Kirby Ingles

Micheal Pacheco 0:00
Hello, everybody. And welcome once again to another episode of the remarkable coach podcast. As always, I’m your host, Michael Pacheco. And today with me, I have Kirby Ingalls. Kirby helps leaders create real sustained change in their lives. He’s a leadership coach, a combat veteran, and he hosts the true success podcast is 26 year leadership and human capital experience, have allowed him to provide results driven laser focused purpose to impact coaching to high potential professionals since 2014. Kirby, welcome to the podcast.

Kirby Ingles 0:33
Hey, thank you. Appreciate it, Michael.

Micheal Pacheco 0:35
Yeah, thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to be here. So we heard your your, your bio, your intro, that’s a lot of that stuff. Sounds amazing. And I want to circle back to it. But I like to open this podcast every time by simply inviting our guests to tell us a little bit about yourself in your own words, and why you do what you do and how you got into coaching.

Kirby Ingles 0:57
Yeah, you know, to describe myself, and you know, a little bit about why I got into coaching, is I’m a very driven person, I’ve been like that, you know, since I was probably got out of high school, you know, and a lot of that has to do with growing up without a father. And so I was always in conditional of people having to prove myself because of the Father wound, and you know, many of those things out there that are like that. And, you know, a lot of those, those, those young kids I grew up like that, you know, are driven, you know, and feel like they have something to prove. And while, you know, I’d gotten through adolescence and got into the army, you know, when I was about 17 years old, a junior in high school, you know, I knew that was the route that I was gonna go, because I had some great grandparents that kind of drove me in that direction. I had never thought it would be what it was, and what it ended up becoming. And it was just a really great experience for me, taught me a lot of discipline, I got a lot of great mentors out of the process, I also saw, you know, some not so great leaders and some really great leaders. And so I saw the good with the bat, and I got to have a multitude of experiences in a lot of different positions, not only just human resources, which is my profession, but I worked as an inspector general, and instructor, I work with victims of sexual harassment and sexual assault. So you know, one of the one of the, you know, guys that I still mentor minded, and I look up to said, Go get a breadth of experience, you know, just go try a bunch of stuff out in the army, have fun, enjoy it. And it’s a great opportunity. And I did that. And that’s why I kind of landed in the coaching arena, because somebody had come and spoke to our organization, and it made me really start thinking about at mid career, because eventually, at some point, like he said, four years, 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, your services gonna be no longer needed, you have done what you’ve needed to do. And, you know, either you’re going to age out, or you’re going to choose to leave on your own terms. And he’s like, What are you going to do with the rest of your life? And so that’s where I started thinking about coaching, you know, and how does that fit into what I want to do, I didn’t really know it was gonna be coaching, I thought I was gonna be a counselor, I just wanted to help people. Because in HR, that’s what you do. You know, you help people I know, HR gets a bad rap. Sometimes, if that person has that difficult conversation with employees, you get reported and HR sets you up for anger management classes, or you know,

Micheal Pacheco 3:27
HR HR makes noxious policies. Yeah,

Kirby Ingles 3:31
you may make a noxious policies, you know, what, usually that’s company driven, not HR, but HR has always wanted to get punched in the face, you know, and, and, and I was like, you know, I love customer service, I love helping people, you know, find solutions to their problems. And it wasn’t always bad stuff, you know, it was sometimes getting rewards, getting, you know, benefits, and different things like that. And so I just really enjoyed that aspect of the job, just trying to figure out like, what am I going to do? I know, I don’t want to be an HR anymore after I leave the military. And so what am I, you know, what am I going to do with this, and so that helping people on a one on one basis was the thing that I loved, and I found it was counseling. So I began, you know, going to Liberty University, and, you know, to get my Master’s in human services, counseling, and then there’s this opportunity to go into coaching. And I was like, I’m curious about what this coaching track is. And then as soon as I took it, I took the next coaching track, and then the next one after that, and the next one after that, and but lo and behold, I was ready to start a business. Because this is what I wanted to do. I was like, No, I don’t want to do counseling. And a lot of that had to do with different positions to why I decided on that. You know, I worked as a Senior Advisor for a while, you know, personal and professional development, you know, is one of the things that senior leaders help young soldiers with mid careers and other leaders. And, you know, that’s what coaching does, its personal professional elements about the whole person and we were already doing that in the military. So I was just taking a lot of the skills that I had at the beginning applied in the coaching industry. Things I didn’t even know Oh, that I was capable of doing until I began to explore the coaching world so. And then there’s a lot of resilience training that I had, you know, working with positive psychology and stuff like that in the military teach Master Resilience to soldiers. So a lot of that really kind of brought me to where I’m at today, which is the coaching and training industry.

Micheal Pacheco 5:22
Nice. What was it specifically about coaching? As opposed to like being a counselor? What was it specifically about coaching that resonated with you so deeply as you were taking these coaching track courses at school?

Kirby Ingles 5:36
Yeah, you know, I began to think about that too, because I was I was in I got that basic understanding of, of counseling, you know, that, that foundational learning, they make y’all take. And as I began to explore that, you know, I was looking at human trafficking, and, you know, a lot of other areas that I’m concerned with, you know, like, you know, fatherless kids, growing up into adolescence, you know, the, all the societal ills that it impacts, you know, suicide, domestic violence, drinking alcohol, and I’m looking at all these things, and I’m like, That’s exhausting. And, you know, I was just like, Man, I really don’t know, if I want to deal with everybody else’s negative issues, you know, and that’s kind of how I looked at it at the time, I don’t really look at it that way anymore. But, you know, it’s, it’s like, that’s a lot, right? And yours, you’re really do you know, and I know, you’ve worked with victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault, so there’s a lot of weight on your shoulders, because you carry those stories with you,

Micheal Pacheco 6:29
you have to create space for the people that you’re working with. Right? And you have to, you have to hold that, you know, in your heart, on your shoulders, wherever.

