Carol Murray: Surviving a Parachute Failure and Building Resilience Through Community

[00:00:03] Hi, I'm Dr Russell Thackeray and welcome to Resilience Unravelled, a podcast with new ideas, new thoughts and new thinking about resilience. Guests with remarkable stories, products and services that can really power up your own mindset and resilience. You can also go to our site for more information, to ask questions or to access some of our resources at resilienceunravelled.com. Let's get started.

[00:00:33] Hello and welcome back to Resilience Unravelled and welcome to a guest who has an interesting story about resilience and all sorts of interesting things to say. And beaming in front of me is Carol Murray. So first of all, Carol, hi, how are you? Carol Murray Murray I'm great on this rainy day in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but I'm smiling. How about you? How are you doing today? Guests with a Sunni here, so I'm sorry about that. It's one of the, we've had this bizarre summer, but I know Halifax, I've been there on cruise ships.

[00:01:01] So that's, it's always raining in Halifax, isn't it? Well, you have a good bit of sun, but you're, the cruise ships come in September. So it's usually raining. Yeah. I would say you have a lot of rain, not as much as England, not as much as London. I'm in London, but we certainly get our fair share of rain feels like. So I can pick from that from Canada. So that's great. Welcome to Canadian sufferers and anyone who's over the border or over the border from the United States at the moment, because that must be extremely exciting for you.

[00:01:31] To live in Canada or all of it, the political stuff? Yeah. It's a bit messy. I try to stay away from it. It's not the best time politically. And, but our prime minister is standing up to Trump. So we're a bit happy about that. It doesn't, who thought that when he was governor of the Bank of England, that you could have turned into such a fine politician. It's amazing, isn't it? Oh, he, I knew we had the chops and I knew we had the international reputation and relationships for sure.

[00:01:58] He was also the, the head of the Bank of Canada before the Bank of England. So yeah. Very good. Look, enough of that nonsense. Tell us a bit about what it is. Who are you, Carol Murray? That's a good question. At the heart of myself, I'm a small young girl from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, but I come from very humble beginnings, but I believed I have lived a very unique life and I'm very resilient. And I think a lot of that is because of where I'm from and the foundation that I built.

[00:02:27] Probably the most sensational thing about me is 29 years ago, next week, actually, when I was 24 years old, I went skydiving and my parachutes failed. So I fell 3200 feet. Yeah. I hit the ground at 90 kilometers an hour. I went three and a half inches into the ground. I've had 26 surgeries, 16 centimeters of my right femur was removed and I regrow 14 centimeters of it. I had a wheelchair for two and a half years, learned how to walk again.

[00:02:54] I went, I went on to build a really great, really wonderful, happy, adventurous life. And I've raised over $50 million for charities with the people I work with as a professional fundraiser. Wow. How, how, I'm going to ask you all the obvious questions now. How on earth is your parachute not open? So the first parachute was malfunctioned and it was my first time and I went solo. The investigation showed that when I jumped out of the plane, I flipped over and the rope was caught, like the rope was caught over the main parachute.

[00:03:24] And then when I pulled the reserve parachute, they tangled and collapsed. So I had to be, it was all balled up. It didn't blow up on my website. People can find me and, and social media. But is that one of those things that was possible to have predicted? That sounds, it sounds a freak accident, but it sounds possible to have like a professional to have checked out on your behalf. Looking back on what went wrong. I think it was the training, to be honest. Things like, I really think we have a few hours of training and you jump out of a plane by yourself.

[00:03:54] I think that's scary. If I was to do it again, probably I would go TN them at least. And people then, if they do that a few times, maybe they'll have a feel for the year. But the training, I also public speaker. And so I speak about workplace safety and the training was a couple of hours. And I, and there were some red flags during the training. My friend fell, kept falling asleep and they were told one more time and you're not going to get to go. And he kept falling asleep. The owner's 12 year old son was packing parachute. Oh my God.

[00:04:23] The thing that I did wrong, I got it wrong in training and they didn't explain the consequences of it. So I really believe that to say the why and things are really important. In training, they taught us, you jump, you look up, you make sure your parachute's okay. And then you grab your toggles, which is like your steering wheel kind of thing. And in the training, I would say, we jump, I grab my toggles, like in the fake jump. And they would say, no, you have to make sure your parachute's okay first. They never, and I did this more than once.

