Adversity - Why do some people handle it better than others? - Building Better Humans Project

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Approche Production.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hey, team glenaes A here looking back to the Building
Better Humans Project podcast. Today, I want to talk a
little bit about resilience adversity and why some people handle
it better than others handle adversity that is, And I
don't have the answer to this, but I wanted to
talk about it because it's something that fascinates me. And

(00:30):
the reason it fascinates me is you hear stories of
people that have overcome like proper trauma, like they really
have some traumatic backgrounds, and I've heard stories, but plus
I know people that have overcome some pretty hectic trauma.
And then on the other side of that, particularly when
you're in the coaching space, you deal with people or
you coach people who by comparison, have relatively minor adversity

(00:57):
or minor challenges or definitely what I wouldn't even necessarily
call trauma, and they're not able to get past it. Now,
there also people that have proper trauma who can't get
past it. I understand that, And I want to start
this episode by saying, we are not talking here about
comparisons and will your stuff's not that bad, so just

(01:17):
deal with it. That's not where I want to take this.
Where I want to take this is I want to
come at it from a point of curiosity. Why are
some people able to overcome hectic amounts of trauma and
other people are not? So that's really where I want
to be Now. This episode, as always, is brought to
you by Adventure Professionals www. Dot adventure professionals dot com

(01:40):
dot au. If you'd like to get out of your
comfort zone, I've literally just returned from every space camp.
I've got another trip to EBC next year in November.
I've got Kakodas coming up. I've got Ossie Ten's coming up.
There's something you can do from January through to December
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out of your comfort zone chess check your capacity to

(02:02):
handle challenge and adversity and to do something really cool,
then of course I'd love to help you out, So
Venture Professionals dot com dot Au. Now let's get back
to this adversity and why some people handle it better
than others. And that's a question, that's not a statement.
I mean, we know people handle adversity and some people don't,
But my question is why. So I want to talk

(02:22):
about a couple of things and a couple of people
just to give you some context. I'm not going to
go in depth here. This is already going to be
a lengthy episode, and it's an episode if you listen
right through to the end. I must warn you that
there's an emotional piece coming up at the end that
will really trigger some people. That does deal with death
of children and so on from parents and overcoming that

(02:45):
level of trauma which is to me, the most extreme
level of trauma right through. So I'm just going to
put that out there that before we get to that piece,
I will warn you again that if it's not for you,
please please turn it off. But I really want to
give it to you for some context more than anything else.
Here's some examples, some that I know of and some
that I know personally. Mark Hunt UFC fighter, you know,

(03:08):
Big Island boy, who was just a great K one fighter,
fantastic in the UFC, even in boxing. He fought Sunny
Bill Williams when he was forty five and knocked him
out in one or two rounds. Mark Hunt is the
epitome of, you know, an elite level fighter, like hard
tough man and when you hear a little bit of
Mark's story and he does have a book out there,

(03:30):
but he talks about his father physically and mentally abusing
them as children, you know, as in hog tying them,
as in blind folding them and putting them on their
knees and then wondering when the flogging was coming, and
proper floggings. He talks about how his father sexually abused
his sister from the age of that she was six.

(03:51):
He talks about being homeless himself from the age of
eight where at different points of his child and he
was kicked out of the house to fend for himself
as a lesson, so proper trauma. And then this guy
uses that as a as a superpower and he goes
out and he wins all of these titles and makes
millions of dollars in the fighting arena, which is it

(04:12):
goes to show you that sometimes your trauma can absolutely
bear strength, can absolutely be a strength, and none of
us want to go through trauma, but it certainly can be.
So Mark Hunt is a good one. Mark Donaldson For
those who don't know, Mark Donaldson is a former soldier.
He was in the Australian Sas He's a Victoria Cross recipient.
The first since Vietnam. But when you know Mark's backstory

(04:34):
as a young bloke, but if Alarican didn't know, dad
mum was heavily involved in drugs, as was Mark at
a young age, and his mother ended up being murdered
and they pretty sure they know who, but they were
never able to prove it. Murdered by drug dealers. You know,
this is low level stuff, but they murdered his mum.
And when that happened, he was a young adult and

(04:55):
he decided to come home and look after his younger
brother who was still at school, and clean himself up. Now,
he goes on to join the Australian Army, joining the
Special Air Service the SAS, which is the elite of
the elite. He goes on to win a Victoria Cross
or be awarded a Victoria Cross in Afghanistan. He goes
on to become a Young Australian of the Year, an

(05:18):
Australian of the Year, a Father of the Year. So
he's done all of these things and the Victoria Cross
is the highest award that you can possibly be given.
But he didn't start with any great background. Most people,
I think, particularly if their mother was murdered would absolutely
have a trauma story to tell for a very long time.