Kirby Ingles 6:38
The Confident Yeah, the confidentiality, you know, I can’t go home and have a conversation with my spouse about what I just experienced, you know, another person, and there’s a lot of vicarious trauma that, you know, an advocate goes through and I’m sitting, I’m like, can I, you know, it, can I do this, you know, do do I have the drive to do that. And, but the thing that changed my mind was, when I got into coaching, I got into a taste of positive psychology, and even a little bit of the Master Resilience Training I had in the army, I realized that there was a positive aspect to counseling and psychology, you know, and so, but coaching focuses in on that positive side, you know, if you’re going to, you know, you’re on that negative side, you know, maybe, you know, on a scale of one to negative 10, to positive, maybe on that negative side, you might need to go see a counselor, but a coach can still come in, and help you with performance improvement in other areas of your life, and still complement the counseling, and then you got coaching, and I’ve got several clients I work with now that have therapists, you know, we work with each other and try to complement what each one’s doing. And then there’s mentorship in the middle of all that, and I thought coaching was the best part me because it was all about performance improvement, looking at the whole person. And again, it goes back to that personal professional development, whether that’s, you know, working, you know, with corporate executives, you know, or middle managers, which is I do right now, and a lot of them are young parents, and they’re, you know, dealing with the challenges of a young parent with two young kids in the home. My wife’s working, I’m working are both trying to figure out who’s got the computer, you know, because we don’t have to separate offices, you know, we’re working from home, you know, and they’re just struggling with all these different things, and what relationships do they have outside of the home today, you know, after two years of COVID, and, you know, it’s there’s a lot of stuff going on, and I’m to help people work through some of that stuff. So that’s what’s really been fascinating to me, and kind of why I went more towards the coaching side versus the counseling side, I’ve done, I dealt with enough trauma, my lifetime, that I was, like, you know, you know, I really do appreciate that, you know, and I love the work and I still support it, and I do some work on the side still, I spent two years as an advocate, two years, training advocates. And then I do some volunteer work and some training, you know, here on the side from time to time, so I still support the industry, you know, and those causes, but to it is, you know, those social services, even working with court appointed as a court appointed special advocate, you know, working with young kids and adoption, our adopted homes or foster homes, they go through a lot of trauma, and it’s just a lot to carry. And so for me, I knew that I had to create a certain amount of space for myself. Yeah,

Micheal Pacheco 9:31
yeah, you have to the the old adage, the one that the old adage, that thing, anytime you take a flight anywhere, they always tell you, you got to put the oxygen mask on yourself first. You can’t take care of other people if you’re if you’re falling apart, right. So for sure. You mentioned I want to circle back to the fatherless child part that resonates deeply with me because I grew up without a dad as well. But before we get there, you mentioned earlier that you didn’t You never thought the army was going to be what it was? Yeah. What was it for you?

Kirby Ingles 10:06
Yeah. So I thought, you know, my intention is going and so I and my grandfather was instrumental in my life. You know, he was there from the day I was born until, you know, he left about 10 years ago. And, you know, he was just an encouragement. You know, he was that guy that I would look up to. And if I done something wrong, you know, he looked at me, and he didn’t have to say a word, he just give me that look. And I’d be like, oh, man, I just disappointed my grandfather. I’m an idiot. Yeah, and but he never named her what me he never spanked me, sometimes we go for a walk around the field, you know, and have a conversation. But you know, it was just, the man was just powerful in His presence. I’ll put it that way. Um, and, you know, I’d see him about once a week. And, you know, in about 12 or 14 years old him and my grandmother began to encourage me to pursue the military, you know, it’s kind of a family business. He was in the Navy. One of my stepfather’s was in the Navy. His father was in the Navy and family members in the Civil War, World War Two, my great grandfather was in World War Two, you know, all the way back to American Revolutionary War, we can trace our roots back pretty far. So it was kind of like the family business. And, you know, as I began to, you know, as they began to encourage me, and I’d began to think about, okay, what opportunities do I have, even as a young man, I was young man yet, but young teenager, I began to think about that. And there’s two factories, they’re both shutting down. And all that was left was the president, the whole that community together. So when you think about a community of about 7000 people, two factories shutting down, that’s about 800 jobs. That’s a lot in his town of 7000 people. So if I wanted to continue working on a farm, making minimum wage for the rest of my life, that was okay. And I love farming, I enjoy it. I love the work, I love the environment. I love the atmosphere and the culture of it, and the values that it brings. But it just wasn’t going to, you know, put food on the table every single day, at least, you know, in the, in the desire the aspect that I wanted, right. Um, and so I That’s why I went in and, and I also went in because I wanted to get out of the Midwest and I wanted to get out of that town. But unfortunately, majority of my career I stayed the Midwest, I’ve ventured out as far as Kansas and all out between Kansas and Indiana. So I spent I was stationed in Kansas three times, Missouri, twice, in in Indiana once and I’ve only been to New York, Egypt and Virginia. Out of all that so probably about 20 Out of the 26 years I spent in the Midwest, so I never got out. I never was more than three or four hours away from home. So

Micheal Pacheco 12:58
right on, so a couple of things there. One, I love your your your love of farming. I myself spent a lot of time as when I was growing up at my aunt and uncle’s but we had a 700 acre grass seed farm in the Willamette Valley of Oregon. And so, you know, I grew up around combines and swatters and doing all that stuff. And yeah, like you said that the culture, the environment, you know, the kind of the lessons that a farm can teach or our special I think, I love that. And I want to circle back to again that the the idea of growing up fatherless and you know, kind of stuff that you learned from that and how does that how does that come through in the coaching that you do today?

