The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Grace Has A Silent Voice by Nina M. Kelly

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

Grace Has A Silent Voice by Nina M. Kelly https://amzn.to/3WVW475 Ninamkelly.com Life often reveals itself in ways we would not choose. Yet in those devastating times, the resilience of the human spirit has the opportunity to shine. It is in those moments that Grace comes to weave the fabric we call life. Herein are the stories told in letters to my friend. I have been afforded the opportunity to experience the benevolence of humanity, the selfless gifts of those whose hearts were touched by horrific events. These are the uplifting journeys in Grace Has a Silent Voice. About the author Nina M. Kelly is an Amazon best seller as one of the co-authors with Jack Canfield in Success Mastery. She is a mythologist with an emphasis in depth psychology, storytelling, author, humanitarian, and cultural and arts activist. She also is an Archetypal Pattern Analyst and Dream Pattern Analyst. Nina’s sense of adventure has always been sparked through learning more about people and their cultures. Believing that if you understand a person’s culture, stories, myths, and rituals, then you more readily open your world to greater compassion.

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Today, we have an amazing multi-book author on the show. We're going to be talking about her book, Grace Has a Silent Voice. Nina M. Kelly is on the show with us today. We're going to be talking to her about her book, her insights, some of the things she talks about in some of the other books she's written, and how it will inspire and motivate you as. Nina is a mythologist, humanitarian, arts and cultural activist, best-selling author, executive producer of three award-winning documentaries, archetypal and dream pattern analyst, and clinical hypnotherapist.

She has me hypnotized right now. I'm just kidding. She's going to have me hypnotized by the end of the show with her amazing info and insight in her book. Welcome to the show. How are you, ma'am? Thank you. I'm fine, thank you, and thank you for having me today. Thanks for coming.

So give us dot coms. Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs? 9amkelly.com is where to find me on the website. And from there, Instagram is 90mkelly. Facebook, same thing. All the same. You've got a theme there going with the branding. Got to love it.

Make it easy. Simple. That's the way to do it. So give us an overview of your book, Grace Has a Silent Voice. The whole premise of Grace Has a Silent Voice is honoring the silent heroes. There was a time in my life that it was a dark time, and I'd just come out of a dark time, I should say. And the first thing I thought of was, wow, how many people have stepped, have I been privileged to have stepped into my life, made a profound difference, and they don't even know it.

And so I wanted, the book is all about honoring those people. And it's about the resilience of the human spirit in times of tragedy. That's where it came from. There you go. You know, there are moments in my life where, that I talked about in my book, there are moments in my life where there were certain people that they changed the course of the history of my life. And I can remember the moment to the point, and I shudder to think what would have happened if those people hadn't given themselves to those moments and changed the course of my life. I mean, some of them were so pivotal. I mean, they literally took the direction of my life, which was going probably nowhere,

and went, go over here. And sometimes there were people that weren't trying to positively impact my life. They were trying to negatively impact my life, but they made it so that I moved that way. So it's important to recognize these things and have gratitude for them. Right. You know, that's really true. Oftentimes people help you and they don't even know they're helping you. Yeah, yeah.

Everybody has their opinion about things, you know. I became an entrepreneur because I got fired at McDonald's. Congratulations. Yeah. Three months later, I went back and shook the manager's hand and said, thanks for being a dick. I know I make more money than you do. And I meant it as a nice compliment, but he changed my life. But there's other people that change your life in a positive way and they want to be positive. And sometimes it's the selflessness of giving something and it doesn't

have to be a lot, but just changing those moments so tell us a little about yourself you've written a lot of books you've done a lot of things give us an idea of your upbringing and some of the things that shaped you and made you who you are today and what you're sharing with the world wow that's a huge question we threw it all in there it's your life story and thank you very much sounds like a game show this is your life story. Thank you very much. Sounds like a game show. This is your life. Really? Okay. Here I am wanting to speak about others.

First question is about me. Okay. Got it. The audience does like to get to know you a little bit. No, I know. I'm just joking. Yeah. You'll find the more time you spend on Earth, the more humorous you think life is.

Oh, yeah. It's all fun and games now. Yeah. You know, the most pivotal thing that happened to me was at the age of seven, not at that juncture in my life. My mother died, and that changed my whole life. And then, so I think that she was a great inspiration for me. And then I had a great aunt that was so inspiring that, you know, I learned by observing her. And then just time.

