Life Uncut - It's cool to be kind - Uncut with Kath Koschel

Episode Date: November 8, 2021

Happy Tuesday Lifers!Well today might be one of our very favourite episodes EVER!Today we are chatting to Kath Koschel from the Kindness Factory.We could go into the details of Kath's story, but honestly it will be better than you hear it for yourselves. She is so inspiring, grounded, down to Earth and real, and we know that you'll feel a sense of gratitude after listening to her.If you'd like to get involved in World Kindness Day, jump into the Kindness Factory here: https://kindnessfactory.com/We kick off this episode with speaking about Britt and Laura's various trips up the coast now that the lockdown leash has finally been severed! As well as the ridiculous things that ol' mate Gwyneth would have you pop in your Christmas stocking this year!The Australian podcast Listener's choice award is back and frankly, it's the one that we care about the most because it's a reflection of you guys, our incredible community, not a bunch of judges deciding whether we tell too many poop stories! If you have a spare sec, we would be ever so grateful if you could give us your vote here: https://australianpodcastawards.com/voteIf you love the episode, share it with someone you love because we love love!x x xSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey guys and welcome back to another episode of Life Uncut, I'm Brittany. I'm Laura and currently I'm sitting on Britt's floor on a rug and I've just found a screw There you go, Britt. Oh, actually, I don't know where that came from, but that looks dangerous. It was just, it's just here next to us on the floor. But you know what's concerning is that has obviously come out of something. So is there something in my house that is about to topple over because now it has no screw? Probably.

And I just think that this is another, we can say a screw in the coffin. We just need to get a studio. We need to stop recording on the ground. Okay, actually, this is a great natural segue, Laura. I did put out a story not that long ago on my Instagram that was, hey guys is anyone a real estate agent in the east slide into my dms i have a question britney using her influence for good i can't get a bloody rental i thought i'll put a call out i am really really wanting to get a dog everyone knows it it's i'm obsessed with it but i can't have a dog in my

apartment my landlord continues to say no even though like i'm the cleanest person irrelevant why does your landlord hate you so much she hates me i don't know i hope she doesn't listen to i think she actually likes me she's really nice but she's just dead adamant that i'm not allowed a dog and I cannot find a rental that allows a dog because I need two big bedrooms I need to make one for studio for life uncut and I need it to be dog friendly and apparently that means you pay $25,000 a week anywhere in the east and there's like one option so if anyone is I've had a few people like I have had a few people slide are you using the podcast to do a call out for accommodation and housing for yourself that's exactly what I'm doing if anyone's a real estate agent that

I have got a girl helping me actually at the moment that I just met down at the local pasta shop she ran into me she's like hey I'm a real estate agent I'll help you but if anyone knows of anything maybe it's a private rental that will allow a dog I can vouch for myself Laura can vouch for me I'm a great tenant I am shook I am after two years of us creating this podcast community this is what you're using them for I need I need housing actually something funny happened this morning. Early this morning in Sydney, it's raining. If you're not from Sydney, it has been raining here for days. It's going to be, continue to rain for the next week. Anyway, I wake up really early and I was like, oh, I've got to get out. I'm going to go for a walk. So I rolled out of bed

through, I haven't brushed my hair in a couple of days. Don't, you know, it's not nothing to brag about, but I haven't brushed in a couple of days. I rolled out of bed and I went for a walk in the rain at about 6.37am. And I saw this girl in my peripheral sort of like running beside me. Like she did a double take and she ended up coming up to me after following me for like 20 meters and she's like excuse me and I was like yeah and she said I could be way off track and I'm not actually sure but do you have a podcast and I said I was like yeah I do that's me she said I love your podcast but I was like okay but you didn't know it was me you can't love it too much she's like I love your podcast she's like I just didn't really recognize you and I was like no that's because I

catfish you all. This is what I look like when I roll out of bed in the morning and I'm in the rain. And she was like, Oh no, it's not that. And I was like, it is. Let's not lie. This is what it is. Anyway. Thank you to that person that pointed out that I don't look like my Instagram at 6.30 in the morning in the rain. And thank you for saying you love the podcast, but that was my morning. Laura, what have you been up to? We just got back from Byron yesterday. I saw that in the daily mail. There was a lot going on. Do you know what? There was actually, there was COVID cases at the hotel that we stayed at. So we got home and then we found out when we landed that there had been COVID cases at Elements. The hotel was great. We had a great time, but there was two

cases. And so we had to get off the plane and go straight to getting a COVID test, which you know what guys, rest assured, got the results back this morning. I was like, hang on, you're in my house right now. Have you got your results? No, we got the results this morning. Of course we are negative. It seems like everything has gone back to normal, but then there was this weird little reminder that COVID is still out there. So that was a kind of anticlimactic way to finish the holiday. Well, speaking about Byron, you have some exciting news to share or that has been shared for you.

We weren't going to share this. I wasn't going to mention this, but Daily Mail wrote an article about it. So, you know what, it's always nice when your news gets taken. It's like when you've got something really exciting to tell and your friend or someone just takes it from you. And they're like, oh, we already know. You tell them, you're like, yeah, such and such told us. You're like, cool.

You're like, I'm having a baby. and your mom's like oh I already know your sister told me you're like great yeah cool that's awesome so we bought a house just maybe about half an hour outside of Byron I thought you were gonna say half an hour ago I was like no half an hour outside of Byron we bought a house during COVID maybe about three or four months ago we hadn't been able to see it we bought it over zoom inspections Matt and I have been looking for the better part of this entire year and we found the place that we fell in love with and we weren't going to share the news we were going to keep because we're not moving there straight away. And because we hadn't seen the house,

we're not moving there until like maybe the end of next year. Brittany and I have some big podcast plans. I know I'm looking at Laura when she's like, Hey, I bought a house. I was like, congrats. Talk me through it. When are you moving? So the whole purpose of us going on this trip to Byron was we went there to go and see the house. So it wasn't really a holiday. It was more like, Hey, congratulations. You have a very big mortgage and you'll be in debt for forever. yeah sucker and we went out to the property and we got to see it and then we got back to the hotel that we were staying at and we got this text message from somebody who works in media who was like hey Laura and Matt I'd just love to get a statement from you guys about the house that

you've just bought we just saw some beautiful photos of you standing in front of the for sold sign you're like excuse me obviously it's big news and we're super excited about it but it was your your news and you don't have to share anything yeah and and I guess like we're also very acutely aware that it's a fucking weird time in the world you know like it's a weird time to be buying houses it's a weird time to be changing things like we weren't able to see it it was a huge risk for us and there's been a lot of anxiety around buying our first home and so we just wanted to keep it private and we also wanted to make sure that we had the privacy for our kids like that was the plan in the long term when we're living there we kind of didn't want people to

know where we lived which is absolutely fair and then anyway we get sent these photos from the Daily Mail love them as you guys know and there was a pap hiding in a car a paparazzi yes I'm pretty sure everybody knows what a pap is there was a paparazzi hiding in a car across the street taking photos of us in front of the new house and we had no idea that they were there we honestly felt like we had no idea the whole time we were probably there for about an hour and a half and somebody was hiding in a car taking photos of us and our kids and I just it was probably the first time since like you know the year after batch ended that I felt so violated and I felt so like intruded upon our privacy that there was just some dude lurking in a car taking photos of us and

our children well the thing is it's one thing for a paparazzi to take photos of you without knowing whether you're on a walk or you're in whatever that's one thing but it's another thing to have your kids involved and to share basically a location of where you're going to live where your kid's going to live there has to i i just can't believe there aren't laws against this i actually am gobsmacked that they can they are allowed to put that information out yeah i told brit because like so brit sent me the news article she was like well good good job keeping that down low you guys and i i spent all of that day in tears because i just it wasn't the way that we wanted the news to get out and also like one who cares that we bought a house do you know i mean

like we care we care i care i'm excited i don't care but i'm joking i'm stoked but anyway guys that is it that was the exciting news that we had from going up to byron for this holiday and i'm one step closer to having my commune full of children well congratulations and i hope you keep a little dirt patch out the back for me to come and pitch my tent and join the commune down the track okay but you have to wear clothes i'm 100 wearing clothes like naked naked time is just for you and me this got so weird real quick anyway enough about what we've just been up to this last week now it's time for us to tell you what this episode is about and honestly guys i think that this is my favorite episode this is my favorite interview that we

have ever done we do say that a lot i think we get invest no i agree but ever i think as we're going we're getting more people that we're like just obsessed with and more people that really hit home because i have had so many interviews i think you have too where we're like this is our favorite ever episode but guys this one is truly is one of the most i guess touching and powerful episodes and kath who laura's going to tell you about in a minute kath is just the most inspiring woman i have met in as long as i can remember honestly when we were so her name is kath kosher when we were interviewing kath we brit and i both were in tears we were both laughing she is the founder of something called the kindness factory now we're going to get into what that is exactly

a little bit further along but a bit of information about who Kathy is she was an elite athlete and she broke her back two separate times and has had to teach herself how to walk three times her story is harrowing but it is also equally as beautiful and she talks about how the power of strangers kindness is what has really gotten her through she also talks about the loss of her partner and just what she has had to go through in order to recover from this but truly the main take-home from this and the part of this story that is so incredibly powerful is the conversation around small acts of kindness and kindness day is coming up it is on the 13th of November which is this Saturday which is world kindness day well kindness day and so we just wanted to in celebration of

well kindness day bring you this episode and honestly like we said if there's ever one that you listen to please make it this because it is just so so special she truly is incredible and she speaks about the fact that through all this adversity through years of tragic horrific accidents and situations relearning to walk surviving grief the thing that kept her going and what literally helped her survive was tiny acts of kindness and that's where this stems from and she does go into that and she gets into some specifics and I'm sure you're gonna cry like we cried you almost can't help it there is absolutely no human that can listen to Kath speak and not be affected yeah and I think the big take home around this not just about kindness but this idea of

gratitude and being you know like for somebody who's been through so much in her life Kath still has so much gratitude for the life that she's lived there are some very big big topics that we touch on in this episode we do touch on suicide so if that's something that is affecting you or if this is something that you know is too troubling for you to listen to please maybe come back to this episode at another time, but overall, this is a truly uplifting conversation. So I just hope for so many of you that you get something really, really wonderful out of it. Before we get into the episode with Kath, we do have a couple of things we want to talk about. Now, Christmas is coming. This is 100,000% not an advertisement, but Goop, you know how much we love Goop. Goop