Kirby Ingles 13:46
Yeah, you know, I I probably experienced most things that you know, is is would be considered a societal ill when it comes to fatherlessness follow this, this has this theme, right. You know, most things I shouldn’t say, you know, domestic abuse majority of people in prison or grew up in fatherless homes, teen pregnancies, fatherless homes, drug abuse, fatherless homes, you know, alcohol abuse, you know, you name it. Anything that society says, you know, that’s a problem generally has some kind of theme of fatherlessness to it, suicide rates. And so I had gone through a period of time where I was involved in drugs and alcohol and even in early age, like 12 years old. I had already been exposed to that I had no father. So boys that were three or four years older than me, were my idols, you know, and I shouldn’t say idols but mentors and just the kids that would bring me into their fold right? Or I felt a sense of belonging because you know, when you have a father when you, you know, someone has betrayed your trust, you know, they’ve broken your heart. And you know, you have a hard time trusting others, I think you know, and follows the American church. There’s A guy from Kansas City who wrote that book. He said, You know, he walked across the street and talk to a pastor had walked across the street and talked to a drug dealer. And he said, What do you got that? I don’t? You know, like, why are all these kids hanging out with you and not hearing the church? And he said, Because I’m hearing you’re not. I’m the one on the street corner, I’m the one that provides for them. I’m the one who gives them money. I’m the one who gives them opportunity, even though it was drugs, you know, I’m giving them something. You know, and the guy was like, wow, you know, because of that guy’s presence in these boys lives. And he was available to them. Right? Yeah. And they saw him as a, as a show of strength.

Micheal Pacheco 15:39
You almost get, like, maybe a sense of a sense of belonging, a sense of, of fraternal, you know, fraternity a little bit,

Kirby Ingles 15:48
you’re a part of that group. And so that’s all you know, father’s kid wants to be a part of. And so I went through a lot of that, you know, and, and I came out on the back end of that, right. And, you know, I was, I was fortunate enough or lucky enough to, you know, I knew that if I was going to do anything with my life, I had to get clean, I had to join the military. And I needed to get out of that town, right, or else nothing was going to change for me. So I had enough presence of mind to do that. And as I began, as I began to, you know, track through the army, I ran into special people, you know, other men in my life that kind of mentored me and helped me develop and grow in ways that I’d probably, you know, was behind on, as I was, you know, coming through the ranks and, you know, several, you know, interesting events that happen. But, you know, I didn’t come to faith until I was probably about 32 years old, after I’d met my second wife, and right before I met my wife, it was after I met her, but before we got married, um, and, you know, I really kind of that timeframe. That was right after my grandfather had passed away, I began to think about a purpose in life. Why am I here? What am I doing? You know, because an event like that a divorce, you know, and then me reaching out to my mom and asking her, Hey, what’s going on here? Like, what’s the story behind this bottleless this stuff? And she told me her story. And I was kind of shocked. That was the first time I’d actually ever heard tell me the story of why, you know, I grew up following us. And would you share that? Yeah, I can share that with you. So basically, what happened was is she kind of grew up. She grew up in a middle class home for the most part, we lived in Peoria, Illinois, my grandfather had a really great job and he lost it. He worked at a distillery just he did really well, he came out and he had lots of cash in his pocket. And the family just fell on hard times lost his job. And they’re in poverty, and suddenly went from an upper middle class family to poverty. And he moved into, like a three or four bedroom home with his brother, who already had like six or seven kids, he had six or seven kids. They were just trying to survive. He was driving two hours a day to St. Louis to work. Because he can only get a job at the Chrysler plant. And so he’s gone six days a week. And my mom kind of fell on hard times, you know, she remembered, you know, having all this and then nothing, right. And then so she blamed her parents for it. She began to rebel. And after she graduated high school, she ended up at some party and it was a drug and alcohol do sexual assault. She doesn’t remember what happened. And it’s what they call blacked out, passed out. And she was taken advantage of time. And a few months later, she realized she was pregnant, lied to her parents about what happened. And and she told me, she like I told him, I was scared. And so she lied to them about what happened. And, you know, they kind of disowned her for a while. And nine months later, I was born. And then my grandfather decided that he was not going to continue to you know, I’m, I’m his first grandson. Right. And so that kid needs someone. And so he forgave her, you know, never knew what really happened, but he didn’t care and never pressed it or pursued it. I was the first person my mother had told and 3332 33 years of what really happened, and, and it was just sort of like, like, rocked my world for a moment, you know, and I was like, like, you know, I was like, Wow, I can’t believe I went 32 years without knowing the story. And I never asked, and that was the thing. And so yeah, she said, you know, and she was like, Look, you saved my life. She goes, if it wasn’t for you, I would have continued to be on the path that I was and having a child. She goes, it got me, you know, smart and responsible real quick. I wish that was fortunate for everybody. And that isn’t always that case. But you know, that a lot of that leads to you know, purpose and meaning and knowing that story, knowing what happened, you know, I’ve contributed to a lot of the reasons why I was involved with victims of sexual harassment sexual assault reasons why, you know, you know, I, I’m supportive of fathers in the field, which is ministry for fatherless boys growing up and your brides mentors for those boys, I, you know, there’s just a lot of things that I do now. And a lot of that, you know, ties into coaching. So I’ve worked with a lot of the Fallen men, you know, and helping them through those issues and challenges that they’re going through the some of the same stuff I experienced as an adult. Now that I’m on the other side of it, and I say, I’m very fortunate because it could have gone, you know, the statistics were against me. And so I felt very, you know, I felt like I was saved, and I saved for a reason. And so I needed to do this. So

