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Coaching Mind's Podcast: Perform at your best!
Coaching Mind's Podcast: Perform at your best!
#138 - Choosing Joy Through Adversity with Kierstyn Ballard
In this episode of the Coaching Minds podcast, we sit down with former Baylor pole vaulter Kierstyn Ballard to talk about the real journey behind the highlights — from early gymnastics to Division I athletics, injuries, identity loss, and choosing joy through adversity.
Kierstyn opens up about navigating mental and emotional challenges, her faith, and what it really takes to ask for help when things feel like they’re falling apart. Whether you’re an athlete, coach, or parent, her insight will challenge you to rethink what toughness means — and how to grow through setbacks.
Topics we cover:
- Transitioning from gymnastics to pole vaulting
- The mental side of committing in high-risk performance
- The identity crisis of injury and retirement
- Asking for help and breaking the stigma
- Her faith and mindset through four chaotic years
Are you an ATHLETE looking to take your training to the next level? Check out our website to learn more about 1-on-1 training opportunities:
mentaltrainingplan.com/athletes
Are you a COACH looking for an affordable year-round mental performance training program? Check out the MTP Academy available through our website:
mentaltrainingplan.com/teams
Hey, welcome to the Coaching Minds podcast the official podcast of Mental Training Plan here today with a very special guest, kirsten Ballard. Kirsten, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited.
Speaker 1:So, before we get started, would love for you to just kind of catch us up. Tell us a little bit about you, your story and how you got to where you're at today.
Speaker 2:So I was a gymnast for as long as I could remember, up until my junior year of high school, Moved around a ton so went to a bunch of different gyms, had a ton of different coaching experiences and also worked with a ton of different athletes.
Speaker 2:After many injuries I ended up quitting gymnastics, retiring, I guess, my junior year, and started pole vaulting. I didn't really know what pole vaulting was going into high school and then once I quit gymnastics and COVID was around, we weren't really doing anything. My coach strength coaches at my high school were like you should try pole vaulting and I was like okay, like I don't really know what I'm doing. And let me tell you it was like the most humbling sport I've ever done in my entire life. But I was convinced that I wanted to compete D1. So I trained super hard my senior year and ended up vaulting at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. So I've been there the past four years, just completed my undergraduate degree and now I'm officially retired and I'm no longer an athlete and so navigating that now and going in to get my master's still at Baylor and working part time.
Speaker 1:Love that. So you were a gymnast for most of your life. Is that fair to say? Yes, sir. And talk to us a little bit about how did that background maybe play a big role in how you approach pole vaulting? Because, I'll be honest, like the thought of vaulting myself 10 feet up in the air is just seems absolutely terrifying to me.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes it's. I would say it's more thrilling. Most people think it's terrifying, but I think, because I was so used to just throwing my body around all the time and gymnastics, I kind of had this fearless aspect to me that I wasn't ever totally scared of pole vaulting. Even though it really is a mental game that you're playing out there, it's way more mental than people think. You're doing things with your body that goes against what it naturally wants to do. Everyone always says you have to be a little bit crazy to pole vault which.
Speaker 2:I mean I guess is very fair to say. But I mean, yeah, I think the biggest thing would probably just be the fearlessness aspect of it and just being able to like go all in, because if you don't, you mess up one thing and then it could end terribly, and so you have to kind of do everything to the best that you can, with no hesitations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I know, with with a lot of the golfers that I work with, committing to a shot is a big deal. And you know, with with a lot of the golfers that I work with, committing to a shot is a big deal. And you know, with a with a pitcher even committing to that pitch, going all in, like we're not second guessing, not doing any of that, not well, you know, maybe it's this kind of shot or maybe it's that kind of club Like you got to commit. I would imagine that commitment is even more intense in something where you're literally hurling yourself 12 feet up in the air. Talk a little bit about, like what was the coaching that you got maybe leading up to? Hey, here's how you go all in and do this crazy thing with your body.
