154 | Courageous Career Changes: Embracing Uncertainty and New Beginnings with Pastor & Coach Chris McCormick

This is becoming undone. Um, Gardner Webb was like everything I ever wanted in the job. And it was like, it wasn't what I wanted to be. And it turned out the way I wanted to be. And that kind of gave me one of those moments of, well, then what is the next thing that I actually want? If I've gotten what I wanted from a job position. So that kind of sent me reeling. I was March of 2020 going to tell our staff and everybody I'm leaving. And we were at the conference USA tournament and COVID shut everything down. So it essentially made me go home with my family for the first time. And was like, okay, I'm forced to sit here essentially and try to figure out what is the Lord maybe calling me to. And that's where the idea of church planting and being able to talk to other people really came from. What is this actually what I'm even supposed to be doing? Like I have these skills. So it took a lot of unwinding of then realizing how much my identity was actually wrapped up as the coach and inevitably led to the leading coaching in July of 2021. And since we're going into full-time ministry, I'm Chris McCormick. I am undone. Hey, friend, I'm glad you're here. Welcome to yet another episode of Becoming Undone. The podcast for those who dare bravely risk mightily and grow relentlessly. I'm Toby Brooks, the speaker, author, professor and performance scientist. I spent much of the last two decades working as an athletic trainer and strength coach in the professional collegiate and high school sports settings. And over the years, I've grown more and more fascinated with what sets high achievers apart and how those failures that can absolutely suck in the moment can end up being exactly the push we needed to propel us along our paths to success. Each week on Becoming Undone, I invite new guests to examine how high achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place. I'd like to emphasize that this show is entirely separate from my role at Baylor University, but it's my attempt to apply what I've learned and what I'm learning and to share with others about the mindsets of high achievers. This week's conversation has been a long time coming. My guest is Chris McCormick. He's a former Division I strength and condition coach who cut his teeth first at Gardner Webb University, then Florida Atlantic. And as he rose in the ranks, he lived the grind that so many in our field know all too well. Long hours, low pay and a relentless pursuit of a dream that always felt just one step ahead. But somewhere along the way, that dream started to crack and what followed was a pivot that few could have seen coming. Today, Chris is the lead pastor at Reliant Church. And in this conversation, we unpack what it looks like when your identity is tied to what you do, when burnout forces hard questions, and when purpose pulls you in an entirely different direction. If you've ever wrestled with the tension between calling, career, and the cost of chasing both, this one's going to hit close to home. I hope you'll enjoy my conversation with Pastor Chris McCormick in episode 154. Let's get into it. Greetings and welcome back. Becoming Undone is a podcast for those who dare bravely risk mightily and grow relentlessly. Join me, Toby Brooks, as I invite a new guest each week, where we examine how high achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place. This week, this one's been quite a while coming. Chris McCormick reached out to me through LinkedIn. A lot of parallel, we'll call it concerns, between athletic trainers and string conditioning coaches, and particularly in division one sports. Chris today is lead pastor at Reliant Church. But prior to that, kind of in another life, he was the director of Olympic sports at Florida Atlantic University, where he was a strength conditioning coach with aspirations of maybe one day being an AD. So we'll get into that later. But Chris, thanks so much for joining me tonight. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I know we've scheduled this one a couple of times and some tech issues tonight, but this is our time. This was when we were supposed to have this conversation. So I'm looking forward to getting into it. There's lots of times athletic trainers and strength and conditioning specialists have athletic histories of their own, and I assume that's you too. So I always start with a little bit of a softball. What did you want to be growing up and why? Yeah, that's a good question. I feel like I've changed my profession at least three times in my whole career. Initially, I wanted to be a Ph.D. expression. When I was in high school, that was something that I aspired to do. I got into undergrad and went the whole pre-med route and I don't know if this is truly for me. So one of my first passions was sport, playing football and baseball and swimming, different sports in high school. So as I went down the route of teaching and looking into teaching specifically in high school and conditioning, I fell in love with history but also psychology, and that's where my bachelor's is actually in. So even before my coaching career, I was working on my Ph.D. in Neural Psychology. I got my master's and I left that essentially track to go into coaching, primarily football and then transition into strength and conditioning. So kind of dig divergent across that growing up. Yeah, so you ultimately find yourself working at a Division I university where you're a strength and conditioning specialist. That is a job that if you haven't done it, it's kind of hard to really fully appreciate the grind and the hours, the low pay. Before we get to that, who was Chris McCormick when he was just a strength coach chasing that profession? What did you love about that world? Oh man, I've been out of this for four years. So even looking back, I've had some recent conversations with colleagues of things we love and things we're glad we're not who I was. I mean, I was the go-getter, the go a thousand miles an hour. I used to be made fun of by our ATs. The gym flooring you have with our athletic shoes, I'd be, you hear me squeaking down the kind of the hallway because I was moving so fast to the next thing. And I was just all about what is the next little thing that would lead to that 1% that would lead to success for our student athletes and every single thing that would be incorporated with high performance or any of that. I wasn't thrilled with that. That was my goal. That's where you talk about athletic administration. What's the little things that we can do so we could see the numbers on the scoreboard change and see our athletes be successful? And that's, I mean, who I was, I think I was a coach more than anything. Well, I know that for