DH: Hey guys, welcome to Keep On Pursuing Radio. I am your host Devon Harris and yeah, man. You know what we do here, right? We share ideas and insights that are going to challenge you and inspire you to Keep On Pursuing and live your absolute best life. So are you interested in that, even a little bit? Well if you are, you know you’re in the right place. So again, welcome to Keep On Pushing Radio. Our guest today is a former professional soccer player, a candidate for political office, an entrepreneur, a motivational speaker, a publisher of Soccer Long Island Magazine. He is known as “Mr. Motivation” and America’s CMO, “Chief Motivation Officer”. He is, in fact, the only motivational speaker and leader to ever have a day of recognition passed by the United States Congress as well as New York State. This happened after the tragic events of September 11, 2001. He created National Motivation and Inspiration Day, which is observed on January 2nd and in fact, in New York State the month of January, thanks to him, is recognized as Motivation Month. He’s also an author, his book, Who Are You? Introduces his 21st-century multi-dimensional hierarchy of needs, which in 60 years is the most significant addition to Dr. Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Really interesting fellow Mr. Motivation himself. I’m so pleased to introduce and welcome to the show, Kevin McCrudden. Kevin, welcome to Keep On Pushing.
KM: Devon, thank you so much, man. So honored to be on your show and thanks for the introduction. Wow, that’s a lot of stuff.
DH: Well, you created it, man. It’s all you, so thank you.
KM: Long history.
DH: Well, speaking of creating, you created the National Motivation and Inspiration day, what inspired to do that?
KM: Devon I think for so many of us and for those of us in the New York area, we saw the devastation of 9/11, but I think for those that were near to us we saw the positive reaction, people willing to do anything for other people to go out of their way, for people to be motivated to give and care. And I thought like, why would it take such a horrible, devastating act for us to act with kindness, to take care of people, to go out of our way to help each other out, you know? And it’s been re-enacted so many times over the past 20 years with natural disasters and things. People are so responsive when people need help, but on a daily basis, we’re all so absorbed in our lives that we don’t always necessarily act as kindly as we should to each other. So that was the idea of National Motivation and Inspiration Day….. taking a positive from something so negative and creating goals and objectives of how we can be our best selves. Like you introduce your show, how do we become our very best selves? And that’s the idea of National Motivation and Inspiration Day and Motivation and Inspiration month in New York.
DH: Yeah, a great observation because you’re absolutely right. Certainly living here in New York City, anybody who drives knows that New Yorkers can be really aggressive. And I remember like for about a week after 9/11, the lights would change to green and people would literally, it would seem like they took a deep breath before they moved off and it was unusual but nice. And then about a week later, people were right back to normal, the lights turned green and people were laying on their horn. I’m like, okay, New York is back.
KM: Didn’t take too much.
DH: Yeah, but it’s a curious thing that people as you say, can be so absorbed in their lives day-to-day and then in times of need and great tragedy, you know, people step up and I want to say connect with their humanity and the kind, the softer side of life, right?
KM: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
DH: Yeah. So in recent times, Kevin, I don’t want to obviously delve into politics here, but there’s been a lot of talk about immigrants in this country. Immigration has always tended to become a political football. There is a lot of scrutiny on illegal immigration. There is obviously even talk in some areas about restricting legal migration. I’m an immigrant. I know that your family also emigrated here from Ireland. What are your views, how do you see the role and the contributions of immigrants to this country?
KM: Listen, I think America, the great concept of America, my company’s called Motivate America, right? And my parents made me believe, they came from Ireland, both of my parents, so I’m a first-generation. My parents made me believe that America is the greatest country in the world. And listen, there are other people, people from Jamaica, people from other places in the world that believed their country is the greatest country in the world and everyone’s entitled to that feeling, right? However, if we all come to America, America is known as the great melting pot. And when we come to America, we come to America for a reason because we believe it’s the greatest country in the world, it provides a great opportunity and we’re just talking about the kindness of America. You know, the UN, the Red Cross, the amount of money that we give charitably around the world is really incredible, so the American spirit I think is an incredible thing. Your description of this immigration issue, becoming a football, right? Appropriately as a soccer player, right? I think it has become blown out of proportion. I’m sure you came here legally. I know my parents came here legally and that’s the argument is how are people coming here? If people look at policies around the world, like, hey, listen, try to break into Mexico illegally, they put you in jail.
