Hi, I'm Gus Walland and this is Not An Overnight Success brought to you by
Shoren Partners Financial Services. This is a podcast where we sit down with some
very successful people from the world of business, entertainment and sport and we
chat about their life's journey and what got them to the position that they're in
today. In today's episode we are chatting with Kath Kischel. Kath is a very
special woman. She has had more obstacles thrown at her in her life so far than
any of us could ever imagine overcoming. Kath's life is one of inspiration,
resilience and utter strength. She is humble, grounded and has a bit of a
potty mouth. I absolutely love her. And as for all of these podcasts, Shoren
Partners have generously donated $10,000 to the charity of the choice of each of
our guests. We discuss who gets that money in this chat. The executive
producer of this podcast is Keisha Pettit with production assistance from
Kelly Stubbs and Brittany Hughes. Let's get into our chat with Kath Kischel.
Kath, we are sitting here in your humble abode looking out over the Pacific
Ocean. It's a big place you got here. What it lacks in size and makes up for in
ambience, hopefully. It does. It's very homely. Yeah, thank you. Good to see you.
Yeah, thank you. You too. I want to talk to you about you sort of going all the
way back because I know your story but I want to get your story for our listeners
out around, you know, your journey and the kindness factory and so forth. But
Kath, where were you born? What was your family makeup? So born in Sydney, but
grew up or spent the first part of my childhood in a regional town called
Findlay. So it's in the still in New South Wales, but on the regional border
of New South Wales and Victoria. So 15 minutes from that border. Not a very big
place or an advanced place by any stretch, but I love it. I love going back
there. I'll be gone back there this week, actually, which would be fantastic.
And it just always feels like home. So, yeah, really proud to to represent
Findlay as best as I can wherever I go, really. But three older brothers, so
youngest only girl, which was fantastic. I don't know any different, but wouldn't
have had it any other way there. They're all awesome blokes. And I guess they
sort of instilled in me, I guess a lot of grit because I had to have it even just
to survive at a dinner table to get enough food with three big burly guys
like that. So had a really wonderful childhood. I can't can't complain about
it whatsoever. Just was always out and about, really active, lucky enough to be
just prior to sort of, you know, technology or the world wide web taking
over. So still have that kind of great country values kind of living in me,
which is awesome. Mum and dad again, really wonderful people. Dad's an ex cop.
So I was in the police force for 40 years and he's born and bred in Findlay.
Mum was from a sort of like a neighbouring town, I guess, called Lockhart.
She isn't too far away. She'd moved to Sydney throughout her youth kind of years
and things like that. And they actually met in Sydney. Just really decent
people. As I said, dad was a cop. Mum was early childhood educator.
So worked with kids, all that kind of stuff. But just a really working class
family, nothing too extravagant. What we lacked in, you know, I guess,
financial privilege, we made up for in love. So just, yeah, always got each
other's back and really loyal family. So love them, love them all to death.
Yeah, I've met one of your brothers and he's just a big cuddly bear.
And, you know, you can just tell that there's that sort of, I don't know,
is that feeling, that energy between you, which is really a lot of love and
a lot of respect and stuff. Yeah, he's one of my best mates. So, yep, yep.
He asked me to be his best man at his wedding, which was a little bit funny.
But so I asked if he'd be my mate of honour when I get married, if that ever
happens. Yeah, there you go. That's already sorted.
Well, when Jaco and Deb got married, Deb had one girlfriend, but next to best
friends were boys. So they wore the same gear as us on the other side.
But I got to walk down with the mate of honour, who is this magnificent actress
from America, but our other two mates, his brothers, had to walk down with the
boys, which was back in the day was probably, you know, a little ahead of
schedule. But I'm glad that we could do it.
And everyone had a good laugh and it was it was good.
Yeah. For you, growing up in a country town, your love of sport and particular
cricket came into play and you were able to sort of play with the boys.
So you knew that you were quite good.
Is that where your love and your passion for then playing for higher
representative honours came from?
Yeah, I think it more come just from a place of of love.
I cricket was my first love.
I my God, I still love it.
I watch it's on my TV religiously.
My best mate still plays sort of in and out of the Australian team.
Love all the boys, got to work with them, all that kind of stuff.
But at a young age, I'm not really sure.
A lot of people say, why cricket?
You know, because I mean, it's such a polarizing sport.
Well, you're the cricket tragic.
So I'm sure you're going to agree with a lot of what I've said.
It's a team sport, right?
So you got, you know, 10 others around you at any given time.
And it's like a second family.
But it also, I guess, is a very individual sport.
Like, you know, it could be on one person to hit the winning runs, for example,
or to take that catch or bowl that ball that gets the wicket
and all that kind of stuff.
And I think just being around people for me sort of in a physical sense
has always been really important connection.
And I think that's what I love so much about cricket.
And coming where I come from, cricket was obviously a big draw card.
And so, yeah, I didn't really see any different back then, you know,
because my brothers all played not very well.
I was in the backyard playing with them.
And I guess being a male dominated sport, they were, I guess,
their technical abilities were probably better than mine.
But then I sort of leveled up and I didn't really see myself as extra
talented, really, until I probably moved to Sydney when it was more
because I was playing with the boys.
And so it was like just an even playing field.
So there's no just straight girls team.
Never. No, not back then.
And so, yeah, I had to refine my craft with the boys and all that kind of stuff.
You just took me under their wing and never saw me as any different.
Granted, I was a tomboy for sure.
But yeah, and then come to play in Sydney.
And it was suddenly, you know, you're in girls competitions and women's competitions.
And, you know, I was like, oh, OK, well, these are the like for like
kind of people that I need to match up against.
And so, again, not the most technically gifted player,
but I just loved it so much that I was willing to go the extra mile
or to train harder and to do all those sorts of things.
And so I knew very early that if I wanted to progress to that,
to that elite level, that I would have to do something extra
because, you know, I wasn't Elise Perry or Elisa Healy or anyone like that.
It didn't come naturally to me like that.
I sort of finished high school and went on, did a university degree, fast track that.
And then I got my first professional contract in Middlesex, actually.
So based out of Lorde's in the UK.
Not a bad spot to play your cricket.
No, I'll never forget getting there.
Like get off the plane.
You got 24 hours in a economy seat.
So you're a bit stiff and all of that.
I've never really had jet lag.
And within four hours of learning in the country, I was at Lorde's.
And my eyes just opened wide.
And I was like, where am I?
And I was like, well, I'm at the home of cricket.
Yeah. Women's sport, as we talk about it in 2021,
you know, are leading the way in terms of football, in terms of Olympics.
More women winning medals than men.
And the Australian women's cricket team is the best in the world
and also the most loved, you know, had all those ratings out the other day.
What team do you love the most?
And that Australian women's cricket team is it.
So you're back a few years wasn't five, ten years ago, was it?
How many years ago were you in Middlesex?
It would have been 11 years ago.
So was cricket starting to gain some momentum then?
Were you feeling like, hey, this could be a career?
It was very much on the brink.
So it wasn't professionalized yet, but you could sort of sense that it was coming.
So it was like if you just sort of stay in there a little bit longer,
because you certainly couldn't make a career or, you know, be living well enough
with the financial reward that it was giving players at that point in time.
So outside of a university degree, for me, it was a part time job.
The obvious Kingsgrove sports under Harry, all that kind of stuff,
as he gives everyone that life like that lifeline.
But I was also doing some PT work.
So personal training formed part of my degree.
So, yeah, you had to sort of fit everything in and around it.
And you end up with this really busy lifestyle,
because if you're not studying or training or playing, you're working
and you sort of fitting all these scheduled things in.
So you come back to Australia and you're like, OK, baggy blue time.
