Episode 12: John and Kat on Stories We Tell Ourselves

In Episode 12, John and Kat unlock the power of storytelling for personal change and leadership. We explore the role of narratives in navigating change phases, delve into leadership, vulnerability, and grit dynamics, and discover the impact of positive narratives on personal growth. You'll be intrigued by our discussion on how these self-created stories can be our stepping stones or stumbling blocks.

Buckle up for a groundbreaking discussion that promises to reshape your perspective on personal change through storytelling!

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: Hey, good morning everybody. Welcome back to another Saturday morning performance shift, getting started right now. 

Kat Koppett: Yep, you are here with us live right now and then, if you want to go back and listen or suggest us to your friends, we are up on Apple, Google, and pretty much anywhere where you catch your podcasts. Please search and download the episodes. 

John Register: I'm so, I'm so excited about that, like we took us so long and then now we're, it's actually moving…

Yeah, we're actually up. Yep.

John Register: So, if you've been enjoying these episodes, please select that notification bell for more ever you're listening to and share it with a friend. We want to see your face in the place as well. 

Kat Koppett: That's right, we do. John, I, you know we have incredible guests who come to us, and I'm always sort of secretly excited when we just get to have a conversation together, one-on-one, and do a little deep dive into your work, which is what we get to do today. 

John Register: Well, we do do yours, like every week, because we had a chance to play a game. 

Kat Koppett: I know. Whatever comes out, I have this improv filter that I can slap on it. But that's the fun. 

John Register: That's uniqueness about this right that there is, we can, we can, we can play these games, which are really learning modules of Practicality, of how you can implement the episode that you're actually, that you're listening to yeah, one of the ways we say it at Koppett is improv is the gym. 

Kat Koppett: Right, it's use a sports metaphor. You know, we are exercising certain mindsets and muscles and we can do a lot of talking about that, right, I mean, you speak about it brilliantly, but one of the things that Is important about your work is that it's not just knowledge, right, it's not just spraying words. But then how do you make that practical and how do you Exercise and get stronger the way you would any kind of physical skill? 

John Register: I think that this, when you said, gym, you said exercise the gym, I'm glad you did the muscle, cuz I was thinking, gym, like a gym you go lower a gym you are, and with the improvisation know, gyms get brighter and shine brighter when they're pressed upon and and push and strengthened and fired through the fire. They get bet, they get refined in the fire. 

For a whole new metaphor. That's what you get on performance shifts, all the ways we can think about things, just the challenges that we have and the presses and how we actually get through things. So, so welcome everybody. And so what do we have today? 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, what do we want to talk about something really important. I think the last episode with Kristen van Ginhoven. We did a little storytelling activity at the end and then this week you've been at the national speakers association conference. You know, and it's gotten me thinking about this really Deep and wide part of our work, storytelling, and how it relates to not just formal storytelling, which I hope we'll get to, and how do you share your story as a speaker and tips for that. But even before we get there, um, what are? What is the power of story internally? How do the stories that we tell ourselves Help or hurt us at different phases of the change Framework? So I was hoping you could talk to us a little bit about that. 

