God’s Plan

What a Cardiac Arrest, a Cycling Accident, and 30 Years of Leadership Taught Kirk McCarley About Getting Unstuck

Ep. #25 With Kirk McCarley

There's a moment that happens to almost everyone eventually. The moment you become "the it person." The crisis lands, the room turns to you, and there's no more time to prepare. You either rise, or you don't.

Kirk McCarley has lived that moment more than once. A retired 30-year human resources executive, ESPN talent statistician, certified executive coach, and author. Kirk’s also a person of faith, husband, father, and grandfather first and foremost. Kirk joined Mark DeLuca on The Find Me Podcast for a conversation that started as a leadership interview and turned into something much bigger, a masterclass in how ordinary people hold steady when everything goes sideways.

For the families we work with at The Find Me Project, and for the volunteers on our Guardian Angel Task Force who carry the weight of searching for the missing, Kirk's story lands close to home. It's about survival. It's about forgiveness. And it's about what to do when you feel, in his word, stuck.

Waking Up to "What's Your Name and Date of Birth"

Twelve years ago, Kirk was working out at the gym where he taught spin class when, in his words, "the world went black." He came to on a stretcher, an EMT asking him his name and birthdate, gym members parting ways in stunned silence. A triple blockage. Bypass surgery scheduled for the next morning. His wife, on the phone from another state, urged him to get a second opinion first. Kirk didn't wait.

"I had a piece at that time that said, I need to take care of this and I don't want to deliberate it. And God, I'm going to put it in your hands. Your will be done."

Five weeks after open-heart surgery, he was back at the gym. Seven weeks later, he was teaching spin class again.

Struck From Behind

If the cardiac event tested his body, the second event tested something deeper. On a routine training ride, Kirk logs roughly 2,000–2,500 miles a year on the bike. He signaled a left turn and was struck from behind by a truck. He doesn't remember the impact. He remembers waking up mid-flight in a medical helicopter, being asked, once again, his name and date of birth. Five broken ribs. A concussion. Sixteen stitches. A separated shoulder and a partially torn rotator cuff. He was discharged after three days. What happened next is the part of the story that stays with you. Two days after the crash, something in Kirk, he calls it a prompt from the Holy Spirit, pushed him to look up the police report and call the driver who hit him.

"I'm the guy you hit," he told him.

The driver, a 30-year military veteran, was struggling badly with what had happened. Kirk didn't hesitate, tell him it was an accident. I forgive you totally. He describes it as a release of tension for both of them. One that mattered so much to the driver's wife that the two couples have since had lunch together, and the evening of our conversation, were having dinner at Kirk's home.

"It is not me at all," Kirk says. "It's the power of God and the Holy Spirit who used me as a conduit... the power of forgiveness. To not only the person who is forgiven, but the forgiver, was such a release.”

The Night Kerrville Flooded

Long before he became a coach, Kirk was a young HR professional who'd casually agreed to be the backup public information officer for a small Texas community's emergency plan, a favor he figured he'd never actually have to fulfill.

On July 17, 1987, he got the call at 4 a.m. The Guadalupe River had come out of its banks in Kerrville, Texas. Roughly 30 campers were trapped, some clinging to trees. National media, the Associated Press, CNN all already converging, and Kirk was suddenly the person in front of the cameras.

"I had no idea what I was doing," he says. But instinct kicked in. He briefed the press and then asked the news helicopters if they'd help search for survivors once the interview wrapped. All hands on deck.

He describes what he saw that night as "organized chaos". Police, swift-water rescue teams, and emergency personnel moving almost instinctively into roles no one had time to assign. Lives were saved. Some were lost.

It's a story that resonates deeply with the search-and-rescue work our Guardian Angel Task Force volunteers train for. The same instinct, the same organized chaos, the same need to trust your training when the moment arrives without warning.

"When you're in that moment," Kirk says, "trust yourself. Trust God. Trust your instincts."

The Word Is "Stuck" and the Cure Is "Move"

Asked what he sees holding high performers back most often, Kirk didn't hesitate: a five-letter word, stuck. He traced it back to his own struggle with depression decades earlier, and a counselor who told him: "Then God has you exactly where He wants you." Kirk is honest that the words didn't fix anything overnight. But he's returned to that moment, he says, more times than he can count.

His advice for anyone who feels stuck right now, including the families we work with, waiting for answers about a missing loved one, or the volunteers who carry those cases home with them:

“Move. One step. Getting out of bed some mornings is the whole victory. The elephants are big, one bite at a time. Reach out to others. You may be doing more good for them through your outreach than they are doing for you."

Why This Conversation Belongs Here

At The Find Me Project, we sit with families in the hardest moments of their lives. Moments with no clear resolution, no roadmap, and no guarantee of an answer. Kirk's story doesn't offer easy fixes. It offers something more honest, proof that people come back from the moments that black out the world, that forgiveness can disarm even the most senseless collisions, and that when your turn comes to be "the it person," the training and the faith carries you further than you think.

As Kirk put it, closing out the conversation: "God has placed you in this position for a reason."

---

Kirk McCarley is an executive and career coach, ESPN talent statistician, and author of Thoughts for My Kids (and Other People's Kids). Find him at theseedsowercoach.com and kirkmcarleyauthor.com.

This conversation originally aired on The Find Me Podcast, hosted by Mark DeLuca, founder of The Find Me Project.