So for a funny story, actually, I got the phone call.
I missed it from the selectors again.
Like it wasn't like iPhones back then.
It was like, you know, you're Nokia, whatever it was.
And, you know, social media wasn't really that big and all that kind of stuff.
And so I missed all these calls.
And at the end of that trip, it was sort of September time.
And I had my flight booked.
And I realized that Oktoberfest started last week in September.
And I thought I can squeeze that in because my last game's here
and I'm not due back and I didn't know I'd been almost selected
and all this kind of stuff.
So I booked this trip to Germany with a couple of my friends from Middlesex.
And went over and experienced part of Beerfest and actually nearly
lost my opportunity before it was handed to me.
So I went and did the whole Germany thing.
And they're like, hang on. Why? What are you doing?
We've just picked you in the squad.
And I was like, I didn't know.
And so nearly missed out on that, but ended up had a great time.
It was awesome. It was really, really fun.
But come back and they were OK with that.
I think they they made me push a little bit harder
in the last bit of the preseason because of it.
Basically, I said, yeah, we're ready to go.
Adelaide Oval, off you go.
Your pick, here's your cap, two, two, one.
And it was just a really cool moment for me because I spent so long.
I think I identified that was a dream from when I was about eight
and I was 22 at the time.
So to spend that long dreaming about it and then to get it
and then to actually perform on your debut.
Like it's sort of, yeah, even now, I'm sort of getting goosebumps and stuff.
And to have Mitzi there and family and all that kind of stuff watching.
It was just such a special moment to remember.
So you had that magnificent debut.
Things are going along nicely.
Then the first hurdle that life throws at you comes at you.
Can you tell us about that?
Yeah, so not long after the debut, I'm four games into that career,
held my spot, did all that kind of stuff and string a really good
and decent performances, which I was really happy with.
And I'd been fighting a bit of an injury,
which we didn't know too much about.
And it's still sort of a really unknown territory, I guess,
for a lot of people and specialists.
But essentially about two games into, I guess, after my first game,
I went and saw the physio because I was experiencing some pain,
sort of sciatic pain, but also a bit of a numb toe in my left foot.
And I didn't really know what it was all about.
And I thought I actually thought it sounded a bit joke-like to try
and explain that to a physio.
And I don't know if it's still the same now, but there's zero privacy
in team environments in a physio room.
So there's just players everywhere getting treated and needles and stuff like that.
I started explaining my presentations to the physio,
and everyone just sort of started going silent, going,
what do you mean you can't feel your left toe?
And the look on her face was you could just sense the alarm bells ringing.
And obviously, she knows a lot more than I did about the body
and all that kind of stuff and knew that the presentations of my symptoms
were a bit more serious than what we would think they were.
And so that prompted her to speak to the doctor, sports physician.
And they went and scanned me up almost immediately for the back.
And because that would make sense to them.
And basically saw a herniated disc in my spine.
So nothing too bad.
It was bad enough for them to warrant me saying,
look, we don't think you should play.
It's a pretty bad herniated disc and rest is going to be your best friend.
And here I am going, I've just I've just made it.
I don't apart from a numb toe, I'm not really in that much pain.
So can I play or what?
You know, you're going to give me the chance.
Or and they said, well, yeah, we can give you the option.
So you've got to decide that these are the risks that you, you know, you go in with.
And of course, I said, yeah, let's go.
Let's let's play.
So did. And then it's not a regret that I have.
But it was, I guess,
ultimately a choice that I made that impacted my future in a really big way.
So I was I was feeling in cover in this next game.
And the ball got hit past me really quickly and raced off to the boundary
and didn't think anything of it, but I'll just sort of jog on after it,
conserve some energy, throw it back in.
And as I twisted to the to the left to turn and chase the disc
that had prolapsed, had come out that quickly that the two vertebrae had nowhere to go.
And they cracked onto each other.
Part of the bottom vertebrae cracked off and went straight into my spinal cord.
So there I was at, you know, I guess the top of my game,
the best I'd ever been playing in from a performance standpoint,
the fittest I'd ever been.
And I'm 23 at this point in time.
Can't feel anything below my waist, airlifted to the nearest hospital
and just sort of so much confusion and head noise going on.
Like, I can't feel anything.
I can't move my legs.
I really have no idea what this means for my future.
So not only is this this dream that I've been dreaming of since such a young age
just vanished, but am I ever going to walk again?
And these are all the questions that I started to ask myself.
And they said, well, let's just get to the hospital and we'll figure it out.
And it's a bit of a blur.
The next little bit, I mean, I remember what happened,
but not in any great or finite detail in that I just kept having surgeries,
like all these surgeries one after the other to try and rectify the problem.
And after the fifth one, they actually just sort of said, look, mate,
it's just no good.
We just we can't fix it.
So to answer your question, yeah, the dream has gone and and life will be
in a wheelchair and you're never going to get that feeling about back.
So I was diagnosed with clinical paralysis, so paraplegia.
And that was the news that I was confronted with, apart from one doctor
who who believed that he might have a solution for me.
And back then, this is sort of 11, 10 years ago.
This surgery wasn't wasn't very big in Australia.
They'd done it a lot in the US.
There was one surgeon who was attempting to do them in Australia
named Matthew Scott Young.
And he sort of sent my case over to Matt in the Gold Coast.
And he said, look, this is a young fit athlete.
Here's the presentations, et cetera.
What do you think?
And he said, we'll get it here and we'll give it a go.
So it's called a total disc replacement and different to very historical
vinyl surgeries, whereby they normally cut through the back
and do all that kind of stuff.
This one actually cut through your stomach and all sorts of things happen.
Less scar tissue to go through all that kind of stuff.
But they almost encased the damage vertebrae with titanium reinforcement.
And they put like a ball and socket kind of joint system
where your disc normally would have been.
And the idea is that you get a lot more mobility and movement through the spine.
Otherwise, the historical surgeries for that kind of injury is like a fusion.
And you end up with like this cage system in your back
and you're very rigid for the rest of your life.
So I said, you know, one, it might give you more mobility
and two, it might actually resolve some of the obviously the numbness
that you're experiencing and all that kind of stuff.
So I took the chance if you wouldn't.
So off to the Gold Coast, I went.
But they're not exactly the words you want to hear.
Like, I'll have a crack or let's give it a go.
Or, you know, like they couldn't have given you an awful amount of confidence.
Or did you just think the other option is just not just no way
you can think about it?
I think like all things in life, right?
Like if you've got a chance at something versus zero chance,
you're going to in my opinion, you're going to take it out.
Gussie, I don't know if I'm naive or not.
You know me well now, but I actually thought I was going to get back
on the cricket park, even with all of that ahead of me.
I thought the dream's not up.
Like I just had this.
It wasn't a confidence or an arrogance or anything like that.
I think I just believed that something would turn my favor and it'd be OK.
So, yeah, when they said this is your chance, I said, let's go.
Like, so dad, come with me. Bless him.
And yeah, off to the Gold Coast, we went.
It was at Narang Hospital.
Almost got in immediately,
which was great and deemed a success from the get go.
So they said, you know, the symptoms that I was experiencing in my legs
and all that would take a while to resolve.
But from a, I guess, a body perspective, everything was in the right place.
So it's at the best possible chance, all that kind of stuff.
So how long had you been in a wheelchair from sort of the moment
that you break your back on the cricket field to getting pushed
into that Gold Coast hospital?
Yeah, it was about six weeks.
So go from that to Narang and then you have the surgery.
But with this one, as I said, they cut through the stomach.
And so all of you to access the spine through a stomach,
you got to push all of the vital organs aside.
And so there's a whole lot of structural things going on.
And you're actually in traction for two weeks post that surgery.