John Register: Absolutely, I think. I think some of the things are you know, in my framework I have these three phases and you want to really go take the deeper dive, go back into I think it's episode one or two and we really unpack and I really impact both of our processes of how we Formulate change. But let me give you the high level of it and then then go into one of them. The first is the reckoning moment, and the reckoning moment is realized. We don't get back. We realize we do not get back what we desire to have back after some type of trauma has impacted our life, and trauma can be great. We're going to be small, it's just whatever it is to that end user. Um. The second one is the revision. So now we're re, we're recasting the vision Of what might be possible. Uh, we haven't committed to the vision yet, but we're in this process of very being very fragile with the, the new piece that we're thinking about. Uh, it's, it's tough spot to be in because it's very delicate at that point. Then, once we make a commitment, once we have attacked that hurdle I call it the hurdles Once we attack that hurdle, then we're into, um, what I've? The last one I'm always struggling with. It's just, I've really got the right, I'm, I'm, I'm on, I'm on redemption. Now I think it's redemption, oh, of course, the redemption, the redeemed, um, and so we're at a new place, a new level, which begins with this rebirth, this rebirth, and kind of goes through this, this process, but in the, in the reckoning moment, I think the stories that we tell ourselves Can be very detrimental and keep keep us in Um moments that we don't want to be in. We, we think we want to be out of what we keep Recycling. And the first one was like the first one I just shared was we don't get back what we desire to have back after some type of trauma impacts our life. So maybe it's a fear of uh, we're telling our story of, of we're not trusting the process any longer. We, we are fearful of not trusting anything again or anyone again, because I was so damaged in that relationship, I was so damaged in the the I didn't get the promotion. I was so damaged in I wasn't picked as a captain of the football team or the track team, uh, that I I can't Understand why, and so I go straight into myself and I'm telling my story that maybe I'm, I'm worthless now, and so there are these, these narratives that we begin to to replay. I love to get some of your feedback on on some of those that was just talking about. 

Kat Koppett: I have some more too, but Well, yeah, well, I let you know. Let's take them one by one. I I think that what you're pointing to and and is this idea that the the something happens right, there's a Experience, and then we make meaning of it. To try to make meaning of it is, in fact, a storytelling activity and so I just want to highlight that, in terms of what we're talking about, that Story is something beyond just sharing an anecdote or a bedtime routine with our kids. But it's the way our brains are working all the time is that we make stuff up right, we make up stories, and and so at these different phases if I'm understanding you correctly of change, we are prone to, maybe vulnerable to different kinds of storytelling activity in our heads that may not help us so much. 

John Register: Right. 

Kat Koppett: Did I get that right? 

John Register: Yeah, we- I think so because we can tell ourselves a narrative In the story, because we are, you're right, we're telling ourselves stories in a narrative all the time. Um, and if we can tell ourselves a negative narrative, we can also tell ourselves a positive narrative. And in the challenge, and what happens is we have to understand why is it that we, we so quickly gravitate to the negative narrative, why are we prone to do that? I mean, I'm just that's a question, I don't know Well, I have an answer for it, but it seems that's always most of the case. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, I don't. I don't know the answer right and I think that it, as we were saying earlier, I think there are muscles that we can exercise To help us note what kind, what are our habitual storytelling ways of telling stories and how that's helping or hurting us. One of the thoughts that I have is, in this first phase, um, we, we have stories of ourselves and our lives and our values and what's supposed to be true and what's good. And then if something shifts majorly, you know, and you use the word trauma, um, you know, in your case, losing your leg, it's very, I think people is like oh, that's very obviously trauma, but it could also be getting married for getting a promotion, right, that that's also in some ways traumatic to us. I think, in part because we, we can't trust these stories that we've had about ourselves or the world anymore. 

John Register: Yeah, I, that's right. And I think the other thing marks Mark Hunters on. Thank you, Mark. I know that they just had their show. Uh, that's up. They do this amazing show with Meredith Elliot and Mark Hunter. Uh, Sales logic. It comes on at six o'clock. So if anybody fits you listening, go check them out. They're they're Brilliant folks. Uh. So love the insights on how stories we tell ourselves impact our own thinking, and I think that's exactly right. Right, we are in a place where the I think it sometimes comes from is the narrative that's been generated in a family environment, whatever that family is to you, the relationships, the friendships that you might have, and so birds with feathers sort of flock together and the narrative just kind of just goes downward. And because we don't want to look, we want to keep our sense of belonging, we begin to tell ourselves these stories that keep us inside of the group, that keep us there, keep us locked into that. So that's why we all have this group over here and we have this group over here, we have another group over here, and they might not talk to each other or agree, and then they think their point is absolutely correct and right and we just keep on running these narratives over and over and down, these kind of downward tracks. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, it's one of the reasons I've been on a crusade against personality type indicator instruments, which a lot of my clients love. They're like oh, please do this, please do Myers Briggs for us. And one of the things I really dislike about them other than a lot of them don't have construct validity is that I feel like it reifies the stories we have in our heads about ourselves, right? So you ask me questions. I answer a survey that says, oh, I'm like this, and then that just reinforces whatever story I have about myself and it can be limiting instead of expanding. I do that for other people too, when I start labeling them with any kind of label, but maybe even most importantly, I'm doing it to myself. So, like, this is who I am, this is what I'm good at, this is what I'm not good at, this is how I respond or behave in a given situation, and we can go along our lives just sort of having these stories about ourselves, which are contextual at very best, as you said this group. I'm different from this group. 

