[00:00:00] Joe Towne: Hello, and welcome to this week’s episode of the better podcast. My name is Joe Towne

For those who are new here, welcome. And for those who have been with us for a bit, welcome back. Each week, we’re going to explore the concept of better, how being better leads to doing better and how it impacts all areas of our lives. This week’s guest is Kevin Carroll. So who is Kevin? He’s an author and instigator of inspiration, a creative catalyst.

He’s worked for the NBA. He spent a lot of time on the Nike campus. He’s traveled all over the world to talk about the power of a ball. Kevin speaks at least five languages. He’s addressed the UN as part of the UN year of sports for development at peace. There’s a reason that companies like Starbucks and Adidas, Walt Disney and Target ask him to come in and work with their teams.

There’s a reason that people feel uplifted in the wake of an exchange with Kevin. There are reasons why Ted has called him not once, not twice, but multiple times to speak on their stages. I was curious about what it is he sees in humanity and how we can learn from his perspective. I kept noticing when I wanted to stop and take notes during our conversation.

And I had to remind myself, Joe, you’re recording this. What stands out to me is his playfulness and mastery over language. He can spark new ways of thinking about things that are right under our noses. He truly does live up to his nickname of creative cab. With a K for Kevin, let’s jump right into the conversation with Kevin Carroll, which is all about the magic of reframing our journey.

We aim to [00:02:00] take care of our Better Podcast family. So dear listener, this episode contains subject matter that may be difficult or distressing for some. If this is something that you want details on, please visit the show notes to be made aware of the content warnings and time codes that will allow you to skip that particular section.

KC, AKA Kevin, AKA the instigator of inspiration. Here’s where I’d like to start. If your life had a newspaper that was being written about it, what would the current headline of your life be saying? 

[00:02:36] Kevin Carroll: Let’s see, top of the fold headline. About that action. Yeah, because I’m out here making moves and activating ideas.

And sometimes I pause to think about like, how did that happen? What created that opportunity? And then I start to do that John Nash, beautiful mind kind of CSI, like piecing things together. And I think that’s really what has happened is, you know, I’ve always been a firm believer that action is the ingredient to turning ideas into reality.

So I think that that’s always been that thing that’s the secret ingredient is do something like act on it and, and don’t expect it to be microwaveable or just keep chipping away at it. Then eventually it will manifest and probably in a way you never anticipated, so about that action would be the headline.

[00:03:30] Joe Towne: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve heard you say don’t talk about it, be about it. And it sounds like you’re in this flow and really things are coming together that had been a long time building. And, uh, yeah, that action seems like it’s bringing into being maybe the invisible being made visible. 

[00:03:44] Kevin Carroll: Yeah. And well, I’m a firm believer in, you know, when you brought that up, that Joseph Campbell and visible hands start to, um, nudge you towards things because you’re in your, you’re on your [00:04:00] path and you’re in your flow.

So I believe that I think that there’s always a lot of that happening once you’ve made that commitment. And you learn to get out the way. I think that’s the other thing too, is just, uh, you know, you’re, you’re not necessarily, don’t believe you’re in control of it, but also welcome all the unexpected and surprise and delight things.

And so I think my life has been a lot of surprise and delight for sure. And expect and respect the unexpected. I think that’s, yeah, that might be a good headline to expect and respect the unexpected and might be the, like, just underneath thing, right about that action expected. Here’s the subtitle. 

[00:04:36] Joe Towne: Yeah, I love it. We’re starting out big. You brought up Joseph Campbell in terms of guiding and shaping and inspiring stories.

His influence and his work has been certainly impactful for me.

Joseph Campbell is the author of the book, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, which came out in 1949. This [00:05:00] book built on the pioneering work of German anthropologists, Adolph Bastiaan and Swiss psychiatrist. Carl Young Bastesen first proposed the idea that myths from all over the world seemed to be built from the same elementary ideas and curl young believed that everyone in the world is born with the same basic subconscious model of what a hero is or a mentor or a quest.

And that’s why people who don’t even speak the same language can enjoy the same stories. And so Joseph Campbell is known for weaving stories together from myths and religions and cultures around the world, identifying that they share the same story pattern, which he knew. The hero’s journey. Now, George Lucas credits his blueprint for the hero’s journey has given him the focus he needed to draw his sprawling imaginary universe for star wars into a single story.

Joseph [00:06:00] Campbell’s most famous phrase is a simple one. Follow your bliss. I wonder if we could time-travel back for a minute. I know how much storytelling is a part of who you are, and I know how much story has been, uh, you know, something that you’ve gotten from a lot of different people, but also a lot of different books.

Can you remember the first story you fell in love with? 

[00:06:24] Kevin Carroll: Oh, that’s easy. Where the Wild Things Are, like that’s easy. That’s so easy. Yeah. I thought- it was the first book that I took out of the public library when I got my library card. I just thought it was magical and images and the words and the way that Marie Sendak kind of just put that story together.

And I just really believed in all the magic it was talking about and the imagination and max and just all of those things. And, [00:07:00] you know, maybe there was a bit of me longing for that belonging and connecting that way. So that book was like that Seminole book for me. And I don’t ever hesitate. Like I always bring that up and let people know.

I keep a super old copy of it, right by me all the time and stuff. It’s not like the original in anything. Cause I would have a lot of library dues like owed if I still had that one. But yeah, but this is like one that I gave to my kids, I think. And I’ve had it over. 30 plus years or whatever in the house.

And so I always refer to that book as a source of inspiration for me, I think where I started to get my spark as a kid and also to discover the power of reading and words. I think that’s what that book really served. The purpose in that too.

[00:07:57] Joe Towne: Maurice Bernard Sendak was an [00:08:00] American illustrator and writer of children’s books. He won the Hans Christian Anderson award for illustration, the Caldicot medal for illustrator of the most distinguished American picture book for children. In addition to where the wild things are, he wrote in the night kitchen outside over there, and he illustrated many works by other authors, including the little bear series, which we also love in our.

Sendak was an early member of the national board of advisors of the children’s television workshop during the development stages of Sesame street in 1968, Sendak loaned the Rosenbach museum and library in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the bulk of his work, including nearly 10,000 works of art manuscripts, books, and ephemera.

This is one of my favorite stories about Maurice Sendak and where the wild things are. A little boy sent him a charming card with a little drawing on it. He said, I loved it. I answered all [00:09:00] of my children’s letters, sometimes very hastily, but this one I lingered over. I sent him a card and I drew a picture of a wild thing on it.

I wrote, dear Jim, I loved your card. Then I got a letter back from his mother and she said, Jim loves your cards so much. That to me was one of the highest compliments I’ve ever received. He didn’t care that it was an original Maurice Sendak drawing or anything. He saw it, he loved it. He hated, 

[00:09:28] Kevin Carroll: and it didn’t go unnoticed by my teachers that I was a strong reader.

So they poured into me even more knowing that I was a strong reader. And, you know, later in life I realized the power of being a good reader in grade school. And what that unlocks for you. So they say you learn to read up to fourth grade and then you read to learn from that point on. Um, and so understanding why some kids are not always struggle in school is because they never became a strong reader [00:10:00] and everything shifts after fourth grade, where you have to read, be able to read, to learn things, and then they teach you how to learn, to read up to that point.

And so that’s why, you know, I can remember friends that struggled with reading. You know, help trying to help them, but they, and then they struggled further on in school and those are the kids that tended to drop out of school. So I think that book was the, probably the most important book that I’ve read and it unlocked a world of possibility for me before we 

[00:10:31] Joe Towne: can read for ourselves.

Very often people read to us. You mentioned the library card. Do you recall people reading books to you at this library and did that help? 

[00:10:43] Kevin Carroll: No, there was no one reading to me cause I didn’t have my parents. Right. So I took that on. I mean, I think, you know, probably in grade school, our teachers read to us, I don’t really necessarily recall those moments of sitting around [00:11:00] being read to per se, but I think I just was always a namerd with.

Books. Cause they were around in our house and my grandparents house, they were books around. Is this my mom? And pop up? Yeah, the encyclopedia Britannica that would get delivered on the rag as though that was crazy. Right. When you think about that. 

[00:11:24] Joe Towne: So the encyclopedia Britannica, which had been in continuous print since it was first published in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1768 came to an end in 2012.

Now, when I was growing up, salesmen would knock on your door and try to get you to buy one. It was something I loved reading at my cousin’s house now. And again, which is funny because according to a 2006 report by Northwestern university’s Kellogg school of management, pretending his own market research show that the typical encyclopedia owner opened the books just once or twice a year as of 2012, after [00:12:00] 244 years.

Now only digital copies were being sold. It was written by about 100 full-time editors and more than 4,000 contributors. The 2010 edition was over 32,000 pages, long weighed over 129 pounds. And that was the last one ever printed. It cost about $1,400 for the 32 volume set in pop culture. There was a 1997 episode of friends.

The one with the cuffs were in a knowing riff on the fact that many households ended up with only a few additions rather than the whole set. Joey buys just the V volume for 50 bucks, which sounds like a total bargain to him. 

[00:12:45] Kevin Carroll: Right. And they’d have jet and Ebony magazine in the house and, you know, just always a newspaper every morning.

So those things. And so, but I don’t necessarily recall someone reading to me per se or having story [00:13:00] time probably in school. We did. Getting that library card and going in there, and the librarians kind of pointing me to where the kids section was and then perusing and then finding that book, I think.

Yeah. So I’ve always with my kids, I read a lot to them and I’ve obviously written books and stuff. So I think that’s, and I’ve done lots of read out loud stuff too, which has been wonderful. And I love those, uh, doing readings and those kinds of things. But yeah, I don’t have a specific moment of someone reading to me, but I can absolutely point to lots of people who made books available 

[00:13:40] Joe Towne: for me.

And it does sound like it was modeled for you, that reading was valued. So there was an encyclopedia Britannica, couple of magazines, the crossword puzzle, just even observing other people reading. Well, this is something we do, you know, you had several influences. Growing up. And if people that are watching this, [00:14:00] haven’t seen your Ted talk from Austin.

The one where you talked about magic and matriarchs in your life, it’s remarkable to hear those philosophies are distilled down so beautifully and the way you honored them and the way they influenced you. I, I was so grateful to hear that Kevin particularly Nanna Carol, and the five minutes of, Hey, we’re going to sit and the value that that taught you, and I have to tell you last week, this is you’ve been inspiring me.

And we’ve yet to be in the same room for a year. 

[00:14:32] Kevin Carroll: This is our first I know we’ve never been in the same room. This is, this is the first time I’ve put eyes on you, Ariel. This is the first time I’ve put eyes on you. Just so folks would know that, right? That we’ve not formally. We have not embraced. Right. But our spirits have embraced our souls have embraced it.

So many exchanges, which is so crazy. We have Yogi to thank for that, but I think it’s just so crazy that, yeah. And [00:15:00] that’s why I think it’s really magical when you start to think about relationships and friendships and how they can take on many different shapes and forms and levels. So yeah, we, this is our first time seeing each other.

[00:15:16] Joe Towne: Alright. Kevin refers to me as Ariel a few times. It’s because that is my birth name. I’ve gone by Joe in one way or another, since I was five years old, I went to school as Joe town. And yet my parents wanted me to be known at birth as Ariel. And because of where I grew up, everyone said my name with an accent.