[00:04:53] And they never said to me, Carol, if you touch those toggles, the 4-0 and your parachute's okay. There's a strong possibility that the, that they're going to stop the reserve. They're going to tangle with your reserve chute and you're going to be in big trouble. And that's exactly what happened. So I'm really big about the why on things when it comes to safety. I'm hoping you sued them for millions. They didn't have any money.

[00:05:19] Their school, they were having financial troubles from what we understood and their insurance policy didn't cover me. It was only third priority liability. So if I fell on you, you would have been covered or the people whose yard that I made a big hole in. Actually, I landed in an elderly woman's front yard and she was sitting outside. So I like to say I dropped in for tea because I like to think humor. So they, there was no coverage and I signed waivers, but there was way or ways around them based on some legal, that one legal precedence at the time.

[00:05:47] But this was almost 30 years ago, but no, I didn't get any money, but that's okay. I, because I got a life that has been very full. I have chronic pain, but I'm resilient, which is about what your podcast is for. And I backpacked actually through Europe and a couple of times and Costa Rica and I've traveled lots of places and I've built this amazing career and I have amazing people in my life. And it certainly gave me a unique perspective on life. I also almost died from an allergic reaction.

[00:06:17] So every day is a gift for me. The question I need to ask you, first of all, is why would you jump out of the plane anyway? Well, what's all that about? I was 24 and adventurous and a year before I did something similar to bungee jumping and it just looked so, it was so much fun. It's just something I wanted to do for a long time. And my friend and I, we were both, we're living in the, I was in Toronto, he's in the Toronto area. We were like launching into adulthood and had the whole world ahead of us.

[00:06:45] And it's just one of those decisions that we made. I don't regret it. It's interesting that one of the things about resilience is knowing about risk, isn't it? And it's actually taking risk eyes wide open, isn't it? The thing about taking, going into a plane and throw yourself out. There is risk attached to it, isn't there? It's like doing a bungee jump. There are risks attached to them. So there's no doubt about it. So you must, part of you must have this sort of slightly devil may care excitement that comes from this stuff. At the time, but now I still do fun things.

[00:07:15] I'm still that person, if anything more. But I think I look at risks differently when I take them because then I was looking at the risk. Oh, one in a million chance. That's not going to be nothing. But I didn't think about the consequences. The consequences about my mother getting the news that your daughter's parachute failed. Yeah. And my whole entire family for 12 hours, not knowing if I was going to live or die. And then date to find out if there was going to be any problems with my spine.

[00:07:41] So I think when we, I look at risk differently, I certainly look at the consequences of what could happen and who, not just what could happen to me, but the ripple effect of the consequences. Yes. And that doesn't mean you don't take the risk. It just means that you're more aware of it, doesn't it? I take them in a different way, for sure. Yeah. The consequences are a big part of it. I'm a leader in the fundraising world. I'm a director of development for an international development charity for North America. So certainly in fundraising, sometimes we have to take risks.

[00:08:10] We have to spend a little bit of money to get new donors and to raise more money. But I evaluate the risks also about the consequences of what's going to happen if this fails. Interesting. And it usually doesn't fail. So how do you go through that? Because obviously you're ill, you've gone through this accident, you're in hospital. How do you actually go through the process of relearning to walk? Because that must be something that you learned the first time around, it was all instinctive, but this time must be very conscious. How does that process work?

[00:08:38] It's very interesting because there's a physical process with the therapist. And I want to keep in mind that I broke both my legs. My right leg was really, and that's when I had big metal cages on it and big screws in my legs. But my left leg was also broken two places, so that had to heal too. So I didn't get, I didn't stand up right until probably three months later. And I mommered it because of the feeling.

[00:09:05] And I would say that, so I started that way, but in the whole toll of two and a half years before I could walk with a cane, I would say that the hardest part was psychological. And it probably took me a year and a half longer than it should have. Because I always was afraid because I remember seeing those x-rays of my right leg where the hip, a bit of bone, absolutely nothing. And then a bit of bone and my knee. So when you see that in your mind all the time, it's hard to get past.

[00:09:34] And there was, I was just absolutely terrified. So I would say what really got me, what really did the trick was a year after my accident, I, the public, what was available in where I was living, the physiotherapist, they didn't have the resources that I needed. So I went to a private clinic and I did hydrotherapy. So I was in the pool walking five days a week, four days a week. And that's what built my confidence and my strength over time.

[00:10:03] So how much of the impediment is down to cognitive work and how much is physical? Because I'm guessing you can't have one without either, can you? That's really interesting, but I didn't seek therapy at the time. I went about a year and a half after my accident when I was struggling, I was on crutches and I was struggling with cooking and trying to clean and things like that. And, but she's, I don't think you need to be here. That's normal for you to feel that way. And you've got a good way about it.