I just spent a lot of time in life doing many, many things. So about me is just, you know, I'm like everybody else. I have ups and downs and sideways and a whole nine yards. But each thing I've taken as, because I like people. I like people very, very much. And I've tried to learn along the line and appreciate people. I don't know if that answers your question. What made you find that was so important when you were growing up?

Is it the impact that your loss to your mother had and valuing people from that? No, I think it was my time with her okay yeah my mother my mother was a phenomenal i mean we all say that you know but she was a phenomenal human being and she left such an impact on me that you know she taught me respect everyone and everyone has their place and everyone has their their their viewpoint about life so that was important and then my father was an incredible humanitarian I mean he just so I was very very fortunate as an observer to take that and I think sometimes when you lose someone so dear to you early on you just don't take things for granted I didn't you just don't take things for granted. I didn't. I just didn't take things for granted.

I went, you know, life is like this. It happens. And I lost a lot of people very early on in my life. So it's helped me to go, hey, you know, you may not be here no more. You might want to make the best of today. So those are, I call those left-handed gifts. Left-handed gifts? You don't sign up for them.

Ah. But they're there and they help you. Left-handed gifts. I didn't order this. Can we return it? It sounds like those experiences shaped you in realizing the fragility of life and that you can lose people at any moment. And it's important to value those people as they come to your life. So, when did you start writing books and getting into the genres and stuff that you write now?

What genres do you write for? I write two genres, nonfiction and children's books. What brought me there was my first, you know, we all have chapters. You had your McDonald's. Now you have your entrepreneur. One of my chapters in my life was working, my professional life was working with organ donation, transplantation, death and dying. Well, I spent a significant portion of my life working with people that are dying. And many of them died with me and once i closed that

chapter that's when i started writing because i i thought wow i just you know where's my next what do i do next so that i write in two genres like i said the non-fiction grace has a silent voice is a true they're true stories and they're written in letter form. And then the children's books, the reason why I write those is, you know, children need good role models. And I'm hoping to be able to maybe teach something without being preachy, so to say. Put it in a way that the kids can kind of understand, I guess. Yeah, exactly. There you go. Of course, I don't know.

I preach at my kids all the time. Thou shalt do the chores. You'll love this. I have two children, and when they were little, I used to go, there's a great Chinese proverb. There's a great Chinese proverb. And, of course, that's how I teach them. And they'd say, when they got older, are those really Chinese proverbs? You know, you're just trying to do this.

Lost an interpretation. Translation. Yeah. I like that. I'm just going to walk around and make stuff up and say it's a Chinese proverb. Ancient Chinese proverb. Thou shalt not order Taco Bell. Exactly.

Cleanest thy room. Cleanest thy room. Or else. Or else. Pun. Cleaneth thy room. Cleaneth thy room, or else punishment cometh. Exactly. Who said that? Confucius, I think. I don't know. One of those two. I think it was Confucius.

Do your chores and be put up for adoption. That was pretty severe. I think that was Emerson.erson so you've written a lot of these books for young kids uh there's athena the brave honeybee tea house athena tutor and the eagle success mastery i think this is with jack canfield i think he's the soup guy, right? He is the soup guy. He's the chicken soup.

The soul founder. I like how his first name, his last name is Can. I know. Isn't that funny? A play on words. Yeah, it's kind of ironic. Leo learns about life. There you go.

And so in your book, Grace Has a Silent Voice, you said it had letters in it. What were those letters about? Those letters, i've always been a letter writer since i was very young so that was an easy way for me to tell in this book i'm writing to my friend and i'm and i'm sharing each story is different and i'm sharing the stories of what happened and how and how moved i was at the worst time in someone's life, how open their heart was. You know, we always, you're in the media, so you hear this, the news is negative, negative, negative.

