helping people going through the
stuff that they originally went through, or helping other people
go through that same stuckness whatever that is. And so, I
credit Coaches Corner specifically to talk about
business expertise. On the brink, grander, global, more
broader scale, I created the Envision speaker series and I
brought back panels members, panel people, people who have
already been on my show, I wanted to start talking about
what it takes to make social change happen, you know,
whatever that toxic work, you know, workplace toxicity, mental
health, illness, you know, mental illness, mental health
issues in men. Why do men have more suicide ideations now than
ever before? At any age level? How to heal how to be holistic
in your who you are not just about being this person
professionally and this person personally, step up and show up
as who you are. All the time. That's the start of the answer
to your question. How do we build that know like trust
relationship? It starts with two things and this is what I
learned over Coming in on my own suicide ideation, learn how to
breathe. One thing is to do is learn under breathe. breathing
calms the body and focuses the mind. And I don't mean just a
regular breathing, I mean, focus breathing, you know, close your
eyes sit down, and taking that breath and allow the oxygen to
do what it's designed to do. And that's give you energy. It's one
of the things it's designed to do. And then once you learn how
to do that, figure out who you are actually wrote a book.
Walking the Path of leaders journey is all about personal
development through a series of stages. But the essence of the
book is if you throw away the titles, and I had to because I
was unemployed for 12 months, so everything I did, as a doctor,
everything I did, as a college professor, everything I did,
prior to the chaos, I had to let go, because it was all those
things I was holding on to that I couldn't hold on to anymore.
They were slipping away. And so what I decided to do was, let
them go. And when I decided to let everything go, my whole life
changed, I found a job. People were beginning to help me do
what I needed to do to overcome, you know, suicide ideation, the
chaos of COVID building relationships. So I started
having more of those more and more those conversations just
like this one. And I began to appreciate every conversation,
every person that I would meet, because they were adding, if
anything, just a little gold, maybe a little bit of value to
my life. And I have to hope and think that as I was living
vicariously through them, and becoming comfortable with
myself, that I was exchanging that same value at some level to
them. That has to be true, because now I've had over 250
recorded conversations under five different platforms.
Janice Porter: So this is what I'm picturing. I'm picturing
that, that you lost your job that you you were and COVID hid.
And you were alone a lot. As we all were, you know, unless we,
you know, have people live in our house with us, we have a lot
of, you know, alone time, and that brought you into negative
state. And you plummeted. But you also had the wherewithal to
get yourself out of it. I mean, did you have were you in
therapy, were you where you want? No, I
Dr. Keith McNally: didn't. I didn't have the wherewithal to
get myself, okay. I actually, for whatever, for whatever was
keeping me alive. I was showing up even broken. So I was showing
up to networking meetings, I was showing up to job interviews, I
was showing up to whatever I needed to do. Even on LinkedIn,
even the conversations I was having, I was still broken. I
actually met somebody His name is Mitch Cray, and I always give
him a shout out. So don't don't hate me for in this
conversation. He invested his life into me, you
Janice Porter: know, I said, Why would I hate you for it? No,
absolutely.
Dr. Keith McNally: He invested his life into me so that I would
still have one. And at first, he was just a mentor. Now we're
really good friends. So it was one person making the investment
free of charge? No. It's because of who he is and what he does
and how he does it. That said, you know, Keith, we're going to
take this one step at a time. He's the one who taught me to
breathe. He's the one who taught me to show up.
Janice Porter: I love it. No, I think that's great. But you did
I mean, give yourself some credit. Right? For keeping going
until that happened, right? Because, right. And actually,
it's making me think of something else too. Like when
you talk about the breathing and and I don't do that enough, I
don't stop and just, you know, relax and do that. But I've
noticed that I have a little granddaughter, she's four and a
half, she's almost five. And she's very hyperactive, and
she's never stops moving. But if you if you know she's getting
too, too much and too much going on, you kind of have to stop her
and look her in the eye and go, Okay, let's just breathe. And
take a breath and just relax for a minute. And you can see what
happens when she does that. She needs to do that. And the other
thing that she needs to do, which I want to come to with you
is she needs to be out in nature. It seems to ground her
and she is at her best when she's digging in the soil and
she's, you know, dig turning over a rock or getting dirty or
putting her feet in the water. That's what she loves to do.