people that haven't lived in that environment, that culture can be surprising to a lot of people. And I know it varies from place to place, even, I mean, in the same place. If you get a coaching change with the head football coach, the culture can change overnight. But for those that maybe aren't as familiar, what does that lifestyle demand of you? And what was it like when you found yourself kind of nostrils deep in a career as a strength and conditioning coach? Yeah. The only thing I can maybe attribute to is military families understand. And it's unlike any job where there's so many imaginary expectations. I think that we put ourselves more than anybody, especially from a support staff perspective. You could easily take the blame, but you don't get the praise as much. And just the sheer hours when I was at Garga Web University, a private Christian school in North Carolina, I was the director of athletic performance. I'd trade football and basketball primarily traveled with both. So there was times where I would get home from a basketball game, we played Liberty four hours away. I'd get back to North Carolina, we'd get off the bus at 2am and we'd have football at 5 30 in the morning. And it was just like, I'd taken that, drink some coffee, go work out and go right back in. And that was a constant, constant thing. Well, Chris is describing here, sadly, is true for so many, especially young professionals trying to make their way in college sports. They're eager to grow and learn and move up. Lured as much by the enhanced salary and the recognition as by the opportunity to work with more and more elite athletes. Whether strength coaches, athletic trainers, equipment managers, media personnel, academic support, all types of others. What Chris is describing in detail here isn't just an isolated example. For many, it's daily life for months or even years on end. For anybody in that space, it can be a difficult tension between going all in and carving your path and burning out, looking for ways to support yourself and your family and be present in their lives. Chris was already starting to exact toll early in his career at D1 Gardener Web. Those dreams and ambitions were still propelling him forward to another step on his journey before he ultimately faced the realities that he could no longer continue to be the strength coach, the husband and the dad that he wanted to be all at the same time. If you don't love every single thing about it, you will get swallowed up. Everybody talks about grinding and even now at ministry, I'm like, sports is a different realm. If you're not about that life, then you'll get chewed up and spit out. I heard you talking about a little bit, so yeah. Yeah, I oftentimes reflect back to my time at Liberty, actually, and I shared with my wife. I said, you know, I want to work in the NFL or be in a Power Five and the grind and the hours, it just is what it is. There's no way around that. And I realized that that grind was pulling me away from my family. Well, the other side of that was we were also almost in poverty. I was the head football athletic trainer making $36,000 a year. And I just couldn't reconcile that anymore that my family is losing my time and we're suffering financially. And at a place like Liberty, at a Gardner Web where it's a Christian institution, lots of times, it was the running joke. Like this is a ministry, so that means they're going to pay you about 20% less than the market rate or more. And it was just, it was kind of a perfect storm of guilt for me as the leader of my family, feeling like I was failing my athletes, I was failing my family, I wasn't the provider. When that starts to accumulate on your shoulders, what was your thought process at that point? I mean, for most people, they might look at a second career, but planting a church maybe isn't necessarily the direction a lot of people go. Although, I mean, I would argue that your career as a strength and conditioning coach probably prepped you well because anything else feels like a part-time job. Yeah, I mean, it's funny you say that because even now looking back, being a pastor, having the title, the struggles of identity and stuff that coaches have, you just slap pastor on that. It's the same thing. I mean, at least in strength and conditioning, we can formulaically take sports science and get like A plus B equals C in the spiritual realm. I can do all the right things, but we're just like, I'm completely different with it. So if I want to find identity in this, that's a terrible place to find it as much as coaching, but it is funny like in Garger Webb, similar story of just, you know, it's a blessing and it's a ministry. It was my dream job. I wanted to work at a division one Christian school, and it really kind of turned into me. I'm only almost the antithesis of everything that I wanted to be in coaching and you begin to red tape and draw lines between people and animosity and all those things. So coaching is just a unique aspect of that too, because you get to do something you love that a lot of people that maybe are ditch diggers that make a lot of money that actually take their job. And you get to do something you love, you get compensated for it very well. And I think that's just a huge piece where some people do make a lot of money, but you only can do so much and wear that badge of honor on your chest. I'm like, I'm doing this with the kids and it's like, yeah, but I also have kids at home. I have a family that's growing and my wife stayed home most of the time. So I have no idea how we even survived in that. Our story is very similar to the style of what we're essentially you can say. I don't know how we even made it with the salary even on my wife staying home. But I think it just, it goes to show just the badge of honor that we try to wear, especially to support staff. You see other people being compensated in a certain way, especially in a Christian context. If you talk about liberty or gargoyle, your mission field, your calling, but there is a point where it just becomes, it may not be sustainable. And I think financially and also emotionally and socially and all of those things. And that is such a huge wrestle, especially as a young professional of when is enough and when do you move on. And I think some of the things that you've talked about in your sphere. Yeah, I know liberty, Garner, you feel like you're right on the threshold of your dreams. And it's like, if I could just hold on just a little bit longer, if my coach makes it big and takes me with him, but you never know. So it's like, and my wife and I have had this conversation, I assume you and yours have as well. Like, do we have to endure this for six more months or six more years or 10 more years? Am I never going to get there? And it's just so hard. I mean, if