Activating Voice and Presence with Kimberly Mohne-Hill

In a world where our voice is our most powerful tool, we sat down with Kimberly Mohne-Hill - a revered dialect coach, voice coach, and professor of voice and acting at Santa Clara University - to unravel the intricacies of our vocal cords. Kimberly's decades of experience have seen her master the art of voice and speech, a journey she so generously shares with us. Her tales from the trenches also highlight her work with the Northern California Innocence Project, where she helps exonerees and their families reclaim their voices in their fight for justice. 

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 remarkable success, to overcome obstacles and transform your performance in the face of big change, 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 and 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, good morning everybody. It's another Saturday, awakes us all, or wherever you are watching from or listening from, I can't believe it, another day I get to hang out with the lovely, the one and only Kat Koppet. 

Kat Koppett: You are with us live here on LinkedIn. You can also find the podcast version of this on Apple, Google, really anywhere that you catch your podcasts, please search and download the episodes. Like us, review us, all that. 

John Register: Yes, and if you have been enjoying these episodes, please select that notification bell to share it with a friend. We want you to share it out there. We have a remarkable guest. Would you please introduce her to us?

Kat Koppett: I could not be more delighted to introduce my very, very good friend and colleague, Kimberly Mohne-Hill. Kimberly, while training for her master's degree in acting at the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, began to specialize in voice and speech and dialects, and, in addition to being an actor and a director, she has been a hugely busy, sought-after dialect coach and voice coach in the San Francisco Bay Area. She's done over 200 productions and classes and she is currently a professor of voice and acting at Santa Clara University and the Chair of their department of theater and dance. Although she has been doing this work, I know, very successfully for many years, she's also been studying with the acclaimed voice and presence expert, Patsy Rodenburg, over the last two years in Portugal and she is a and she is now a certified Patsy Rodenburg associate, PRA. That work is specifically focused on presence and vocal power and impact, and one of the cool things that Kim is doing that I'd love us to talk to her about is with her SCU colleagues, she's developed a speakers bureau training program for exonerates and their families in conjunction with the Northern California Innocence Project, which is amazing. If you know about that. She has coached all sorts of shows, including Pride and Prejudice, the Musical, which is streaming on Amazon Prime. She's got three books of dialects for young actors, Monologues and Dialects for young actors, Volume 1 and 2, and Scenes in Dialect for Young Actors through Smith and Krause Publishing. And, she was my maid of honor as I was hers. Please welcome Kimberly Mohne-Hill!

John Register: Yay! 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: I love that last credit the best. I think that's good. 

Kat Koppett: I just kind of improvised that, but I couldn't help myself. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Couldn't help it. I love it. 

John Register: I was going to do a dialect, but then I thought, no. Cherrio. 

0:03:33 - Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Usually what ends up happening when someone hears that sort of credentialing. They were about to do some fun voices for me, but then they stopped. 

Kat Koppett: What dialect were you going to do, John? 

John Register: A little British dialect. 

Kat Koppett: There you go.

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: There you go.

Kat Koppett: Very nice, it's a little embarrassing how much of our lives we spend speaking to each other in a British dialect. Isn't it Kim? 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Um, It's every day. Do you do it every day? I do it every day.

Kat Koppett: Mostly when I'm with you.

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: In my case, I've got one of my office manager at Santa Clara is British, so unfortunately for her, I'm coming in with random British dialect every morning. It's all right, stop it, what's going on? She's just like gosh, you can't be stopped. 

John Register: Fascinating one with dialect. I guess we're going this way. It's around with Trevor Noah. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Oh yes, he's so good. 

John Register: Oh my gosh, I mean, he's living like seven different households, and just says, I just copied the friend that is my friend and I try to mimic that person. Yeah, he's so good and so seamless with it, right? Switching between them all quickly and never to offend, right, it's always to build up and-

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: No, he listens really well, that's why I think he really listens to the heart of the people that he's talking to, and then he's recreating the heart of the person, not just the sounds that come out of their mouths.

John Register: Right, yeah, yeah.

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: He's a great listener and a great, great. He's so adept at those things. Oh my gosh, I love listening to him. 

John Register: Absolutely. So I know we have one person that's on, so hopefully they will make a comment in on this. But, Kat, let's just jump in and go ask your question. 

Kat Koppett: Well, you know there is. I think there's something for us to talk about here in terms of navigating change connected to your work, but maybe you can just start by telling us a little bit about that work, or why you were drawn to it, or what you find exciting about it. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: The world of voice and speech and dialect?

Kat Koppett: Yeah.