Speaker 2:So I mean, you're completely relying on another object to do what you want yourself to do. You're trying to get the pole to fling you up into the air and so, but in order to do that, you have to go 100% and commit. Like you were talking about and a lot of the coaching cues that I would get. They would give us words that we would be given, and I remember in high school one of them was attack, and if I didn't attack it, then you go in lazy and you could end up not on the mat and you could end up on the track just because you didn't go 100% in. Attack was one of them. Just anything that was going to get my body to actually react well and not be complacent, and so that was the biggest. I even brought that into college just because you wanted that aggressiveness and you wanted to just commit the whole time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Speaking of college, what was that like? Packing up, moving across the country to Texas. Was that that transition difficult for you?
Speaker 2:Yes, my first one year was it was quite hard, harder than I was anticipating.
Speaker 2:I feel like a lot of people didn't warn me going into college. They didn't tell me how hard it was going to be. You could obviously probably assume that going away to Texas would be hard, but I kind of was very naive going into it. I think it's because I had moved around so much growing up that I just figured, oh, this is just another move and I'm going to be completely fine, and I didn't realize that I wasn't going to be with my family and I was going to be in a completely new area with all these people that I was going to need to meet, and I was doing that alone in a sense. So it was challenging, but I feel like the Lord taught me a lot through especially that first semester of college of just like being my faith is super important to me. So being dependent on him and also making the effort to reach out to people in the relationships that I did have, but also making an effort to build new relationships in the place that I was in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what did you love the most about being a division one athlete? And then on the on the flip side of that maybe, what part was way harder than you? You ever realized?
Speaker 2:I would have to say the best part about being a division one athlete would be I mean, this might be a cliche answer, but the team aspect of it, um track is. It's interesting because it is an individual sport technically but everyone in their event groups gets really close and I was very thankful to have a coach that led my group super well, coach Brandon Richards. He's one of the most incredible men that I've ever met in my entire life just humans in general and he led us very well and so we were able to bond really well as a group and I got really close with people that were older than me and the people that were younger with me, and so that team camaraderie was super cool thing to be a part of Um. I think the hardest thing would just be the performance Um.
Speaker 2:A lot of people don't talk about the pressure I feel like it's talked about more that comes with being at D one athlete and especially when you're not going to be like ranked, like in the top 10, top whatever, you're not going to be high performing athlete and I would struggle with this idea of being mediocre and I had to come to realize at the end of my career that me, being a division one athlete in itself is not mediocre, like I'm not average for that. But I did struggle with the concept of performing averagely, which would then translate to because sports is such a big part of my life, I would struggle with my identity and all of that kind of stuff and I know for me in, you know I didn't.
Speaker 1:I didn't play division one football. I played D3 football at Wabash college and even there it was an entire team made up of guys who they were the captains of their high school team. They were the best player on their high school team. They were you're you're not surrounded by. There is no mediocre, or they wouldn't be playing at all. What do you think was for the listeners that are dreaming about maybe someday achieving that goal? What's something about the college athlete lifestyle that you think would maybe surprise most high school athletes that are still dreaming about that?
Speaker 2:I mean being a division one athlete and just a college athlete in general is a full time job. Like you are constantly on the go. It consumes every part of your life. If you're in the classroom, you're thinking about track, even if you don't want to be thinking about track. If you are just at home hanging out with your friends and roommates, you're thinking about track. What am I going to be doing at practice the next day? How can I get the best sleep? And so I think in high school you almost Obviously you don't think about it as often. You're in school majority of the day. You go to your practices at night, sometimes lifts in the morning, but it's not something that you've grounded yourself in completely. But in college I feel like it just means a lot more because you are now performing at such a high level, at such a high stage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thinking back to your time at Baylor, what maybe stands out as a favorite moment of yours?
Speaker 2:I kind of want to turn it away from track a little bit. I loved every single trip that I got to take with track. I think that could be just a general memory that I have with them. But one thing that I was like super blessed to have at Baylor was I have an incredible just group of friends that was sporting me on the outside of track and so I lived with six other girls, which normally would come with a bunch of drama, but they're my best friends and whenever I would come back from I had two knee surgeries throughout college and whenever I would come back from Indy from having my surgeries, they were always there taking care of me and giving me rides. And those are just little things that honestly were my favorite memories because I think that it brought me closer to them and just showed like how strong those friendships and relationships were.
Speaker 1:And those are going to be long lasting relationships in the future, For sure. Which kind of kind of brings us up to the next section of maybe some not so pleasant memories, some not such fun times. I know you dealt with injuries and had seasons where you weren't able to compete. Let's talk a little bit about like. What was that like mentally and emotionally for?