you're running a marathon and you know how many miles are ahead of you, you can pace yourself. But in this decision, you just have no way of knowing how long do I have to endure this. And it's just so tough. At what point did the job stop being something you loved and start becoming maybe something that you felt like was just too much? Yeah, I mean, I think the time at Gargare Web was a huge piece of that. Like I said, I was traveling basketball and football. I was taking on teams. We had 20s, 20s sports there. I'd have maybe a couple of GEAs, maybe an assistant. And there was turnover there because of just factors and people getting better jobs. And, you know, if you're running Peter to pay Paul so you can train one team, but you got to train all the other things that comes with it. You know, I loved the managerial side of being a director and in helping coaches and seeing them grow. But there was also the aspect with football and basketball. I was around a lot of successful basketball teams. And I think that eventually kind of became my niche. But also for our family, it was just like, I can't do this travel. And that's where I began exploring other jobs. And that's where when I transitioned to Florida Atlantic, I wasn't traveling. I was more on the Olympic side. There wasn't as much of the demand. And it really allowed me to kind of go back into that level of coaching. Plus living on the beach is obviously an excellent, excellent benefit. But like I said, Gargare Web was like everything I ever wanted in the job. And it was like, it wasn't what I wanted it to be. And it turned out the way I wanted it to be. And that kind of gave me one of those moments of, well, then what is the next thing that I actually want? If I've gotten what I wanted from a job position, so that kind of sent me reeling. Sent me reeling. That's such a precise and descriptive turn of phrase. Here, Chris acknowledges the confusion and the doubt and the fear that flood in when you finally get everything you thought you ever wanted. And yet you still find yourself unhappy, perhaps even miserable when you get there. For so many, we don't have the ability to cut the line and try a role like that on. It takes years of experience, multiple degrees, countless professional credentials and licenses. And when you stop and consider the possibility that you were all wrong about how that dream role or job or business would make you feel, many times you grieve. And you grieve more than one thing, all while still trying to do the job. I would say for me personally, first I grieved the mistake. It was saddening for me to admit that the job I'd spent years chasing was not only not making me happy, it was in fact making me miserable. And all on a popper's salary. And secondly, I grieved the sunk cost, like we'll talk about in a minute. Years of life, in some cases, tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars get poured in to make you eligible, only to arrive and discover that you didn't really want it after all. And that grief can linger. Many times it grows. And in the midst of that purpose storm, I found myself frequently asking, what the heck was next? What I didn't see and what Chris didn't see in the driving downpours of that storm was that those experiences had shaped us in ways that an easier path simply couldn't have. Just like training can trigger adaptations in your body to be stronger, faster and have more endurance, surviving seasons of life like that builds grit and determination, work ethic and resolve if we let it. For Chris, he found himself at Florida Atlantic, but increasingly dissatisfied with the life that he was choosing. And he could have either remained there or make a change. He made a change. We'll be back after this quick message. We ever looked in the mirror and thought, what in the hell just happened to my life when the career shifts, when the relationship ends, when the identity you've built your whole life around disappears overnight. That's not failure. That's what I call a purpose storm. And most high achievers aren't prepared for it because no one ever taught us how to train for a comeback. I'm Dr. Toby Brooks and I built the science of the comeback for people who refuse to stay broken. Inside the app, you'll find research backed resilience training, daily prompts and guided reflection tools, performance psychology frameworks, identity rebuilding exercises and personalized structured pathways to move from burnout and confusion to clarity and momentum. It's not hype. It's neuroscience. It's performance science and it's hard won experience. If you're listening to Becoming Undone, I created a special offer just for you. For the next three months, you can get full access for just 49 bucks for an entire year or just five bucks a month with no obligation. You can cancel it anytime. That's less than the price of a cup of coffee to start rebuilding your life on purpose. Your comeback is an accidental. It's intentional. Start yours today at scienceofthecumback.com. Going to FAU. Changed a lot because that was around COVID and kind of all those things that factor in. Yeah. Wow. Our stories have so many parallels. When I left Liberty, we went and spent part of a season in Fort Myers with an Arena 2 football team. And same thing, like mornings on the beach. Working Arena Ball was like the best job I've ever had, especially Arena 2 because they all had day jobs. So while they were at work, the family and I could go be on the beach, but the problem is you only get paid for six months out of the year. So that wasn't sustainable either. Was there a moment when you realized like something has to change or this is going to break me? What happened? Yeah. I think it was early on, even at FAU, I had a great situation. I worked for the head coach, Dusty May, who's at Michigan. He hired me at FAU. You start meeting certain people or you're talking about the coaches. You're like, this is the person. Like this is the person that if there would be success, I would love to stay with and work with. But there's a lot of factors, especially with my own faith that we're impacted of. Our family began to be involved with foster care adoption. So we were having children come into our home. We were involved more with our church and that balance of even if I wasn't traveling and whatnot, there's still a demand with, you know, essentially directing a department and all the sports and all the games and all of those things. I was like, I just don't know if I can do both of these things at a high level and having a young family. I was like, what's the what's the give or take here? And some of those external factors really drove me eventually towards ministry where I'm at indirectly, I think. But it also kind of put me in a position to where the breaking part, I can talk