[00:10:29] But I never, I didn't even dawn on me until probably 15 years after I was walking that, you know what? I, I probably could have walked sooner. Cause I, yeah. It didn't dawn on me that a lot of it was psychological. It wasn't until I really started thinking more about my dream about being a public speaker and a motivational speaker.

[00:10:52] And which also took me years to do because of imposter syndrome, but thinking about when I would speak about and how I got there. And that I took actually the 20 year mark of my accident. I took a lot of time to reflect. I had some time off work to reflect about it. I had a bit of a crash there. And that's when I realized that it was the fear that held me back. So my fear was holding me back from living my dreams and I believe is my purpose. But it was fear that held me back from walking sooner.

[00:11:22] And what, and why did you go to into fundraising and charitable work? What was the thinking behind that? I just knew I wanted to help people. And I went back to work three years after my accident. And, but I also had a business diploma, but I also knew I wanted to help people. So I didn't really know what that was going to look like. And I went to a job interviewing to be an assistant to a fundraiser. And I interviewed them in my career for what would be my career. And I just knew it was for me. And that's how I did it.

[00:11:51] Most people I find fall into fundraising, except for my niece. My niece is a fundraiser because she learned about it from me. And that's why she wanted to be one. But most people I meet fall into fundraising. And most people, a lot of people don't understand how in depth fundraising is. And the professional chops needed to do it. The learning, the mentorship and the practicing of our skills and what's in the world. When I say I'm a fundraiser, when I meet people, they often think I'm a telemarketer. Oh, really? Yes. Because actually I imagine there's quite a bit of a difference between fundraising

[00:12:20] in your world and mine. So tell us what fundraising is about. So it's interesting in the UK, they're really great at fundraising, especially in the mail. So I do, I do mail fundraising, which I absolutely love because it's a science and communications professionals, they're not, they, when they come on board, they usually say, this is the letter that you're sending. We can never send this. It's terrible for our brand. But right down to the PS is the most important part of the letter.

[00:12:48] Actually the envelope, the outside envelope is the most important part of the letter because it'll get someone to open it. So fundraising has different levels to it. And I guess donors go through different levels with it. And let's start with the donor because I really feel like I represent the donor at the organization. So a lot of donors come into a charity through the mail. That's the biggest way. And through their giving patterns or the, and we relation, we build relationships with them when we steward them and we get to know them. And we ask them if they want to know more.

[00:13:17] And sometimes they want to know more and they learn more. And then they say, I would like to make a bigger investment in this. What would that look like? It's just a natural conversation that happens. But fundraising has different parts of it. So there's the mail that brings people in for sure. There's relationship building. And that's usually how it works with donors that will give $5,000 or even $3 million was the biggest gift I've ever gotten myself. Thanks to my team. So I respect all donors at all levels.

[00:13:44] And then a lot of donors, especially now with what we call in Canada, our baby boomers as they're aging and the generation before them, they are leaving the ultimate gifts, which is gifts in their will, the charities that they care about. And someone that mentored me a bit, he always said what people, the legacy that they leave to charities is sometimes the last word that they can say. So it's a very beautiful thing. It's yeah. So I take the donor journey as opposed to the organizational journey.

[00:14:13] And then of course, there's other ways to like board members or long time donors and volunteers, they will introduce people to make gifts. And then there's corporate fundraising and foundation fundraising. But at the heart of them at all, it's really relationship building and getting to know people and building, I would say, authentic trust. Yeah. It's interesting. I always, my background is in sales, tele-sales, telemarketing. And that you could earn it.

[00:14:38] And I always think everybody needs to have a spell in sales because it's that thing about learning to ask and learning not to be bent out of shape when people say no. And saying that it's a personal thing and actually all the passive aggressive ways that people do learn to say no and such like, because actually they're more uncomfortable than you are. And I think it's such a useful skill to have, isn't it? I think it's a very useful skill because telemarketing, you only have a set amount of time. But for me, you know, with fundraising, it's a little bit more.

