You're listening to the Uncommon Life Podcast. Whether you're a startup or you've been in business for 10 years, this show is for you. Each week, you'll get mentored by business leaders who deliver valuable strategies, tactics and tips on how you can pursue your passion without compromise. We’ll show you how to achieve balance while sticking to your core values, so you can have an uncommon life.
Now, here's your host, Jimmy Fullerton.
Jimmy: Yes, yes. Welcome to Episode N0. 20 of the Uncommon Life Podcast, the mission of which remains to seek out uncommon people to help you grow both your business and your life.
Today's podcast is directed towards those people who feel stuck. You want to grow desperately, but you're not sure where to start. You want to reach your full potential. Doesn't everybody want to reach their full potential? I guess there are some that don't really care, but most people I think intrinsically want to reach their full potential—and today I'm talking to Mac and Kim Cantrell, and that's basically their mission.
They own a company called 2 Impact in Columbus, Ga., and their mission is to help people develop. They focus mainly on coaching, training and consulting, but they're very passionate about helping people to grow and reach their full potential.
Once again, this is a two-part episode. There's a lot of really good information in here, so sit back and enjoy.
…
Mac and Kim, thank you all so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to do this interview with me. I guess let's just start talking about 2 Impact, and the mission and purpose of 2 Impact.
Kim: All right. I'll start, Mac, how about that.
Mac: Right, yes please.
Kim: 2 Impact is really … it's hard to believe that it's six years old now and that it was, in fact, for me, I think just a dream for a while. I don't think that I ever saw myself as an entrepreneur, although I do come from a family of entrepreneurs. My dad owns his own business. Mac has been an entrepreneur for his entire career. His family is very entrepreneurial. But I really was always more the one who liked the safety and security of the corporate world.
I spent almost 14 years at Goodwill Industries of the Southern Rivers, and before that I was in accounting. I tell people all the time when I'm in groups and get to tell my story that I have really the craziest career path you could ever imagine to becoming a coach and a trainer, and a facilitator, because I started out with a degree in accounting. [03:00.0]
And, really, I don't know that there's a secret sauce that got me here, but one of the things that I know got me here was that I worked for a leader who saw talent in me that I sometimes didn't even know that I had, and she worked really hard to cultivate that talent over the years.
It really, fast-forward to today, looks like a business that is all about helping people grow and develop. I'm a coach, a credentialed coach. I'm certified in the CliftonStrengths Assessment. Mac is certified in the DiSC Assessment. He's a John Maxwell trainer, coach.
Jimmy: Oh, really?
Kim: Yes. And we are all about just helping people to grow because we really believe that you never stop growing.
Jimmy: Yeah, it's so important to have somebody that you work for who's leading you that’s invested in your own personal growth. I mean, that really is kind of what opened my eyes as well. Your mission at 2 Impact basically is really about personal growth.
Kim: Absolutely. Absolutely, and any kind of growth. A lot of the work that we do is with leaders, but it also looks like business growth. From a coaching perspective, it can look like career change because that's growth as well.
A lot of people who are like me found themselves at a place in their life where they may have thought they were going to continue on with the career path, but decided, Oh, maybe I should do something different with my life, but didn't really know what it was different. So, I've been really fortunate to coach some really amazing people in unique situations. I coached a professional hockey player out of hockey and into a corporate career.
Jimmy: Wow.
Kim: Which was really a lot of fun. I've also coached someone out of a Fortune 500 company into the world of real estate. And so, there are so many applications for coaching, not just leadership growth or personal type relationship growth. But really it's about any growth.
Jimmy: Right. Yeah, that's fascinating, but you’ve got a wide and diverse background. How did you come to that decision? Everybody has this moment when you go out on your own, when you finally realize, This is the time and I’ve got to do it now. So, how did you come to that? Describe your mental process for what led you to believe this is the time?
Because you probably had the idea of incubating in your brain for a while and you were probably processing it. If you are cautious by nature, as you say, [06:00.0] you probably took a while to process these thoughts. And how did you come to that decision that now I'm going to go ahead and make this happen?