more a little bit about this, like the undone part, eventually turned me into the, I think the best version of the coach I was because it kind of just made me not care as much about the things that I thought were so important. And again, some freedom after I passed that point of like, I can't do this anymore, which is really interesting now looking back of how that path leading into coaching and now into ministry. So you're a believer, we really didn't get into your testimony, but you're working at a face based institution. You go to a state school. At what point does ministry as a potential vocation start to come into the equation and when did you really feel that call on your life and subsequently when did you surrender to it? Yeah. So it was right around the time we started foster parent adoption. So the school we're at Gardner Web at basketball coach and his wife were involved with foster care. My wife was tremendously involved with that. I was traveling, I was always like, you know, I don't have enough time, even though he was kind of doing it, they didn't have that excuse. Then we moved to South Florida. The church we were going to was like the hub for foster parent adoption in Palm Beach County. And so the more I was exposed to it, the more this became there wasn't an excuse anymore. I was like, this is this, this is what I think we're getting called to. And my wife was specifically the one that was kind of chanting. So as I got more involved with some of those things outside of sport, that balance piece became okay. What does this actually look like for our future? We had two young kids, we were in the process of adopting a child out of foster care, which we did adopt. And so even as I talked to more pastors that I had, I mean, I moved 17 times in my marriage because of coaching. It just wasn't sure something we went to a lot of people are like, have you ever thought about ministry? And I'm like, why don't want to be a pastor? Like I just, I'm looking maybe for something else outside of strength and conditioning. If that was athletic administration or ministry. And so I began exploring FCA and kind of seeing like what that would look like. My wife's been ours from Indiana where we live right now. And I thought I hadn't lined up. I thought that it's gonna be SCA start fundraising and literally like I was March of 2020 going to tell our staff and everybody I'm leaving. And we were at the conference USA tournament and COVID shut everything down. So it essentially made me go home with my family for the first time and was like, okay, I'm forced to sit here essentially and try to figure out what is the Lord maybe calling me to. And that's where the idea of church planting and being able to talk to other people really came from. And there was a slippage of time as we were home and then coming back to sport and all those things. But it was around that time. So it was a very unique time for us as a roll group members and that really led to me leading coaching in July of 2021 and essentially going into full time ministry. Yeah. I know I've heard this time and time again from students who leave the profession of AT in particular. You've invested so much time and money getting degrees and certifications. And the idea of sunk cost is a real thing. Like, am I just going to abandon this? Am I going to just walk away when I may be on the doorstep of my dreams? Yeah. But ultimately, you made that decision. You pivoted and moved in another direction professionally. Leaving a career that you're invested in for years isn't easy. What did it take emotionally and spiritually for you to walk away from that world? Yeah. I think early on for me, it was easy because there was such an excitement about it. I think this new venture of jumping out. I mean, somebody coaching jobs and things. You don't know somebody you may have a network. You leave in a week later to go to the next job. We always had that element in our family of like life can change and die. We would jump out of an opportunity. Going into ministry is such a unique thing because we were moving home. But I still have no idea sometimes what I'm doing because I had over a decade of ventured training and expertise in all of those things. So early on, I could wipe the clean and get into the seasons. You start seeing things. But really, it was probably about a year or two into ministry where everything kind of dies down. And then even, I mean, I left FAU and FAU went to the file for. I'm a real sit with you. Let's see what happens. Game on the line. Forest. Cash right through the heart. Three point game. Kansas State now needs a three to tie it. Clock ticks. No elbows. He's looking for someone. Masoud got to put it up. And that's it. The Owls of Florida Atlantic. They are headed to the final four. And it was like, you were part of that. So then you see that and you're like, oh man, what could be? And then you get people calling about opportunities and jobs that are really good jobs that I had a couple opportunities. And it's like, what is this actually what I'm even supposed to be doing? Like I have these skills. So it took a lot of unwinding of then realizing how much my identity was actually wrapped up as being a coach. Even if I talk to people about it and people that were like, wow, that's really cool that you used to do that. And people want to talk to me about it and how easy that I see it as a pastor now, but just the term coach is like, people claim to that is cool to talk about. And I thought I had a lot better luck on it. And I did not. And even seeing now more because of the amount of guys I talked to in the profession still that are struggling with that, even though they're still in it. It's a real thing. And I don't know how much you struggled with that in the role you're in now when you could even look sometimes and be like, you go to a game or something. You're like, this is awesome. And then it's like, you like snap out and like, what's that? Oh, no, no, that's not what I'm doing. Right. Yeah. Yeah. The FOMO is real. And, you know, for me, game days were tough, but just the day in and day out, the relationships with the student athletes was just something that was irreplaceable. For me, I went more into a teaching role and that became my relationships with my students and, you know, pouring into them. And for you, it's parishioners and members of your church. Yeah. One thing I always try to share with my students who are considering making a pivot out of in particular, a lot of them in the college ranks are just rung out. They are, you know, they're poor and they're burned out and they're ready for something different. And I always try to reassure them that you're not abandoning a skill set. What you've learned in that setting actually applies in a whole heck of a lot of places and it