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: So, obviously you know, starting out as an actor and training in all of the elements of actor training that we're exposed to. We have body, voice, speech, acting lessons, etc. And within the first year of training we learned the international phonetic alphabet, which is a series of symbols that can transcribe any sound, so I could learn to sound out any language I would ever study or any accent that is presented to me. I could map it out on a piece of paper and recreate it, just almost scientifically. Had an affinity for that because it was like a secret code. But also learned that I also was a good listener and could hear the nuances pretty easily and when you're given sort of applause for something, you want to do it again because people like that about you and so I kept getting acceptance and applause for that skill set that not everybody seemed to be able to do, so it set me apart from my peers in a field where it's really hard to stand out. I wasn't trying to stand out, but it was something that I could do and started to get work from it. People often ask me how did I get so good at that? And that's where you go, okay. How did I get so good at listening or being able to hear nuance and voice? And it took me a while to reflect on that. But I realized, gosh, what was that book, Kat, where he talks about 10,000 hours of mastery?

Kat Koppett: Yeah.

John Register: Malcom Gladwell, isn't it?

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Gladwell, okay. So I read that at some point during the, trying to figure out how I got good at this and the 10,000 hours, and I was like I mean, at this point I've spent 10,000 hours, but I was good at it beforehand. Where was nobody sent me to dialect school when I was a kid? But my mom is deaf and my mom has hearing aids and she reads lips, but she never learned sign language and she also doesn't… my mom at least doesn't say what if she doesn't hear what you've said? That's not. She doesn't ask people to repeat themselves. So she, when I was growing up, if someone was speaking to her and they weren't being clear or articulating clearly, she would just look at me to find out what it was that they said and I would repeat back for her what the person had said very clearly and with clear articulation, and she would be able to then know. So I was listening for her and transcribing for her in real time from the moment I was able to speak. So there's my 10,000 hours. 

John Register: Well, I think that's fascinating when you talk about because I think we all have these the time that we put in, and sometimes we don't understand or realize we're actually putting those hours in. It's just natural for us and people will see the gift that we have faster sometimes than we see it ourselves. How, how did you know that this was something that was viable for you? Was there somebody else that told you that you were doing this, or was it your self discovery? I know you said you got a paycheck. That's always a great validator, but you know, before the paycheck somebody must have said oh, I think you know, Kim, you're really, really good at this.  

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: You know it's, the, I was also blessed, but I sort of latched on to my favorite teachers and followed my favorite teachers around. And my favorite teacher at UC San Diego, where I started my training, was a woman named Susan Lee who was the voice and dialect and speech teacher for the undergraduates. But she was simultaneously the dialect coach for the professional theater company La Jolla Playhouse, and so I got to watch her work and do her work in the professional setting while I was learning it for the first time, and that's how I knew there was a career there or there was potential there. I didn't, I didn't know what a dialect coach was coming out of high school and going, never heard of it before. So my very first favorite teacher was doing that. And then my teacher at ACT when I was doing my graduate degree was Deborah Sussel, who was one of the preeminent the preeminent dialect coach in the Bay Area when I was studying and she took me under her wing for my graduate degree. My dog is here, I'm so sorry, 

Kat Koppett: That's fine, we like canine dialects. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Okay, okay.

Kat Koppett: You know, there's so much to talk about, so I'm gonna move us ahead just a little bit in terms of. I imagine that some of our listeners might be thinking well, that's great in the theater to be able to work on your instrument and learn dialects, but you've been doing this work outside of a sort of formal theater setting with lay people, civilians. Can you tell us a little bit about how the work has translated for you and how it might be useful work to explore if you're not a professional actor, even a professional speaker? 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: In the world of the dialect and voice and speech? 

Kat Koppett: Yeah.

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Okay.

Kat Koppett: Or anything else you want to talk about? What work are you doing not in a theater, maybe? 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Okay, so with when people learn that you can do dialect, teach people dialect. There was a time in the early part of my career where people would hire me in the corporate world to and I don't like this phrase, so let me preface by saying this phrase is not used by me or by many folks anymore but to do accent reduction on people in corporate America because their intelligibility factor when they were communicating with their peers or their teammates was lacking and their managers would mistakenly attribute it to the fact that they had an accent and so I was brought in to reduce the accent and I don't like that and I never really liked those jobs I'd rather call it. And also, just quite frankly, it's hard to be motivated to not do something, right? So accent reduction is framed in a negative. But if I change the, and the language has changed to more of an accent acquisition and the idea of acquiring the parts of a general American accent that would add clarity of utterance and articulation to people's natural dialect, they would still maintain all of the lovely history and sound and culture that came with them in their voices and they would just simply add some speech patterns to it that would allow them to communicate effectively to their peers. 

