Episode 11: Kristen VanGinhoven - Arts, Activism and Actualization

Kristen van Ginhoven is a leader, theatre director, arts educator, change-maker and social entrepreneur who works at the intersection of arts and activism. Since 2010, Kristen has been the co-founder and Producing Artistic Director of WAM, a theater company that creates theatre for gender equity and has a vision of theatre as philanthropy.

Join us to talk about realizing a vision, knowing when it's time to move on, and the power of the arts for social good.

We love to hear from you about the challenges and changes you are navigating, or any other thoughts, insights, question or celebrations you'd like to share!

Be in touch!
kat@koppett.com
john@johnregister.com

Transcript

John Register: If you've ever wondered what it takes to achieve a remarkable success, to overcome obstacles and transform your performance in the face of big change, then you're in the right place. 

Kat Koppett: Welcome to Performance Shift, the podcast that will take you on a journey of discovery, exploration and transformation and give you the tools to navigate your own moments of change. 

John Register: I'm John Register, a two-time Paralympic athlete, a Combat Army veteran and author. 

Kat Koppett: And I'm Kat Koppett, an organizational consultant, author and improviser. 

John Register: Together, we're going to be sharing our expertise and insights into how we can navigate change and find success in the face of adversity. Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Performance Shift. We are in episode number 11. We are on our way to 100. Here we go, isn't that crazy? 

Kat Koppett: If you are here with us live perhaps right now. We are also up on Apple and Google as a podcast any place where you would get a podcast, go find us there.
John Register: And if you've been enjoying these episodes, please select the notification bell. Share with a friend and let's dive in. Let's go, Kat. I can't wait for this conversation.

Kat Koppett: Oh my goodness, I'm so delighted, John, to introduce you to my friend, Kristen van Ginhoven, who is a leader a theater director, an arts educator, a change maker, a social entrepreneur, who has worked at the intersection of arts and activism for many years now, since I've known her decades. In 2010, Kristin founded and has been the producing artistic director of WAM theater, and she'll be stepping down from that role now of her own accord, so we'll get to talk to her about that. Wam creates theater for gender equity and has a vision of theater as philanthropy, so that's amazing. In fulfilling its philanthropic mission, wam donates a portion of their proceeds from their main stage productions to carefully selected recipients. Kristin can tell us more about that, and to date, they have donated over $90,000 to 25 local and global organizations that are focused on gender equity in areas such as girls' education, teen pregnancy prevention, sexual trafficking awareness, midwife training and lots of other amazing things, so.
John Register: I love it. It's awesome, so I can't wait to meet her. Where's she at? Oh, here she is right there, Kristen! In the room she pops up, she's about to be in the room where it happens, the room where it happens.
Kristen van Ginhoven: I think, John, you needed to be a singer musical theater star. Has he been in spontaneous Broadway yet?
Kat Koppett: John has not seen spontaneous Broadway, but he did come to a rehearsal at Mopco where we were working on music.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Oh well, I think you have a special guest for a future Spontaneous Broadway show here.
Kat Koppett: I think that's great Spontaneous Broadway is our fully improvised musical format that is coming in the fall, I believe it will be.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Oh, yay, it's so fun. Oh my gosh, it's very nice to be here. It's great to have you Well, thank you for being on the show.
John Register: I'm really excited to have this conversation, Kat. Why don't you get us started off? And because I have a, I got a bazillion questions for you, yeah.
