GROWTH PILLAR: Health & Wellness
WHO THIS IS FOR: SMB owners / Solopreneurs / Corporate escapees / Leaders building systems
WHAT THEY'LL GAIN: Early warning signs of executive burnout. A practical framework for boundaries. The mindset shift from identity protection to identity gain. A real story of recovery from a 27-year tech veteran.
Most leaders don't see burnout coming until it has already taken something from them.
Kenny Stoddart spent 27 years climbing the cybersecurity ladder. He started at Secure IT in 1997, rode the dot-com wave through Verisign, GeoTrust, Symantec, and Broadcom, and built a global career managing channel partners across Latin America and Japan. From the outside, he was winning.
Inside, the golden handcuffs were tightening. He was chasing quotas, losing his identity, and slipping into alcoholism. It almost cost him his life.
This conversation is about what happened next. Kenny went to the Betty Ford clinic. He rebuilt himself. He went back to school for a master's in clinical mental health counselling. And he founded IronMind Advisors to help other leaders spot the signs before it is too late.
Key topics covered:
Kenny's IronMind Mentality framework blends leadership, neuroscience, discipline, and accountability. If you know a leader running too hard, send them this episode.
Connect with Kenny: IronMind Advisors website | LinkedIn | IronMind blog
Special offer: Take the IronMind Elite Assessment
This episode is brought to you by:
Canada Growth Network — a business community where SMB owners get GoHighLevel CRM plus real referral-based connections for $47 CAD a month. $1 CAD for your first month.
Sterling Grace Technologies — Josh Lamb and his team handle cybersecurity and IT for small businesses without an in-house tech department. Kenny spent 27 years in this world. If a breach would hurt your business, talk to Josh.
At Hive — a networking community for freelancers, growing teams, and anyone tired of LinkedIn connections that go nowhere. Real conversations, real follow-through, in person and online.
Next steps:
Email us: info@kreativinsight.com
Join Canada Growth Network — $1 CAD first month, $47 CAD/month after: https://canadagrowthnetwork.com/ghl
Subscribe to the K4B blog: https://blog.knack4business.com/
Search K4B episodes by topic: https://knack4business.com/
Want to be a guest? Register here: https://tinyurl.com/mcdm3hk6
Attend the Monday Power Hour free: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/nNyDPpkHRxK8gfr_pAQgQA
Kenny (00:22)
My name is Kenny Stoddart. I am now the founder of Iron Mind Advisors, which is my own executive advisory and coaching firm along with some keynote speaking. But really where I w and I am currently located in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. So if I
I wanted to share a little bit about me. I grew up in a little town outside of Buffalo called Hamburg, New York. So many of you are probably familiar. It's just
You know, on the other side of Buffalo, right by where the Bills play in Orchard Park, New York, there. I was born and raised there. and the highest point in ⁓ in Hamburg, which there's as you go further inland in New York, it becomes quite mountainous. But ⁓ where I lived in Hamburg, I overlooked Lake Erie. I could see it from my bedroom window. And eight miles across the river was Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada.
It's where the Peace Bridge is. And it was, you know, us being from western New York, we always went up to Canada to either camp or fish, or in my case, both, and then also play hockey. So I was a hockey player my whole ⁓ young career is and we, you know, and when you got good at hockey, you had to go to Canada and then get your butt kicked. So that was the part of that was the growing up part of but I I spent
Many a weekends traveling throughout Ontario. my favorite band of all time is from Kingston called The Tragically Hip, and I'll get some more shaking heads there. But I followed them through my entire, you know, very pivotable days in my high school and the you know, late 80s, all through the 90s, and then all the way up until the final show in Toronto in 2016, I believe it was. But ⁓ that was kind of my Canada story.
And then fast forward a little bit. And you know, when I was 18, I left western New York and landed myself at the Citadel, which is a military college in South Carolina. So I was ⁓ you know, really fresh out of New York, born and raised, and you know, decided to up up my challenges a little bit and go to the Citadel, which was, you know, and was and still is. It's a very challenging
military school to get through great education. It's got military and leadership components, all of which I'm super proud of. And you know, I graduated from the Citadel and it was this is no, so we're gonna play we're gonna play the the clock a little bit. So I graduated in nineteen ninety seven and if we look back at that time period, the first Gulf War was just coming to an end. It was a time of peace in nineteen ninety seven and there was
Our president at the time in the United States was Bill Clinton, and there was a major military cutback after the first war. And I was offered the option to forego my military obligations because of the military spend back and essentially enter the real world. Now, at the time, the real world looked like the dot-com boom was about to take off, right? So I was, you know, a month after I graduated in 1997, I
Drove to Atlanta, Georgia, and I was hired by a a company at the time called Secure IT. And that is where I started my 27-year journey in at the time what we called internet security. And ultimately over the years became ⁓ where it's at now, cybersecurity. And I'm I noticed a few things on on one of Trevor's slides. He had an SSL logo for some reason or another. I think it was but
That was really where I played ⁓ most of my career in the encryption, SSL, e-commerce, security role. And I worked for companies, so I went through a wild ride, if you will. Secure IT was bought by Varasign in 1998, within my first year of being there. I went from Verasign to another startup called Geotrust, which was then again acquired by Verasign in 2006.
which was acquired by Symantec in 2011, which was acquired by Broadcom in 2020, I believe. So that was the wild ride that I was on in the encryption space. And I was in a role of you know, really from the infancy of website security, I was playing in like, you know, when the first questions came out, like, well, we need to take credit cards on our, you know, we need to be able to accept credit cards on our website.
