I'm thrilled to speak to Dr. Keith McNally, a US Marine, educator, and a three-time podcast creator. He opens up about his battles with PTSD, including two attempted suicides and a heart attack. But here's the thing – instead of letting those dark moments define him, he found a way to turn his life around. Dr. Keith shares how COVID-19, which initially plunged him into despair, led him to reach out to strangers on LinkedIn, fostering meaningful connections that transformed his life.

And get this – Dr. Keith's mission doesn't stop at personal growth. He's gearing up for an epic thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail in 2025, all in the name of suicide prevention and supporting at-risk veterans. This episode is filled with inspiration, resilience, and the power of genuine connections in navigating life's challenges.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• How a supportive community can be the difference during difficult times.
• About the power of building meaningful connections through personal development and relationship-building strategies
• The importance of self-care and nature for mental well-being
• Every conversation has value
• About Dr. Keith’s project: Thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail for personal transformation and raising awareness for mental health

You can reach Dr. Keith at: mcnally.keith@yahoo.com

Website: www.drkeithmcnally.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@DrKeithMcNally

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drkeithmcnally/

A little about me: 

I began my career as a teacher, was a corporate trainer for many years, and then found my niche training & supporting business owners, entrepreneurs & sales professionals to network at a world-class level. My passion is working with motivated people, who are coachable and who want to build their businesses through relationship marketing and networking (online & offline). I help my clients create retention strategies, grow through referrals, and create loyal customers by staying connected. 

In appreciation for being here, I have a couple of items for you: 

A LinkedIn Checklist for setting up your fully optimized Profile:  

An opportunity to test drive the Follow Up system I recommend by taking the  

3 Card Sampler—you won’t regret it.   

Connect with me: 

http://JanicePorter.com 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/janiceporter/ 

https://www.facebook.com/janiceporter1 

Thanks for listening! 

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Hi, everyone, and welcome to this week's episode

of relationships rule. My guest this week is Dr. Keith McNally.