John Register: I think what's coming up from here right now. We started off kind of talking a little bit about Trevor Noah. One of the things he said I think was in his comedy standup. He said an accent is just somebody trying to speak your language with the rules of theirs, and I thought that was brilliant how he just kind of framed that together. So kind of going up more in Kat's question now, some of the work that you're doing. You're really giving people voice to who they, and I'm not sure the authentic is the right word but in the authenticity of who they are letting their voice rise up. So, like in the project that you're working, an institute project you're working on, you're giving voice to someone and I have lots of questions around that. But I want to kind of see what was the transition. How did you find your way to helping people find their voice, story, from this I can't even imagine being. I saw a website, one person being incarcerated for 47 years for something they haven't done. How do you help them pass that trauma where have their life is gone, to tell this story in a way that doesn't put them back where they were? 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: It's such a wonderful context to the question. I appreciate that context because that was a really big part of how it started each session. The Innocence Project in affiliation with the Santa Clara Law School is how we were brought into this. My colleague Aldo Billingslea and I were asked by Nikki Pope, who was sort of heading this project, and her motivation, Nikki's motivation was the exonerates.  When you come out of prison, if you've served your time and you're now released, there are a bunch of support services in line for you. You have a transition essentially into the real world with some funding and some housing and things like that. If you are exonerated, the government doesn't owe you anything until you sue the government and tell them you did this wrong thing. But there's no transition. So the income and the reentry and all of that. So 47 years and you have to catch up to 47 years worth of life that's been lived and developed beyond you, so it's a very precarious situation. Now, thankfully, the Innocence Project Network, which works really hard to overturn those convictions and bring these people back to freedom that they had stolen from them, that their team is very supportive and works really hard to make sure that there's support once people have been exonerated. But what was lacking was a way to enable them to be the owners of their stories and then to use that ownership in whichever way they were going to. Either, they could possibly monetarily benefit from it as being motivational speakers, people who were guests, people who would go to different schools or whatever. But then there were also those who wanted to advocate for change. So we were also training these speakers to be able to speak in front of state legislatures and Congress and the media and have their story framed in a way that they could do the 22nd media interview on the street corner or the 20 minute presentation to Congress. And because, yes, the trauma of the event is still very, very present and we found that to be something we had to honor in the moment when we were talking with them and training them. But the other point was, when you're speaking, you always want to have the end goal in mind, like what Kat, Kat's really good at that. What do I want them to know? What do I want them to do differently after they've heard me talk? And if they have that in mind, then if the emotion that they're starting to fall into doesn't serve that point, then they have to breathe through it and get back into the goal and keep the end goal in mind. I want to change legislature. I want to ensure that this kind of policing tactic never exists again. You keep that in mind and then you're able to get through your emotional moment a little quicker. 

John Register: You know, one of the things when I'm teaching, coaching on is, I don't do a whole lot of coaching on it, but when I do, I'm always talking about you have to have a story and a point to the story. 

Kat Koppett: Not always the same thing. 

John Register: It's not always the same thing. And then I always and also say that now kind of go back to the basics of it, Right? A story has a beginning, a middle and an end. So, in that, when you're working with this and I know Hugh said something here or I'm going to try to bring his question into this Hugh Hornsby says how important are the words you use versus a dialect, and so I want to bring that into the conversation you just said, whereas there is a certain dialect, that can happen from being incarcerated now to shifting back, to transitioning, back to transitioning and getting the words together. So, kind of to Hugh's point, honoring that of how important are the words versus the dialect, how do you manage to what is more important? And is it important or is it relevant to have a person speak and the mannerism or dialect that they have come from, whatever social, economic background, to articulate the point that is so important? 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Right, I think I mean to maybe Hugh's questions a little bit about the dialect coaching and the character dialect coaching and in that, in that world I think probably, you know, the dialect and the colloquialisms that you use, add sort of authority to your dialect choices. So you know, for us you're, you're with me in the north Bay right or in the Bay area, john, are you in the Bay area? 

John Register: I'm in Colorado. I go to Bay area a little bit. 