So instead of pronouncing it REL, they would say Ari out for the longest time. I wanted to hide that name, especially growing up on long island in the time that I did, I wanted to hide all the things about me that made me stand out and opened me up to being teased. But I’ve accepted that there’s a lot of beauty to this name, which is Hebrew for lion of [00:16:00] God.

Many of you know, the name from the Disney hip film without a mermaid. Others may know it from Shakespeare’s. The Tempest Sylvia Plath wrote poems in a collection named Ariel Milton mentions Ariel as the angel in paradise lost. And Kevin has made it my nickname or secret name in our friendship, which I appreciate.

I’m looking out the window here. And, um, you know, this little area outside in our, in our new home and the other morning, my son he’s four and a half going on. Gosh, 12 got a lot of energy and in the morning I knew he needed to get outside some mornings. You want to get out. We want to play ball other mornings.

We’re going to get out and go down the slide. Other mornings. Do yoga or be goofy. So the other morning I took a page from Nana Carol and you and I wanted him to sit. He’s been talking about meditating, but he doesn’t really know what that means. So we turn it into a game where we first we’re listening for the sounds we could [00:17:00] take in from the environment.

Then we were feeling maybe what our body was doing. He was like, he kept saying, this is weird. This is weird, but I love that. We just gave it a go. And we, we played and figured it out. And he told me when he was done. And that was great, but I just really appreciate that inspiration and invitation to get.

[00:17:19] Kevin Carroll: Oh, that’s cool. That’s cool. Yeah. And I think I was the wiggler. Right. So she would kind of put her hand on me and hold me for a little bit. And it probably took me months before I started to, I don’t think I ever really like surrendered to it, surrendered to it, but like immediately and just went right into this practice of meditation and being still.

But I do. Recognize the power of that. And it’s so funny. Most people don’t know that I’ve been like Nana Carolyn them. Cause I’ve been like putting up out this thing called a lookup moment, right. Be where your feet are and telling people, Hey, you know, before you do a zoom call before you have a brainstorming [00:18:00] session, let your team go out for five minutes and tell them to use one of their senses only and see if they can discover something and then come back and share the story of what they discovered.

And so that’s all rooted in Nana Carol, right. That, you know, like she said, you could see what your ears when you’re still right. And so I started to understand the power of being present from her. Right. And be where your feet are and be, you know, just that moment of being still and, and, you know, 300 seconds was a lot for a kid, right.

It’s a lot of time. And as an adult, I’ve still kept that practice going of some point in the day where I would just be still, I’ll go home. And I just won’t put anything on before I reengage with my family, or if they know I’m just sitting in and I don’t have the TV on that, I’m just kind of settling in and just being present.

And I just think that that practice, she didn’t have, you know, she didn’t say we were meditating [00:19:00] and she didn’t say we were doing, we were just, it was something that she took from her native American heritage that, you know, to be still, and then you get the reward of going out and playing, but she was teaching us, you know, that practice a practice of just being where your feet are being present, meditation, whatever words you want to attach to it.

But it’s invaluable. So I’m so glad you’re doing that with your son. Yeah, that’s cool. And you should just keep, and this is the thing. Just keep doing it. You’ll get better at it. And so you could actually say, you know, you could have like a one morning that’s dedicated so that he’s used to it. Right. So you can say, okay, Thursdays are take a break morning, right.

Where we take that time to just be still. So Thursday’s take our time. And then he’ll actually start saying to you, I promise you that, that isn’t Thursday take our time before we go. And then you can say, okay, we’re going to do 60 seconds first. Right. And you just start [00:20:00] building up to 300 seconds, but that, oh, I guarantee you he’ll like, he’ll start telling you, Hey, we didn’t do our cause kids like routines.

Yeah, they do. They like routine. So I think, try that little approach. 

[00:20:15] Joe Towne: I’ll keep you posted on that. You talked earlier about belonging, and I know that word means so much to you clearly the book over your shoulder, as a book you wrote about belonging. I know that you got that from the first story you fall in love with where the wild things are, this sense of longing to belong.

And I know that, um, it really sounds like Ms. Lane and Preston playground were the times that belonging first revealed themselves to you, what it meant to belong. And I just love some of the rules that Preston playground had. And I wonder if you could just share some of them because cultivating that kind of culture and space feels really important to be reminded of these 

[00:20:57] Kevin Carroll: days.

I think it’s so funny [00:21:00] because I can harken back and I can use language around what was happening, but it was just happening. It was just the way it was there and the way you were educated there and the way that you were. Told that this is the way we behave here at this playground. And so the old heads as we call them, right, the older kids, the old heads, we were the young heads.

Um, they would basically tell you, like, this is the way it works here. And so if we see you stepping out of line, we’re going to grab you up and let you know, like, no, this is what we do here. So, you know, some of the rules, there were no one was allowed to be on the sideline. You had to figure out a way to include everyone.

So if the sides were uneven, you didn’t have enough kids. You actually had to use your imagination. And we came up with ghost players,

[00:21:48] Joe Towne: ghost runners, also known as invisible runners refers to when you’re playing a baseball style game, including softball, stick ball or kickball, and you simply don’t have enough players. [00:22:00] So you imagine the other players and their actions, the rule is generally called into action. When a, a live runner on base is next in line to bat.

The specifics of the rule, very regionally and are often negotiated prior to the start of the game. So one such rule would be like the invisible runner runs at the same pace as the live person actually run it. So it’s not like you can just claim Usain bolt or Allyson, Felix, as being on your team. All of a sudden, I mean you could, but then like everyone would want to be in your team and you need to start selling merch for your kickball game.

And it might keep you from getting dates on Bumble or RIAA or whatever is your pleasure. How did I get here from ghost runners? 

[00:22:42] Kevin Carroll: So we’d have to debate on how good they were though. Right. And those debates could go long area. They could go long dude. Like they could be all. Cause they get heated. No, it’s not that fast.

And no, it can’t be no, he can’t go that far. Right. So we literally had to debate on, it was [00:23:00] almost like fantasy players, right? It’s like you already had to like say what’s your batting average? How far can they hit. You’d run to like first base. If you get on post runner on first and then you could leave, but you couldn’t leave first base.

If you didn’t say that, if you didn’t say it, they could tag you out. So you had to announce that. So that was one of the ways that we always made ensured that everyone played, but that you could play because you know, a lot of, well, we don’t have even sides. We can’t play. No, we can play. We’ll have an imaginary player.

And you know, some of the other things that would happen up there is, so there was a thing called a fair one. Right? So if you were going to scuffle with somebody, they’d say you have to have a fair one. So you can’t, no one else can jump in. No one else can participate. It’s one-on-one if you’re going to have a scuffle.

Right. And so you had the proclaim that, Hey, this is a fair one. And the other person would have to agree to that. And these were just some of the things that were interesting there when we play. Games. [00:24:00] And when we had summer camps up there, that place, when I think back, it was just so amazing, all the things that were available to us through the township that we lived in outside Philly.

And so it was a well-resourced township, but our neighborhood was a really modest neighborhood and it’s well-resourced township. And so our neighborhood was where all the day help the people who went to work on the estates and those houses right there, the cooks, the cleaners, the nannies, everything they lived in our neighborhood.

And that neighborhood was super modest by the train tracks on the other side of the train tracks, right. The modest side and on the other side was all the wealth. So it was always fascinating that we benefited from being in this town. So they were always had things available for us. And I just didn’t ever have a sense that it was like modest or whatever.

I’m like, well, we have like there’s things [00:25:00] available in this playground has a summer program and, you know, people come up and we had, you know, every day you had a full day of activities at the playground. And nice. So this place was everything. Preston playground was everything. And then, you know, the old heads, that’s where they stop at the end of the day of their work day.

And they were all laborers, but they’d all come through there and they’d see us playing and they’d watch our games and pulling out things we should be doing. And back in my day stories. But I learned, I learned the power of storytelling there. I learned the power of teams there. I learned the power of community there and I learned, you know, most importantly, the power of belonging 

[00:25:42] Joe Towne: it’s embodied in, in what you’re describing.

Clear mentorship. There’s this built-in play. There’s a sense of activating your imagination when need be the idea of storytelling. It’s all so clear how that impacted you and how it’s continuing [00:26:00] to unfold in and around you. And, um, the red rubber ball entered your life. And it’s a metaphor just about any kind of ball can be a red, rubber ball, right?

I mean, this isn’t a red rubber ball, but this could be your red rubber ball. So I’d love to ask you about your relationship with, with the soccer. And self-belief because I know it’s one thing to love something, right? Like I may be interested in becoming an actor. I might be interested in becoming a ballplayer, but I think it’s something else to believe you can do it.

So I’m wondering, like when did you know that you were good enough to hang as a soccer player? 

[00:26:37] Kevin Carroll: It’s funny. I was just talking to someone, my first loves football, like American football. So we played that all the time. I didn’t get introduced to soccer until I was in 10th grade. So I played American football all the way up to 10th grade.

So that’s my first love. That’s my first sport. That’s what we played in the neighborhood. That’s where we went and challenged [00:27:00] other neighborhoods playing football. So I was either slot or I was a running back. I was super, super quick and elusive. Right. And I, and I always told people, there was a difference between running for a touchdown and running from the cops.

So if you had run it from the cops attitude, you could go, right. So that’s, so I, I had this way of running and being deceptive and clever. So I got to play up, as they say now, back in the day I played with the old heads, they would take me to games against other neighborhoods. Cause a little Carroll, you come in with us today.

I’m like, okay. Right. And they said, okay. So when we give you this ball, right, we want you to go this way and we’re going to block for you. Okay. Now don’t mess it up. And so I’m like four or five years younger than these guys. I, and these are like, you know, grown men to me and we’re going to play these other neighborhoods and they see me and they’re like just chomping at the bit.

And we’re playing [00:28:00] tackle with no pads. Right. So, oh yeah, no, ain’t no, it ain’t no two hand rough touch. Like we’re like it’s tackled and. They’re like looking at me and I would always remember, I said, okay, I know how to run when someone’s chasing me. So that’s how old, and I just got a reputation as a kid, so that, so American football was my first love.

I discovered soccer intense. Because I had got three concussions in ninth grade football and the soccer coach from the high school was standing over me, coach Kaiser after like my third concussion. Cause he would go out and basically look for talent that he could actually bring to the soccer program in the high school.

And maybe, and he would always find people who had never played, but had something that he thought would be really good for his program. So he saw my speed saw that I was getting to hit a lot more cause the kids were getting bigger and longer arms so they could reach me. And they basically were horse collar on me all [00:29:00] the time.

[00:29:03] Joe Towne: Horse color tackling is an illegal move in American football. It’s basically a defender, pulls the player with the ball directly downward violently while grabbing the back collar or the back inside of an opponent’s shoulder pads. So as to pull his feet out from. The horse collar is particularly dangerous due to the awkward position of the player being tackled, who will often fall backward in a twisting motion with one or both legs trapped under the weight of his body.

After being blamed for a series of major injuries in the 2004 season, the horse collar tackle was banned from the NFL. It took a few years, but eventually it was banned in college football in 2008 and high school football in 2009. Like what took them so long? 