(05:38):
I think about Grace Tame, another Australian of the Year,
who as a fourteen fifteen year old who is on
the autism spectrum being sexually assaulted, groomed and assaulted by
a schoolteacher in his fifties who abused that position of
power and held that over her for a long period
of time. And then she used that to step up

(05:59):
and to eventually take him on and he ended up
going to jail and it was a wholes and she
became the Australian of the Year and she now spends
her time trying to make sure that she empowers other youngsters,
but particularly young women, and for a woman with who
is on the autism spectrum, that's a very tough thing
to do to live that public life and stand up

(06:21):
to people who have done things. I think about Damian Tomlinson. Now,
I took Damien to Kakoda many many years ago, back
in twenty eleven. I was one of the staff members
on that trip and as a former Special Forces Soldier
ex commando, I've interviewed him on this podcast, as I
have Mark Donaldson as well, and he lost both of

(06:41):
his legs, one from the knee down and one from
the backside down in a bomb blast and ID blast
in Afghanistan. Now that was very traumatic. One of his
best mates was killed a couple of weeks after. You know,
he's gone on to have a good life. He's married,
he's got children. He last I heard, he was sitting
on the board of the Sydney Roosters. He does motivational speaking.

(07:02):
He was still competing in sports, tried to go to
the Olympics so snowboarding, broke his back in an accident,
gets up, learns to walk again, plays adaptive golf. Has
a real positive mindset based off what he went through.
And I like to think I'm a pretty positive bloke.
But I don't know if I lost both my legs,
if I would have that capacity. I think back to

(07:24):
my own partner. It's a millie, you know, the stuff
that she's been through, and we've talked about some of
this on Mayhem Monday, but you know, choked to unconsciousness
in front of her own two children by the dad
where she actually the last thought she remembers having is
that my children are going to watch me die. She
actually thought she was going to die. She's been in
other situations where years ago, she met up with a guy,

(07:47):
I went out on a date and then woke up
in the morning after one drink and she can hold
her drink, and after one drink, had found that she
had been drugged and sexually assaulted, date raped effectively. And
the funny thing or the weird thing about that is
that she'd been out on it Dayden was totally open
to the idea of having sex. It wasn't like she

(08:09):
was out there for no reason. That was part of
the process. But this guy obviously got off on what
he was aiming to do and what he ended up doing.
And she said she woke up feeling very unsafe. Luckily
had seen a condom on the floor, so at least
he had used that. But these are things that have
and these are just minor things that are other things
that have happened in her life that are very traumatic.

(08:31):
And so my question with Mark Hunt, with Millie, with Grace,
with Mark Donaldson, with Damian Tomlinson, and they're just some examples,
is how are they able to overcome these traumas and
still function. Now I'm not saying that they're necessarily functioning
full well all the time. I'm not saying that they
don't have challenges, that there's not some sort of hangover

(08:52):
from the things that they've been through, But what I'm
saying is they still get up and achieve at a
pretty high level. Mark Hunt went on to win multiple
K one kickboxing titles, to fight in the UC to
make millions of dollars. Mark Donaldson becomes the Young Australian
of the Year, the Australian Father of the Year, the
Australian of the Year, the Victoria Cross recipient. Grace Tame
becomes an Australian of the Year. Millie's won the Queensland title,

(09:15):
the WBC Australasian Title, of the Pupinni Guinean title. She'll
go to the Commonwealth Games, She'll fight for the Australian
title in a couple of weeks time. Damian Tomlinson's gone
on to have an amazing career post losing both of
these leagues in Afghanistan. So these are people that have
gone on to achieve some pretty big things. And again
I don't say this to make you feel like your

(09:35):
trauma isn't real. It is, but it's also possible for
you to get over it and to move on to
the next phase of your life. I'm not saying it's easy.
I'm sure it's difficult, but I'm saying it's possible.

