Kevin Kuchar

Baltimore, Maryland

CEO, CYM Media

Summer 2020 cohort of Heroes Journey

“It was an inviting and inclusive and safe space to talk about things that I didn't even realize had an impact on … what I was up to in the world.”

“There's something of significance when you hear someone share something that is impacting the way that they are in their daily life that you thought was just really a personal thing of yours.”

A year later, “it continues to resonate and reverberate in my life…Heroes Journey doesn't really have to have an endpoint.”

What drew you to Heroes Journey?

“This is my first year as CEO of our organization. In my previous relationship with the organization, I was actually a creative director… And because I'm coming into a leadership position, or have been a newly into a leadership position, in an executive capacity, I didn't feel like I necessarily had all of the things that my peer group at the CEO level at the C-suite level have.”

“I will tell you that getting together with the cohort quickly became my favorite meeting of the week. It's a great experience to be able to come as you are, to just show up and talk about how things are going, what you're experiencing.”

“We had a lot of really, really profound conversations that are still sitting with me today about, specifically about what it's like to grow up as a gay man and what you bring along with you into a professional setting that you didn't maybe know was a part of your makeup. And to talk about the good parts of that and the productive parts of that. And the ways to allow those parts of your personality or those things that you've walked through to actually inform how you show up in your work and in your career and in your professional development.”

“There's something of significance when you hear someone share something that is impacting the way that they are in their daily life that you thought was just really a personal thing of yours, right?

“Like that, you know you have that thought or that way of being about something and you know that it's likely tied to parts of your identity, and specifically being gay. And yet hearing someone else share out and being able to give back to that conversation from your lens. But more specifically, hearing someone else share parts of your story just out loud, right? Part of your experience out loud, but it's not you talking about it!

“There is an immediate connectivity to the humanity in that, right? Like there's an immediate connection to like – Wow! – it actually doesn't have to weigh that much on me or – Wow! – it doesn't actually have to have that kind of impact. …It's not all just like, oh boy, it's been a hard life, right? … I'm in a different group of people who are challenged in a different way.”

“Dominic did a phenomenal job! He is really gifted at bringing this open hearted curiosity and sense of play, and supportiveness. That's super important when you're talking about something that is so uniquely personal, and that intersects with something so important as your professional life, right? Like, I think of myself as my professional career is the thing that I really, really cherish and really work hard to mold and create.

“Dominic is a unique partner in that, he sits next to you on the bench to talk about what you see, not across from you at the table to talk about what you should see. And I think as someone who's guiding a group of men in a cohort, in this conversation of intersectionality between being gay and being a professional, you really do need someone who comes and brings that sense of, ‘It's safe here. It's supportive here. It's fun here. Anything's possible here.’ And that, I think Dominic is uniquely qualified to bring.”

What was best about the whole Heroes Journey experience for you?

“Long after the conversations have stopped and our cohort has moved on to other things, there are ideas and concepts, and even just moments of appreciation for what we're all uniquely capable of doing that still pop up in conversation for me today, right?

“I mean, my cohort has been done for – Gosh! Has it been a year now? But here's the thing is that at the other end, there's still stuff happening for me in my professional development that I know came from these conversations.”

“This is over and above the relationships, and the friendships that I made in the cohort, … And it might be about how I'm being in a conversation with someone I'm responsible for developing, who may or may not be a member of the GLBTQ community, but just how I am being about my leadership. … So it's about I think how much it continues to resonate and reverberate in my life and how the Heroes Journey doesn't really have to have an endpoint.”

“I'll admit that initially a conversation about jumping into a cohort of what I would term is successful entrepreneurial leaders that are specifically also, you know, members of the GLBTQ community. Initially, that gave me pause, because I was like, well, wait, why does gay matter? Why is that qualifier necessary or important? And so I'll admit that initially, it gave me some hesitation for that reason.

“And then obviously, the usual reasons when you're getting involved in anything that's developmental is like, – Do I have the time? Do I have the money? Do I really have the interest? Will this be a false start? Will I regret doing it?

“And the thing that I can say, coming out on the other end is, none of that actually seemed to matter when we got into the work. The most important part of the process … is that once we were in conversations together as a cohort, my reservations went away. And what I found about being a member of the community, who was also a high functioning executive, like, whatever the term you want to use, "flourishing" is that it was an inviting and inclusive and safe space to talk about things that I didn't even realize had an impact on my professional development and what I was up to in the world.

“So I'm really glad that I reached past kind of my assumed biases, or like apprehensions and reached forward to what's possible, because I got a tremendous amount of value from the experience.”