And I'm quite excited to talk to him and I'm being completely

distracted by his legal structures behind him. So I, I

have a, I have a nephew who's very much into Lego, an adult in

there for nephew who's very much into Lego. And so I find this

really fascinating because it's another whole world that I

haven't really gotten into yet. So sorry about that. But it is

what it is. I want to tell you a little bit about Dr. Key. And

then we're going to get into the conversation. He How did we meet

we met because somebody asked if I was interested in having in my

podcast him on my podcast, but I think we had been on a

networking event together as well, that a bunch of people I

met there were very cool people. And there are podcast people as

you are. And Dr. Keith has a three podcasts that he has

developed over the past few years. And we'll get into that a

little bit. But he's a US Marine that. And I'm not sure and I

will ask you this in a minute. If the reason for your attempted

suicides, one or both of them was PTSD type of situation. But

you were in a low place at one point or twice in your life and

things have and you had a heart attack that you survived as

well. And so you, I don't know, I'm gonna get you to tell me

this, you turned your life around in so many ways and made

other people well, as well, because of what the work that

you do. So I know that in during the horrible pandemic, you

needed people to talk to, I think we all need people to talk

to you. And it's just a question of, you know, how who, what, and

you actually reached out on LinkedIn to people, so I'm gonna

get you to tell that story. So welcome to the show. First of

all, I'm going to call you Dr. Keith, or just keep,

Dr. Keith McNally: you're gonna call me Keith, because this is

gonna be a casual conversation sounds

good. And something else was gonna say,

Can't remember. So start there start with telling me about, you

know, where you were, what happened, and how you you know,

how you brought yourself to where you are now, to amazing,

Dr. Keith McNally: okay, that sounds like a good point, you

know, a good place to start. So I blame my life on COVID. And a

lot of people will say that in a very negative way. But I'm gonna

flip the coin and say, in a very positive way. And so it, we all

recognize the situation COVID brought upon, you know,

basically the world and so all of us were dealing with it in

very unique but very specific ways. And many of us lost loved

ones, friends, homes, money, jobs, you know, whatever it is,

whatever, you can put a name to it, you probably lost it. Um,

the other side of the coin was that, and this is what I was

finding when I when I was having this conversation. So and we'll

get to how I got there was when people were waking up in the

morning, and they may not have lost a whole lot. But in a

sense, they had lost their identity, meaning that when they

looked at themselves in the mirror, they weren't either

happy or proud of what they were seeing. And so everything that

they had accumulated career wise, basically, you know, in

life, whether it be the houses, the cars, the money's no longer

held the real value that it thought it should have. And

either side of the coin, people were making intentional pivots

and changes to do something about their life, whether to

survive it, and thrive through it, you know, the chaos of COVID

or to align themselves with a better version of themselves

that they really wanted to be proud of, and find value in and

my story regarding the COVID situation was, you know, through

a set of variables, I had lost my job and it happened to be at

the tail end of COVID through the quarantine. And

unfortunately, I was unemployed for 12 months and being now 54

going on 55 So my younger 50s That took an incredible hit on

who I was as a person as a dad. You know, me career, I'm losing.

Basically I'm trying to hold on to white knuckled you know fists

With everything that I was losing, and it wasn't working,

and so yeah, I had thought and made the attempt to take my own

life. And so, and that was the second time in in 12 years. So

2013 and 2021. Were specifically, it wasn't

necessarily around post traumatic stress. Now I am a US

Marine and I have a combat background, I was an I was

directly in infantry, and specifically in mortars as a

Marine. But that I'm not going to credit any of that passed to

why I took, you know, took the attempt to take my own life, you

know, it made the attempt, it was really life circumstances

that I was never fully prepared for. And because of that, I felt

the only way out, the best way out was to literally be out. And

so that's really kind of the nature of my story.

Had you been were you primarily an introverted

loner kind of person.

Dr. Keith McNally: You actually, I actually call myself a misfit.

And so you know, growing up, you know, grade school, middle

school, high school, college, never really fit in, I'm

definitely an introvert. My parents divorced when I was 10.

And so, all the chaos that was involved with, you know, my home

life really kind of stuck with me. And so I didn't develop

friendships, well, or if I did, I didn't develop many of them.

So a lot of what I lacked was was resources, you know, family

resources, friends, the ability to connect, the ability to

socialize, basically, in a very, what would seem a very natural

way that most kids, college students adults do, I have never

really developed those skills until basically, a couple of

years ago. So, right, so.

So you say that you needed people to talk to, to

network with, and you needed to find a job I imagined so that

that's why it started on LinkedIn, and starting to reach

out to some connections that you had there. And I find that in a

way safer to talk to a stranger, you know, it's not as hard to

talk to someone you don't really know, I find, even though I'll

talk to anybody and everybody, I'm an I'm more the extrovert in

that respect. And I can usually get pretty deep with them quite

quickly. But for some people, I think that's much harder. And so

I think, to to reach out to, you know, people that were a name

and on a connection list on LinkedIn, you may not have known

them all very well, in fact, probably didn't. So how did that

evolve and turn your life around? How did that help with

that?

Dr. Keith McNally: It was either a spiritual or subconscious

need. And so I recognized that everything about my life needed

to change. And so how I interacted with myself, how I

how I thought about myself, how I interacted with people, and

when I found about people, so throughout the job search, but

it was really more about making the connection, talking with

people. And like you said, I didn't have but maybe 2000, and

some change people on my LinkedIn connection list. And I

may have only really known a handful of them. Do you know,

no, no, you know, right, not just on a professional basis,

but maybe something on a personal basis as well. But what

I did was just simply tap on the virtual door and say, Would you

like to have a conversation? And that was really the foundation

of it. Now it was at a risk for me? Absolutely. Because of my

introverted nature, definitely a risk. And, but what I was

finding was the very thing I talked about earlier, people

were making changes, and by the nature of humanity, they wanted

to tell somebody else about it. And I just happened to be that

one person, if I'm inviting to a call, just like this, you know,

let's jump on a zoom call. There, you know, as people were

saying, yes, you know, but it was only the people who were

making the investment in their own life and making changes in

their life that wanted to have those conversations. It wasn't

everybody, you know, I got more, you know, people just ignored me

or just said no, blatantly said, no, no, no, thank you never. So

the conversations happen slowly, but as I continued, it was just

something that I needed to do so I can To the process, would you

like to have a conversation? Now, they didn't start getting

recorded. Until I saw the idea that, you know, these people

were sharing. We cried on Zoom calls, you know, people had gone

through some stuff. And they wanted to share their story. No,

I wasn't necessarily being fully open disclosure with my own

stuff. But at the time, it really didn't, I didn't need to

be because they were really sharing their stories. And so I

simply asked the next person, would it be okay to record this?