Speaker 2:you. I mean, it's never fun being the one sitting on the sidelines watching everyone else do the thing that you love. I think that the injury in itself, while it sucked, it was just. It was more of the aspect of I constantly was comparing myself to what my teammates were doing, and obviously comparison is the thief of joy. However, like it's, it's very easy to look at someone that has that was in the same spot as me before I was injured and now it's like completely excelling while I'm still over here trying to rehab and get back to like where I was before and even try to get better than what I was doing before. I mean rehab in general. I I wouldn't have taken it back. I think that it taught me a lot and it gave me a head that is very stubborn and I'm very determined to like reach goals once I set them, and I think that those injuries taught me that. But again, it just it just sucks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, and there's a. I mean, there's a piece of it that's tied to your identity, right, and there there's a piece of it that it's like this is what I've committed my life to, this is what my my time has gone toward. All this physical and mental and emotional effort has been poured into this. What's that feel like when, all of a sudden, that's taken away or put on pause?
Speaker 2:I we talked about this briefly, um in the past but this idea that, like now, that track is completely done for me I'm going through like a whole grieving process of this part of my identity is almost died and I feel like, looking back on the injuries that I had and being taken away from my sport so often, that was almost like previews as to what was to come. And so I think, while I'm still navigating that loss and being taken from my sport, I kind of was prepped for like this moment. But I mean, it doesn't neglect that it's still hard and there's going to still be moments where I am, I miss the track and I miss, like, what I'm doing, but just have to keep moving forward.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I know we talked ahead of time about you were. You were raised in a home where the mindset was put your head down and get to work. How did how did that help you? Maybe you know that mindset getting you to college and even while you were at college, maybe dealing with some of that.
Speaker 2:My parents are incredible and they've pushed us to do things beyond our limits our entire life and I'm super thankful for that.
Speaker 2:And that whole put your head down and just keep going is it helped?
Speaker 2:It helped all of us through our injuries that we face, because a lot of the times, that's when people quit. I remember someone told me to write down every aspect of my life where, like there is times where I could have quit, and I remember I took went through freshman, through senior year, and I wrote down every single time that I like struggled with something, adversity hit, and then she was like star. Every time that you could have like someone else would have quit, and I just started about 20 of them. I was like this is crazy, but I mean I think about my parents and then how they just continue to continuously are pushing us to keep moving forward and to just while it does suck like embrace the suck almost, and I know some people don't like that phrase, but I mean it. It does suck like embrace the suck almost, and I know some people don't like that phrase, but I mean it is what it like things happen and you, just you have to keep going forward and there's no really another option.
Speaker 1:Yeah, were there. Were there any times where just put your head down and work harder wasn't enough and you needed maybe to to reach out and get some, some help from somewhere else.
Speaker 2:No, definitely. Especially with this past injury, the, my second knee surgery didn't go exactly as smoothly as my first one. So, first one, I was back in a matter of five to six months, jumping completely normally right. My right leg ended up being I should have been back with within five to six months, but my quad wasn't working.
Speaker 2:I was doing everything that I possibly could have been doing to get back and there was just things out of my control where my body just simply wasn't letting me. So the whole mentality of keep my head down and just get over and do it, I really couldn't do it because my body wouldn't let me. And so then obviously that comes with some mental struggles that you'll get, and so I ended up going to see someone. We ended up talking through it and she helped me a ton through the beginning of the season, the end of that rehab, and I was doing PT throughout the rest of my senior season and she was a huge encouragement to me in order to just process everything that I was feeling and also translate to like physically doing things again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, did you feel like there was? Do you feel like there was any kind of a like a stigma battle there? Like I know when, when Kirk Herbstreet was talking about he was playing at Ohio state and he went to go meet with a I think he said a sports psychologist maybe, and it was like it was almost like he was looking over his shoulder on the way into the office because he didn't want people to to perceive him as weak or as not able to do it on his own or something like that Was. Was there anything in the back of your mind that maybe caused you to hesitate to reach out? Or was it kind of like no, this is, this is what I need to do. This is, this is the next right step.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I was. I was terrible. I was so stubborn. I'm very much one of those people that I want to try to figure it out myself. I'll bottle it all in and I will just let again, ignore everyone else and what they have to say and the advice they're giving me, and try to just like do it myself, because that's just how I want to do it.