Kat Koppett: He was just visiting last week. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: There are some words that we use in the Bay area that are very distinctive to our region, and so if we're doing the sounds of our region in our dialect but then we're also throwing in those regional isms and those colloquial phrases, that just adds authority, that we know where we're coming from and we're representing where we're coming from. And if I can seamlessly transition this back into the conversation about the Innocence Project work and the, the stories of the exonerates, what was really interesting is in helping them frame their stories. There are some very specific words and some very specific phrases that are true to an incarcerated person that when they were taught, we brought in at one point this is this is one of my favorite stories about it at one point we brought in snacks and the folks were sitting in a circle and the gaze fell onto the gallon of, like, apple juice that was put on the table and a few of them all looked at it sort of with this look, and then they looked at each other and had this knowing little twinkle in their eyes and then a little joke and Aldo and I had to go Okay, wait, why does apple juice thrill us all so much? And they said, oh yeah, no, that would be perfect for Pruno. And we were like Pruno, what's, what's Pruno? And Pruno is a way of basically creating alcohol in your cell by letting fruit ferment in your cell. But it would be helped along by a little bit of apple juice and you can start to, right? And so that little tiny story that they shared and that one Pruno that they all knew what it was, we didn't know what it was. It ended up being Nikki, after that first workshop, Nikki Pope came out of that first workshop, she wrote a book, um, and from that book created the corporation, the Pruno Fund, which is the fund and the corporation that helps support the work of the exonerated folks in these speakers bureau workshops. So it, it was this interesting word that that would, you know, file into their stories and into our shared experience of that work, which was lovely.

John Register: Pruno-

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: But it was the apple juice that was like. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, uh, apple juice there you go. So, there's so much there, right? Like now, you're in a world where you could just go buy some liquor.

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Mm-hmm. 

Kat Koppett: It was so resonant for them. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Mm-hmm, yeah.

Kat Koppett: I, I want to follow up a little bit on uh, John, you're sort of uh flexing around the word "authentic" and and it came up Kim, and what you were talking about in terms of accent acquisition versus reduction. I wonder if we can broaden the conversation. I know you've been doing work with Patsy Rodenburg and you're certified now in her stuff and a lot of her stuff is about presence, and so I'm wondering if you can talk about how that influences the work that you're doing and maybe this connection between what is authenticity, what is presence. How do they relate? 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Hmm, wow, that's such, it's a. Oof. 

Kat Koppett: We have four hours. No…  

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: We have four hours? I mean it's such, it's, it's a nuanced question and I'm and I'm hesitant to answer with authority like this is it because I feel like I'm still developing my understanding of it, even myself, back all of this time? Um, but I think some of the things that have resonated for me as I've worked on presence In the way that Patsy teaches it, which is essentially about really being in communion with another person, like putting off the, the masks that we wear to protect ourselves or to hide from the world, but also taking off the masks that we wear when we're trying to sort of, you know, push our way through the world and not, you know, care about anybody else, but really engaging directly, person to person with, with folks in a way that's, um, taking them in. I think I'm going back to the listening thing, john right talking about Trevor now the idea of being able to listen without agenda, um, and to allow whatever the person you're speaking with Brings to you to be the, the impetus for your response back to them. You've really taken them in and their Moment, that truthful moment of whatever it is that they're bringing to the table and that is inspiring your response, as opposed to coming to them with a preconceived notion of what you think they're going to say to you, or what you think they mean, and and really allowing they're authentic, if if that's the word we're going to use um persona to be seen, to be witnessed, um to be accepted, and then to be responded to with your true, accepted self back to them Is a part of it. 

John Register: I mean, that's a part of yeah, the reason I I hesitate with the word Authentic is because we are we're authentic in different scenarios, in different scenes. We're we're authentically ourselves. You know, I'm different with my wife than I am with my daughter or with if I get pulled over by the police. I'm, I show up in a different way, and so that's, that's kind of, but I want to be, I think, as you were saying, in congruence with the person in the scene in the moment. Um, that I find myself. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: I think that's all authentic. That's all authenticity because it's responsive authenticity. Right, you're responding to the circumstance, to the moment, to the person, and, and that's an authentic response, it's yeah, a wife deserves a specific kind of response and you are responding to that Authentically, to to what the wife Is, is deserving in that moment. So, yeah, it makes perfect. There you go, authenticity and habit me Right and that's and that goes into patsy stuff, right, that there is a, there's a presence that has that. That is a cost there's- You have to actually actively Think about it in the moment. You can't just check out, you can't just gloss over, you can't just be in habit um, there is, there is a moment of An expensive energy or an expensive thought that has to happen in the moment with with connecting with other people in a truthful, present way. Yeah, it can't just be wrote, it can't just be no, no. 