[00:15:06] And I'm already talking to donors. So typically they already said yes. I see. To something, but it is, I think it shows you how to communicate. And it certainly teaches that when you're communicating, you have to learn to communicate with different people. And I think the biggest thing that I learned as someone that's my brain's always thinking is when I'm talking to someone,

[00:15:35] I really have to listen and not listen to respond. I think that's one of the best communication tools that fundraising has taught me. Okay. Fascinating. And so I gather you speak and you train and you do all sorts of different things there. Do you have a particular approach to resilience, which you've, or is it more about your own experience and how people can learn from that? How does that work? In my public speaking journey, which I started a couple years ago, motivational speaking.

[00:16:00] And also I do speak about workplace safety because of it was at a workplace that things went wrong. So one of the things that I have built based on my life and my families and people that I've seen, I believe that resilience is something that you can prepare for. It's not just reacting in the time. I have a resilience framework that I speak about. And soon I have a deck of cards that talk, that speak about the framework and affirmations for people.

[00:16:29] But I believe that the pillars of foundation are community because we don't do anything by ourselves. Values, the values that we have. Because if we don't know who we are or what we stand for, how do we know where we're going to go or get through them? Perspective. Perspective came late in life for me. I would say it came about nine years ago, more than nine years ago, but nine years ago, I'd stop my, what I call toxic positivity, just being positive all the time.

[00:16:56] And instead taking the time to find true narratives and a different perspective to look at them. And I find that's more healthy. So perspective and under also understanding other others perspectives. And the last one is mindset, which brings it all together. So. So the, the value thing, how, so how does that work? Because I understand all the other things that you've said there, but why are values important? So I'll tell you what my values are. My, my number one value is, is being authentic. So being authentic to myself.

[00:17:26] Perspective is one and gratitude. So when I make my decisions, I say, is this being authentic to who I really am? Do I have some, is there some gratitude for the decision that I'm going to make? Rather, am I giving the grace to, so that someone else will have some gratitude or that I will have some gratitude and that I'm using the proper perspective. Okay.

[00:17:49] So if there's a single message and I may not be that you want people to take away from your experiences, both as a speaker at fundraiser, someone who survived quite a bit in an interesting life. What would you want? What would you want them to think? Or no. I think there's a few things is be true to yourself and don't give up. There's usually a way and lean on the people next to you. If you don't have enough strength and borrow strength from them. That's a big one for me.

[00:18:18] It is interesting how often we see asking for help a sign of weakness, isn't it? Quite. Instead of being a sign of strength. It is quite odd, isn't it? It is a sign of strength and strength is a big piece of it for me now. And I say that a lot. You can borrow my strength. I said that to one of my friends and I have to borrow strength of other people.

[00:18:35] And I think people that I talk to, because I do some stuff on social media and some people write me and I tell them to visualize boring their strong, the strength of someone that they care from, that they care about and have a conversation with them. They'll write me back and say that actually work. It is. And we shouldn't be surprised, should we, if you think about it? Because, as you said, it all starts with the community. And so why? So surrounding yourself with people who are by nature have strengths as well as really important, isn't it? Because we do. There are a lot of people in the world who aren't like that.

[00:19:05] There's sponges or they suck out the lifeblood of people around them. And that's why it's important to have people around you who are strong as well, isn't it? Because sometimes you know as well when you give a life and support. I think that everybody has something to give. Sometimes they just have to find it. Or I find people have never, some people like you said, that are more takers. They've never really had anybody around them that were true, that gave from their heart.

[00:19:30] They were just raised differently maybe, or they had a different way of going about things. I try to look at the positive side of things with perspective. I've been lucky in my life that I think most people I've met have something to give to someone. Yes. Yes, it's always something. That's it. People have potential, isn't it? Whatever state they're in. Yes, exactly. So how do people find out more about the work that you do? How do they get in touch with you?

[00:19:57] I think the best way is to go to my website, carolmurray.ca. So C-A-R-O-L-M-U-R-R-A-Y.ca. And you can read a bit. And at the very bottom of the page, you can see the links to my social media where I do posts and updates on my life. And my lessons, things that I learn, my thoughts. And they can also hook me to speak. Fantastic. Carol's been a joy to talk to you today. It's a very compelling message and expressed extremely well. So thank you.

[00:20:27] Thank you. It's really wonderful. And you are by a real inspiration. So if you want to be equally as inspired, contact Carol. Thank you. Thank you. I hope you found that episode useful and entertaining. If you want to support our work, please go to resilienceunravel.com. And you can become a member there. You can also send us a question there, and even apply to do a podcast.

[00:20:54] You can also leave a review on Apple podcast or any of the other podcast host of your choice, as well as getting hold of some useful resources about resilience, and a whole lot more. join us next time on the next edition of resilience unravels