Speaker 2:So freshman year, when I was going through my first surgery, dealing with being alone from my family and also dealing with a lot of family loss, I was recommended to go see someone and I was like no, but then it was a requirement, I had to. So I went in there. I told them everything that was going on in my life and they were like oh wow, would you like to come back? And I was like nope. I was like actually I wouldn't. So I didn't go back for four years, ended up going to see the same lady and I remember us ending our time together and she was like I'm so thankful that you came back. And I was like me too, she goes. You came in with a brick wall in front of you and now it's broken down and you're able to actually like, articulate, like what you're feeling, and that's helped me a lot with everything else.
Speaker 1:Do you feel like you? Almost Things had to be broken. Almost that wall had to be shattered by a big enough event for you to be able to realize, like oh, maybe there are things in life that are big enough that I need some outside help.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think there is so many big like big things that happened in my four years at Baylor that I they should have, just I should have known to go see someone at the beginning. But again, like over and over, again, and again, I just think God was trying to teach me like, all right, like you can't do this by yourself, you need some help. You can't do this by yourself, you need some help. You can't do this by yourself, you need some help. And so I'm thinking, every single time he tried to knock me down, he was trying to point me into a different direction, which I eventually got there.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But I don't think that there was. I mean, the last surgery?
Speaker 1:yes, that was a pretty, a pretty big one uh, to get me to go, but there was other events that led to getting there. Yeah, and you talked a little bit about experiencing loss and we don't have to go too far into that. But I am kind of curious because there are going to be other athletes listening on here that either A they just got injured and their sport has kind of been been taken away from them or put on pause, um, or you know, or B they graduate and now all of a sudden this thing that's been all consuming in their life and almost started to even become kind of who they are, has been taken away in in your experience with you know whether it's injuries, whether it's graduating in in your experience with you know whether it's injuries, whether it's graduating, comparing that with loss and comparing that with, like grief and having to sort of go through a process what, what's that?
Speaker 2:what's that relationship like maybe in your mind and in your experience I I mean just reflecting on the different types of loss I've gone through. I mean I've gone through I've lost my very close cousin and when I was a freshman, and then we've all gone through breakups, all the things. And then a sport is just I don't even, I don't even know how to describe it it just is, it becomes a part of you and it's hard for people to be like, all right, my sport is not who I am, and that's something that was ingrained in me from the very beginning, especially with my Baylor coach. That was something that he told us all the time. He was like your priorities are one, your faith to school, and then family, and then family, obviously in school are a little interchangeable there but sport was last.
Speaker 2:He was like pole vaulting last, and, yes, we all listened to that. But, like subconsciously, we're obviously going to put this thing that we've put so much time into and we love so much in our identity, and so when that gets taken away, you just your mind feels lost and then you're trying to replace it with other things, and so it's definitely when people go through it, I feel like they just need to take their time, and I think that's one thing. It's not. You can't rush the process of losing your sport, especially if it's taken away from you suddenly because you've put so much effort into it and this is something that you love, and so you're just going to have to take your time and process the way that you need to.
Speaker 1:For sure. So the you know. Another topic that we kind of we talked about a little bit before coming on here was the fact that your dad is obviously very public figure. You know GM for the Colts and there you know if, if my dad quote unquote does a really good job at work or doesn't do a really good job at work, you know, no one's no one's going to have any idea about it, no one's going to talk about it, whereas you can turn on ESPN any given day and they're talking about someone that you love. You know, maybe in really positive ways, maybe in not so positive ways. How do you you've talked about, you know all of the lessons that were passed on to you about you know mindset, about toughness about how to get through things, toughness about how to get through things. What were maybe some of the lessons growing up that you learned, maybe with dealing some positives and some negatives in that public forum?
Speaker 2:I mean growing up, my dad first of all. I mean it's funny, because my brothers and I were actually talking about this the other day. Sometimes we look at my dad and we're like we can't, we forget that you're the jam of the Colts because he just at home he's doesn't even act like he has that high of a role, which is really funny. So anytime I get these ESPN alerts or see anything on social media, it is it's hard for me to see those things. But also, at the same time, he's always told us don't read the comments, don't do this. And of course I'm going to, but I mean he told us not to for a reason, because these people don't really know what they're talking about.