John Register: There is I'm struggling with. I know I'm being, as we're defining the word, authentic. Right now. I'm struggling with my mother, her passing, 2021 December 9th, and I have a. We talk a lot about this model that Kat really helped me put together, this contextual model of this reckoning moment. When reckoning moment is hurdled. I was a hurdler, hurdled when we realized we do not get back what we desire to have back after some type of trauma has impacted our life. So we get past that. Now we can have a new vision, a revision to what is next is what is possible. We have certain things that hold us back. I won't go into those things and then, finally, we have this renewal, which begins with this rebirth of this commitment that has been made to the whatever revision that we had in our life, and the commitment is we do not get back. We cannot go back. It is an impossibility to go back the other way. The chasm has been crossed and we now have to operate a new which is new, which new means no prior point of reference, when, when defined. And so right now, I'm in a I think I'm in a state of still this reckoning moment where I'm trying to not really get back. I know she's gone, but this sense of loss is so great for me right now that I'm struggling to even have a new vision of life without her, even though I'm living life without her authentically. And I would like to know I know you've gone through something you know similar with your husband, and how you now use your craft of what you're sharing with others to have helped you get over, or was there something else that really pulled you to a new direction, or maybe pushed you to a new direction? 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Well, first of all, sorry about your mom, and that's it's. And I'm not taking issue with the phrase how did I get over? Because I know, and you know it's not, I'm not getting over, it, there's, I will never get over it. You know my husband is. We were absolutely soulmates and I bring him with me every day into into the future, which still is is a little bit nebulous, and the plans that you make with a person in mind, when those, those are stopped because you can't, you know I can't turn back time, I can't make him not dead, it's, it's. The future changes, your image changes and I'm still envisioning. I'm not sure what it's going to look like, but I'm also not afraid of it because I'm bringing him with me like he's in my heart, he's in my mind all the time. So so it's not ever. His loss is never anything I'm going to get over. I don't know. I don't know the, the ways in which I was able to do what I did in terms of processing his. He had a neurodegenerative disease that at first we thought was just Parkinson's, just Parkinson's right, and I say that knowing how hard that is for folks to deal with. But when it was going to be Parkinson's. There was a longer life expectancy that we were promised. Right, you know, it'll be 20 years before he needs a wheelchair or home health care or any of that. And we were like, oh okay, well, 20 years, we're going to be really old anyway, so it'll be fine. So there was, there was an acceptance of Parkinson's even when he was given that, that diagnosis. But then it started to degenerate really, really quickly and it turned into something else and it was a very, very rare neurodegenerative disease called progressive super nuclear palsy, which then ended up taking him in less than five years from his original diagnosis. It was like so so what we, what we ended up doing is we knew we had a limited time and so we needed to fill that time with all of the things we could possibly do, and the goal was to make as many positive memories for our daughters as we possibly could in the time that we had left and just adapt to whatever the changing circumstances would be and his, because we didn't know, I didn't do, I didn't know what was coming. I knew he was going to lose the ability to do everything At a certain point. He was going to lose the ability to walk. He was going to lose the ability to talk, he was going to lose the ability to eat, and so all of those things were coming, but they came at an increments. So it's sort of like I was thinking about this this morning, Kat, as I was trying to think how do I describe how I because you've often said I don't know how you did it and I don't know how I did it either. But I think of it like you know how, when you're in kindergarten and you see the sixth graders on campus and you're like, oh my gosh, they are so old I'm never going to be able to do sixth grade, I can't even do. You know. Like the thought of doing the grade even higher than you is so scary to you. But then you get into that grade and you're like, oh yeah, I can totally do this. It's that, it's. You don't know what you can't do. And then all of a sudden you're in it and you're like, oh yeah, I can do this, and then you just do it because you have to. So we just did it. We didn't know how to take, you know, my husband, who was very mobility challenged to Europe, but we did, and it was just me and my girls and we were getting him on buses and getting him into cars and getting him to the sixth floor of a walk up hotel. So we just did. And then, years later, when we went back again with just the three of us after he had passed and we were going, you know, to my cousins and going through here, we were like, oh my gosh, how did we do this? How did we do this? But we just did because the ultimate goal again going back to the if you know what your goal is, then it's okay to use. You know how to get through the hard parts of the story, because you know what the point is, and the point was always to make Dave feel like he wasn't doing anything wrong. You know that he was. He was not doing anything to hurt us, it was going to be fine, we were going to be okay and he needed to know he was not a burden, he was not doing anything wrong, it wasn't his fault and you get to have all of this lovely joy and wonderful memories with your wife and your kids. That was our goal to make him feel as happy and comfortable and peaceful about what was happening to him as possible. 

John Register: Wow, so beautiful, amazing. Yeah, it's really beautiful. I don't know Kat you want, I see. 

