Finding Resilience To Overcome Life’s Adversities With Kelly Markey

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof. Hey

everybody. Welcome back to the Change Proof Podcast. I'm Adam Markel, your host. And today, I am just so looking forward to the conversation that I'm gonna have with Kelly Markey. She is a remarkable woman, a remarkable thought leader. She is somebody who has great experience in business and is gonna share so much more with us. She is an international bestselling author. She's a Nobel Prize nominee both for Literature and for Peace, Women Changing the World Award finalist, and Top Executive of the Year in 2023 by the International Association of Top Professionals. But again, she is so much more than even those amazing accolades. So sit back, relax, and enjoy my conversation with the amazing Kelly Markey. Okay, Kelly, so you have quite an impressive bio, history, life experience. Pretty amazing, actually. I want to ask you something that I love to ask our guests at the very outset of this conversation, which is, what is one thing that is not a part of your standard introduction and bio and all that, one thing that you would love for people to know about you?

Yes. Wow. That's an unusual question. The one thing I would love you to know that I am a fighter, which is not in my bio, no matter what the circumstances. And I've been living that in the recent days. A few weeks ago, my brother committed suicide, and I was actually in transit. I felt like jumping off the cliff. I had to pull myself together, and here I am still fighting.

Wow. When you said you're a fighter, the first thing that came up for me was the fact that you've been You know, nominated for a Nobel Prize, both for literature and for peace. And when you said you're a fighter, I thought, oh, this will be a very interesting conversation about the relationship between peace and war, or war and peace.

Absolutely.

Yeah. And given what you just said, I think it is a place, if you're willing to go there, and we don't have to. I want to— I really want to respect your privacy and your process right now. So I'll leave it

there. Yeah, thank you for that. I feel like I'm still in the woods, so it's still a haze. But yeah, going back to the Nobel Prize, I was born and raised in South Africa where apartheid reigned, and I've lived through some experiences. I immigrated for a better life to New Zealand, then Australia, and sadly, sad aspects of discrimination It's throughout the world, and I experienced more of it outside South Africa than I did in South Africa.

Wow. And my second wow, it's— I'm just tracking my wows here at the moment. I grew up in a— maybe I'm a few years older than you, I think, and I grew up hearing about apartheid and then going to college. And it was during my college days where I think many people, at least in the United States, and a lot of people in the university, world were getting quite serious about influencing an end to apartheid. And so were musicians, Amnesty International. There was a lot of people that were really full-on wanting to see Mandela freed, wanting to see apartheid end, et cetera. And then it did miraculously, or maybe not so miraculously, I suppose, but I think there was some element of the miracle in there. It would be shocking or is shocking. That's why I said, wow, to hear that your experience of discrimination, of racism was greater, you felt it greater outside of South Africa than you did even growing up in that world. Did I get that right?

Absolutely, yes. So granted that we were living under the apartheid regime, which was enforced upon us, so we lived in segregated communities. We went to a predominantly, I'm of an Indian background, I'm 6th generation born in South Africa. So my forefathers arrived in 1820 from India, and we lived in a predominantly segregated Indian community. We went to schools that were predominantly Indian. You shopped in areas that were Indian, so you didn't get any of that discrimination or wrath. We all kind of felt blended and fit. We fitted in. My first, I guess, experience to the cosmopolitan melting pot was immigrating and being in the corporate environment in New Zealand and then Australia. And then I experienced so many things, some of which I have penned in my memoir, Don't Just Fly. So it was shocking because I never thought that people in the civilized world will treat humans that way.

It is shocking, isn't it? I mean, even to this day. And, you know, when I think that way or feel that way, I almost feel naive, and I'm not, I'm not saying that, that you are. I have just felt a bit naive in the sense that I still am in disbelief. Honestly, I don't know how else to put it, that people treat each other in that way. Look, I get it that we like people and dislike other people. We get along, you know, vibe with people, you know, connect with certain people and other people, you know, as, as perhaps our grandmothers might say, you know, not our cup of tea and all that sort of thing. But the idea that you would actually look at another person and make up your mind about them as to whether or not you would, or that you would treat them somehow inhumanely because of the fact that they look differently, have a different shade of skin color, different gender, different religion, certainly. I mean, it's just amazing to me that it's still part of our more conscious world. I mean, we're a very, on some level, the consciousness of of our world has, has really elevated and expanded during my lifetime. It's so, it's still shocking to me, and I feel naive to even just say that because it is such a reality to this day in so many places in the world, and even including in the country I live in, in the United States. So do you find it— let me go back to that statement I made and see if you even buy into this. Do you think that the consciousness of our world, and that's a very broad question, do you think it has elevated and expanded during the, the years of your growing up through that?

