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Manhood often feels like navigating through uncharted territory, but you don't have to walk alone. Join us as we guide a conversation about how to live intentionally so that we can join God in reclaiming the masculine restorative presence he designed us to live out. Laugh, cry, and wonder with us as we explore the ins and outs of manhood together.
Shae McCowen: The Discomfort of Self-Discovery
00:00
Hey folks, welcome to another episode of the Restorative Man podcast. My name is Cody Buriff and today I am joined by my co-host, Jesse French. Jesse, welcome. Thanks, Cody. Good to be with you here again for another chat. Yeah, man. Good to be with you. What do we got on tap for today? Well, we have a guest that I am very excited that he's here. One of the joys of when you get to introduce people is you have full control over like.
00:26
the intro story that you're going to give. And so right now I can see his face on my screen and I'm sure he's like, Oh, where is this going to go? But it's okay. Shae. I won't go into the just total deep dive, but we're joined by our good friend Shae McCowen, who is a good friend of ours, a deep friend and advocate for restoration project. And I just want to give this intro to him. So the first time I ever met Shae, I think was
00:53
12 years ago, it was at a very small men's retreat. I knew very few people. And one of the nights we started to play poker and Shay is a very avid, committed, semi-decent, we'll say that, semi-decent poker player, but he cares a lot. And I had not played poker really anytime in my life at all. And I had just met Shay. And at one point we were playing Texas Hold'em.
01:20
And I was trying to be funny, but was kind of like 40% serious. And, you know, it came to the point where I showed my cards and I flipped two hearts down and I said, all reds, like the total oceans, 11 line. And she's laughing now at the time. I think he had like an eye roll that would rival a teenage teenage girl because he was like, are you serious? I have to play poker with novices like Jesse.
01:47
And so this is a testament to our friendship, your patience, your grace. We're now really good friends. So we are. Thank you so much guys for having me. I'm so excited. Fortunately through the good work of restoration project and all the wonderful things you guys do, I can laugh now and I'm a much better human being. And I think, I think your description of my poker skills was generous at.
02:16
best. I love poker. I'm really not as good as I'd like to be. And that's that's a disappointment to me. You know, this is also proof of Shay's growing humility, because I don't think you would have said that like 12 years ago. But that's fair. That is fair. So good. Well, in all seriousness, Shay, again, thank you for joining us. It's sweet to have you in this space. Absolutely. We're grateful that you're here. I'd love to just tee up kind of our conversation, Shay.
02:46
by having you, well, first of all, just like give us a little snapshot into who you are. Right now, we're gonna dive back and into some earlier parts of your life. But yeah, where do we find you today? Give us a little insight. So my wife and I live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. So if any of you who are familiar with the very epic North Carolina Duke rivalry, we're about three miles from the UNC campus and it is alive and well here.
03:15
Um, and so I never understood what a real sports rivalry was until moving here. And so we, my wife and I have been married 25 years. We have three kids. I have a daughter who's a sophomore in college, a son who's a freshman in college, and then a daughter who is a freshman in high school. So I grew up in Minnesota. My wife grew up in Colorado. We prefer sadly to my, my family week for Colorado to Minnesota. Cause it's just.
03:44
more beautiful. Although some of it is underrated. I will say it's underrated. Yeah. It's underrated. You know, if you only have to think about it five months of the year and then, and then it's, it's the best state ever. But those other seven months, boy, they kick you in the shorts a little bit. Yeah. Well say I'd love to just ask you and tell us about what your college experience was like. There's some unique pieces that we want to unpack. But
04:14
Yeah. Tell us what, what college was like and kind of some of the centerpiece for you of that time period in your life. Yeah. So I, I mean, I went to school in Chicago at Northwestern university, which is, you know, kind of the nerd school of the big 10, I like to say, and a little bit of a misfit from an athletic standpoint, you know, right now they're rebuilding their stadium and they've had to host, you know, football games on their little.
04:42
Lakefront property, only 20,000 people. And then last weekend they hosted Ohio State, Wrigley field. So it's, you know, it's, it's not quite like the Vaughn to Michigan or Ohio state experience, but I was fortunate enough to be a division one athlete at Northwestern and I was on the swim team there. And so my college experience was probably a little different than a lot of people's. I worked out.