So no movement, all that kind of stuff.
And that's really when all the head noise really starts to creep in.
I can't move. I can't really do anything.
Even reading is quite difficult because you're in that one position
and all that kind of stuff.
But you've got all those sort of drugs going through your system
and sedatives and stuff like that that keep you quite still.
But it was a really weird and tough two weeks to just be doing nothing
and to be thinking, you know, was this worth it?
Like, I'm still in a lot of pain.
I don't even know if my organs are working properly.
Will I take the steps? I still can't feel anything.
And every day you go through that process.
And it's just like this just continuous sort of thought pattern.
But, you know, two weeks later, I got out of bed and I did take my steps.
I couldn't feel anything.
I only took two steps that day.
And I was with about four support staff underneath me and holding me up
and and guiding me through it.
And so for me, that was everything was all worth it at that moment
when I took those steps.
And, you know, the next day I took four and the day after that I took eight.
And you're feeling everything like you're like, no, no feeling.
That was the last thing to sort of start to come back.
So, yes, spent a couple of weeks longer in that hospital
and then a little bit of rehab in the Gold Coast until basically my stomach
where they cut through and made the incision had healed well enough
for me to then go back to Sydney, family, friends and be around the love
and all that kind of stuff to continue the process here from Sydney.
So, you know, when I landed back in Sydney after getting all clear to fly again,
I'd started to regain feeling in my right leg, which was fantastic.
And I was actually walking with, you know, the Canadian crutches,
the ones that wrap around your forearm.
So I was walking with them.
So I was still able to get around and be independent to a certain extent.
And I was around my teammates again, which was fantastic because,
you know, they were really supportive of me and my recovery and all that.
Like not training with them, but like just around them, which was great.
So it was, you know, fantastic.
And then again, another sort of hurdle come not too long after that.
I was continuing the process here as an outpatient in rehab and woke up one morning.
You know, you like sort of sat down too long coffee table.
So like we are now, I guess, or watching too much Netflix or in the office,
whatever it is that you're doing.
And your arms are bent and they go numb
because they've been bent too long and the blood's restricted.
It was a little bit like that, but my entire left leg and it started
to come good and all that kind of stuff.
So I woke up and I just thought it was like, you know, four in the morning.
I thought I must have slept on it really funnily or in a strange position.
I'll try and move myself in the bed to see if it comes good.
And a couple of minutes later, it hadn't.
So I flick on my bedside table light.
I look under the covers of my bed and my entire left leg was just blue,
like a bruised sort of color.
I thought, well, it's not normal.
So I couldn't move it and it had gone completely dead again.
And that really worried me.
So I pick up my left leg with my hands and I put it to the side of my bed.
And I went to take a step and just face plant it onto the floor.
OK, I mean, a bit of strife here.
I crawled myself into the bathroom
and I realized it was there that when I was there that I had no idea
if I was actually using the bathroom.
So my my bladder and my bowel had started to shut down.
And I remember the surgeons all warned me.
They said that ever happens with a spinal cord injury like yours.
Bladder and bowel start to shut down.
That's life threatening.
You need to get straight to an emergency room.
So I didn't muck around.
And I'm a pretty stubborn little creature when I want to want to be.
I had flatmates at the time, but I crawled myself out
past their rooms and into my car, which is automatic
because my right leg was working.
I decided to not ask for help.
It was four in the morning.
And all I thought was, what an inconvenience to be working.
What did they tell you?
What did they say to you when you explained that to them?
Still get lots of like gripe for that.
But I got myself into the car
and with the auto and my right leg working, I start driving myself
because I was supposed to be in rehab that morning for a routine sort of session.
And on the way there, I called my doctor and he picked up
and I explained the situation to him and we're supposed to.
So you didn't mind waking your doctor up and just like your flatmates.
He gets paid for it right.
I didn't want to do the actual laundry that week.
But no, my doctor sort of says to me, look, mate, bypass rehab.
This is really serious. You need to get straight to the hospital.
I'll meet you at RPA Royal Prince Alfred.
So I said, OK, so drove myself there and, you know,
park myself in the emergency bay and get myself out of the car
and start crawling into the emergency ward.
And they just started looking at me and I said, oh, look, you know, man,
what are you doing?
And I said, look, here's what the last six months of my life have looked like.
And this I woke up this morning and I said, OK.
And they put me into a chair and pushed me to the nearest consult room.
And I get in there and they just start, you know, very hurriedly pinning up my leg
and measuring it and doing all these sorts of tests and readings and stuff like that.
And I didn't really know what was going on.
I just sort of went along with the process.
But there was a lot of testing, a lot of rigorous testing being done.
And it was in one of those rooms with the glass all the way around it.
I can see out, they can see in all that kind of stuff.
And I'm just sort of sat on that bed and trying to pass the time
and not get too worried just yet.
And about a half a day's worth of testing, they're all outside that room.
And I can I can see them all talking about me.
And like they could obviously see in and they're looking at me
as they're talking amongst themselves.
And I was trying to lip read what they were saying,
because I was like, what could they be talking about?
Why don't they just come in and have the conversation in here?
Because I'm here.
And every time they'd catch my eyes looking at them, they'd look away.
And I thought, oh, my God, I'm in a lot of strife.
If they can't maintain eye contact with me right now,
I don't think they're going to deliver much good news.
And one doctor walks in my doctor.
I'll never, ever forget what he said.
It was it was simply this.
It was Katham. I'm afraid the news is not great.
We're going to amputate your leg.
And I just went, whoa.
And it was shocking to hear.
Not because, you know, is anything wrong with having a disability?
I live with one now.
It's it's not anything to be ashamed about.
No one ever warned me that that was something that I would face into,
even though I had the spinal cord injuries and stuff like that.
It just wasn't something that was on my radar.
And I actually said, can I can I call someone?
Feeling a bit vulnerable and sad right now.
And they said, of course, we're surprised you haven't.
So I called Grant, who you've met my brother, one of my best friends.
And so can you come in there?
I think they're going to amputate my leg.
So he starts legging it towards the hospital and he gets there.
And the funny part about this is at the time he was actually a butcher,
which I found really funny.
So I was like, which joint were they?
You brought your own tool.
Well, that's the way to get around it.
Yeah. Had to have a laugh.
I was like, because he was in his butcher's gear as well.
And yeah, it was just really funny to me.
I was like, this is really and he's like, can you stop?
And I was like, yeah, sure, sure.
So he starts just, you know, I mean,
in all things in life, regardless of if it's, you know,
your leg getting cut off or whatever it is, like in adversities, I think.
And while I've got you so much, it's just people having your back.
It's so important.
And he had mine and he started asking the questions that I didn't have the foresight
to ask because I was in this struggle, right?
Like a shock and whatever.
And he's like, well, explain it to us what's going on.
And they said, well, we can't figure it out.
We've done all the testing we can think to do.
But to paint a picture for you, anyone with normal, healthy legs,
depending on if they're sitting, walking, running, crawling, whatever it is,
they're doing, they've got a blood pressure reading between 90 and 100 percent.
Anything below 20 percent is dire and anything below 10 percent is dead.
And I said, OK, well, where am I?
And they said, you're at seven.
I said, well, OK.
And I said, that's why it's turned blue and you can't use it.
It's really floppy.
And I said, OK, well, can we fix it?
What can we do? Like, don't just cut it.
Like, let's come up with a plan. Give me a shot.
And they said, OK, it is fluctuating between seven and 14 percent.
And I said, OK. And they said, what that represents to us
is that it's a blood flow issue.
We can't figure out why, but we think exercise could help.
So there I am going, well, I'm an athlete.
I know you can do that. Yeah.
So give me a crack.
