Kevin Carroll has an amazingly cool background. Raised by his grandparents in Philadelphia, his first job really was with the U.S. Air Force where he served as a language interpreter and translator. And in those ten years he became fluent in Croatian and Czech and Russian and German. But while being fantastic at languages, he was also an athlete and soon an athletic trainer. Leaving the Air Force, he worked his way up to be the head athletic trainer for the Philadelpha 76ers. So he’s already cool. But then he was tapped on the shoulder by Nike. He spent a number of years at Nike helping to deepen their understanding of athletic performance and team dynamics and interpersonal connection, basically helping Nike become one of the forces it is today.

And then things shifted again, and he put his experience and wisdom into a terrific series of books, starting with the Rules of the Red Rubber Ball. In this interview we talk about:

• How it was a ball that saved and changed Kevin’s life.
• Why ‘encouragers’ are so crucial to sustaining success
• The role of curiosity and play in connecting with your great purpose and Great Work
• The role of “lonely work” is setting up for success.

You can follow Kevin on Twitter at @KCKatalyst and find him on the web at www.Kevincarrollkatalyst.com.

Listen to my interview with Kevin Carroll

If you enjoyed this post, you'll also like:

1. Great Work Interview: Kevin Cashman, author of Leadership from the Inside Out
2. Great Work Interview: Kevin & Melinda Berg, disability champions
3. Great Work Interview – Kevin Wilde, CLO of General Mills
4. Great Work Interview Jason Fried of 37Signals, author of Rework
5. Great Work Interviews Pam Slim, author of Escape from Cubicle Nation

Tags: Author, courage, creativity, Play, Purpose, Right People, Sport, Storytelling

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.