And somebody said, Yes. And so, with that, first, yes, I started

recording conversation that began with some of the folks

that I did know, personally and professionally, and then grew it

from there. So initially, what was a podcast or basically a

YouTube playlist called level up? Within 15 to 20 episodes,

and I do 40 Episode seasons. I change it to the question guy.

I'm a college professor by trade, I ask a lot of questions.

And the question guy stuck. And so the question guy podcast

became, you know, that series of playlists that started, you

know, these are 2120 22. Interesting.

So, what were you teaching? By the way? Do you

teach now still,

Dr. Keith McNally: I do I still teach, not at the not at a

college. I, my background is in it. And my doctorate is in

educational leadership. So by all intents and purposes, I

should have gone into an administration, but I'm very

comfortable in the classroom, and so sharing knowledge, yeah,

yeah, I'm very comfortable. So now I work for an international

business solutions company, and I'm a tech I'm one of their

technical trainers.

Okay. Wow. Okay. And that's so different to this

journey, that you're towards leadership. Right? And

Dr. Keith McNally: very, very different. Yeah. To some degree.

Yeah.

So one of the things that, that I noticed on

your bio, was that you that topics that you like to talk

about, and this is the one that jumped below, they all did, but

this one jumped out at me discuss strategies for actively

building creating and nurturing meaningful connections, because

that's what I'm all about to I'm all about relationship building,

and, and business built on relationships, relationships

form that, you know, you form a trust with people, people can

trust, if you refer somebody to them, it's going to be the right

person, etc, etc, all of those things. So what would you say

are the, the, the, the best strategies for doing that?

Dr. Keith McNally: Well, everybody's gonna have their

unique take to that. And so what I, what I did is, I learned

about people, I made it my purpose to learn about people.

And so earlier, when you kind of, you know, read off pieces of

my bio, I do have three different conversations that's

actually grown to five and will grow to six by the end of this

year. And because my hashtag is commerce, all conversations that

matter is my hashtag to one of them that I use in conversations

for change, because everything begins and ends with the right

conversation. And that's kind of been my, my, my gut. Since all

of this began. And I mean that to say, the first set of

conversations were all about people's personal story. And

that's what the question guy is all about. Right? Because of

their transformation. People actually create business models

from their own personal stuff, became coaches, speakers, or

book authors, and are now helping people going through the

stuff that they originally went through, or helping other people

go through that same stuckness whatever that is. And so, I

credit Coaches Corner specifically to talk about

business expertise. On the brink, grander, global, more

broader scale, I created the Envision speaker series and I

brought back panels members, panel people, people who have

already been on my show, I wanted to start talking about

what it takes to make social change happen, you know,

whatever that toxic work, you know, workplace toxicity, mental

health, illness, you know, mental illness, mental health

issues in men. Why do men have more suicide ideations now than

ever before? At any age level? How to heal how to be holistic

in your who you are not just about being this person

professionally and this person personally, step up and show up

as who you are. All the time. That's the start of the answer

to your question. How do we build that know like trust

relationship? It starts with two things and this is what I

learned over Coming in on my own suicide ideation, learn how to

breathe. One thing is to do is learn under breathe. breathing

calms the body and focuses the mind. And I don't mean just a

regular breathing, I mean, focus breathing, you know, close your

eyes sit down, and taking that breath and allow the oxygen to

do what it's designed to do. And that's give you energy. It's one

of the things it's designed to do. And then once you learn how

to do that, figure out who you are actually wrote a book.