Micheal Pacheco 20:46
yeah, yeah, that’s great. Yeah, that’s, I mean, that’s, it’s, it’s difficult to have the wherewithal at a young age, and it’s, you know, you’re, you’re blessed to have your grandpa around to kind of maybe kick your ass a little bit and say, maybe, maybe ought to check out the military to go discipline, right. And that kind of that discipline that a male presence, as you’re growing up, would otherwise give you.

Kirby Ingles 21:17
You know, what’s crazy about that is, is he lost his father when he was nine years old? Okay, so he made, right. It’s a generational thing, and you can continue to inherit it. And so it was like, Hey, does it stop with me? So I had to make that decision. So

Micheal Pacheco 21:33
yeah, when I, when, when my father found out that my mother was pregnant, they were not married, they had been dating for a while. But he had three kids with another gal. And he didn’t want another one. So he basically told my mom have an abortion, or I’m out, and she didn’t want to have an abortion. So that’s, that’s the way that that that ended up for me. But you know, like you, I didn’t do the military route, that would have been real good for me. I was not what I did, it took me a little longer, I think I was, you know, I was an adult child until maybe 35 years old. 3435 is when I really started to just kind of look at where I was, and look at where some of my friends were. And I saw the gap. And I was just like, I this is busy. I need to start working on this a little bit. Yeah, so anyway, neither here nor there. I want to circle back to you and your your coaching. Tell us more about who who are your clients? Who do you work with?

Kirby Ingles 22:37
Yeah, generally, you know, work with, you know, first time managers, supervisors, VPS, directors within, you know, the corporate world work with some fortune 105 100 companies, you know, ranges from, you know, even academic institutions, construction companies, you know, it’s all over the map really, as far as industry is concerned, it’s just that that mid career is right. You know, it’s, it’s right there, in that section, and it’s usually folks have been in business anywhere from probably like, 10 to 20 years, you know, on the average, it’s generally, you know, I work with a lot, mostly men, but a lot of like minded women, as long as well as that. And we do a lot of different things like working on confidence, speaking up, understanding their own personalities, and how it may clash or complement, you know, the workforce. We work on a lot of things like emotional intelligence. And so there’s a lot of skills that we work with throughout the coaching, it really just depends on what they’re coming for. But usually, it’s that that middle middle ground, you know, you’re your first time managers or supervisors all the way through VP level. So

Micheal Pacheco 23:43
I know you’re it sounds like you’re working with kind of maybe SMEs, small medium enterprises.

Kirby Ingles 23:48
Yeah. All three. I mean, like I said, I’ve worked with some, like medical research companies, software system companies, work with IT directors in some of our startups, and some of them are nonprofits. And, I mean, it’s all over the map. I mean, there’s, like I said, there’s some some larger companies that have been around for, you know, 100 150 years, you know, I work with also so larger, more traditional corporate organizations. So it’s all over the place.

Micheal Pacheco 24:15
How do you find your clients? How do you market yourself?

Kirby Ingles 24:18
Yeah, so mostly, they come through a referral process. And so and I also, you know, I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, you know, communicating with folks, you know, having those conversations, a lot of emails back and forth. Sometimes I reach out to a lot of people, and they come by way of that. So it is really kind of hammering down that target audience, you know, knowing who they are, and then you know, kind of filtering through, and I have a team that kind of helps me out with that a lot too. I don’t spend all day emailing folks asking, Hey, you want to coach you? And sometimes they come through referrals. Those are the greater ones. I mean, people that I’ve worked with before they either stay with me for an additional year to do Working on whatever, then I’ve actually got one lady right now, it’s the third year I’ve worked with her for a year, she, you know, we have a one year agreement. And then every year, she’s like, No, I want to do this again next year. So and, you know, some folks, by way of referrals, you know, somebody, I was working with a company that they were merged or bought out by another company. And I was working with him as he was making that transition into this new company, and, you know, reestablishing you know, their presence in Florida. And he recommended one of his employees come work with me, and me and him worked together for about nine months. And he said, Hey, I’ve got someone I want you to work with. And so it happens like that. Sometimes,

Micheal Pacheco 25:44
you work typically will like one on one with someone or you working with, for example, a leader or manager, and then they’re their team, below them as well.