05:11
anywhere between 20 and 25 hours a week, uh, morning practices, you know, waking up at five 15, you know, swimming from six to seven 30, and then afternoon practices from three to five 30. And then we'd travel for meets and do stuff, you know, work out on weekends, you know, be at the gym, lifting weights, et cetera. And so, you know, you joke, right. That in college, you can have a social life. You can be a good student.
05:40
Or you can be healthy. You can only, and you can only pick two of those three things. And so, you know, I picked the healthy and social life side of things. You know, the student side may have suffered a bit. My wife went to Northwestern with me. That's where we met and she jokes that she studied and I swam. So, you know, it's. He's not wrong. I would say she's not wrong. There may have been a significant difference in our ending cumulative GPAs when all of a sudden done, but. Hey.
06:09
We both have the same diploma, right? It's true. Oh, it's true. Shay, uh, I'll be, I mean, I'm probably like most of the people listening. The only thing I know about swimming is what I see on the Olympics every four years and it looks cool, like whatever, but it sounds like there's a ton of work involved. Yeah. I mean, I think in retrospect, if I could have been good at a different sport, I probably would have chosen that. I mean, it is.
06:37
In a sense, it's a very solitude or solitary, sorry, sport. Your head is in the water all the time. There's not a lot of chit chat and, you know, like, you know, posterizing dunks in a workout or, you know, like, you know, stiff arming a, you know, fellow teammate in practice, like you're just going up and down, up and down, up and down. And so it is very rigorous and difficult. And, you know, that leads to, you know, swimmers are notorious for.
07:07
being probably a little bit more reckless in their college years. The swim teams are generally have the reputation for being a little bit wild because it is so much work. But it was an incredible experience for me. I mean, it paid for most of my college, uh, which, you know, was certainly helpful. And I had to learn some pretty significant life lessons. I dealt with injuries and rehab and maybe not.
07:36
hitting the full expectations of my potential, et cetera. So, I learned so many things through that experience of swimming. I'm going to see, talk about those lessons that you learned kind of connected to that, but maybe a little different tilt on it. What do you think it formed in you, Shay, as you're in the middle of that? So like maybe something that even, you know, beyond like a lesson learned that was formed in you over those four years as you're in that space.
08:05
I mean, there's definitely, you know, the easy one is say discipline, right? I had to get up at five 15 every morning as a college student, which for those who are more recent to those years, that seems like crazy. And I only missed one practice. Like there was one time my roommate and I, you know, our alarms did not go off. And the next practice was one of the worst.
08:32
practices I've ever had to endure. Cause the coach kind of made an example of you and made you do significantly harder things. And so in a sense, right, that discipline of having to do something difficult over and over and over again, definitely carries through with you for a long time. Now, you know, I look at some of the athletes today and how scientific everything has become and how measured.
09:01
You know, both nutrition and, you know, out of water training and, you know, sports psychology and massage therapy. Like, I mean, to be a world-class athlete today is just, I mean, it's a very different experience. I mean, we were, we were kind of there having fun, working out hard, et cetera. But you know, like what it is today is very, very different for sure. Yeah. I would say she like.
09:30
As I hear you describe the rigor and the discipline and the work ethic that was required, I would imagine the learning of that, you look back to that space, I would imagine with a sense of gratitude for that, of the way that that formed and grew some of that discipline in you in positive ways that I would imagine carried over after you left college. Is that true? It is.
09:56
As with a lot of things like that, there's some nuance in it. So yes, absolutely. I have gratitude for the way that my mind and body were shaped by that experience. There's also, you know, the nuance of it is there were probably some things that were not healthy, that drove why I did it, what I was doing it for, et cetera.
10:19
that took me years and years to figure out and understand who I was, why I was doing it. I mean, I really don't talk about it very much now. My wife loves calling it out whenever we meet someone and people are like, oh my goodness, that's amazing. Yes, certainly I did something that was hard. I was in a space that not many people got to be in, but...
10:47
You know, the, the motivations and why I did it and what I was trying to accomplish. Like, it took me a while to, you know, kind of figure those things out as I became an adult and understood, you know, I've had a love hate relationship with, with exercise since then, because, you know, like it was so consuming and so. All in that, you know, like sometimes I get in these patterns of, yep, I want to be all in on something. Sometimes I'm like,
11:17
I'm just tired. I'm going to, I'm not going to wake up. Like I, you know, not that I sleep in a lot, but I certainly don't get up at five 15 in the morning anymore. And, you know, there's certainly several things that I've heard of where people get up, you know, and they gather together and get up and run around in parks, you know, early, early in the morning. And I'm like, no, no, thank you. No, thank you. So, yeah. So like, I mean, yes.