Walking the Path of leaders journey is all about personal

development through a series of stages. But the essence of the

book is if you throw away the titles, and I had to because I

was unemployed for 12 months, so everything I did, as a doctor,

everything I did, as a college professor, everything I did,

prior to the chaos, I had to let go, because it was all those

things I was holding on to that I couldn't hold on to anymore.

They were slipping away. And so what I decided to do was, let

them go. And when I decided to let everything go, my whole life

changed, I found a job. People were beginning to help me do

what I needed to do to overcome, you know, suicide ideation, the

chaos of COVID building relationships. So I started

having more of those more and more those conversations just

like this one. And I began to appreciate every conversation,

every person that I would meet, because they were adding, if

anything, just a little gold, maybe a little bit of value to

my life. And I have to hope and think that as I was living

vicariously through them, and becoming comfortable with

myself, that I was exchanging that same value at some level to

them. That has to be true, because now I've had over 250

recorded conversations under five different platforms.

So this is what I'm picturing. I'm picturing

that, that you lost your job that you you were and COVID hid.

And you were alone a lot. As we all were, you know, unless we,

you know, have people live in our house with us, we have a lot

of, you know, alone time, and that brought you into negative

state. And you plummeted. But you also had the wherewithal to

get yourself out of it. I mean, did you have were you in

therapy, were you where you want? No, I

Dr. Keith McNally: didn't. I didn't have the wherewithal to

get myself, okay. I actually, for whatever, for whatever was

keeping me alive. I was showing up even broken. So I was showing

up to networking meetings, I was showing up to job interviews, I

was showing up to whatever I needed to do. Even on LinkedIn,

even the conversations I was having, I was still broken. I

actually met somebody His name is Mitch Cray, and I always give

him a shout out. So don't don't hate me for in this

conversation. He invested his life into me, you

know, I said, Why would I hate you for it? No,

absolutely.

Dr. Keith McNally: He invested his life into me so that I would

still have one. And at first, he was just a mentor. Now we're

really good friends. So it was one person making the investment

free of charge? No. It's because of who he is and what he does

and how he does it. That said, you know, Keith, we're going to

take this one step at a time. He's the one who taught me to

breathe. He's the one who taught me to show up.

I love it. No, I think that's great. But you did

I mean, give yourself some credit. Right? For keeping going

until that happened, right? Because, right. And actually,

it's making me think of something else too. Like when

you talk about the breathing and and I don't do that enough, I

don't stop and just, you know, relax and do that. But I've

noticed that I have a little granddaughter, she's four and a

half, she's almost five. And she's very hyperactive, and

she's never stops moving. But if you if you know she's getting

too, too much and too much going on, you kind of have to stop her

and look her in the eye and go, Okay, let's just breathe. And

take a breath and just relax for a minute. And you can see what

happens when she does that. She needs to do that. And the other

thing that she needs to do, which I want to come to with you

is she needs to be out in nature. It seems to ground her

and she is at her best when she's digging in the soil and

she's, you know, dig turning over a rock or getting dirty or

putting her feet in the water. That's what she loves to do.

Which is like the first Sing from me, I was the kid who

didn't want to get dirty when I was a kid. So it's really

interesting to see what she's teaching, you know, me, for

example. But I think that you must feel that too, because

you're going on this amazing journey that is also to raise

money, I think also for people in need. You can tell me

exactly. It's about suicide prevention, I think. Right.

Dr. Keith McNally: So I'm on a mission. And so I've

collaborated with a couple of different people to do a couple

of different things. One of the things that I'm working with is

any event in September 2024. So at the time of this recording

this year, in a couple of months, I'm working with Shane

Kramer, and Rick made down in North Carolina, in 2023.