Kirby Ingles 25:54
No, mostly, it’s one on one. So I do get a little bit of manager feedback. You know, I usually keep our conversations confidential. I would never reveal anything, but the manager always sends me just a couple of questions, they get asked and say, hey, you know, what do you think they should work on? You know, what do you think they’re grayed out? What do you think, you know, would be most important for them to get out of the coaching conversation, things of that nature. And usually, I just get a little bit of feedback in the very beginning. And then I’ve kind of reveal some of that information to the coaching client. And we have a conversation about that, right? Because we do some assessments and I say, Okay, well, here’s what the assessments show. This is what you said you want to work on. This is what the manager wants to work on. And so between the three, we kind of create a path forward.

Micheal Pacheco 26:42
Yeah, nice. You, you said the magic word earlier. A lot of almost every coach that I’ve spoken with, many of them certainly have, if they when I asked them, like, what is the one big roadblock for you, for your business, for growing your business, for scaling, anything like that, it’s always time. And the word that you said is team you have built, you’ve got a team around you to help do things. Please talk about that a little bit. How did you build your team? Who are they? What did they do that will be super helpful? I think for people for our viewers and listeners.

Kirby Ingles 27:22
Yeah, I knew that. I was, I was taking on way more than I should have on my shoulders. And it was stealing my time away from everything else that I enjoyed and loved in life. And either I was going to work in the business, you know, 18 hours a day. Or I was going to want to say Alexa, yeah, Alexa forgot me. I thought I turned it on mute. But she got me. Yeah, but you know, yeah, you know, I had too much on my shoulders I was getting, they’re gonna work in the business 18 hours a day, and you know, steal time from everything else I loved, or I’m just gonna do the one thing that I thought I was good at, which was coaching. And I wanted to do more coaching. And so I had to decide what I was going to give up. And I realized that I was spending a lot of time on graphics, you know, and just like poring over picture after picture, you know, and I was like, You know what, I can’t do this anymore. And so I went on Fiverr and actually found a guy. Now, I got lucky the first time, right, I found a guy that I still have a relationship with three years later. And he still works for me. And I give him a flat fee. And he, he works with me. For the most months, he does mostly graphics, and most of the most of the video stuff that we do now. And he’s getting better and better. So I’m investing in him. So as he gets better, it comes right back to me as well. And so we’ve done about this really good relationship. And then I tried to hire a couple more people, those didn’t go out so well. They both got fired. At some point.

Micheal Pacheco 28:54
Please, always a learning experience trying to figure it out.

Kirby Ingles 28:57
Yeah. And so I stopped going to Fiverr. And actually, I went and interviewed a couple virtual assistant companies and had a few conversations with a few people and decided on one first person that I worked with from that company, ended up getting fired. So and then the next two, I hired the next gal and she actually she helps me with a lot of the social media aspect of it right and does a lot of calendaring, podcast, you know, coordination, things of that nature. And she does a lot of that legwork. And in some of the some of the conversations, so if you ever have a conversation on the back end, just ask if it’s curvy or not. And she’ll tell you because I told us you gotta be honest with people. Don’t pretend to be me, because they’re gonna know. Tell them it’s you. So, because she is part of the team, and she is part of the personality of the business. So I make sure that my team knows that they can act and be who they want to be. And don’t try to imitate me. I I don’t want to do that I want to have some integrity. And so, you know, I got her and then I have another young lady helps me write the content. So you know, all the podcasts that I do, you know, a lot of other things, helps me write emails, and so really time consuming. So if I’m spinning, you know, I probably have 20 clients, some of them I meet with weekly, some of them I meet every two weeks, you know, I don’t have time for much else. So that’s doing podcasting, recording, you know, doing all that directing the team. That’s, that’s, that’s what’s left. And I’m still even thinking about hiring another person just to get you know, some more things done. So because I see you going, you know, further

Micheal Pacheco 30:45
you have so for the for your team, as you’re directing them, have you built out, you know, like SOPs and process documents that they could follow step by step or is it generally you you teach them how to do something and then work with them to then figure out a way for them to do it? How do you balance there?

Kirby Ingles 31:03
That’s a good question. Um, I started doing, you know, actually, one of the team members came up with an idea that we use Slack for as far as a communication channel, so we can all know what each other’s talking about, and we meet monthly as a team. And so we do that part of it. But in on on another aspect of it, I’ve watched and because of slack, one of the team members were recommended that I use, manifestly it’s manifest.li, I do believe it is, and it’s like a, it’s like a process, you know, I can assign different tasks, different team members, embeds with, you know, Slack really well, or integration. sambit integrates really well. And so we’re having conversations in these threads about what’s going on when it needs to happen. And through that process, I was able to, so I would, for each task, I would do a screenshare. So I would record myself talking through a task that I was performing. I dropped the video on a Google Drive, linked it to manifestly so that way, if I ever lose one of those folks, all they have to do is go to the the the task list, click on the link, and they can watch the video how it’s done. And I told him, I said, if you’ve improved the process, it’s up to you record the video, and put the new link in there. And so that’s how we’re doing it. And that’s it, it’s learned by doing. There are some things I’ve given them. And I’m like, I don’t know how to do this, you go figure it out. So

Micheal Pacheco 32:33
that’s always nice. That’s great. Got a team that you can trust to solve, you know, maybe not the most epic problems in your business, but like, stuff, right? Like, you’re, you’re going to be the expert at this, this is why I’m hiring you. I don’t know how to do this. You figure it out. If you can trust your your team to do that. Sometimes that is that’s that’s really valuable.