Speaker 3 (09:48):
Now.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
One of the most common things that I get when
I try and talk to people and coach people who
probably haven't been through this level of trauma is they'll
defend why they feel the way they feel, and they'll
say to me, but you don't understand what I've been through.
And of course that's true. Because we all go through
and experience our own thing. We don't all have the

(10:11):
same experience, even if it's the exact same experience, if
that makes sense, We process it differently and so the
experience end up being different. But I'm going to give
an extreme case. And again there's a trigger warning here
because the audio about to play you is from a
video of a comedian called Anthony Griffith who's very well known,
and Anthony talks about back when he first got on

(10:36):
The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, which is a really
big thing and depending on how many applause breaks they get,
and in his first six minutes he got six applause breaks,
which is quite high, so that means that they want
you to come back because they think you're really good.
But he juxtapositions that when he did three episodes of
The Johnny Carson Tonight Show with the fact that his daughter,

(10:59):
who was only two years of age, was fighting cancer
at the same time. So he's in and out of
hospitals with his daughter fighting cancer, and he's turning up
as a comedian to make people laugh of a nighttime.
And it's really powerful because when I play this piece
from you, and it's from a site called the Moth
where they do unpolished people just get up and talk,

(11:22):
and you can feel the raw emotion in this man's voice.
Like for me, I've listened to this and watched this
so many times. I first fell across this while I
was on EBC and the emotion it made me cry.
It's made me cry every time I've listened to it
because I can hear the raw emotion in this man's
voice where he's dealing with all of this stuff with

(11:44):
his daughter, but then on the other side of that
to make sure that he can pay because his chances
of being evicted, of losing his house and his car,
and because of the medical bills. So he has to
turn up and make people laugh on the other side
of that, and he does that in the middle of
all the pain that he's going through, and in this
video you hear the pain. Now. I'm not sharing this

(12:07):
with you to make you cry. I'm not sharing this
with you to make you feel like, Oh, your trauma
or your pain, or your challenges or the things that
you've been through aren't that bad. I'm sharing it with
you because to me, out of all the people I've mentioned,
this is the most extreme version that I can possibly

(12:28):
think of of going through absolute devastating trauma. That's not
your fault, that you cannot change, that you didn't ask for.
That the world's just handed you and you've got to
get up, dress up, and show up anyway. You've got
to move forward and keep doing what you do in
order to be able to provide for your family. This

(12:50):
is not just some semantics. This is the reality. People
have the capacity to overcome some incredibly challenging things and
still move forward. So I'm sharing this with you because
I want to give you some perspective. I want to
give you some context. I want you to listen to
this and know that whatever you are going through, you

(13:14):
have the capacity to get through it. You've just got
to get up, dress up and show up every single day.
You've just got to take that next step forward, even
if you're not sure where that's going to lead, and
you've got to keep doing that until you get the
result that you want to get. In this case with Anthony,
and again please take this trigger warning seriously, it doesn't

(13:36):
end well for him and his daughter, but he still
gets up, dressed up and shows up anyway, and he's
able to share that story raw, real poignant because for
him that allows him to pass it on to other people.
So whilst this is emotional, I want you to think
about hope, about the fact that there is a chance

(14:00):
for you to get through whatever you get through. And
in my case, I've been through a few things. It's
a wake up call for me because when I'm going
through challenging things a man, this is nothing compared to
what other people have been through. The people have just mentioned,
but particularly Anthony Griffith. So again trigger warning, but this
is your wake up call. The people can and do

(14:21):
get through some very ictic things in their lives and
still move forward. So please don't hold yourself back while
buying into your own trauma story.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
Charles Dickens' classic tale Tell Two Cities starts off with
the phrase it was the best of times and it
was the worst of times. In nineteen ninety I moved
from Chicago with my family to la to seek my
fame and fortune. And a couple of weeks of being there,
I got two important phone calls, wanners from the talent

(14:56):
coordinator for the Tonight Show, offering me to have a
spot as a comedian on the Tonight's Show. And the
second call was that my daughter's doctor had called up
to say that her cancer had resurfaced. A year prior,
she was diagnosed with cancer and we fought it and

(15:17):
they went into remission, and now I was back. And
for that next year my life was pretty surreal because
two different personalities. During the day, in order to keep
my daughter at home with me, I would have to
learn CPR and how to work a hard monitor and
administer medicine all these technical terms, and take her back

(15:41):
and forth, excuse me to get her platelets and blood
and check upon her. And at night I would go
from club to club with the talent coordinator and I
would work on my set and try to perfect it,
and I would meet veterans like George Wallace and Seinfeld
and Roseanne, and I thought that everything was great because