[00:29:54] Kevin Carroll: So, so coach guys are standing over me. He goes, you should come out for soccer next year.

[00:30:00] I’m like, who are you? Right in a fog from like my whiplash. And he goes, I’m the coach at the high school coach. Guys are, you should come out playing soccer, a play that for said, I played football, a third concussion I’ve been watching. So I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, I’m not playing. And he goes, well, it’ll get you in shape for.

And so that’s how he enticed me. Cause I also played basketball and I ran track. I said, well, okay, I’ll do it if it’ll get me ready for basketball. So I was a non-con like, I was not compliant. I didn’t show up for practices and summer I was really like, I, whatever kind of deal. And he just stayed on me.

And by the end of my sophomore year, I was basically playing up. I was playing between varsity and JV, but I really didn’t understand the game. I just was fast. And he told me exactly what I needed to do and I scored goals. And I was playing on the wing and he told me how to make my [00:31:00] runs and all that. But I hardly ever really understood.

I couldn’t juggle. I couldn’t do anything really, but I could hit with the inside of my foot. I get hit with my instep. Right. I could finish. And because I had so much space because I could run, I had time to finish. And so he would always say speed kills, Carroll speed kills. Right. Hubba, Hubba on the bounce, on the bounce.

Yeah. So by my, I didn’t play my junior year that I’m done coach Johnny playing. So he got me to come back my senior year and he said, listen, you can play in college. I’m like, I’m going to play basketball in college coach. He says, I don’t know if that’s going to work out for you, but you could play soccer in college.

Yeah, yeah. Whatever he says. So why don’t you come out? And you can at least get in shape. I’m like fine. And he said, you can have a good seat. So that year, the first game, I’ll never forget it. We’re playing against Ridley high school. They had an All-American on their team, Sean neighbors. This is crazy that I remember all these details.

Coach Kaiser, before the game [00:32:00] starts, we’re in a locker room and he was innovative, Joe, like, so ahead of his time, he filmed our practices, film the games from a high vantage point. We went over filled. He was brilliant, right? And so he’s shown us the film of their tendencies and stuff before. And he says, whoever scores today, I promise you, you will be all league if you score today.

And we had some kids on our team that were really good, like really talented kids. So he looks at me and he goes, if you score today, He said, it’s going to be a big moment for you and my coach. I don’t even plan on a plan. Like I ain’t even coming to practice whatever. So he starts me and he tells me where my runs are supposed to be.

And this kid, Sean neighbor is just slicing up the field. Like he’s beautiful to watch like, oh my God, this kid is good. Right. [00:33:00] And we’re making the ball comes out on the far wing and he says, Carol, make your run, make your run. And I start running towards the near post and this cross is coming and I can see it.

And as I’m seeing it, literally, Joe, it just all lines up. And I volley it out of the air, upper 90 into the goal. Coach Kaiser loses his mind, right. Runs on the field. Lifts me up. That’s what I’m talking about. Carol. Oh, central.

And we won that game. I ended up being first team, all central league, honorable mention all suburban, like all these things. And I think I was top score or tie for top goals on our team that year. Most of the time I had no idea what was going on. Quite honestly, I was like smoking weed before games and stuff like that.[00:34:00] 

I didn’t care, but I enjoyed him. The season ended, I wasn’t fully committed to soccer. Basketball was terrible for me. He kept letters from schools that had written about me and he said, you know, soccer still in your future. I’m like, yeah. He says, you want to go to college? And I’m like, yeah. He says, well, this coach is coming from Tennessee Wesleyan and he’s looking for players.

And I told him to stop by the school. So I meet with this guy, never visit the school, agreed to go to this college in Tennessee. And that’s when I fell in love. Because I met all these other kids from Jersey and Maryland and Pennsylvania that were in love with the game. And we watched soccer made in Germany, like every weekend or PBS.

And I, that’s why I got in my head, I want to play soccer. And that was a roundabout way of saying it wasn’t the first, but, uh, but [00:35:00] hopefully like

[00:35:05] Joe Towne: my curiosity is around belief. 

[00:35:07] Kevin Carroll: Yeah. And, and I didn’t, I don’t think honestly, the belief piece, Joe, honestly, that, that belief didn’t come I’m at that university playing with these guys are clearly really good. In fact, a couple players from our team ended up playing in the NASL back in the day league before the MLS.

They were good. Good players. Great. Players. And the summer after my freshman year of college, I met a man from Trinidad and Tobago. Buntin Niles and Bunton Niles saw me out basically just trying to work out that summer. And he pulled me over and he said, I can work with you. And I said, okay. He says, I played for the national team for Trinidad and Tobago.

I just moved here in the neighborhood. I work with you. So he worked with me that whole summer and he taught me how to see the game. So [00:36:00] Buntin taught me how to appreciate the game. He taught me how to really understand what I was doing out there. He said, you know, he taught me how to understand. What I had you can’t be taught your speed.

So now you need to learn how to use your speed and you don’t always have to use your speed, the same pace. And so he started teaching me these things. And so my whole mindset changed when I got down to school, everyone noticed right away, like what happened? Like your game is different. And then as we watched soccer made in Germany, I started getting this belief that I could play over there.

I want to play over there. So boom to Niles was my unlock. Blunted Niles was my person who was the inspiration, the spark for me to, to create this belief that I had something to offer to a team that was unique to me, but also that I knew how to [00:37:00] use it in a way that would be appreciated. I love 

[00:37:02] Joe Towne: that it really feels like a dance between two things.

One is. Feeling into both the desire to do something and the capability by breaking it into small enough things that you can understand and maybe know how to make sense of and replicate. But also it seems like there’s this external belief, that’s a vital force before we might believe in ourselves sometimes.

And it seems like you had multiple coaches who believed in you. So when I hear Dr. Mike talk about how the only place confidence comes from is self-talk and that self-talk originates with something outside of ourselves. It feels like it’s that interplay between both that allows us to ultimately be confident and know right.

That we are. 

[00:37:46] Kevin Carroll: Yeah. I think you’re spot on. Yeah. I believe that. Yeah. I think that someone has to pour that into you and then it becomes your self-talk then it becomes your belief. But I think if you try to create it a [00:38:00] manufactured on your own, it’s just your own hype. Right. So someone else has to. I think co-sign it and say they see it also, or maybe they see it before you see it.

I I’ve always said that most people identify talent in me before I saw it. They identified a gift to me before I saw it. They identified an opportunity for me before I saw it. And then I, Nana Carol, she said a hard head makes her a soft behind. I wasn’t hardheaded. I listened. Right. I wasn’t too hard headed that I listened because if you don’t listen, you will get smacked up.

Right. Yeah. Life will smack you. Right. Or you’ll get your butt smacked. Right. I mean, you will. And so that ability to hear when people were saying things to you and sharing that I think was key. So yeah. So I think hearing it from someone and then believing in that, but then doing the work right. Being about that action.

Don’t talk about it. Be about it. I think is the key piece too. [00:39:00] 

[00:39:00] Joe Towne: I want to continue on action and its relationship to. Because there’s two stories that really stand out about risk that I’ve heard you share. The first is for some context, because context is king. This bus ride that you had to go on at a young age with your two siblings, your two brothers, um, hundreds of miles, the risk that it took to leave the home that you were in to find help and to go on this journey feels like one of the first risks I’ve heard you talk about.

I wonder, just for context for people, is there a, uh, uh, a mini version of that story that you might be willing to share here about what that, what I’m, I’m sort of doing some insider baseball about it, but 

[00:39:47] Kevin Carroll: yeah, no worries. Don’t worry. Yeah. There’s a, like a cliff notes version. Both. My parents were addicts.

My dad left when I was three. My mom put us in a predicament when I was six, [00:40:00] um, left us in this trailer. We didn’t know where we were, but we knew we were far away from Philadelphia. Cause she pulled my brother and I out of the middle of the school day, a little brother was in the backseat of the car and we drove away from Philadelphia.

We moved a lot as kids and slept in cars, get high buddy’s houses of my mom, porches. We didn’t really have a sense of belonging or, or a home, except when my grandparents rescued us, my mom and pop up from time to time. So this situation has happened. My mom said she will be right back in five days of going by.

She had not come back and I got fed up cause I’m wanting to get back to school because school was safe. I got fed there, you know, figuratively and literally I got fed there and I just wanted to get back and I told my brothers, we need to go find. And so we left this trailer, found another trailer banged on the door.

A stranger opened the door. I told her, her our situation and she said, I can’t help you. I don’t know what to do. And I said, well, I know my mom and pop ups phone number [00:41:00] in Philadelphia. They had taught us their phone number, made us memorize it and said, if we get in trouble and tell someone the number have them call.

So she called my grandparents. I told my grandfather what was going on. And that’s when we realized how far away we were, because he said he couldn’t come get us. It was too far after we discovered where we were. And so he asked to speak to the woman. They have a brief conversation and she says, come with me, boys.

Your grandfather has given me some instructions. Hopefully it will work. We’re going to go to the bus station and see if we can find the bus driver going back to Philadelphia. We’ll see if the bus driver will agree to put you on the bus with no money or parents, and only a promise that your grandparents will be waiting at the bus station downtown Philadelphia, and we’ll pay him back.

My older brother was eight. I was six. My little brother was only. If we don’t make this decision, my mom doesn’t check on us for another two weeks. So anything could have happened to us. The lady goes to the bus station, finds the bus driver. He agrees to put us on the [00:42:00] bus, tells us with very clear and firm instructions.

We’re going to sit in one seat. You will not budge till I get you back to Philadelphia. Do you boys understand me? Yes, sir. And we huddled next to each other, scared to death. We were eight, six and three. I was only six and we got back to Philadelphia. My grandparents were waiting at the bus station and they paid this bus driver and they’d made their decision that my mom was not getting us back and that they were going to do the best they can to raise us at that point.

And I think that’s where everything started to unfold for me because my grandfather was a really loving man, but very practical. And he said, listen, we’re getting old. We can only do but so much. And he said, you’re going to have to basically raise yourself. And imagine hearing that at six years old, raise yourself.

And so that’s where my first inclination was. I remembered the playground in the neighborhood and I say, can I go up to the playground? And he said, yeah. And so that’s what started my relationship with Preston playground [00:43:00] was I went up there just to kind of get all that worry concern and upheaval and uncertainty off me.

I just needed to run. I just needed to go play. And I, I knew that that helped me. I didn’t have all the insights and knowledge of coping mechanisms and, you know, ways to wellbeing and all that, but I just knew that such a thing that helped me. And so there’s the cliff notes. Thank you, 

[00:43:27] Joe Towne: Kevin. So many things.

I hear that great memory of yours. That’s allowing you to remember the names of coaches who influenced 

[00:43:35] Kevin Carroll: you, dude. I still remember our phone number two one five LA 5 8 0 1 2. Like I still remember the number. Yeah, 

[00:43:42] Joe Towne: you were, you were asked to learn it. You did. I think that ability to have that long memory has served you in many ways.

I think the thinking about others, thinking about eating, driving you to go ask a stranger, but making a connection, [00:44:00] building a relationship. And then everybody that had to risk along the way she had to risk bus driver had to risk your grandparents had to risk. Um, I know that there’s this other story of you where you had made this decision to join the air force.