Kim: Yeah, like I said, I don't know that I ever thought I would, because when I went to work at Goodwill, I was home. It was an amazing place. I worked for a really strong leader, and I’m using that word “strong” because she was tough, but she cared about me and we spent almost 14 years together. We raised our children together. We took an organization that was about $5 million in revenue and grew it to about 25 million, so it was very fast growth.
But when I say she cultivated talent, she let someone with an accounting degree operate not just the accounting department, but put me into situations where I ran human resources and marketing, and IT, and sometimes the retail stores in our Goodwill when there was lack of leadership there, and contracts and really everything.
And so, I had progressed through the entire organization to a point where there was only one other job and that would have been hers when she decided to retire, and so, I went back to school to get a master's, and I think that's the pivotal point.
That's the turning point for me, because my first semester back in school—I have a master's from Columbus State University and the master’s is in organizational leadership—so my first semester, my first class was a coaching skills class. In fact, the teacher at that time is now one of my business partners today.
Jimmy: Really? This was in a master's program, right?
Kim: Yes, this was in a master’s program here at Columbus State University in Columbus. It's a fabulous, fabulous master's program. I knew that I wanted higher education, but I really wasn't an MBA candidate. For me, it was more about what I was going to be learning, and that it be something that really fulfilled me and made the things that I was doing at Goodwill enhanced. And so, leadership was what it was all about.
Jimmy: So, your prior boss, the one that was tough, but also you knew that she cared about you, she saw something in you to be able to put you to know that you'd be willing to go in these different positions and cross-train. She was obviously preparing you. What did she see in you, the trait that she saw that made her feel comfortable doing that, do you think?
Kim: I don't know. That's a hard question. I think that it's a lot harder for us to talk about ourselves than it is to recognize and talk about others.
Jimmy: Maybe I should let Mac answer that.
Kim: You should really let Mac answer that.
Jimmy: Let’s see what Mac says, if it matches up with what you're saying.
Mac: Make sure you understand that totally, yeah?
Jimmy: Yeah, [09:00.0] I'm just trying to figure out what her boss, her former boss, [saw in her]. Obviously, she saw something in Kim that made her want to cross train her and get her more exposure to the company. What do you think that trait was she saw on Kim, your wife, that made her want to do that? What trait is it that she has?
Mac: Let me approach it this way. Kim and I, we're coming on 30 years of marriage, so we know each other well, and one of the things I know about Kim is that, when she focuses on something, she has a drive and a passion to accomplish it. And what she found when she went for that master's course, after she really connected with it in the coaching section part of it, she came home and told me, “I think I'm ready to leave my job and pursue this,” and I didn't know that that was going to be part of the deal.
But to answer your question, the CEO of Goodwill definitely saw that, that drive and that passion, and to continually challenge her, and I believe that she rose to the occasion each and every time. And when Kim did make that decision to switch gears in her career, the CEO was supportive of her as well in that, in that endeavor.
Jimmy: So, you would say probably it was the hunger and the drive to grow.
Mac: Absolutely, yes.
Jimmy: Many would consider that kind of a soft skill, right, but a critical skill. When I was looking for a GM for Launch, I interviewed a lot of people that probably had more overall experience that might have had a better… I guess experience is probably the main trait. But who I ended up hiring, he had a good background as well, but he was very, very hungry. Really, a younger guy, but very eager to prove himself, very ambitious, and I thought that's what we needed and Launch and it worked out to be very good.
Let's shift here for a second. I want to hear from Mac. You talked about your transition from the corporate world, going out on your own. You had a business and your business was in…?
Mac: Well, I was in the automotive accessory business. Just a backup, I'm not going to stay on this point too long, but I was actually a graduate of CSU as well as Kim, and originally it was in graphic design. But I realized that, with my passion for interacting with people, that wasn't going to fulfill that passion. That will be important in a few minutes why I made that point. So, I switched over and I walked away with a marketing degree from CSU.
I joined a family business, which was Action Buildings, headed a division of it called Action Truck Styles, which changed to Action Auto Design. And [12:00.0] then, in ’17, I partnered with another outfit and it was Custom Trucks Unlimited, which is still in business.