So if we look at, if we look at other countries’ policies, America has had a very generous policy of accepting people. However, we have hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people that have gone through the process and are waiting in line. They’re waiting in line, they’re getting their visas, they’re getting their appropriate documentation, they’re getting sponsors to come to America like you did, right? You have to do it properly. So I think that’s the real argument is what’s being done properly? And however, the separate discussion is America is a country of immigrants. And I happen to be very good friends with the Native Americans of the Shinnecock Tribe here on the East end of Long Island. You know, they’re the only original ones. They’re the ones that were here originally. Everyone else came here. So it’s about respect, Devon and I think that’s the thing that I think you represent and many people that have different dialogues or different views of the world. It’s about being respectful to each other and that’s what we’ve lost. We’ve lost the sense of respecting each other and our different views and respecting our differences of each other and that’s diplomacy. That’s leadership, Devon, and people like you like we need more of the sensible, reasonable discussion and not the anger and the accusations and the disgusting behavior that we have.
DH: Indeed. Tell us about your immigrant story, Kevin. What was life like in the McCrudden’s household?
KM: Devon, it’s so awesome. So I come from a big beautiful family of eight kids. My parents had four children after World War II in Manchester, England. So my mom and my dad both served the military. My mom worked in a munitions factory during the war and my dad was in the Queens Royal Air Force. So they both served in World War II.
DH: This is back in the UK, in Ireland?
KM: Exactly, the 40s and 50s. So then they settled in Manchester after the war. They had four children in England of Irish citizenship and then they came to America and had four more. And so we had the rich culture of the Irish heritage and Irish family but we were the only ones here in America. So my parents were brave, kind of like yourself, to choose to leave your home country to go to a different place. And that’s why my parents instilled in us the idea that America is the greatest country in the world because they came here for the hope and the prosperity that America represents. And I’m very proud to have created Motivate America for that reason. Is that I truly believe the thing that they instilled in us, that America is a great country but, we had all the typical food that Irish families have. My mom has a story that she would literally cook almost five pounds of potatoes almost every night for five boys and three girls. All of us are pretty large, as a big guy, we ate a lot. So we had a lot of Irish food and yes, alcohol was involved but yeah, it’s a beautiful family. And having gone back to Ireland, it’s an amazing experience. The Irish heritage, the Irish culture, the Irish people are really wonderful people, wonderful people.
DH: Got you. But you were able to bring that culture and fit right into being an American as you mentioned.
KM: Well, my oldest brothers and sisters and my parents had challenges because my parents still had an Irish brogue and they had Irish brogues until the day they died. So I still have friends that would tell me that in high school or junior high school, they couldn’t understand a darn thing my mother would say because she had the brogue I’d be like, what do you mean you didn’t understand?
DH: Right, she was speaking English.
KM: Exactly.
DH: So, I mentioned that you introduced the 21st-century multi-dimensional hierarchy of needs, which is in 60 years, the most significant addition to Maslow’s work and he worked in the theory of motivation. We’re going to delve into his work in a little bit but wouldn’t it be fair to say that for the most part, and we’re just talking about you and I and other immigrants who have come here, that people who come here are motivated by what is known as their unsatisfied needs, those lower needs that Maslow identified?
KM: Yeah, so that would be a perfect analogy, right? So why would someone choose to leave their homeland, right? It’s for an opportunity, but what opportunity, what is it that they’re seeking? And in many countries that lowest level of need, just food and water and shelter and safety aren’t necessarily a given, where in America, it is pretty much a given. Even for the poorest of our poor. They can find shelter, they can find food. There are places around the world where people literally cannot find shelter, cannot find food or water, and they literally die because they cannot find the basic needs of life. So for people that want to leave their homeland to come to America, that certainly is what “opportunity” they’re looking for is to fulfill the personal needs of their own but even more importantly, like my parents is the idea of creating a better future for their children is hopefully that next generation can live a better life than they’ve lived because as parents, that’s what most people want. They want their children to have a better life than they’ve had.
DH: Right. So obviously, and I’m not supporting, suggesting illegal migration, but in essence though, regardless of where you are in the world, we all want the same basic things, right?
KM: Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
DH: So, you mentioned in your book that we’re all creating a new reality, so whether or not you are born here in America, you’re an immigrant or you live somewhere else in the world, we’re all creating a new reality for ourselves, correct?
KM: Absolutely.
DH: So then, Kevin, what’s the thing that creates the biggest impact on this process of creating a new reality? Is it nature, the things that genetics have given us or is it nurture, the influence of our environment and the circumstances that we find ourselves in?