And you’re sitting there watching a movie of all things. I’m thinking this is going to be my life. This being in the snow alone, armed with a weapon and something rises up inside of you and says, I don’t want this. And I wonder if you can speak to what it took to speak up in the air force in this room where people are watching this movie and how you made sense of what came next.

That, 

[00:44:42] Kevin Carroll: so it’s so funny when you use the word speak up. I Nana Carol speak up a closed mouth. Don’t get fed, right? So she would say that to us all the time, you got to speak up, you got to speak up. And so I don’t necessarily think it was probably the wisest to speak up because I’m in, I’ve already [00:45:00] signed a contract with the U S government, right?

And I’m in basic training at Lackland air force base in San Antonio, Texas. And by the way, that was my first plane flight in my life. And I was 20 years old. I’d never been on a plane before. And I remember marveling at when the, when the plane took off in the sense of the wheels going under and just watching this gap happen.

I was like, and I had a window. And I’ve always had window seats ever since then. I love that. Just looking out and seeing that, so that that’s a sidebar. So I think that was a big beginning part of it. So when basic training you have career day where you go find out your job, right. And you’ve probably already signed up for it.

So they send you to the rooms to learn about your job. And I’m in my career day and I was, I had signed up to be a security policeman. I thought I was going to be able to get, I was going to be like dog patrol. Right. They promised me I could be dog patrol. Right. I have a German [00:46:00] shepherd or something would be pretty dope.

Right? No, that’s not what happened. It was like a bait and switch. It felt like, and we’re in this meeting room and the lights go down and this. Film starts, but it’s like pitch black on screen and there’s just a voiceover and you hear this

sound and then it like pans out like light and you see this person walking the perimeter of a fence, right? When a parka zipped all the way up holding a weapon mukluks, right? I’m like, oh my God. And it’s like freezing cold out there. And the boys are skirted. Policemen is ever vigilant and I’m sitting there.

Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. No, no, no, no. And this is going in my head. And literally, you know, you are sitting eyes front at attention watching this. And, but my head is, my mind is racing. Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. I had to get out of this. Nana [00:47:00] Carol, speak up, speak up, speak up. And then, oh wait, I saw a sign.

As they were marching a sin that said we have volunteer jobs just as, and it was written as small as possible, like on a truck board as they March through these hallways. And I happened to glance and I saw. And so as we are in this briefing, I’m raising my hand, I’m raising my hand and Carol has question, oh, just did that.

They stopped the film. Oh, just interrupted my briefing, sir. Every girl has a question and then two drill instructors had their bills and their caps right next to my head. And they’re screaming, spinning on me, just so angry. And it’s all like R rated language right out. Right. Thank you. Are where are you from Carol?

I’m from [00:48:00] Philadelphia. You’ll come all the way from Philadelphia just to piss me off today, Carol.

I said, what is your question, sir? I don’t want this job. They said, what are you mean? You don’t want this job? That’s not a question, Carol. I said, sir, how can I get another job? You can’t get another job. You sign a contract. I said, sir, I saw a sign. So now they think I’m being spiritual. Right? What do you mean?

You saw a sign? I said, sir, there was a sign when we were marching in here. It said we have volunteer jobs. Just ask, I’m asking, sir. Now they’re talking over me. Did you see that sign? I can see that. Well, I guess we got to let him go. If he saw that sign fine, Carol going downstairs and find out what it is.

I had no idea that could have been anything, but I didn’t want that. [00:49:00] So the level of risk was super high because it could have been anything, Joe. And I go depths. I find out arrows pointing to, and it’s like this. Like, it literally felt like, like the shining, right this long hallway, one desk, a lady sitting there, may I help you have volunteer jobs on volunteering?

And she like piers up at me. We need more as code operators, we need language specialists. You’ll take the test. Here’s your appointment card. We’ll see you tomorrow. So I turned around and I’m thinking in my head, well, there’s no way I’m going to do the language thing because I dropped Spanish at the five minutes of high school.

So I ain’t worried about that. I got to get that more as code tests. So I knew nothing about Morse code, like zero. I just prayed the whole night. Please let me pass please. As I said, I can’t, I don’t want that job. I don’t want that job. And the next day I had my appointment and I go and take both the tests.

There’s a cliffhanger. I leave it there.[00:50:00] 

[00:50:05] Joe Towne: Because I don’t know if you know this, but next year is a big decision for our son, which is, uh, elementary school. And we have this vision that one day we want to take him to live in Italy. And so we’re contemplating a language immersion program, and we’ve heard so many things about how languages change our brain, that there’s certain ages.

It’s great. If you can connect a child, the language and you went on to learn five languages and live in Europe and fulfill that vision and that dream you had of playing soccer in German, I’m wondering, what did learning languages teach you about the world? 

[00:50:44] Kevin Carroll: Learning languages taught me how to celebrate different and how to.

Be curious about different.

[00:50:58] Joe Towne: So picking up a new [00:51:00] language at any age creates new pathways in the brain. These changes could make us better people and perhaps even stave off dementia. Let me explain. So first learning a new language causes extensive neuroplasticity in the brain. In other words, when you learn a new language, your brain gets rearranged.

New connections are made and new pathways are formed a 2012 study by Johan Martinson and colleagues found that this remodeling can be significant. After three months of intense language study recruits at the Swedish armed forces, interpreter academy had increases in cortical thickness in areas associated with language processing while a control group who studied difficult subjects, such as medicine and cognitive science, but no new language.

It had no changes being bilingual might also make you a nicer person. The authors of a 2016 study on theory of mind, [00:52:00] think that it’s likely that bilinguals also develop greater empathy. Having a second language can also help to prevent, or at least delay cognitive decline by up to four to six years. And that’s pretty impressive considering the best medications we have can postpone the symptoms for only about a year or so.

If you’re thinking it’s too late, you’re probably wrong. We often think that only children can learn languages with ease. Now it’s true that young children do more quickly learn whatever language they’re exposed to when it comes to adding on a new one, adults aren’t as much of a disadvantage as you might think.

So let’s go. It might make all of us just a little bit better. 

[00:52:43] Kevin Carroll: I just was fascinated with just how different other countries could be, whatever three languages, but I didn’t know. So once again, I was begrudgingly a linguist, so, you know, so I listen [00:53:00] hard hardheaded makes for soft behind Nana Carol’s words were always, always been present for me.

So I dropped Spanish after five minutes in high school. I thought it was ridiculous. Still remember that five minutes. no one, like I said, so I had a gift, but I was a hard head. Right. I was hard. Like you said, Kevin, your ability to remember these details and all these things. So I had something, but I was a knucklehead.

Now I’m in the military. They sent me to Monterey California, procedural of Monterrey, DLI defense language Institute up on the Presidio, you from California. So most people know about Monterey and the Presidio up on the hill. So that’s where I went to language school. But when I got there. They gave me Serbo Croatian, which is the language of Yugoslavia then, right?

The form you I’m like, what the hell am I going to do with that? I’m a black guy from Philly. This is not going to help me. I want to German. Right? So that I could go play ball in [00:54:00] Germany. So I’m starting to take our classes. I’m like, well, maybe I can get switched. So I don’t do any of my work. I get called into the commander’s office, airman, Carol, we are so happy to have you here.

It’s not an easy school to get admitted into. You obviously have a gift, but there is a bit of an issue. And I said, what does that services? So if you’re not compliant, I get to make some decisions on your behalf. I said, oh really? He goes, yes. And there are two ways that I can make a decision on your behalf.

What does that serve? He goes, so LOA, lack of access. If you don’t have the ability to do the work here, I actually can give you another language to try. But then there is LOE. I said, what’s that services lack of effort. Now, if I deem that it’s lack of effort, I get to pick a job for you. You know what job I’m picking for people right now, airman Carol, that are doing LOE effort.

I said, what’s that, sir? He goes road [00:55:00] construction, Florida. Do you know what the temperature is in Florida right now? I’m like, no, it’s 110 in the shape. They are frying eggs on the sidewalk. I said, sir, I think I should go get my books. He said, that’s a good idea or McCarroll. So I started doing my work and I learned server curation first work at NSA, go back to DLI learned check and I get to jury.

And when I knew I got my orders to Germany, I literally packed my, my football, my soccer boots in a bag, a kit to wear. And that was the first thing I asked when we got to the gospel house where we were going to stay for temporary quarters is, do you have a soccer team here? I’d like to go to their, to their training.

And the people at that God’s house said, no one ever asked, like, where’s the football team. First thing they ask, where’s the bathroom, what time is breakfast? So they always told the neighbors the story. So American, they gave it as, [00:56:00] um, do you have a football team here? And what time did they practice? So, uh, so yeah, so that’s how I ended up learning, um, Serbian, Croatian, German Czech, and I can read Russian and read Cyrillic and all that.

But yeah, I went to DLI twice. So I tell people it’s full immersion. 47 weeks, no English is spoken 12 to 14 hours a day. You will learn. So for your son, what I think is beautiful about what it does for you and what it can create for you is he’ll see the world more expansively and understand that it’s not just this myopic us world.

I mean, the world is flat for kids now anyway, because of the interwebs and everything. But I always encourage the parents to also learn so that they can actually be actively participating and they should be learning it just like their child. So like at that elementary level and learning it with them so that you can do the lessons with them and everything.[00:57:00] 

And I think it just really makes it a family endeavor and you’re also joining up around it that it’s equally important to you. So, yeah, so I think languages roundabout way. So languages really have allowed me to understand and have a curiosity for different and. And it’s allowed me to go anywhere in the world and have this curiosity about what you’re saying and learning a few words.

So I’ve been to Korea, I’ve learned some words in Korean. I’ve been to Japan, learn some words in Japanese. I’ve been to Brazil, learned some words in Portuguese. I mean, so I’ve always had this curiosity about how can I lessen the degrees of separation between us and words matter and language matters. So if I can learn a little bit of your language to see people’s faces light up, when you can say a greeting in their language and it’s, it doesn’t have to be flawless and perfect.

They just, you made an effort and they don’t think Americans care. So I think [00:58:00] there’s something really, if you want to create memorable kind of impression is care about other people’s cultures and languages. So I think that’s a brilliant idea for you all to put your son in that, but also for you all to join up also.

[00:58:15] Joe Towne: Okay. When did you learn the language of the. Ah, 

[00:58:19] Kevin Carroll: so Ms. Lane, she was the one that challenged me with the whole language of the universe, language of the world. So she said, there’s three languages. You should know the language of your friends, where you can speak any way you want in slang. you can talk any way you want dope, super dope, whatever.

Right? You can say anything with your friends and that’s fine. The language of respect is the second language. If someone has earned that, you give them that you speak to them respectfully. And then she said probably the one I want you to pursue the most. And it will be the most challenging is the language of the universal language of the world, where you are comfortable and confident in.

She said that will be the language that you will always pursue [00:59:00] because it will always be evolving and changing. So Ms. Lane taught me the importance of having, you know, being comfortable and confident in any setting and preparing yourself for these moments and learning the language, the rules of engagement of that room, because every room has a different dynamic.

And so couple that with my military intelligence background, and just understanding that, Hey, let me gather some Intel, if you will, on the people that are going to be in the room, the topics we want to talk about and that I think forever curious spirit of mine. And so I’ve, I’ve, I’ve mastered that to a level where I continue to master it.