Which is like the first Sing from me, I was the kid who
didn't want to get dirty when I was a kid. So it's really
interesting to see what she's teaching, you know, me, for
example. But I think that you must feel that too, because
you're going on this amazing journey that is also to raise
money, I think also for people in need. You can tell me
exactly. It's about suicide prevention, I think. Right.
Dr. Keith McNally: So I'm on a mission. And so I've
collaborated with a couple of different people to do a couple
of different things. One of the things that I'm working with is
any event in September 2024. So at the time of this recording
this year, in a couple of months, I'm working with Shane
Kramer, and Rick made down in North Carolina, in 2023.
Unfortunately, NC State University was in the spotlight
in the media spotlight, because they had incurred several deaths
by suicide at the colleges. So the college level 2018 1920 21
year olds are struggling for a variety of reasons. And so I
know a lot of people have, have raised the attention. This has a
focus, we just happen to have a really good team, and we're
bringing some services, and we're gonna do an event down
there. But because I'm a veteran, my specific focus is
with veterans and at risk veterans. I am you talked about
going back into nature. So one of the things I want to do is
raise awareness, provide educational services, mentoring
and training to veterans in the veteran community, including
their families, on how to redesign your life. Now, I am
not a crisis intervention specialist, I'm not there, when
you got the gun to your head, or whatever that situation looks
like. That's not my space. But if you're still alive, and you
still struggle with unknowns and variables that you think are
problematic to you. I am somebody to talk to. There are
many bigger organizations, Wounded Warrior, and all kinds
of other veterans and mental illness, mental health
organizations, and we all do our good job or due diligence, and
we all work well in our spaces. But I've been there, I've
actually made the attempt three times my first time as a college
student myself 25 years ago. But specifically, as an adult,
there's no scarier place to be than alone, and thinking that
your life is worthless. And so because of that, and because
I've got some friends, some veterans who, you know, did
their time and service, some of them retired, who also struggle
with life variables, and I always call them very, because
we never know when something comes up. I do want to give them
an opportunity, one to have a conversation to, to become real
with themselves. And like I said, and even I wrote the book,
but it's all about personal transformation, learn how to
breathe, or on the show up, learn how to be vulnerable. The
event that you're talking about is I want to hike through it's
called an actual thru hike in the community, the Appalachian
Trail. So in 2025, on April 1 is our launch date. So me and
Jodi's is a colleague of mine, friend of mine, we both
veterans, we're going to do a thru hike of the Appalachian
Trail. And so that's a 2193 miles depending on who you talk
to you from Springer Mountain, Georgia, all the way College in
Maine. And so it's going through 14 states, on the east coast of
the US contiguous states, it's going to take about four months,
the way God keeps on putting it, probably five, and so we do need
to raise a lot of money just to put us through the hike, food
and some other supplies as well. But specifically, we're going to
be bringing people in veterans service members, those who have
overcome their own situations or those who are still struggling
with their own situations, we're going to bring them on the
trail. We are welcoming every possible section hiker so if you
want to join us awesome, more than the more the merrier. Even
if you only like one mile with us now. It's cool. No overnight
camping, but at the very least, this is going to be
transformational for for many, many people. And probably
specifically for me and for Jodi because this is something we've
never attempted before. So we're novice thru hikers haven't done
it before. I mean, we have hiked and we have camped, and so we
we've got the general idea of how to do this. But you know,
hiking 20 plus miles a day across 14 states over four
months, is different. You know, he's calling it a military
mission and I'm I'm right there with him because it's all about
logistics and planning and all this other kind of stuff. And so
that's why we are raising money. But we're also specifically
raising awareness, and providing education coaching as well. And
mentoring.
Janice Porter: So hopefully you'll get some PR out of it.
And as you go through it, you'll log it on video and all of that
good stuff, right?
Dr. Keith McNally: Yeah, well, so we did it, as long as we get
the answer sheet and the Wi Fi, the Wi Fi, live stream, what we
can do anything else gets recorded. He is he's a technical
guru. So I've asked him to kind of bring some of his his toys
with them, we might create some, you know, virtual or augmented
reality segments along the way, which would be really, really
cool for people who are in that space. But all in all, you know,
we are really looking to, to really bring a new identity to
the bedroom community, because like you said, you Mo's your
niece, my granddaughter. Yeah, when she's out in nature, we're
created, you know, I do believe we were created. And the book
says we're created from dirt particles of the earth. And so
part of part of us is connected to that, and you can't take that
away. I from my belief structure, I can't take that
away.