KM: Devon, I’ve struggled with this for a long time because you see young African-American boys out of inner-city situations that have nothing and they grow and they get out of really bad situations and they go to college and they get great jobs and they do well. So, there are people that escape bad situations, but it’s so rare, you know, and so a lot of our philosophies and focus are on that bottom tier of our society. How do we uplift? How do we get them to that next level? And when we look around the world, when I say we’re creating a new reality, the new reality is the world is shrinking because of the internet and technology. Almost every person in the world has one of these, has a cell phone, which is fascinating. Some of them don’t have a decent house to live in or running water, but they have a cell phone, which is fascinating. And I think education and technology are changing the world. And I think the more we can do the two is to educate everyone, everyone we can to have them well-educated, I think what it does is it helps with our evolution. It helps us grow. It helps us in Maslow’s perspective of being self-actualized, becoming fulfilled because someone that is “self-actualized” is not threatened by people of different cultures or different colors or different beliefs, they are fulfilled and I guess content with themselves and in their own skin. So when you’re content in your own skin and who you are, you’re not threatened by other people. You embrace other people. You’re curious about other people and how they, how they believe or what their lives are like. That happens through education. And I think the more we can get the world to embrace the idea of the more well-educated our populace is, the better off we’ll all be universally and technology helps us do that.
DH: Yeah. I think in addition to that though, the more self-actualized, the more successful you become, the more self-aware you are, the more likely I think you are in my opinion, to be excited for other people’s success as well.
KM: Agreed.
DH: So yeah, on the whole nature, nurture thing, you use the example of an African-American, let’s say in a tough environment who, who arises above it and I totally agree with that. I can relate to that in many ways. I think there are more than enough examples around the world of people who have overcome the conventional wisdom of what nature or nurture gives us. So you look at Muggsy Bogues, he was 5′ 3″, played in the NBA, a tall man’s game. Spud Webb, 5′ 7″, not only played in the NBA but won the slam dunk competition. Then you have a guy who was born with the “silver spoon” in his mouth, has every opportunity to make something incredible of his life and yet he messes up, while there’s a guy on the other side of the track who has every reason, every obstacle in their way, not to succeed and yet they become successful. Is it just a matter of education, Kevin, what do you suppose makes a difference there?
KM: No, you’re exactly right. It’s the combination, right? And I refer to it in the book. There are people that have had exceptional opportunities and have literally given everything and they still fall into drugs and poor behavior and they get arrested, some of them commit suicide. So it’s an odd combination, Devon and I don’t know if we particularly have an answer because if we had an answer, we would do something about it. So, I mean, I hate to use names of, but I think in the book I do refer to the Rockefeller’s or the Kennedy’s. You look at some of the children in the second and third generations and in business notoriously, second and third generations have been commonly seen as almost the demise of companies that have been built. Because they don’t have the motivation, the passion, the creativity of what the originator created and then they’re just kind of resting on their laurels because they’re not really hungry to make money or to have success because they’ve been given it. And frankly, in a sports environment, one of the things that I see pretty commonly in America is, and you’ll appreciate this as an athlete, a lot of our athletes aren’t as hungry as we used to be. They’re not as motivated, a little grittier, a little tougher. They’re all sort of……you look at youth in college and some young professionals that seem to come across as pretty effected because they’ve come through situations where they have money and they have success. So this newfound success comes a little bit easier than maybe a Jim Brown or like some of the other greats in many of our sports had to really be gritty and really fight to have success.
And a lot of these guys get it pretty easily, make it a lot of money. I always look at a Jim Brown or a Mickey Mantle or a Joe DiMaggio or something like that or Will Chamberlain and think, if they knew the amount of money that these kids are making now that couldn’t even pull up their socks. It’s so unbelievable, right? But nature versus nurture, it becomes what is the individual motivation. And that’s the thing that I touch on a lot is how do you motivate and inspire an individual as a young adult to feel that they are capable of anything? So a Spud Webb saying, you know what? You could play in the NBA. I’m five, three, what do you mean I’m going to play in the NBA? You know, Muggsy Bogues like you’re gonna win a dunk contest. What do you mean I’m going to, I’m not even six-foot! Russell Wilson who they downplayed as a six-foot quarterback, Drew Brees as a six-foot quarterback. This new kid, he’s another six-foot quarterback and it’s like, oh, well he can’t be successful. They’re pretty successful.
DH: 20:33 No, you’re right. So you talk about individual motivation. I think it comes down to that. And I often speak about the fact that motivation really speaks to what is your reason? What is your motive for taking action? But when you compare, say a Jim Brown or a Will Chamberlain or a Mickey Mantle or those guys who certainly for their time, they were making a lot of money but I guess it’s all relative because, I’m only assuming here now that if their career ended, they wouldn’t have been “set for life” versus a young kid who comes in. I mean, the money is insane. And he or she may be very talented but relatively speaking they are making significantly more than the guys who are grittier, hungrier, they had a stronger reason to play hard and train hard and kept at it.