So I think that’s the way I would best put it. You’re never going to fully master it because it’s always moving. The human dynamic is always evolving and changing, but I have a comfort and confidence that I can level up for the moment. And so I think that’s been really something I’ve pursued my entire life.

When Ms. Lane poured that into me, [01:00:00] I think I was like 18 or 19. I had just come home from college. And I was talking in my language of my friends with Ms. Lane. And she stopped me in the middle of the conversation. She said, don’t you go to college? I’m like, yeah, you need to start understanding how to change your voice, how to vary your language.

Like, what do you mean? And then that’s when she basically, you know, share that insight of those three languages. And so I think that’s been invaluable for me and it’s allowed me to be able to go and speak at the UN the United nations to dignitaries there, to gig in Cape town is speaking to youth in, you know, one of the townships right there, ghetto.

And being able to be relatable there. And so, I mean, you can’t probably have more difference in environments, right? The UN, which is very specific in the way that you address dignitaries and then go into a township [01:01:00] in Soweto or Cape town, and being able to talk to young people there who don’t have much at all, but have a desire to learn.

So, 

[01:01:07] Joe Towne: oh man, I’ve got so many questions for you. I also want to be super mindful of respecting your time. I hope this, 

[01:01:14] Kevin Carroll: uh, no, it’s all good. I want to make sure this is going to have value for, you know, your listeners and stuff. That’s important too. I want to make sure we’re adding value and, and, uh, you know, make it folks better, right?

If this is the better podcast and we supposed to help you level up from this 

[01:01:31] Joe Towne: there’s two threads I would love to pull on. So the first is you’re talking about languages and you’re talking about being able to adapt to the environment you’re in and it. It reminds me of the concept of being able to chunk information, being able to chunk information quickly

to me chunking is about taking the complex and distilling it down into something simple it’s reinforced when we’re able to make connections between what is distilled [01:02:00] and something else we’ve come to understand those associations and connections are the essence of what is valuable about this process in cognitive psychology.

Chunking is a process by which individual pieces of information are first broken down and then combined are grouped together into a more meaningful whole, a famous Harvard paper called the magical number seven plus or minus two. Some limits on our capacity for processing information is one of the most highly cited papers in psychology.

And refers to something known as Miller’s law. It basically states that there’s a law of human cognition and information processing that humans can effectively process no more than seven units, four chunks of information plus, or minus two pieces of information at any given time. According to neuroscientists, Daniel Bohr, author of the ravenous brain chunking represents our ability to hack the limits of our memory [01:03:00] or argues that our natural tendency to see patterns and make connections.

It’s not just important for memory, but it’s also the source of creativity as Steve jobs, once famously suggested creativity is just connecting things. You describe your relationship with a friend named beam, and I have a few questions about this, but the first is so for those of you listening, being as a nickname, Kevin, when he, um, In a, in a, in a means of connection, uh, I believe you give people these beautiful nicknames for yourself and for your relationship and who is being to you and what was it like challenging 

[01:03:43] Kevin Carroll: being.

So some folks might recognize like, or may go like, wait, is that, could that be so Coby being Bryant? So Kobe has his father’s, um, you know, Joe jelly bean, right? So that’s what they called his dad JB [01:04:00] jelly bean. So that’s how he got bean Coby bean Bryant. That’s his. And so I knew his father he’s from Philly and Philly.

Basketball community is very small and tight-knit. And so I knew his dad and, um, when they moved back from Italy, which is so funny, Italy, uh, they were looking for their home and they wanted to find somewhere for Kobe to be out of the way. And so his dad noticed that I was working at the summer camp. So he swung by and said, Hey, will you watch my son for the day?

We’re looking for a house. I’m like, sure, JB, no problem. And so here comes Kobe Bryant, um, out of the car and his dad says, he’ll probably just want to shoot baskets. If you find a ball and a court for him, he’ll be happy. And I tell people that it wasn’t some like, wow, look at this kid. Like, oh my God, is he going to be amazing one day?

Wow. Right. No, he was just the year. Gangly and, you know, just kind of [01:05:00] unsure. And so I said, Hey, there’s a gym down here in the school. There’s here. There’s probably a ball in there. And my son volunteered to go and rebound for them. And so they went off to this gym and my son showed her where it was. Cause he had been on the campus, you know, for camp and stuff.

And then they were gone for like hours. And then when they came back out, they were all sweaty and covered. And like this had a great time. And my son actually was reveling in the fact that he got a nickname from Colby, Colby called him his official rebounder. Right. And my son might’ve been like eight maybe then at the most nine.

And so being basically, you know, that’s what we all started calling him, was being, and we connected from there. His dad asked, Hey, would you watch out for my son? And if we need anything, make sure no problem. But once again, it wasn’t like he was this like next coming of something. And that summer and people have heard him tell the story.

Um, that summer, when he played in [01:06:00] summer league in Philly, he didn’t score a 0.0 points the whole entire summer. He did not score a point that kind of, I think, ushered in this mentality of, I need to be better. Wasn’t the Mamba mentality as we know, but he wanted to get better. And so he would swing by St.

Joe’s where I was working at. I would help out with his injuries when he would got banged up. I would, I got him his first strength coach while he was in high school. I helped some of his teammates when they were hurt. I got to know his high school coach, Greg downer really well. And so all through high school, there was a group of us that were just there to support him.

And we watched his group. And by senior year, I think they only won five games. His first year, his freshman year of playing varsity basketball. Like they weren’t good by senior year, they won the state, right? He was noteworthy worthy. Right? Hey, he might be making this leap to the NBA. All these things are happening, but he was always just being, [01:07:00] and I think what I’ve always enjoyed about our relationship is I never wanted anything from him.

Never asked for anything from him. And I just wanted to help him be his best. And that was out of love for his dad. It wasn’t necessarily that I knew his father first. Right. And so that’s how we do. And so that’s really how it all grew. The funniest thing about our relationship over all those years, we could go years without seeing each other.

We’d always bumped into each other at an event or something. He’d always shake my hand, give me a hug and whisper. How’s my official rebounder doing. Always, my son is 37. Now two years ago I saw Colby 2018. I got to interview him. We saw each other at the reception. It was for Aspen project play. He greets me at the reception, hugs me and says, how’s my official rebounder doing?

Come on there. That’s 20 plus years. It’s almost 20. It’s almost 30 years later. [01:08:00] And that’s who he always has been to me. So he’s always been, been, he actually laughed when I was on stage and I say so Coby. And he says, he says, now you all need to understand how weird that is for him to say Kobe to me, because he said, he’s doing that for you all because it’s always, everybody was really calls me being, is there no one that really addresses me as Coby?

Right. And so, yeah. And he’s always been been, and I said, well, I just was trying to be formal. And he started laughing. He says, you can just be you and stuff. But yeah. So I, I, uh, I’ve always treasured that friendship that we’ve had. Um, I just think that it’s interesting how, you know, you meet people at a certain moment in their journey, not knowing that they’re going to become something more than what you ever might’ve imagined for them, but you’re thrilled for them.

And I know there’s probably people who see me that way, right. That met me in my journey at some point didn’t know where I was headed, but they were, [01:09:00] you know, just really kind of watching and admiring the journey and what I was up to and what I was doing. And I know that, uh, you know, my whole thing is I’m sure, you know, his whole thing was, I just want to make you proud.

I want to just show you that you know, that what you did and how you supported me, wasn’t in vain that it really mattered. 

[01:09:19] Joe Towne: And there were a few things I heard in that interview that I would love to sort of bring into this conversation. The first one is his first love. That he described was soccer and he, his love was triangles.

He learns triangles. So he was recognizing the patterns of triangles. And as you pointed out because of texts and everything else, like what was happening in basketball, he was able to apply what he learned in soccer and apply it to the triangle offense and basketball and what he came to me.

In football, or as we like to say here in the states, soccer players will often coordinate [01:10:00] with two other players into triangle patterns. Triangles are the most commonly used shapes in soccer, and these appear almost everywhere on the soccer pitch, the appear on offense, and also on defense Kobe Bryant learned about triangles in soccer while living in Italy.

And he went on to learn the triangle offense in basketball originally conceived by hall of fame, coach Sam Berry, who taught it to his player. Tex winter, winter leader served as an assistant coach for the Chicago bulls in the 1980s and 1990s. And for the Los Angeles Lakers in the two thousands, mostly under head coach, Phil Jackson.

Kobe played for Phil Jackson, winning five championships, utilizing the triangle offense. Kobe said about soccer. It taught me at an early age, how to play in triangles and how to utilize space, which wound up helping me tremendously in basketball as well. I loved the idea of how quickly the [01:11:00] ball moves and how quickly you have to process.

What’s moving right in front of you to make decisions. Yes. 

[01:11:05] Kevin Carroll: And the funny thing, right? He hadn’t realized that like he went, oh my God. Remember in the interview, he goes way. Wow. Like as mom, I was like, huh, I never put that together. Yeah. That tri I said, you knew triangles. Like you understood that from playing the global game.

Right. Or football or soccer, like that’s, I think that’s why it was probably so easy and almost felt innate and natural to you. 

[01:11:29] Joe Towne: I think what I hope people at home may take away from things like that. We’re talking about. We sometimes don’t see the value in what we’ve got. We don’t know what we’ve learned and we don’t, we have this vision like yours may have been, I want to play soccer in Germany, right.

Somebody else might be like, I want to be in a film with Spielberg. And what they may not know is how to build a bridge between what they know and where they’re going. That pattern recognition of having to be immersed in another language family, to learn triangles, the idea of getting [01:12:00] better progression and getting a little bit better.

You know, he, he talked to you about how you challenged him and it was one of the most physically challenging things you’d ever experienced. Right. So you reconnected or stayed connected that whole time. And when you went on to become the head trainer for the Philadelphia 76 servers, you had all these radical ideas.

Right. And you wanted to try them out on some people. And he was like, Hey, try them out on me. 

[01:12:23] Kevin Carroll: Yeah. Try and bore me. Yeah. And he was still in high school and we were doing that. Yeah. Which is so crazy. And I think that he appreciated my. Inventiveness and innovative spirit. Cause I just wanted to see, you know, w what are ways that I could be novel or new for athletes, because they do all the same repetitive things.

And so that was my imagination. And to your point little did I know that that was actually going to help me in other things, but I’d always had that. I’d always had that imagination. Let’s go back to ghost runners, right? I’d always had this [01:13:00] innovative spirit about me, sir. I don’t want this job. So how do I innovate around this or problem solve around.

I saw a volunteer job sign. Like, can I volunteer? So when you start piecing all that together, it does become this John Nash, beautiful mind thing. 

[01:13:18] Joe Towne: John Nash, the main character of the movie, a beautiful mind. Starring Russell Crowe was a young mathematician and game theorist Nash was a smarty pants. He began his PhD at Princeton.

At 20 years old, a 21. He published a doctoral dissertation on game theory. The mathematics of competition Nash showed how to construct mathematical scenarios in which both sides. One, he found stable scenarios where no person continues to profit from competition Nash drew the attention of theoretical economists.