John Register: Yeah, you know it's interesting because I was at a conference yesterday and was in a beautiful place, glinieri, with a great you know some really fantastic folks and I was on a panel. But the first activity was one of those grouping activities. I'd never seen it before and I was actually pretty blown away by how it happened that we all chose, like you know, it was pick a card and then take all the cards that you think that you identify with. You can only take four and then you go around the room and you pick up other people's cards and you're trading them out to think well, because, and then you discard the cards that are not like you, right? So you don't. It's definitely not me, you know, I'm not a detail oriented person. That's out of my book, right? And the kind of the slide of hand was when you finish and you're at your table, you turn your cards over and they're all color coded and you got all the same colors. I had all the same colors, except for one. I had all the same colors. 

Kat Koppett: I was like what. 

John Register: What? What does this mean? What? 

Kat Koppett: does it mean yeah, yeah, yeah. Well that's you know. That's the other side of what I was just saying. Is some of these stories right? Some of these qualities resonate with us, right? And then we categorize ourselves and we make things true but like, imagine what cards would you have picked or what stories would you have said about yourself before your accident versus the stories you told after? Did they shift? I guess my question is what was the same right? What has been consistent across your life, perhaps as stories that feel resonant and didn't change, and what are things that have transformed or changed? 

John Register: Yeah, as we look at this, okay. So I got a lot of things running through my head right now, because I'm just blown away by thinking about that activity again, and now what I'm doing is I'm juxtaposing it to what you're just saying right here. That's like my mind's going bam, and it's really. It's great. I love being in this space, and so now I'm waking up. 

Kat Koppett: Good morning everyone. 

John Register: Good morning. The story that I told myself, one of the stories was you're invincible, you're powerful, you can do anything you want to. You have a pathway that's all set for you and if you just follow the path, you will be fine. You're on a trajectory, you're doing, you're punching all the right buttons and life is moving forward. That was the story I was telling myself. And then I had an accident which derailed that entire thinking and in the process of rediscovery, in the process of healing, I found and even came out yesterday too, I found that I am faster at asking for help, that I don't have all the answers, that I do need assistance, and that was an amazing discovery. So even yesterday. So we went on this incredible hike and I had been on. I thought it was the same hike that I'd been on before in this area of Colorado, but it was. It was a different one and I asked I knew I was gonna need some support. So I asked upfront, as everybody's talking about do we gotta charge it? We're gonna do it, we're, it's the military camp, we gotta move forward. I said, excuse me, I'm gonna need help on this hike. And everybody's oh yeah, we got you. So it shifted the conversation After it was over, I had people say that was an amazing leadership lesson that we need to ask for help. So it's just one of those things where we get in these, we get tunnel vision and we think that we're the one, and so I wanna hear your comments on it. Then I wanna talk about one of the things that happened, cause I love these moments that come up and got me thinking. This one individual got me thinking she was talking about grit and so I was in grit. I was. I wasn't pushing back against it, but I was thinking about it from a leadership standpoint and what the positive and negative impacts of leadership are in that lesson. But I love your kind of your thoughts on leading with you know, kind of saying I need some help. 

Kat Koppett: Beautiful. Oh, there's so much in there. Well, first of all, I agree. I think it's a beautiful leadership lesson to model vulnerability, to model asking for what you need rather than being invincible and completely autonomous and separate from the group, If that's what you want people to be able to do in the group. If we talk about psychological safety, that's one part of it and the other story I have about what happened was it was not just a lesson, it was also a great gift to the group. I think we have stories about asking for help that it's gonna make us seem weaker or we're gonna be a burden or people won't respect us as much, and actually I think there's evidence that it's the opposite, that people want to help and feel good when they help right and when they are invited into help. I mean, if we think about ourselves, you love helping people. If I feel like I can be of service, that feels great. That's one of the reasons we're doing this right now, so it's a great gift to invite others in. 