Absolutely. We've evolved. We've put man on the moon. There's so many other things we've done as humanity. But I think what has happened, the fabric of who we are, we have a mindset that's passed on from generation to generation, and it's conditioning or whatever. And we get conditioned in a certain way, whether it's conscious or unconscious, and we just pass that down. And I spoke about my experience on previous podcasts about the groups that I am affiliated with in Sydney and outside Australia as well. And you see that common thread. I see it in the corporate arena as well. It's what their forefathers have mentioned to them that goes down to the parents, and then the parents indoctrinate the kids with. And whether they choose to be different, there's something within them that says, oh, I need to be careful, or I need to be wary, or I need to treat this person with disrespect or the status quo.

Yeah. I spent a lot of time in the corporate world myself and often speaking as a keynote speaker on the topics of resilience and mental health and work-life balance, or what we like to refer to as work-life harmony and things of that sort. And often now I also speak or mention this concept of what psychological safety in the workplace looks like. And for me, that's The level at which you feel comfortable in your skin, to be in your skin, literally and figuratively, to be there as you truly are, to speak and to feel welcome to speak, and even to object and dissent and to push back on the status quo, as you said. To me, that's what psychological safety in the workplace looks like and feels like. Do you think we're making progress in your experience in that arena? Are we getting better in the workplace, even if we're not better when we're sitting down with our grandparents, per se?

I think we're moving at snail pace. I think it's a broad brush. We have organizations that are aiming towards a better world, but we have the fundamentally humans that are flawed that I guess change the landscape. And from my personal experience recently, you know, in Sydney, we had Harsh lockdown conditions, prolonged harsh lockdown conditions. So we as a couple decided to move out of metro and go into regional New South Wales. And I moved for a corporate position. I'm normally headhunted in Sydney for roles. So we wanted a more laid-back lifestyle. And I got to this role, which was on merit and experience. And the first day that I met my CEO, he offered me a promotion because there was a vacancy to upstream. And I had the merit. I've actually done this role previously many times. And he said to me, don't worry about the paperwork, we'll catch up with the paperwork. This is what I want you to do. So I flew in hitting the ground running, and I was also doing my portfolio that I was hired to do. So I was doing 2 roles at once. And there was another person within the organization, granted that this is a small regional town, big opportunities are limited, but the other person assumed that they would get this position. So when the news kind of broke, not officially, unofficially, that I was doing the role and I was also, you know, taking on the task and all of that, wow, I was flabbergasted. People confronted me point blankly and was like, why are you doing this role? I was like, I was appointed to. And eventually they threatened the CEO to take him to the board for giving me a position that was not advertised. And then he backstepped and the whole organization was basically like too weak to do anything and take the right path. And I was like, what's going on, guys? Y'all are senior managers here. And they couldn't. And there was this one individual that threatened them because he wanted the position and eventually I had to say, you know what, I can't work in this environment. It's not right. And the irony of it is he didn't have the qualification or the skills. So for my mental sanity, I had to exit. And I was like, we are in the 21st century. Who behaves this way? And why are we at that corporate level and we allow this? And they all came to me and they were like, we don't want you to leave. What can we do? And I was like, really? You want me to tell you what you should be doing?

Yeah. It's almost juvenile.

Yes.

It's not almost juvenile. It's entirely juvenile. Right?

Exactly. But sadly, I've seen that behavior so many times.

So again, I just wanna probe this a bit further. People are, as I have come to believe, I don't say know or realize or anything, but just in my own belief system, people are driven by 2 emotions primarily. A lot of Nuance to it, but 2 emotions, fear and love.

Absolutely.

This is not a show about spirituality or anything like that. So, but, and yet there's just something that's fundamental to the human condition, to us as sentient beings. And one of those things I think is that we're driven by fear or love. And when we're driven by fear, everything from jealousy, envy, anger, all of it. And I would think that you could look at that behavior and go, This is just scarcity mindset, people that are afraid, some, or a person or whatever it might be, who just decided, you know, this is unfair. I should get it. I've been here longer, or whatever that nonsense, that very small-mindedness sort of thinking would be. What was it about that that got— was it the sense that you, as an Indian woman, that that was more of what was underlying that fear-based behavior? Yeah. Did you get a sense that it was mostly— Yeah,

I think it was because I wasn't white. Yes, absolutely. And that I just arrived and I was female. And I think they felt threatened as well because I had the experience. So it's an amalgamation of many things. But I'm married to an Australian and I find that sometimes it's hard for him to understand my world. Because he's never had the same setbacks or the same behavior enforced or thrust upon him. And now he's, for the first time, understanding what it feels like to be in my skin because he gets to experience it firsthand.