And so they said, OK, you need to go to hospital or rehab every day
to have it tested.
And if it drops below 10 again, it's gone on the spot.
We'll give you two weeks to get it back up.
Need you to take this really seriously.
Of course, I can do this. It's all good.
So the next two weeks, I, you know, I get up at four o'clock,
have a bit of brekkie, go to rehab or hospital, have it tested,
use the help of the physios or the practitioners there to get it moving.
And to paint a picture, I was, you know, on those walking aids again.
And my left leg would literally drag about a half meter behind me.
So all my shoes get worn down and scuff from the the dragging behind it.
And I'm hopping on the one good leg, the right one.
And I'd go back home and I'd enlisted the help of a PT.
She was helping me get it moving.
All that kind of stuff at a local gym.
I'd go home, have lunch, go back to the gym.
And, you know, friends or family knew about my struggle.
That helped me getting get it moving there.
And obviously really stressful time and emotional time wasn't sleeping at all.
Really had a 24 hour excess pass to the Sydney Cricket
ground as a contracted athlete.
And I'd go there all hours of day, sort of, you know, two, three, four in the morning.
And the security guards would notice the lights on.
And rather than kicking me out, they'd ask what was going on.
And I explained my struggle.
And as I said, rather than kicking me out, they would actually help me.
They'd get, you know, electrical tape, one of them, Bobby.
And he would strap my left leg into a spin bike or a cross trainer,
go back to his post, come back 40 minutes later, unstrap me,
put me into the next machine.
So he's helping in the only way that he knew he could.
But it was the first time in my life that I really noticed the power of kindness,
like what one person could do for another person when they needed it
and how much that can lift the person's or boost a person's morale
and the struggle that they're in.
And it meant everything to me.
Like, yeah, those small things that you can do for a person,
even when they're not in a struggle.
Like, imagine if we just operated with kindness wherever we went,
what it would do for the world and everyone's well-being
and how much resilience we have and all that kind of stuff.
So those are the moments, I guess, throughout these struggles
that really started to stand out to me and accumulate to represent kindness
and what it looked like to me and what it meant to me as well.
Just quickly interrupting the episode to say a very big thank you
to the sponsor of this podcast, and that is Sure and Partners Financial Services.
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who manage over $28 billion of assets under advice.
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And let's get back into the episode.
Kath, during that couple of weeks, were you getting a like a reading from anyone
saying, oh, you know, you have been holding it in the teens now.
It hasn't dropped down under 10.
Like, because you're an athlete, where's the scoreboard for you to keep going?
Yeah, no. So every day I'd go in and I'd have to get it read.
And I remember one day it dropped to 10.5 and I was like,
like, I mean, I feel like if I breathed in the wrong way,
it would like go down or something like that.
So it was a really weird kind of time.
But basically, I had to one, it couldn't drop below 10.
But two, within that two week deadline, I had to get it above 20.
And it never went above 17.
So I was like, well, I just how do I how do I do this?
I'm going so hard. I've got zero in the tank.
I can't that the energy, I just couldn't get it in quick enough.
I was about 10 kilos lighter than I am now.
Like it was just, yeah, it was such a crazy time.
And eventually, I guess it was to no avail or what we thought was no avail.
So I got to that deadline.
I was penciled in for this surgery on the Monday and we got to the Friday.
And they said, look, it hasn't worked.
And I said, yeah, OK, I've still got two days left.
And I like, come on. So I was like, OK.
So my family, they are really charismatic, but very Australian people.
I sort of delivered that news to them with a lot of tears
and was surrounded by a lot of love.
And they went, OK, well, that's the last two days with your legs.
Both of them attached will make the most of it, even though I couldn't use it.
And so on the Sunday, what they did very quickly was they invited
all of my closest family and friends to mum and dad's house.
And we had a barbecue and legitimately, I wish I could share a photo with you
right now, but there was an invitation that my brother put together
and they labeled it the Cuth's last day with two legs barbecue.
And there's all these legs on the invitation and all these people.
Do you have a leg of lamb on the barbecue and all that stuff?
We probably did. It was very leg themed.
But it's funny and it's like people get when I tell them this story,
they get quite shocked.
Oh, my God, you can't do that.
And I'm like, you can. Like, it's OK to laugh.
Well, I found that humor can be a really great gateway
to overcoming adversity. Sometimes you can't laugh at ourselves
in the situation we're in.
Then who can we laugh at and all that kind of stuff?
And so it became a very good coping mechanism for me to use humor
in those ways and things like that.
And my family have instilled that in me for a long time.
And I think that for a long time to come as well.
So, yeah, we're having the last day with two legs barbecue.
And as funny as it is, it's so funny.
And my brother still, you know, has legendary status for that invitation.
But it meant so much to me that all these people, like literally
every single person that I cared about most on the planet was in
mum and dad's house.
And all they cared about was me and that I'd be OK.
It was just such an incredible moment in my life to know that people have my back.
And it's so important, I think, people having belief in you
and telling you they're going to be OK, even though you're not really sure
if you are. I think it's so special to have those villages
that you talk about so often, Gussie.
And, yeah, so we have that.
And I decided to stay at mum and dad's that night
because they're going to take me in for the surgery the next day.
And my dad tells this story the best because I don't really remember
a lot about it, but I was feeling pretty crook and woke up at about three
in the morning and I collapsed unconsciously onto the floor.
I made a thud on on the ground and woke dad up and he found me,
picked me up, put me in the car, took me to St.
George Hospital, nearest to their home.
And they did an entire body scan and found that I'd been bleeding
internally from the stomach surgery that they cut.
Sorry, the spine surgery where they cut through my stomach.
So what happened was that the surgeon very accidentally
and very slightly nicked the femoral artery that ran into my left leg.
And because I had the spinal cord injury and that damaged nerve system
from that, this limited supply of blood, the blooded,
the excess blood was storing in my stomach.
I'd lost a little weight, so I didn't really notice anything.
And the limited supply of blood in the rest of my body wouldn't carry
into the damaged nerve system of my leg.
And so that's why all of the symptoms started to make sense.
So I'm raced off emergency surgery and I wake up like three hours later
and, you know, very groggy and all that kind of stuff, start feeling around.
And, you know, is my leg attached like it was, which is great,
still is for anyone listening.
And yeah, and they sort of said to me, I think they must have been able
to see me sort of padding, you know, to see if my leg was attached.
And I said, look, mate, you're not out of the woods.
We're pretty sure you won't be able to feel it when you start to wake up
properly and stuff like that.
But you got a bit of a journey ahead of you.
It's not really healthy, so it's very damaged.
And for you to get it back to health and keep it attached is your first battle.
And if you ever want the chance at walking again, you should go to rehab.
So I didn't really know what that looks like.
I don't know, you know, rehab wasn't a big thing back then.
It still isn't really today.
There's still a lot of unknowns about rehab.
I thought it was like an American thing and all that kind of stuff.
And so I said, OK, what does I can do that?
But what does it look like?
And I said, well, six to 12 months.
Can't guarantee that you'll be walking again, but it's your best chance.
So is chopping the leg off has been fixed in a vertical is because of the fall
and going to another hospital and then being able to see it from a different way.
Yeah. So I guess the fall come from, again, just exhaustion would be one of them
because I've been, you know, exercising excessively just to get the blood flowing.
I've lost a lot of weight and then just the actual presentation
itself of the internal bleed was wreaking havoc in the rest of my body,
which I guess the stress and the cortisol that was going on with me.
I just didn't recognise anything that had been happening.
Did you ever get upset with the original doctors up on the Gold Coast?
And say, hey, perhaps if you hadn't done such a shit job.
He's a well-renowned surgeon.