But there are tremendous positive stories out there, even in the worst times of life. I think I was just compelled to, number one, honor them, respect them. But number two, I thought, gosh, I just need to, maybe one of these stories can help somebody else, you know. And that's really the motivation. You know, I think we had somebody else on the show who wrote a book about writing thank you cards to people and i think they did it for a month or something i did it for a while oh wow and they just went back and

they wrote people thank them and stuff and there's something about gratitude somewhere over covid i i think through the influence of a friend, started my Gratitude Sundays. That's wonderful. And it's on my calendar. And every day, or every Sunday, is the day that I kind of focus on what I'm grateful for. And why do you think gratitude and recognizing people like you did with the letters in the book is so important? You know, I think gratitude changes you. Number one, it takes you away from you, although you're grateful, but it takes you away from you because it helps you say, oh, wow.

You know, the Hopi believe their whole mission is to pray that the sun comes up. And then they're grateful that the sun comes up. That's not about them. That's out there. And I really believe that's what gratitude's all about it takes you away from who you are so that you can see the rest of the perspective of things yeah that's one opinion and i like how you say that it gives us perspective because when we're when we're just kind of focused on ourselves we're kind of just

we're kind of all in this whole area of ourselves and getting outside of ourselves and having perspective on other people's viewpoints their perspectives their worlds and appreciating and thanking them you know because i think i think with our i think there's probably something with our ego that you know we get kind of caught up in ourselves and we really really focus on us and how great we think we are. We've always got the ego going. You're pretty awesome there.

I have a cute little song. Okay? Excuse me for interrupting. I'm sorry. It made me think about my father. My father used to sing this song and it was so hysterical. And it's all about,

it really puts it in the right perspective. I love me. I love me. I can't do without me. I mean, you know. I sing that every day. I know. But, you know, there's a different twist to that, too.

Huh? You know. You know. Yeah, I sing that every day. In fact, it used to be the show's intro song. Oh, really? No, I'm just kidding. Oh, I was going to say, wow.

There's probably people in the audience going, yeah, it probably should be. So there you go. It kind of does that on the show. I have to remember what's on the intro. So you're a mythologist. Tell us what that is and how does that help you in the world? How do you help other people with it, I suppose? Well, a mythologist is someone who has studied

now, you know, you're going to study for the rest of your life, obviously. But it's someone who has studied cultures, their rituals, their philosophy, their psychology, their music, their literature. You know, that's very, very expansive. That's what a mythologist sums up to be, okay? How has that helped me? Once I finished my studies, I just did not see the world with the same lens.

I mean, I just didn't. And how it has helped me to help, I guess, to be out in the world is to appreciate people, where they come from, what's, you know, like the very first question you asked me, I was kind of taken aback because what formed, you know, what formed you, that's all part of your myth or your legend or your history or your whatever your last you whatever your last name you know whatever your heritage is so i think for me it's helped me matter of fact i know it has i see with a different lens i see with a much open opened mind and i realize that we're the world is very tiny according to what we understand. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I used to, when I was living in California, I used to, you know, sometimes have bad weeks or bad days.

And, you know, sometimes, you know, everything goes wrong and you're just sitting there going, oh, poor is me. Poor is me. You know, I'm, you know, the victim of everything. You know, I'm living the worst person in the world, I guess. Everything's happening to me. And I would go down to the ocean and sit at the beach. And you would just sit there, and maybe there's a bit of hypnotic, the crashing of the waves on the shore.

For some reason, that brings me a bit of peace. And I would just sit and look at the sunset, and I would look at the beach, and i'd look at the sand and i'd realize that for eons of time that beach had been there and there's probably a million people in a beach sitting there with their stupid little problems like me and i realized that for all of attorney or's time, however you want to measure it, that was always going to be there. And it always has been. And I was just some stupid little speck, probably one of the pieces of sand in that beach

when it really comes down to all the people that have probably wanted that beach and seen that sunset. And I'm just like, after a while I just realized, you know, my problems, there's a whole big world out there. My problems really aren't all that big, really,

when you think about the whole scheme of things. And it would kind of give me a perspective where I would just be like, yeah, maybe I'm not as bad off as this. And then I'd go watch Cops for two hours, the TV show, and that always makes me feel better because I watch those people and then I'm like holy crap I have a great life I'm not getting pulled over I'm not getting tased well I shot you know what's been shooting at me I don't piss off cops I do what I'm supposed to do so I'm actually living a great life according to what I'm seeing on TV.

I don't know if for some reason it helps me to watch people's car crash and misery and then I feel better about my life. I think that's a male thing. It might be. I think guys are like into this. Maybe I'm a sadist or a masochist. No, I think it's male energy. I don't know.