is Gwyneth Paltrow's, I guess it's her online company. It's her website where she advertises the weird and the wonderful of the world. She gives you gift ideas. She gives you her favorite items and I'm not kidding it brings me the most hilarity and entertainment of any other website in the world and it's not supposed to it's not that's the thing this is not a satirical website but it turns out maybe it is in disguise well she's released a Christmas list she does it every year 2021 Christmas list it's gift ideas and there are some real bangers on there so Laura I wanted to know what would you purchase from this list like you've had a look at the list is there anything on this list that you would actually purchase this is like the goop Christmas list we talk

about it every year. It's the gift that keeps on giving, or it's the gift that truly gives nothing because I don't think anybody can afford anything that's on there. Well, no, usually people can afford like a candle, a vagina candle or something like that. But even that, the vagina candle is quite expensive. Yeah. And you might remember last year there was a candle, which was like the vagina scented candle, which truly wasn't, it smelled like flowers. I mean, my vagina doesn't smell like that. Apparently Gwyneth Paltrow's vagina smells like flowers. This year there is a candle, which is an orgasm candle. Smells like an orgasm, which is a hundred dollars. well what does your orgasm smell like a hundred dollars in a while you're like i forget but why

would it smell like a hundred dollars because it costs the orgasm candle costs a hundred dollars i'm not paying people to make the orgasm i am tempted to purchase the orgasm candle purely to for research for market research i want to know what orgasm smells like because i think i mean like sex has a smell but i couldn't put my finger on it it's like sweatiness in a bedroom that has no fresh air like what is what does sex and an orgasm smell like i know what your orgasm smell like it smells like coconut oil because that's what you use smells like tennis my look I want to just quickly go through a few things on the list that I think are absolutely ridiculous now I I don't like Gwyneth Paltrow very much and I don't know if it's purely because

of her ridiculous recommendations that every year I like a little bit less but she has advertised a jungle gym for your children look that's a bit of a controversial and a big sweeping statement for someone you don't like she's a bit um unrelatable might be the word well i mean like no not that i don't hate her but she's not in any aspect i don't love her as an actress i don't love her recommendations that's like i just she's not my cup of tea she's recommended a jungle gym for your kiddos if you need to go and purchase something for them this christmas the only catch is it's gold plated and it costs you fifty two thousand dollars wouldn't it be nice to have that much money though who who is buying that who is buying that fifty thousand dollar jungle now

i'm looking at this jungle gym it has two monkey bar rings that's it just the two one ladder one swing and one slide that looks about 2.2 feet that's it 52 000 i'm sorry but i definitely want to know besides the kardashians who is buying this jungle gym so i like that the thing that upsets you the most is how limiting it is you're like there's only two rings and one slide well i would think for fifty thousand dollars they could put four in minimum the other one that i had a really big problem with i don't want to say a problem i don't have a problem with it but i'm never going to buy it and i think it's ridiculous is a snow sled like a toboggan like it's a it's a circular sled it's toboggan in style it's black it fits one person and it has the chanel symbol

on it it's a chanel toboggan now what would you pay for a chanel round circular one person toboggan is it a child toboggan or an adult toboggan i can't be sure i think it's interchangeable i can't afford anything from chanel because i have a mortgage now um i can't afford anything ever again uh i'm gonna say two thousand dollars fourteen thousand dollars fourteen thousand now i'm looking at this i have used one of these many a time but i just use it it's a body board that i got from Big W it was $25 bodyboard does just the trick the same thing as this $14,000 Chanel toboggan does you're taking a bodyboard to the snow it's like it's a snow toboggan so I used to go down we used to have these really big grass hills in Port Macquarie anyone from Port Macquarie

will know what we're talking about and we used to get you used to run up really fast when it had been raining slightly and on your bodyboard and you would like scoot down the grass hill it was amazing I'm from Wollongong and we just used to use cardboard boxes but cardboard boxes get wet the very last one i want to chuck in is extremely affordable it's 18 except it's not affordable when you hear about what it actually is so you've got to remember this is a wellness site it's all around taking better care of your health you know spending lots of money to make your skin beautiful and make your vagina smell good and make it yeah make your house smell like an orgasm this is 18.80 for leopard printed rolling papers so that you can smoke your

ciggies in style on the wellness side the thing that bothers me i know i said before that something bothers me about Gwyneth Paltrow I think the thing that bothers me the most is that I asked Jordan when we met we just had that one conversation where you're like who's your hall pass his fucking hall pass is Gwyneth Paltrow now it makes sense so Brittany you're just jealous no I've never liked her and I've never liked her and now I'm and now I probably like her but I don't get it I'm like Gwyneth Paltrow and I and he was like yeah I mean his other one is Sharon Stone I'm like okay you've got a thing for older women obviously which is probably why this relationship works Sharon Stone and Gwyneth Paltrow they're his hall passers so I don't get it I don't know what he's

seen but he can go and buy a vagina candle from Gwyneth Paltrow if he wants have you ever though received or given a present for Christmas I guess not just Christmas maybe birthdays whatever something that could have been on this list or something that you've opened and just been like what the actual fuck so I was thinking about this there's nothing that really jumped out but I did get given and this was very recently which is why it came to mind I did get given a box of extremely expensive champagne as a present from a friend and I opened it up weeks after she had given it to me and there was a empty packet you know the oral bead tooth whitening strips it was there was a empty oral bead teeth whitening strips inside like she'd already used I'm pretty sure it was

like an old bottle of champagne that she had been given that was sitting in the cupboard like it was in the box and it had fallen down the side slat of the box and when i opened it was just a half of an empty oral baby i mean maybe you just thought you wanted a drink and you needed to whiten your teeth who knows no there were no teeth whitening strips in there it was just the packet it was just the rubbish of the teeth whitening strips inside wedged down next to the expensive bottle of champagne we all know that i'm i'm not opposed to a re-gift i am not i found it in my path if you guys listened to my story last christmas i i had a krish kringle like a $20 present that's supposed to be anonymous I had to give it I had to someone in my family

it was my family Christmas present someone in my family messaged me and said I forgot actually I'm just going to call her out it was my sister Sherry Sherry she forgot to get her Kris Kringle a present right she's like I forgot to get my person's present I left it at home can you bring me something so I was like just about to leave to this Christmas party so I'm looking around my house and I saw some lip glosses that I had been gifted I was like well that's gonna have to do because I'm not going to the store right now. I've got to be at this Christmas party in 20 minutes. I grabbed these lip glosses,

put them in a bag that someone else had already given me, gave them to my sister to give for the Kris Kringle. Long story short, I didn't look properly. And when the person opened the present, they were like, Brittany, is this from you? And I was like, no, what do you mean? Like, cause it's anonymous. And I gave her a lip gloss that had my name embroidered in it.

It said like for Brittany, basically. And she was like, I know this was you. It's got your name on it. I nearly fucking died. I was like, I've never been more embarrassed. about 25 people looking at me being like you little sting. I was like and I looked at Sheridan and I was like you better dig me out of this hole

right now but she said nothing so I've just added her on the podcast anyway. I want to know like for everyone listening to this I want to know the shittiest present you've ever been given. We're going to do a little segment on an upcoming episode coming into Christmas getting into that festive spirit. I want to know what is the worst thing

you have ever been given as a present? You just reminded me. No, no more. One thing You just reminded me of my ex-boyfriend from when I was like 21 years old. I will never forget. He was like, this is the worst Christmas present I've ever gotten. I gave him a box of, it was like a hot stone massage kit, but I gave it to him so he could massage me with the hot stones.

He's like, this is officially the worst present I've ever had. I was like, shut up and rub me. Let's get into some accidentally unfiltered. I have an absolute cracker for you guys today. It's disgusting. It's funny. It's all the things a good accidentally unfiltered should be. You know how every couple has weird things that they do with each other.

And if anyone else saw or found out, they'd probably think, well, that's fucked up. Well, something I do to my point. We all, okay. I am not judging this because I think we all have that one thing that's a bit fucking weird. But, you know, we just don't tell anyone about it. anyway these these people are cooked and they've got a weird thing all right well something I do to my boyfriend is that anytime if we're just chilling or maybe if we're watching tv or we're cooking and I get a rush of wetness you know like as in I feel a little bit horny and I'm a bit wet

down there I'll put my finger down there and then I'll just rub it on him just to show him what's happening sometimes it impresses him sometimes it excites him sometimes he's like oh not now which is totally valid. Anyway, this morning we were laying in bed chatting and cuddling when all of a sudden I felt a trickle of wetness. So I put my finger down there and smeared it on his arm. Unfortunately, when I looked up at his arm, I realized that it wasn't me being wet and it was blood. My eyes shot open and I couldn't stop gasping and laughing in the utter horror. I was speechless. I rubbed my period blood on my boyfriend. He's so rank. Did the boyfriend know or was he asleep he knew he was just watching and he's she's like I can never come back from this

that is so rank and I think you need to stop wiping your period and you come on your boyfriend while he's in bed okay I have a question is it called come if it's your like female like if you've got a bit of discharge is it called come yeah it's still come really yes I didn't know this yeah well I mean I think so I think that's what people would refer to it as really yeah okay i mean discharge doesn't have the same sexy ring to it i'm discharging oh i'm discharging you know like i feel like oh yeah i guess a girl would say i'm coming yeah okay i'm glad that we unpacked that i'm glad that i had to give you an example well i mean like me saying like i'm coming is like i'm orgasming i don't mean as in like i'm getting wet yeah i think people would still use

the word come i could be wrong there'd be people that wouldn't but i i would i still associate and it's probably a more technical term of course there is it is discharge that's what it is but i'm never gonna say oh feel my discharge like that term is never coming out of my mouth also i would never say like my wetness either feel how moist i am i hate that word all right give me some if you're gonna accidentally unfiltered or have you got a confessional i haven't accidentally unfiltered that i it's pretty innocent but it's very fucking funny i feel like after that one we probably need it's way better than you like way more innocent than yours it's way better than way more innocent hey chicks this ties into the great standing while wiping debate of 2021

i was at work in the cubicle closest to the window now the window is outside the cubicle door but it's ceiling height it's very very big and we work on a very high floor so there's actually no chance of anyone being able to see in so i was mid stand up wipe because well i'm a stander when i see something in my periphery. I turn my head and I see the fucking window cleaner hanging from the top of the building. He's come straight past the bathroom window and he's made direct eye contact with me over the cubicle door as I am arm deep mid-wipe standing. I'm like a deer in headlights as they slowly wash the windows around me. It hasn't put me off stand up wiping but I definitely don't go into the side cubicle anymore. How humiliating. Imagine the window cleaner because

he can't he probably can't get away fast enough so he swung down eye contact while she's wiping herself mid we mid stand undies around her ankles like I just can't imagine that feeling of like what do we do right now do I look away do you look away and he just kept cleaning the window he was just like wax on wax off I think I think that there's an added element of like humiliation when you're a stand-up wiper like if you were sitting down wiping I think that that's less humiliating than standing up and making eye contact at the same time 100 just i think you need to learn to sit down i feel like this has been a really educational start of this episode do you know what before we get into the chat with kath we just have a quick call out that we want to this

is us asking you for your help for your for your love for your dedication to the podcast we do do this once a year you guys might remember that last year the podcast awards came out and we asked you to go and vote for the listeners choice well it has come around really quick this year and the listeners choice awards are back they're open and currently they're taking votes for your favorite podcast and if you love listening to life on cart and you're part of the life on cart family if you are a lifer honestly we would be so forever grateful if you would jump onto the podcast awards website it's australian podcast awards and go and vote in the listeners choice and put in Life Uncut, because that's us, and give us your vote.