Right, exactly. Yeah, the Australians, I mean, I love— I think I said to you before we even hit the record button, I've been to Australia many times. I've spoken there. And I I love the country. The physical nature of that place is just a really remarkable, you know, hardy, resilient— I speak on resilience. I mean, it's a resilient environment. You have to be resilient in many, many places there. And the people are hardy as well. I enjoy that having grown up in New York, being a kid from the Northeast, in the city. So I would appreciate also sort of the bluntness, the directness, the, you know, sort of, you know where you stand-ness. in that environment. And obviously Sydney's one place and Melbourne's another and Perth is another. I mean, the country is vast. And, but along the way, I also learned and heard and didn't see personally, but definitely heard that Aboriginal peoples have been discriminated against in that country forever. I mean, it's just like the way the Americans have treated the Native American Indians. I mean, it's just despicable.

Absolutely.

Despicable. So I don't

know. Yeah. They, they're still fighting that. So we still have issues about when we celebrate Australia Day.

Yeah. I mean, again, is something real? I know in the United States, I'm not sure how aware you are of this particular thing, but in the corporate world, there's been a lot of movement toward inclusiveness and inclusivity. So diversity, equity, inclusion, and now belonging is another word that's being used to describe how it is that we create more inclusive environments in the workplace where people can feel as though they do belong and that they actually do belong. I mean, that's— I can't imagine a team functioning at its best where anyone on that team wouldn't feel as though they belong. I mean, and sports is a great universe for, you know, for analogies of that because can you imagine any team, whether it's a rugby team, a football team, a basketball team, any team at all, cricket team, not having an environment, creating an environment where each player feels as though they belong? They would never be able to succeed. They'd never win, right? Don't you think?

Yeah, well, sadly, every opportunity, corporate opportunity I've had, every career opportunity, I felt like the odds were stacked against me. No matter what experience I brought to the table, it always was uphill, and I always had to prove myself. Even in my current role, I have more experience. You know, I've been in the health industry, I work in health IT for over 30 years. And I've done some major projects around the world that have enhanced the health landscape. But you put me in a room and you put someone who has no experience, but sadly, because they are a different color, they are treated differently.

It's a remarkable occurrence regardless of where we are in the world. And that is, are you aware of any, I mean, any major sort of cultural center where that is not somehow the case? I mean, I just—

Absolutely. So I've recently come across an organization. It's a huge organization here in Australia. And I don't want to mention the name for obvious reasons. But I had a conversation with them. And they are actually designing a new model of care for the health industry, a first in the world. And just communicating with them was like, wow, I almost felt like it was alien because they were saying to me, it's not about skill set here, it's about will set, willingness. And what we want is to carve— Will set. Yes. And he said, what we want to carve is a culture within the organization and the people that work for us to be seen and to encourage resilience. Because what we're trying to do for humanity is bring them into a system, and we can't design the system and get it to excel if we cannot excel as individuals working beside each other. And work is about making the other person feel seen. And wow, Adam, it just blew me away because I mentioned at the beginning, you know, my personal scenario. And I was actually in transit when I discovered what happened to my brother. And on the last leg, I was returning from Europe, and Europe is a long way from Australia, so I had another leg to go. And on my last leg, I got COVID. So when I got back, I couldn't return to work. I had to be in quarantine. And I got to work and a few people asked me, so, oh, you were meant to be back a week ago. What happened? Were you jet-lagged? And even when I mentioned to them that I lost my brother, I got no empathy. It was like the conversation just stopped, or they were like, oh. And even the next day when they saw me, it wasn't like, how are you doing? And I, I actually went to Europe for an award. I was an award finalist for Woman Changing the World, and I left work on a page where my manager and I were on an amazing rapport. And I came back and it's because I guess he discovered this award and I was the finalist. When I got back, he was a different person. And even though he knew I just lost my brother, he just ripped me apart on the first day to work back at work for things that was absolutely no reason, just because he could. And from that experience and then moving to this organization where I thought it's like utopia, here on. I can see the difference. And just communicating with them, I was like, I know where my alignment is and who I want to work for, where I want to go, because what aligns with my values, what aligns with my brand, what aligns with my heart. And we are starting and just communicating with this cohort from this organization. They said to me they can see where our world is heading in terms of treating people like they don't matter and just expecting results and driving that force. That's not how they want to operate. So it was so refreshing.