They turned game theory into a tool, but he went on to MIT. He worked in economics. [01:14:00] He even invented the game of hex for Parker. On October 11th, 1994, John Forbes Nash Jr. Won the Nobel prize for pioneering work in game theory. The darker side of his journey is that for most of his adult life, he’d heard voices.

He began looking for secret messages in numbers, disappeared for days. And it turns out that for many years, John Nash suffered from paranoid schizophrenia. Sometimes it all came together in a beautiful way. That was part of his gift. 

[01:14:33] Kevin Carroll: We go, whoa, they’re all bridges to something. They’re not separate events, they’re all interconnected.

And I think when we start to look at our lives, if you’re on your path, going all the way back to Joseph Campbell and stories and invisible hands, you start actually seeing these bridges, these connections. [01:15:00] Oh, it’s not one-off thing. These all actually do stitch together into this fabric, this beautiful quilt, this mosaic, whatever way you want to look at that, but they’re all connected.

I love 

[01:15:13] Joe Towne: this. This is a perfect sort of segue into bridges, connections and transitions. So I think one of the most under trained and under considered things are the gap between us doing our work to prepare and the performance itself, the transition between preparation and performance, the preparation from being done with performance and getting ready for the next prep.

You’ve talked so much and you alluded to this in your conversation with bean, which is crossing the threshold. So I want to talk about transitions and I want to start with what it means to cross a threshold. Now, you said when you’re preparing to perform and you’re doing something that is meaningful and it matters to you.

You [01:16:00] have a choice to cross the threshold, to be where you are. And I know that you have very specific things that you’ll do to help you cross that threshold. Can you speak a 

[01:16:08] Kevin Carroll: little, yeah. Rituals matter. And I mean, sports is just filled with people that have their, you know, their superstitions, if they want to say rituals, traditions, different things, but athletes, particularly, and actors performers in general hat things.

And I go back to, I was privy to doing a lot of work with native American tribes and organizations. And so someone happened to notice what I was doing backstage before I went on stage. And they said, oh, that’s like, you’re smudging. I said, really? They said, yeah, like warriors need to feel protected before they go into battle.

[01:16:51] Joe Towne: The term smudging has been widely used to refer to the smudging ceremonies of indigenous peoples. In which sacred herbs and medicines are [01:17:00] burned as part of a ritual or for cleansing or health purposes. Smudging is a cultural ceremony practiced by a wide variety of indigenous peoples in Canada, America, and other parts of the world.

Although practices different smudging is used for medicinal and practical purposes, as well as for spiritual ceremonies. The practice generally involves prayer and the burning of sacred medicines, such as sweet grass, Cedar, Sage, and tobacco, while colonization has repressed such traditions. The practice of smudging has survived to the present day.

Smudges are frequently led by an elder or spiritual leader, such as a shaman though. Average citizens can perform their own smudging ceremonies when they feel the urge. And especially during times of. My introduction to the term smudging was in cleansing. Places said to hold negative energy. [01:18:00] Smudging is also practiced to restore the physical self smudging, the ears, eyes, and mouth provides for better hearing visual and language skills.

And for a clear understanding of one’s surroundings and place on this earth, respect for the self and for others, including the earth is central to various indigenous spiritual teachings. 

[01:18:23] Kevin Carroll: So that’s like you’re smudging because they noticed that I tap my pocket, tap my head, did the sign of the cross, right.

And said a little bit of words. And so I’ve always done that. And so when I tap my pocket, it’s funny, or if I’m doing a performance of any, right. So I always have my mum, mum near me and I had Ms. Lane near me. So that’s in my pocket, typically a typical. ’cause that’s my grandfather. He always wore a hat and then the sign of cross, cause I was raised Baptist paly and Baptist and Episcopalian.

So we split time [01:19:00] between both churches. Yeah. That’s a whole nother story, but yeah, just just know that I can sit still at church and I can have the holy spirit in church. I knew both. Right. So, yeah. And then, uh, and then I always say, um, please Lord, allow me to share my gift again. Cause I know that it can be taken away.

It’s a gift I have and then I go out on stage. And so those rituals, that’s how I crossed that threshold. Right. I go into the performance where I go into what people have said, oh, you’re like a vitamin shot. So vitamin KC is kind of what I think about rev. Kev comes out from time to time where you get the leverage, the good Reverend cab.

Right? Right. I’m bringing the good news about creativity and inspiration. Right. I bring the good news. I need to get that, but I’ve crossed the threshold and now I’m in service of you, the audience. And so I understand that. I’ve been around sports my entire life. I love being around sports and athletes.

And I talked to them about, you know, understanding, crossing a threshold. When I talked to being about that [01:20:00] was really magical. What he shared backstage, about how, if you watch the footage, he said, watch what I’m doing. As I’m getting introduced, I have my head down and people think I’m fussing with my sneakers, but I’m actually unlacing them then pulling it tight and going tighten up.

And then I tie the other one, pull it tight and go tighten up. Right. And he said, and then I, they say my name from lower Merion high school. And then I go out and he says, that’s what I crossed the threshold. But he said, I have all these very specific things that are getting to this tighten up. When he’s in a layout lines, his pants are unbuttoned on the sides because he said I’m not tightened up yet.

But when he comes back out for now, intros after the pants are buttoned, it’s the beginning of the process of title. And he’s telling me this backstage is like, well, Washington post. Oh, was it there? I forget what some newspaper, like big national newspaper guy was following him around and he’s saying this right?

I said, how come [01:21:00] you didn’t get this information? You should have them that question. They start the coats. But it’s our rituals that allow us to go into battle, to fight the good fight on behalf of what we care about and what we believe in. That’s what you have to be willing to cross the threshold for.

And so what are those rituals to prepare you to know? I am now in it, I’m in it. Right. And I am fully present for this. And I think that’s what you watch athletes. Um, actors, you appreciate, we’ll say if you fall out of it, oh, it can get ugly. If you stay in it. In character in the Mo oh my gosh, it can be magical.

And most times you don’t remember what happened, right. Cause you’re in flow because you’re in flow and that’s where you please tell me what happened. Cause I don’t remember. Like I, I only, [01:22:00] oh my God, the right. So actors, performers, athletes, performing arts, all people, musicians can all speak to that. I don’t remember.

Cause you were in flow. And what a friend of mine said is when you learn to get out of the way, when you learn to get out of the way to get out of your mind, And get closer to flow and allow all the work and time you’ve been embedded in and invested in it. Slow will happen

[01:22:32] Joe Towne: in positive psychology of flow state. Also known as being in the zone is the mental state in which a person performing some activity is fully immersed in it. It comes with feelings of like an energized focus, being fully involved in what we are doing and enjoying the process of whatever we’re doing in essence flow is characterized by the complete [01:23:00] absorption in the moment.

And it impacts our sense of time named by the psychologist, Mihai cheeks and Mihai. The concept has been widely referred to as flow state, across a variety of fields. Flow is so named because during chickson Mihai is 1975 interviews. Several people described their flow experiences using the metaphor of a water, current carrying them along Mihai cheek seen Mihai and others began researching flow.

After he became fascinated by artists who would essentially get lost in their work artists, especially painters got so immersed in their work that they would disregard their need for food, water, even sleep. And he says that flow is an optimal state of consciousness, where we feel our best and perform our best.

It’s a highly addictive state, meaning once you’ve experienced it, you may find yourself wanting it [01:24:00] again and again, a mindfulness enables flow state, according to Dr. Michael Jervey about eight minutes a day for as little as two weeks has demonstrated some of the positive effects of mind. In order to do this, we may need to train deep focus.

So again, according to Dr. Jervais, one way to think about deep focus is that you’re completely locked into the present moment, fully engaged with all of your essence, to the task at hand flow. Isn’t just something that happens to us as individuals. It can also happen in groups on the podcast, finding mastery, Dr.

Jervais was chatting with Steve Kerr, head coach of the golden state warriors who noted. There’s nothing else that can match group flow. That’s what I’m constantly hoping our team achieves, 

[01:24:50] Kevin Carroll: but if you’ve been baking it and you ain’t been practicing and you ain’t been putting it, oh, guess what? You can’t hide you.

Can’t hot and discerning eyes will know [01:25:00] discerning eyes will know. And so, yeah, I think crossing that threshold, I just talked to a team, my buddies at university of Albany, I just talked to his team about crossing a thread. And for some of the kids, they got it. But I said, you need to understand, it’s not, when you’re in the locker room, you cross the threshold as you come onto the property of this arena, like it’s already happening.

So you can’t just think, oh, well, I’m on the court. I’m good. No, it’s well before that, well before that, so 

[01:25:31] Joe Towne: I love that Kevin. And especially because I don’t think we can be mindful of doing it in moments like we’re about to perform if we’re not practicing it on a regular basis. And there’s an opportunity, not just during the commute, which looks different in a virtual world than it does in the, in the normal world.

But I think we have a transition opportunity every day, both in and out of our day. And what I’d love to know is how do you make sense of the first hour of your [01:26:00] day and the last. 

[01:26:01] Kevin Carroll: Always it’s interesting rituals there, right? Even the way that I start my day and I end my day very specific rituals. So starting the day movement, which go all the way back to my childhood movement matters to me.

So I always start my day with movement, but I start with no movement being still. So as I’m preparing to move, maybe I’m getting everything together, but I can do that mindlessly. And I’m just getting in that space of just getting ready to celebrate my physicality and my body and just moving. And, and so at the age that I’m at and everything, I’m not trying to prepare for a 5k 10 K marathon, you know, triathlete, triathlon.

I’m not, there’s none of that. It’s more about just being able to know that I had the requisite energy in me to go forth each day. I love movement movements. My mojo. I know that. So [01:27:00] starting off with the idea of being still then going into a moment of movement and then starting to prepare myself to, I could walk to my office space here from my house.

So there’s even rituals. Even within that, I don’t have air pods, earbuds, headphones on. I just try to take in my environment and my community and be present on my walk. Maybe discover something, have eyes of a child, eyes of wonder and discovery some already starting to get into that wonder kind of space and just excited about what potentially could be there.

And then I come into my office space. And so I tell people how you can have a dynamic warmup right for the day. So that’s kind of my dynamic warmup for the day. And then at the end of the day, well, we have some things in our house. We always watch jeopardy together. So I need to be home by 6 58, weird as time that it starts 6 58, right on the west coast.

It does not start at seven. Just so you know, you already be in the [01:28:00] categories by seven, right? It starts at 6 58. I have no idea why there’s some reason they had a thing. We try to figure out like why cause and so many people had asked, why does it start at 6 58? Like, you know, two minutes before the hour.

[01:28:15] Joe Towne: All right. Some facts about jeopardy in 2019 jeopardy had aired 8,000 episodes over 36 seasons jeopardy as one more Emmy’s than any other game show. When it premiered in the fall of 1984, jeopardy initially aired at 1:30 AM on w NBC following late night with David Letterman. Generally the show has always aired during prime time.

The difference is due to what networks call prime access the time between the end of the local. And the beginning of network primetime on the east coast prime access is a full hours from seven to 8:00 PM. But in the central time zone, that window is just 30 minutes, which forced station [01:29:00] managers to choose between jeopardy and wheel of fortune at six 30 in Chicago, the largest market in the country, not to air jeopardy in the evening.