It would just mean so much to us. So all the other categories are judged by a panel of judges, but the listener's choice is exactly that. The only way that you can win it is by having you guys, the listeners, vote. So it only takes you two seconds, and we would bloody love you if you could take the time to jump on and vote, ask your friend to vote. If you've got a uni email, don't be scared to go use that as well. You can use multiple emails.

Please create burner accounts to vote for. If you've got burners, use them. We'll put all the details in the show notes and we'll probably ask you again next week. Anyway, guys, let's get into the chat with Kath. We hope that you love this as much as we did. She's truly, truly an inspiration. And for anybody who wants to be a part of World Kindness Day, we will put all the information about that in the show notes as well.

So Kath, welcome to Life Uncut. We're so excited to have you today. Yeah, I'm stoked to be here. Thanks for having me. And thanks for coming all the way across Sydney to our little home studio. sorry it's not anything flash for you I think it's perfect I love it before we get into telling your story we want to start the way we start every interview and that is with your accidentally unfiltered your most embarrassing story it's a great way to break the ice well I feel I'm just

on a brain scan there's so many to pick from this could take up the entire podcast no good one that my friends love actually sounds really kind of wanky but I'm a motivational speaker sort of my day job and we'll get into why I get a really unique story but I was in the US I got invited to a pretty exclusive event in the US and I didn't really know what it was about the way that the woman had explained it to me was that it brought together the world's most powerful and influential people and brands and to me it sounded like a like a cult and I was a little bit apprehensive actually I should do this event but they said they'd fly me and my assistant I didn't have one at the time so my best friend got a junket to to the US with me first class all this kind of stuff

and bells should have started ringing at this moment when I'm sipping champagne in first class and all that kind of stuff and I get to this event and we're having a sound check the day before and and again things should have been making sense the screens were bigger than any house I'd lived in and I looked like an ant as a 4 000 strong audience it was going to be the next day because all these seats were there and I was like okay the brief that I got were these people have everything they could ever want and need so you just bring humility so bring yourself humble them I can do that and they said to me I said how long have I got for this talk and they said you've got eight minutes I said wow that's a big story to fit into eight and I normally get 45 any chance I could

have 15 just in the prep and they said look the Dalai Lama only gets 12 so and I thought I thought they were joking I thought they were joking so I was like oh good one I guess eight will do and so I get there the next day and I'm in the green room and there's all these snacks and I love snacks this is woman sitting there like an African American woman black woman beautiful stunning and I was like gee she looks familiar and I said g'day I'm Kath and she said Kath really nice to meet Michelle and I was like awesome I was like she's so beautiful and I go it's really nice to meet you and she said yeah likewise she said what are you what are you doing back here and I said I'm speaking today I'm opening the whole whole conference she said what are you going to talk

about I said well I guess my life story but essentially kindness it's one of my most favorite things to hear about and to learn about I was like oh that's really lovely I said what are you doing and she said I'm on after you and I was like what are you talking about and she said oh this is in 2018 and she goes and I don't watch tv or anything like that and she says I'm going to talk about the me too movement and I said wow I've heard about that and she said I'm sure you have so she's sitting there and she goes she goes hey I'm going to go out the front do you mind if I watch I'm going to leave you here I'd really like to listen to what you're going to talk about and I said of course like I said I'll do the same as soon as I finish I'll run around

like I really want to hear what you got to say and I was like what a wonderful woman so then I like sweat starts I'm like where am I like what's going on I get out and I'm two minutes into the eight that I've got start sort of you know sharing everything's gone really really well and then I look off center on stage to the right and I was like and everything just started to make sense just sitting next to her husband Barack Obama and I'm like and I just go holy fuck that was Michelle Obama what the fuck did I say did I swear oh my god oh my god and I was like where am I and I look to the left and it's the Dalai Lama like sea of red and yellow all like the who's who of the world is in this room and I just shat myself like this like the sweat was

dripping off me and I nearly ruined the whole thing and I was just like so I finished the talk and had to apologize to her for basically saying I'm a fucking idiot I'm so sorry I didn't know like I of course I know who you are like of course me too I just like I was so nervous and she's like it's fine I loved your story I got this like standing ovation that everyone's like on me but I was like holy shit how has this happened and yeah my parents hate me for that because like how this is incredible bowing down to this person i was like yeah i didn't really think so but she 100 would have loved the fact because she would have thought you knew who she was and just didn't care or didn't clock it she would have loved that you treated her like normal but i

think this is so fucking at least you didn't say you look familiar at least you didn't ask her what she did for a job i was like she does i was like she's stunning like she's she's so beautiful when you're in her presence like she's got the runaway says like people like that have an aura but she genuine I've never really experienced anything I'm like this woman is stunning and her voice and all that and I'm like like yeah she did look for me I'm like maybe it's just because she's so beautiful like have I seen you on a commercial commercial somewhere just love how unassuming this is that you're like even at the point where you're standing there on a stage and it's a 30,000 audience that you're like well this has got a bit out of this escalated quickly didn't it

how did you not oh I can't even my face the whole time you're telling that story was like mouth open in shock did you get to meet barack yeah i did barack barack i don't know did you get to meet him yeah well i called him mr president i think that was what you were supposed to only if you're singing happy birthday oh this is so good i'm sorry i'm like i'm actually still as the story was unraveling i was like where is this gonna go i didn't know you were about to say that when you were like she was really i was like fuck this is michelle farmer this beats eddie getting drunk and passing out in the gutter story that you were also tossing up to tell let me just say that Kath I want to get into a bit more of your like what makes you you like where did you

come from where did you grow up what was your childhood like tell us a little bit about that time in your life yeah I'm the youngest of four kids I got a really big family and three older brothers so I guess that's where I say I get my nature from and I guess the grittiness and the resilience that I've had like we had to fight at the dinner table for food and stuff like that so i'm one of four i feel you we had to fight to the death yeah it was important right yeah survive or die like my family's from a really tiny country town i was actually back there last week for a family funeral unfortunately but called finley in regional new south wales so it's like population 1500 and i love it like it's like my favorite holiday destination now just

because you can switch off you don't get phone reception there's like one part in town in the main drag where you get phone reception and stuff but i feel like it really set me up for life finley it's a really special place how i describe it because we're like what's it like there and when i was back there last week i noticed that the advertising at the hotel motel is one of them advertised their dragon to get you in there is that they have color tv um sign me up so that's how i yeah people like oh i get it now like it's probably one of those yeah but it's everything to me it's sort of it really feels like home and i'm really proud to have family roots there for sure so yeah no for me it was just sport like i with three older brothers and you know you know a place

like Finlay and all that kind of stuff there's not really that much to do I've never really been big on tv or anything like that so it was just always running around playing some kind of sport as a kid and and all that kind of stuff but I think being the only girl you know mum wanted a girl she had three boys all that kind of stuff and so I was supposed to be the you know the princess and the ballet dancer and all that kind of stuff but she's like can I return this oh this is not what I ordered yeah I'm pretty sure I broke her heart like I you know from four they signed me up for ballet and tap and all that and I just hated it like I'd just make every excuse to go to the bathroom or do something like that and just wish that I was playing cricket in the backyard with

my brothers and stuff and then when I was eight I sort of grew the courage to tell mum look I don't think this is for me anymore I think I told dad actually because he was just like yep cricket get her in there yeah he saw me like playing against my brothers and he was like she's actually quite good at this so traded in the ballet slippers for cricket spikes and fell in love with the game so I was just a normal happy kid hey like I didn't have any kind of trouble growing up like bullying was never present in my life I was amongst high school kids and stuff like that just floated amongst everyone school captain all that kind of stuff so just yeah I just love love life still do love life but yeah I just had a really genuinely really cool childhood. The cricket

is a really big part of your story if anyone's listening now saying why are we talking about the sport so much because you were a rising cricket star you were very good you were on your way to being top of your game and that unfortunately was cut short by an accident. Can you tell us about that and what happened? I was that person that just had to really work hard at everything that they earned or achieved and things like that so I was never naturally gifted. I was okay enough but all the coaches said you're probably not going to make it to the level that you're aspiring to. I wanted to play for Australia do all that kind of stuff and I just had to grind and work hard on my fitness and do all that kind of stuff and I got handed my chance in 2011 to play

for New South Wales I'd been over in the UK played for them sorry Middlesex over there and then the yeah phone come calling and they said look we're ready to pick you so come back all that kind of stuff so come back and I'd been training really really hard and I'd noticed a bit of pain in my left glute and some numbness in my left toe my left big toe and I went to the physio and she was a little bit more alarmed than I was I said look I can't really feel my big toe and she was just like Kath that's a bit of an issue and in those sorts of sports environment there's no privacy so your teammates are always around you when you're naked all that kind of stuff and getting undressed for the physio all that and so everyone's like what do you mean you can't feel your big toe