Yeah. I personally think that those types of cohorts and then ultimately systems, organizations will be the future. I think we're moving in that direction, as you said, slowly. But I see signs of that in my work all the time. I work in the medical and health and biotech space quite a bit because they are quite driven, and there's a lot of pressure to perform. Many of the companies that we work— our company Workwell partners with and consults to are public companies. Stake— public stakeholders are involved. And so there's a tremendous amount of pressure always to perform.

Yeah.

But even in that environment, we found there's been an openness, a receptivity to the idea of how you develop mental resilience, emotional resilience, physical resilience, and even Spiritual resilience, which is in our world defined by that sort of alignment that you described. I cannot imagine in the 21st century that the future of organizations won't involve more of that and less of what you've been describing. I also wonder whether as, as new generations are becoming the decision makers, and maybe you have an opinion about this, I'll see, will we see less of this when The 20-somethings and 30-somethings, like our, our, my wife and I, we have 4 kids and, and they're all in their 20s and one just turned 30 actually. But their view of the world is so different. Their worldview is very much more inclusive and much more equitable in the sense that they just, they don't have a, a lot of prejudgment. And maybe you could say, okay, so maybe you guys raised them that way. I don't know. I suppose there's an element of nurture and there's an element of nature, but I also think that they're just wired differently. And that's my belief is that the world, you know, I'm a half glass, half full person kind of thing. And I think that these younger folks, they honestly see the world differently than people that are older. And I hate to say it that way, but I feel like that's the evolution. How do you feel about that? Do you see the signs of that as well?

Absolutely. I definitely believe that the younger generation are wired differently, and I am all for being optimistic. And there's also the other sector that's been disadvantaged or treated a certain way, and they unravel in their own ways, and the string of pearls fall wherever they fall. So I think for us to actually have that sustained change, it's up to you and me to create, I guess, a platform or a place where we showcase it. We don't just talk it, we walk the talk and all of that. Because so often, if you look at history, there's choices that people make, there's decisions It's not— the book that I wrote, which is due for release end of this year, that has the 2 Nobel nominations, is called Making Sage Decisions. And it's decisions that we make as individuals, as organizations, and as a global country, a country level. And it looks at historical events, it looks at personal stuff. I'm not sure if you're aware, but when we were in lockdown, there was horrific unrest in South Africa where they almost wanted to wipe an entire demographic off. And I didn't know if I would ever see my family and friends again. And this was all fueled by corruption. And yes, even though we have generations that are moving one way, we still have the younger generation that caught up in corruption. And for them, it's like, this is my opportunity to grab whatever I can. So you can't break that mindset. And we have to, you know, show them a better way.

Indeed. I know you don't live in South Africa anymore, but how is the influence, the legacy of Nelson Mandela still alive and well in that country? I know you're shaking your head a little and smiling too.

It is sad. It is so sad. So a whole chapter of my book is unraveling what's going on in South Africa. And sadly, yes, you know, Nelson Mandela, Madiba as we know him, stood for so much. You know, he went to prison, he came out and looked for that evolution, and corruption reigns. So many people, like, we watched people die in the pandemic because, you know, money was stolen, people were murdered, and it still goes on, Adam. It breaks my heart. It breaks my heart with the unrest that went on during the peak of the pandemic and the violence. They looted almost Every single mall, there was no food. There was no place where you could even shop or get an appliance. They stole everything. And there was no bread or milk for days. So people had to resort to protecting themselves, like literally on the roads with sticks and shovels and all of that to just protect their family in the community. And who does that in the 21st century?

Wow. I apologize. I apologize to everybody listening that I, I keep finding myself flabbergasted because that was not making the nightly news in the United States. And it wasn't making—

And sadly—

And it wasn't making the New York Times or lots of other publications. I didn't live with my head in the sand. I don't immersed in the news or content all day long either. I find, try to find a nice healthy medium, honestly. But I don't remember hearing or reading very much about what you just described.

It wasn't in the news, not even in Australia. I would've missed it. The only reason I knew, because my loved ones were going through it and some could post, so it was coming on my stream and then I had to tap in. It was not anywhere in mainstream media. And sadly, we had corruption even with the money that was donated to fight the pandemic, to get PPE. And this money was just dwindled. And when people tried to stand up, the younger generation, they were, gunned down and shot in cold blood. So it's shocking. I would love to think that, yeah, the new generation, we stand for better choices, but not all of us. We need to make sage decisions. We need to think more critically when we're making the decisions and how it impacts our history and what it creates for the next generation.

Indeed. I want to talk about the book That is out in publication, and that is Don't Just Fly, Soar. Share a little bit, if you could, about what that book entails and what inspired you to write it. I'm an author, and I often speak with other authors, and it takes a village to create a book. It's— we both—

Yeah.