So, I did that for 29 years. Pretty much most of my focus was in the automotive part of the business. I enjoyed it. It was a fun, exciting business. But what I really came to realize, especially in the last couple of years, was that the real driver for me was the engagement and interaction with people and in helping, whether it was my customers, the public, obviously my team at work, it was just watching people grow and develop and, again, that interaction.
And Kim's business, after six years, had really grown and it was all through word of mouth and referrals, which was really impressive. But the reality, I mean, what's the opportunity for growth if we were to really promote and market this business?
So, I looked at the fulfillment and the joy that she was getting out of it, and I realized that I could do what I really love full time and to do it with a person I love and be able to travel. We're empty nesters and I think it was time for me to get out of the brick and mortar building, and really just pour into other people's lives, because I've seen, again, the fulfillment and the joy that it brought Kim over the years. So, that's what I decided to do and I’ve brought some different programs into the mix, in addition to supporting what she currently does.
Jimmy: When did you come to that decision, though, that point when you—I guess it was a process—came to it and realized, you could see how her life was changing as she was getting more and more fulfilled, and you just kind of…? I guess it probably was an evolution in your thinking that you came to a point where you realized that, You know what, I think I want to be involved in this. Is that kind of how it happened?
Mac: Just to be transparent, for about the last year, year and a half, in the automotive business, there really was a little bit of a void and part of that, I'll confess, was that I was blessed to grow up with parents that pushed growing and development. I mean, as a teenager, I was listening to Dale Carnegie and Zig Ziegler and grew up with that.
But there, for about a year, year and a half, I wasn't reading. I wasn't listening to anything. For some reason, I just dropped the ball altogether on that. And to try to get reset, I found a coach and it was somebody that Kim knows—it wasn't Kim. I get coached enough with her without having to pay for it. Well, I guess I pay for it one way or the other.
But, anyway, I joined up with a great guy named Brian Fitzpatrick, and I went to coaching with him just to sort of grow and just to find out what was missing. I had no intentions of stepping away from the business, but it was within four or five sessions with him that I really realized what it was going to take [15:00.0] to find that fulfillment and that joy, and that real purpose.
And not saying that I was too good for the business that I was in, but I believe, I fully believe that God called me to do something greater than that. The power of coaching, I'm a firm believer in it. When Kim first got into coaching, I said, “So you're going to get paid to talk to people?” because that's the perspective that so many people have of a coach—they talk, they talk, they talk.
She said, “No, I listen.
And I said, “You're going to get paid for that?”
Jimmy: I’m really glad you said that.
Mac: Yeah, and she had a pretty good paycheck in the corporate world. When she went away, I was like, Wow, okay, let’s see what happens here. But, obviously, God provided and we were faithful and.
And so, I saw, I witnessed the power of that firsthand with Brian, and just listening and just doing fact-finding and exploring, I realized that that's what I needed to do. Obviously, I miss my team that I was there with, but I have to confess that I don't miss the industry and I'm just so happy with what I'm doing now.
Jimmy: You just decided you wanted to get coached. You were going through a dry spell.
Mac: Right.
Jimmy: Yeah, I’ve been there. I've got a sort of a similar story as far as that goes. But you just decided you wanted to get out of that funk. And so, what coach did you pursue? Just a life coach or what?
Mac: I would say, Brian is just a life coach. I mean, he’d help you in career as well. When I went to Brian, it was this thing about coaching, which is so cool that I've seen at least in my personal experience, it was just casual conversation. It wasn't anything dramatic and deep and personal like that or anything mystical or any of those words make sense. But it was just really just conversational and he listened a good bit, and through that process, he just sort of dug out what was really missing.
I was thinking that I needed to do something different and my current profession and to make me more fulfilled there. But, again, the solution was I just needed to find something totally different. Again, to be able to [have], just seriously, just the interaction with people, again, that's what drives me.
The thing I'm most passionate about and one of the programs that I'm bringing into the mix, we're going to add some to the leadership training that Kim does, but it's customer service. That's what really drove me daily, again, with the people obviously, and it's one of those things.