I was like I don't I don't know like it just it's gone I can't feel it like that's it yeah so they scanned up and I realized that I had a prolapsed disc in my in my spine so nothing you know it was you know it's serious but not too severe they sort of said to me and they said look we can try some cortisone injections but basically you're up for selection been going really really well like I had a great debut all that kind of stuff and and they said look it's up to you it's a 50 feet we're not going to rule you out but you need to know the risks associated with playing and so I said okay well of course I'm going to pick because this is what I've dreamt of since I was like a little girl since I was eight and so I played and no regrets but essentially in the

next game that I played the disc that was prolapsed in my spine it come out that quickly that the two vertebrae had nowhere to go and they cracked onto each other and part of the bottom vertebrae cracked off and and embedded itself straight into my spinal cord so oh my god in the game yeah so I was 23 and immediately you know that that sensation I had in my big toe was both legs below the waist all that kind of stuff so raced off to hospital and started scanning up and was racing to some surgery and all that kind of stuff and then five unsuccessful surgeries and they said mate like not only is this dream just gone but you're never going to walk again life in a wheelchair like the damage is really severe so really confronting and said like I'd built an

identity around being able to hit a ball around the park and so relationships and and love and all that sort of thing I guess was on the back burner and so I'd yeah just had this yeah situation where I was like all of this has now been taken away from me what who am I what do I do all that kind of stuff and one doctor my my doctor sort of said look there's this new age technique that they're doing with spinal surgeries at the moment or spines at the moment it's from the US there's a lot of people doing it there but it's very new to here there's one surgeon that does it it's in the gold coast so we've got to get you there to have this surgery but it's going to be the best chance so we can't guarantee it but you should take it and so of course like not really

thinking there was any alternative which there wasn't really apart from just resigning myself to the fact that it was life in a wheelchair off I went and I had that surgery the difference between that one and others is it's so invasive normally they'd cut through your back and and access your spine that way and this one they they cut through the stomach and they you know shift your entire stomach so vital organs will get pushed aside and they access the spine that way so yeah really big one and you sort of you know afterwards feeling quite groggy and a lot of pain because of that but they line the the vertebrae with titanium reinforcement put like a ball and socket joint in there i guess the idea is and they sort of like put a casing around it and the idea

is that you'd get a lot more mobility with that ball and socket at the time when you opted to have this really invasive surgery was it with the hopes that you'd be able to go back to cricket or was it just with the hopes that you would be able to gain full use of your legs and be walking again where were you at in your own processing and at this point were you not walking were you better yeah so that that was already there was no movement yeah I mean that's a really decent question a really good one that not many people ask because for me I was always getting back on the park like that was never a thing like it was never never once did my thought process say you're not going to play cricket again whereas everyone else was like just try and walk like or

just anything like but everyone else I think believed that it would never get there and that's okay like no drama but I think for me the intention was I'll get through this it's okay and I guess because the injury happened and it was like surgery surgery surgery and you sort of get stuck in this vortex of just I just need to get through today and then I'll be okay and then I'll get through tomorrow and then I've got the surgery coming up and hopefully that fixes it and all that kind of stuff but it's a huge surgery I grew four centimeters in that surgery so my BMI almost immediately improves and I'm like sick this is awesome no wonder you wake up feeling the way that you do like I was like the world is and like it felt like the world was ending when I woke up

from that surgery the pain that I was in like my body was horrific and I've been through a lot of injuries and a lot of pain and stuff and I remember you get to ask the pain scales to pain out of 10 and for me like to say eight excruciating I was like it's a seven and she was just like I think that's a 10 yeah i'm pumper with like like all these drugs and stuff and so it was intense i mean i'd never want to watch a youtube having been through it i don't think i want to watch what that surgical intervention's like i mean the pain that i felt i can i can understand to be pretty pretty full-on after this surgery was that when you were told that you may need to have an amputation is that when there was some more complications not immediately so basically you

know i'm in the gold coast that happens you lie there for two weeks in traction that's when all the head noise started for me like I've never I'd never up until that point experienced any sort of form of mental ill health as I said I had a great childhood and just never really you know I've been lucky enough to be blessed with a brain that doesn't work that way immediately and so yeah I'm lying there for traction and and I just start thinking wow is this I'm in so much pain and you know so many drugs gone through my system I'm really groggy I can't get clear in my thinking process and everyone kept saying you know it's two weeks and then you might take your first steps and we can't guarantee it and all this kind of stuff I'm like will we lie because I'm in so

much pain is this going to be worth it and all that and so two weeks later I get out of bed and I've got all these like early male nurses and stuff underneath me helping me to walk and I only took two steps that day but I still couldn't feel anything the day after that I took four and you know I spent the next sort of six weeks in the Gold Coast my stomach wound healing and doing all that kind of stuff until they like medically cleared me to fly back home to Sydney where I was living at that point in time and then finish the rehab process as an outpatient here so just like go and keep keep your activities up and all that kind of stuff and at this point it's like deemed a miracle because you know those canadian crutches the one that like wrap around i was

walking with them so i looked like i was doing very very well and i was i started to regain feeling in my right leg which was amazing left was a little bit far behind but it was getting and you could you could sense that and then i woke up one morning due to be at rehab like just a routine sort of thing with the injury i was going through and you know when you like sat down too long could be at work or you know wherever you are watching Netflix doing whatever and your arms are in that bent position you can't move them yeah and you're like shit my arms numb like I'll shake it out and get the pins and needles and all that it was like that it's like five o'clock in the morning but my entire left leg it was just really heavy and I was like what's

going on here so I thought I must have slept in a funny position so I tried to like maneuver myself in bed and nothing really happened like two minutes later I'm still sort of waiting for it to wake up and I'll never forget it I flick on my bedside table light and I look under the cover and my entire left leg was just blue like a bruise kind of color so just no blood was getting to it yeah but you didn't know that i didn't know that because you don't feel it yeah so i pick up my leg couldn't move it pick it up put it to the side of my bed face planted and this part of the story will resonate with you i crawled myself into the bathroom and i sat on the toilet and i had no idea if i was using the bathroom and my surgeons had all said to me with an injury like yours if that

happens if your bladder or bowel start to shut down that's life-threatening and you get straight to an emergency room and so I thought okay I can't muck around here so I had flatmates uh and being the stubborn creature that I am I didn't ask any of them for help I crawled past them to my car oh my god Kath if there's ever a time to say hey can someone help me it's when you're crawling to drag yourself to a hospital just early my thought process was like I need to get to a hospital but also I can't wake them up it's too early so I crawled myself out to the car and I I drove an auto and I had a right leg that was working and put myself into the car and started driving towards what I thought would be rehab and called my doctor on the way and he picked up and

he said what's going on I said look here's how I woke up this morning and he said bypass rehab meet me straight at RPA Royal Prince Alfred Hospital in Sydney so I get there I park in emergency bay and I crawl myself into the emergency room and they're like ma'am what on earth are you doing and I said look here's what my life's looked like the last kind of you know three months and And so I woke up this morning and they put me in a wheelchair and I get into that consult room, do about a half a day's worth of testing. And, you know, again, I'll never forget this moment either. Like all the doctors are sort of outside of my room

and I could tell there was something going on that was big. And they were looking in and I try and look at their eyes or lip read what they were saying and hear what they were saying. And every time they'd catch my gaze, they'd look away. They couldn't really look me in the eye. And I was like, shit, I don't think it's going to be good news. And yeah, one doctor walks in, my doctor, and he just sort of said, look Kath I'm afraid the news isn't great we're going to amputate your leg and I just sat there

in complete disbelief going what I said so many words um probably I've already dropped a few f bombs and stuff but you can say them all on the podcast but yeah like all this stuff just starts going through my head what on earth is going on I didn't know this was a risk for me all that kind of stuff and I called my brother the funniest part about this is he was a butcher at the time and they're going to amputate my leg and that was really we found that really funny in the moment but um very dark very very dark hey if that's how you handle it yeah just had to sort of yeah so he just started asking all the questions that i you know the shock that i was in i didn't think to ask and so basically i just like explain this to me because i don't really understand it and

they said well anyone with normal healthy legs depending on whether they're sitting running walking crawling whatever is that doing they've got a normal blood pressure anywhere between 90 and 100% anything below 20% is dire and anything below 10% is dead and I said where am I and they said well you were at 7% at one point this morning I said wow so it's dead and they said that's why it's turned blue but it is fluctuating and I said well is that what we call hope and they sort of giggled at me and they said mate this is serious and I said yeah like I appreciate that but no one's ever told me that I was at risk of having my leg amputated like I don't have anything against I live with a disability now I don't have anything against that it's just I didn't know this was

even on the table so I said can you give me a chance at just keeping it like just give me a shot just prescribe me something a drug a pill whatever it is and I said well we can't really figure it out we don't really know what's going on but we think it's a blood flow issue so exercise could help and I was like well cool I'm an athlete and I had to do that so what's my deadline all that kind of stuff and they said well we'll give you two weeks you need to go to hospital or rehab every morning get it tested if it drops below 10 again it's gone on the spot but essentially if you can get it above 20 by this time like two weeks then we might be able to work with that so my next two weeks looks like this I'd get up at like four in the morning have brekkie go to hospital

rehab have it tested with the help of their sort of physios and practitioners get it moving in any way that I could and again I was walking with those Canadian crutches and I said I wasn't walking I was hopping on my right leg the one I could feel on my left literally dragged half a meter behind me so the shoes are all worn down and scuffed and really confronting to see and go back home have more brekkie go to the local gym do some stuff there that i could do go back home have lunch go back to the local gym and and anyone that knew my struggle would sort of help me because it was really hard to keep it moving and i couldn't really sleep because of the you know the stress and anxiety so i'd get up at like two in the morning and i had a 24 hour access pass to

the sydney cricket ground where i was a contracted athlete i'd go there just to get my leg moving at two in the morning and the security guards because it's man 24 hours a day they'd notice the lights on and rather than coming down and kicking me out like they probably very within their right to do they said what are you doing here it's two o'clock in the morning and I explained my situation and as I said rather than kicking me out hit Bobby this older guy who always seemed to draw the short straw in that two-week period of that night shift would would literally get electrical tape and he'd strap my left leg into a spin bike or a cross trainer go back to his post come back and unstrap me and then and then help me with the next machine and it's the first time in my life

that I really understood or recognized the power of kindness right like this guy I'm actually trying not to this like tears right now I love Bobby yeah Bobby oh he's he's passed bless his soul but he was just such a wonderful man and those moments are so powerful and I just and this is my mission now in life is to if you have the opportunity to help someone in times like that please do it because it means so much to a person when they're in a struggle moments like that have definitely saved my life and are so powerful and yeah I just think those moments are so important to surviving in times of adversity but also to thriving in life as well so yeah I'll progress the story it gets to the day before I'm due to be amputated and I know that we've sort of alluded

to dark humor and my family very much rely on that to get through and having supported me through many moments have gotten there as well it was to no avail so I couldn't get above 20% and I thought all these efforts were gone and my parents decided they wanted to have a barbecue on the Sunday before the Monday that I was going to have this amputation and my brother legitimately put together this invitation and sent it to my my closest friends and family and it it simply read you're invited Kath's last day with two legs barbecue we're having a farewell oh my god stop it I mean I actually love that I love that because there's There's so much that can be done with humour