Anytime I would sit there, I'll just sit there. You got the guy and the wife beater who's on the couch in his mobile home, and he decides he's going to, you know, the cops are interviewing him for whatever happened at the house, and he decides he's going to go there half naked, have a fist fight with the cops, and you're just like, wow. And then you think to yourself, I'm doing pretty damn good. That's not happening to me this week or last week, so I got that going for me.

Now, you've been an executive film producer. Tell us about some of the work you've done there. The very first one was called A New Leash, like a dog leash, New Leash on Life, Canine for Warriors. And this has to do with soldiers that have served our country that come back with post-traumatic syndrome and dogs that are taken out of shelters and they're trained to be with these soldiers. It's amazing the difference and the transition that happens to these individuals. And I was so moved by that. Actually, we won four Emmys on that one.

Wow, congratulations. Yeah, yeah. You need to thank Nick Natan for that one. Yeah. You know, and yeah, that was a profound, profound experience. So that's number one. Number two was called Folds of Honor. And that is soldiers that have given up their life in service.

And it's a foundation that helps sponsor the children so that they can get an education. And so, yeah, that one won the Humanitarian Award, which is also, you know, look, I'm a product of, my father was a Marine who landed on six islands in the Pacific during World War II. You know, think about that being brought up by a Marine. And then I had a brother who flew Phantoms in the Vietnam War, F-4s and Phantoms. So, yeah, I'm very supportive of the military.

So I was very proud to be part of that or honored. I shouldn't say proud. I was very proud to be part of that or honored. I shouldn't say proud. I was very honored to be part of that. The last one had to do with the story of Larry King and his life. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and so it was really quite interesting because he always wanted to do, you know, obviously everybody knows Larry King, but he wanted to do a story about his life,

and it was called Celebration of Life. And that was fun. And we did that one. It was lots of fun. And I so appreciate how candid he was. You know, he was in his 80s, and he said, look at this juncture. I've made every mistake I can humanly make. But then he was very – but he talked about the passion of why he wanted

to become a radio announcer and he totally told his story and there you go people are human that's you know that that was very very good i was excited about being part of all of those those were to me good stories you know there you go Larry King, what a guy. He inspires me. I've cited it a lot in the show. One time I was watching his show. I think someone was kind of half interviewing him. I said, why do you do this? Why do you like this?

And he says, you know, I'm interested in people. I'm genuinely interested in people, their stories. He goes, I'll talk to people on a plane. I'll talk to people wherever I'm at. He goes, I'm very curious about people and what their stories. He goes, I'll talk to people on a plane. I'll talk to people wherever I'm at. He goes, I'm very curious about people and what their stories are, what their journeys are of life. And he goes, I find it interesting. And I'll tell it to people. And I adopted the same thing. I think it was in 2020 when we changed the format of the show from just Silicon Valley CEOs and business leaders and stuff to where we opened it to all authors

and everybody because we want to change the world you know cova was happening and i'm like i want to do something that lifts everybody because we need it and and i find people interesting i like their journeys i often joke the often joke is that that i'm sick of my life at 56 i'm tired of hearing my stupid stories. It's because you're a baby. I'd rather hear other people's stories. They're kind of interesting. I'm like, so what did you do?

That looks way better. That's way better than what I did. I like that. And people are looking at you and going, wow, I wish I did this. It's very interesting. I need to find the clip of him saying that. He said that interview, and there's a clip of it somewhere. And it just stuck with me i'm like what a great what a great thing to have because you know

everybody that comes on the show i i love talking to them i love finding out their journeys because i'm sick of mine and but you know the life is just this wilderness of mirrors there's different places that you can go and turns and twists and you know being able to talk to people like what made you go that way which made you go left instead of right down that pathway and talking about you know things that happen with you know for like you you know you're losing your mother at an early age things that shape them and and how that shaping framed or or framed might not be a good word because that's kind of permanent but basically guided them through the that wilderness of their life and their stories and you know i often say that on the show that we we are the fabric our stories are the fabric of who we are and they

shape us and they they are us without our stories we wouldn't be you know i remember going through life and having muck ups and mess ups sounds like larry king you know had a few there he admitted to he had a few marriages when he had a great line he said and i have this on on the it's in the film i don't know he says look i was married eight times but i was in love three doesn't that count i mean know, the truth be it. No, you can laugh at yourself. That's true. That's the thing.