Okay, how do we secure it? And that was where SSL came in and encryption really solved that problem and quite frankly still does to this day. It's a solution that ⁓ really encryption and the strength of it has changed, but the algorithms and the the level of security is is still what's kind of paving the way to provide, you know, end to end encryption in all different forms or fashions. So I had this
really amazing career. I got to travel the world working with ⁓ different companies. I be I became the ⁓ global channel manager for for Symantec, covering Central and Latin America for for about six years where I got to work very closely with all of our friends and colleagues in all of the different countries and learn their cultures. But before that I was I was asked to go and start a business in in Japan when I had really no idea. I mean I was young and
25, 26 years old, and we started Geotrust Japan. And at the time I was just happened to be the most adventurous because I was the guy that always raised his hand. New challenge, new adventure, I'm in. So that was really ⁓ you know, how I defined that 27-year career of, you know, really a very, very successful career that ⁓ I got to work for some fabulous leaders and
I got to manage hundreds of fabulous sales leaders and and reps and account managers and channel reps and work with these amazing companies and and be all over the world and you know representing big brands and doing multimillion dollar transactions and just really ⁓ having a f phenomenal career and that was great. ⁓ fast forward until you know I was in ⁓ in my late forties. I'm
Just to clear any confusion, I'm now fifty-two. So just over the past few years, I struggled with what is no is what we call executive burnout. for those who have struggled or have any experience with it, it's it's not a buzzword. It's it's very, very serious. It's ⁓ it almost cost me my life, quite frankly. And you know what what ⁓ that what how I define executive burnout is not, you know.
couple of bad weeks at the office or a bad quarter or whatever, those that's exhaustion or that's but you know, I really lost my identity of who I actually was because I was caught up in the the golden handcuffs or, you know, I was always chasing big quotas or I was always, you know, wanting to be very, very successful and perhaps for the wrong reasons, because I was asked to, you know, really step outside who I was.
you know, to be, you know, to able to do deals and to ⁓ and it it really just it took a toll on my life. I struggled with alcoholism. I I quite frankly, I almost, you know, I I hit my rock bottom a few years ago and I and that's why I do things like today is my new career at Iron Mind Advisors is helping other people navigate similar struggles because you know, I learned a lot from that and I was I was fortunate enough to
Be able to recognize the fact that the that that the trajectory was not good for me and I needed to make some changes. And that's what I did. So I decided to go to the Betty Ford clinic for rehab to get that portion of my life cleared up because anybody that knows or who has had family members struggle with alcoholism, it's also not funny. Or I know we don't think no one thinks that it is, but it's it's just such a terrible thing, even for some someone that
despises it as much as I do. I I really struggled breaking my ways and my habits from it. So I decided to get help. And then I also decided to go back to ⁓ get my master's in ⁓ licensed mental or clinical mental health counseling so I can help other people not only walk through those challenges like I mentioned, but understand the behavior of the brain and ⁓ addiction and
why we make some of the decisions we do, not all always bad ones. And I mentioned boundaries when that one word that I referred to when it, you know, how I rewind You know, for many years I didn't have boundaries, right? And that was one of the first major changes that I made to my life when I was rebuilding my own identity. which is another reason why I focus on identity gain now because
You know, like I said, for twenty seven years it was talking about identity loss or protection or theft. And then I also lost my I own it my own identity. Truly I did. And now I've got it back to being the the best version of myself that I've always wanted to be. It's truly amazing. it really is. And I'm not saying that because I'm like I was touched by like I was like I said, I was almost down and out, even perhaps dead, but now
Like I said, I'm about to graduate from Liberty University with now my s my second masters. I've been guided in such a path to be able to help others that are, you know, I was the person. I was the salesperson. I was the guy that was always in the airports, the the you know, I was the one that was stretching it too thin. I was and now I'm trying to give back not only to people like us, but to the people that work, you know, to the younger generations that are that are entering that same phase about
What it means to put boundaries in place and to recognize that when, you know, just because you're 28 or 32 or whatever at that age, you can run harder than us as we get older. But it does catch up with you. And that is what burnout does look like. It doesn't happen overnight. It takes almost 30 years to take you down properly. Because as high achievers, we embrace it. We love the challenge, right? We don't we don't ask for help. And my message after
Like I said, all I've been through is that strength and asking for asking for help is truly the new sign of strength. Being a leader that encourages your staff, your people to to assess their situation is also a true sign of strength. I think that identity when you're operating at a at a level like I am now, because I have my identity back, it's so much more productive than a fraction of myself or even a you know, seventy-five percent of myself because
I'm doing something that I love. I'm passionate about. I'm I'm doing what I want to do. And I know we can break that down in so many ways, but it's truly phenomenal what we can do. And I know there's people on this call right now that are truly passionate about what they do. And they probably have at one time been in a position where they might not have been. And you can see the difference. But when we apply that to an organizational model and and how I work with organizations to just improve performance at an identity level has been
So fabulous for me because it it takes it justifies some of the challenges that I faced because now I've learned from them and I'm giving back to others. And that's my story. ⁓ and the it can go on and on and on, but the the point is is my my my key word is is boundaries because I don't I know what burnout truly feels like. And there are all these different symptoms. You can we can talk about alcoholism, we could talk about fatigue, we could talk about
anxiety or you know just weight gain or weight loss or blood press you know these all these little things that are are little indicators and we treat them we treat the apps like we upload the new the version but we don't take care of the f the the operating system and I'm I'm huge into taking care of the operating system. So I I break that down now instead of a true operating system on a on a in a server or whatever it I'm
working with the human and it is delightful to be able to give back in such a fashion. So thank you for listening to me and I appreciate it very much.