Kat Koppett: I mean, we're going to fight over you. Kristin, I already said a lot, you know, just in your bio about who you are and this amazing work you've been doing, and I know that you're in transition now, so we'll get there. But maybe we can start a little bit at the beginning with this first major sort of life transition that you had of starting Wham and how you came to that and had the courage to do it and what that was like.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Well, you were there. You were there at the beginning of it, Kat, so that's so interesting and then, yeah, you produced that TEDx in 2011,. Right, yeah, spoke, had my first yeah. So I am a Canadian who was living in Europe and teaching theater at an international school when I fell in love with my now ex-husband, who was a British computer scientist who got a job in America, and so we moved here and it was a time in my life where, you know, I'd gone from living in Brussels to living in Schenectady and now I live in the beautiful Berkshires of Western Massachusetts, but I wasn't able to work and I was really depressed. Honestly, it was really a challenging time to come from sort of, you know, making equal money and having this exciting life in Europe to kind of living here and not really knowing what I was going to do and I read a book called Half the Sky Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide by Nicholas Kristoff and Cheryl Wodan, and I read it at the time in my life where it just went straight to my soul and I was motivated to start this at the time. It was an artistic partnership with a colleague, Lee Strimbeck, and we co-founded WAM Theater, the original I'd pie in the sky. Naive, you know, idealistic view was that we would raise $50,000 because that's so easy to do, and then we would produce a show that highlighted the stories of women and girls and highlighted women, identifying artists who lived in this area. Because I wanted to live here, I didn't want to live in the middle of New York City and you know tons of people would come and see that because producing a show and having lots of audience members is clearly super easy to do and then we would donate all of the money that we got from putting on these shows to some extraordinary organization that was on the front lines dealing with these real world issues that I continue to believe are the seminal moral issues of our time around women's rights, because that's really easy to do, and then, like, start that cycle over again. The really interesting thing is like, from that really naive view, we have actually held on to the core of that idealistic passion that was ignited and it really came from a desire of like it's really hard to be on the front lines working on any human rights issues and at that time in my early 30s or mid 30s, I was, you know, my sort of feminist activism for the first time I didn't have to worry about a roof over my head or whether I could eat or you know, I had the brain space to my activism was not born out of necessity, it was born out of a desert, like a motivation of realizing, like I have. So here I am. I, you know, I have so many different privileges, and reading these stories in that book of these extraordinary women around the world who, despite all of these obstacles, were still finding some kind of way to get their PhD or feed their family and I was it was a bit of a dose of reality for me. So I wanted to really encourage people on the front lines to continue doing that very difficult work and I don't come from means. I couldn't write a big check, but I knew I could create an entertaining evening in the theater and that that could become my philanthropy. So that was the initial and honestly I had no idea what it would become. You were there. It was like I'd never raised money, I had never created a website, I'd never produced a show. I mean, I was an actor and a director and a teacher. So the learning curve was steep, but the passion was high and the support. You know, the Berkshires is an incredibly rich area when it comes to arts and culture and it was something I was very motivated to do and so all of a sudden, a few years later, the co founder you know the lives changed and different priorities came and she was ready to step aside and I wanted to continue and then it was a nonprofit and you know, then we were doing season of shows and here we are, 14 late years later, and the board has decided they don't want to sunset it, they want to try to keep it going the board and the team, and so it. I'm incredibly proud of it.
John Register: You know that that's amazing. You know, I think one of the things that strikes me is when people have an idea how to put it into action, people get stuck on hamster wheels with just the idea and thinking about what it could be, and, and they get so big in it and they never take the first step towards the process of actually making the reality and so when somebody always asks me that question you know about, how did you, how do you build? As they would just start, you just begin and start taking action steps. The question I have is you know, since you did that, what were some of the surprises of? Oh my gosh, like that is amazing. If we hadn't started this, then this would not have happened.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Oh, that's such a beautiful question. Well, personally, I never would have realized, like asking for help is okay. I mean, I had to ask for so much help at the beginning, so just kind of putting myself out there and just the personal growth. If I hadn't started wham, I mean I could talk, for if I were an author, I could write an entire book about it, but I don't know how to do that, so instead I do these podcasts. There. There are so many things that would not have happened, you know, and it's like you know, there are people that I meet. I was at a conference a couple of months ago and I met a young woman who works at the Stratford Festival of Canada and she had come to a 2017 Berkshire Leadership Summit that we had held in response to a study that was released about the lack of female leadership in a nonprofit theater, and at the time, she was in, I believe, like an assistant lighting supervisor at the Stratford Festival and coming to that summit inspired her. She's now like the assistant production manager of, like, the festival theater, you know, and she said it was coming to that summit that wanted, like that planted the seed that she could achieve more and she wanted more leadership, providing jobs to people, getting artists to understand that their work can be activism all of the work that we've done with the recipients and being a tiny part of this extraordinary work that they do I often share the story of. In 2013, we did a play about Emily, who is another woman, Emily Duchet-Len, another woman lost to history, who was extremely influential in the world of physics and mathematics, but she's best known for being Voltaire's mistress, because that's kind of how history works and then we put that play on and the recipient was the Rite of Passage for Girls and Empowerment for Girls program, and there was a group of eighth graders, many of whom were the first in their family to think about going to college. The money that we donated paid for a college tour of HBCUs and other colleges around the Northeast and the middle of the country, and now some of those young women have, like, graduated from college. And now we didn't. You know, we had a teeny piece of sand, part of that journey, but just knowing that by putting on art and paying actors and artists, stage managers, designers, and creating these opportunities for people who identify as women and girls to like tell stories and be in these artistic positions that that had a tiny influence on making it possible for these girls to think about going to college. It's just kind of magic.
John Register: Yeah, I love the. I'm still kind of in the start mode, right, and these things. Just that doesn't happen if we don't get started. So we begin. You know, for those that are out there listening right now you kind of put into business, put into your life who are you depriving, because you didn't start, of a solution that is going to come, because that you need to start? And so what Kristen is really talking about here is making these impacts of what happens when we just begin to actuate the dreams that we have. Kat, what are you thinking when you answered Kristen's response?