Kat Koppett: Well, you know, him. I've heard you tell your some of your story formally. Hey, I'm gonna say publicly, I want you to write the book. There's so much there. But one of the sort of way, a phrase I've heard you say is that maybe you can you'll correct me if I don't get it quite right, but that once you knew there was nothing you could do to change the outcome, all you could control was how you dealt with it. Right? 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Yeah. Once the outcome was something we knew we couldn't change, all we could Change was our response to it. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, and you were so, as I witnessed it, you were so thoughtful and deliberate and present Right in terms of how you were doing that. You gave us some, some examples. There are myriad examples of how you were doing that and I guess I I Guess the question for just for our listeners is something like Having gone through that and having been so thoughtful and deliberate about it, what I don't know if advice is quite the right word, but what, what, what do you feel like you share out in the world, having had that experience for yourself. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Well, first of all, I want to acknowledge this is gonna sound so weird, but I want to acknowledge that we actually had the blessing of knowing. We knew what was gonna happen in terms of the diagnosis. We knew we had a limited time and when you know you have limited time, then you can either fight it and say, no, I deny, I don't, I don't want to think about it, or you can go we have limited time, we need to, we need to make the most of it and the privilege of that knowledge. Right, there are so many of us dealing with sudden grief. Ours was Anticipatory grief, which is a different journey. So so those two things, in some ways, whatever advice I offer, it doesn't, it doesn't necessarily lend to folks who were, who have sudden loss. Okay, I want to acknowledge that part of it, because it's a different journey. Anticipatory grief is, is is hard and In sad in those moments because you're losing your person slowly, bit by bit. And so how, how we bring that into the world, the purposefulness of it for those who are, who are dealing with an anticipatory grief, we, we named it. If we're feeling it in the moment, we acknowledged that it was the disease that was making us upset or the, the disease that was was frustrating us in the moment If we were across or or or mad. But I also had lost my grandmother when I was younger and I remembered the things when I was grieving that loss that I wished so I wished I had her voice more. I wish I had more recordings of her voice. So we were very purposeful in getting Dave's voice Recorded and having him say things on camera and have it so we could. We made, you know, the build-a-bear workshop. We went to build a bear and had him record his, had him record his voice in those little hand things that said you know, I love you mom, I love you Deb, his sister, I love you Chris. And so we made teddy bears for his loved ones and then they could push the hand and hear him say I love you, right? So we all have our, our day of teddy bears. I missed I missed the feeling of my grandmother. I missed the hug and the feeling of her. So when Dave was getting sick, we bought these Mold things where you could create a mold of something, and so we got him holding each daughter's hand, and so we have a sculpture of his hand holding each daughter's hand and my hand and his mom's hand and his dad's hand. So we all have a Dave's hand sculpture in our rooms, right? The feel of him, the smell of him, whatever his cologne was. We stocked up on it and made sure all of us had it. What other things did? Oh, he lost his ability to write. That was one of the key signs that there was something wrong, which led to his Parkinson's diagnosis, because he couldn't write and so my daughter was looking in his bible because he writes notes in his bible, and she was taking pictures. And I said what are you doing, sweetie? And she's like I'm looking for cool words in daddy's handwriting that I can get a tattoo of. And I was like that's sweet, maybe let's go with something less permanent right now. So we found his signature, you know, at the end of a note that said you know I love you, daddy, and and so we took the I love you to our local jeweler and had them Create necklaces with his handwriting that says I love you on the necklaces. So now we have these, his handwriting. So all of these little moments or these things that that are sort of proof that he was here which we were very present with, knowing he wasn't going to be always, and so we were very purposefully sort of Stockpiling those, those things to hold on to or to, to have us touch the hand To hold on to or to to have us touchstones later on in our lives, because we knew that was coming and what we bring forward with it is we try to bring forward the best of him, we try to live our lives remembering the best of who he was and and bring that forward with us in our, in our ways of being with others, in our acknowledgement of the limited time we have left on this planet and in our appreciation of just the people we love. Right, making sure they know we love them. 

John Register: I think the action steps that you just gave there because you teed it up by saying you know you want to acknowledge those that lose people you know, kind of right away my mom slipped, fell, hit her head and you know she was gone, but those are things that we can think about early because we all have limited time and we don't know so we can do. I think those are great things, that one of the the greatest possessions I have is I did record my mother's voice because I just thought she was funny and I said she's gonna say something funny here. So I recorded her voice and what came out was this it was right after I was let go from the United States Olympic Committee my last job I had. It was a mutual loss, it was, you know, we were just splitting ways um, but she was giving me some advice without really knowing she was giving me this advice, and it was really great advice, and so I have this captured. Her voice in her frail voice that's, you know that, the corn towards the end, because she was older anyway and there was, I could have done even more of that, right? So I think I can see why Kat would want you to write this book, because there's so many things we can do Without having to wait until something traumatic happens or, if it happens, God forbid. But the, you know, like the hand sculpture, or, you know, looking at the, the signature, those are things that are easily done and we might not have to go to Europe, somebody, you know, folks that may not have the means that we can't make memories right locally around us and the places that we, we live. Um, and just take the action, step. Another thing that, coming back to what I heard you say earlier, just, you know, just take the actions, just take the next step, uh, towards the goal that we, we want to want to have. I think that's beautiful. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: I want to also be very clear. We're both teachers. My husband was an incredible eighth grade math teacher and when his community found out that he was, he had to retire in the middle of the school year. He could no longer teach. They created a GoFundMe for him to travel as long as he could with his girls. So it was the community that sent him to Europe. So that was that was his. His effect on his community as a very beloved teacher, um, was what. What was what got him that memory with his girls? 