Speaker 2:Sure, granted, there's going to be positives and negatives and it's really cool to read all the positive things. But I think one thing that I've learned from my dad there's many things that I've learned, but especially in this past year he has. He would tell me if you could wake up every day and look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself that you're doing the absolute best that you can and that's all that matters. And I know that he does that every single day and I see it in his work. He works his butt off and he puts a lot of time into what he does, and I want to be my dad in every way that he is, and he's just someone that I. He exemplifies toughness and grit and perseverance, especially like in the NFL. With everything that gets thrown at him, he keeps his head up and doesn't? He just blocks out all the noise that's around him, and I think that we should do the same thing, especially if he is excelling the way that he is.
Speaker 1:For sure I don't. We didn't. We didn't talk about this ahead of time. But I actually have a quote from him that I use in one of my team trainings and it's the whole objective is helping athletes realize how they can be in control of confidence and positivity not other people and outside circumstances. And we talk about you know, like, who are the people in your inner circle that really care about you, for who you are? And we talk about you know the people that are on your board of directors, that you know your strength and conditioning coach, your head coach, your trainers, things like that. And then we talk about, like what do we do with maybe some of the some of the extra outside noise, opinions, things like that. And he he said I, I don't.
Speaker 1:I don't remember what the situation was or what, what transaction maybe had occurred that led to this. But some reporter asked him a question. He said what I think you always have to ask yourself is the criticism fair? I'll take it in If it's fair. If it's not fair, then what am I doing? I'm not wasting my headspace on that, but if the criticism is fair, then we've got to be able to look internally and accept that and grow from that, and I think that's so powerful. Let's shift this into life, like where, where have there been times where maybe there was some outside noise and you had to decide you know what, here's how I'm going to handle this, or here's how I'm going to go another direction? Or, you know not read the comment like what's? What's that look like for you in real life?
Speaker 2:yeah, well, let me tell you, my dad is very wise for saying that. I actually don't even remember when he said that, um, but he did tell us that at home, so it's crazy. Um, I would say that I mean there was a lot of times, especially growing up and looking at the situation with my dad too, I would have. I've had instances where I've had coaches be like you're only here because of your last name, you're only going to Baylor because of who your dad is, that type of thing, and obviously those are things that my dad never wanted us to hear, ever, especially because he wants us to pave our own path. And so that's when you have to.
Speaker 2:That criticism you just have to take to the side. I ignored all of it because I mean there's I know who I am, I know what my goals are, I know what I can control and the mindset that I have and the effort that I can put towards things, and that doesn't have anything to do with what anyone else is saying. However, like you were saying, there are certain things that I need to take into account that I could be coachable on, or there's different criticisms that I can take in that are going to help me to be better at whatever I'm doing in the future, but at the same time, like just addressing the noise and being able to discern what's going to be useful to me and what's just going to hinder me, and knowing that I'm going to just control my emotions and how I react to the outside noise.
Speaker 1:Yeah for sure. So the example that I talk about with athletes when I'm working with them one-on-one, is like LeBron James right If he. Everybody's got an opinion about LeBron love him, hate him, whatever. There's very few people in the basketball world that are like, eh, he's all right, right. And so we talk about how, if he responded to every comment on social media, literally that would just be his full-time job. All he would do is respond to things like that. We know, at that level you can't respond to all the thoughts and the criticism and the comments. You just can't. It would consume your life and I think it's easy. You know I'm not LeBron James.
Speaker 1:In high school I wasn't LeBron James. People weren't talking trash about me for the most part. You know, on shoot, we didn't even have social media back then. But now we're we're in a different day and age, like there were. There were high school golfers on Westfield's team this year who they won a state championship and for the past three seasons they were back to back to back state runner up. And there was literally a I don't know. I would assume it was a kid from another school, I would hope it wasn't an adult, but somebody created this account where literally all they were doing was talking trash about high school golfers and so the the reality is, people are having to learn how to deal with some of this public criticism way earlier than than they ever have in the past. If if you had some advice, for you know a high school or a college athlete who's maybe dealing with some of that on their own right now.