KM: Yeah, exactly.
DH: And I guess that’s a challenge as we, Kevin, move into this brave new world where there’s technology, there’s a guy who lives in really squalor conditions with a cell phone. How do you inspire them to dig deep to find the reason why they should not just settle for having those lower needs met, but strive to reach their full potential?
KM: Listen, a couple of years ago, I had a beautiful young man from Africa reach out to me, a really creative young man. He has a phone. It was a flip phone at the time. And he said, you know, I want your help, but what can I do to help you? And just say, here’s a kid that he had just gotten done with I think a year of university. He couldn’t really afford the rest of the education and he was asking me how he could work with me, just brilliant. So, Edward and I have become friends online and Edward, if you see this, hello. The idea that just occasionally I’ll send him a couple of dollars. He’s never asked or begged or said I need your money to be successful. He would just say, hey, I’m kind of stuck, can you help me out? And just so, so grateful for $20 for $50. Just a little bit of money to try and help him get through college to get to the next level. We’ve worked together where hopefully he’s going to be working with some legislators and representatives in Africa. They’re going to actually pay for me to come and speak and then he’ll almost be my agent so he’ll get paid for that but it was him being proactive. Here he is in this middle of nowhere and he decides to go online and he’s looking around and here’s this dude in America, Mr. Motivation that somehow he decides he’s going to reach out using technology on a phone that barely works and yet he made it. He made the effort and energy. So you know right on your shirt, right? Keep on pushing. The idea that there are certain people that get it, that get that you’ve got to push, you’ve got to keep pushing. There’s a balance though. And I think as a more mature adult for a long time I was about like, you’ve got to set goals and you’ve got to push and it was almost about praying to God for things to happen and keep on pushing yourself.
There’s a balance. There’s a balance. And I think that’s trying to get comfortable with who you are and that’s my book, right? Who Are You? And the idea of when you get comfortable with who you are, you don’t have to push your agenda all the time. You don’t have to be overly assertive, but you do have to have self-motivation to try and achieve more. You can’t settle for who you are because there’s a lot of people out there that will say things like, same shit different day or, that’s just the way I am, take me or leave me. No, that’s like, just stopping growth. Like it can’t just stop growth, you know? So it’s those people that are like-minded Devon, that want to grow, that are excited about growth, that are motivated to do something exciting and technology is changing that. Technology is allowing us to deal with people all over the world with different perspectives and it’s making the world smaller. And that’s what’s exciting about this new age. And I’ll just go one step further when we talk about the evolution of young adults. One of the things with doing some of my management coachings, right? People of my generation psychologically, we have studies that you can only hold one dominant thought at a time, but yet everybody wants to talk about multi-tasking. And the idea is that people feel like they can multitask and still pay attention to two different things at the same time. And I think for anyone that’s over 40, when I’m doing my executive coaching, I’ll say, hey, listen, so if one of your employees or one of the people that work with you comes to the door and wants to talk to you about something important, what do you do? Well, I’ll still be on my computer, I’ll be doing something else or I’ll be listening to them and multi-tasking. What happens when the CEO comes to the door? Everything stops and you pay attention. I said there’s the point. If it’s important enough, you stop. If it’s not important to you, you think you can multi-task, but you’re missing pieces. This next-generation, Devon, I don’t know what’s going on. This next-generation, I don’t know if it’s an evolutional thing because they’ve been born with the internet. They truly can be having a conversation online here, listening to somebody else and maybe even reading a book. I think there may be an evolution happening and technology is leading it.
DH: Well, it is true though, because there are studies that speak to the fact that when the younger generation does this with their thumb it lights up a very different part of their brain compared to us, the old fogies. So, absolutely, you’re right. And I’m going to get into your 21st century multi-dimensional hierarchy of needs in a bit but I think it points to the fact that we are multi-dimensional. And so, when I speak about Keep On Pushing, it’s important, yes, to set goals and keep pushing towards achieving those but because we are multi-dimensional, we have to be pushing ourselves to become more self-aware, more empathetic, more compassionate, just pushing ourselves to grow as a more complete human being as opposed to a goal striver, a goal achiever, instrument of production kind of thing because I think it’s when you become a more complete human being, we create a better world.
KM: Agreed.
DH: As it were. So you talked about becoming the best version of yourself. I kind of feel that we were just talking about that, but again, touch on what you think that entails, this process of becoming the best version of yourself?