John Register: Yeah, and I found two alike people in there that wanted to support me, right, I'm not saying that no one else did, but what I'm saying is that these two kind of rose up right. Randy, he helped me like the first part of the mountain right Kind of going up, and then Theresa helped me on the not down slopes. She actually helped me on some of the up slopes too, but the point is it was like it was a shared load, right, and sometimes in relationships it's not 50-50, it's just we're just going to one's gonna take over after another person after arrest, and so, because I didn't, when you're helping another person, right, you're giving a part of yourself away and so you're going to not see what everybody else sees because, you're paying attention to something, another person or another activity or whatever it might be. So the hike was beautiful and I didn't want people to miss that the valley and the sunrise hitting the mountains and all those things because they're watching out for my steps, like I have to kind of watch my steps on the loose gravel and things. So sharing that load gets a chance for everybody to experience the beauty of that hike. 

Kat Koppett: And to experience the beauty of connecting with you and helping a fellow. 

John Register: Yeah, yeah, of course. 

Kat Koppett: Because of all other beauty. So that was my thought about that. And then you mentioned grit. Last week again with Christian Van Schenhoven, we talked about the book Quit by Annie Dew which is sort of, in some ways, a response, I think, to the over rotation we have, especially in the US. I think about just toughing it out and never quitting. But so I'm curious especially of what your thoughts on grit are and what it's not. 

John Register: I think there are times like I think the over rotation is a great word, because there are absolute times when we have to charge and we have to be the leader and we have to go this direction. And we have another person on our panel that was in a firefight the Sergeant Major, and so she's got to get her troops out and up a hill and they think this is their last stand. So they're all eyes are looking at her rank and everything. She's in charge, boom, we got charges here and absolutely right, that is a toughness, that's the grit, that's where you got. There is no democracy in a firefight, right? You? Just you're gonna rely on your training, and that training kicks in. I think we also have to do that on a micro scale as well, in our companies and our businesses that we're running because the buck does stop with the leader. I think that as well. But when we're not having bullets shot at us, we have time to think, and so now we can get other people's ideas, opinions and things. So, because we're not really in a crisis mode, in crisis mode, I think grit is absolutely bam. We got to make this, we got to charge in the storm, we got to get through this thing. When we're not, though, we can have time to practice maneuvers that will allow us to think better in a crisis. Now we, because when Navy SEALs go into a firefight, I mean before they went into the some of the Vellada raid, they practiced the whole complex. They built the whole complex and practiced and trained for six months before they went in. It wasn't just boom, go in. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, that's not improved. 

John Register: That's not improved right. So we're going to train around that. And what came up for me in this moment I didn't have this thought before. I do now, having been a CEO is I began to think when she was talking about this what did I do in the crisis moment when our organization was struggling and the first thing I did was empower, because I didn't have all the answers right. I just did not. I couldn't. They had this top down leadership before, and sometimes, when we're charging, what happens is all of the decision-making filters blocks at one person. So we can't think outside the box, we can't think outside the shoe or whatever you want to call it. We're thinking through one person and that can block us. That can actually hinder the quickness, the speedy response of that. So I decided to get out of this thing. I need to know who are the sharpest people here. I'm going to say I told them, I said you were hired for this position right here and we need you more than ever to show up with that. You need to give me your KPIs, as you see it, to the value of the organization, the association. So that was the way I began to do it. Again, that goes back to the first story of being vulnerable and saying I can't you know the information that we need to do. We got to get this on the ground. I'm not going to learn this as an executive. It's going to take me like six months to get this. We don't have six months. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah. 

John Register: I need to rely on you. You need to tell me what the KPIs, whatever are, that we move forward. So that's what I was and that was this discovery that you know, I didn't think about that before until I was. You know me. I get in a situation like let me take the other side of that argument and just try to run with it. 

