Meet Kristin Turner

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Kristin Turner. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Kristin, we’re so excited for our community to get to know you and learn from your journey and the wisdom you’ve acquired over time. Let’s kick things off with a discussion on self-confidence and self-esteem. How did you develop yours?
Betting on myself and taking leaps.

I am the only child of a single mom who was in the military. The combination of that and other factors growing up imbued me with a deep sense of personal and community responsibility. Choosing to go on the adventure of My Life has landed me in the roles and spaces beyond my wildest imagination.

During my last year of law school, I fell into a bit of an existential crisis that started with the nagging suspicion that there was more that I could both offer to the world and ask out of life. It stemmed from the realization that money and status weren’t my definitions of success — it was optionality: the ability to choose, and service – the ability to positively contribute to what’s around you.

As a black woman I knew that having *that* privilege automatically meant that I lived beyond the present realities and imagination of many other women both in the US and around the world. It was a positioning that I felt very compelled to hold and act on responsibly. I did the unthinkable, I declined my big fancy firm offer and graduated Harvard Law School without a job and with my only plan to not squander the mandate I had to live a bold life of innovation and service.

That year birthed a “philosophy of being” that – while sometimes harder – promotes clarity and alignment because it’s all about becoming your own best teammate. One whose opinion and conclusions you can trust because you’ve done the work to get out of your own way. It’s about learning to work through your trauma, biases and discomfort to dare to bet on and respect yourself. It’s allowed me to live my life in real time and not through the filters of a past version of me. If I had lived the life I had planned for myself, I would’ve been miserable.

It’s impossible to plan for a person you haven’t become. And by leaning into my own constant evolution, I’ve been able to call audibles and work across different, almost seemingly contradictory, industries — in a way that has felt unique, creative, and organic. I’ve lived life according to what is the next most interesting thing to do that’s of the highest use — it’s taken me from being a lawyer, to working in startups and on presidential campaigns, to becoming an entrepreneur! Even amidst hardship and utter failure (all of which I’ve survived), the fact that I haven’t betrayed myself and have dared to actually BE and show up AS the person that I say I am is the best footing I could ask for in my life. Not only does it inspire me to keep taking risks — it helped me recognize that Life IS leaping.

 

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
We’re not going to get out of our collective situation until we get out of the situationships we’re in with ourselves.

Kristin “KT” Turner is a thought leader, speaker, and coach aiming to rethink our personal and social change storytelling. Across industries, she is known for her work centered on creating more equity, individual agency, and overall well-being in the world – and for giving shape to the conversations that support that. While her professional pursuits have generally lived at the intersection of social change, civic tech, and electoral politics, her current focus on the relationship between individual change and collective action.

KT is the Founder of MisfitMinds Collective, a civic studio + lab on a mission to reimagine our relationships to ourselves, each other, and the world around us. MisfitMinds is a collective of creatives, storytellers and operatives who came together in search of a political home for our humanity. We sense that there’s a bigger conversation that we need to be having as we navigate our post-pandemic contexts. We are no longer the same. Yet, we seem to be reverting back to the smallness of a world we just watched fall apart. We’re in a world that’s disconnected, playing small, and out of time. MisfitMinds is a forum where we ask bigger questions around who we are as people and as a society – starting with our relationships to ourselves. We’re on a journey to identify our civic spirituality and hope that you’ll join us.

 

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
The three most important qualities that have been most impactful along my journey are:

• Independent Thinking / Personal Authority – This allowed me to not only interrogate the world around me but to feel secure if my thoughts/feelings/path looked different than others. Feeling empowered to be my own person has allowed me to live the life that’s uniquely meant for me.

• Trust in Life / Persistence – This false idea of overnight success or “and the rest is history” is a reductive lie. Experiences of uncertainty, failure, and obstacles are the building blocks of character that help introduce you to your true self. The capacity for self-coaching and self-soothing in moments when you feel like giving up is what separates purpose-driven innovators and creatives from clout chasers. So much of life is mental. Once you understand that, the field opens up.

• Kindness / Benevolence – In a world that seems to applaud, cruelty and “clapbacks,” there’s nothing more nourishing than knowing people feel safe, inspired, valued and valuable around you. People remember how you made them feel and you never know when that good faith will boomerang back to help you. That said, people confuse “nice”and “kind” — being nice can cause you to overextend or betray yourself, being kind allows you to create and communicate honest boundaries that outline the way everyone can feel whole and respected.

 

Tell us what your ideal client would be like?
There are a variety of ways to engage with Kristin and MisfitMinds.

Personal coaching (with Kristin) – Kristin offers personal coaching for individuals who are looking to create change in their lives. The ideal client is anyone who is looking to get out of the situationship they’re in with themselves and need someone to help create the clarity and confidence as they embark on that journey.

Creative projects (with MisfitMinds) – our ideal partners are people or organizations that want to create media that helps unpack questions around who we are currently and inherently. This can include podcast appearances, short or long form video content, op-eds etc.

 

 

Contact Info:

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