(16:06):
we had beat the candor with cancer before we could
beat it again. And this was the first time that
I was going to be in front of millions of
people on the Tonight Show, and the first time on
the Tonight Show. I was extremely nervous. All I could
think about while I was backstage being introduced was don't
mess up. Just don't mess up. Whatever you do, don't
mess up. And the curtains open and there's six hundred

(16:28):
people and the cameras and Johnny's over there and the
band is over there. And I don't know what I
said for the next six minutes, but I got six
applause breaks. And the great part of that night was
that I was going to my car and I met
Johnny who was going to his car, and it was
just a private moment between us in the parking lot

(16:50):
of him saying, you were very funny, You're extremely funny.
Start working on your second Tonight Show because I want
you back. By the time I got the official call
for my second Tonight Show, my daughter my daughter was

(17:16):
admitted to the hospital. If you don't know about cancer,
when it comes back, it comes back hard. It's like
beating up a game banger for the first time. And
then it's coming back, and he's coming back meaner and stronger,
and he's coming with his friends. So in order to
compensate for that, you have to raise the chemo, and

(17:37):
you have to raise the medicine, and you have to
raise the radiation, which is difficult for an adult. An adult,
but she was only two, so she's bald, which he
doesn't mind because every kid in the ward is bald,
and she thinks it's a part of life. And she
can't keep her food down, and this you're not prepared

(18:07):
for this. There's no books, there's no homed class to
teach you how to deal with this. And you can't
go to a therapist because in the black world, a
therapist is taboo, has reserved for rich white people. So
you're trying to figure it out, what did I do.

(18:31):
Maybe it's something I did, maybe something my wife did,
maybe my doctor diagnosed it erroneously. Something. But at night,
I still have to be a comic. I have to
work on the tonight show because that's what I'm gonna do.
I'm a clown. I'm a clown whose medical bills are raising,

(18:55):
who's one step from being evicted, who's one step forgetting
his car repol And I have to come out and
make you laugh because no one wants to hear the
clown and pain because that's not funny. And my humor
is becoming dark and it's biting, and it's becoming hateful,

(19:19):
and the talent coordinator is seeing that there's a problem
because the NBC is all about nice and just everything
is going to be okay, and we're starting to buck
horns because he wants everything light and I want to
be honest and tel life, and I'm hurty and I
want everybody else to hurt because somebody is the blame

(19:43):
for this. So I buck up and I suppress my anger,
and I form and develop a nice, cute routine for
the second tonight show, and I get applause breaks, and
I get asked to come back for a third time,

(20:06):
and I'm perfecting my third set and the doctor asked
me to come in, and I know something's wrong because
even the doctor is crying and doctors don't cry. And
he said that we've done. Oh we can, there's nothing

(20:27):
else for us to do. And I said, how much
time does she have? And he said at the most,
at the most six weeks. And I should plan for that.
And I'm thinking, how do I plan for that? I
haven't planned to buy her her first bicycle. I haven't

(20:50):
planned to walk her in school. I haven't planned to
take pictures of her on her problem. I haven't planned
to walk her down the aisle to get married. How
am I going to plan to buy her address to
be buried in. I'm trying to keep it together because
I'm the man, and I'm the man of the house,

(21:10):
and I don't want to cry what is coming. And
I'm trying to tell my way, tell myself, Tony. I'm
trying to beg the world. Just give me chance, Just
give me chances. Just let me take a breath, Just stop,
just for a minute. I want to call my parents
and tell them what do I do? I don't know
what to do. I'm a grown man and I don't

(21:32):
know what to do. And a man of voicing me
comes up like Densdale from Training Day. Man, nigga, you
think you're the only one losing kids today? Twenty five
kids walked in here with cancer, only five walking out.

(21:55):
This ain't no sitcom. They don't wrap up all nice
and tiny in thirty minutes. This is life, Welcome to
the real world. And he was right. So I bucked
up because that's what I'm supposed to do. And on

(22:19):
my third Tonight Show by that time, my daughter died
and I had six applause breaks that night. No one
knew I was mourning. No one knew that I could
care less about the Tonight Show or Johnny Carson. In

(22:45):
nineteen ninety I had three appearances with the legendary Johnny
Carson and a total of fourteen applause breaks. And I
would have given it all if I could just have
one more day sharing a bag of French fries with
my daughter. It was the best of it was the

(23:08):
worst of times. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (23:20):
Thanks for listening to this episode of The Building Better
Humans podcast with your host Glenna'sa. For feedback. To stay
up to date or go back and find an old episode,
head over to one Ady dot net dot au here
the Building Better Humors Project pocas this guy

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