Kat Koppett: Well, you know, in terms of storytelling, it sounds like one of the things you're doing is stress testing a story, right, so we have a story. This is what leadership is. This is what you need to do in a crisis. This is the one way that it can be right or good. We have all sorts of stories around leadership right, and what a good leader is, and it sounds like what you are doing is stress testing that. Like, okay, maybe, that's. It's clearly true. If you're doing you know some of them have been on RAID or if you're under firefighting, that then that response was obviously very effective. It was a good response. You wouldn't want to sit around and say, okay, guys, let's come together and talk, but what do we think is the right answer? Let's brainstorm. And there are, in other situations, might be other ways that leadership shows up, like saying I need help, I don't have all the answers, what do you think? Or inviting the group to share their stories and strengths and concerns. 

John Register: Yes, and even when you're talking there I was, I was stress testing again. I, like that lab, wrote that down. Stress test the stories. So I'm stress testing my story upon my story and I think even charging that hill it was done. As I said earlier, we stress tested the leadership in training. So it makes sense that we know what to do because we put ourselves in the stressful situation before we got into the fight Right. And so now when the call comes in says Sergeant, major, there is no support, you're on your own. I know immediately what I have to do, because I have done it time and again in my training and I have evaluated that training to read, to make the next training. You know better or stronger, you know to do other things. So I have multiple ways I can think about something so that in the moment I can make the best decision in those three seconds that I can. Yeah, and that's that's how we do it. And we stress tested before we get into the firefight, and so the story that we tell ourselves are multiple stories so I can pick one of those stories for the best outcome. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, I know that story. I've heard that story. I can I can enter into that and know how it goes, because we've created it or practiced it ahead of time. Yeah. 

John Register: Yeah, yeah, it's good. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, there's so much. So if we sort of circle back to, you were talking about the reckoning, which is the sort of first phase of change. What do you have advice about how people can some activity that people can do to examine their own stories and stress test them? 

John Register: I think a great stress tester is what you just what you asked me in earlier. Right, you told yourself this who are you before you know, and what were you thinking before? Who you, who you are, how you're going to show up, what your life might be like, and then juxtaposing it to who you are now. I also think that we can. So we can, you can see it on. Maybe you write on one page that and then you write on another page the other piece of the story that you're telling yourself now, and I think what that does is it gets us to to begin to see we can shift, we, our narratives can shift. So that's one. I think. A second thing we can do is we can write down the positive stories that have happened in our life through change. And so if we, if we begin to write down the positive things that have happened in change, then we might be more likely, when change is happening, when trauma is happening, to begin to see the positive versus, you know, kind of going down the negative, negative road. 

Kat Koppett: I think about. So many times I've spoken to people, heard from people after a big trauma, you know, after the first moments, after this first phase, right, but down the road a little bit and they say, yeah, it was terrible and I wouldn't change it for anything, like I wouldn't go back, I wouldn't give it because I've gotten so so many gifts or I've learned so much, or I've grown so much because of what's happened. And there's all sorts of psychological examination of that. Right, we try to make the best of things, you know, because we survive, we're survivors, but I do think that they're that it's true. So I'm curious for you about, about that piece of it like finding the positive in the new stories. 

John Register: Yeah it's. I don't know where it came from for me Maybe it was modeled by my parents or I don't know but I think that I tend to look at life as this will pass, this tool pass right. That's generally my lens of seeing things, just as a human, and I know others don't have that, and so I'm very respectful of that. Other people see it very different, and so when people say things like is the glass half empty or is the glass half full, I'm thankful there's water in the glass. So that's kind of how I well, it doesn't matter. I mean there's water there and it depends upon whether we're filling it or whether we're drinking it if it's half empty or half full. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah. 

John Register: So it's a values thing. If I'm gonna sell that half glass of water to somebody that got an abundance of water, maybe I can sell it for a quarter. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah. 