11:44
overall incredibly positive who I am and how I've been shaped is there are a lot of things that point back to it. But you know, it's that hindsight, right? I wish I could go back and know everything I know now and I would treat it differently. I would do things differently. But again, that's how we're shaped, how we are formed and our experiences kind of help us be who we become. Shay, I'll ask. You don't have to go there if you don't want to. But
12:14
You've said it a couple of times now that there were some motivations. You know, you just say there's some things you wish, you know, you could go back and maybe do differently. I'm curious, what were some of the things driving you and maybe what would you tell, you know, the 21 year old Shae at that point in his life? Yeah. I mean, I, I, I was addicted to success, performance, you know, accolades. Like I loved being good at something. And.
12:43
Certainly the injuries that I had that started before my freshman year of college contributed to that becoming lesser, but it was still such a huge factor. Like I certainly, I didn't love swimming. Like it wasn't something that I was passionate about. And why this, I love going to practice every day, but there was a fuel that drove like, I need to do this because I need to be worth something. I could need to be.
13:12
sound worthy. And you know, I grew up in a Christian home and was a believer, but you know, there was still this, you know, Tim Keller calls them idols. Like I had an idol of wanting achievement and success. Like that was my idol. Like I wanted to, for people to know who I was and to love me and to pat me on the back and to say congratulations, et cetera. And so, yeah.
13:42
so that I wish I could go back even earlier than 21, to when I was 15, 16 and say, the world's big and it's a long journey and it's gonna be okay, like you're okay. Yeah. So I'm curious, you kind of say that and that's kind of what came out while you were in college through swimming. You didn't love swimming, but you were searching for that, those accolades, the value, the worth.
14:08
I'm assuming that that continued after college, after swimming was done in your life. Oh yeah, yeah. Then it became the career, the accolades of career and success of career, right? I started working at a company and every 18 to 24 months got promoted. And silly things like you all start as a class of entry-level people.
14:34
And you like look at who out of that class gets promoted first and who gets to the next level after that first. And you're literally watching. And when it's not you, like, you're like, okay, what do I need to do to be faster, better, et cetera? And even now today it's much more prevalent, but like the LinkedIn, like, you know, those announcements on LinkedIn, I have a new position. I just got promoted. And you know, it's the.
15:00
climbing the corporate ladder and doing something bigger and better each step. And like, it was a drug. Like I loved it. Like I loved being able to, like, I remember like, this is where it was really bad. Like I remember going to my, it was my 20th high school reunion and like high school for me was fine. Like it wasn't great, you know, but it was, it was fine. And you know, there were the popular kids were
15:28
Kids that never left the area. Like I saw several of them like working at the local grocery store. And so it was this moment where, you know, I was, I had a BMW at the time and like, I wanted to drive up, have people see me and be able to talk about my lofty position at the company I was working at and, you know, look what I've done with my wife and, but it would, that's, that's pretty empty because like there weren't, I mean, who cares? Like,
15:55
You know, people who are in good relationships and have good connection and, you know, have built something more meaningful, you know, are solid in their relationship with Jesus. That's what matters. And so I just remember that fleeting, you know, like I was disappointed in the reunion. Like, I'm like, I didn't get the satisfaction that I wanted. You had built up this like, oh, this is the crowning moment and it didn't deliver. Yeah.
16:25
The answer to this, it's like hours long. But I guess I would just ask like kind of from a surface view, like what began to shift or is shifting like maybe present tense, some of the, the way of being from performance to something different, like what have been some of those imitations or some of those disruptions that have invited that or are inviting that. Yeah, no. I mean, uh, you two know the story, but.
16:53
You know, eight and a half years ago, I moved my family from Utah to North Carolina for a job. And within like, if I'm really being honest with myself, like within 30, 45 days of taking that job, like our house was on the market, was looking for a house here, but, and so I was commuting back and forth. I knew I had made a mistake. I knew it was the wrong fit. And yet it was a chief operating officer title.
17:23
It was a company that was going to most likely sell and there was going to be equity, a big equity payout. And I'm like, Nope, I'm going to do this. And six months later I got fired and that was a massive blow. And you know, all the things that I'd held dear in terms of my worth and value evaporated. My family was unhappy.
