Vi Tran fled Vietnam as a child. In Kansas City, he's finally learned to stop running

A few years ago, at the height of his pre-pandemic busy-ness, Vi Tran took his mom to a run-through for a TEDx Talk. She came to Kansas City to spend time with her son, but he had a lot going on.

"I was on an acting contract and we were moving into tech week, which is when you add all the lights and the sound and the costumes," Tran recalls. "It's basically a black hole of long hours."

As Tran flew swiftly out the door between one rehearsal and another, his mom grabbed him to slow him down.

"And she said, 'Hey, hey, stop for a second. What are you doing?' And I was like, 'I'm going to my tech rehearsal.' And she's like, 'No!'" Tran recounts, his voice gaining intensity. "What are you doing?'"

Tran's mom was baffled by the frenetic whirlwind that seemed to envelop her son, wondering aloud why he was still trying to prove himself this way in his late 30s. "She was just like, 'You did it, you don't have to prove anything to me, to anybody.'"