Kat Koppett: One of the things I'm remembering about you, Kristen, that I think was was is one of your superpowers, is how beautifully and full throatily you celebrated all the initial small wins and that you know now, looking back, you've had so much impact and you've created so much and I think sometimes we look at folks once things are built, that's when we see them or that's when we're invited in. But what I remember, but what, what stands out for me about you, is how completely delighted you were and how much you shared. Look, we did this thing. You know every little step along the way and that was very, it was very inspiring and it shifted my mindset, because I know that I don't tend to be that way. I'm like oh, it's too little, or oh, it's not enough, or oh, what's the next thing that I have to do as opposed to really taking the time to celebrate the wins along the way? Does that resonate?
Kristen van Ginhoven: Mm-hmm. Oh, that resonates so much with me. I'm a highly sensitive person. Every single thing I do takes like so much energy, so it's like just getting up and getting ready for the day. I'm like I did it.
John Register: Yeah, yeah.
Kristen van Ginhoven: You know and I remember working in the international school system and you know we finished this enormous play with a hundred middle school students. That involves the music department and you like do this enormous thing. And then it's like all right onto the next thing and I was like wait, whoa, wait a second here, like when do we get to celebrate the fact that we did this? And like mark the occasion? I mean, I'm a theater maker, it's all about ritual and it's like there has to be a ritual of acknowledging. I'm just generally in humanity and you know, don't get me started but because of the system that we currently live under, it's so product oriented, it's so like get more done, and it really the humanity of how much energy it takes to literally get anything done. You boot you to created this podcast. You have to spend a lot. There's a lot under the iceberg of, like this moment where you are, you know, going live and sharing the podcast. You've had hours and hours and hours of work together figuring out what the structure is going to be, how are you going to introduce it, what's the technology going to be, how are you going to? You know of how you're going to market it, all that stuff and that takes a lot of energy, and we just kind of gloss over that as if, like, that's no problem and it's like no, that's an enormous amount of work that has to be recognized.
John Register: No, we just wing it so.
Kat Koppett: That's where I'm from right. We just improvise, yes.
John Register: That's it. Yeah, no, not so much. So Morris Parsons on here, and he's a friend of mine down in Houston area. He says celebrating the winds along provides the fuel that creates the momentum to keep going. So this is great, so we're going to keep on going. With another question, Kat, do you have one? Because I got like 1,000.
Kat Koppett: Oh, please, how about it?
John Register: Well, it kind of dives into, you know, kind of along these lines of celebrating the small winds. Why do you think that people will get overwhelmed with the larger tasks at hand, and do you think that the small winds along the way helps with actualizing some of the dreams or aspirations that other people have?
Kristen van Ginhoven: Yes, I definitely think celebrating the small winds makes a huge difference because it reminds us what we've accomplished. You know, and we celebrate a lot of big accomplishments, right? I mean, we're celebrating sixth graders graduating from kindergarten. We're wearing like tassels and gowns. It's like why can't we celebrate? But I did, you know, my growing up we did celebrate those things. You know, we went out for dinner after I sang in a show or you know, we went and did something fun. If my sister accomplished, you know, ran a race, like we did those things and we acknowledged that. So it's difficult for me to kind of separate myself from my upbringing. I do think that it is. That isn't enough, but I think it does help keep people on a track of going forward. But we need that internal celebration but we also need the external validation and there's a lot that we can unpack about the stigma or the shame around wanting the external validation for things. But that does help keep us going.
John Register: You know. So what came up for me when you were saying that right is, one of my favorite movies is the Incredibles.
Kat Koppett: I love The Incredibles.
John Register: I love The Incredibles. It is a classic, Okay so and Mr. Incredible. He's talking it's kind of what you just said. There is, I was writing it down is we just find different ways to celebrate mediocrity? Yeah, yeah, and I said what a line and I think that's exactly what you're saying. Speaking to when is it time to do the celebration and what's the time?
Kristen van Ginhoven: Yeah, well, I want to celebrate all the time, like you know, and I think every person is different, right, it's like some people, they'll fall down, they'll get up, they'll just keep going, and it's like brush themselves off and they can just keep going. Other people, they have a different personality and we sort of treat everybody the same in this world, and it's that's like the million dollar question, right, it's like when do you celebrate? When do you keep going? When do you give yourself a moment to gather yourself? When do you just like push on through? You know, these are the questions we all spend lots of money on therapy, on.
John Register: Yes, yes, yes.