Unfortunately, NC State University was in the spotlight

in the media spotlight, because they had incurred several deaths

by suicide at the colleges. So the college level 2018 1920 21

year olds are struggling for a variety of reasons. And so I

know a lot of people have, have raised the attention. This has a

focus, we just happen to have a really good team, and we're

bringing some services, and we're gonna do an event down

there. But because I'm a veteran, my specific focus is

with veterans and at risk veterans. I am you talked about

going back into nature. So one of the things I want to do is

raise awareness, provide educational services, mentoring

and training to veterans in the veteran community, including

their families, on how to redesign your life. Now, I am

not a crisis intervention specialist, I'm not there, when

you got the gun to your head, or whatever that situation looks

like. That's not my space. But if you're still alive, and you

still struggle with unknowns and variables that you think are

problematic to you. I am somebody to talk to. There are

many bigger organizations, Wounded Warrior, and all kinds

of other veterans and mental illness, mental health

organizations, and we all do our good job or due diligence, and

we all work well in our spaces. But I've been there, I've

actually made the attempt three times my first time as a college

student myself 25 years ago. But specifically, as an adult,

there's no scarier place to be than alone, and thinking that

your life is worthless. And so because of that, and because

I've got some friends, some veterans who, you know, did

their time and service, some of them retired, who also struggle

with life variables, and I always call them very, because

we never know when something comes up. I do want to give them

an opportunity, one to have a conversation to, to become real

with themselves. And like I said, and even I wrote the book,

but it's all about personal transformation, learn how to

breathe, or on the show up, learn how to be vulnerable. The

event that you're talking about is I want to hike through it's

called an actual thru hike in the community, the Appalachian

Trail. So in 2025, on April 1 is our launch date. So me and

Jodi's is a colleague of mine, friend of mine, we both

veterans, we're going to do a thru hike of the Appalachian

Trail. And so that's a 2193 miles depending on who you talk

to you from Springer Mountain, Georgia, all the way College in

Maine. And so it's going through 14 states, on the east coast of

the US contiguous states, it's going to take about four months,

the way God keeps on putting it, probably five, and so we do need

to raise a lot of money just to put us through the hike, food

and some other supplies as well. But specifically, we're going to

be bringing people in veterans service members, those who have

overcome their own situations or those who are still struggling

with their own situations, we're going to bring them on the

trail. We are welcoming every possible section hiker so if you

want to join us awesome, more than the more the merrier. Even

if you only like one mile with us now. It's cool. No overnight

camping, but at the very least, this is going to be

transformational for for many, many people. And probably

specifically for me and for Jodi because this is something we've

never attempted before. So we're novice thru hikers haven't done

it before. I mean, we have hiked and we have camped, and so we

we've got the general idea of how to do this. But you know,

hiking 20 plus miles a day across 14 states over four

months, is different. You know, he's calling it a military

mission and I'm I'm right there with him because it's all about

logistics and planning and all this other kind of stuff. And so

that's why we are raising money. But we're also specifically

raising awareness, and providing education coaching as well. And

mentoring.

So hopefully you'll get some PR out of it.

And as you go through it, you'll log it on video and all of that

good stuff, right?

Dr. Keith McNally: Yeah, well, so we did it, as long as we get

the answer sheet and the Wi Fi, the Wi Fi, live stream, what we

can do anything else gets recorded. He is he's a technical

guru. So I've asked him to kind of bring some of his his toys

with them, we might create some, you know, virtual or augmented

reality segments along the way, which would be really, really

cool for people who are in that space. But all in all, you know,

we are really looking to, to really bring a new identity to

the bedroom community, because like you said, you Mo's your

niece, my granddaughter. Yeah, when she's out in nature, we're

created, you know, I do believe we were created. And the book

says we're created from dirt particles of the earth. And so

part of part of us is connected to that, and you can't take that

away. I from my belief structure, I can't take that

away.

Wow, interesting. So I think that's a, it's a very

robust plan, and got the word challenge that you're taking on.

And I think it'll be quite, it'll be exciting for you. And

I'm sure that the biggest thing will come from people's

transformations. And so I'd like to ask you in all of the

discussions you have with people and, and I know you're a

teacher, your trainer, your Creator, your speaker in all of

the people that you that you touch with the work that you do.

Do you have one or two stories that's really stand out? As, you

know, just really special? Um, I know I put you on the spot, but

Dr. Keith McNally: no, it's okay. There is. I always say

every conversation is important. And what I what, what I would

like to see happen is more men step up to the conversation,

more men step up to the microphone. Only because I don't

get that often enough. Now. I have a lot of conversations on

this is a lot of them with women. So women would step up.