John Register: For someone who just came out of the desert who is just, they haven't. They've been parts for a day. They might pay a hundred bucks for that water we want, right. So it's just a values thing, and where we are in our moments with the stories that we have, as we said, is to stress test those stories. So the way I look at the narratives that I see is what might be the best outcome for this, or who do I need now in my life that can help me see things that I don't see? 

Kat Koppett: Mm beautiful question. 

John Register: And this is I think I was doing that all along in my life I can point definitively to when I had the amputation and then the work I've been doing since then to now seek those things out. So now I'm looking for you know. That's why I think that the that test that we did yesterday with the color coded cards was so fascinating to me because as we started talking and workshopping, people were showing I could hear how they yeah, that makes sense when I look at the how they're, so I know how to work with that individual, you know for their just kind of what naturally might come out from them, knowing that we all can shift between, like you're saying, we can shift between those cards, you know, at different points in our life depending upon what type of stress it's us. 

Kat Koppett: Well, it sounds like it was an activity around investigating yourself what do I think is true of me now, right In this moment, and what can be very valuable, and what feels true for other people and what's? 

John Register: you know whether it's a story or something more innate. 

Kat Koppett: Whether it's a consistent story across our lives or a momentary and contextual story, it can be helpful to know what that is you may? 

John Register: Oh, no go ahead. I'll go into it just real quick. I wanna do a quick. So in your comment, as you're framing, he did say that this is not like disc, it's not like anything else. You know, don't think this is not a personality test, it's not that. So he did preface that before going into it. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, Any chance to sort of examine ourselves and how am I thinking and what stories am I telling, Feels. First of all, it's fun, right, and it's interesting, but also I'm sure it has lots of insight. When you said you know this too shall pass, that sometimes, you, you know somewhere, you learned that. It made me think about my mindfulness practice that I started at the beginning of COVID. It's been a few years now and really at the heart of that is everything is temporary. Everything is temporary and how do I separate my experience from my reaction to my experience? Which is just another way of saying to the story I'm making up about my experience, right, so this is good, this is bad, this is pleasant, this is unpleasant, this is gonna go on forever. It's never gonna be different. You know, whatever those thoughts and feelings are, I think mindfulness, meditation, is just a practice of being able to see what's happening and what we're making up about it, and then detach from being too detach, a little bit right and not being too attached to oh, the story is true. 

John Register: Yes there's. I'm not gonna share this because I can't. I wanna share but I can't share it because I didn't get the permission from the person, so I'm not gonna share it, but I'll share the construct of it and the. It's going into a new situation where you might be. You don't know anyone, you're fearful about showing up Maybe it's a networking event or something of that nature and you're like, oh my gosh, this just makes me anxious about this. And then you arrive and it's like the best thing that ever happened, right, and that's the. So we just don't know why couldn't it been the best thing that ever happened before we even arrived and that's you know. So that's. Those are stories that we are, that we continue to tell ourselves. It becomes this negative narrative oh, it was the best experience ever. Positive narrative. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, brilliant, I love it. We've only gotten really to the first phase of those three in terms of storytelling. And if I were gonna summarize what we're talking about, I think it's that we have certain set stories that we're attached to. We don't even think of them as stories, right, we just think of them as the truth. And then if something happens, some major, major, big or small event happens to challenge those stories or shift our expectations, then we're confronted with oh now, what's true? Now, what do I believe? Now, what stories am I telling? And that for many of us, we can. That can be very scary or we can sort of lean into a negative narrative. Not all of this. My mother, for example, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, her story was like I'm gonna be fine and this is just gonna be uncomfortable for a while and I'm sort of annoyed. Now she was in her 40s, in the 70s, when she had breast cancer. There was lots of reason to be really terrified and she had young children, but that was her, that's sort of what she, and she ended up being right, luckily. So I don't know all of us go to negative stories, but that feels like it's easy to do. 

John Register: Yeah, I agree, not everybody does it, and my mother was a pessimist for sure. I don't know where I got optimism from, but she was. 

Kat Koppett: I think there were little things my mother was like incredibly negative, but somehow in these big life moments she was very courageous in that way, the sky's falling. 

John Register: Oh my God, the sky's falling. 