People make mistakes. We're actually good friends now.
So has he ever apologised?
Yeah, I think it's a moment in his life that he wishes he could take back for sure.
We did a half Ironman together not long ago or five years ago, something like that.
And I catch up with him whenever I go to the Gold Coast and things like that.
So zero hard feelings.
None of us are perfect. All that kind of stuff.
So, yeah, but certainly let him know about it for sure.
Rightly so. So, Kath, this is all happening.
And you say, OK, well, I've got to go to rehab.
All righty. Well, I'm going to get stuck in and I'm going to keep my legs
and I'm going to be OK.
So is that basically what's going through your mind at the moment?
Because just listening to your story, I'm always shaking my head
and I'm always got my mouth open.
I'm like, how did she just get back from another thing that kicked her in the guts?
So I go to rehab, you know, spent the next couple of weeks in hospital,
first and foremost, recovering from that surgery.
And then they said, pack up your life, quit your job, rehab.
How long for? Six to 12 months.
No guarantees, but got to give it a go.
Again, what other chance you got, right?
So go to rehab and I won't lie, rehab environments are really tough.
They're, you know, a downgrade from a hospital environment
and just not conducive to thriving by any stretch.
And so why they didn't have room for me in the in the neuro ward
that I should have been in.
So for my first two weeks, I was in the geriatric ward.
Best friends were like 85 year olds.
Daisy, who was one of my best mates from rehab, just had all these great stories.
Her name was actually Daisy.
It was Iris. I called her Daisy because she called me Alice.
And we just had these great jokes and story times and stuff like that.
But I mean, to be surrounded by the elderly when all you'd ever really cared
about was cricket prior to that was a big shock to the system.
And I learned a whole lot about perspective,
which I didn't really know about up until that point.
But yeah, again, like a week into that stay and that challenge
of wrapping my head around, you know, that I'm not loving it here,
but I've got to be here for six to 12 months.
That's a hard realization.
And ultimately, everyone's telling me I'm never going to walk again.
And I'm saying that I'm going to.
I feel like I'm just constantly fighting against people
to have better for me. Right.
So a week into my stay, I just hit me like a ton of bricks.
Like I've broken my back. I can't play cricket anymore.
I'm in rehab. I don't like it. I call my best mate.
And I said, look, you got to come pick me up.
She said, what do you mean?
You're there for a while. I can't come pick you up.
I'll come visit. And I said, no, I can't do this.
If they cut my leg off, that's fine.
I just can't do this.
I had tears running down my face and emotionally was just not in the greatest of places.
And she just said to me with a lot of honesty and tough love.
And I'll never forget it because this is true kindness
and true mateship and a perfect example of why I got you for life.
It means so much to me.
She said, I won't come pick you up, Kath.
I'll come and visit you and you can call me at any other day.
I'll pick up and I'll walk this journey with you.
But I know that the place that you need to be to get better right now is rehab.
I've got your back. Get it done.
And I was like, OK, so I did.
I just then went to this task of learning how to walk, which is so hard.
But like any challenge in life, you just break it into small steps and you get there.
So you go from bed to chair, chair to frame, frame to stick, sticks to stick.
You might crawl, take a couple of steps, all that kind of stuff.
But when you're doing it, it's so hard.
And so committed myself to this task, but then got quite distracted
about a week into my stay when a patient, a fellow patient, ended up in rehab
who I'd never met, who I thought was very attractive.
He wasn't one of the older gentlemen.
And here I am almost gushing.
I'd never really, you know, I'd had like the high school flings and stuff like that,
but never really had a boyfriend
because cricket had absorbed my life up until that moment.
And he entered first love then really.
Well, yeah, he entered rehab.
I didn't know he was going to be my first love.
I just thought he was quite cute and very quickly attached myself
to the idea that I should be his rehab buddy and show him the ropes.
And that is very selfless of you.
Thank you. All of that kindness.
Yeah. And so, yeah, I just showed him where to get the good yogurt from
and hydro rooms and which doctor we're better deal with and all that kind of stuff.
Very quickly and very much to my surprise, we fell in love, which is phenomenal.
And I've got the biggest smile on my face because I look back on that period
of my life with such fun, fun memories and such a really wonderful time in my life.
I mean, to be in rehab, an environment that I've just explained is so tough.
And then to meet the love of your life.
I remember about three months into our relationship being like,
I am so grateful that I broke my back.
Wow. Because if I didn't, I wouldn't have met him.
And then we don't fall in love and all that kind of stuff.
So what made our time at rehab bearable was dreaming of a life
that would be outside of rehab.
So when we're better, when we can walk again,
you know, we'll we'll do all the wonderful things that we never thought were possible.
So for us, our plans were four kids, three boys and a girl, just like my family
house in Broadwater on the Gold Coast, pet turtles, a dog, all that kind of stuff.
Instead of long walks on the beach like normal young kids in love do,
we did wheelchair races in the corridor and all that kind of stuff
and made the environment as much ours as we could.
And the experience became so bearable
because if we can grind through this six to 12 month period,
this is the life we're creating for ourselves when we get out of there.
So that's OK. We can get through.
Anyone can get through six to 12 months. We can do it.
So, yeah, such a special and wonderful time in my life, for sure.
That experience was made all the much better because of Jim, for sure.
So what happens with Jim and you?
Yeah, this is the hardest thing that I'll ever go through in life
and the hardest thing that I find to talk about as well
and happy to dive deep with you, Gussie, for sure.
But 12 months into our relationship, all these plans and dreams
that we'd been dreaming, I was considered an outpatient.
So I mean, I visited rehab three mornings a week
and I'd go home or to work or whatever it was.
But you were better. You were better. Much better.
So I was still walking with, you know, AIDS and, you know,
the Canadian crutches and stuff, but so much better.
And recovery is on track and all that kind of stuff.
And because Jim had suffered his injuries,
it was very similar to mine much a little bit later than I had.
He was a little bit further behind me.
And so he had a day to go before he was to be considered that as well.
And we just put the lease on the house, all that kind of stuff.
So these dreams that we'd been dreaming
were about to come true the very next day.
And that night, so it was the 13th of November in 2012,
he he took his own life.
Suicide in the rehab environment.
And it it just left me so crushed.
And beyond belief, like I just didn't know what recovery could ever look.
I didn't think and I'm starting to well up now.
I didn't think I could ever be happy again.
You know, when you've experienced that, that euphoric feeling of love, that,
you know, you're born to spend the rest of your life with this person.
That's a genuine.
I still believe it.
That I was genuinely born to spend my life with that person.
He was just everything to me.
To lose him, it just hit me like a ton of bricks.
You know, first, I lose this dream of playing cricket,
which is all I ever thought I wanted to do.
And then I lose the person who taught me
that there was so much more to life than hitting ball around the park.
And I just lost myself emotionally, spiritually.
Everything just broke down.
And at rock bottom, as hard of a place as that is.
And I know that a lot of people have been there and all that kind of stuff.
I think it was J.K.
Rowling said at best it was, you know, the only way to go
when you're at rock bottom is up.
So you can't get any lower.
And I genuinely believe I couldn't ever be that ruined again.
And as I said, I didn't know that I could ever be happy again.
And, you know, do you ever really find it again?
I'm still trying to figure that answer out nine years later,
almost nine years later.
But there are a few things that happened after his passing.
The first is that I spent 10 months completely neglecting my own well-being.
So any memory that I had of Jim, I'd push aside.
You know, I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
I was the one to find his body, all that kind of stuff.
And so I went through this enormous struggle with that from nightmares
and all that kind of stuff to, you know, beyond that from a mental health perspective.
And because I was so distraught by his passing,
I couldn't think about it in a way that I could tolerate
because it just broke me every time I thought about him.