When you talk about customer service, people think it's sort of warm and fuzzy like rainbows and unicorns, but it is “the” number one determining factor of how successful your business will be, and it's not something that's strictly for Walt Disney World or Chick-fil-A, or Hilton. It's available to everybody if they'll just grasp it and live it daily, and make it a part of the process and not just something [18:00.0] “Well, we'll work on that when we get to it.”
And I'll tell you, in the automotive industry, that's where we really set our company apart, not to be boastful, but that's an industry that—my competitors may disagree, but—I rarely found one in the industry in automotive in general that really put customer service as a top priority. So, I was able to do that, too.
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Jimmy: So, listening.
Mac: Yeah.
Jimmy: Listening, a very underrated skill I think. Whether it's customer service or coaching, you have to listen. If you're a good listener, that'll overcome a multitude of weaknesses, if you can listen to people.
Mac: Absolutely.
Jimmy: Okay, so, Kim, let's go back to you as you had talked about your master's program and I want to go back to your journey on how you progressed from there. So, let's go back to that.
Kim: So, my first semester, it was the coaching skills class, and I can remember sitting in that class and thinking, This is how I lead. This is naturally how I lead. I never called it coaching. But as I was learning the skills of listening more than speaking, and as I was learning about how believing that people have inside of them all the answers that they need, they just need someone to ask them the right question to bring it out.
And it really began to form and shape for me. Okay, that's how I was inclined to lead. How could I do it better? But then a thought of, could I do this? Could I be the coach? Could I be that person and maybe even leave Goodwill?
And so, I probably took that thought and tucked it away because there's the rational side of your brain and of mine that says, There’s no way you need another entrepreneur in your household. I mean, really.
And so, I just went on about my master's program. It took me two [21:00.2] years to get my master's because at that point I was working full time, going to school at night. And we had two kids at home, only one of which was driving. And so, two years to get my master's.
But the last semester of my master's program, Mac and I had been having conversations that summer, I remember. I vividly remember a conversation at the beach, maybe even out in the water, where we began to talk about what it would look like if I didn't, if I left Goodwill.
So, we had been having these conversations, but I remember waking up one morning—it was late September—and saying, “It's time for me to turn in my notice.” And I went in and I scheduled a meeting with my boss, and by the end of the week, I had turned in my notice. And I didn't have a plan. I just knew that there was something else.
Jimmy: It seems so out of character for the way you're characterized. You didn't have a plan. Yet you just knew internally it was time.
Kim: Right, and I am a planner. Mac can attest to that. So, to not have a plan really it was just because I knew that if I was that certain, right, that God had a plan and he would show it to me when the time was right.
Jimmy: That's such a critical point for me as far as, okay, all those things you said. Number one, asking questions. Knowing the right questions to ask is hugely undervalued. But we had a similar conversation, me and my wife, way back when I launched into real estate from a secure corporate-level job, and I just thought I was trapped. I thought I was stuck. I could never find any place here in Columbus that I could make as much money. I had to take a big pay cut.
But once we actually started asking the questions, that key question, “What would it look like if I left? What are some of the consequences of what we have to sacrifice?” once we started asking those questions and started putting down on paper what it would look like, there was something about that process that made me transition mentally and that was a big, huge first step for me.
And then, the whole thing that you said also about not knowing, didn't necessarily have a plan for the future per se. You know what? Yeah, we can't always do that. Sometimes we just have enough information like daily bread. We have enough information to make the right decisions today that place us where we need to be tomorrow and the next day. So, you can't always know. It'd be great to do that and it's great to plan. I'm not advocating not planning, but you can only plan so much.
Anyway, I want to stop there for a second, but go ahead and continue if you can. I got too side-tracked there.
Kim: Sure. It [24:00.0] was a huge leap of faith. It was.
Jimmy: Yeah, of course.
Kim: There's no doubt about that. But there were so many blessings in it as well. When I left Goodwill in that January, because I turned in my notice in October, I worked a three-month notice, so that I could, hopefully, make sure the organization was in a good place. I'd been there for a long time.