Janice Porter: Wow, interesting. So I think that's a, it's a very
robust plan, and got the word challenge that you're taking on.
And I think it'll be quite, it'll be exciting for you. And
I'm sure that the biggest thing will come from people's
transformations. And so I'd like to ask you in all of the
discussions you have with people and, and I know you're a
teacher, your trainer, your Creator, your speaker in all of
the people that you that you touch with the work that you do.
Do you have one or two stories that's really stand out? As, you
know, just really special? Um, I know I put you on the spot, but
Dr. Keith McNally: no, it's okay. There is. I always say
every conversation is important. And what I what, what I would
like to see happen is more men step up to the conversation,
more men step up to the microphone. Only because I don't
get that often enough. Now. I have a lot of conversations on
this is a lot of them with women. So women would step up.
And because they're, it's easier for them to share my personal
experience, you know, tragedy and whatnot. And very few men,
at least, on my podcast, are willing to do that now if you
have if you have cried. And so that's that I think is a very
powerful thing is when I see a man cry in front of me, because
of something that's happened in him in his life, and he's
willing to become vulnerable. And he's willing to disclose.
And so if more men can actually not every man has to do that,
you know, I'm not saying that every man has to break down like
a baby and cry. But for the expression of emotion in that
way, that release of energy is so valuable and
transformational. That I would like to see more men do that.
And so that did happen in one of my conversations. And it wasn't
even though the question God podcast, it was Coach's Corner,
because he had lost everything. It might have been a mixed vote,
he had lost everything, and had to go back to mom and dad as a
grown man and say, you know, Dad, I failed. And that broke
him. And it broke him on in the conversation. And so that was
such a powerful moment. Both in our conversation, and I think in
his own life, of course, that he changed himself. The other story
wouldn't be, like I said, I have, you know, of my three. So
personal, professional and social impact stories. I do have
two other specific conversations, one around
suicide and the impact of suicide in our lives. I have
about eight or nine on my playlist on YouTube. And I have
an a fifth conversation for those people who want to kind of
drop the facade, drop the titles and just have conversations with
me about what's really important in their lives. And I've had
about, you know, a handful of those and I call them
conversations. It's a conversations playlist on
YouTube. And her name is Carrie Allen. She is very active on
LinkedIn. She is the founder of the Hume Monterey with a
colleague, Sara Cotterell. And they do, they taught me how to
meditate. They taught me how to meditate and how to use words,
to empower me before I have conversations, because what I
wanted to do was get better at this, I wanted to get better at
having conversations with people. And that meant, from her
perspective, and probably from my perspective, is to be more
present, not run from a script, not rehearse words or sentences
or questions, but to be present in the moment. And she taught me
how to do that. And I think since like, October, September,
October, November, last year to now so at the time of this
recording, I've gotten much better at that being present in
the moment and being to exchange energies with the person or
people I'm having conversations with. And so that they recognize
that they're being listened to, and being validated. And that's
probably the most powerful thing I've been able to learn to date.
Janice Porter: That's really interesting. Because I don't
work from a script, I can't, and that's with anything I do, like,
even when I have to go do a speech, which I don't do very
often because I'm uncomfortable having a script. But you know,
I'm better off the cuff in a way. I mean, I have to do some
prep, but I just have to feel it out when I'm speaking to the
person. But what you're talking about for me, I think comes from
Curiosity. So that's, I find interesting in what you're
saying, because I don't always I sometimes ask my my guests the
curiosity question, because I'm fascinated by that myself, and I
feel I have a really good sense. And I have a sense of curiosity.
And a lot of people don't. And I wonder if people think it's
innate or learned. And that sort of is curious to me when you
say, you know, learning about being in the moment and, and
being aware of what someone's saying and feeding off that. I
call that curiosity. So did you have to learn, you had to learn
that?
Dr. Keith McNally: I did. I would say it's a balance I I
intentionally knew I wanted to be better at having a
conversation, a real conversation to to literally be
in that space, rather than, you know, the notorious thinking
about what I have to say, as as part of the interaction and so
with with, you know, Carrie Allen, Sarah Cotterill, Eileen
build Mitch cray. These people taught me how to focus one my
energies to my thoughts through my subconscious. Breathe and be
in the moment. Now, Am I perfect at it? Not yet, I am getting
better. And I think with every conversation, I do get better.
