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Kevin W. McCarthy

The Professor of On-Purpose

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Kevin McCarthy

How Are You Building Your Confidence?

October 18, 2018 By kwmccarthy

Gaining confidence begins with a decision to become confident.

The lack of confidence can negatively influence every aspiration and aspect of your life and work. Personal leadership and personal confidence go hand in hand.

Avoid falling prey to the “Fake it until you make it” crowd who believe in building on lies at best and self-deception at worst. Being truthful about a matter where one isn’t experienced serves no one.

Confidence comes with experience and achievement, which can’t be faked.

Confidence, however, is speaking the truth about one’s experience and achievement and allowing the miracles of graciousness and kindness of others to accept you as you are rather than pretending to be someone you aren’t.

How are you gaining and building your confidence?

Please share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments section. Thank you!

Are You Prepared To Lose To Gain?

September 11, 2018 By kwmccarthy

In today’s On-Purpose® Minute, let’s explore the gains to be found in loss! You might be surprised just how effective loss can be to our long-term benefit.

How do you deal with loss? What is loss?

Are you prepared to have loss in order to gain?

Locallygrown-produceCould it be that loss and—more importantly—learning how to deal with loss are simply as organic to life as the vegetable section at your local Whole Foods store?

In The On-Purpose Person, I reference fighters, floaters, fleers, and flitters as “styles” for dealing with stress and life. There, you’re encouraged to be a navigator, one who leads and manages through change rather than reacting to and being a victim of it. It takes an inherent calm and peace.

As a formerly ranked tennis player, when I have been in “the zone” on the court, I play without the stress and strain of forcing my play. Things just seem to click better. The secret to getting and staying in the zone to some degree is detaching from the usual expected outcome—to win the match.

The ability to play better comes from navigating the experience positively. It is hard to keep this “above the fray” mindset, but when one does, the body and mind are able to perform seemingly without effort.

In business, on the tennis court, or on the golf course, I’ve seen far too many talented people tighten up for fear of loss. This “choking” isn’t a personal failure; it is a growing experience if we allow it to be instructive versus destructive.

Oddly, loss is important to our health, well-being, and finances because it helps us to mature and grow.

Sailors on a ship may not be aware of the big picture or have the experience to place what is happening to the ship in a proper context. A ship’s captain, however, brings the capacity to navigate the shoals and shores safely even in a storm.

If you are learning—and we’re all life-long learners—then anticipate there are situations when you are a sailor and other times when you are a captain.

Learn from your losses, and your life passage will be calmer and more productive as you gain from each loss.

Is your life a question mark, period, or exclamation point?

July 7, 2015 By kwmccarthy

Disclaimer: This On-Purpose Minute is nearly 10 minutes long because it is an excerpt from a keynote address. I apologize that the video quality is less than ideal, but the message still comes across.

The Back Story:

This month, I’m celebrating my 7th anniversary of reclaiming my health and creating a lifelong healthy lifestyle. In March 2008, I was tipping the scales at over 240 pounds on my 5′ 9″ frame. While I’ve always had an athletic, muscular build, I was wearing what I jokingly called “My fat suit.” Somewhere within the bundled layers of my fat suit was a trim Kevin W. McCarthy seeking liberation. Perhaps you relate.

Over the years my weight had been steadily increasing with more work, less exercise, and poor eating habits. I would skip breakfast, often skip lunch, and then eat dinner and have desserts the rest of the evening. I’ve since learned that this is how Sumo wrestlers get so big. I did not have a healthy lifestyle by any stretch of the imagination.

About a year earlier I took on a business client project of co-authoring a business book on a very tight timetable. This resulted in even more rapid weight gain as I was sitting for days on end researching and writing. The good news is that when my client sold his business, the book created an extra $15 million in company value. The bad news is the book resulted in me gaining an extra 25 or more pounds over my existing steady weight gain.

In March 2008, Dr. Wayne Scott Andersen booked me (sight unseen) as the keynote speaker for the July Take Shape For Life Annual Convention in Orlando. I asked about the program and got on it. I figured someone had to have figured out this weight thing because my feeble attempts at getting healthy weren’t working.

Three months later I stood on that stage a changed man from the inside out. Yes, I had lost 50 pounds but that wasn’t the half of it. I had learned to better understand my relationship with food and sweets, adopted a number of healthy habits, and discovered the power of using a systematic approach or program to health rather than using a diet.

As importantly, my weight loss inspired several of my friends, my business associates, and my wife to follow my lead. Within months ten people close to me were on the TSFL Program and also experiencing health gains. One friend, a Type 2 diabetic, was able to lose over 100 pounds and get off his medications. He tells me often that introducing him to Take Shape for Life probably saved his life. (Results vary by person so no medical claims are made here.)

Questions To Ask Yourself

1. How can we be on-purpose when we’re packing extra pounds and are unhealthy?

This typically self-inflicted health condition is within our control once we have a proven system to join with our decision to be healthy and apply our existing discipline that carries us well through life. This was much easier than I ever imagined! Over seven years later there’s still so much less of me to carry around since I lost my fat suit thanks to the power of making more informed and mindful decisions about living a healthier life.

The above 10-minute video excerpt is from my keynote address in July 2008. There’s a central question that I pose to the health coaches in attendance that is relevant to any of us about our life and work and being on-purpose:

2. Am I living my life with a question mark, period, or exclamation point?

To set up this video clip, I’m referring to the TSFL logo and referencing the “green dot” in the middle of the graphic to the right.

Enjoy this vignette and take it to heart. We only get one body to care for so get it right because getting it wrong is so costly. I hope this message catches the heartbeat of where you are in your life and inspires you to live boldly by beginning the process of being an on-purpose person in creation.

3. So What About Your Health?

Like I was, are you tired of wearing your fat suit?