Kirby Ingles 32:56
Yeah. And the thing I love about my team is that none of them knew how to operate the systems that I use. So I use Meet Edgar, I use ConvertKit. And none of them have ever touched that stuff before. None of them had ever used WordPress before. And I said, Okay, I’ll give you the basics. You know, I know enough to be dangerous and break it. And so I’m going to teach you that you figure out the rest, you know, and if you have an idea, bring it, you know, we’ll figure it out together. So it’s a pretty open, open conversation that we have most the time and nothing’s off the table. So

Micheal Pacheco 33:26
nice. I love it. I want to circle back to to your coaching and your clients again. Can you talk to us a little bit about how you do what you do?

Kirby Ingles 33:38
Yeah, I can tell you how I do. I mean, you know, the idea. I think you said it in the intro. It’s laser focus, which is basically, you know, we come to an agreement on what we’re going to have a discussion about that day. And sometimes, you know, folks will show up and they won’t know what to talk about. So we’ll have a conversation about that. But another talking point,

Micheal Pacheco 33:59
real quick. So you said you’ll you’ll come to an agreement about what you guys will talk about that day. When you start an engagement with a new client. Do you set like a goal? Do you set goals that are more returned, like a three month goal or a six year

Kirby Ingles 34:13
goal? And we do? Yeah, we do. And you know, that’s always been the beginning conversation. So these are the first conversation we have is just an onboarding conversation. And if we have time, at the end, after we’ve kind of gone through a bunch of stuff about confidentiality, what coaching is what coaching is not? You know, we’ll, we’ll discuss a little bit about why they came to coaching and then in a second conversation, I usually have a conversation about, hey, here’s your strength, you know, your Your Strengths Assessment, you know, this is what your manager said, you know, this is what you want to work on. And then we kind of figure out, okay, what is it that we’re going to work on moving forward? And so they usually set that goal then, and they’ve always got my permission, right? So hey, something’s gonna come up at some point in time, we’re probably not going to work on this specific thing week after week, but that you’ll you’ll have something to do, you’ll be working towards it. But hey, you know, you got a briefing that’s coming up, and you need some help with that. And so okay, we’ll have a conversation about that briefing, and then the next time we’ll get back on track. So those things begin to happen. But it’s usually they’re, they’re on track with a goal, usually. And I remind them to that, if they’re bringing up different things each week, it’s up to me to kind of recenter them back, hey, has things changed since we, you know, talked a couple of weeks ago, because you’re wanting to work on all these different things. But it’s not the same thing that we agreed at the very beginning, you know, in that second conversation. So that does come up from time to time. But generally, they come up, say, hey, you know, I’m struggling with this, or I’m having trouble with this, or I’m not sure what to talk about today. And so I’ll kind of begin an exploratory process. And don’t be like, hey, what’s, you know, there’s one of the easy ones is the seven Coaching Questions, what’s on your mind? What else? What else? What else? You know, and people get annoyed with you saying what else? But eventually you get to where you need to be at? You got to dig, that’s the thing. Yeah, that’s the thing we’re going to work on. It’s almost like asking why five times, you know, you’re just going down those different layers. And, you know, it usually just flushes out at some point in time. But it’s, most time we try to keep it on track with that idea that we originally came up with, because I’ve had that problem before, where you come into this coaching conversation, and every week, somebody brings up a different topic. And it’s like, okay, like all this all this, like, when you’re gonna get to the end, you’re gonna not feel like you’ve accomplished anything, because you haven’t set any concrete goals, and you’ve bounced around too much. Yeah. And so I mean, that’s okay, if someone wants to do that, and that’s, you know, but they have to agree to that in the very beginning, you know, week after week, they may I need coaching, because I’m all over the place. Okay, well, let’s figure out why you’re all over the place. You know, sometimes, sometimes giving them what they want in the beginning, leads to what they need to be doing later on. And so that, I guess, is one of those, you know, tricks that sometimes they would say, coach’s play, give them what they want in the beginning. And then you they’ll discover what they really need to work on later on. So and I can’t really tell someone write what they need. Sure. So

Micheal Pacheco 37:27
sure, yeah. And I suspect there’s, there’s probably a rather subtle differentiation between bouncing around on different topics like I need help with this, this week, I need help with this this week, and you’re just bouncing around and bouncing around from different topics that are adjacent to your big goal for six months or 12 months, right? Because you’re to get to that, that big goal, and you’re gonna have challenges in different areas of your life may be personal or professional, you know, and you’re gonna bounce around a little bit, but it’s all going to be in pursuit, right of this goal, as opposed to just bouncing around for no plan. Yeah. And

Kirby Ingles 38:11
I’ve worked with people on different things. So you know, one of the interesting things that I do, I think, is interesting, and I don’t know if any other folks do this, I haven’t really run across it. There’s this idea of bibliotherapy, a long time ago. And so I was like, Well, why not? Biblio coaching, I think I’ve read it somewhere in the book, it was just like a short paragraph. And I was like, that’s kind of interesting. So I like to use some of the tools that are out there, like emotional intelligence, Strength Finders, if we’re, if we’re hitting on something with someone, even DISC personality profile system, if we’re hitting on something, then it’s like, you know, let’s, let’s leverage that, you know, let’s, let’s use that assessment. You know, let’s read that book. One of the ones I’ve been using lately is Positive Intelligence. It’s about different saboteurs. You know, and it’s, it’s a lot, you know, it’s it’s a lot like positive psychology, but also, you know, emotional intelligence. And it’s kind of like, I think when I listened to the author actually talk about it. I actually watched him talk about it a couple weeks ago, he was doing a webinar, he said, your Saboteurs are kind of like your Darth Vader’s because we couldn’t use Darth Vader. Because you know, that’s copyrighted. So he’s like, so we had to call him saboteurs instead. But it’s just, it’s a great book. So I’ve worked with a couple guys through that process, even design your life, right. And we had a couple guys that were getting ready to retire. They wanted to do some succession planning. And after we work through succession planning, you know, and they had put things in motion. They’re like, Okay, what am I gonna work on now? And, you know, they was like, Well, you know, there’s this thing called design your life and I made a suggestion. And I like, yeah, you’re right. I’ve probably spent the last 30 or 40 years focused on work, and I haven’t focused on relationships or play. I don’t even know if I know how to play anymore. And so I’ve worked with veterans transitioning out of the military with that design your life?