KM: So, when I talk about the multidimensional hierarchy of needs, right? And the example I use, and you’ll appreciate this, is look, if we look at a young man or young woman, say 17, 18-years-old that is physically a beautiful specimen. They’re perfect. They got the six-pack abs, they’ve really self-actualized in their physical element. So they’ve grown their body, they look perfect, they look beautiful, but they’re a C student, they’re financially broke, they’re morally corrupt. So when we look at the other dimensions of who they are, there’s always room to grow. And that was the differentiation I had with Maslow’s model is that as a one-dimensional model, it didn’t represent the multi-dimensional experience of the human experience. So that’s why I made it multi-dimensional. And I have to thank my friend, author Sarah McCauley, who is a psychology professor at Harvard, and she had said, Kevin, no, your version of this makes sense. You really should publish this. So it was with her encouragement that I published it. So looking at the multiple dimensions, when you take that 18-year-old and now they’re 30, well look at 30, maybe they have a beer belly, but they are financially successful, they are morally upstanding, they spiritually are upstanding and a member of their church or their synagogue and they’re a great family person. They raise a great family.
So it’s like, look, they may not be self-actualized physically anymore, but now they’ve become a better-rounded human being. And I think to your exact point, so if we’re constantly striving to grow and we have the opportunity or the awareness or the empathy and we feel to say, look, I love this about myself. I love this component of myself. I’m a great athlete. I’m a great speaker. I’m a great dad, I’m a great mom, I’m a great child, and I’m a great student. Yeah, but what about everything else?
Are you involved in the community? Are you involved in your church? Are you giving, caring, and loving? Do you understand? Do you empathize and are you also driven? You’re driven to be successful. So those things, and I think we’re getting there. I think people have become more in tune with this idea of being empowered but also being empathetic. I think being motivated but also being sensitive and caring about others. I do get concerned with this concept about people being motivated to lead because everyone’s a leader now and everyone goes through leadership training but that they want to have success, but they want to lift everybody else with them. That’s a little hard. People have a hard enough time being successful on their own, never mind lifting everybody else with them. So, it isn’t a one-man race, but it is a one-person race of trying to be the best you can and by that example, and by that energy and effort, that’s how you can uplift other people. It isn’t your personal obligation to have to put the weight of the world on your shoulders, which some people do.
DH: Yeah. Well, look, I think some people have a calling or purpose, Mother Teresa, it would be a great example of someone who feels the need to always strive to lift the downtrodden. I think the best example any of us can leave and the best way to help others is by living or becoming the best versions of ourselves. You know, you really lead by example. Having said that, obviously, you can’t save the entire world, but I think you have to have a certain level of empathy that says, okay, I have made it this far along the journey. There is not the entire world, but one, maybe two persons you can reach back and help in some way, shape or form. Recognizing that most of the work still rests on them, on their shoulders. They say you have to participate in your own saving if you’re drowning….in your own rescuing.
KM: Absolutely.
DH: So I think it’s important that we push ourselves to achieve as much as we can but again, part of the pushing, part of the growth is how you relate to others as you are growing and as you’re achieving success.
KM: And it’s funny you mentioned Mother Teresa because once again in the book, I actually make the comment that Mother Teresa was selfish. So it’s kind of like, and I wanted it to be like tongue in cheek because I wanted people to read it and be like, what a ridiculous comment that is. But there was a self-serving nature that her willingness to give of herself to take care of people, fed something within her, within her needs of wanting to serve herself and her God and however she viewed it, she was in that whole heart soul mission, that was her identity. And she gave her life to do that, which inspired and uplifted millions of people. But I don’t think she could have been as much of an amazing source of inspiration if she begrudgingly helped people, if she in her heart really didn’t want to do it or she thought, how in the hell did I get stuck helping people with leprosy and all these poor people? How did I get stuck with this? She wouldn’t have been successful with that mindset
DH: Completely. The thing is that you’re absolutely right in calling mother Teresa selfish. It’s jarring for people who know her story, when you think about it, as you said, that was her purpose. That was her whole reason for being on earth, to help people. And I often met the argument as well that when you encourage someone, you’re being altruistic and selfish at the same time. You’re altruistic because you’re, you’re doing something with no expectation of any return, but in encouraging someone you’re also encouraging your own self. You’re nourishing your own soul and helping all those downtrodden, people with leprosy et cetera, that Mother Teresa did, as you just rightly said she was also nurturing and nourishing her own soul. So it’s okay to be selfish, in that sense. You can’t be grudgeful, you can’t be mean, you can’t be unsympathetic and expect to have an amazing life. It doesn’t work. So you outlined in your book this….I don’t want to call it this mathematical formula,….. perceiving success plus perfect practice plus believing that you can succeed plus opportunity, could lead or leads to success. Can you break that down a little bit for us, Kevin?