17:52
Cause this was the second move across the country in three years. And I was very unhappy because I'd just been fired. It took me nine months to find another job. I had to take a two thirds pay cut for that job. And I went into some really dark places and, you know, just was.
18:16
Like I blame myself, like I saw what I had done and how I had reached and how I hadn't been honest with myself and how I had, you know, treasured things that were of this world and could decay and rust. And you know, I went dark internally, I stopped talking to people about it and just was sullen. And finally, through God's good grace, finally talked about it to my pastor and then I talked to him.
18:45
wife about it and talked to some friends, including people in restoration project. And started seeing a counselor and spent a year and a half working through the roots of why performance and achievement were, had such a hold on me and had to figure out how to let those things go. And also come to grips with.
19:11
I was still a good person, was still valuable, even if I never got back to a place where I had a fancy title. So the answer is God broke me. He brought life circumstances to finally get through to me what was important. Even now, I spent four years away from the corporate world, then got back into it and there have been some ups and downs in that journey.
19:40
understanding what I really value. I'm able to see very clearly connection, trust, people treating each other as human beings, profit and revenue, not being the most important thing ever, you know, getting promoted into certain roles certainly is fleeting. And so I just want to work for a company that does good work and treats its employees well. And.
20:10
So the transformation then, my relationships with my family, which were rocky on the best days, improved significantly. My wife and I are in the best place we've ever been in our entire marriage. My friendships with those around me, the way I engage with people in the world, it all changed significantly. And to your point, it's always a work in progress. There's always things that come up that...
20:39
throw you for a loop and you're like, I don't know where that's going to go, but it's a different posture. And again, before we started, we hit record, we joked about the story at the beginning of your introduction, like, you know, who I was 12 years ago and who I am now are two pretty, pretty different people in a lot of ways. So I'm grateful for that. As I listen to you speak, Shay and
21:04
I know Cody real well too. And so the three of us, although I'm sure expressed in unique ways, I think we share a strong pattern or addiction towards performance that sounds really, really strong, but, uh, I don't want to speak for you, but like, um, so I say that and I just am grateful for your words, Shay, and just giving us a little snippet into your own experience. And
21:32
I don't want to make a big old general statement, but I'd wonder with you two guys, like, at least for me in my own life, the arc has been similar of sort of the thread being pulled at performance and that structure falling down in some really hard ways has ultimately been the only thing that's invited a different way. And on one hand, I'm like, I hate that. Like, can it be, right? Or something like that about, you know, suffering, ameliation, things like that. I don't know, at least for me, like, it hasn't been like that.
22:01
And so I would much prefer the lessons without the difficulty. I wish that's how it worked. Right. Just flip the switch, turn me into a better human being. I don't want to go through that. Oh, much more efficient. Yeah. And it's funny, right? I mean, it's so counter cultural as well. I just hired a new person on my team and we were doing kind of a get to know you session, you know, about who we are and what we value and.
22:31
This individual said, I have never heard anyone talk like this in a corporate environment, because I'm just, I'm very honest and, you know, pretty direct and I'm a little irreverent, you know, like I don't drink the corporate Kool-Aid because it, you know, like it's a fallacy, right? I mean, we're, all right. The company I work for has, you know, putting people first as one of its three core values and, you know, if, if that means putting shareholders first, then yes, it is one of the three core values. But it's.
23:01
But yeah, like I think when you're a publicly traded company, like it is difficult to actually mean that phrase in a way that treats human beings well. Cause you're beholden to the quarterly earnings and the shareholders and those kind of things. So yeah, I love being counter-cultural. I really do. It makes me happy. Like I was like, I didn't say this to this person, but I'm like, that's the best compliment you could have ever given me. Right. Yeah.
23:31
Yeah. Cody, where's your mind? I feel like I see your your wheels turning. Yeah. No, it's just interesting because as you're talking, Che and talking about the working hard and even Jesse's you talk about it like that whole we'll call it a house of cards that kind of just falls down at some point. You know, it works for a long time, actually, right? It props you up for a long time. Makes you feel good, right? But at the end of the day, like you said, Che, this is a fallacy. I've been slowly reading a book by Larry Crabb.
24:00
called Shattered Dreams. It's kind of, he's walking through the story of, it's the story of Ruth, but it's actually the story of Ruth's mother-in-law. Her name is escaping me at the moment. Naomie. Naomie, that's it, yeah. And it's basically this like, God likes to do this thing where he strips away our dreams and strips away those lesser desires, those things that we thought were giving us life.