Speaker 2:I mean I can't say anything because I mean I'm on social media. But, truthfully, social media is such a distraction and, like, when you think about it, I guess the piece of advice that I would give is like put your time into the thing that you're like actually working towards, because if you're putting your time into the thing that you're actually working towards, because if you're putting your time into social media, then obviously you're going to feed into all the comments and all the things that it's bringing to you, instead of investing time into things that are actually going to better you and grow you. Yes, while social media can be used to, I feel like maybe help you in certain ways, I feel like it can be more of a hindrance, especially now with all of like the criticism that comes with it. But I just I feel like it's a distraction to especially athletes, because you're just taking your time to like invest into something that's just going to bring you down, when you could be spending that elsewhere.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you brought up your faith before. I'd love to just dive into that a little bit. When you're, when you're struggling like what, what helped you stay grounded, what maybe gave you a little bit deeper purpose, like I would love to just hear a little bit about how does, how does your faith show up for you in times like that?
Speaker 2:It's. I feel like, especially within my past four years, my faith has grown in ways that I wouldn't have anticipated it to. I would have said that my faith was very strong going into college, but I feel like it's kind of become my own Ultimately, like my, I feel as of my purpose in life is to serve God and serve others. And, uh, my one of my favorite Bible verses is Colossians three, two say your mind on the things that are above, not on the things that are on this earth.
Speaker 2:And I feel like, as I reflect on that daily, um, just being able to set my dependence on God and knowing that, like his plan, is greater than anything that I could do ever on my own, just helps me to recenter myself, especially when things are going wrong. Because, again, I'm a control freak. I like to have do things my way, and if it's not, then I'm going to still try to figure out how to do it my way, even if that's not what God has planned for me. And so just having to recenter my mind, reframe my mind, to refocus on what my purpose is and what, and just pray for what the Lord has set for me instead of what I have set for myself, yeah, how's that?
Speaker 1:how's that maybe grown or changed, as, as you've been faced with some of the kind of the real life adversity that you've gone through over the last five years?
Speaker 2:Um, I, I mean, mean I could literally I feel like freshman year I think the first like level of adversity was so minor it was I had a terrible roommate. I was just it's not a good roommate situation, you know I was like, all right, you know what god like, it's okay, like this is fine, it's just the test. And so I was, like you know, feeling quite strong then. And then my I go home for winter break, I get COVID, and I was like all right, I'm going into my first season, this is not a good start. And then things just kept getting harder and harder. My cousin passed away unexpectedly out of nowhere and he was just taken, no goodbye. And that's when I was was like, oh, like I don't even know what to do right now.
Speaker 2:And so I just felt like I was getting hit after hit after hit and then end of my track season, my freshman year this is kind of funny. Now I got hit by a car, which is how? Yeah, yeah, got hit by a car. We can talk about that more if you want, but that's how I had my first knee surgery, and so I literally told myself I was like you know what we're, this is, this is it.
Speaker 2:And so I like almost turned my emotions off because I was like I don't even want to feel the pain of everything that I've gone through this past year, because it hurts too bad to even feel anything else. And then, after that summer, I realized this is not healthy, this is not helping me get better, and I wasn't relying on God in the way that I should, especially since he had proved to be faithful throughout it all. I made it out of all of those things and I was okay. I still had everyone around me that I loved supporting me, and so from then on, as, like, more adversity came my way, I was able to have a different perspective and go back to the whole recentering and just being coming almost to a place of gratitude rather than a place of what was me.
Speaker 1:That's all right. So. So I heard you had a couple of knee surgeries and I'm thinking, oh, like, yeah, she was running and she went flying 12 feet in the air and she like hurt her knee and then you just sort of casually breezed through, I got hit by a car, which so like that that's that had to have been like a whole nother level of emotion. Like, in that moment I would think it's pretty easy to slip into some victim mindset of, like what was me? Why has this happened to me? Why, like? I would love to maybe just hear a tiny bit more about that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so basically I was, we were traveling um in big twelves and I was going to study for an exam and I decided to go to this coffee shop. I was on one of those, just like the public, like lime scooters that they had in the area, and a car didn't see a stop sign and hit me. And so it wasn't my fault. It wasn't my fault I have to remind people of that sometimes but hit me, but I being the way that, I was convinced that I was still going to compete that day because it was the morning of the competition, and so I attempted to make it back to the hotel and compete and they were like, yeah, no, you're not jumping. And I was like awesome, but my kneecap had dislocated, which I had had that issue in the past. But the problem was that this one slipped a little bit more than it normally would.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:So so that, uh, I I don't need like I, I got nothing, I have no transition to my next question. Well, that is uh that. That is certainly an unfortunate uh event. I'm glad it didn't end up worse than that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it could have been a lot worse.