Kat Koppett: It reminds me of you know and improv. I think we've talked about it, john the circus power. We've talked about celebrating failure, and people can be resistant to that idea Like does that mean we don't care? Does that mean we don't have quality? Does that mean we're not being discerning? And I think, as I'm listening to this conversation, it's the opposite. It's right being able to get up and dust yourself off and celebrate that you tried right, that you took a step, and so that you don't get overwhelmed or buried or disheartened or demotivated.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Yeah, I love that you said that, because I actually do that a lot. Right, I'm like, fail big, like in the directing room, you know, trying to create an environment where artists feel safe to try stuff, because you don't discover the really incredible. You know, work if you're not willing to risk, if you're not willing to make a fool of yourself or do something that you might fall flat on your butt, and it's like that. Failure is not negative. Quitting is not negative. You know, I'm like listening to quit and the book quit, and failure is seen as like something to be ashamed about, whereas, like you know, the most amazing lessons that I've learned in my life are from failing or quote unquote, not succeeding, whatever that means and we're living in a time where all of these things that had been laid like had to be quiet. We are making them more transparent and I think that's also causing a lot of nuance and interesting ripple effects and waves in the world. But it's also it's healthier. Ultimately, I think it's healthier, you know, to acknowledge that. Yeah, failure is really important, you know, and there are many folks who they might fail in one thing and that provides the foundation for building this other thing, you know. So it's not something to be ashamed of and you know, trying to remove the stigma from all that stuff is so important.
John Register: I would have loved to have won the gold medal right, and one of the things that I appreciate is this what I've learned is I don't believe maybe I would have come to this realization, but I don't know if I would have come to it had I not won silver versus winning gold in the Paralympic games, and the reason I say that is because we can. We can it wasn't as if I was out to win the silver medal, but it can only be one gold right and I can't take an entitlement says I am in a position to have access to something that I have not yet earned, and so it could be. You know, with a credit card right. You know, on credit, we're paying for things that we really haven't earned right. We haven't earned the money to buy it, so we buy it, we defer it on credit and during this you know, kind of revelation I see more from the silver medal position than I think I would have gained from having won gold.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Like what.
John Register: Like I think I've been more cliche-ish, right, if you just work hard, if you just, you know, make sure that you can follow the steps and make sure you do the rituals, and I don't know if I would have come to the realization. It's not just about hard work.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Definitely not.
John Register: You know, because we know people that have worked hard and have everything and dude you won a single medal in the Olympic Games.
Kristen van Ginhoven: It's like what You're like 0.001 of the population.
John Register: This is relative. This is relative and yeah, I have no say that's.
Kristen van Ginhoven: The thing is like it's never enough or I haven't achieved enough, you know, and I'm struggling with all of that right now too, but it's just such a misnomer, right, it's like when you really like think I'm reading your story and I'm just like my God, you know this, this, what this person accomplished is like unbelievable, you know, and like that's extraordinary. It's why I can't stand watching the Olympics, because I always feel bad for number four.
John Register: I just, I can't do it, I'm just like my heart just breaks, you know for number four. It breaks for them too. But you know, so it's like the goal is yeah, it's great, the silver's like okay, I almost made it so I could be satisfied. You guys have got it. There's like dang it. You know what, if I could have just put a little more, but I still got a medal, got that.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Or just like God dog right, I know I can't stand it. That's why I can't do sports. I like I'm a collaborator. I can't. It goes against everything I believe in that someone's going to be best. I can't watch award shows. I can't watch Olympics. I like I love the Tour de France. I have to stop on the last stage. I like I can't do it. It just breaks my heart, you know.
John Register: That's funny. Well, you alluded to a few things about shifting and transitioning. One of the things we talked about in performance shift is are these shifts that happen? And so what is what's going on now that I mean you've got this great thing happening, but now you're saying that there's a shift coming, another shift, a shift to. We did a shift to get into this and now there's another shift that's happened. What's? What is that shift?