24:29
so that he can then reveal to us himself. And our desires then are for something greater and deeper and better. But it's a painful stripping away. It reminds me of the story in Chronicles of Narnia where Eustace is the dragon, right? And he's like ripping off the dragon, you know. I won't give it away if you've never read Chronicles of Narnia, but it's a painful process. Although it's been around for 70 or so. If you haven't read it, it's a fault. Yeah, it's fair.
24:58
Get on, get on that. Yeah. But as a painful process. And here's the one other interesting thing. My counselor said this to me. He's like, you've probably been depressed for most of your adult life. And you've been finding, he called it islands of competency where you get that promotion and your head comes above the water and then it, then the
25:26
joy and excitement of that washes off and you go back into a, you know, a place. And then again, you have another thing that pops you up and then you go back down. And I thought like that image was pretty powerful for me at the time. Cause you know, like I wouldn't have said I was depressed, but like in retrospect, I wasn't in a great place either. Like I, you know, you, man, when you're, when you spend.
25:53
more than one second, looking at a list of people's name and figuring out who's gotten promoted first. That's probably not healthy. That's a good indicator. Yeah, man, that resonates. Yeah, that phrase, it resonates and kind of stings all in one. Yeah, it stings a little bit. Yeah, it's like, woo! Yeah, yeah. I think as kind of as we start to wrap up, like that image is such a good one. And I think so much of what.
26:22
Right. The invitation of Jesus is, is to actually like have a relationship that isn't based on like, now it can be a relationship where I'm on this island of competency, right. Or now that my worth is proved. And so, yeah. And I would say that's really easy for me to spit out verbally to you guys intellectually and you play that out in my own life. And I'm like, uh, I don't think I believe that my life shows something very different even in our own relationships. Right. Like I'm fine when Cody can see my own competency and, and that's like,
26:52
there and when it's not, it's a different ballgame. And yet, it doesn't mean that you can't be competent and it doesn't mean that you don't work hard. And it doesn't mean that you don't try to achieve things, but the underlying motivation of why you're doing those things matters so much. I think about, you know, I can say this about Jesse, like we were together this past weekend.
27:21
And we had a moment to kind of reflect on the past year for restoration project. And like, I know Jesse's heart and you know, not that it's perfect and he doesn't make mistakes, but like Jesse's heart and how he's motivated and what he wants to be true has allowed him to be truly effective in the role that he's in. And if it was about becoming, you know, the best
27:51
Nonprofit executive director, you know, standing on some stage, accepting an award. Like he wouldn't be who he is and wouldn't have the impact that he does. And so, yeah, I mean, like, I think that's true in all of our spaces. Like, you know, every time someone gets an award at work and I'm like, I'd liked an award, but do I really want an award or do I want, you know, do I want people to say that I'm safe and that.
28:18
they can be themselves around me or that they perform better when I'm their manager because of the environment that I create. And ultimately, yeah, I think it's the second thing, not the first. Awards come and go. I mean, Jesse knows this. I was helping my parents clean out their garage a few weeks ago and my mom had literally kept a box of every medal and trophy I had won.
28:47
And it was like going down this memory lane and she's like, well, you want all of this, right? And I'm like, Nope. Like what am I going to, like, I took some pictures and sent them to my kids, but like, what am I going to do with my state championship medal from high school? Like, are you going to like hang that on a wall? I'm just saying you could, I'm seeing your background. It looked real nice behind you, Shay. It was like, hilarious. You get a zoom call and they.
29:16
Someone has like all their junior high and high school like sports. You know, Hey, I was kind of a big deal back then. Oh true. Oh, although my kids were disappointed because I did throw away several. My mom was big into the picture buttons that she could wear on her sweatshirts. Yeah. And I did, I did toss a few of those away that my kids were like, Oh, Oh, you need to keep that. I'm like, Oh no, I don't. Oh my gosh.
29:46
I should somehow get a hold of your mom and see if she saved any because I personally told them and through them. I took a picture of one. I will send that to you and let you let you enjoy. But yeah, that's awesome. Shay, it has been a blast talking with you today. Thank you for sharing your life, the roller coaster that you've been on in terms of performance, just the whole thing from D1 athlete to today, who you are as a man.
30:15
how that has moved in your life and shaped you. Thanks for sharing your life with us. It was my absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks, Shae. Appreciate it, man.