But it was something I had to learn. It wasn't necessarily
something that was just jumping out at me and say, you know,
this is just who you are. And it all works. Remember, I'm an
introvert by nature. So for 50 years, I didn't have too many
conversations.
Janice Porter: Right? Right. It's fascinating, because I know
people that say that same thing, and they're not, they're not
curious at all. And so yes, it can be learned. And it can also
be innate. So I don't know, I always in my mind, I think we
all start as curiosity as curious kids, little kids, and,
you know, but somewhere, something gets drummed out of us
in lots of school, maybe, no, I taught school. So I hate to say
that, but I think it's true. You know, in fact, you know, my
granddaughter starting kindergarten September, and it's
gonna be really interesting to see what happens with her
because she can't sit still for very long. And yeah, so we'll
see. We'll see what happens. We'll, we'll be monitoring it
and looking at how it affects her. But um, yeah, so curiosity
and the skills and the strategies like you said, for,
for how to better yourself in this in the situations you put
yourself in. So I love that you are really always working on
yourself. I love that. Yeah, that's
Dr. Keith McNally: what I have to do now. I mean, if I'm going
to be, you know, a better coach, a better speaker, a better
podcast host. I need to do that because without that, it's just
going to be a flat, boring conversation. There's gonna be
no energy, there's gonna be no exchange of value. All the
cliches but really I think as based on what you said earlier
earlier in the conversation, it's all about building that
relationship that know, like trust. And so because of that,
you know, personal transformation process, and I'm
putting myself through a continuing the know, like trust
paradigm, you know, the triad is becoming more and more part of
me. And I say that, because it's, it's part of the
importance of what I do. Because I've talked with so many people
that I've I know, there's two people out there that need to
talk themselves, I make that connection. I'm not asking for
anything in return, I do the same thing, John, that, you
know, times and time again. And it's always been that, to my
knowledge, when they come back to me, that's always been the
right connection. So it's like these people needed to me. And
apparently, I was the facilitator of that.
Janice Porter: Yeah, that feels so good. I know, I do that too.
And I and when it works, you just know that it's like,
there's the magic, right? And you've just been that. I don't
know, I, I find that so satisfying. You have to meet
this person, I honestly, trust me on this one, and boom, it's
just perfect. I love it. So this is fascinating. There was one
more thing I wanted to ask you about. So I know that you let
your storyteller and you're now your conversationalist. You
You're, you're a speaker, which is also bringing you more of an
extrovert piece when you're a speaker, right? But are you and
your writer, so which do you like to do the most
Dr. Keith McNally: I would like to do all the make bank on a
two, I can't do that access to have my nine to five. To be
quite honest, I in joy, I enjoy all of them. So there's there's
no doubt about any of it. The most nerve wracking of the bunch
is being on stage. That's why I want more opportunities to do
that. I think I have I can add role. And I hate to cliche, I
could add real value to that space. Only because I want to
share my story. And that may be egotistical at this point, I
don't know. But the most converse, the best thing I enjoy
doing at this point is, is having these conversations
because I do think I do believe that every conversation is
important. And every conversation was meant to be
listened to by at least one other person who's going to take
something from it. For some reason, I believe that in
lately. And so even this conversation, and I know this is
your podcast, if only one person watched it, it's needed to be
watched by that one. Hopefully more. Yeah, that's okay. But
there's somebody out there who needs to hear what we and it's
not just what I it's what we've had to say. And the energies
that we exchanged. Somebody needs to not only hear it, but
they need to experience it. So for every conversation I have,
that's why I want to get better at them. I think I believe I
trust that there's somebody out there eventually. That needs to
experience that conversation. What happens the next day or
five years later. As long as it's evergreen. It can happen.
Janice Porter: So I think that your book, a walk walking the
path, a leaders journey. That path is personal development,
right? I mean, yes, you're going on the Appalachian Trail. And
that's the physical path that you're going on. And, and
growing from it. But this is about becoming a leader of self.
Right.
Dr. Keith McNally: It is now the characters, it's both Oh, it's
disabled. I do apologize, but no, it's all good. So it's a
mixture of both, you know, contextual elements of
leadership and what that looks like, but not from an academic
perspective. So I pull out, we talked about mentoring, we
talked about team building, we talked about communication
becoming vulnerable, and all of the self development things that
you really should have, if you're going to lead people and
then the specific circumstance falls within a story of fable
and narrative within the book, where a young man his name is
John So everything's kind of generic, needs to find himself
and so he's expected to take over his dad's farm in his
community, surrounded by mountains, so you know, very,
very sick, you know, segregated and separated from the rest of
the world. He's, it's mid basic course. Yeah, he feels like he's
a misfit. He doesn't fit in. I mean, he can he can do to things
but developing close friendships with a lot of people. He does
have his close knit friends. He leads then he decides to lead
them and they decide to follow him over the mountain, okay. And
he had to learn how to lead. And that's kind of the basis of the
story.