Kristen van Ginhoven: So, it's interesting. The first shift to get into this, I will say, was not really well thought out, right. That was a very like passionate, like a full bodied response to a time of life. Reading a book like let's just, pinball machine, you know, like whoosh, we're just going to run with this. This particular shift is a lot more thoughtful. It's taken a few years to come to it. It's been informed by many different life things and some context is like when I turned 30, I was living in Toronto. 30 was actually really easy, 31 was challenging and I remember thinking like I was an actor at the time doing all these temp jobs and I was. I had, I didn't get like a quicker oats commercial and I feel like I had a mental breakdown, you know, because I didn't get this ridiculous commercial and I remember that moment being like something has to change, you know and at that time I there was a Canadian actor who is still one of Canada's top actors. He was at the time in his 50s. Now he's in his 70s and he was working all the time at like major theaters playing leading roles and he still had to cater to pay his rent in his 50's and I remember thinking I am not that person like I am not going, that isn't going to work for me. Like kudos to him. That's amazing, but that's not gonna work for me and so that's when I got my teaching degree thanks to my mom suggesting why don't you go try this? You know, and originally I was just gonna do sub jobs and then got this extraordinary opportunity to go overseas, and so at that time I made decisions because I didn't wanna be a starving artist in my 50s. Now I'm 51 and I look at sort of what I've been able to build and you know, many different things happened. Five years ago my marriage unexpectedly ended. That changed my entire financial future. Two years ago my mom got non-Hodgkin's lymphoma at 87. She's a total warrior. She came out of it and then, like you know, chemo, radiation, the whole bit. She's just unbelievable and then two months ago she has this very rare stroke that affects a part of her memory. So I'm dealing with, you know, thinking about like huh, so that's the end of life. I'm 50. I'm super proud of all the adventures I've had and that I've actually managed to create a career as an artist for 30 years. I mean it's astonishing and yet now I'm like I see a lot of older women in their 70s who are really financially in precarious situations and I just thought I've had another moment, like when I was 30, when I didn't want to be a serving artist in my 50s, and now I don't want to be a poor 70-something year old woman, and that means I have to make a conscious choice, to make a change, because I do still live. Although I'm a huge proponent of solidarity economy, I do still live in a world that functions on hard currency. I don't want to be. I want to choose to work. I don't want to have to work when my body no longer has the energy to do that and I'm not somebody who had that awakening early. My passion for art then my passion for activism, was motivating a different choice and just my life circumstances allowed for that to be the case. But that's not the case anymore. I'm not. I don't have kids. I don't currently have a spouse. I have a partner, but I don't have a spouse and I'm not gonna inherit a bunch of money when I die. So I have to be realistic about just thinking ahead honestly. So I've reached the second cliff of our industry. The first cliff is when you're in your 20s and you're like how can I have a life as an artist? And the second cliff is when you hit middle age in your life. How am I gonna provide for my, you know? And so I've reached that. Plus, the company is gonna be 15 years old next year and, honestly, I'm not a leader who believes in like staying forever and ever. You know, I am not the right person to build the walls. I've built a really strong foundation, along with the help of an enormous amount of people, and someone has to come and it's evolved. Someone has to come and build the walls and build something else. So that has happened at around the same time. You know, I think even if my life had not changed personally over the last five years, I think I still would be making this decision. Just reach a certain point where I'm not the right person to build the walls. You know, I gotta call in a different contractor to do that.
John Register: Wow, I mean, that's such great courage and foresight and insight to know that you're not. I'm like, I'm taking, I'm fiercely taking notes on this because I see so many different parallels, especially like in my life the amputee coalition right, people wanted me to stay on as the CEO and I was like, no, that's not what I want to do to build. I don't want to build that. Somebody else has better skill sets to do that piece of it. I can rally folks for a little bit, but I think you know somebody else has a better skill sets to do it.  For athletes, athletes that are making the transition. They're like you call it the second cliff and what I wrote down here is the shifting into the you're acting. Shifting into sport is easy because it's something we just want to do. Shifting out is a different conversation, it's more strategic and I was just having a conversation with an athlete over in Paris and asked and he's doing fantastic and wanted to continue to do fantastic, and he and his wife they're like the darlings of sport, right, and I'm like you know. So I asked a couple of questions around you know. So what's your transition? You know you're kind of mid career now. What's your transition? And non-starter does not want to even talk about that. We'll just figure it out once we get there and so I was kind of I was like, oh that's, that's the train wreck that starts coming, because then we start doing other things to salvage career or to just hang on because there is no plan in place and so that's what I love about what you're saying is that there's a plan you can set yourself up for that plan.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Well, there is no plan yet. There just is a gut instinct that this is the right thing to do.
John Register: I think that you're thinking about it, which is part of that right and so maybe yeah, it's the revisioning process. We're gonna have a new vision. The plan's not already laid out for you, but it's a revision of what you know that you need to do, and that it happened to courage to actually hurdle to what you know you have to do, even though that the plan's not fully formulated.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Yes, yeah, yeah, the other. That's really lovely and I have to say I am delighted that you have so many questions and are so curious, because most folks are not right. We don't live in a world where there are that many curious people. So I deeply appreciate the curiosity and Kat can relate to this. I'm also, you know, after 30 years in the theater. It's like at what point do you say, okay, I've given this industry enough, you know, and it's like in 2019, pre-pandemic I did have some extraordinary experiences to be able to work at a completely different level in the theater and I was seeing like a trajectory in my career that would open the door to. You know, there are very few people in our industry who, you know, have a retirement plan and have healthcare and can pay for that either from the job that they have at a nonprofit regional theater of size or from a freelance career as an artist. It's a teeny, tiny percentage, you know, like 90% of directors you know make less than $14,000 a year. It's like our union is based on the people who, you know, wrote Hamilton or directed Hamilton and are getting those royalties every week from the Broadway run or the regional tour. You know, the rest of us are just like struggling along, and after 30 years I have to say to myself, like I know I can do, that I no longer have the energy and the hustle to prove to theater that I should work at that level, right. So it's like I got to cut bait and be like okay, I've done this, I've achieved some extraordinary things, I've done work that's really meaningful to me and I, at 51, I don't have the energy to prove to you that I should go work on the regional theater circuit or I should go run a regional theater of the $10 million budget, right? It's like time to quit. You know, you got to know when to stop playing poker.