If you already have a health coach, then press more deeply into the relationship to get the most benefit you can from the TSFL offerings.

If you don’t have a health coach and are ready to make a weighty lifestyle change to transform your life for the better, then let us help you. My wife Judith became a Certified Health Coach with TSFL as have I! Today, we help clients add health to their overall program of being on-purpose. Email me to set up a phone call. I’ll ask questions and help you determine if TSFL is right for you so you too can be on-purpose and live boldly into your life with an exclamation mark.

Be On-Purpose!
Kevin

P.S. This weekend Judith and I will be at the Take Shape For Life National Convention. Coincidentally it is in Orlando again and seven years later we’re living a healthy lifestyle as part of being on-purpose persons in creation.

The Edge of Change Interview

October 7, 2011 By kwmccarthy

LISTEN to Kevin W. McCarthy's interview about about being on-purpose at work.

Join Kevin as he is interviewed by Corine McElroy, CEO and Founder of Edge of Change.  Corinne and Kevin jump into how to apply the On-Purpose Approach at work, in your career, and in your business.

Recorded live, Oct. 5, 2011.  Approximately 60 minutes.

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Kevin O. McCarthy Meets Kevin W. McCarthy

February 5, 2010 By kwmccarthy

Lunch today was fun!  DSC00245Thanks to a mutual friend, Kevin McCarthy met Kevin McCarthy.  For the first time in my life, I signed a book to another Kevin McCarthy.

Kevin O. McCarthy (on the left) gets my vote for being one smart, straight talking, principled, entrepreneurial, and strategic thinker.  Wow! 

Kevin is a second term US Congressman from Bakersfield, CA, an agricultural and oil area.  His roots run deep in terms of integrity and leadership. I was profoundly encouraged to see a man of high character and practical business experience serving our nation. 

We need more business persons being about the people's business.  Government is big business but it is overrun with lawyers.  No lawyer jokes here.  I have tremendous respect for their training, profession, and role; but legal minds are contentious minds.  Business minds are trained to manage and lead with an eye toward creating value.

One day I hope to have the opportunity to vote for Kevin McCarthy for President or Vice President of the United States.  Kevin McCarthy is a winner… and not just in name only! 

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Weighing In Again

December 20, 2008 By kwmccarthy

A number of readers followed my journey of losing weight this year.  I lost 50 pounds… but have I kept it off?

Yes!  I weigh either side of 190 a few pounds, down from a 1/1/2008 holiday high of 240!

Here's a summary of my journey.
I lost the 50 pounds from January 1 through September of this year.   The first ten pounds I dropped from January 1 – April 2.  While doing the Take Shape For Life program (phase 1: weight loss), I dropped 37 pounds between April 3 and June 30.  As the keynote speaker at their National Convention I was weighed on stage (dressed) and was 193 or down a total of 47 pounds.  In the transition stage I dropped a few more pounds to get to 190.  A full 50 pound drop in mass. 

As exciting as my weight loss is, Judith, my wife, decided to become a Certified Health Coach with Take Shape For Life.  Attending the National Convention with me, plus a desire to help others, and my results, prompted her to catch Dr. A's vision for Getting America Healthy.

Wow!  She's helping about 20 people regain their health.  It is an exciting time and the extra income during these economic times has been a true blessing.  She's been a stay at home mom (I hung her Darden School MBA diploma in our laundry room – really!).  This is a wonderful transition for her back to the workplace on her own terms.  Wonderful success stories with clients bring joy to her spirit.  Teaming up with Dr. Wayne Andersen and the Take Shape For Life team has been a joy. 

By the way, Judith has lost 25 pounds on TSFL as well.  She's back to her college weight. 

So if your New Years Resolution will include losing 20, 30, 40 pounds or more, click here to visit Judith's web site.  You can email her here for more information.

I have to admit, I'm a zealot about this weight loss / get to optimal health company.  TSFL is truly on-purpose.

Have a Happy and Healthy Holiday season.  We are!

Be On-Purpose!

Kevin

189 Pounds – Thanks Dr. Andersen & Take Shape For Life

September 12, 2008 By kwmccarthy

I did it!  This morning I weighed 189 pounds!  That means I've lost weight to the tune of 51 pounds since January 1!   My goal was to get under 200 pounds; however, my coach, Lori Andersen, encouraged me to go the extra 10 pounds.   Honestly, as positive and goal oriented as I am, I just couldn't believe that I would ever be under 190 pounds again without the "help" of an illness. 

The journey has actually been a lot easier than I imagined thanks to the combination Medifast meal replacements and the personal involvement of having a coach from Medifast's coaching division: Take Shape For Life.  Co-founder, Dr. Wayne Andersen, is an amazing source of inspiration, education, and vision.  His vision for the Health Coaches to get America healthy is one thing.   How that vision translates to each client is another.  I'm living proof and a huge fan!

[please note, the photo on my blog will be updated with a new one soon.  This shot is me at 240 pounds.  You'll see the new me soon.  Yesterday we had a photo shoot so a new Kevin will be appearing soon.]

[Read more…] about 189 Pounds – Thanks Dr. Andersen & Take Shape For Life

Dr. Wayne Andersen

July 29, 2008 By kwmccarthy

What a wonderful experience to speak at the Take Shape For Life National Convention.   Here I am pictured with Dr. Wayne Andersen, co-founder of the this amazing division of Medifast, Inc.

In addition to giving the Saturday morning keynote address to the 800 plus in attendance, I signed books for another two and half hours.  It is always such an honor and privilege to sign books at events.  Many people are a bit embarrassed to ask for a signature.   With me, please don’t be.   Think of it this way, what if someone were to walk up to you and ask for your autograph… you would be flattered.  I am too.

One of the true joys….

[Read more…] about Dr. Wayne Andersen

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