Whether it was a joke or not, it's irrelevant. But the point is he was showing, look, I'm human. It's true. Boy, he sure loved marriage. I know that's the thing. But he was going to the end. So good for him. I mean, everyone knows if the seventh one doesn't work out, the eighth

probably will. But no, I just learned that people's stories are interesting. What made them tick? What makes them go through life? What, what makes them do things? And you know, that's how we all learn. We learn that we're not alone. We learn that, that maybe if we're going through something tough, that there's somebody who's been through it,

and they know the way. They know the blueprint. They're like, hey, I can help guide you. And that's what a lot of people who write books like yourself that come on the show that share their journeys with us do. People read their books, and they go, oh, wow, I didn't know that. Yeah, okay, there's a way through.

This person knows how to get out of the forest of where I'm lost and stuff. And then knowing that we're not alone, too. I think that's something a lot of people suffer from when they get depressed, when they get dark. Like I used to talk about it, going down to the beach and think, oh, woe is me. And then I see all these other people there going, woe is me. And I see this beach going like, no one cares.

And the ocean sun says, yeah, whatever, dude. You're the 15th billion human has come here and cried his little pity on the shore. And there'll be more next week. So there's that. So what have we talked about in your book that we want to tease out to people to get them to pick it up? There are different stories.

Like I said, there are stories of life and death and then also saving. I mean, there are people helping other people. And there are true. I mean, they are true stories. The thing I, for me personally, have come to appreciate is the value when you're talking about stories. And I love how you speak about the importance of stories. But what I noticed that everyone who is getting ready to die or pass or whatever term you would like, you know, we're accustomed to, they wanted someone to listen.

So I think it's critical you have the story, but the listener is equally as essential. And I think in this book, whether I realized it or not at the time, I was the listener. And I thought I was the helper, but in reality I was the listener, but in reality, I was the listener. And it helped them to tell their story because everyone wants to tell their story. I don't care who you are.

It's important to them. Like we mentioned, it's the fabric of your life. It's the thing that binds you and makes you. Yeah, and I love the fact of what you said. This is what I love about people. The humanness of you saying, look, our ego. That is so right on. That is so on point because we all do.

We first operate out of our ego. Hopefully, we can transition past that, but most of the time, we're in our ego. And so the power of the story helps our ego to do the dance. You know, so in a book such as Grace Has a Silent Voice, there's someone else telling their story. And then we get to maybe put ourself in that position or appreciate or help us heal just from that story. There you go. Help us heal from the story. Those are what's important.

Yeah, there's a quote I heal from the story those are what's important uh yeah there's a quote i use on the show of mine people are the sum of all the stories collected on their journey through life stories are the fabric of who we are and yeah i like that the it's it's it's just so important to share stories that's what we do through life. TV, movies, theater, books. It's all stories on how to heal, how to learn, how to maybe avoid some mistakes, etc., etc. Give us your final thoughts as we go out. Pitch people on where to pick up your book and all that good stuff. The book can be found on Amazon, obviously, Barnes & Noble.

And then you can even order it through your local bookstore. So it's available. It's really available. And I thank you. I thank you for this time. Thank you. I love your sense of humor. Don't lose that. It's the only thing that keeps me going. It was like you said early in the show,

the older you get, the more you have to find humor in life. Oh, yeah. I always say, I'm sure God has to have a great sense of humor because look at us. Look what we do. He has to have a great sense of humor. Whoever designed human

nature was looking for some funny. Nina, thank you very much for coming to the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you. And thanks to Ronis for tuning in. Order the book wherever fine books are sold. Grace Has a Silent Voice on February 5th, 2015 by

Nina M. Kelly. And you said there's a second update you're working on as well too, right? Yes, it should be coming up within the year. It's the second edition. The feedback I've been given is give us more of the story. Please give us more. I've gone back and added more, but also adding additional stories.

Yeah. There you go. Thank you, Rich, for coming on. Thanks, Ron, for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, 4Chess, Chris Foss, linkedin.com, 4Chess, Chris Foss, and all those crazy places on the internet. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you guys next time.

Thank you.