So, when I left Goodwill in January, our youngest, our daughter, was a senior in high school, and I was able to take a few months and just be a mom, and just to really think about and spend time, trying to decide what was it that I really wanted to do. And it just really was that God just laid it all out there because I can't tell you that there's a story behind how I got into the coaching certification. It just all happened like it was just supposed to be.
As soon as our daughter graduated from high school, I finished up. I started the program that would get me the rest of my coaching hours that I needed. I started coaching people. I needed 100 hours in order to sit for the credential that I have, because there are a lot of coaches out there and there are a lot of programs out there; the path I chose was the International Coach Federation. It’s the largest body of accredited coaches.
And so, that means that I had to go to school. I had to take a lot of hours of class. I had to coach for 100 hours and then I had to sit for an exam, and I have to renew that credential every three years, so with continuing education and things like that, to make sure that I'm up to speed on coaching and that my skills are sharp.
And so, I started coaching and I just needed hours, and so I coached people for a dollar. I coached people for a cup of coffee, because I just wanted to hone my skills. I wanted to make sure that I was a really great questioner, that I didn't just ask any old question, that I asked the next question that might unlock something for someone. We call it an “a-ha” moment in coaching.
Then it really just has grown from there. It's like I worked from Starbucks and Panera and all kinds of places for about six months, and then, all of a sudden, I had an office. Then, a small office shared with a colleague last year turned into a larger office, so it has really just evolved.
Coaching, for me, is a way that I can help people by using the skills I have to grow in whatever way they want to grow, because like Mac said a few minutes ago, he thought it was all about talking that I was going to get paid to talk, and it's [27:00.0] not that at all because, in fact, if I am doing all the talking like I am right now, then that's not what my client needs from me. They need for me to listen.
Jimmy: Yeah. That’s something I definitely learned when I got into real estate. It's about listening to what your client needs. It's the same way with Launch, with our guests that come in there, listening. My wife is obsessive about reading reviews. She's always been obsessing about that and that’s good. It's a good obsession to have because it's a way of listening.
Also, when you're interviewing people for a job, not just for a podcast, but for a job. The key thing is to listen to them and ask the right questions to get them to talk, to unlock something.
Let's talk a little bit about what types of coaching you do, Kim.
Kim: Really, coaching is for anything, and so, I've always been…. Let me say this, I've always never liked for Mac to call me a life coach because, for me, I feel like there is some kind of not negative connotation, but -
Jimmy: Stigma?
Kim: - just maybe a little stigma around that. And, really, the work that I do, I mean I guess it does encompass your whole life, but what I get the most joy out of, I'll say, is leadership coaching, when I'm able to work with a person in any business who desires to grow as a leader to be better as a leader tomorrow than they are today. I enjoy the career coaching, like we talked about, for people who are transitioning from one career to another.
But a lot of what I find when I'm coaching with people is we end up talking about legacy. We end up talking about when you think about how you want to grow, you have to think about, Okay, well what impact is that going to have on the future? And so, for me, legacy is super important. That is how you want to be remembered, because you will be remembered one way or the other. That's what I tell everybody that I work with.
It really is up to you. Every single day, you have the option to make a difference or not and to know how you want to make a difference. I was very fortunate at Goodwill that early on development was extremely important at Goodwill, leadership development, and very early on we started participating in 360 assessments as leaders. We wrote our own leadership legacy statements.
Jimmy: A 360 assessment—what is that?
Kim: A 360 assessment, really, it’s a look. Think about 360 degrees around the leader, and so, lots of different products on the market. But [30:00.0] a lot of leaders will do those in organizations every year, where you will ask people that work for you, your direct reports, your peers, your manager and other people in the organization to rate you and tell you how you are doing as a leader now. And we would use that in order to draft our development plans for the next year to see, How are we going to grow the next year?
So, leadership legacy was important, and so we developed a leadership legacy statement. All of us had legacy statements and that's just simply a “I want to be remembered as a leader who ___________” and you fill in the blank.
Jimmy: That’s a hard question. When you ask that question, it takes a lot of thought to really.
Kim: It does.
Jimmy: It takes a special person to be able to draw that out of somebody, too. It's not easy to just spew that out and have it makes sense.