The popular game show airs at 3:30 PM central time on the city’s ABC affiliate that said now the popular game show schedule is all over the map. What’s still a mystery is why it airs at 6:58 PM for Kevin and his family up in Portland, Oregon. I expect that some young sluice out there may have some insight into this matter.

Perhaps it has to do with trying to cram in a few extra commercials, or perhaps it’s going to be explained in the new season of stranger things. 

[01:29:38] Kevin Carroll: So we made a decision as a family that we’d always watched jeopardy together, and we don’t have to be physically in the same room. But we’ve all decided to be home by that time.

If we are caught up with something, we have to let the family know and then we record it and then we watch it together. But we always watch it together [01:30:00] or in separate rooms, yelling at the TV and like high five and each other air. Hey, good job on that one. Right. Or there, yeah, you should know that one.

Right? Cause it’s like something you’re interested in it. It’s pretty funny. So that’s one of the ways I end the day is getting home for jeopardy and having that time connected together. And my family would typically call it a night before I do. And I would sit in the living room and I’ll start shutting things down, but I usually will be still again and just kind of.

Take stock of the day and there’s this, what went well kind of practice that you can have, right? Where you identify three things that went well and why they tell you to jot it down. I kind of jotted down in my head most times. Um, but when you actually, if that’s the last thing you’re thinking about before you go to bed, you have better sleep because you’re not going to sleep with worry and concern and anxiety.

You’re actually going to bed with things that went well [01:31:00] and you know, why, so you get better sleep. I’m not an eight hour sleep guy. I’m more quality than quantity sleeper. So that really helps me that what went well exercise. And so that’s how I booked in my day. 

[01:31:13] Joe Towne: And I know that there’s meaning behind each one of those things and the idea of inspiration and what matters most.

There’s a word that is in your orbit. And it’s something that resonates with me so deeply, which is the power and the spirit of play. What is it that you understand of the importance of play. 

[01:31:31] Kevin Carroll: I always say about play, play a serious business. It’s not frivolous. It’s not to be marginalized because play can save a life, place a, my life.

And I say that with a great deal of sincerity, right. And emphasis like it did. I know that Preston playground saved my life was the first place that I belonged. I felt connected. It was unconditional and I was welcomed and that’s all we all want. I’m lucky Preston [01:32:00] playground got there first because there could have been deviant people that got to me first.

And if they had made me feel like I belonged, that would have been my way. We all want that. We all want to be a part of something. And so I play, I think is just so important. I know this, that we’re all hardwired for play. Doesn’t matter. Your physical abilities play is happening. Movement is happening as the child is coming, you know, as being formed in the wound, right?

Blood flow, all those things, right. Cellular that’s movement. Right? So there’s a book by, um, Maxine Sheetz Johnstone called the primacy of movement. And it talks about, um, movement is to move is to be human. And it’s at a cellular level. When you start to think about movement, right? Blood flow, all these things, that’s movement play is happening with just eyes, parents.

You have a little one, right? I play like you’re seeing, they’re tracking you [01:33:00] right. Then you’re moving objects. Right? Friedrich, Froebel talked about, you know, the Froebel gifts. And he said, the first gift that any child should receive should be something circular because it explains the world. He said like, He said, because literally it’s everything you, when you think about the world, it’s round, it can get away from you.

Right? You can invite someone, you can master things with it, right? All these things that are beautiful about that shape. So when I think about play the reverence and respect I have for, and the love I have for is genuine. I’m not speaking simply from an empirical research standpoint, I’m speaking from a very personal standpoint that, and so come at me because I’m bringing all the smoke and the fire around that.

And I am going to get on my bully pulpit on behalf of play. I’ll do it. Right. So rev Kev will come out for play for sure. You’re going to get some rev cab [01:34:00] or some play that’s for sure, because I believe that play is a serious business. And if we want stronger communities, more belonging, find time for fun.

Find time to connect that way. And I think we discovered a lot during the pandemic because of play, right. That was the one thing you couldn’t get taken away from you. And what did people rediscover? Biking puzzles, right? Games walks, right. Just amazing things that happened all play-based. I 

[01:34:33] Joe Towne: love that. And you know, there is some great science to back it up.

I heard you say that the national Institute of play in studying 20,000 play histories came to conclude that plays as important as eating, drinking, or sleeping. Well, we don’t play bad outcomes will come. I want to ask you about a study that I’ve come to be aware of. Maybe it’s crossed your desk as well.

And it’s an incomplete study because people are curious about it. The woman [01:35:00] who started it is no longer with us. So there’s a researcher named Dr. Karen. Perfect. And she was studying that it takes approximately 400 repetitions of something to carve a new synapse in the brain. But if it’s done in play, it will take between 10 and 20 times, whether it be board games, crafts, puzzles, imagine of games, a child’s always learning.

I would love to figure out a way to help close the loop on that study and find out more about that research at TCU, if we can. But have you noticed that when an element of play is involved, athletes learn playbooks better, that students learn better. What is your understanding of the necessary necessity of play within our structures within our forums?

[01:35:44] Kevin Carroll: I just think it’s because you’re, you’re activating other areas to be learning it from just rote memorization. So now you’re, you’re calling forth other areas from motor skills. To [01:36:00] visual skills, to auditory skills, you’re bringing all that into play. So the stickiness factor elevates. And so I think truly believe that’s what it is, is that it’s becomes more sticky, therefore you more memorable, therefore more embedded, therefore the skill stays and lasts.

And I think that’s one of the key things is anytime that you can recruit other areas of the body, mind and soul to participate. I think the better 

[01:36:28] Joe Towne: that’s so much our, our son is in a play-based learning environment. 

[01:36:31] Kevin Carroll: It’s like a Montessori school kind of thing, or it’s 

[01:36:35] Joe Towne: similar. It was started by a woman out here in California.

And the philosophy at the school is really play-based and child led. And so I’m learning a lot about what I’ve come to understand and believe that very similarly. A literal play saved my life. So how I reclaimed my desire to be on the planet. A lot of people don’t know this, but my struggles in high school with [01:37:00] belonging, with wanting to be here anymore, came from in some ways grieving some of the things that I had fallen in love with growing up that were no longer present, uh, family members.

Um, the feeling that I knew, what I wanted to do, I thought I wanted to be a baseball player. Uh, I became afraid of the high end side, fast ball, and I didn’t have confidence and going into high school. I discovered confidence through a play. My English teacher saw me. He invited me to come out and try out for the play and I was hooked.

There’s something to me about learning that play these techniques, help children develop social skills. Their motivation to learn even language numeracy skills. And if my son had his druthers, he would just keep playing. He doesn’t want to end. He doesn’t want the games before bedtime to end. He does want to go see his friends, but whatever we were playing in the morning, he never wants it to end.

I do think that there is a seasonality and a length of time that we can flow before we [01:38:00] do need to pause and be still and recover. And I wonder if you might talk about recovery and what you’ve learned about recovery as a trainer and how we can apply it to ourselves as humans, as artists in relationships.

[01:38:12] Kevin Carroll: I think it’s important that you have to replenish recovery is about that rest and recovery is about replenishing so that you can have the requisite energy for the next day, right. To repeat. And so, uh, that whole idea of rest recover, replenish, and then repeat, and I think is really important to me. And so, you know, your rest is I don’t, I’ve always been.

You know, you need to know how you rest best. We need to figure that out what rest means to you, but I’ve never been at full rest. I think in my life I’m always like kind of active rest. Right? Would they have in sports, right? Yeah. You just don’t go. I don’t shut it all the way down. I just don’t, I’m always kind of an active rest.

And my wife is always amazed that if I have [01:39:00] to be up super early for going to the airport for an event or early virtual event now, right. Because east coast is very different than west coast time. And sometimes I have to be up at three because my call times at five, my time, because the events at nine on the east coast six here, and I’m.

And I might not have gone to bed till 11, right. Being up with them. And she’s like, how do you do that? I said, well, I’ve just conditioned this way that I know what to do. And I, and I get quality rest, but I also am preparing, I know that’s coming. So I’m already storing up the things I need to be able to show up the way I need to.

So, you know, rest is not just something you do that evening before. It’s a practice of how you’re resting, how you’re being still, how you’re recovering, what does recovery look like? How you’re retreating back from people, social situations that might pull from your energy, having the discipline around that and [01:40:00] understanding that about yourself, learning these things about yourself, what does your energy expenditure look like?

All those things, right? How do you do an audit on your energy and start to understand what is my energy expenditure? What is taxing on me, what is replenishing for me? What fuels me and fills me. And you have to start to learn these things, and it’s taken me decades to figure that out. It’s not something you figure out overnight, but what an amazing noble quest to learn about your energy.

Right. And I tell people all the time, so I’ll be 63 years young coming up here. Right. And so I know about some energy dude. Like I know my brothers are not like me, my brothers are every bit their age. I don’t believe that I might age in a chronological standpoint. Right. And you know, my quest is Cicely Tyson ageless level.

That’s what I’m going for. Cicely [01:41:00] Tyson ageless level. Right. So if you don’t know, look it up, Google that you understand, when you see the pictures of Cicely Tyson, you’d be like, dang, what blows your mind? That’s what I’m going for. So energy, energy, energy, your understanding of your energy. So rest recovery replenish, repeat.

Those are the things that I’ve come to understand. And so my quality of sleep, how I fuel myself, what I’m eating, right, what I’m taking in my, my diet has changed over the years. Being with my wife, she’s really educated me on better ways to fuel myself. What fuels me, what I like and what fuels me and understanding that.

And then how I eat when I’m on the road really changed. And so having discipline around. Recognizing my sleep on the road was very different than my sleep at home. So how do I manage my energy when I’m on the road? So just understanding home games versus a way games, if you will. Right. And, and, but always having [01:42:00] discipline, but the only way you learn, honestly, Joe is you have to work at it and try things, right.

And there’s going to be some times like, dang, I shouldn’t have done that or that didn’t work. Or, but you only way you’re going to know is you have to try things, but you should never take your energy for granted. You should never say I got this. I’m good. No energy is fleeting and mysterious. It’s like catching smoke, right?

You think you got it under control and something could derail you so respect it, right? Respect the fact that you need to take care of your energy and then always be thinking about that rest and recovery and how you replenish. So you can repeat and fight the good fight. 

[01:42:39] Joe Towne: Fight the good fight. There it is.

The Alchemist again. Okay. I would love, I would love to play a quick game. I want to challenge you and get you out of here. If you don’t mind, I want to play a quick lightning round word association game. I want to throw some words or terms that you see what the first thing is that comes to mind. So if I say the words, million dollars. 

[01:42:57] Kevin Carroll: Nana Carroll.

Yeah. So [01:43:00] what actually, no, sorry. Auntie Roro would actually call me million dollars. And I always think of Nana Carroll also too. Cause I told her about the story. So my auntie Roro said to me when I was younger, um, I don’t know if you’re ever going to have a million dollars, but people are going to look at you like you’re worth a million dollars. 

[01:43:17] Joe Towne: Yeah, the valuing your value. 

[01:43:20] Kevin Carroll: Oh, Mr. Lane by Mr. Lane. I just actually surprised him. I flew on a red high to Philly to celebrate his 91st birthday. Uh, Mysoline passed away seven years ago. Mr. Lee is still out there doing his thing 91 years old and he didn’t know I was coming.