All know, right? It's not a one— not usually a solo act, for sure. So it's a lot of commitment. It's a lot of time. It's a lot of effort to get it across the finish line, et cetera. So would you share a bit about it?

Yes, sure. Thank you for the opportunity, Adam. So I had no desire to write. I wasn't an author prior to this. I found myself— we were actually traveling from Europe again, and this was end of 2019 and then beginning of 2020. We were actually, I guess, in the thick of the pandemic unleashing itself, and we didn't know. So we were in transit in in Hong Kong, and I wasn't aware that this virus was going on. We got back to Sydney and the apple cart had toppled. We went into lockdown and the whole shebang. And normally, I am burning the candle at both ends in the corporate world and traveling around the world, buzzing, doing, you know, being the social butterfly and everything. And then I found myself in lockdown, and I have lots of International connections, and people were reaching out because I guess we were all panicked as to what was gonna unleash and what was gonna happen. There were so many unknown elements, and people were reaching out for obvious reasons, thinking that I had some level of resilience and, you know, could always find my way back on the horse no matter what came my way. So I guess they wanted assurance that we were gonna come out alive, and I didn't have the blueprint or anything. And I found myself like staying awake to talk to people in different time zones because they were just needing that comfort. And then I realized, wow, I've got all this lived experience, things that I've gone through in my life, and maybe I should just share it because I don't know if I'm going to come out of this pandemic alive. So I grabbed my laptop and I started writing. And so I basically wrote about my journey, Gleans, you know, what I've gone through in life and the lessons I've learned. And then I thought some of the things were really difficult because I'm living away from my family nucleus. And granted, you know, the things we just spoke about, being so disadvantaged in the way that I was treated at work or even sometimes in the social scene, made me realize that I had something in me that didn't give up and I needed to share all the lessons that I learned because I also When I was in South Africa at a young age, well, I think I was about 8, 2 of my cousins were murdered brutally. And I discovered that the hard way at school. The teacher just unleashed it on us and then we had to walk home. I was petrified. So I talk about that in my book and, you know, having to find the resilience as a child. And when I say brutal, I don't wanna, you know, be graphic because it was shocking. And I never thought that I would be alive because I was so scared that, you know, I could be the next victim. So I survived that. And then when I began working in South Africa, I was held at gunpoint. And yeah, it just— I was in a horrible marriage with domestic violence, and I talked through that. I discovered the hard way that I had severe endometriosis. So with that came infertility, and then I had to try the whole shebang of IVF. I've gone through the whole circuit many times, had miscarriage, and with all of that, being in the corporate world, showing up and having to perform as a professional and be at the top of my game no matter how broken I was. So I began writing, and then I realized I also need to share the tools of what got me out of this vortex. because not everyone has that level of resilience or the mindset or the will to get out. So I wrote my memoir. It's about 372 pages to be precise, in 10 days. It took longer to publish. And I kid you not, every person that reads it, they're now saying to me they're reading it for the 4th, the 5th time. I've had people contact me like in the middle of the night via Messenger who I haven't met, and they're in tears and they're like, Wow, I feel you're writing about my life. But even if I haven't identified with this, the way in which they connect is amazing. It changes lives. It unleashes something in people that is just remarkable.

I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool. It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively. to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. I'm feeling in the moment is just that a lot of the things that we experience that are very difficult, I think we bury those things. And perhaps for reasons that is important that we are able to move on and move past things. But I don't know that there's any place in the world, any environment where what is taught to a child beyond the reading, writing, and socializing, getting along, things of that sort, the values of community, wherever that community is, those things are taught for sure. What I don't think is taught anywhere Frankly, is how we process the experiences of our lives. This is what's common among writers going way, way back. You find that there's this sort of a thread of what is the human experience? What do we have in common other than breathing the same air and all that and saying that we are one, or in spiritual terms, believing and teaching that we are one? What is it really that we do share? What is our common thread? And in many ways, it's that we live lives And have experiences. And many of those experiences are quite painful and they're difficult. They're hard to reconcile or make sense of in the stage and phase of development that we are at when those things are happening. And we all share that. Different stories, different levels of not in comparison, but just what we took away from an experience, you know, how much it, it has been a guiding force in our lives or a force in our lives. I think the human condition on some level has been to adapt to the changing landscape and move forward. And that has been an element of resilience in the past that I think actually impedes our growth in many ways in the present. I think part of the paradigm shift that I like to speak about has to do with, yes, it is that Darwin-esque ability to survive, and survival through adaptation is important for sure. But if we don't process these things and understand them, be able to integrate them, Then we are, I think, not only doomed to repeat those personal histories in different forms and fashions, we don't really get the essence of what makes us human and what makes us the same, truly the same, so that it would be an anathema to ever treat someone so poorly because you understand what it's like to feel that way in some other Wildly different circumstance, but yet the feeling is the same. Loneliness, despair, isolation, anxiousness, fear, hate. These are things that we all have felt. To hear you speak about it, to know that you've written a book, I'm not at all surprised at all that people would be reaching out to you to say, wow, our circumstances are different, but I know what that— I get the feeling of having to move through. such heavy stuff. And as you said, especially in the corporate world where, or in the world where we get paid for the services we provide, people are not interested often in hearing about those things. They don't wanna hear about excuses. They don't wanna know from anything other than, did you do the work I asked you to do? You know, are you performing? It's a very interesting thing. So this book has been received quite well, I understand.