John Register: Well, I wish I would have had him for eighth grade math, because I just was horrible. 

Kat Koppett: We all with we had Dave for eighth grade math. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: He made you feel, he was awesome at making kids feel like you know, you can totally do this. Yeah, that's why he was so beloved. He was very very good. 

Kat Koppett: I I feel like, um, to sort of weave some of these threads together. There is something about your capacity to be present With whatever was happening that then allowed you to Take these actions, but also To live the experience you know to, to recognize what was needed to, as opposed to hide or run away or detach. I mean, these are very hard things to live through and it's one thing to say be present and you know, um, but that kind of acceptance and that kind of Capacity is the word that keeps coming to mind to just be is, um, unique, you know, is special in you and what you were able to steward for your girls and for Dave, and it feels connected to your professional work. Does that feel true to you? 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: It could be. I often was thinking about how. You know, a lot of what I was experiencing with Dave was like there were a lot of theater lessons. You know, in there, in theater, in acting, we have, when you're taking, you're doing your script, analysis of your character. Your character has an objective. You know they have a goal that they're aiming for and then they have given circumstances, the things that are true about them, that they can't change, but that are true, and that they they just respond to. So the givens were going to be what they were and all we could do is respond to them and try to, you know, get over those obstacles towards our objective. Our objective was always to make Dave as comfortable and peaceful and happy as possible. That was the objective. The obstacles are all of these things. He can no longer walk. I have to pick him up, I have to. You know those are obstacles that we just got over, keeping the objective in mind. So, yeah, my professional theater training gave me that language, but I'm sure there's other language about that that other people use In in, or you know, there's probably language in different fields of study that everything I've just said, some someone in psychology would go well, what you're talking about is right. I just I'm an actor of a theater teacher. This is what I know. 

Kat Koppett: I think here's what I make up. One of the things that actors get good at is feeling uncomfortable, like being in a moment and feeling things right and then leaning into that or being comfortable with that even when it's uncomfortable. That feels like a muscle that actors and artists exercise, which is sort of embracing the feelings of what's happening right, the experience of what's happening, and then accepting and building with it. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: To use improv language, because well, we've actually had the opportunity to exercise it and to realize we survived, right? So actors put themselves into these sort of tortured psychological conditions for their characters and then the play is over and we take a bow. So we went there and then we got through it and then we got to go home. We've learned that that being in those places ends at a certain point and you can get back to yourself, and you so. I don't know of other fields where people practice living in a moment of discomfort or a moment of heightened emotion where you then get, to excuse me, recover. So we've practiced that and so it. Yeah, of course, but it doesn't come. I don't think it comes regularly, because, of course, if you're feeling pain, you want it to stop and not continue, and you don't know what's on the other side of that unless you've played out that scene 17,000 times in rehearsal and you know, you know. So, yeah, it's very we this is my plug for theater training at college, like we have, we have the opportunity to, to practice going to those places of discomfort and recognizing that you can get through them in the theater arts or in other art forms, but especially in the theater arts, where you're living and empathizing with a human being. 

John Register: Yeah, beautiful. Well, Hugh also wants to write the book he says listening to learn and care. Is there a book to help practice with this book? My team, so I'm trying to imagine a great book that Kat wrote, training to imagine, is a fantastic book. So anyone that you want to recommend and then Kat, let's, let's jump into our, the supplementary and proctor. 

Kat Koppett: What other books would you recommend, Kim? I have a couple of them here. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Yeah, I don't know, they would be theater books. So sure, patsy's. Patsy's book on presence is a really good one to sort of elucidate a little more in what we were talking about earlier about presence. So Patsy Rodenburg's book on presence is a good one. 

Kat Koppett: Yeah, and then just to because you brought it up, john. So training to imagine is a book on applying improvisational theater skills and there's a chapter on presence, there's a chapter on storytelling, there's a chapter on listening, there's a chapter on building trust and spontaneity. So in some ways those are linked. I know, Kim, you use training to imagine with your students. Yes, we do. All right, so it is game time. I'm told I would like to play a game, and I don't. You know we're sitting down, we're not moving around the space, so we'll see how this works. But this is a game that I learned from you, Kim, and you came and worked with our team. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: And I learned it from someone at Bats at Bay Area Theatre Sporting. 