Micheal Pacheco 40:05
Is that a specific book? Kirby?

Kirby Ingles 40:07
Yeah, it’s by two Stanford professors. You know, it’s called Designing your life. And there’s another one called Designing your work. But I use the workbook with coaching clients here. You know, what, this is another great one. And so those are really good resources. You know, I got another young lady whose son left, you know, for college, went through a transition period. And so we’ve talked about this, she’s working through that. And we’re also working on daily reflections and her getting out, you know, her son is not her focus anymore, because their son’s in college now and, and he’s off on the other side of the US. And so they’re far away from each other. And it’s not like they can go visit each other. So she’s working on designing her life. And part of that process is she’s getting involved in different communities, she’s setting up lunches to go and have lunch with different ladies that she enjoys their company. But she’s also doing a lot of reflection. So we use Ryan holidays, the daily stoic to be reflected, I got another guy that’s doing that. So I just take the resources that are already out there, and we just leverage them, you know, to have some of these conversations.

Micheal Pacheco 41:12
Have you ever checked out designed the life you love?

Kirby Ingles 41:18
Oh, I don’t, that’s not ringing a bell. So

Micheal Pacheco 41:21
fun one, you might, you might just buy a copy and just take a peek through it. It’s called design, the life you love, by the way for our listeners, and viewers will get all of these books will add to the show notes. So you guys can check these out. But this chain design the life you love, it’s like an interactive workbook. So you’re supposed to write in it and draw on it. And it’s where it runs through kind of exercises and stuff. It’s not really a cool read through. But it’s kind of a fun alternative. For, you know, perhaps for for people who are highly creative, maybe a little more visually creative.

Kirby Ingles 41:54
It’s a fun, I love using books as a part of the coaching process. So I think it gives them the opportunity to read it Plus, there’s activities. And then the ones I’ve been mentioning, there’s actually activities, there’s things you must do. So that becomes the homework. And so it makes it provides a structure that makes it easy. You know, and it just depends on, you know, that initial couple conversations we have. And then I might, you know, references, I actually just referenced emotional intelligence to the, one of the ladies I was working with yesterday. And we’d already been working together for three months about putting herself out there. And what we realized was, is that her self awareness and self management probably was a little bit lower. So she’s gonna go take the assessment, we’re gonna validate that so. And that was just me suspecting it. And so she’s like, Yeah, I want to go take the assessment. So

Micheal Pacheco 42:39
nice. Can be I want to be respectful of your time. But I want to ask one one more question at least before before we wrap up, if that’s alright. Yeah, that’s cool. You mentioned one of the your areas of expertise, or at least areas of interest is recovering from traumas and injuries? Yeah. How does that play into this? You know, this leadership coaching with this professionals? Where’s, where does that come into play?

Kirby Ingles 43:04
Yeah, I think, you know, part of that is, you know, when I, when I went to school, I spent a lot of time researching Narrative Therapy. Which brings up you know, and I hate to drop, like my entire library on you. But, you know, there’s a book called Narrative coaching. And it is just retelling the stories of our life that makes us the, you know, the superhero out of that story. You know, we’ve we’ve all, you know, and Jane McGonigal is really good at this too, because she suffered from a severe depression. And she treated life kind of like a video game. And so I take a lot of those ideas and concepts of those people who’ve kind of helped battle through some of their own traumas, whenever even even they didn’t feel like they could get help, you know, nothing was working. And they had to rely on their own devices, to kind of push themselves and kind of rewire their brain, retell the stories. And so it’s just taking the idea of adversity, right. And finding the strength in yourself and how you overcame that adversity, and leveraging that right to, you know, for growth, and having an understanding of processing some of the traumas and thoughts and feelings that you’re going through. And, and, and, you know, try, I’m very careful about staying away from therapy and counseling. But the challenge with all this is, is setting up healthy goals moving forward. And I think that’s where coaching comes in that process. So I’m, I tell folks, it’s been a lot of time in reflection about this stuff, journaling, and things of that nature. And I think that helps them through that. And it kind of pulls out those lessons and storylines and other things that they can begin to talk about in the future. And that’s kind of how I did it. And so we’re just replicating that same process that I learned to journal. Yeah. What what is this? You know, this, this conversation I’m having in this journal What does this mean? You know, what’s the lesson? And what’s the story. And, you know, just to follow this this piece, you know, that came through a lot of journaling, and being able to talk about that and have conversations, stand up in front of people and be able to tell them that story. It can be extremely challenging. And I’ve seen other people with traumas, and you know, when they can retell their story, it’s almost healing. So, you know, working with victims of sexual harassment, sexual assault, you know, it’s always an interesting time and step by step, you know, it’s based off their own comfort zone. And some of the ones that, you know, that are out there, that have done extremely well, since their incident are ones that are retelling their story, you know, they’re sharing it with other people. And it almost makes them stronger every single time they tell it. And I think it’s just a healing. It’s a very healing and a healthy process to go through. So that’s what I would say, you know, that’s it, mostly. For me, it’s the trauma of being following us and having these experiences having worked in, you know, studied and worked and with victims that were sexual assault, human trafficking, all those boys, you know, involves men and hearing all this, we all have traumas, you know, we just got to create that space for people to kind of have that conversation.