will make you a tremendous asset to a lot of organizations because you've got to work ethic that few people on earth actually possess. And learning to live on such a meager amount can mean, you know, if you get a little bump in your salary, it's great. How did your experience as a strength conditioning coach shape the way that you now approach ministry and even leadership? Yes, that's a great question. The amount of times you can ask my wife that I would sit at the end of the day and be like, why in the world would the Lord call me into this? Like into pastoring, into preaching and all the intricacies of people knowing what full-time ministry is. I think it's been the last six months that I've begun to see more as I get to know people more because it's the relational piece of even the title of pastor versus a coach. And I'm sure like if you went back in the athletic training room, it's like back to your hand, you just go right back into every single thing, how you talked and all those things you did. But as a pastor, I've worked in the physical development side of things, physical preparation. And now I am in a spiritual preparation side of things. And I think from the elements of depending on what the logical people believe, there's a quote that graces not opposed to effort, it's opposed to earning. And there's effort required in the Christian life. And there's the disciplines and spiritual disciplines. The more you get to know people and realize there is an opportunity, you cannot control the growth, but you can cultivate the environment to which you're in. And that's what I used to do physically. And I'm seeing that more as a pastor of helping other people grow and pushing them in different ways and seeing things in their life. And I mean, that's kind of what I'm called to do. You will separate it because it's a coach versus it's not the same thing. It's like, but there is so much element in that. And I think it's blending together more of my coach and my pastor roles coming together. And I feel more comfortable now because I don't feel as much as an imposter of like, am I doing this right? And that's me coming out in my role now. And I think there's just a lot more authenticity because I have 10, 12 years of being like that and doing certain things that does transfer with people because it's relationships. That's really what it is. And yeah, I mean, it's funny. Yeah, that question because it's more clicked with me now over the past six months than probably the four years I've been in ministry. And it's like, this is almost my niche. Like, I think this is what I've called to the specific thing with ministry. And it's very helpful in church planning where you get certain kinds of people come to our church. So yeah, it's been very interesting in the past few months. Yeah, that's great. I appreciate that insight. Again, we're talking with Chris McCormick. He's the lead pastor at Reliant Church and former strength conditioning coach in Division One. Are there specific lessons you learned in the weight room that show up in your preaching or your pastoral work now? I know we talk kind of generalities in leadership, but are there any specific things that you carried right over? Yeah, I mean, I think one thing I've been reminding you of that I've learned lately over the past few months is you can go into the gut. You can go into the gospel as we look at the parable of the silver. And you can invest in poor seed in certain places. But in the parable, there's only one sport that that soil produces fruit. You can put effort and put time and put all of these things into certain soils or even you would say certain people. And the ones that really do want to grow, those are the exciting ones. It's just like the athletes that are all in on nutrition and everything holistically, they're ready to go. And that's really exciting. It's really hard with those that aren't about the work and all those different things. And I've seen that more from as a coach going into the church where you sometimes just get a pipe dream that everybody wants to grow. And everybody wants these things. But if you've ever been in a weight room or a church, you realize that is not the case even though people say it. And I think that's when it's used things for me is you got to spend time with the people that really do want the very things that they say they want. And you got to be careful with spending time and investing my time as someone who spent a lot of time in sport and doing a lot of different things. It is very similar ministry where I can invest my time in a lot of things that doesn't matter ultimately. I think that's been huge for me because again, that's a relational piece that I've taken from coaching. But now I see in ministry ever more because it's really hard and it's not. I used to say all the time it's not for everybody. It's truly not like it. And I think that's a very good parallel I've seen from the sports side to ministry. Yeah. One thing I've been trying to kind of catch up on, I mean, I'm not in an athletic training setting and I'm not working as a strength conditioning coach, but I'm definitely interested in the sports science and all the data, you know, things that really didn't exist when I was working clinically, the catapult data and force plate data and, you know, so many things that are measurable. And a lot of places are collecting data, but what are they doing with it? And I see that parallel in the work that I do today. If it matters, it needs to be measured, but measuring it isn't enough. We want to make data informed decisions. Have you seen that carry over into your work? You're not that far removed from the field. So data science was a pretty big thing a few years ago and continues to grow. Do you see that in your work today? Yeah. I mean, I think the question is, is what are we truly measuring with even in the context of spirituality in the church? Because in the church, we usually we jump and measure budgets and whatever the other V is inside. That's what we expect. And some of the other things are very hard quantitatively or qualitatively to actually measure. Even in the way you're vertical, your squat numbers, all those things can go up and you still can be really terrible on the field. And I can still get fires for it. Or I can have we can tag team together support staff and there's no non contact injuries and then add a drop with the hat. Someone fires us because they don't like us anymore. So you have all this data and it's like, but is the data actually forming some of the decisions to which you're going to make? And I think that's really hard from a discipleship standpoint too, because then it's like the measuring of growth is a lot easier in the league than it is in a spiritual realm. And that takes more time. The hard thing with