So I just avoided memories, all that kind of stuff,
until I went back to rehab for a routine checkup and walked past his old room
and just lost it.
So sort of just completely, you know, broke down on the floor,
had to have male nurses surrounding me, all that kind of stuff.
And I remember getting sedated, actually, because you need to really calm down.
And I couldn't I couldn't regulate.
And so they were like, OK, so get the jab and woke up from that.
And everyone was about three or four specialists, experts,
nurses, whoever they were.
So they said to me, look, we just want you know, this is completely normal.
You've been through some very abnormal things in life at a very young age.
And your response to them is very normal.
No one would be able to cope.
And I kept thinking in those moments of complete
rawness was if this is normal and this is how I'm going to feel
for the immediate future, for however long, then I don't want to be normal.
Whatever you want to call me, call me that.
But I can't feel this way because I was just completely lost.
And it didn't make any sense to me.
And so I ended up flying to the Gold Coast where we would, you know,
do to start the life together and all that kind of stuff.
And that's where Jim's mum lived.
And I just went straight to her house.
And all I needed was a cuddle.
I just needed a cuddle from someone who knew my pain
or could see my pain for what it was.
And we spent three weeks there just talking and just being.
And it was so refreshing.
And sat down at the coffee table in our home halfway through this period
was just a piece of paper and a pen.
It must have been for a shopping list or something.
I don't know why I did it, but I picked up the pen and I just started
all these names started popping into my head of people
who had helped me in my life.
So family and friends and doctors and physios.
And I just kept writing their names on this list.
I don't know why.
And then I don't know again what compelled me to do what I did next.
So I picked up my phone.
I started calling all of them simply to say thanks.
Hi, it's me. I'm OK.
Thanks for your concern and worry.
I just want to say thanks for being a part of my life, for showing up for me
when I know it's been really hard to do because I've been through a lot of stuff.
And I just want you to know that I'm really grateful to have you in my life.
And their response was so beautiful.
They were all like, you know, you don't have to do this.
Like, of course, we'll show up for you.
You're amazing. Like all that kind of stuff.
And, you know, it's so reciprocal.
And with that, I guess, you know, just telling them
how much they meant to me and expressing gratitude,
which I didn't even know was a thing back then.
You know, I just felt it and I decided to do it.
But you don't have to wait for these type of experiences
to happen to practice gratitude.
Anyone can do it right now.
You know, I'm the best I've ever been in terms of happiness.
And next to my bed on the bedside table is a notebook with a pen.
And every night I write down three things that I'm grateful for.
And it takes me less than two minutes.
But it reminds me that I had a great day or even if I didn't have such a great day,
there were still three moments that were really great.
And with that, I guess, calling all these people and understanding
that I had a lot of support and a village and all that kind of stuff
and how important they were to me, it really started to turn or flip,
I guess, the dialogue that I had in my own head that everything's going to be OK.
Not I've lost everything, but everything's going to be OK.
And so, yeah, spent the next sort of couple of weeks there
and then come back to Sydney.
Had zero idea what my life would look like.
Didn't know what it would be.
Just because I was an athlete didn't mean I had to be one.
But I was held back on trying to figure out what happiness or purpose
or life could look like.
So that was a pretty unreal moment to realise that.
Were you angry with Jim?
Were you obviously shattered and sad and stuff?
But were you angry?
Like, do you leave a note?
Like, do you know what you planned together?
Like, what's he doing the night before?
Yeah, anger's never been something that I've directed towards him.
And I know everyone's experience with suicide is so different and it's so personal.
I don't think there's a right or wrong way to do it.
I think it's so personal to the individual.
I was angry at myself, Gussie, I realised after a long while, actually.
Like, what was I hanging onto and what was I holding onto
and when I could really start to figure that out.
And the reason I was angry with myself is why didn't I see it coming?
And I know that right now in a rational brain state and all that kind of stuff,
you know, I shouldn't have felt that way.
Well, not shouldn't have, but it was unfair of me to be angry at myself for that.
But why didn't I see it coming?
When he was smiling in the photos that we've got,
is that a true smile or was he just doing it for the camera?
Did that moment mean as much to him as what I thought it did to me?
And all these sorts of thoughts were creeping around my head
and what could I have done to prevent it?
And so I took a lot of responsibility on, I think, and that's where the anger...
It wasn't an outward expression, ever.
I'm not, you know, a naturally very angry person by any stretch.
It takes a lot to really get my blood boiling.
But, no, I just felt devastated for him that because he meant so much to me
and I felt like I was sharing my struggles
probably a bit more deeper than what he was with me.
And, you know, I think that's a very big difference sometimes.
And I know you're trying to change the dialogue about,
let's just talk about our problems, guys, like men and women alike.
But it's OK, men out there to be vulnerable and to have that one person
that you can share your struggles with and all that kind of stuff.
So for Jim, he was a footy player.
And I think a lot of his identity was formed around him being a footy player.
And he'd obviously had a spinal cord injury similar to mine.
Footy was never going to be on the cards for him and things like that.
You never... And I know that you've lost someone close to suicide.
You never get the answers that you search for.
So you can ask as many questions as you want.
But the only person that can truly answer those is the ones that have passed.
And so the way that I tried to, I guess, process it in as much a respectful way
as possible or that I could was that what Jim had gone on for...
I had to allow myself to think that the moments that we had
were as special to him as they were to me.
I couldn't lose that.
And that was really important for me.
And I had to believe it.
And so how do I rationalize?
His decision was that we all have personal things that go on inside of us
that we don't share with anyone.
And that's just who we are.
Some people share more or less than others and all that kind of stuff.
And ultimately, his decision and his choice really had nothing to do with me.
And it's none of my business.
And that's what I sort of had to do.
I wish I could have done more or convinced him to choose otherwise.
100%, definitely.
And I'll struggle with that for the rest of my life.
It'll always something that I feel.
And I've been to therapy and done all that kind of stuff in the soul searching.
But I found peace in that he was struggling at a very deep level.
He had to have been to have made the choices that he did or the choice that he did.
And I just had to find comfort in that, that maybe his pain internally was too great to endure.
And I haven't experienced a pain like that or something like that.
And that's how I had to sort of rationalize it for myself.
But anger was not something that I felt towards him.
I just felt so much care and compassion and empathy for him in that.
That's ultimately the decision that he landed on.
And I just wish that it wasn't that way, maybe selfishly even.
But yeah, of course.
Well, being one of your best mates now, I'd love Jim to be right over there.
Go brother and have a beer and all that.
And I'm sure that you would have loved him. Yeah, I bet.
So out of all these tragedies and all these heartaches and all these moments
where life's kicking you in the guts, you decide to write a letter and ring up everyone that has helped you.
But not only that, you don't just do that as a one off.
You decide to show kindness and start something called the kindness factory
where you come up with, I want to get people all around the world doing nice, kind things to each other.
Let's see if we can get a million of those.
Now, last tally as of today was nearly two point nine million acts of kindness
that people have actually gone to a computer and said, I did that today.
So I want to log that on the kindness factory target thing.
All the other ones that don't get done, you know, or they get done, but they just don't get logged.
Yeah. You have started something with the kindness factory out of tragedy that is helping so many other people.
How do you feel about that?
I mean, it started with me doing one thing for one person.
So one small act, which is our, I guess, ethos or philosophy.
And at that moment, I had no idea that it would change the course of the rest of my life
and bring so much positivity to everyone around the world, which has been phenomenal.
I forget about it sometimes.
It just sort of sits in the background and people keep doing it.
But so proud. And in some ways, I think it's an incredible legacy of Jim's as well.