Kat Koppett: Is there anything you wanna say about the next two phases and the types of stories that are typical or that we should look out for in those other phases? 

John Register: No, I think we should leave there and then we'll come back. We'll have another episode on the other, we'll come back to it. Stay tuned for the next episode. On going through the revision and the redemption of it all, I would like to say that there is, I believe I've been honing in on this resolve and I think that kind of leads into the next chapter of this, the resolve, the story that we now tell ourselves. I think you alluded to it earlier that I am resolute in who I am because, I've done some work in it, so there's another narrative that comes up there. But yeah, as we're talking about this, I know you named, as we're talking about the art of successfully navigating change, ken Adams' Story Spine. Oh yes, and I think you said maybe we can play that game. I know you can't really all see this, but why don't you take us through the story? 

Kat Koppett: spine I will. So Ken Adams, as you mentioned, is an improviser and a playwright. He runs Synergy Theater now in the East Bay, San Francisco Bay Area, and he created he was working with children and he was working with actors, trying to come up with, create long form, full length plays together. So collaborative storytelling. And he came up with a story spine, not to prescribe how to tell a story but to describe the sort of core structure of well-made stories. So you can take any story that you know, your story of your life, the story of Romeo and Juliet, your favorite movie, and it mostly fits into the story spine. So the story spine can be a good tool when you are thinking about communicating your story or making sense of your story to yourself, for coming up with those different structures. So, if we look at it, there's the platform, which is sort of the routine when the story begins, how things are. So once upon a time there was a guy named John who was in the military and was an elite hurdler and was on his way to the Olympics. The catalyst is what shifts the routine and he thought he was completely invincible and he could do everything and he knew exactly how his life would go right. So once upon a time, and every day, are the sentence prompts for that routine? So then next comes the catalyst what shifts the routine, what breaks the routine? Right, but one day he tripped over a hurdle and injured his leg very badly. The next bulk part of the story so like an hour if you're in an hour, an hour 15 if you're in a two hour movie are the consequences. What happened because of that? Because of that, you had to revisit your sense of yourself. Because of that, you went on a long journey to reestablish relationships and get new dreams right. Because of that, you realized that you did need help and you did need other people, and who you surrounded yourself was as important as what you were doing Until, finally, you were able to achieve amazing goals in this new reality with the help of your family and friends and colleagues, and ever since then, you've been sharing the wisdom that you gained with other people through storytelling and training. Oh beautiful, so I started the last two parts that I did there were the climax, which is until finally. So, given everything that's happened, what's the question of our story and how does it resolve? And then the resolution is the new routine. 

John Register: Love it. 

Kat Koppett: The story's fine. I was presumptuous enough to try to tell your story for you. How did I do it? It? 

John Register: was a great job. Yes, it's like you knew me, yeah, so I thought we talked about earlier in the show. Maybe we run through an example of you. You did it, so maybe we can just improv one. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, let's co-create it. How about one line at a time? So you take a piece of the story, I'll take a piece of the story and we'll go like that. 

John Register: I'll put it back up for folks to see that, if you're watching, what I'm doing is I'm putting up the story spine which Kat found, and so you can actually see us go through this process. Now Kat's the, she is the professional improv. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna be in so much talk. I'm in so much talk right now. I'm saying like oh my gosh you're back for this now. Already, I'm already telling myself the negative story, so I'll get to that. 

Kat Koppett: Do you wanna tell a like a fairy tale kind of story? Do you wanna tell like a? What kind of story do you wanna tell? Maybe we can get a word or a title from our listeners if someone's out there and they can so we have like a couple of people out there listening. 

John Register: I'm not sure if that's about fast. You can give us a story title or not just a constant-. 

Kat Koppett: One word, a simple title. 

John Register: One word. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah. 

John Register: One word, I don't know. 

Kat Koppett: You think it might take a while. 

John Register: I think it might take a while. This is just, yeah, all right. 

Kat Koppett: How about the swimming pool? 

John Register: Oh, the swimming pool, okay, so All right. Once upon a time, yeah, okay, once upon a time there was a woman who enjoyed going to the swimming pool. 