and it really does help so many situations. And if that's what helps you guys, like... Yeah, I mean, and it's so funny and I wet myself and I was just like, this is great. But in all seriousness, to have those people, like my closest friends and family around me, I was just like, it's okay, I'll be a leg less the next day. But I've got so much love around me,

so much support and all that kind of stuff. Not looking forward to it by any stretch, but I was like, I'm going to be okay. Like, it's okay. But yeah, when I was staying at mum and dad's that night, they're going to take me into the surgery the next day and wrapped their arms around me and all that. And I don't really remember this part of the story,

but Dad tells it really well. Woke up at sort of three in the morning, feeling pretty crook and collapsed unconsciously onto the floor. Went to use the bathroom or something and it woke Dad up, the thud, on the floor. So he picked me up, put me into the car, took me to the nearest hospital. Made an entire body scan and realised

that I'd been bleeding internally from the stomach wound. So basically the surgeon had very accidentally and very slightly nicked the femoral artery that ran into my left leg. so that's why the that was the problem that's why you weren't getting the blood supply yeah you must have had a clot when you were telling this story I thought you must have had a clot in your left femoral artery yeah so he basically nicked it was so minuscule and I'd lost a lot of weight throughout my recovery and so the blood was sort of pooling in this pocket in my stomach almost couldn't see

it to the naked eye and the nerve damage in my my spinal cord injury from my spinal cord injury just wouldn't carry the limited supply of blood into that left leg and so I'm raced off for emergency surgery again and three hours later I wake up really groggy I just start feeling around is it attached like is my leg still there and everyone was like the you know the surgeon was like mate it's it's still attached it's okay like stop panicking but you're not out of the woods like to keep it attached and to keep it healthy you need to go to rehab and if you ever want the chance of walking again that's going to look like six to twelve months and I'd never really heard of rehab for that long or you know in that way or anything like that and so they said you know

pack up your life quit your job crickets gone like all that kind of stuff um off you go and so I just didn't really see any other option so off to rehab I went and you know after recovering from that surgery obviously and it was such a confronting experience for me I was 23 at the time and you know you feel so adult when you're that age and I wasn't I was just a kid basically what was your mental health like at this point in time when your identity has changed so much so quickly and you at each point are thinking I'm gonna I'm gonna get better and this is going to be okay and I'm going to get back to doing the thing that I love which was my identity yeah how are you not just physically but how are you emotionally and mentally at that point in time

yeah I think like the decline in my mental health happened a little bit later and again I think it was just literally and I feel like probably the last 10 years of my life because I've been so many roadblocks and big challenges and as well some really amazing moments as well I just felt like I was constantly coming up for air so at that point again still very probably naive and I think I was protected because of my support network as well. And the fact that I was never predisposed to mental ill health probably helped me in that phase. So it wasn't too bad. Again, I just had this belief that I was going to be okay. And I don't know where that comes from or why. Again, just probably luck in my upbringing and things like that. But it wasn't too bad at that point

in time. Certainly when I first got there, I was put in the wrong ward. I was 23 and I got put in the geriatric ward. I didn't have beds in the ward I was supposed to be in. And so I had three categories the over 65s the over 75s and the over 85s and they're always at 23 they put me with the 85 year olds and I was like hanging out with Beryl it was amazing as I said I was 23 although I've always been a pretty decent person and cared about others but really the only thing I'd ever cared about was cricket and here I am surrounded by these geriatric patients who taught me so much about life and perspective I had you know an 85 year old war veteran who had bullet holes in his back and he told me all these stories confronting stories about hardship and I was like Jesus this

is adversity like not breaking your back like really dying on the war front like wow this puts my struggle into perspective and my best friend actually from rehab was an 85 year old woman Daisy. Daisy wasn't actually her name it was it was Iris. I called her Daisy because she called me Alice. She thought I was her granddaughter. So like warmed and broke my heart at the same time but yeah no she had dementia and had suffered a stroke and all that so every day I'd take her a cup of tea had to thicken it with an agent so she didn't catch pneumonia and she'd just tell me stories that were the most amazing stories I don't think any of them were true but they were phenomenal stories that like really made my time a little bit more bearable but that was the reality

of my life at that moment I just had to find friendship in the most extraordinary of places and ways and and I yeah I loved it I learned so much as a result of those guys but you know you referred to some mental health what was it like I remember a week into my stay there and the reality just hit me like a ton of bricks and just had tears running down my face I was like how on earth I've gotten through my first week and it was horrific how on earth am I going to get through six to twelve months of this like how is that possible and I called my best friend and this story it really highlights the importance of human connection to me I said look you got to come pick me up and she's like Kath I'm a little bit confused you're in rehab we know that six to

12 months all that kind of stuff so I know if they cut my leg off that's okay I just can't stay in this environment much longer and she said mate this is breaking me to see you like this you're my best friend there's nothing I wouldn't do for you I can't do this for you I wish I could because I'd take it away if I could but I can't and she goes what I can do is I can tell you that I believe in you and I know that you've got this I've seen you do hard things and I know that you can get through this and she said I won't come pick you up I'll come visit and I'll walk this journey metaphorically side by side with you you've got this and and please know that I believe in you and I think that tough love really gave me that sense of belief where I was like okay if she

believes in me then then I need to believe in myself as well I've got this and so I just then committed myself to the process it was you know go from bed to chair chair to frame frame to stick six to stick and then you're on your way and much harder in reality when you you know everyone's telling you you're not going to do it and all that kind of stuff I was like well see how we go I'll give it a go today and all that kind of stuff so it was tough and my luck changed in a really good way though about a month into my stay when I I met something so much grander than anything that I experienced before in in meeting who was going to be the love of my life so yeah I ended up meeting a fellow patient his name was Jim rugby league player or semi-professional rugby league

player an injury spine not doing rugby of all things it was the Tough Mudder obstacle race so he was doing that probably shouldn't have with contractual sort of things and he's on that I don't really I've never really seen it but it must have been like a monkey bar kind of challenge and someone had gone too early and pushed into his back and he fell awkwardly from a pretty great height and broken his back too so he lands himself in rehab and being surrounded by you know Daisy or not Daisy but Iris as well as you know war veterans who I love they you know still great friends and stuff but you know it was really refreshing to see someone of like mind age ability all that kind of stuff enter and I thought it was quite cute and all that kind of stuff and so I was like wow when

I got here it would have been really nice to have someone show me the ropes and show me just all the things you need to know in a new environment so I was like I'll take it upon myself to be that person for him so that he can lean on me it's really confronting when you get there all that kind of stuff and so get in there before Daisy does yeah I think well she was she was right in there she was nudging me she was like you know I just started off as friends and just enjoyed each others company and very quickly and much to my surprise we we fell in love which was just so special I mean who finds love in a rehab center it sounds so funny to even say thankfully it wasn't drug and alcohol rehab but I guess the thing that made our time bearable in in rehab was because we

really didn't like that environment it was let's stream a life that'll exist once we're finished and that's almost the reward right so what does life look like so our dreams were like they were amazing and think back on this time right now with so much adoration and it still warms my heart to think about it so for us it was four kids three boys and a girl just like my family the house in Broadwater on the Gold Coast which is where he was from originally pet turtles the dog all that kind of stuff and we dreamt so often to make that time bearable and there were dreams that I'd never dreamt before or dared to dream with anyone before because all I ever cared about was was cricket and I remember three months into our relationship you know in that like kind of

phase where you're like this person is perfect like could never and and he's still perfect to me but I remember three months in going I am so grateful that I broke my back like I'm so grateful and that's so sounds so confronting to hear that right but I was like if I didn't I wouldn't have met this person who's everything to me now and I just the life that we'd been dreaming or that we were dreaming was was so special to me and we're just like young kids in love like sort of long walks on the beach we did wheelchair races in the corridor and all that kind of stuff and was he quadriplegic paraplegic or was he just not able to walk like what were he very similar to me so para but had he had a better prognosis than what i did and you know his recovery was was pretty

phenomenal as well like we were both people who i guess had that never say die just the athletic kind of background and things like that when we both entered rehab we're in wheelchairs but progressed you know within three months to be out of those and still had a lot of work to do to get back to normality but both really really gritty in in I guess our determination to to want a better life for both of us so strong mindset and all that kind of stuff as well and to put this into perspective just for a time frame from your injury until this point in time what's the time period that has passed the initial injury yeah um would have been about six months I reckon from yeah initial injury for sure okay so you're in love and what you were just saying is for you to say

I was actually grateful that I broke my back love is a really powerful thing like there is no better feeling in the world than having someone love you unconditionally and you love someone back and I think that that's a testament from what you just said the fact that I'm grateful to be here and I'm sure he was too so how long were you two together in rehab and how did that end in terms of did one of you get out first so we're together 12 months I was basically at that point considered an outpatient so I lasted about eight months as an in-house patient at the rehab center and then progress on to outpatient what that means is you're just there three mornings a week say getting checked up and continuing the process and getting better but you can then go home and be in your

home environment or at work or wherever it is that you're doing and live some sort of it's almost like a transition into normal life Jim had a day to go before he was to be considered that kind of patient just put the lease on the house together and all these dreams that we'd been dreaming were about to come true the very next day so yeah he was probably three months behind me but his injuries were you know three months after mine as well and at this point like we are here to talk about the kindness factory and there are so many challenging things that have happened in your life that have contributed to you creating the kindness factory and if you would think that after going through this process of breaking your back that that was the life that you were creating was on the way up

now that's you had everything to look forward to but that's not where your story ends no no it's not um so that night so he was due to be released on the 14th of November and day before his release so the 13th of November in 2012 uh he passed away so uh suicide and just oh god it's it's nearly the anniversary and it just it crushed me beyond belief still it's nine years later and it's so hard it's so it's god I love him uh still still to this day he's just so perfect um to me you know no one's perfect but to me he was just everything and oh shit i didn't know this would happen but kath just you're i mean you're honestly sitting here you are one of the most positive people we have spoken to the way that you tell your stories and the way that you honor him in

what you have created is truly truly beautiful but just talk me through this period when you have gone through having your back shattered to then losing the love of your life did you know that he was struggling in this way did you know that this was something he'd been considering no I didn't and it's so interesting my life story gets put in shining lights and all that kind of stuff and you get one life and you live it through the lens that you get and I wouldn't change my life or my experiences for anything because I'm proud of the person that I am and the people that have come on my journey and some are here still to this day and others aren't they've shaped me into the person there's this saying it's I don't even know if I made it up or not but it's you know