And because they're, it's easier for them to share my personal

experience, you know, tragedy and whatnot. And very few men,

at least, on my podcast, are willing to do that now if you

have if you have cried. And so that's that I think is a very

powerful thing is when I see a man cry in front of me, because

of something that's happened in him in his life, and he's

willing to become vulnerable. And he's willing to disclose.

And so if more men can actually not every man has to do that,

you know, I'm not saying that every man has to break down like

a baby and cry. But for the expression of emotion in that

way, that release of energy is so valuable and

transformational. That I would like to see more men do that.

And so that did happen in one of my conversations. And it wasn't

even though the question God podcast, it was Coach's Corner,

because he had lost everything. It might have been a mixed vote,

he had lost everything, and had to go back to mom and dad as a

grown man and say, you know, Dad, I failed. And that broke

him. And it broke him on in the conversation. And so that was

such a powerful moment. Both in our conversation, and I think in

his own life, of course, that he changed himself. The other story

wouldn't be, like I said, I have, you know, of my three. So

personal, professional and social impact stories. I do have

two other specific conversations, one around

suicide and the impact of suicide in our lives. I have

about eight or nine on my playlist on YouTube. And I have

an a fifth conversation for those people who want to kind of

drop the facade, drop the titles and just have conversations with

me about what's really important in their lives. And I've had

about, you know, a handful of those and I call them

conversations. It's a conversations playlist on

YouTube. And her name is Carrie Allen. She is very active on

LinkedIn. She is the founder of the Hume Monterey with a

colleague, Sara Cotterell. And they do, they taught me how to

meditate. They taught me how to meditate and how to use words,

to empower me before I have conversations, because what I

wanted to do was get better at this, I wanted to get better at

having conversations with people. And that meant, from her

perspective, and probably from my perspective, is to be more

present, not run from a script, not rehearse words or sentences

or questions, but to be present in the moment. And she taught me

how to do that. And I think since like, October, September,

October, November, last year to now so at the time of this

recording, I've gotten much better at that being present in

the moment and being to exchange energies with the person or

people I'm having conversations with. And so that they recognize

that they're being listened to, and being validated. And that's

probably the most powerful thing I've been able to learn to date.

That's really interesting. Because I don't

work from a script, I can't, and that's with anything I do, like,

even when I have to go do a speech, which I don't do very

often because I'm uncomfortable having a script. But you know,

I'm better off the cuff in a way. I mean, I have to do some

prep, but I just have to feel it out when I'm speaking to the

person. But what you're talking about for me, I think comes from

Curiosity. So that's, I find interesting in what you're

saying, because I don't always I sometimes ask my my guests the

curiosity question, because I'm fascinated by that myself, and I

feel I have a really good sense. And I have a sense of curiosity.

And a lot of people don't. And I wonder if people think it's

innate or learned. And that sort of is curious to me when you

say, you know, learning about being in the moment and, and

being aware of what someone's saying and feeding off that. I

call that curiosity. So did you have to learn, you had to learn

that?

Dr. Keith McNally: I did. I would say it's a balance I I

intentionally knew I wanted to be better at having a

conversation, a real conversation to to literally be

in that space, rather than, you know, the notorious thinking

about what I have to say, as as part of the interaction and so

with with, you know, Carrie Allen, Sarah Cotterill, Eileen

build Mitch cray. These people taught me how to focus one my

energies to my thoughts through my subconscious. Breathe and be

in the moment. Now, Am I perfect at it? Not yet, I am getting

better. And I think with every conversation, I do get better.

But it was something I had to learn. It wasn't necessarily

something that was just jumping out at me and say, you know,

this is just who you are. And it all works. Remember, I'm an

introvert by nature. So for 50 years, I didn't have too many

conversations.