Exceptionally. So I've got over 5,000 stellar ratings. It's been sold in 70 countries and counting. And everyone has— that's given me a review has asked me to write another book. So I thought, yeah, this is my first and only book, but I've written a few now. And, you know, the next solo one being launched in December, which has been nominated for 2 Nobel Prizes. So, and, you know, with what you just shared, I so identify with that because I found we all bury things in the name of survival. And when I found when I was writing, I could feel the emotions rise. I could feel myself choking because there were so many layers that I hadn't dealt with. And in a way, it was therapeutic. In a way, it was confronting. And in a way, it was forcing me to get on a new lens.

We don't want to go there. I have a wonderful client who's a doctor, and she's a keynote speaker herself. She talks about The trauma-informed workplace, which is a term that's not so in use these— yet, but I think it's one that we have to be willing to look at, that the trauma-informed workplace is one where we recognize that the people who are coming to work, whether they're coming virtually, they're coming in some hybrid situation, or they're in the office with other people, are showing up as human beings with traumas, everything from being abused as a child to any other thing that you could possibly imagine. And anybody listening right now to this, you don't have to look any further than your own life to think about the ways in which you've been impacted and where you've been. I'm a surfer. I love a lot of different sports, but I, I love to surf. I love to be in the ocean in particular. And when you get a ding on your surfboard, it's not the greatest day in the world, especially if you really like the board you're on and you don't want it to be dinged. Well, we are, as human beings, we are dinged Almost from birth. And, and some of us get pulled out. Like I was delivered with the use of forceps, you know, which is something they did quite a bit in the timeframe when I was born. And so if you came out, you know, you were not making your way out right away, or you came out, coming out sort of breech, et cetera, you know, they would move you around or pull you out if need be with like a pair of salad tongs. I know it's a bit graphic. I apologize. And I came out with a deformed head. Now I have this beautifully, if you guys go on YouTube, you can see I have a really lovely shaped head. Bald, but— But in good shape and no dings in the head, at least not on the outside. But we are all dinged in many ways on the inside and outside sometimes as well. Yep. So that's the workplace, but that's also the world. It's not just the workplace. It's the entire world we live in. People are walking around dinged, and there are people who are homeless and people who are starving, and there are people who are on the verge of violence at every moment. And that's a reality. But I don't think we talk enough about what's the cause of so many of those things that we can actually work on. You know, it's such a big— to help create peace in the world, which was something that I brought to an organization that I used to be the CEO of. I'm the CEO of a different company now for the last 6 years. But for about a 5 and a half year period, I was the CEO of a, of a very large training and development firm that was based in 3 different continents. And at a certain point, I was sort of feeling very much like we could commit quite a bit of our intentions and our resources and our attention to the creation of peace through the work that we were doing. And a lot of people called bullshit on that. Honestly, they didn't buy in. It was too big. It was too, you know, it was too much. And regardless of whether it was or it wasn't, it is a big thing. It is difficult to wrap your brain or your arms around something like that. You've been nominated for a Nobel Prize for Peace. I think you have to come from the inside out. You cannot create peace in this world by the outside in. We cannot force people to be peaceful. You cannot force institutions, organizations, governments to just be peaceful. It has to be an inside-out game. Do you agree with that?

Absolutely. You have to, I guess, for me, show without using words if you don't have to. And for me, it was the journey of this book. And I guess it was the chapter about South Africa and, you know, what unraveled in that chapter and how we need to live in harmony and let live. And there was so much of racism during that time and still is towards the Indian community in South Africa. And for some strange reason, they seem to think that, oh, you know, even though they were living there for generations, they should just get go back to India. So the government in India actually had to intervene for the safety of the Indians in South Africa during this time. And the fact that people had no food to eat, and this is, you know, people of all status in, you know, the social ladder, it was sad. So peace is you need to reflect within yourself. Do you have to kill someone because you are corrupted and you want to line your pocket? What's the point when we are all trying to survive the pandemic? You may be rich, but you could be dead. So it's asking all those critical questions. And there was a lot of corruption as to why the unrest began and unraveling those as well. So I guess that's where the nomination came from, but also looking at how we do things in Australia, in New Zealand, in the US, in the UK, there's different scenarios in the different chapters of the book. So I think that's what spoke to people in terms of peace.