Speaker 1:It certainly could have. Definitely cool, though, to hear about how, through all of that, I mean, that story kind of ended with gratitude and a complete shift in your mindset, your perspective, how you were seeing those things as you kind of think about now, all right now. You were seeing those things as you kind of as you kind of think about now, all right now that I'm kind of headed off on my own and I'm getting ready to pave my own journey here, what do you, what do you think the next next few years, next decade, looks like for you?
Speaker 2:Um well, I'm excited because I, while my athletic career has officially ended, I am choosing to stay within the sports world and want to contribute to that in as much as like in a lot of ways. So I am currently, like I said, getting my master's in sport management at Baylor, and then I am going to be working for the AFCA, the American Football Coaches Association, and I'm just a graduate assistant. I'm just going to be doing a lot of different things. I told my supervisor that I was willing to try anything, because just trying to figure out what I'm good at, what I like, I'm pretty unafraid to make mistakes. I mean, one of my favorite speeches is the man in the arena and one of my favorite lines from Teddy Roosevelt was that there's no effort without error in shortcoming. And so I'm going to just take that into the next few years and just figure out what I'm good at and how I can best contribute to the sports world.
Speaker 1:Love that. As we kind of wrap up, just got a few short kind of rapid fire questions for you. What advice would you give a high school athlete going through a tough injury right now?
Speaker 2:Keep your head up and choose joy I mean, joy is choice and go, just center your heart towards gratitude, find out like this injury has taken something away from you that you love. But hey, at least you have something that you love, that you're doing. And just to keep your head, keep your head up and focus on like what you're going to be returning to.
Speaker 2:Best advice you've ever received focus on like what you're going to be returning to best advice you've ever received. I mean, I I mentioned it before, but I keep going back to it because it just keeps being true what my dad said about being able to look in the mirror. And if you can, if you're doing the best that you can, then that's good enough. Because you're going to again, like we've talked about, you're going to have outside voices telling you you're not good enough, You're not doing well enough. In your mind is going to constantly be trying to beat you down. But if you know who you are and you stay true to who you are and you're giving your full self to whatever you're doing, then that's going to be good enough.
Speaker 1:One word to describe the past four years.
Speaker 2:Chaotic, uh, chaotic, let's see, I would just say a challenge, but in in like the best way possible.
Speaker 1:What are you most grateful for today?
Speaker 2:um, I'm most grateful for just the support system that has been built around me, whether that's my family that has constantly been there for me, my friends, the team that I got to be around at Baylor, and even just the future teams that I'm going to get to work with.
Speaker 1:Let's say I am a high school athlete or I am a college athlete and I have gone through some loss, or I've gone through some major event and I'm now. I'm now thinking maybe I should go talk with somebody about this. Maybe I don't have all of the answers, maybe I would benefit from working with somebody else or somebody with a different perspective, but I'm still you know, whether that's I'm scared and I don't know if I really want to do this, or I'm just thick headed, stubborn. I want to do it my way. I'm not quite convinced. What would you tell that athlete?
Speaker 2:I mean we all have pride that I feel like we need to drop, because when you look at yourself and you and you think you can do it on your own, there's so many things around you that are showing you that you can't. I mean, god is constantly showing me that I can't do it on my own without Him and I can't do it on my own without the people around me not always all about you and that you do need to reach out for someone to support you along the way, because that's going to ultimately help you get further than you ever would anticipate doing on your own.
Speaker 1:Well, Kirsten, thank you so much for joining us today. It's been awesome to hear about your story. If people want to want to follow along, want to just see where you're at in your journey, what's the what's the best way that they can do that?
Speaker 2:Um. Follow me on Instagram, Kirsten Ballard, and I think that's my social media for everything.
Speaker 1:Fair enough. Well, thank you so much for your time today. It's been awesome getting to hear a little bit about your story.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me.