Kat Koppett: Yeah and quit. You've mentioned it a couple of times Annie Duke's book. She was a poker player and it's a great book, so we can put it in the show notes. I'm thinking about this conversation that we've had over time, john, around change that is forced upon you, right, and then you just have to react like when you lost your leg what am I going to do now? How am I going to? And versus change that you initiate yourself, and in some ways I feel like there's a takes a huge amount of courage, both of these examples, but the sort of courage to initiate a change when things might be going fine or when you wouldn't have to in the moment change like the athlete friend that you're talking about, john. So I'm curious for you, kristen, having just what's that like to sort of initiate this new change, maybe without knowing what's coming next, how's it going? What's up?
Kristen van Ginhoven: Yeah, thank you for that question. So it's interesting and I'd be curious if John had the same experience. Like you know, my what happened in my personal life with my marriage happened to me and I had to react. What's interesting is, now I'm choosing to make a change and my body is like we were just in this unknown. Why are you putting me in this again? Right, like I just struggled through of being in the ocean and not knowing like which shore I was going to. When it was thrust upon me, I didn't have control over it. And now that's my story around it, obviously, and what and now I'm choosing to put myself in the unknown. I'm choosing to let go of the rung and swim into the middle of the ocean and not know what the next rung is going to be. But my body doesn't. The feelings that I'm experiencing are exactly the same right, the sort of the fear, the paralysis, the overwhelm, the worry, the anxiety, the like, and also there's an empowerment and a liberation and a control over like doing it. But the feelings of are the same, you know, and so that took me by surprise. I did not expect that to happen. You know that my body would be like we were just in this place, like a few years ago, and like, found our way to the shore, like what are you doing? You know why are you doing this to me again? But I also know, and I like I give her a little hug and I'm like you know, this is what's actually best for us in the long run. And you know, you have your little dialogue with yourself and you know, I know, I know I'm a "manifestor," I know I'm a doer, I know that, like I have created opportunities throughout my entire life that have created a day to day that is mostly aligned with how I like to live. So I have a good shot of that happening for me again. Right, if I look back with perspective. But yeah, the kind of, you know, visceral response is very powerful. So meditation, walking, taking care of myself, sleeping all that stuff is like essential as I choose to make this kind of leap.
John Register: It is wow, I mean. So Kat knows I'm just like my head's just going crazy right now Because I formally Part of it is because I've been trying to break the model. I've been trying to break my model right, and the more I try to break it, the more it's solidifying, and I think it's all the way there. But I think it's solidifying and part of the model is around this concept, around the rebirth, and in the rebirth everything is new, and new means no prior point of reference. But new also is a commitment has been made to the new process, Whereas in what we call the first area of this regular reckoning moment, we can go back, we can try to go. I think we can go back to the way it used to be when it's changed, but we can't. But we haven't realized that we haven't. It's something that we think we can actually do. I just wish things would return to normal is how I frame it. In the commitment, everything is new because you've committed to it and you cannot go back. The divorce has happened, Boom, it's done, the leg is gone, it is done. But we have phantom pain that starts bringing us back to a place that's no longer there for us, and so it makes it difficult because these reminders happen for us to move forward. So we must allow ourselves space and grace to grow in the process. Space and grace so that is, I mean what you're saying is where people I think that I've seen get stuck. I'm about to talk to a group of like 80 CEOs right now and to have this conversation because nobody wants to look bad and that limits us in what we can do. We don't want to look like we are failing in front of our peer group, but actually that's the thing that helps us expand and grow. Like you said, like early Kat, the circus bow.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Yeah, and I do recognize that by being public about what I'm choosing to do, that I'm doing what a lot of people think about doing but don't have what they see as the courage to do it Right, because then you got to live with these feelings that I'm living with, which are really hard, right? So people are like I don't want to live with it. I'm like who quits their job before they have another job. I have responsibilities, I have a mortgage, I have a car payment Like what am I doing? You know it's like it's so bananas and yet I recognize that, like you know, I'm getting so many people like this is so courageous. I wish I had the courage to do that, etc. Etc. I've made a lot of choices along the way that mean that I don't have I'm responsible for myself, right. So I have the privilege to make this decision because of choices I've made along the way in my life. Other people don't have that privilege, right. They have obligations that they have to prioritize. So I fully recognize that.