He was a very kind and empathetic and soft person as well underneath the tough exterior of,
you know, having a footy kind of facade and things like that.
But, I mean, it was purely an accident, Gussie.
I didn't really intend for it to be what it got to or anything like that.
It was just me recognise that I'd receive, recognising that I received a lot of kindness in my struggle.
I think we mentioned that earlier on.
You know, when you're in a wheelchair like I have, then you can't reach a lift button
and a random stranger walks past and they see that struggle and they press that button.
And it means nothing to their day, but everything to yours.
Those moments matter so much.
So I encourage everyone to consider that the next time they see an opportunity to be kind.
But I was inspired by that.
So I started doing things for other people.
And then, yeah, very accidentally got quite catchy and everyone else wanted to become a part of it as well.
But, you know, the hurdle amongst that, which really amplified this message of kindness was another story.
But essentially, you know, landing myself in hospital again and not being able to commit acts of kindness,
which I was, I guess people recognise that I couldn't do it any longer.
They were inspired and they went into action themselves.
And that's how the movement truly formed, I guess, is that people maybe felt empathy again for me
through another struggle or a period of struggle.
And they went, I can be kind if she can endure that.
The least I could do is go and move my neighbour's lawn, if that's all she's asking.
And so it's been such a beautiful movement to be a part of and one that I'm immensely proud of, for sure.
Yeah, because of a lack of time.
We'll just forget about the other time you were knocked off your bike and broke your back for a second time.
And then a couple of weeks ago where someone else, you know, knocked you off the bike as well.
So but there's so many of those moments where you just take a big, deep breath and you just get on.
And kindness is what you're all about and telling your story.
I'd love you to tell our listeners about some of the speaking engagements that you've done,
one in particular, which I just think is just hilarious.
And it sums you up so well.
Can you tell us about that one?
Yeah, so very accidentally, you know, fell into speaking.
And I say accidentally, I actually failed my year 12 English oral exam.
And you've got a potty mouth.
I'm so proud of you. You haven't sworn yet today.
Thank you. It's not over yet.
But very, I guess, just because I've got a unique story and people like hearing it,
fell into motivational speaking.
And I say it like that because it's just like this, but in front of, you know, hundreds and sometimes thousands of people.
And I got a call in 2017, I think it was it was an American accent.
She said, look, we'd love you to come and open our event conference.
And I said, oh, yeah, that'd be great.
Where are you based? Thinking it was locally in Australia.
She might have just been working here.
So it's in Ojai in California.
And I said, oh, OK.
And I'd never really done an international speaking event.
And I said, what's it called?
She said, I'm sure you've heard of us. We're called Patow.
So it's an acronym, P W T O W.
And I said, look, part of my ignorance, I don't watch much TV.
I haven't. What's it about?
She said, look, we bring together the world's most powerful and influential people and brands.
And the more she went on, I was like, it sounds like a cult.
I don't know about this.
And anyway, we were talking and throwing phone calls, emails, all that.
She said, look, we'll fly you and your assistant.
Didn't have one of those.
So who are your best mates putting their hand up?
I'm your assistant.
Business class, the works.
So, yeah, I ring my best mate and I'm like, oh, ice hockey, like NBA.
Like, forget the speaking engagement.
We'll get there. We'll watch all these. It'll be great.
Like, come. She's like, of course.
So there we are. Like, you know, said agreed to it.
And she basically said to me from a briefing standpoint, look, you open the whole thing.
You got eight minutes to share your story.
And I'm like, we can't even fit in an hour in a podcast.
So how do I get it down to eight minutes, the story?
I said, look, could I?
It's a big story. Can I have 15 minutes?
And she said to me, look, the Dalai Lama only gets 12.
And I thought she was kidding.
So I was like, OK, like eight minutes.
Fine. So I practiced a little bit and all that kind of stuff and go through the gates,
all that kind of stuff, get to this conference.
And the day before it, I had to arrive for a soundcheck and do all that kind of stuff
as you do in your hotel and whatever.
And I should have started to add a few pieces together at this moment,
because I get there and the screens are bigger than like, you know, a castle.
Getting your local, more than your local R.S.L.
Bigger, like just huge.
Like I look like an ant.
And I started doing this soundcheck and I was like, OK, this is really interesting.
And there's like 4000 seats in front of me.
And I was like, wow, this is pretty big deal.
Go to bed, get up, ready to go.
And I get into the green room out the back waters and all that kind of stuff.
And there's this woman sitting there.
And I said, oh, good day.
She said, hello. I said, I'm Kath.
And she said, I'm Michelle with your hands.
And I said, oh, it's really nice to meet you.
In my head, I was like, she looks really familiar.
And she said, what are you doing back here?
I said, I'm opening the whole event.
So what are you going to talk about?
I said, oh, a bit of my life and kindness, really.
She just sounds really wonderful.
Kindness is one of my most favorite things.
I said, oh, awesome. So what are you going to talk about?
She said, I'm on after you.
I'm going to talk about the Me Too movement.
I said, I've heard of that.
I said, she sort of had this like perplexed look on her face.
And she said, I'm going to watch you.
So just excuse me.
I'm going to go out the front.
And I said, yeah.
Well, when I'm done, I'll watch you too.
Like it was great.
We're best mates.
So she goes away.
And then I started to get into the sort of head space
It's like 20 minutes away and blah, blah, blah.
They welcome me out onto stage and I'm out there
and I'm two minutes into the eight.
Everything's going great.
Haven't sworn yet, all that kind of stuff.
I look off center to the right and I see this woman,
front row, like just off to the right.
And then it just hit me like a ton of bricks.
Next to her is a husband, Barack Obama.
It was Michelle Obama I'm chatting to in the green room.
And I was like, what?
So then I start to get really nervous.
I think I did swear.
I looked to the left.
It is the Dalai Lama.
It's like the red and yellow sort of robes and stuff.
All these people in the audience like Reese Witherspoon
and just anyone that was anyone was in the room.
I get this standing ovation and I get out the back.
I think like the sweat was dripping off me at this moment.
What on earth has just happened?
I went and watched her talk about the Me Too movement.
Did she go all right?
Did she get eight minutes or a bit more?
She got less, I think.
No, the briefing I got was almost like,
no one will have heard of you, which is great.
These guys have got everything I could ever need.
Just give them some humility,
like humble the pants off this crew.
And I think I fit the brief, which was great.
But yeah, it sort of changed
against the course of kindness factory as a movement
because I think we're at like 150,000 acts of kindness,
It was a great achievement.
Long way from zero.
And yeah, like almost overnight it then blew up.
So I had all these heads of companies like Warner media
and AT&T and all that kind of stuff go on.
We'll break your website.
Like let's get some infrastructure in place
and then we'll help you on your mission.
So yeah, really funny story.
So that was, yeah, that was that one.
I love that story.
I love that story.
Still makes me giggle.
Doesn't someone in America want to do a movie about you?
Or like, you know, like you've got some real good backers
America for the kindness factory and Australia,
two of the biggest ones.
They're nearly as big as each other, are they?
Well, yeah, I guess from a not-for-profit standpoint
in terms of what kindness factory is and what it can be
and all that kind of stuff.
Back then, I really had no idea.
I mean, I remember sitting in a hospital bed going,
I want to hit a million acts of kindness.
I thought it was unreachable, huge number.
And that's still where I was at that conference.
And then the more people I spoke to and things like that,
they were like, Kathy, this is really inspiring movement.
And it makes so much sense.
The world needs more kindness, so let us help you.
So yeah, all sorts of offers have come to the party.
So we've got some big backers in Warner over in the US,
which is, they've been really patient with us,
which has been a really wonderful thing to see,
because I mean, it's arguably the world's biggest company,
I think, aren't they?