sport is if you don't get results, you're gone. Well, how do we measure that within the church setting too? Because you can't hold them in like us early and I'm all the numbers, but then nothing happens within the church and the Lord has not decided to do anything with what you put together in your perfect plan. So that's for me and being an Excel like kind of person. It's like, well, I can have a sweet plan, but that doesn't mean it's actually going to work. So I think data is helpful. The question is are we even asking the right question? Yeah, so you collect a lot of data and not actually be solving the right problems. And I think that's inevitable in any profession, obviously, because then we can justify, since we buy with metrics and things like that, of why we're doing a good job and not get any results. Yeah. I know in working with athletes, the notion of high decibel motivation comes up and you know, not very pastoral to kick somebody in the pants when they're underperforming or not growing. But man, sometimes it sure would be nice. Yeah. I don't know how much you trust me from the spiritual sense of leading you, but I can definitely physically and straightening additionally, in a sense, we do. But I can't put my certain hats on certain environments. I shifted to the shepherd now. I can't be as much as maybe would work in another environment. Yeah. If there's a strength coach or an athletic trainer who's listening right now who is feeling that same pressure and that burnout that you once felt, what would you want them to hear? Yeah. It's almost like I was talking to myself on May of two years ago. I mean, I think something I've thought about a lot lately, such as conversations with younger professionals, being a safer person, I guess, than talk to who's not in the field is this idea that, you know, wherever you're at in your career, you know, pressure in whatever it is, whatever you're putting on yourself, the surrounding profession is putting on you, your boss over to pressure is going to essentially expose what's forming you. And once we figure that out, it might be a good thing or a bad thing. And I think that's where identity, I think this idea of who you are, and that's going to eventually lead to what you do. And what you do is eventually going to lead to your behavior and how you live. And if you can't pinpoint some of those things, you might be going down a road that you have no idea that you're actually going down. And if that's burnout, that's a fruit of probably bad roots. A fruit of bad roots. I need to take a minute here and I want you to take a minute here. And together, let's consider what Chris means when he says that the path to burnout can be a fruit of bad roots. When I was little, I grew up on a small farm in rural Southern Illinois. We had 38 acres and about five of that had been fenced off in this huge yard. There was a pond, massive swing set that had been built there from telephone poles. It looked like it was about three stories tall to me and lots and lots of trees. As a kid, I used to despise mowing that yard. It usually took me five or six hours just to do a terrible job with no raking and no weed trimming. You had those things in and do it right and it was an all day deal. What made it the worst was the number of trees that we had. Although I had this rickety old riding lawnmower that got worse every season, every year, every summer, it was a dinosaur era non-zero turn. Mowing around a tree on an old school riding lawnmower can be hard. And trying to get as close to that trunk as possible, more than once, those low hanging branches that I'd tried to duck under, they swept me right off the seat and onto the ground as that mower kept chugging right along. By far the worst trees to mow around were the few fruit trees that we had. A couple of apple trees, one pear tree, and what I'd eventually learned was a crab apple tree. Now stick with me here, I promise I'm getting somewhere with this story. Now you can eat crab apples, I literally had to just Google that because even at my age, decades after this story happened, I wasn't sure. Google says you can't. As a kid, I'd eaten off of our apple tree. They were a little bit bigger, they looked just like what we bought from the store, but nearby that crab apple tree had similar looking but smaller fruit. So I always just thought, oh, they're just not ripe yet. So one day while I was mowing, curiosity got the best of me. And one of those little crab apples dropped in my lap and I thought, what the heck, and I took a bite. And if you've ever tasted a crab apple, you've experienced this, I immediately spit it out. Google also says that the bitter fruit is edible, but it says the seeds can be toxic. I don't know if I ate the seeds or not. But the bottom line is you don't get regular apples from crab apple trees. It wouldn't have mattered what I did. No amount of watering or care or trimming or attention to that tree would have changed the taste or the usefulness of those crab apples. They just weren't apples. And that analogy holds. Far too often, we try to treat the symptoms of what's ailing us. Thinking if we could just get that promotion or that pay raise or that impressive business card that will finally be truly happy, the fruit would be what we wanted. While that bitterness we taste might seem like it's coming from our situation. It's actually deeper than that. It's in the root. And that's what Chris is sharing here. Chris, fortunately, it was a reality that he was able to face early enough in his career that there was still time to pivot. Fortunately, many times when you figure that out, it's too late because you've been putting it off yet and had time all those things. So, I mean, I think one of the biggest pieces of that, you are not your job and you will be replaced in a heart deep. You think you're more important than you really are. So, you need to take care of yourself and you need to have people around you who truly do have your best interests. And when you do have that, I think there's a lot more freedom and the burnout and all of those things won't be as prevalent. Because like I said, it's so easy looking back. The pressures I put on myself that were not even real. It's like I was the one that put it on it because no one could put more pressure than me on myself. And I think that's a huge thing for people that they really need to evaluate. Yeah. I think that's a great perspective. If you look back, do you think that God had to break you or break the life that you built in order to get obedience into this calling that you're carrying out today? Or was it really just preordained steps? How do you view the journey that you've taken? That's a really good question. That's speaking for God, I'll say that. I mean, ministry is the most sanctifying thing