So it was really wonderful to, uh, surprise him. And, uh, we just kind of posted up at a hotel lobby by the airport and stuff and spend a couple hours together before I flew up to Albany for some work. So, uh, yeah, that’s, that’s a, that’s a boss and little bosses, Norman. So Norman is the son of Mr. Lane. But when at anytime I hear boss, it’s always, I go to that.

So [01:44:00] Norman is little boss, but actually it’s so funny. We used to call him Eddie because he had a widow’s peak, like Eddie Munster from the monster. So we also called him Eddie. Yeah. So, uh, that’s a, that’s a. Kind of deal with him. Yeah. So that was my best friend. Norman was my best friend and Ms. Lane son, and got killed in a car accident when he was 26 years old.

And that’s when I made a promise to the family that I was going to make them proud that I was going to be their son. 

[01:44:27] Joe Towne: So she was your CEO, your chief encouragement officer 

[01:44:31] Kevin Carroll: whistling. Yeah. CEO, chief encouragement, officer, my host, my dreams, my aspirations, this laying unlocked everything for me with two words.

Why not? She would always say, why not? Why not? Why not? And she’d always respond to any of my ideas, my crazy notions. Why not? And then she’d always say, Hey, but don’t talk about it. Be about it. There’s lots of talkers and very few doers. Which one are you Kevin? So I learned that, you know, she gave me permission to dream big, but she also challenged me.

Yeah. [01:45:00] And held me accountable. 

[01:45:01] Joe Towne: So coming from, and, uh, seeing, being part of blended families, this term bonuses. I wonder, what does that mean to you? Bonus kit? 

[01:45:09] Kevin Carroll: Oh yeah, my, my bonus daughter. So she’s a, my wife’s daughter, but my stock, my daughter, I’ve known her. Wow. It’s crazy. We’ve known each other 22 years now.

Um, I met her when she was nine Covina and her name is Kevin with A’s, which is so crazy. K a V I N a and her dad, she never met left. Um, then when she was only like a month old and on our wedding day, she said to her mom, she said, look, mom, I got the Kevin. I was supposed to have all along Francis flute, the bellows mender, Midsummer night’s dream.

That was my role. I was fizzy and Francis flute. The bellows mender. Yes, Pyramis for often half the, I hear that moans for party. My fair pyramids. Oh, walled off. Not to hurt my most for party. My fear pyramids [01:46:00] to me, my cherry lips have often kissed. I still, I still with lime and hair that. Still remember aligner.

I still got a bar from Midsummer night’s dream.

Yes. I was Francis flute, the bellows mender. And is B 

[01:46:18] Joe Towne: unbelievable. I love it so much. What is your it? 

[01:46:25] Kevin Carroll: Oh, so not it. Yeah. Tag. So we played tag at Nike 3000 people played tag for three hours. Um, your, it equals beautiful bedroom. It was the most beautiful bed on I’d ever seen with 3000 people playing at play and playing and building community 

[01:46:45] Joe Towne: resignation from being an adult 

[01:46:49] Kevin Carroll: as a simple little a reminder, just taking an adult resignation.

And sometimes you need to raise your right hand and say that, you know, all this, uh, adult-like [01:47:00] things don’t matter anymore. What if I actually. Could take on the responsibilities of eight, nine or 10 year old again. And it’s really beautiful when you start to think about that, you know, I want to believe that M and M’s are better than, and more important than money because well, you can eat them, right.

So, yes, definitely. I think sometimes you need to resign from being an adult and embrace play and see it for all its value. 

[01:47:24] Joe Towne: Beautiful. Okay. Balls can change our lives. Right. You’ve described an asparagus ball, a balloon ball. Can you tell me about the ball from Baya? 

[01:47:34] Kevin Carroll: So the idea of, um, the dreams being tied to so, but is a really sacred place in Brazil and, um, you can put your dreams on a ball and so.

That idea of, um, someone bringing back a ball from a sacred place like that. A really spiritual place was really special to me having that and for them to carry it all the way back from across the [01:48:00] world to gift that to me. And to say that this has been blessed, um, really was powerful for me that both of them are here and I still actually have bone themes.

Doba here. The bone themes are the things you actually tie on your wrist and you put your dreams on them. And there’s a whole ritual when you tie that on your wrist and you leave it on your wrist until it falls off, and then your dreams are to come true by then, but you like, it’ll be frayed and everything, but you do not pull it off.

And so there’s a whole ritual around that. So that’s how I know about Bahia and, uh, and the special thing. And I’ve actually seen some documentaries where people live there and I immediately go to, um, the ball from Bahia and the bone themes. 

[01:48:38] Joe Towne: Yeah. And they play, they know when it’s done when the ball and he has one.

[01:48:46] Kevin Carroll: Yes. Exactly. Exactly. It’s all at. There’s nothing left of it. Yeah. Like you use it till there’s nothing left 

[01:48:52] Joe Towne: that you shared, you know, that had so much meaning to you. And there are many was the dry banana fibers ball from Uganda. 

[01:48:59] Kevin Carroll: Oh yeah. From [01:49:00] Uganda. Yeah. That was one of the first I ever received, um, banana fiber bowl from Uganda.

And it’s probably the most ingenious one I’ve ever seen because they use what they had at their disposal. And for generations, they made a ball out of it then, and it’s so beautiful and intricate in the way they weave it together and dry out the leaves and all of that. And, um, yeah, when you want a waterproof, would you put it in a plastic bag and tie it up?

Just brilliant. It’s just so it’s the genius and the simplicity. And I think that’s where I started to understand that circumstances never dictate somebody’s destiny. And you can do a lot with a little, and you just had to tap into your imagination and your playful spirit that wonder not discovery as a child.

So it’s always available for us. And I think that ball represents that, right? That wonder and discovery that ingenuity, that innovative spirit that we all have. 

[01:49:57] Joe Towne: I love it. Thanks for playing that game with me. [01:50:00] Have to replay generally. I like to challenge people want to challenge you with two questions and then I will let you go, Kevin.

What’s something that, you know, you do better than 

[01:50:09] Kevin Carroll: most people. I think I do relationships better than most people. I think I’m really, really good at that. And that’s out of all the decades of me actively practicing that, but you go even back further, it’s out of necessity. I had to learn how to build relationships and keep them.

And the lanes are a great example of that. Um, I’ve been associated with them for, let’s see, it’ll be 50. I’ve met them 54 years coming up now that I’ve never lost touch from the lanes. I met them when I was nine years old. I’ve had a key to their house since I was 10. We’ve never lost touch. No, never lost touch all the moves everywhere.

I’ve lived all over the world. I’ve never lost touch with the lanes and they Marvel at that and, and they say, you’re so good at that. [01:51:00] And I think I’m well-practiced at that. So I think I do relationships better than most. Yeah. And even 

[01:51:05] Joe Towne: before this conversation, you and I had a phone conversation of over a year ago.

Now, the piece of advice that you so generously offered me was don’t be transactional, be transformational. And the embodiment of that seems to be about relationship. So that, that makes sense to me that that is something that you are better at. What’s something that you’re working together. I always 

[01:51:28] Kevin Carroll: want to be a better father, a better husband, a better sibling.

So those are things, a better man, if you will. I’m just trying to be better at that. And I mean, if you’re going to blow it down a better human. So I think that I’ve got this attitude of always staying in beta as a human being, always improving, always updating. And I’m a firm believer that I’m the greatest app ever created.

There’s no app greater than me. And so why wouldn’t I treat myself, like I treat the apps on my devices and [01:52:00] my computer when I’m told to update them. We’re so quick to do it. So why shouldn’t I do that with myself? So I’m always trying to make the effort to update me on a daily and trying to improve in those areas that I mentioned and be better.

And so that’s something that I can work on, right. Is being better just as a human being. 

[01:52:18] Joe Towne: I love that Kevin, and is such an inspiration to know you and to see what you’re building and what you’re up to. I’m curious, how can we as a community join in with what matters to you the most? Is there a place we can follow 

[01:52:29] Kevin Carroll: along?

I think if everyone would just do their part to encourage the next generation of leaders, makers, doers, and dreamers, that’s how you can help my effort because that’s what I’m doing is I’m taking on Ms. Lane’s legacy and I’m being a CEO for the next gen. And so I encourage other folks join me on that journey, right?

To be a CEO, a chief encouragement officer for someone 

[01:52:51] Joe Towne: beautiful, paying it forward. Kevin, thank you for your time and your attention for your care and your generosity for your [01:53:00] reminders. And most of all, your heart, I truly appreciate. 

[01:53:04] Kevin Carroll: Arielle, you know, what’s up, you know how we roll? You know, how we roll?

Yes, absolutely. Joe Ariel town. Right? That’s it. That’s it. So I, I, I love that we finally got a chance to properly meet, but we still haven’t properly met. Right. And, and in the Shakespeare returns, are we all met? Not quite yet, but we will be at some point soon in the future where we’ll be able to give each other a proper embrace and hello.

[01:53:30] Joe Towne: I can’t wait for that day. And the meantime, I just, I want you to be well and my love to you and all 

[01:53:35] Kevin Carroll: yours be well, man, I appreciate you blessings.

[01:53:45] Joe Towne: My goodness. Casey is a catalyst of inspiration and motivation that is for sure. I keep seeing the scene from dead poet society in my head, you know, the one towards the end, and I want to stand on a desk and shout, oh, captain, [01:54:00] my captain. He is poetry and inspiration and a playful heart wrapped up in one.

What stands out the most to me from that conversation with Kevin is the power of our story. The one we tell to ourselves about ourselves and also the one we tell to others, he has clearly sat with himself and reflected enough and woven his journey into an empowering and inspiring story. And that is a choice we have.

And to me, he is such a clear example of what is. Also listening to Kevin, tell stories, even ones I’ve heard before. I’m aware that I’m on the edge of my seat, as he tells them, he’s clearly having the most fun in the history of fun as he does. His work is serious play as he calls it and getting a glimpse into his non-negotiables the things he does as part of his transition routines in and out of his day, when he crosses the threshold.

I’m going to [01:55:00] sit with those for a bit and see what an inspires me to do next. Plus, I need to get to the bottom of this whole jeopardy mystery for more on Kevin, go over to Casey catalyst.com. That’s Casey catalyst with a k.com. You can also find them on Twitter and Instagram as Casey catalyst as well.

And let him and us know what you thought of the conversation. Let’s seek to celebrate him in the way that he celebrates the people that he lifts up. Cool. All right, you are not going to want to miss our guests next week, Hattie and Charlie webb, AKA the webb sisters are singers and songwriters who have performed for the queen ever rocked alongside Leonard Cohen for six years.

And also Tom petty and the Heartbreakers. Their thoughtfulness is something I’ve always marveled at and getting to sit around a warm laptop, camera and chat with them was [01:56:00] delightful and deeply moving. They have some incredible stories from their journeys around the world. Listening to them sing is like a prayer, Google them immediately and listen, and I can’t wait to introduce them right here on the better podcast.

Hey, gentle reminder. Have you subscribed yet? Can you take a beat and click the rate and review or like tabs? Those little actions have huge impacts on this show, this community and our future. Thank you for being. For your time and your attention. I appreciate you until next week. 

[01:56:38] Kevin Carroll: Be well.