Or something like that.
They're right up there, yeah.
Yeah, but they haven't gone, here's a truckload of money.
Just fix it, fix the problem that you see in front of you.
They've sort of come on the journey with us
and they advise and do things like that.
So that's been wonderful.
I dare say if COVID hadn't have happened,
and for personal reasons,
I stayed on here in Australia rather than the US,
I was sort of living there.
It would be a little bit differently,
but what COVID's allowed us to do is,
I guess, get quite structured.
And as I mentioned, I was traveling the world
as this motivational speaker.
And I sort of had that scratch your head moment
where you got to really reevaluate who you are
and what you're doing from a values perspective.
And I landed myself in New York
and ended up speaking to one person.
So it's this really senior executive at a very big company.
And they'd flown me there.
Spent all sorts of money to get me there, business class,
all this kind of stuff.
And I thought it was for a complete event.
And it was just essentially a meeting
where I spoke to this man and told him my story.
And I got paid and all that kind of stuff, which was fine.
But I was like, this isn't why I quit my job
It was to see kindness.
So I really had that stern word to myself and said,
well, what's this all about?
And so I said, well, look, for every,
I made a deal with my cell formats
for every corporate event that I go to
that will help me put dinner on the table and pay my bills
and electricity and stuff like that.
I'll do a school talk for free.
And I just want to learn about kids
and all that kind of stuff.
And I learned a lot in those environments.
I go in and share my story.
And a couple of things happened.
Teachers would almost chase me into the car park and go,
oh my God, you've just created this great legacy.
How do we, as educators,
continue what you've just started with these kids?
And I didn't really have anything to sort of help them
to sort of push the movement forward within that ecosystem.
But also, and I know that you're very across
this information,
but I get these very reactive phone calls from teachers
going, look, we've just lost a student to suicide
because you come in and share your story or do this.
And I was like, why on earth is it taking a loss of anyone
for you to pick up the phone and make something happen?
Be it through Gotcha for Life or whoever it is.
Get in front of the curve.
Zero suicides is the goal.
So how on earth is this happening
and why are we letting it happen?
And so I was like, how do we, as a movement,
become part of the problem so that not only do we help
stop that statistic and lower those instances
And so for us to be able to create those safe
and nurturing environments is really important for me.
And I guess, so from that standpoint,
that was great to be able to contribute in that space,
but also you can't argue with kindness.
So we want to see as much of it as possible.
I feel like I'm beating my head against the wall,
getting in front of adults and sharing that message.
Why not get in front of kids as young or early as possible
through curriculum activities and things like that.
And hopefully we see a generational change or shift
in behavior and obviously more kindness.
So we've reduced the kindness curriculum in partnership
with Kaplan, who are education providers and very kindly,
they've given us all those resources and activities
and things like that, which go into schools.
It's completely free.
So no one's trying to make money out of it
or anything like that.
We just want to see more kindness.
And so COVID allowed me to get really focused
on that element of kindness factory
and the foundation's laid.
It's now in 3000 schools as of Friday.
So huge achievement, but there's probably like 9,000 to go
before we get every school in Australia.
I'm about to start that in the US and so forth.
Yeah, it's been phenomenal.
And yeah, a lot of the people in the States
are sort of helping with that next iteration,
have had to localize the content
so that it's not so Australian focused
and has Australian colloquialisms and stuff like that.
So yeah, it's been a really cool journey so far.
And the fact that you're just inspirational, Kath,
and I know that you hear that a lot,
but you truly are like to be what you've been through
and come out the other side and want to help so many people.
And now, like you say, with the kindness factory,
you're touching everyone in different continents.
So you should be so proud of yourself
and very proud to have you as an ambassador for Gotcha
and also as a friend.
There is so much stuff that we could talk about,
but I do need to sort of wind this up.
The quick five, chance for you to sit back
and relax a little bit.
What is your favourite holiday destination, Kath?
Holiday, Findlay, back home.
Okay, and what's in Findlay
that is just your favourite holiday,
not New York, not London, not Paris?
Colour TV, that's what's there.
Hotel Motel still has advertising
that we have Colour TV here.
That's why I love going back.
It's good for the soul, like not much going on.
They've still got it up there?
Yeah, my brother and I were there in April.
It's not Wi-Fi or anything like that.
We have Colour TV.
So no, it's because it's where I'm from.
The Findlay Lake is there.
Your mobile phone doesn't work.
You can't be bothered by anyone.
And you just, it's just really great people.
Yeah, and good country values.
Beautiful, I love that.
What about your favourite quote?
Have you got one of those that you live by?
Yeah, the world is changed by your example,
not by your opinion.
So action, just means to me action, for sure.
Shawshank Redemption.
Yeah, me too, me too, yeah.
Are you a reader?
Favourite book by a very dear friend of mine, Eddie Jacque,
A Happiest Man on Earth.
What a man, yeah.
How did you meet him?
Through speaking, so all that kind of stuff.
And last year he headed up
our World Kindness Day campaign as well.
Obviously he's a big advocate of kindness, so yeah.
But that's a difficult read in terms of the content
and everything that man went through.
But so beautiful in how he, I guess,
or what he saw throughout that struggle,
I think is an example for everyone.
And I think it should be in every school's curriculum,
and everyone, wherever they are,
should grab a copy of that book.
It can teach you so many valuable life lessons, for sure.
And your favourite charity,
who would you like to give the $10,000 to today?
I think we split it between the factory and Gottsha,
That's how it works.
If I ever get an opportunity to do the same,
that's exactly what I would do, Kath.
So that's very, very kind.
And something, if someone is looking to support you,
what does $5,000 do for you when that hits your account?
Like, what does that allow you to do?
Kindness Factory.
It'll go straight to the curriculum.
So we're actually building out a kind schools network
which we'll launch in Feb next year.
So as I said, the curriculum's completely free
to sustain and give that maintenance and enhance that.
It takes valuable contribution from Kaplan,
which is pro bono, which is hugely generous.
It's in the millions,
I think, their contribution to the movement.
Now, in terms of a $5,000 contribution,
what that will do for the kind schools network
is it'll allow master classes, CPD courses for teachers.
It'll be able to sort of get in and do that SEL,
the social and emotional learning for their kids
So that network, I think, hopefully,
I mean, the strategy is more about connecting kids
all around the world in their school environment.
So as we build out the curriculum
in different countries and nations,
kids will be able to connect through the common theme
of kindness, eventually, which is wonderful.
So yeah, watch this space in that sense,
but it'll be huge.
$5,000 will mean a huge amount to that.
And I know for gotcha programs as well,
knowing all the things that I do.
If I wasn't running a kindness movement
or the movement that I am,
I'd be doing something or a lot more for gotcha,
put it that way, is never a no in my mind
for anything gotcha related.
I just love what you're doing
and the impact that you've had
and how special you are to not only me personally,
Gussie, but anywhere I go
and someone knows that I know you,
they ask me what you're like.
And one of my favourite things to do
is to actually tell them who you are
and what makes you you and how much I adore you.
So thank you for being part of my life
and for having me as well.
Thanks for spending some time with us today.
You're a dead set legend, mate, thank you.
Well, that was Kath Kischel.
What I adore about Kath is the fact
that no matter what was thrown at her,
she kept on getting up
and she kept that focus of kindness,
trying to help other people.
She truly is an amazing person.
Coming up next on Not An Overnight Success
Stan is an international affairs editor for the ABC,
a multi award winning current affairs host,
author and adventurer.
Stan has covered just about any important political story
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in the political space.
He came from humble beginnings
and he claims that it's luck that got him to where he is.
But I think you'll also find that it's hard work,
tenacity and the fact that he is brilliant.
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