Micheal Pacheco 46:22
Absolutely. Are you familiar with a company by the name of bio cyber not?

Kirby Ingles 46:29
By No, I’m not.

Micheal Pacheco 46:31
They do. So you mentioned we mentioned a couple of things you mentioned you were kind of doing some studying on neurotherapy. Yeah, you have to you have to be Be careful right not to use those words like therapy or things like that. So Biocybernaut transparently. They are a client of ours. But they do neurofeedback training legally, they’re not allowed to call it neuro therapy, neurofeedback training, there’s a forgiveness protocol in there and you’re you’re attached to an E, EEG, electroencephalograph and your brainwaves come back to you in the form of audio feedback. Okay. And as you’re going through in your, in your mind, and going through a forgiveness protocol, the one of the big thing that they specialize in essentially, is this trauma therapy, you know, helping families repair relationships, stuff, helping people recover from a sexual assault and other kinds of emotional childhood and stuff like that. There, I’ve been for the alpha one training, and it was a huge was a huge help. For me, it definitely like it got me through some garbage from from my childhood. And through that stuff, so might be something interesting for you to check out or look into. It’s all Yeah,

Kirby Ingles 48:01
yeah, definitely, I will check it out. And that’s for me, I mean, did the same as you know, you know, this narrative, you know, understanding the narrative therapy, right, and telling those stories and sharing them, you know, helped me find the purpose of, and leverage it and not say, oh, you know, I’m a victim, right, and I’m gonna have this victim mentality, it allowed me to take what had happened. And, and make that purposeful, and use that as as kind of a leap, you know, stepping out on a, you know, a diving board and jumping out back out in the sea, you know, and using it as an opportunity for growth. So, I think, you know, we probably should, you know, spend a lot more time in that area, and understanding and discovering it, and that’s where a lot of positive psychology is, is is, you know, trying to put a positive aspect on on some of the things that we’ve gone through, yes, or tragic, and we need to take the time to heal and processes and things like that. But at some point, you have to get out of that, that status, right, you know, because you can remain hopeless, and then you’ll be helpless. And so that’s that. And that’s, that’s a challenge. And I know what that feels like it at times. Right. And so, I was very fortunate, you know, because I didn’t think there was anything out there for me. And I was like, you know, I was at that point, that’s when I began that process of discovery was, is I was like, I had asked myself that question was, Is this all life has to offer? And what is the point of this, if this is how bad it’s gonna be all the time? You know, and

Micheal Pacheco 49:38
you go through a traumatic experience, and that is going to mean, you know, something different for everybody that goes through it. It’s very personal experience, right? And also, it’s made you who you are, you take something you’ve taken something away from that you’ve learned from it, you’re more resilient because of it. It’s not Yeah, and that’s, that’s kind of the way that I see that spin on the psychology it’s the idea is not to deny the bad. Right. But look for the lesson within. Right? Yeah,

Kirby Ingles 50:09
for sure.

Micheal Pacheco 50:11
So yeah, cool, Kirby, is there anything that you would like to talk about that we haven’t touched upon before we wrap up?

Kirby Ingles 50:19
No, I don’t think I have anything else to offer. I mean, it’s been a great conversation. I really do appreciate it, Michael, this has been awesome. So

Micheal Pacheco 50:26
awesome, man, I appreciate it. I appreciate you making the time for it. Where can our listeners and viewers connect with you online?

Kirby Ingles 50:33
Yeah, that’s great. You know, one or two places, I don’t want to give you too many, because then you’ll be all over the place. But Kirby angles.com is really simple to go to. If you want to go on air, you know, there’s a place where you can sign up, you know, to get emails from us and things of that nature, just read the blog, or what we’re producing. And then you know, I’m always on LinkedIn. So that’s, that’s the main social media. I ignore most of the rest of them. But if you want to be active and involved, I’m journaling on LinkedIn and on there almost every single day, and I’ll respond to any message that you send me so

Micheal Pacheco 51:05
awesome. And Kirby, you’re also the host of the true success podcast, you want to drop a little pitch for that real quick plays you

Kirby Ingles 51:12
if you would appreciate that. Yeah, true success. It’s, you know, it’s really the idea about purpose to impact, it’s taking our purpose in life and creating a resounding impact, whether that be future generations or, you know, within our communities that we serve, and that, you know, hopefully through that coaching process, right, you know, we begin to see that, you know, we serve others as much as you know, we would like to serve ourselves. So, you know, it should be outward focus, not inward focus, and, and through that inward focus, we can, you know, look out and begin to serve others So,

Micheal Pacheco 51:50
awesome. Love it, Kirby, thank you so much again for taking the time to be here. We appreciate it.

Kirby Ingles 51:55
Thank you. Appreciate it.