Kim: It is, and I think because I participated in it so long ago and mine has sort of evolved over the years that it's a little easier for me to help people to process through it. There are a lot of different factors. There’s “What are you naturally gifted at? How do you communicate with people?” There's even the simple. Sometimes it works just for people to say, I want you to think about your retirement party and everybody's there that's ever worked for you.
Jimmy: What are they going to say?
Kim: What do you want them to say?
Jimmy: Yeah. At your funeral, that’s a common one, too.
Kim: Exactly, and that's the type of questions that speak to that.
Mac: I think it's easier on the retirement, because when people hear about a legacy, they're automatically thinking that they're no longer on this earth.
Jimmy: Yeah, that’s a good point.
Mac: That's a tough one to sort of wrap your mind about because you're too occupied with “I'm not here anymore,” but if you do it in the sense of a retirement party where you're having fun and everybody's there, I think that that opens your mind more to think about it.
Kim: So, for me, legacy is extremely personal and real, because the leader that I've talked about at Goodwill, her name was Jane, and Jane's leadership legacy was to develop bold, diverse and caring leaders. And she developed leaders. That’s for sure. She was my biggest champion and cheerleader, and she was also the hardest person on me at some times. She was probably devastated when I turned in my notice, but she was also incredibly supportive when I left, and she would call and she would reach out after I’d left to see how my business was growing.
And it really all came full circle to me when, almost three years ago, she died of breast cancer. And so, for me, to know that that was the legacy that she put out there and to only have 55 years on this earth to live that legacy, but to be able [33:00.0] to look out at a room full of people and just to see person after person after person that had been impacted by her, just for me it became so crucial to the work that I do, just to help people to develop that legacy statement.
Because we know this that no one knows how long you have. We know that. But when it hits really close to home it becomes “Okay, well, so what is the impact if you don't know the legacy that you want to leave?” versus “What is the impact you could have if you knew it, and if you knew it every day?”
And so, it's just powerful for me because that was such a key influence in my life. That was over a decade that I spent there, really growing as a leader.
Jimmy: Yeah, it's helpful to have a leader that actually lives it out and you can say, Ah, that's the impact I want to have. It's helpful. It helps the light to come on because you hear that stuff all the time, but when you see it lived out in somebody's life, like I said, it helps you to make that mental transition in your head.
Kim: That’s right, yeah. And was she perfect? No. But none of us are perfect. Not a single one of us. We all make mistakes. But when we know and I think when things come from the heart, from “This is my heart and this is how I want to lead. This is how I want to show up every day.”
I encourage all my clients, once they write a legacy statement, to put it somewhere. Print it. Keep it with you. Put it on your computer screen. Make it your background, so that you don't forget it. Because then you can show up every day, even on the hard days, and still try to make an impact.
Jimmy: Show up every day. I like that. And leading also is also about, you made it a point to say that she was not perfect. I think it's important as you're leading to let people know you're not perfect, be authentic with them. People, if they can connect with you that way, that just deepens the bond that you have with them.
Mac: As Kim said, Jane was 55 when she passed away. The point I want to make here is that she had started on this legacy statement just early in her life. I think when people think of legacy also they think of “It's something I've got to do in my later years and at some point. I'm too young to think about a legacy statement right now. Who's going to listen to me?”
But Kim, just a couple months ago, did a presentation to the YP Group at the Chamber and it was on the legacy statement, and just to watch those younger people get engaged in it and really embrace that and think about it was really cool, because they really understood [36:00.0] that this is something that they should be doing. This isn't reserved for your mom and dad.
Jimmy: I wish to God that I had thought about this stuff when I was younger. I'm trying to with my daughter to think about this kind of stuff. She's only eight years old, so it's a little bit early for that, but trying to kind of get her to thinking about that kind of stuff.
That's another reason why I'm doing the podcast, because of the legacy thing, the whole thing about wanting her to hear some of this content from people that I value, the people that I think had the same set of values that I do. I want her to understand the importance of knowing how this can translate to success and the choices in your life that you don't have to be locked into a career path. You need to understand that you have choices. And so, that's the legacy I want to leave for my daughter. I want her to know that she has choices in her life.
…
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