I'm little pieces of everyone that I've met to Jim I cherish most the parts that are his that exist within me and as you said the the legacy that's now being created it's not even me it's it's definitely him he's at the forefront of everything that I do and no I didn't see it coming and the grief that happened after his passing it's still torturous and I still live with challenges of that every single day and reminders of that and for so long I held on to this thing that he'd given me so much as in you know I was never faced with the thought of suicide ideation throughout my rehab period but he definitely helped me throughout the struggle of rehab and I just kept thinking well did I not help him and it was never was I not enough I have to

believe that our relationship was as beautiful as as it exists within my heart now and and I'm definitely not thinking otherwise at all ever I just felt so much empathy for him in that you know was he struggling and I didn't see it and I wish he just had told me because I opened up to him a lot and saying I'm really struggling today and I can't I don't want to go to this session he'd be like come on babe we've got this like it's all good and I love him more because of his struggle which is so hard to say because he's not here anymore but it was just so beautiful on the inside and out and yeah I just I couldn't love him anymore if I tried yeah was there any kind of explanation or do you think he just wasn't ready to face a life on the outside like starting

again was he still not walking or where do you think it stemmed from after he's done he seems to have done all the hard work you would literally like you said you'd signed a lease you're one day away from your life what do you think happened I don't know and I think I've heard from a lot of I think we're called survivors of suicide you know when someone very close has passed away in that way and there's so many different responses and it's such a relative experience and I think it's such a personal experience for Jim it was so inexplicable he was never going to be the guy that did that like Jim was never going to be the guy that did that and so many stories out there like that right you know smiling depression all that kind of stuff he didn't have an existing

mental health condition he didn't seem to be struggling there was support available all those sorts of things but there was so much going on for him that I'm still learning about today that still just gives me so much empathy for him and his struggle and all those sorts of things and I think even individually for both of us we never know what another person is truly thinking right like we can think that we do and we can say that this person is my everything and I know everything about them but we all have little secrets like I do I haven't told a lot of people certain parts about my life and things like that and that's just because they're our own and I don't think he wanted to share that outwardly with anyone his mum and I were incredibly close and she didn't see

it there was no warning sign or anything like that his friends you know I feel like I just I exhausted them post his his passing just by calling him and going but when that moment happened could he have meant that and it's like well he could have Kath but we don't know mate like it's you know and so I think you can run yourself into the ground honestly asking so many questions all those photos that we've got together are they and he's smiling in them does he mean that smile or was that moment as special to him as it was to me and you rack your brain and you're never going to have the answers to that for Jim a lot of people say you must be angry and I was like absolutely not angry is not an emotion that I felt towards him certainly at all I felt a little

bit of anger towards myself you know why did I not see that coming this is you know a fair while ago now but no it was yeah if anything I probably loved him more not for any other reason than I just it was just so special and yeah how do you begin to heal from this and I mean maybe maybe you don't entirely and maybe obviously that is where the kindness factory has come from but what has contributed to you being able to overcome some of this and work through this I'm still working through it now I you know I've recently re-engaged with a psychologist and she's been wonderful and and all that kind of stuff and it's helping through other parts of that grief and trauma and all that kind of stuff but initially that wasn't the answer for me I'm still not sure

if it is today I'm still trying to find my way it's nine years nine years later but I lasted 10 months after his passing just ignoring my grief and and and the trauma that I went through in his passing and all those sorts of things and and then it just hit me like a ton of bricks I had to go back to rehab for a routine sort of checkup I walked past his room and it just all hit me and it just all come crashing down and I ended up going to the Gold Coast we were due to start this life together I reconnected with his mom and all that kind of stuff who I'd ignored and and she's such she was such, she shouldn't pass, but she was such a wonderful woman. And then I felt so guilty for ignoring her, like, you know, she's lost her son and all that kind of stuff. And I just kept owning

all this responsibility of it all. And I needed to let that go. And I think I'll always still feel a little bit responsible to work in progress. I think life is as well, but I went to the Gold Coast and I spent three weeks there just at that rock bottom, you know, like first I lose this dream of playing cricket and then I lose the person who taught me there's so much more to life than cricket and halfway through this three-week period I'm sat in in Wendy was Jim's mum's name I'm sat in her place and on the coffee table was a piece of paper and a pen I don't know why it was there or what compelled me to do what I did but I just had that kind of moment where I was like oh I just started reflecting on a lot of things and I picked up the pen and I just started writing all

these names kept and faces kept popping into my mind and they're just names and faces of people who had helped me or shown up for me in my life and I just started writing their names down on this list and it was a full sheet of paper like 30 names on it at the end and then I don't know why I did it but I'm so glad that it happened because it really sort of I guess springboarded me into this next phase of life I picked up my phone I just started calling every person on this list the first was like my doctor and he must have seen my name flash up on the screen and he's picked up a meeting oh my god what have you done what have you broken how do I help yourself to the hospital again please take on the ambulance I was like no doc that's not why I'm calling it's

I'm just calling to say thanks like I don't think I'd be here without you and you've had a huge impact on my life thank you for that and he just went pardon it's just like Kath you don't have to thank me it's my job and I was just like well I wanted to so he said look before you hang up I just I'm so glad to hear from you to know that you're okay and you're going to be okay and and I'm really proud of you and I said thanks doc and I hung up and I just started calling all these people family friends anyone who'd really shown up for me and same response everyone's like mate I'm so I'm really stoked to hear that you're okay and I was like thanks like I think everything's going to be okay guys like I've got so many good people in my life and and and I think that's why

I'm so positive like people have always had belief in me and I'm internally driven by the goodness of others and so them showing up for me always has shown so much faith and yeah I just I come back to Sydney after that and I didn't know what life would look like I didn't know who I wanted to be you know just because I was an athlete didn't mean I had to be one and all that kind of stuff and yeah cricket New South Wales threw me a lifeline in a sports admin job and so I had this job then and I was going okay like physically I was pretty good too and I got asked a lot of questions because everyone's like holy moly you're like 24 and you've just been through these huge life hurdles and a common question was like if there's one thing that stands out like what is it you know

no judgment so good bad ugly just say it and I would always land on kindness and when I say kindness it's not that you know interchangeable kindness with niceness I think we need to differentiate the two of them the strength in kindness and and how I articulate that you know When you've been in a wheelchair like I have been and you can't reach a lift button and a random stranger walks past and they see that struggle and they press the button for you,

it means absolutely nothing to their day, but it meant everything to yours because it allows you to get downstairs and do what you need to do or go where you need to go. Those moments matter and we need to do more of it, not just when a person's in struggle, but you can't argue with kindness. Like it costs us nothing.

Sometimes it's just a simple smile or a compliment to someone or whatever it may be, but there is so much strength in kindness. we recently did a study so engaged a third party to do some research for us and it was to study the impacts of kindness throughout the COVID pandemic so arguably our most recent historical you know adversity as a nation or the world really Australians turn to kindness so when we're in a struggle we look for an opportunity to be kind and to receive kindness so it was connection with neighbours or helping a neighbour out or giving someone a compliment or calling someone and having

a meaningful conversation and checking in on them and all those sorts of things and I'd encourage anyone as we re-emerge it's it's here right we're all starting to get out and about and stuff if kindness is so powerful that we rely on it to survive why not do it every single day that we're now opening up and doing all this kind of stuff let's not forget about it it's so important and I think anyone who's experienced the power of kindness think back everyone's everyone's received kindness everyone's given it think back to that time and how it made you feel let's just do more of it so what is the kindness factory what what is it what is it about how do people get involved in it yeah so how it started was as I said come back to Sydney and everyone's like you know what's

the one thing that stands out and it was always kindness so then I was like well hang on if I'm telling people this like why aren't I doing it if I've received so much and it's on me I'm well enough now to be able to do that so I just started doing random things for people like I bought a hairdresser dinner one night I just walked past him on the street I'm like I'm gonna go grab some dinner do you want some he's like pardon so we had dinner he's like why are you doing this I was like oh so I told him a bit about my story he's like holy shit so this is a great dinner and he's like well okay I'm gonna cut people's hair for free once a week now like and so he does that and so it got quite catchy bought a random person you know their petrol and she had been through the

most horrific stuff in life and she's now you know doing kind things as well and so it was nothing more than that and had a great job and all of that kind of stuff and I guess I launched it just on that promise I just wanted to give back some of the kindness because I've experienced so much and I launched it on World Kindness Day which is also Jim's anniversary the 13th of November in 2015 so six years ago nearly and it was never going to be anything apart from a side project and a bit of a social media page of goodness essentially and what really exploded it was I guess that there was a bit more life adversity to follow so three months into that journey I was going really really well emotionally spiritually you know I'd raise all this money

for charity and found purpose again through kindness just doing things for other people and that's how my life made sense to me and yeah physically gone really really well I went back to rehab throughout this period and and just sort of you know they were like we're ready to discharge you for life any questions before you do and I said I've got one question I miss cricket so it was part of who I am I can't feel my left leg still that's just something that will never come back now I said so I can't do that anymore because it's skills based anything else I could do and they said oh look your recovery is based in a pull and on a bike if you were to add in a run you could be like a para triathlete do you want to give that a go I was like oh okay so I signed

up for a tester loved it it was great I could get into this so ended up being the first person with my disability to a half Ironman so it was a pretty big deal I did in 2015 it was wonderful with my brother and did so well at that that I got a ticket into a full Ironman to be completed in May 2016 and fittest i've ever been in my life so a full iron man's a 4k swim basically 180 kilometer bike ride and a full marathon at the end 42k so you've got one leg and this is i can't i couldn't do it too yeah literally and this is just full-blown you're getting out there and doing it just doing it yeah just just loved it so yeah so i had that ticket to to do it in port macquarie may 2016 and training's on track fittest i've ever been in my life and it's the 10th of january

with my two best mates I was going to go from Cronulla on a bike ride to Manly have brekkie and go back so 90 kilometers nothing in the grand scheme of the training and I get to the north side of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and I start sort of getting towards a right hand turn lane to make my descent into the northern beaches and just feel this thud on my body and everything just goes black I got hit by a drunk driver from behind and and broke my back again and broke your back where the surgery had been or in a different place no all around that so I broke my back in four places so thoracic a little bit of lumbar sacral dislocated my neck so c-spine broke my left hip so shattered and broke my right wrist and then yeah woke up two weeks later to the news I was