Kat Koppett: Her name was Lauren, and every day she got up first thing in the morning and swam a hundred laps in the pool. 

John Register: But one day, as she put on her goggles, Lauren discovered that the pool was a little too cold for her body temperature. 

Kat Koppett: And because of that she turned around and went home and made a cup of coffee instead. 

John Register: And because of that she thought about that decision to leave the pool because it was a little too cool for her body. 

Kat Koppett: And because of that she was really disappointed in herself and had all sorts of stories in her head about how she was a failure. 

John Register: And because of that she remembered in her life that there were times when life does get hard and you just sometimes have to push through. 

Kat Koppett: Until, finally, she went back to that pool, dove in swam for a while, thinking this is incredibly uncomfortable, until she got acclimated to the water and started to enjoy herself. 

John Register: And ever since then, even if life got hard because the pool of life is so cold, she could push herself through to accomplish what she wanted to. For those days, Woo-t Ta-da. The end. Thanks, Lauren, for that story that you gave. 

Kat Koppett: Oh, wow. So what do you think of that story, John? 

John Register: Oh, it's fun, you know, From what we talked about in the past. It was interesting to see the muscle of playing with your partner and trying to build on what they were saying and then taking leads in what we have talked about earlier on in life and say, oh, maybe we can go this direction and we've back into what we've been talking about. So that was cool to see that narrative in those one sentence stories. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, I agree. I think there's something about doing it collaboratively that's different from you know how you're telling your own story in life and in this activity. Often we're co-creating stories with other people. Right here's my version of it. What is my partner telling me about the story of me or my future? 

John Register: My love went off one second. Sorry about that, no problem. 

Kat Koppett: Life happens. So you know, as we're co-creating the story, what do I do when someone gives me an offer in my story that I'm like no, what do you mean? She went home and had a cup of coffee. That's not what people do. I'm telling a story about overcoming adversity and you're going to have to go home and have a cup of coffee. But then, oh okay, how do I bring that co-created meaning together and how do we accept? 

John Register: it. I love it, it's great. So if you have your own stories you want to tell, you can try that story spine with your teams, you know, try it with your spouse, maybe, or significant other. You can tell it with your children and just try to do it. I do it with my grandchild and we have fun telling stories, making up these crises. Amazing at this game, because children just have no filter. They just have no filter and it's beautiful to just kind of see her just explore with what you mean I can say anything you want to say, right, so it's fun for that. Wow, what a great episode. I love it. On story Places I didn't think would go, so we have some more places to go to John right, Absolutely. 

Kat Koppett: We have four more conversations to have about this, so stay tuned. 

John Register: Yes, we'll put on one. We may have a guest next week, but we'll keep on going down this path and then we might splice them all together for like a nice little show, all right, so do you have any other closing thoughts before we get ready to jump out of here? 

Kat Koppett: Well, I'm just noticing that you have a book called the 10 power stories to impact any leader, so that's relevant. 

John Register: I do, and you have one that is called training to imagine, and that is a that has been a God sent for me on many times when I have been trying to think about something to do for an activity for some of the people that I work with on a day to day basis. So try to pick those books up, go out there and find it. You can find Kat at KatKoppett, koppett.com and so you can find there's information there and you got myself on JohnRegister.com. We love to see you back here. Continue to hit that notification bell and that does it for another episode of performance shift podcast. We hope that you enjoyed our discussion gains and valuable insight that you comply to your own life work. Thank you for tuning in and we strive to provide you with the tools, insights and stories to remarkable individuals. We had a remarkable conversation today and we believe that by navigating our own moments of change, we can unlock our true potential and transform our performance. If you haven't already ready, made sure that you subscribe to perform shifts on Apple, google or your preferred podcast platform. By doing so, you gain access to all of our episodes and never miss out on valuable insights and the stories we share. 

Kat Koppett: All right, have a fantastic day. 

John Register: Everybody will see you back here next week on another episode of performance shift. 

Kat Koppett: Have a great day. 

John Register: Have a great day, everybody. Bye for now.