I've been influenced greatly by another South African author. I'm not sure if you've heard of this gentleman or read anything he's written. His name is Michael Brown. Do you know that name? Does that ring a bell?

No, no, I haven't.

He wrote a book called The Presence Process, and it's a remarkable book. I've mentioned it A number of times in different contexts on the show. I just find it's quite intriguing now as I'm listening to what you're saying and what your book is about and just where the influence of South Africa has shown up profoundly in my life. This gentleman's book, The Presence Process, was quite an inside-out journey, as I was trying to express earlier, just the idea that how we resolve these things, whether they're at home, whether they're in the workplace, that The trauma that we walk around with is really something that we are responsible for ourselves, that it's not an— again, it's something that we have to resolve from the inside out. And my feeling is still to this day that when enough people are focused on that one thing, if that one task is their own, to create peace from the inside out for themselves, to create a resiliency in that way, then then some pretty miraculous things are possible. You know, we talked about Nelson Mandela. I think he was in prison, maybe no better than me, but 27 years, something like that, in a—

Yeah.

Tiny little cell. I mean, a cell that, you know, people would— to spend 3 weeks in a cell of that size, many people would have gone— lost their minds. And yet the one thing, while the South African government, the apartheid regime, stole so much from him, stole, much of his life and took away his freedom of movement and many things, they could not steal one thing from him that cannot be stolen from anyone regardless of their circumstances, and that is the freedom to think. No, they could never steal that from Mandela. And that's why after 27 years or what have you, he was able to be a person that could lead a country toward reconciliation. It is indeed sad to hear that his legacy at least in the recent timeframe, maybe has been not expanded, perhaps not forgotten, but not expanded. And that is something that I think people listening to this, I know I'm going to think about it. I'm going to think about it. You know, it's funny, South Africa, there's a lot about that area of the world that's just been secretive. There's a movie that came out some years ago called In Search of Sugar Man, and it's a movie about this artist, this musician named Rodriguez. And Rodriguez was a phenomenon, a phenom in South Africa. I mean, sold like 400,000 records.

Wow.

Records. But didn't know about it. He's from Detroit. He was a person grew up in poverty and made some albums in the early '70s. And those albums, you know, his manager was corrupt and stole from him. The record company discovered that People were buying these albums in South Africa. People were like in love with his music and sold many, many copies. And the royalties never made their way to Rodriguez himself. They just stopped with certain people that had stolen from him. And then as the movie— I won't actually give it away if people haven't seen this movie, In Search of Sugar Man. It is a wonderful movie. It's incredibly uplifting in the sense of where that reconciliation, even through this, 30 years later to have been a superstar in a part of the world and you didn't even know it. You know, Sugarman with the Rodriguez. Amazing.

Definitely adding it to my list.

Yeah. My last, because I think bringing this interview and our conversation today a bit full circle, I want to ask about your method for creating your resiliency. As you've described the world, and I believe this is accurate, We have made some strides, and yet we've got a really long way to go. That is a— to think of it that way, it, it's exhausting. And yet it's 1:00 AM, or it's now almost 2:00 AM in Sydney as you and I are having this conversation. It is the morning on the eastern, eastern seaboard of the United States where I am, and you are at 2:00 AM where you are. You are an incredibly resilient individual. And I just wanna know, is there something that you do daily on a ritual basis that helps develop even your resilience as it is?

Yeah, well, thank you for the opportunity again, Adam. So for me, life has unraveled in so many ways, and I don't have a set formula to say, yeah, this is my daily mantra or whatever. I find my true north for me is God. And no matter how difficult the situation gets, like I have to say, in the recent Few weeks, it was really dark. I had to dig deep to find my mojo and, you know, to get up and just breathe. And again, I had to find myself just crying out to God. And there's been times I have reached rock bottom many times, and I know the only thing that picks me up is God. And yeah, you know, I do the normal conventional stuff. I try to unwind the weekend. I go cycling, go for a walk. I love hiking. Just watching the ocean, sunset, sunrise, yoga, all of that. It all helps, but my core is connecting with God. And for some reason, like when I got the news, I felt cocooned off my brother and I couldn't, like it was stuck, my emotions. I cried a bit, but I was in shock. I was in denial. And it was weeks later when I connected with God. I just unraveled. I could feel the tension ease off my shoulders, my head, and I just let it out. I cried and I was like, we can share with people. Sometimes they don't understand, sometimes they do understand, sometimes they have the reaction we want, sometimes they have the reaction we don't want. But with God, for me, it feels like he knows even before I'm gonna say what I need to say. And he gives me the strength. So that's where my resilience comes from.