Right? Right. It's fascinating, because I know

people that say that same thing, and they're not, they're not

curious at all. And so yes, it can be learned. And it can also

be innate. So I don't know, I always in my mind, I think we

all start as curiosity as curious kids, little kids, and,

you know, but somewhere, something gets drummed out of us

in lots of school, maybe, no, I taught school. So I hate to say

that, but I think it's true. You know, in fact, you know, my

granddaughter starting kindergarten September, and it's

gonna be really interesting to see what happens with her

because she can't sit still for very long. And yeah, so we'll

see. We'll see what happens. We'll, we'll be monitoring it

and looking at how it affects her. But um, yeah, so curiosity

and the skills and the strategies like you said, for,

for how to better yourself in this in the situations you put

yourself in. So I love that you are really always working on

yourself. I love that. Yeah, that's

Dr. Keith McNally: what I have to do now. I mean, if I'm going

to be, you know, a better coach, a better speaker, a better

podcast host. I need to do that because without that, it's just

going to be a flat, boring conversation. There's gonna be

no energy, there's gonna be no exchange of value. All the

cliches but really I think as based on what you said earlier

earlier in the conversation, it's all about building that

relationship that know, like trust. And so because of that,

you know, personal transformation process, and I'm

putting myself through a continuing the know, like trust

paradigm, you know, the triad is becoming more and more part of

me. And I say that, because it's, it's part of the

importance of what I do. Because I've talked with so many people

that I've I know, there's two people out there that need to

talk themselves, I make that connection. I'm not asking for

anything in return, I do the same thing, John, that, you

know, times and time again. And it's always been that, to my

knowledge, when they come back to me, that's always been the

right connection. So it's like these people needed to me. And

apparently, I was the facilitator of that.

Yeah, that feels so good. I know, I do that too.

And I and when it works, you just know that it's like,

there's the magic, right? And you've just been that. I don't

know, I, I find that so satisfying. You have to meet

this person, I honestly, trust me on this one, and boom, it's

just perfect. I love it. So this is fascinating. There was one

more thing I wanted to ask you about. So I know that you let

your storyteller and you're now your conversationalist. You

You're, you're a speaker, which is also bringing you more of an

extrovert piece when you're a speaker, right? But are you and

your writer, so which do you like to do the most

Dr. Keith McNally: I would like to do all the make bank on a

two, I can't do that access to have my nine to five. To be

quite honest, I in joy, I enjoy all of them. So there's there's

no doubt about any of it. The most nerve wracking of the bunch

is being on stage. That's why I want more opportunities to do

that. I think I have I can add role. And I hate to cliche, I

could add real value to that space. Only because I want to

share my story. And that may be egotistical at this point, I

don't know. But the most converse, the best thing I enjoy

doing at this point is, is having these conversations

because I do think I do believe that every conversation is

important. And every conversation was meant to be

listened to by at least one other person who's going to take

something from it. For some reason, I believe that in

lately. And so even this conversation, and I know this is

your podcast, if only one person watched it, it's needed to be

watched by that one. Hopefully more. Yeah, that's okay. But

there's somebody out there who needs to hear what we and it's

not just what I it's what we've had to say. And the energies

that we exchanged. Somebody needs to not only hear it, but

they need to experience it. So for every conversation I have,

that's why I want to get better at them. I think I believe I

trust that there's somebody out there eventually. That needs to

experience that conversation. What happens the next day or

five years later. As long as it's evergreen. It can happen.

So I think that your book, a walk walking the

path, a leaders journey. That path is personal development,

right? I mean, yes, you're going on the Appalachian Trail. And

that's the physical path that you're going on. And, and

growing from it. But this is about becoming a leader of self.

Right.

Dr. Keith McNally: It is now the characters, it's both Oh, it's

disabled. I do apologize, but no, it's all good. So it's a

mixture of both, you know, contextual elements of

leadership and what that looks like, but not from an academic

perspective. So I pull out, we talked about mentoring, we

talked about team building, we talked about communication

becoming vulnerable, and all of the self development things that

you really should have, if you're going to lead people and

then the specific circumstance falls within a story of fable

and narrative within the book, where a young man his name is

John So everything's kind of generic, needs to find himself

and so he's expected to take over his dad's farm in his

community, surrounded by mountains, so you know, very,

very sick, you know, segregated and separated from the rest of

the world. He's, it's mid basic course. Yeah, he feels like he's

a misfit. He doesn't fit in. I mean, he can he can do to things

but developing close friendships with a lot of people. He does

have his close knit friends. He leads then he decides to lead

them and they decide to follow him over the mountain, okay. And

he had to learn how to lead. And that's kind of the basis of the

story.