I've ever been in. I mean, it really has. I'm so grateful regardless of success in ministry and church planning and all those things that the Lord has put us in this. Because more than anybody, it's drawn me closer to Jesus. Like, I can't say it in the other way. Coaching did that, but I think more of a superficial way because there was still a lot of like, I want to be this thing and I can sugarcoat it into my identity. But I think some of it is, yeah, I think even now on this side of things being out of coaching, I wanted to go and ask God to make administration because I wanted to help coaches. I really did. And now that I'm on the outside of it, I feel like me going through some of these things, especially through ministry, I might actually be able to help coaches now. And actually holistically help them and give them maybe more than what they need. I've always felt that, but I think the Lord has had to take me through some things. So then I actually prepared to do that very thing that I think I'm going to be devoting a lot more time to over the next few years. So yeah, I think it was very intentional and also I'm a knucklehead and make dumb mistakes and do this thing. But I think it was ordained in some way of the sovereignty to get me to this point because I do have a different perspective. And I've said, if I went back into coaching, I would be a totally different coach, like completely because of seeing and being on this side of things now. Yeah. I've heard it said that if we've been through what we've been through and Division 1 athletics being the way that it is, you either emerge from that thinking about the next generation. Well, I went through it, so you're going to have to. Or I think a more contemporary approach is I went through it. So let's make sure you don't have to. And I think with your perspective and lived experience through that and now serving in a pastoral role, I really could see how that's a perfect combination for someone who's in the midst of their own purpose. So I'm trying to figure out what in the world they're here for. If not this, then what? And I think that's something that haunted me for a lot of nights. I knew I couldn't keep doing what I was doing, but I didn't know what else I could do. And I think if there's any hope we could offer that next generation, it's that more than you think, way more than you think. Yeah. You said the work ethic thing. I'm like, I would hire somebody in a heartbeat who's been a coach or an athletic trainer. The amount of stuff that you, especially you guys have to do to hold together the relay. I mean, you are a jack of all trades, everything all the time. And I know the work ethic and far down, I'm not going to worry about you being lazy. I know side by side what that life looks like. Yeah. Yeah. I got two left for you. And I asked these of all my guests. If we were to watch a montage of your life and we laid some music underneath it, what song would you pick and why? Man, that's a good question. A montage of my life. I'm interested to hear some of the other podcast people, what they've said. So mine would be, there's a song by Hans Zimmer. He's the orchestra. He does all like the Christopher Allen movies. It'd be time. I'll listen to one of my favorite movies. Yes. It's like the point where Lena on a Capitol wakes up and that either on the airplane. I've listened to a song many times. I don't know why I'll listen to it when I study and do things, but it's such a, I don't know. know my journey somehow interleaves with that of like our life and just how things have kind of played out and I've never guessed that be in the position I'm in. So I don't know. It's somehow this reminds me of that. So I think that would be the style. I love it. I put all those together into a mix tape on Spotify, basically a virtual mix tape on Spotify. Also put a video into the page. Yes, we create the page for this episode. Last one. The title of the show is becoming undone. The idea that we go from unraveling and feeling like we're literally being torn apart to realizing that we've got a purpose left unfulfilled that we're unfinished that we're undone. What for Christmas Cormac remains undone? I think it's it's what we've talked about towards the end. I've done a lot of different cool things in my life. I've been called to different things. What I'm undone is the state of our profession coaching. My wife and I both have a burden for coaching families, especially husbands and wives that there has to be a better way. We can't you can't wait for structures and people and organizations and alliances of things to fix it. It starts with you and just having mediums, retreats, more conferences about your family and outside of work than just inside of work and X's and O's and talking shop. There's so many things that they have been always been coaching. If there was more resources and my ego probably wasn't in the way of like, I don't need this, it would have saved a lot of heartache. I think that's something moving forward. I hope my unique kind of skill will be able to help people with that and more than anything that there won't be as much burnout and people will truly enjoy what they're doing because and returns to why they started doing it and I hope it'll be a small sliver of impact in the future. And I have to be careful. I'm on LinkedIn and I've been pretty critical of the professional athletic training and then adjacently. I've got great friends in strength conditioning, media relations, the academic folks. If you're working in college sport, you are work to the bone and you're not making a lot unless you're at the peak of the organization. My message isn't everyone get out and do something else. For some people, they can make changes and it's a sustainable life. So I think what you're saying, there's definitely a need for that. Not everyone needs to make a hard pivot and become a pastor. For some people, they just need to be more intentional about serving in a way that's sustainable for their family and healthy. Because ultimately, when I was at my worst, my student athletes were suffering. They weren't getting the care that I wanted to give them because my cup wasn't full. And that's, I won't say it's dangerous. It's certainly suboptimal. And if I can't pour all of myself into that relationship, then they're paying the price for that and they deserve better than that. And I think that's a huge, I've talked to several people who coach coaches from the like professional level and not even a spiritual side. It's just, I'm the guy that the head coach can talk to you outside the organization. You know, we talk about buyouts and how the money and all these structures that I'm like, we talk about insurance and liability within sports medicine and athletes and all those things. I think it's the same