Well, you and I, we are truly kin then.

Wow.

I so appreciate you taking the time to stay up and to be as present as you've been and to share what you've shared. I'm absolutely certain that this has been valuable to the people that are hearing it now and those that will hear it in the future. I'm sure people will wanna know more about your books, the one that's coming out in December, as well as this more memoir, Don't Just Fly, Soar. And all of that information will be part of the show notes. So folks, you can go to the show notes to get all of that too. If you have questions that you would like to ask Kelly, I'm not volunteering her for this, but I'll just say that when comments come in and we refer them to the guest, The answers that you will receive back from those comments will come from that person or from myself, depending on which one you've asked. So you can go to adammarkel.com/podcast to leave a comment there. My request is, if this has been valuable, and I can't imagine it hasn't, but you also know someone that would benefit from it, not just yourself, but someone else that might benefit from some aspect of this conversation, please share it. It is a request, of course, that's self-serving. We want the podcast to reach more people. In part, how that happens is that you do share it, that you leave a 5-star rating or whatever the rating is that makes sense to you on the platform that you're consuming it. That's also helpful. I get the algorithm. I couldn't code it. I couldn't write it. I couldn't tell you how it works really, other than that when more people consume something, more people get to consume it. It's kind of like that. And that, I suppose, you know, makes sense. So sharing it with other people and rating it will be helpful to us. And with that, I wanna say thank you so much, Kelly, for just going there today, tonight, this evening for you, or early morning now. I appreciate you greatly.

Thank you, Adam. I really appreciate being on this platform, and I just want to say that I've been on many podcasts. I genuinely felt connected with you in terms of the way you approached this conversation. I felt it was authentic, and I genuinely felt connected. I felt like it wasn't orchestrated. Thank you for this opportunity.

Beautiful. Okay. Well, for now, I will just say ciao, everybody, where you are today, tonight, whatever part of the world you are in in this moment. I wish you great peace and great resiliency. Thank you. Well, I don't even know where to begin. This conversation with Kelly Markie was just so beautiful. It was— I just enjoyed it so much. I hope that you all have and will continue to enjoy a very deep, expansive conversation about life, about business, about relationships, about how we are as human beings, how we show up in the world, where we go, the dark places that we go, the dark places that we have been, the trauma that we've experienced, and the ways that we bring that forward for good and for not. And we took a very interesting tack today because of the fact that Kelly revealed something at the outset of our conversation that was just so devastating, which is the suicide of her brother, recent suicide. And her state of mind coming out of that and where she has been since, as well as talking about her book, which has made such a phenomenal difference in the lives of many, many people around the world. This memoir, Don't Just Fly, Soar. It's a wonderful title, but it is really in so many ways a book about our world today, a world that we are all living in, of course, but also trying to navigate just tremendous change and uncertainty and some really deep, dark things that create despair for people, individually speaking. And what do we do about that? So I think there's a real through line and a thread of hope. And also there's a pragmatic look at it too, from my father-in-law's standpoint, who was a much more of a pragmatist, and I am certainly someone who leans toward what is good and what is right and what is hopeful. And yet the realities are the realities, at least as they are at the moment and also as we perceive them to be. So bit of a riddle there. This conversation is one that I would like to listen to myself again. I hope you will want to hear it again and again and again, that you'll share it with others. Please feel free to do that. Let us know what you think. AdamMarkel.com/podcast is the way to do that. Of course, we'd love for you to share it with other people and rate it. Give it the highest number of stars that makes sense to you in the platform that you're rating it. And of course, if you've not already gotten a snapshot of your level of mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resiliency, then all you need to do is go to ResilienceRank.com, and in three minutes you're going to get a really wonderful set of. Signposts, markers of resilience for yourself in those 4 specific zones. So feel free to do that at any point in time. Resiliencerank.com. It's a free resource. It's a tool for you. It's a tool for your teams, tool for people in your life personally and professionally to just dial in to see where you're at in this moment and where therefore there is room for improvement, for greater capacity, for all the things that are important to you. For now, sit back again and enjoy this episode. What a remarkable opportunity I had to speak with Kelly Markey.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, Including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.