Janice Porter: That's really cool. Okay, I'm gonna come full
circle. And we're going to wrap it up. And I'm going to ask you
about your Lego. So no, seriously you are you get kits
you make Lego creatures and characters and things.
Dr. Keith McNally: So everything you see behind me outside of the
happy birthday cards, and Father's Day cards are Lego
built. And so their basic sets their license sets. And so the
big red thing that you see, I think on over here, as Ninjago
Mac, and so he's stands about this tall. Now, Lego likes to
advertise themselves as toys. I would not ever play with him
because he's very, very fragile.
Janice Porter: And probably how many hours of putting it
together, right.
Dr. Keith McNally: So each of these sets, they're not
necessarily the advanced the builds, but they do take a
couple of hours of dedicated time. Now the one I'm most proud
of is StormBringer. And Stormbringer is a combination of
Lego Boost, which is one of their it's not their advanced
brick, computer brick. It's just an application, you can download
it there's a robotic. He can, she wants to actually share it.
Stormbringer she is she. So it's a combination of the booths
product. This was like back in 2018. And the StormBringer
dragon product. So they combined the two. And she could walk, she
can roar, she can shoot lightning bolts out of her
mouth. She's just a lot of fun to play with. But she's an awful
lot of fun to build as well.
Janice Porter: So I I always think of when I was young, I
went to bingo at the local fair, right in the summertime. And
some of my friends grandma used to go or something we'd go to
bingo and everybody that were real bingo people. They had
their 12 boards in front of them, and they had all their
different dabbers daubers whatever you call them, and all
their trinkets, sir. Good luck charms me. It was like a whole
underworld economy for bingo people. Does that make sense?
Yeah, every time he has it, and Lego would have its own people,
right? So you have people that you build Lego with are people
that you compare kits with and things like that?
Dr. Keith McNally: Well, I don't. Because of you know, I'm
an introvert. Well, let's put things into context. You know,
when I talked about hugging 12 miles a day, that's four hours
of my day. So I'm up at 230 in the morning. I'm in bed by got
it. All right. My time is now spent elsewhere. Unfortunately,
I would love to invest. Right,
Janice Porter: you could see that being a thing, right?
Dr. Keith McNally: I could.
Janice Porter: Personally, I've been trying to build the Lego
things with my granddaughter, and it's too hard for me to fit.
It's too intricate. And because she's gone from Duplo to Lego
now. So now it's like, long as it has wheels. She's happy. So
there you go. Anyway, this was so much fun. Thank you. I just
had to ask that. Because I find you know, it's just that we have
to have fun to write we have to do things that actually that's
Dr. Keith McNally: part of the human nature we have to play in
adults forget how to do it. But we have to add it back. We
Janice Porter: do we totally do. I know. And I've started playing
these new games on LinkedIn. Have you looked at those?
Dr. Keith McNally: No, I don't know anything about games on
LinkedIn.
Janice Porter: It's a whole new thing. It's under the just go to
linkedin.com/games. And they'll show up. And once you've started
to play with them, then they'll show up on your newsfeed or
something and tell you, but I'm a words game person. I love
words. And so these are that kind of thing like a mini sort
of crossword ladder and things like that. Anyway, I don't know.
It's an I'm just exploring it from a LinkedIn trainer
perspective, to see if it becomes another tool for
building relationships.
Yeah, so anyways, it'll open up a conversation. Exactly.
So thank you for this conversation. Thank you for
sharing your story and your verse, your expertise and your
wisdom with us and to my audience. Thank you for being
here. If you heard something you were you were pleased about or
interested in please look up Dr. Keith. I will put his
information in the show notes and and I assume you'll put will
give me or podcasts as well, right?
Dr. Keith McNally: Most of my stuff. Yeah, most of my sales
stuff sits on YouTube. I am on app on iTunes with the ambition
speaker series.
Janice Porter: Perfect. And thanks for being here and
remember to stay connected and be remembered