KM: Yeah. So one of the greatest phrases that I think anyone in our industry, the motivational leadership industry has ever come up with was a Clement Stone with the idea of, or maybe I was Napoleon Hill, whatever the mind of man can believe, no, can achieve…
DH: Yeah, can succeed. Can believe and succeed it can achieve, yeah.
KM: There are three pieces to it. If they can conceive, conceive, believe, and then achieve, right? So, it’s conceived. You can create an idea. What’s the idea that you have, what’s the thing that creates passion within you? And then if you truly believe that you’re capable of achieving it, right? So one of the references I use is John F. Kennedy when he was president, this idea that we’re going to the moon. He had no idea how we were getting to the moon. We weren’t even close to the technology of how we were going to get there but he said it as a goal and he said it in public for millions of people to say, we will go to the moon and somehow people made it happen. People made it happen. So it’s about that perception. What can you perceive as an opportunity or a way of being successful? So there’s the first, and I call that inspiration and I differentiate between inspiration and motivation. Inspiration is the light, the thing that ignites a fire inside of you. The belief that you can be something or do something or be great. And we’ll come back to that because there’s a false reality, a false narrative that a lot of our children in America are being given and this idea of everybody gets a trophy, right? So, we’ll talk about that afterward because I think it eliminates this idea of individual inspiration of saying, I can be great at something. Then it’s about being success-oriented, being motivated but then it’s about you have to learn something. You have to commit yourself to learn what you don’t know. You have to be committed to whether it be the physical, mental, emotional capability of achieving the thing that you’ve created. So that’s that next step. It can’t just happen just because you believe it. Just because you believe it’s true it doesn’t mean, you believe it’s going to happen. You’ve got to put some work in. There’s the motivation.
DH: Yeah, there’s some elbow grease.
KM: Absolutely. Always right. It doesn’t just happen magically, but I do believe in the law of attraction. I do believe if you positively have visions of your success, but you do have to put some work towards it, right? So there’s the inspiration, the motivation, the conceiving an idea and then believing and following through and putting some energy and elbow grease into it and then there has to be an opportunity. If you’ve done all the work and the opportunity doesn’t present itself, one of the things that we’re also doing to a lot of people, not only just in America but around the world, is this idea of entrepreneurism. Like, hey, being an entrepreneur is great. Hey, being an entrepreneur is tough. Like you could have a good idea, but if you can’t come up with the money or you can’t come up with someone that believes in it or you can’t find the right opportunity to sell your product or your widget or whatever it is that you created, it’s a good idea that went nowhere and there are millions of them. So I think we sell our kids on this idea, hey, it’s great to be an entrepreneur. It’s like, listen, go get some skills and get a great job before you try to be an entrepreneur, learn how business works before you try to be an entrepreneur. However, the idea of opportunity has to present itself somewhere along the line, you need to either attract the right people, create the right circle of influence, be creative enough or strategic enough where you can get in with a group that can make the thing that you’ve conceived and believe to actually achieve, to make it actually happen and that’s that last step, that last step is the right opportunity. And some of the people that are out there are incredibly clever about how they create opportunity. One of the things I’m not thrilled about is like, you look at the success of Facebook, right? But then you look at the movie, the Facebook movie, which is based on the reality is someone kind of stole someone’s idea and I don’t know how much we should celebrate that, but no one seems to talk about it. It’s like, we’re selling bags.
DH: And that’s the unfortunate part of the human conundrum, right? Where we have this ability to do amazing things and do great things for people as we started off the conversation speaking about, but at the same time we can swipe things away from people as well. But you made a really great point, the whole business of law of attraction because yes, you start with that vision, that thing you can conceive and you do need to work on your skills, whether it’s physical, emotional, mentally, et cetera. The phrase I like best in what you just said is the fact that you go create opportunity because a lot of people kind of think that if they have this great idea and they worked on some skills, the opportunity’s going to drop in their lap and it’s you getting up and going out to find the right people to surround yourself with that is eventually, and as you start working on it, the universe conspires, I would say, to present the opportunity for you to now take your game to the next level so to speak.
KM: Devon, I totally agree with you. It is. And they all seem to work together, right? So one of the things that we haven’t talked about and I refer to it as almost a rebirth over the past couple of years, and the idea of being motivated and being driven and pushing for me, I was doing that for a number of years and it led to a place where things weren’t happening for me and frankly, I think I was pushing people and opportunity away because I was pushing so hard. So I think people could sense that maybe there’s a sense of desperation almost.