paralyzed and told that I'll never walk again for the second time in my life so pretty down and out you know it was a I was in a coma for a lengthy period mum and dad had to make all sorts of tough decisions about life support all that kind of stuff and yeah I wake up from that six weeks in in ICU fighting off infection it was horrific the injuries were really substantial and I woke up to all these texts and emails and inbox messages and whatever it may have been where people had heard what had happened and they just started writing to me going mate I'm so sorry about your accident because if you wanted to let you know that today I mowed my neighbor's lawn or I donated blood or i tied my sister's shoe so all these people sending me these acts of kindness because i

recognized that i was no longer in a position to do what i was doing and so they were like well i can do that like and so it got quite catchy and in that hospital bed i spoke to the guy who'd sort of done our web website pro bono and i said look let's flip it i've got like hundreds of thousands of these acts off people and it was almost impossible for me to have a bad day like i'm there facing a very lengthy rehab period again everyone's telling me i'm not going to walk again and i had to fight against that in my head every single day and uh and then here are all these people from all around the world just sending me acts of kindness and I was like this is incredible again just couldn't yeah couldn't really get out like that positive sort of thinking just kept

hitting me because all these people I was like well yeah I'm having a bad day but like look what all these people are up to it was really cool so yeah so that's sort of how the kindness factory was was born I guess where then become a people-driven movement where people from all around the world just wanted to engage with kindness just because it was the right thing to do and all that kind of stuff so yeah I spent six weeks in ICU and hospital and all that and then I went on to rehab and walked and taught myself how to walk again when everyone kept telling me I wouldn't I got quite experimental with it as well I not long after that accident so maybe eight months after that accident I was faced with a bit of a you know an ethical dilemma where I had to face

the man that hit me with his car in court and it might be a story for another day unless we want to flesh it out but what I realized through his behavior which I can't change was that kindness had saved my life once why couldn't it again so I went on to social media which gets so many bad raps and many good reasons because sometimes it's really toxic but when used for good I think it can do a lot of good and and hopefully that's what kindness factory is starting to do as well I just went on I said look I'm leaving my home with nothing but the clothes on my back on this day at this time no cash no credit card no food no water and I'm not going to accept help off immediate family or friends I need to accept help only off strangers to feed me to house me to get me from

a to b wherever this journey takes me and ended up on news channels all around the world i had 10 000 people reach out and say look i'll help you i like come and stay in my head yeah i have i am shook i'm shooketh to the core where where were you at your in your recovery process at this time when you decided to go on this endeavor yeah of i'm just going to go out on my own and figure it out and hope that people are good to me were you walking were you not like where were you in your recovery i was walking but i was still a long way off all the people that cared about me like maybe this is a bad idea yes you're gonna end up in someone's basement can you please just sit still like my dad was a cop for 40 years he put a gps tracker on my backpack i bet he did

yeah i took a toothbrush with me and essential yeah so how long i'm just i'm just cops back how long did this journey of trying to get from a to b with only the kindness of strangers how long did that last are we talking a week are we talking two months far out so you just had a random okay let me get this straight you've gone out you're like I've got my toothbrush I've got my backpack someone write to me and tell me I'm in Sydney someone write to me and then someone would say come to my house I'll come pick you up is that how it worked again like I sort of just maybe I'm too much of a visionary or a dreamer but I just say stuff and then I'm like I'll figure it out along the way and so I was like I'll put it out there and I'll go in a week and so all these

people then started sending stuff and then I was on the news and all of that and heaps of people started writing to me and so I was like oh I've got all these offers but how do I piece this together because I'm like in one day I've got an offer in Perth and the next day I've got an offer in Sydney and all that and so I started trying to map it a little bit and it was going to be a very structured route and I'm just not structured so I was like well this no I don't want to do that but then what I noticed throughout a lot of the people doing it had heaps of friends helping me with that process but was that all these people I guess wanting to help or a lot the vast majority of people reaching out had experienced some sort of adversity themselves and it was the ones that sort

of shared a bit about themselves and I was like they seem quite special I'm going to pick them for no other reason than I just want to hear their story or get some perspective or whatever and so I just picked the ones that seemed really a bit deeper in in their offer and that was a really good thing to do because the rest just worked itself out so like you know the first day I think I was in all areas of Sydney and I was like how do I get though if I've got zero cash how do I get from A to B to start just to start and then like a it was a luxurious like limousine company reached out and we're like we're really inspired do you want us to just give you a driver when you're in Sydney I was like yeah you're driving around in a limo living like a boss

why did you stop why did you get to the end of the two months it should be like 10 years on and you're still driving around in your limo it wasn't always like that like I mean everyone started like I did a blog every day and everyone got quite fascinated by the stories and I realized like halfway through that I wasn't even telling my experience I was telling these stories of it was one family who just it still blows my mind so four of them there was a family of I think it was eight and four had reached out to me separately they didn't know the other one had they'd heard good bloody people just good good folk yeah and their story is mind-blowing and the dad of that family that you know the leader of that family Serge he was part of the Chilean dictatorship

in 1986 was in prison tortured daily all that kind of stuff his wife broke him out they got on a boat they got on a boat become pregnant on the boat land in australia so refugees all that kind of stuff and their message when they reached out wasn't like we can do all this kind of stuff they're like kath we see your struggle and we want to help you we can't give you much you can sleep on the floor of our you know whatever room our child's room or whatever but what we can give you is love and i was like i need to go there like i'm going there and i need to know their story and and I learned so much about adversity everyone sees my story as oh my god again you get one lens I don't know any different and I wouldn't change my life for anything and my adversities

aren't any greater than yours or anyone else's again when we're in those moments some of the bigger life adversities I've been through haven't impacted me anywhere near as some of the you know perceived smaller ones I think it just depends where we're at in that moment in time and all that kind of stuff don't undersell your adversity like you know but our adversity is not anywhere near your adversity and like I know I know what you're trying to say but you have for what you have gone through to where you are now and what you're doing is absolutely incredible all I'm sitting here now is like Brittany don't you ever fucking complain about one thing I was like do not do not and it's also this ongoing gift you know to think that you can go through these challenges

and come out of that with the mindset of what can I give to somebody else instead of you know what can I do for myself to make myself better it's so outward facing which is what makes your story so much more beautiful in in this for somebody who is going through some huge adversity in their life for somebody who's going through and maybe like you said maybe it's not that the physical thing they're going through is the adversity maybe they're going through some inner turmoil but for somebody who's experiencing their own set of challenges what is your greatest piece of advice what is what is something that you think god I just wish that someone had said this to me or done this for me what is that I probably say two things the first is acknowledge

it like own it like you don't don't don't ever dismiss your adversity and and what what the struggle is that you're going through like it's there and it's right there with you at that moment in time and that's okay you don't have to have the answers right now or tomorrow or whenever just understand and believe that it's going to get better because it will the second thing and I do this a lot pre-covid I was traveling the world as a speaker and I get asked questions like this a lot and I was like well this audience in front of me say there was a hundred people there just for the sake of a number can anyone right now put up their hand honestly and maybe to these listeners can you put up or can you say to yourself honestly I know what my five top values are as a person so do I

know who I am what makes me tick and not many people can honestly go I do takes you 10 minutes to figure it out right so what's important to you and I think the reason you need to understand what's important to you is because that can then help you climb out of that hole that you need to get out of so for me it'd be very different to you and and to you and to anyone right because we're all so uniquely beautiful and different for me my values are a family and friends and loyalty and kindness and probably gratitude right so when i can understand that i know that in order for me if i'm having a bad day to get out i'd probably just need to call a friend and say hey get me out of this rut or whatever or i just need to experience write down three things that i'm

grateful for or give someone kindness or ask someone for kindness or give myself some kindness as well. And I think when we have that self-awareness about who we are, adversity is so much easier. I think that's a really important point to reach out to people when you need the help, because like you at the start, obviously you've come full circle because you were the opposite. You'd rather drag yourself past your friends to the hospital as your leg's going to be amputated, as your leg's dying, than ask for help. I'm the same. Like I would rather, I screen calls. I'm really guilty of it. If my friends know I'm upset, they try and call me, I screen them. Like I don't want to ask for help. I don't want to bother anyone. But I think there's a really

big lesson in it. And there's so much power in vulnerability. And I hope everyone listening has taken something from, I mean, I know you've taken a lot of it, but I hope you realise that if you are in a place of struggle, the best thing you can do is reach out to somebody, anybody. It might be a stranger. It might be a family member. It might be a friend. Yeah. I think connection's so important for sure. And I'm so fortunate in that I've had people that have always had my back for sure. But also the ones that have the really hard conversations with me, like I'm not going to come pick you up from rehab or you need to be better than this. Like I was you know turning to drinking not that I did that a lot or anything but you know back in the

day if I'd have too many drinks because I was trying to cope or something like that a friend be like no I'm calling you on your bullshit stop that you're better than this kick into gear go get the help that you need or whatever it is that you need to do and those conversations are vitally important when you're in a struggle in that you know you need to sometimes be called on your bullshit yeah I mean hard love and soft love at the same time if somebody wants to get involved in the kindness factory if somebody wants to be able to spread this as as far and as wide as it can go how can you know someone tap into the kindness factory how can we be a part of it it's so easy it's not an exclusive club by any stretch I mean I mean Kath is sitting here wearing

the t-shirt right now yeah I mean just go onto our website kindnessfactory.com and you can log and act and that's how you can immediately and that's not for us that's more like see someone help them or share the story of when someone's helped you from a kindness perspective and all that yeah so like when I went on that journey I then sort of ended up traveling the world because I wanted to hear my story and I'm not a fantastic speaker I've just got an interesting story to tell and so that kept happening I got quite busy which was great quit my job did all that but the kindness factory now is a charitable organization it's now registered in three countries which I never really sit back and go I'm really proud of this but but I am I landed myself in New York at this really

high-powered executive's office and I was I got was it the Obamas again did you figure this one out no not this time but it was like the head of this major company like probably one of the world's biggest companies and I've been paid to be there I got flown business class again so that would have cost them upwards of 30 grand to get me there right and it's not about money or anything but I'm like and I get there and I was like where should I set up for this talk and they were like no what talk and I'm like well you've paid for a speaking engagement they're like well yeah it's with our you know the guy that owns the company and I was like oh one-on-one so I sat in this office literally just doing this having a conversation with this guy and he's asking

me questions and I was like and I walk out and I'm like well what's am I we go into an amphitheater to do the staff talk like what's going on like I don't know if you know but I speak to the Obamas where is the crowd I headline Michelle Obama they're like you're done like you literally I was like I've just flown like like thankfully I had other things to do and I was like what so can i just say it seems to be a recurring thing that you don't know what you're doing when you get to these things you're like who am i speaking to what am i doing someone's like hello kathy like i'm there did no one send you a run sheet for this stuff again like back then i didn't have like an assistant and all that like my chairman now uh the chairman of the charity he's he's quite