That's really cool. Okay, I'm gonna come full

circle. And we're going to wrap it up. And I'm going to ask you

about your Lego. So no, seriously you are you get kits

you make Lego creatures and characters and things.

Dr. Keith McNally: So everything you see behind me outside of the

happy birthday cards, and Father's Day cards are Lego

built. And so their basic sets their license sets. And so the

big red thing that you see, I think on over here, as Ninjago

Mac, and so he's stands about this tall. Now, Lego likes to

advertise themselves as toys. I would not ever play with him

because he's very, very fragile.

And probably how many hours of putting it

together, right.

Dr. Keith McNally: So each of these sets, they're not

necessarily the advanced the builds, but they do take a

couple of hours of dedicated time. Now the one I'm most proud

of is StormBringer. And Stormbringer is a combination of

Lego Boost, which is one of their it's not their advanced

brick, computer brick. It's just an application, you can download

it there's a robotic. He can, she wants to actually share it.

Stormbringer she is she. So it's a combination of the booths

product. This was like back in 2018. And the StormBringer

dragon product. So they combined the two. And she could walk, she

can roar, she can shoot lightning bolts out of her

mouth. She's just a lot of fun to play with. But she's an awful

lot of fun to build as well.

So I I always think of when I was young, I

went to bingo at the local fair, right in the summertime. And

some of my friends grandma used to go or something we'd go to

bingo and everybody that were real bingo people. They had

their 12 boards in front of them, and they had all their

different dabbers daubers whatever you call them, and all

their trinkets, sir. Good luck charms me. It was like a whole

underworld economy for bingo people. Does that make sense?

Yeah, every time he has it, and Lego would have its own people,

right? So you have people that you build Lego with are people

that you compare kits with and things like that?

Dr. Keith McNally: Well, I don't. Because of you know, I'm

an introvert. Well, let's put things into context. You know,

when I talked about hugging 12 miles a day, that's four hours

of my day. So I'm up at 230 in the morning. I'm in bed by got

it. All right. My time is now spent elsewhere. Unfortunately,

I would love to invest. Right,

you could see that being a thing, right?

Dr. Keith McNally: I could.

Personally, I've been trying to build the Lego

things with my granddaughter, and it's too hard for me to fit.

It's too intricate. And because she's gone from Duplo to Lego

now. So now it's like, long as it has wheels. She's happy. So

there you go. Anyway, this was so much fun. Thank you. I just

had to ask that. Because I find you know, it's just that we have

to have fun to write we have to do things that actually that's

Dr. Keith McNally: part of the human nature we have to play in

adults forget how to do it. But we have to add it back. We

do we totally do. I know. And I've started playing

these new games on LinkedIn. Have you looked at those?

Dr. Keith McNally: No, I don't know anything about games on

LinkedIn.

It's a whole new thing. It's under the just go to

linkedin.com/games. And they'll show up. And once you've started

to play with them, then they'll show up on your newsfeed or

something and tell you, but I'm a words game person. I love

words. And so these are that kind of thing like a mini sort

of crossword ladder and things like that. Anyway, I don't know.

It's an I'm just exploring it from a LinkedIn trainer

perspective, to see if it becomes another tool for

building relationships.

Yeah, so anyways, it'll open up a conversation. Exactly.

So thank you for this conversation. Thank you for

sharing your story and your verse, your expertise and your

wisdom with us and to my audience. Thank you for being

here. If you heard something you were you were pleased about or

interested in please look up Dr. Keith. I will put his

information in the show notes and and I assume you'll put will

give me or podcasts as well, right?

Dr. Keith McNally: Most of my stuff. Yeah, most of my sales

stuff sits on YouTube. I am on app on iTunes with the ambition

speaker series.

Perfect. And thanks for being here and

remember to stay connected and be remembered