John Register: Yeah, this has to be prioritized.
Kristen van Ginhoven: The other thing you made me think of, John, is like when, when the other thing our brain does is it tells ourselves stories that like things were better than they actually were.
John Register: Right, yes, the good old days.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Right, oh, the good old days.
John Register: You made that so good for me in America.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Right, exactly Right, or that marriage was so great. It's like we're all these other times, or like when you, you know, the life that you had when you had two legs versus the life you have now. You know, your life seems Pretty awesome, you know, and it's this thing you tell ourselves stories of like how. So it's good to be realistic and keep perspective about all of that too.
John Register: Somebody. I know we're going to play a game. Somebody shared me. Another colleague you know was she's writing a book and she's brilliant. She's amazing for him. She's ever on the show Kat and so we're. I was in the lounge and she was asking me about kind of the question was what I want, my life? She was assuming that my life would be better if I had two legs, but we'll go back to that thing again, but it was it was done in a sense it wasn't done in you know a negative thing and I said you know I can't go back and shift that, I can't change that. But I find that people adapt to where they are in their lives. So when I was building the Paralympic military sport program it was it was fascinating to me that I was discovering that I was learning that the person that was a single leg amputee was thankful and grateful they weren't a double leg amputee, and the triple amputee was grateful they weren't a quad amputee and the quad was thankful that they weren't a spinal cord injury and a spinal cord injury wasn't you know we're grateful that they weren't a quadriplegic. So everybody kind of adapts into what they are and kind of that's why I love the the incredible so much, because when we make the commitment we just don't know what's going to come.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Jack, Jack and that process of learning that I can adapt. I mean that is so incredibly empowering and liberating right like that process itself and it's like there are folks obviously in the world to have to adapt to far, far more than I have. But that is where resilience comes in, that's where grit comes in, that's where being able to keep things in perspective or that wisdom that comes with life experience comes from that recognition. We think we can't adapt, we think there's no way I'll be able to continue on if X happened. But you know what we do we actually do, and that recognition helps us have perspective when all these other things in our lives happen, and that wisdom is a huge part of like. What I'm grateful for is I talked to people like yourselves. We've gone through your own versions of this.
John Register: Yeah, whoo, this is good Kat.
Kat Koppett: I told you.
John Register: We do good every week. That's great we all love all of us. It's fascinating conversations.
Kat Koppett: I know we could go on forever and you've both given me a great segue for the improv game that I thought we were going to play today, which is sort of an improv game and sort of storytelling game, because you were talking Christian, about the stories we tell ourselves and these moments of transformation that we see ourselves. So there's a little structure that I learned from a Caleb lie that we use in our storytelling work a lot, that I thought it would just be fun to do a few round robins around, which is simply to fill in this structure. In the beginning of- too blank, but now I blank, or I used to think, or it used to be true that and now it's true that, and so let's just do a few rounds of that. And if someone is has the impulse at some point when you hear one to say, tell that story, and we can tell that story and let's do like a two or three sentence version of that story, like what was it that caused that catalyst, or what is it like to be in this new place, right? So not 20 minute stories, because at some point this podcast has to end, sadly, but just a little. So I'll go first just to demo and then we can go. Maybe we can go like Kat, John, Christian, and we'll go around in a circle. So I used to think that I was a fake business person, but now I realize that everybody all other entrepreneurs feel like that too, and so I am one, John.
John Register: I used to think I didn't deserve to be in the room, had imposter syndrome and now I realize that everybody thinks they don't deserve to be in the room.
Kristen van Ginhoven: I used to think that it would be impossible for me to ever earn a six figure salary, and now I am starting to believe that maybe there's a way that I can make that happen.
Kat Koppett: I used to have my daughter living in my house, but now I don't.
John Register: I want you to tell me a little bit more about that, because I'm struggling with that right now. I'm struggling with that right now.
Kat Koppett: Well, of course, you know, as I was raising my daughter, from the time she was zero to 18, she lived with me and I guess what's interesting about that is that I had store all sorts of stories about. This was the time and this was you know, we're going to have a relationship with them. When we left, when she left my house, and how I wouldn't be as needed or as close to her, and in fact, she's living on her own. Not always she comes back, you know, between college semesters and things, but I find that what I'm discovering about that is that I'm in a new phase of my you know how I spend my time and my life, but in fact I feel like I'm closer to my daughter than ever and that hasn't actually changed our relationship very much.
John Register: That's beautiful. I used to think that I was a pretty good husband and then, when my wife almost passed away from COVID, I realized I could go deeper in our relationship.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Thank you for doing that and thank I'm so glad she didn't, so glad she recovered.