with coaches. Because what if you can save a coach from blowing up and having to fire somebody because you actually have help for them? And what does that look like? And having people even within the organization that is not just sports psychology, but there's people that coaches can relate to because they've been in their shoes. And I think that's where more of the sages that are retiring, if it's someone like you or someone like me or someone like a head coach who was in it forever, are actually coming back to mentor and help. I think that would do tremendous amount of help that because I never had that when I was a coach. So I can go to people, but I think that is such a pivotal piece. And like you said, I was called to something. I didn't feel like I ran away from it because I loved my job. I just felt like this is what I had to do. And not everyone's going to do that. So you need to support them while they're doing what they're called to do too. Absolutely. Well, Chris, thanks so much for joining me tonight. I really do appreciate. It's been a great conversation and I'm thankful for your insights. I appreciate it. Thank you. I'm Chris McCormick. I am undone. What stands out to me from this conversation with Chris is how subtle unraveling can be. There wasn't a single breaking point. He didn't describe that one moment of rock bottom or of existential crisis. Instead, for him, it was a slow realization that the life that he had built and was still building, the one he dreamed of was no longer sustainable. And I think that's where a lot of people get stuck because when you're close to the dream or maybe even in it, it's hard to admit that it might not be the destination that we thought it was. Chris didn't just walk away from a job. He walked away from an identity, from something he had invested years of training and sacrifice and belief into. And yet what you hear in his story is not regret. It's clarity. That same discipline, that same drive, that same commitment to developing others didn't disappear. It just found a new place to blossom. And maybe that's the takeaway. You're not as stuck as you think, you are, friend. The skills that you've built, the resilience you've earned, the perspective that you've gained, those things don't expire when one chapter ends. Sometimes becoming undone isn't about losing everything. Instead, maybe it's about finally seeing what remains and the value that it holds. I'm thankful to Chris for dropping in and I hope you enjoyed our conversation. For more info on today's episode, be sure to check it out on the web. Simply go to undunpodcast.com backslash EP 154 to see the notes, links, and images related to today's guest, Chris McCormick. Some quick updates about the show. We took a week off to celebrate Easter back in Lubbock with the kids and it was magical. Not just to be back in the place we long have called home, but to get the chance to reconnect. It was much needed and always welcome. That said, we did actually climb a little bit in the education self improvement rankings on Apple up from eighth to fifth where we stand right now. Sadly, we aren't back in Apple's top 200 at the moment, but I'm working on it. I love to get a little help from you in the process as well. If you want to follow along and see our progress for yourself, you can now go to undunpodcast.com backslash rankings and cheer me on. In the last month, we've had more than 30,000 downloads, but we aren't done yet. If you'd be so kind as to share the show with a friend and leave a comment or review, that would be most sincerely appreciated. This week's teal of the week is a shout out to the Palo Alto College Palominos. I stumbled across a picture of their baseball team somewhere on social media and they were rocking this classic white with the teal pinstripe unis that looked like my all time favorite MLB jersey from the early Florida Marlins. So I immediately went to their website and bought some merch. So shout out to Palo Alto College and the Palomino Athletic Department. It's a program that's quietly building some momentum on the south side of San Antonio. Competing at the junior college level, they're developing some local talent and they're making meaningful opportunities for student athletes to continue their careers. They've had recent successes like a conference championship in men's basketball and their return of their baseball program. So there's a sense of growth and energy and maybe most importantly from my perspective, that killer teal color that they rock helps me stay locked in when I'm hard at work. So my reminder to you, find the thing that makes you feel the most productive or confident and it's under your control and do that thing. For me, it's my signature power color. For you, it could be anything else, but give it a try and let me know how it goes. Another new quick little feature, inspo of the week. This week's inspo comes from Genesis 49-24 where Jacob is speaking of blessing over all his sons. This one for Joseph hit me the most, where Jacob says, but his bow remained steady. His arms stayed limber because of the hand of the mighty God of Jacob because of the shepherd, the rock of Israel. So friend, my prayer for you this week is I hope your bow can stay steady and that your arms can be limber. Stretch them out if you need to, but this week recognize that those things can happen, but it doesn't have to be because of your hand, but hopefully because of your shepherd. Come up on the show. I've got 2026 Milano Cortino Winter Olympian, Sarah Warren for you. Sarah has endured close to a dozen knee surgeries and she went from a competitive multi sport athlete growing up to a big 10 soccer player at the University of Illinois before ultimately making the US Winter Olympic team as a long track speed skater. And her story of triumph and overcoming to compete on the sports grandest stage is full of grit and resolve, but she's not done yet. She's got her sights set on another season or more of competing on the world stage while also prepping for med school and pursuing her dreams of becoming an orthopedic surgeon so she can be like the one that saved her career. Then I've got an incredible conversation with leading concussion researcher and former collegiate athlete Dr. Sean Eagle. So stay tuned. This and more coming up on Becoming Undone. Becoming Undone is a nitrohype creative production written and produced by me, Toby Brooks. Tell a friend about the show and follow along on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn at Becoming Undone Pot and follow me at Toby Brooks PhD on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Check out my link tree at linkedr.ee back slash Toby Brooks PhD. Listen, subscribe and leave me a review at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, keep getting better.