DH: So, Kevin, I just interrupt to say it’s important to keep on pushing in the right direction.
KM: Absolutely. So you would have been pushing the sled down the hill I would be pushing the sled up the hill, which is much harder.
DH: If you are pushing in the wrong direction, you should stop.
KM: Exactly. Exactly. So, it was a very difficult learning lesson because I lost everything and I mean, literally everything. I lost a wife and children that I raised, my stepchildren. I lost a home, I lost a business. I lost everything and that’s when you really have to come to grips with who you are. And I was literally there at the point of saying, I no longer want to be here. I was there and only through the love and commitment of people, my family, some very dear friends, people helped get me through the most difficult time of my life. And now getting back on my feet and putting all these pieces back together and that’s what this new book is. Who Are You?: After Divorce, Destruction, Depression, Death, Devastation. How do you rebuild that?
DH: So, this is a second book. This is a follow up to, Who Are You?
KM: Who Are You? Yeah. And so people come across difficult situations in their life Devon, that I’m sure you have too, where God throws you a curveball that you just didn’t see coming and I didn’t see it coming and I gave up on everything because I pushed so hard for so long. How could “Mr. Motivation”, America’s Chief Motivational Officer, how could I fail at being married and having kids? How could I fail at having this beautiful family and this big home and the cars and the travel, how could I fail and still try and give advice to people? It was incongruent to me. I felt like I’d be a phony that I couldn’t be Mr. Motivation anymore but then it took a lot of love and a lot of people to say hey, listen you’re still Mr. Motivation. She’s the one that she wasn’t Mrs. Motivation, she was just this other person. You’re the one that has to show the way now.
DH: Kevin, how does that you think relates to this business of self-actualization and becoming more self-aware? You spoke about the kid, 18 years old, six-pack Joe, right, who may have terrible grades and is immoral, et cetera, et cetera but as an athlete, he or she is self-actualized, as a person, as you’re growing through life and you are in fact inspiring people, you created the motivation and inspiration day. So from that perspective, I would say you’re self-actualized and then you discover that certainly in your personal life, you are nowhere near being self-actualized. How do those two relate? The self-actualization, the self-awareness.
KM: Devon, once again, as you know, in a lot of people we know the experiences in their lives if you have from the time you’re 18, the kid with the perfect body, right? Who is self-actualized physically, if everything he or she does from high school to adulthood is a success. Everything they do is a success. Did they really learn lessons? Where are the lessons learned? And unfortunately…
DH: They’re not learning much, and they’re not becoming emotionally resilient and tough.
KM: Sure. Exactly. So I think, and I hate to say devastation teaches us lessons, but we’re talking about potentially as an example, the young African-American kid that comes out of an inner-city and makes a success of their life. Maybe it’s having a gun drawn on them, or maybe it’s being beaten up by a gang, or maybe it’s somehow saying, you know what, I’ve got to get out of here. Maybe it’s the motivation of a single mom raising three or four kids and he’s trying to do it for his mom. And you see that so much with so many players in the NFL. It’s like, “I did it for my mom. I got out and I was successful for my mom.” So what’s that motivational thing that drives the butt, the catalyst? And unfortunately in my case, even at a later age in my life, devastation changed perspective and helped growth.
It helped growth because somehow, whether I’m Irish or whether I’m stubborn or I wasn’t learning the lessons I needed to learn as much as I was trying to be this man, this vision of this man that was successful, I was struggling with the burden, the American burden of, well, you’ve got to drive the right car, you’ve got to have the right house, you’ve got to do the right things and travel, and you have to have this much money. That pressure was frankly too much for me and so it broke me. And now coming out of the ashes, right? Like Phoenix out of the ashes, there are so many stories and history about wonderful things coming out of devastation and destruction and for those of us as human beings that have had to come out of devastating circumstances, we have to see that as an amazing opportunity, an amazing gift and because I’m a religious person, I see it as a gift from God, an opportunity for me every day to have an attitude of gratitude, to be thankful for the opportunities God has given me. And that gives me perspective so that I can continue to do what I do because I do believe it’s a gift. And though you and I have not spent much time together, you are an incredibly gifted and wonderful man. Your articulation, your thought process, and the way you give. You are an amazing human being and I’m so glad that we’re having this opportunity.
DH: Indeed. Thank you so much. So, what you’re saying is that, look, life is going to give you a sunshine, but there’s going to be some rain sprinkled in there as well and maybe the rains might turn into floods and you might end up losing everything but what you’re saying is that somewhere inside of you though is the ability to still rise above that to not just meet those lower needs but to become the best version of yourself.