John Register: Me too, me too.
Kristen van Ginhoven: I would posit we can all go deeper. All the time. I used to think that I was, you know, had some levels of oppression because I'm a woman and I'm an artist and I'm the daughter of immigrants and now I realize that I have an enormous amount of privilege because I wake up every morning with white skin.
Kat Koppett: I used to be the hot young new thing and now I'm one of the elders in my field.
Kristen van Ginhoven: How does that feel?
Kat Koppett: I resonate a lot with what you talk about, Kristen, in terms of what's the trajectory of that and do I have the energy and passion to keep fighting for my place when there are 20 and 30-year-olds who have lots of energy and passion to make their new name for themselves?
John Register: I believe that my mom was just my mother, and then I discovered that my mother was my protector.
Kat Koppett: Tell us about that.
John Register: Then after she passed, my wife called me out on. Alice called me out, saying when your mother was living, you used to go and make move the earth to get back to your parents to help them do this transition. That was very difficult for them to move, and I would go there a couple of times a month. I had these benefits. I could do that, and then, after she passed, I stopped moving heaven and earth to go see my dad, and so she called me on it, and so I began to do some more deeper thinking around it and why it is I have to force myself to do that, and so I found that she was protecting me from a lot. Not that my dad was bad or anything like this, but she was the one that was the protector for me, and so now I'm working through that as a process and continue to this day to work through her death as well as what were some of those issues that were going on between father-son relationships.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Well, that brings up for me. I used to think that I was the only one who would feel things so deeply, because I'm an artist and highly sensitive and whatever other reasons and now I connected to how on earth will I continue to go on after my parents passed away? And now I recognize that these rights of passage, that everyone goes through them and that everyone feels these feelings, and that we just don't talk about them enough or have any skill set or tools to talk about them with one another, and so we avoid it. Beautiful-
Kat Koppett: Okay, we'll do one last round. I used to live in a world where applying improv and storytelling to business, to communication, to human development, was weird and strange and now everyone gets the value and I get to do it all the time.
John Register: Yay, I love it, love it. Amazing! I believe that I was in a very extroverted person and now I realize during the pandemic, I'm more introverted because that's how I recover. It's kind of myself myself, not with that, so yeah, Mm-hmm here here.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Maybe you're a highly sensitive man. You should take the test. I used to believe that one person could not make any kind of dent or difference in the major issues of the world, and now I understand that one person can make a huge difference in the world.
Kat Koppett: What a beautiful place to close this Christian, because you are an individual who has made such a huge difference and is such a model for exactly what you just said and then Did I. Well, yes, and of course my colleague John, we know, is making a huge difference.
Kristen van Ginhoven: And you, and you.
John Register: Yeah, thank you. So, wow, incredible. I have some things I just wanted to put up real quick as we get ready to end the show. I thought that one of the things you said you know, Christian, is I learned that Ask for Help is okay. I took that one. I want to celebrate Kat. She has a book out there If you're ever out there, she may mention that I always was asking I need a game, I need a game for this and so she has a book called Training to Imagine. It's a master class on you know, if you need some type of impetus to get you started and then I wrote a book for our ambassadors, really around the world, called Ten Power Stories to Impact any Leader Journey or Way to Leadership Success and all this was really around how to tell a better story when the pandemic first hit and because they had to deal with a lot of misinformation that was out there. So how do you do that? So, yeah, thank you all for this was great. Oh, thank you.
Kristen van Ginhoven: I keep on going forever.
John Register: But I got to speak in like 45 minutes Yay.
Kristen van Ginhoven: Well, that's very inspiring. Well, thank you so much for having me on. I feel really honored to have held some space with you both. It was beautiful oh thank you.
John Register: So that's it, ladies and gentlemen, for our today's episode of performance here. We hope you enjoyed our discussion, gain some valuable insights that you can apply to your own life and work. Thank you for tuning in to another episode. We hope that today's conversation has left you feeling inspired and ready to embrace the change that is in your own life, as always. I'm John Register, a two-time Paralympic athlete and combat army veteran, and I'm joined, of course, by the lovely, the one and only Kat Koppett, an organizational consultant, author and improviser. Together, we are dedicated to sharing our expertise and guiding you on a journey of discovery, exploration and transformation. If you haven't already done so, make sure you subscribe to the Performance Shift podcast on Apple, google, wherever you listen to your podcast platform, and by doing so you gain access to all of our episodes and never miss out on the valuable insights and stories that we share. Find Kat at www.koppett.com and myself at www.JohnRegister.com. We'll see you back here next week for another episode of the Performance Shift podcast. Bye for now, everybody See you later.
Kat Koppett: Bye.