Kat Koppett: I'm not sure that's how it works in improv. We've all learned it from other people, but we're so. We're going to play characters, John, and we're going to give each. We're going to get suggestions, either from our listeners, from or from each other, of an emotion and a body part. Is that right? A body part and then an emotion? And we're going to just be inspired by those suggestions to become a character. And then I thought we'd we could have a little conversation. So maybe we're at a family reunion or a conference or something, Okay, so we've asked for emotions and body parts. I'll wait for just a moment and see if we can get any, or we can just give them to each other. 

John Register: I don't know. I can never tell how many people are on, because the number of top readers really doesn't-

Kat Koppett: You mean they're actually paying attention? Alright. Well, let's just dive in. So, Kim, why don't you give me an emotion and then I'll give one to John, and John can give one to you? 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Your emotion is, um, even introduced to the exercise. Wait, emotions? Is that right?

Kat Koppett: Yes, no, it is. You're right. You're 100% right.

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Gleeful. 

Kat Koppett: Gleeful. Okay, John, your emotion is, rage. 

John Register: Rage, rage. And Kimberly, your emotion is. I'm not, is this the word, inquisitive? 

Kat Koppett: Alright, and now we're going to do body parts. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: So your body part is lips. 

Kat Koppett: Maybe we'll do chest area. John, your body part is shoulders. 

John Register: Shoulders, okay, and Kimberly your body part are eyes. 

Kat Koppett: Great, okay. So just to review, I've got gleeful lips. 

John Register: I've got raging shoulders. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: So your body part is lips. I've got inquisitive eyes. 

Kat Koppett: So let's say we're sitting at a table, maybe at a family reunion is the first thing I said. We're like sitting around having conversation at the at the family reunion table. You guys, I'm so happy that we're all here together. Thank you so much for traveling to come. 

John Register: It was such a hard day of travel. I just couldn't get in my seat with some restless. But yes, I'm so glad I'm here. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: How are you guys doing? How's everybody going? It has it been a good year for everyone? 

Kat Koppett: Oh it I, There's so many things I want to share. It's been the BEST year, I had a baby, I got a job, but this is this is the best moment of all, because we're all here together. 

John Register: She is always so gleeful. I just everything, nothing that she says is wrong. Everything is perfect in her world, and my shoulders are always just killing me and pushing me in a different direction all the time. 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Have you seen someone about that? 

Kat Koppett: Beautiful, beautiful. I love that. I love that. You know we were talking about authenticity and there's something so wonderful about just working from the outside in.

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Yeah.

Kat Koppett: Ever new performances. Yeah, it's fun. How was that? 

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: So your body part is lips. for you. 

Kat Koppett: John, you've never played before. I've never played that before. 

John Register: So, yeah, it's, it's. I'm always stepping in. I just go yeah, I don't play that. I've never done it, but I love. I love them and it helps me. You know it helps me in other areas because the offers that come, even now, not even teaching, but kind of. I was in a situation where a person was kind of blocking, not really realizing they were doing it, but it was in such a way I could say that that's actually an office, an offer, you know, that's that's, that's a good thing, and I and the other person was like, well, you could have said this and said, well, maybe the offer is just I don't know what to say? Maybe that's a back to you know, sometimes we just don't know what to say in those moments like this, and that becomes the play, right? So? But I wouldn't have known that unless I was playing in this space. To stay present, fully present, Brilliant, For the five seconds I can stay present.

Kat Koppett: That's right. Kim, there is so much more we could talk about. And it's been such a gift to have you with us here. As I said, you worked with our team recently and you did wonderful work with us as individuals, as speakers, as facilitators, as leaders. I know you do all that kind of coaching. Anything you want to pitch before we say goodbye? You don't have to.

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: I honestly, you know. No, I mean, go, go take theater classes.

Kat Koppett: Yeah.

Kimberly Mohne-Hill: Take theater, take voice and push the envelopes of your comfort zone.

Kat Koppett: Yeah, and for those of you who are interested in this work, we'll keep you posted about any public workshops that Kim is doing or that we're doing with her and that friends brings us to an end. Thank you so much for joining us. And that, friends, brings us to another end of another episode of Performance Shift. 

John Register: I love it. So if you continue to listen to these podcasts, continue to do so, continue to share them. One thing that took away from Kimberly is make big memories for yourself and for others. I love that phrase and that she used there. So go out and make those memories. We say here Performance Shift, go forth. Inspire your world, because voice your command, forth is your direction, inspire is your vocation. You're because only you can do this work and world, because you can only do it in your sphere of influence. We'll see you back here next time on another episode of Performance Shift. Bye for now.