KM: And sometimes tragedy or being tested in a way that you never thought you’d be tested is what creates it. Because you wouldn’t be that human being unless the tragedy or the difficulty happened. So that’s where you really do have to appreciate your strengths, your ability to make it through the difficulty and then continue to feed yourself positive, nurturing messages rather than, I suck, I failed, this was my… So if you start to beat yourself up and really devastate yourself, then that’s a trajectory downward that can lead to really bad stuff. Drugs, alcohol, abuse. To feed yourself positive messaging, to listen to motivational, inspirational materials, to have faith in God, to have your faith, whatever God that might be, I don’t care who it is, to believe that you’re here and you’re trying to fulfill your mission as a human being. I think that can lead you to the right place.
DH: Indeed. And we all have that ability. It sucks when those tough times reach us. When we start experiencing those challenges, it’s never fun going through it, but absolutely recognizing that there is a lesson to be learned and the fact that we have the ability and the potential to come out even stronger on the other end is something that we should embrace. So, you’re working on another book, what else are you working on these days, Kevin?
KM: So, I have three things that I’m working on now. Two books that I’m working on, the trilogy of Who Are You? The next one is, Who Are You?: Recovering from Divorce, Depression, Devastation, Destruction and Death. So that should be out in January. And then the next version of that I’m really excited about because like yourself incredibly successful athletes, I’m speaking with a number of athletes and they’re going to be a series of interviews and it’s going to be called Who Are You Now? But it’s for athletes after being athletes. For so many young adults, young men they’re athletes until they’re 16, 17, 18 years old and the level of competition changes and they realize, well, I can’t make the varsity team or I’m not going to be able to play sports in college because I’m just not good enough. So that realization makes them say, look, I would love to be a baseball player and be in the major leagues but I know it’s not going to happen so I’m going to focus on being an accountant, a lawyer, a good student, whatever it is that other mission is. But then there’s another group of guys like myself that I was a very good soccer player in college. I was an all-state player. I was one of the leaders of my team and my conference and there was that next level. There was the dream of the next level. And so even for me, I just barely made it. I played professional, semi-professional soccer for a year. And it was funny at that point in time the NASL, which was the professional league that the Cosmos played in and the Rowdies played in that league went under my junior year going into my senior year. So there really wasn’t a professional league anymore. And I had hoped to play for the Rochester Lancers. I was hoping that I was going to be like my brothers. I have three brothers that played in the NASL, so I just thought like, I would just follow their lead and unfortunately, that opportunity disappeared. So I played in New York City in the super league for a year. And it was every weekend you’d show up and they’d be like you’re supposed to be paid 300 bucks a game. It’s like, oh, we don’t have any money, or oh, here’s 50 bucks, or here’s a hundred bucks and if you have a great game like, oh, here’s the 300 bucks, so, obviously, you can’t do that for very long. So, then I ended up having to end what my dream was and go get a real job. But even the most successful athletes, and I have friends that were superstars that played in major league baseball and soccer in America and actually, football. But even the most successful were done by the time they were 25, 30. You’re still young men, at 30 years old, you still have another 60 years or 50 years of life. What are you going to do with the rest of that? So that’s what the interviews are, is, hey, how did you recreate yourself? How did you re-brand yourself? What were your choices when you stopped playing ball? Some have great choices, some don’t have some great choices. And then finally, I’m working on a documentary, which is the most important piece of work I’ll ever do in my life. It’s called The Light of Man. It’s about man’s relationship with God and God’s relationship with man and I’m hoping to have it completed and ready for the Hampton’s film festival next year.
DH: Awesome. So it sounds like you’re a busy man. Congratulations and good luck with all the work.
KM: Thank you.
DH: So Kevin, are you still speaking?
KM: Yes, I still speak.
DH: Of course, you are, right? So where do we find you if someone wanted a taste of Mr. Motivation themselves?
KM: So you can go to the website. So my website is simply just www.kevinmccrudden.com. My contact information is there, my website there, my speaking video is there, my email is there. So that’s the easiest way to get in contact with me.
DH: Awesome. So the only motivational speaker in America to have created a day of recognition, motivation, and inspiration day, January 2nd. So we are celebrating that we’re recording before, but this will be aired on January 2nd, motivation and inspiration day. And in New York, it’s motivation month in January. All the creation of the incredible Kevin McCrudden. Dude, you’ve been awesome. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your insights on Keep on Pushing.
KM: Devon, thank you so much for having me. You’re a great man. Thank you so much for having me on your show.
DH: Thank you for being on.
KM: All right. God bless. Thank you.