well known in the business world and he rings me sometimes when i'm overseas and he's like well what have you got on today and i'm like oh he he loves this story because he's like you're in such a fool but this is why i love working with you i was like i've got a meeting with this company and he's like who is it and I was like JP something and he's just like what and I was like I don't know I think it's a bank or he's like I was like JP and he's like JP Morgan Chase and I was like yeah he goes Kath that's he's like fucking hell he's like mate you don't pay me at all but yeah no so I'm having all these moments where I was like zero idea what I was doing but I was like when I walked out of that meeting I was like this is not why I pursued this not to sit in a

one-on-one meeting with a really wealthy man I was like I was a little bit ashamed of myself and I was like well what do i want it like i felt quite lost in the journey so i was like well what do i want and i was like i just want more kindness in the world and so i was like i need to approach kids i need to get in front of kids and and start this generational change of kindness so the factory's got like the log and you know adults and kids alike can can get engaged with that and we're about to roll out corporate programs and kindness and all that kind of stuff which has been fantastic with some great organizations around that but i went into all these school environments and people became very aware very quickly that i was doing it for free and all that

kind of stuff so I had this like backlog of 600 schools I was like I'm never going to get to that many and COVID struck and all these teachers were reaching out and alert things from going into those school environments and the first is that kids want to be kind no one's no one's born unkind like we all want to be kind right that's why I'm like this should just be motoring on by itself because we all are naturally inclined to be kind and get them while they're young yeah I mean sometimes adversity happens or life experience or societal pressures and when you see three-year-olds playing with I don't care what color skin you've got or religion you are into and all that so it creeps out of us somewhere along the way so I was like we need to get them as early as possible and

yeah every time I'd go into a school the teachers would go what can you leave us with we've got access to these kids every day like you can't come back tomorrow unfortunately we'd love you to but you can't and I was like yeah okay that's true and in a very reactive way teachers would reach out and they'd say look can you come to our school because we actually lost a student to suicide and it's and I was like of course I can like I'll drop everything and do it but why does it take the loss of a student for you to pick up the phone like this is ridiculous so I ended up sharing this predicament with Kaplan who are an education provider a global one and they were very inspired by what I was trying to do and so I said look I want to create a kindness curriculum

that can go into schools and so we we ended up creating that and during COVID we launched it into 60 schools in Australia and it's now in congrats that's huge yeah it's in 3000 now in Australia all around Australia which has been fantastic all online which teaches the basic principles of kindness so like things like perspective and gratitude and positivity and empathy and all those sorts of things and it's about to be launched into the US on World Kindness Day this year and then the UK beyond that and I feel like this journey now is a is one that I'm no longer in control of which I'm completely comfortable with I think the sky's the limit in terms of all that kind of stuff but I guess there's a really long way of me answering how

do people become involved please just be kind yeah but we yeah it'd be really silly not to mention that world kindness day as i mentioned is the 13th of november so this year this week this week so it's this saturday 13th of november and this year i mean the last two years we've broken world records for most acts of kindness on platforms and all that kind of stuff and this year i guess the give back has almost been that we recognize the power of and the importance of kindness throughout covid and as we re-emerge we just want as many people to continue that for us and so we know that you know the stats are overwhelmingly positive positively lent towards kindness so yeah we're encouraging people via a qr code or we're calling it a kr code to scan that

and you'll get prescribed an act of kindness that you can do this saturday oh so it'll tell you like buy a coffee for a friend or for a stranger or something yeah it'll absolutely so yeah so yeah if you want to share the qr code any listeners please get amongst that on any platforms and we'll put the qr code on our instagram as well so you guys can find it very easily and if you want to partake in a random act of kindness on world kindness day which we think you all should do not if you want to i'm just going to call it out now let's just we're all going to do it every person that is listening to this episode now on world kindness day or even today it doesn't have to wait for the day i want you to go out and do something kind buy someone a coffee give someone

a compliment do something for no reason and like don't pretend to do it because we'll know you guys have got to go and do it. I'm going to go do it. We're going to start a thread on the Facebook group as well, which you, if you're not following it's life on cut discretion group. And then that way we can keep track of what you guys are doing as well. So I am just like, thank you. I cannot thank you enough for coming here today. I am. I mean, I knew your story obviously, because we got you on the podcast, we've researched it, but nothing could have prepared me for what you just told me. I'm, I'm blown away and how far you have come and how positive you are. You are an absolute inspiration to I'm sure everybody that comes across you and I know I'm leaving I'm 100%

leaving a better person from this interview today so I couldn't ask for more oh guys it's been my pleasure I've loved it it's been great can you tell everyone where they can find you so for anyone looking for it your handles your handles on Instagram the website let us know where they can find you yeah so me personally it's just Kath Koshel so K-O-S-C-H-E-L and K-A-T-H is Kath I think it's like Facebook I'm not again just not really driven by socials but on them and then obviously kindness factory is just at kindness factory or one word or that kind of stuff but or kindnessfactory.com is the website for the most important part of vlogging your act as well of course but we will link we'll put all Kath's details and everything will be in the show notes

if you guys want to go and track her down and and share your act of kindness thank you so much for being a part of the podcast Kath we've absolutely loved it no me too it's been awesome we never end an episode without our suck in our suite our highlight and our low light the best and the worst of the week laura do you want to kick it off what is your suck of the week okay my suck of the week oh you guys already know the suck of the week the suck of the week was having a creepy man sitting in his car watching me taking photos of you taking photos of me and if you're that creepy man and you listen to life on you taking photos of someone's family honestly that was my suck. I was so excited about the house. If I knew someone was going to take photos of me,

I would have brushed my hair and yeah, just didn't want that to be plastered all over the news. But anyway, that's, that was a suck. The suite though was really, really amazing. So when I was in Byron, this woman named Sammy reached out to me on Instagram. She is a lifer. This is also a suite and a recommendation guys. She has a business called the Candid Files and she takes photos of kids. Like she takes beautiful family photos and she reached out and was like, Oh, you know, while you're in Byron would you like to come and have some photos taken I did not expect them to be as crazy amazing as what they are I've seen them they're pretty amazing and I know that Sammy's going to be listening to this because she is a lifer so if you guys if you're going to Byron

and you have kids and you want to get some beautiful family photos taken she's got a gorgeous little studio in the industrial estate I I'm going to put some of them on my Instagram because I'm just so in love with them but honestly it was it was just one of those moments where one I got to meet someone who was part of our community and two I was like wow like they're actually really beautiful you're so talented it's so incredible to have stunning photos of your kids like to be able to hold on to those memories and yeah I got them last night and I was going through them and I was like god my kids are beautiful sending them to everyone who's like we don't care as much as you do but they're amazing okay so does everybody have to use their investigative skills and find

Sammy on their own or what is Sammy's handle it is I can tell you hold on where's my where's my phone okay for anyone who wants to know or if you're going to Byron and you want to book her it is thecandidfiles on Instagram oh I like that name yeah super cute look there's a photo of Marley cute Brittany what is your suck my suck and my sweet are tied into the same thing and I'll say my sweet first because that leads into the suck I went back to Port Macquarie just for the weekend for a flying visit to see my parents and my brother my niece and nephew I haven't seen them in I don't think I've seen my parents in like seven or eight months which is crazy we speak all the time but we haven't seen each other so that was really really nice my suck was driving

back I just didn't think it didn't even clock that this was the first weekend everyone was allowed to like travel out of the jurisdiction didn't even register on the way back from probably what should have been a four-hour trip it took me like seven and a half hours the traffic was backed up as long as I could see the rain was torrential to the point that I was like this someone's gonna have an accident you could see every three lanes were driving with their hazards on you can only see two meters ahead of you you know that traffic where you're like I can't even pull I can't even see where I could pull over because you're three lanes deep you just have to crawl at like 20 30 kilometers so that was my suck and yeah that was it otherwise there's a really uneventful just like

a really wholesome family weekend away what an anticlimactic way of finishing off what would been a really special couple of days though I was like this is fucked this is cool like everybody in Australia just wants well everybody in New South Wales just wants to get out and see the world now but it did mean that everyone in New South Wales was out with their family so that's really nice oh all the silver lining guys we hope that you love the episode honestly we really would love all of you all to take a little piece of this episode and go and do a random act of kindness for someone this week go and log your random act of kindness on Kath's website which is the kindness factory we'll put all the details in the show notes and this is also just your friendly reminder

to jump on and give if you thought about at the beginning but then you didn't stop this is your reminder to go and give us a vote in the people's choice award in the australian podcast awards which will also put those details in the show notes speaking of like doing the kind deed i thought you'd bring me a coffee today but you didn't tomorrow lucky world kindness days on the that is it we will see you again actually i was gonna say we'll see you on thursday for ask uncut but on Wednesday tomorrow guys there is an episode a little bonus episode it has been a long time coming it is my interview and I use the word interview loosely it's my chat with I don't even know if I can say the better half yeah with the other half Jordan you guys have wanted an episode

to meet Jordan see what all the fuss is about just find out a little bit more about him I want to say reluctantly did the podcast he was excited to do it for me because he makes it happy but as you're here he is he doesn't love interviews he did his best he was great but I hope you guys love him I hope you learn something from him and I just hope you I don't know it's I feel like I'm sharing a bit of my life that I haven't really shared with you guys before I think for Laura and Matt Matt's always on the pod he's such a public figure and Jordan is a public figure but he's not big on socials he doesn't share a lot of his life so everything that he's sharing now is really really big for him so yeah I'm excited for you guys to hear it that's dropping tomorrow if you're

interested I love that you did this episode I love that you're able to give a little bit of an insight into your relationship to our listeners because like you said you know Matt is just like he is a like an old piece of furniture on this podcast now he you know and like this is something that's part of Matt's world whereas for Jordan I think it's really special that he put himself out of his comfort zone to be able to to do a podcast because it's not something that he felt comfortable doing and it is something that required a little bit of positive coercion from britney i had to give him a reward he was like a dog i was like i'll pay you gave him a blowy afterwards anyway guys that is it from us if you love the episode

please jump on apple podcast leave a review if you feel like this is an episode that could touch someone or you know positively affect someone's day please share the episode tell your mom tell your dad tell your sister your brother your friends your cousin your dog and just tell everyone and share the love because we love love We'll be right back.