The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion.
A testament to the power of human spirit, Kath Koschel is a survivor who has overcome incredible odds and unimaginable tragedy to inspire ordinary people to do extraordinary things.
Kath is a former professional cricketer and Ironman competitor who’s world came crashing down when she broke her back twice in the span of five years and was told that she would never walk again. Instead, she faced the challenges head-on and defied all medical prognosis by teaching herself to walk again on three separate occasions. In the midst of these harrowing experiences, she believes she experienced two things in large amounts: adversity and kindness. After relearning to walk for the second time in her life, this realisation kickstarted a 2-month journey around Australia, which relied solely on the kindness of strangers. No cash, credit card food or water – and no help from family or friends!
Driven by a passion to spread gratitude and kindness sin the world, she founded Kindness Factory™ to encourage one million acts of kindness. To date, Kindness Factory has recorded over 7 million acts of kindness and is now a registered not-for-profit in three countries.
An internationally sought-after speaker and author of Kindness the book, Kath has worked with some of the biggest and most well-known companies and brands in the world to help them achieve perspective, resilience, good culture and, of course, kindness.
Talking Points
Mental Health: Building and Sustaining Mental Fitness
What if we thought about mental health in the way that we thought about physical health? Just like physical fitness, mental fitness is pivotal to all human development; informing our performance and our mindset whilst also aiding our ability to connect with others effectively. Mental fitness underpins the foundation to a life well lived, in and out of the workplace.Mental Health: Building and Sustaining Mental Fitness
Alarming statistics now show us that mental health related concerns are a global issue with depression, anxiety and even suicide rates rising dramatically from 2023 to 2024.
So how do we address these worrying trends that threatens to cripple the ability for humans to live happily, perform effectively and work together well?
In the Mental Health: Building and Sustaining Mental Fitness keynote, Kath unpacks what mental fitness means and how to effectively manage it with her mental health framework, backed by evidence-based strategies including:
- Self awareness as a foundation for growth and moving through to self- acceptance
- Growth through adversity and change – How to grow through what we go through
- Linking gratitude, humor and kindness to mental health and fitness
- How to cultivate community and conversation through connection and belonging
- How to build resilience, optimism and agility
Workplace Culture
In an age where technology is taking over, 43% employees don’t feel a sense of connection to their co-workers, 38% don’t trust their co-workers, and 22% don’t even have one friend at work. 70% of employees are disengaged from their jobs—with disengagement at a record high. Employee disconnection leads to lower productivity and lower rates of retention. Creating a workplace of belonging and kindness is proven to aid better mental health, as well as increasing profitability, productivity, high performance and retention. It’s good for your people and good for your business. Workplace Culture
Employees who experience high levels of belonging, psychological safety and kindness at work have greater resilience, well-being and personal and professional growth. They experience a 56% increase in job performance and 170% increase in employer promotor score, and better-connected employees save large organizations millions per year. Kath can also make this keynote bespoke to your workplace by working with you in the leadup to understand your specific needs and then addressing them via 4 of 12 common themes that can be addressed to better your companies culture via an evidence based framework of kindness; collaboration, compassion, empathy, gratitude, humor, humility, honesty, mindfulness, positivity, perspective, Self-acceptance and trust.
KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Learn 4 ways to increase psychological safety in the workplace
- How to foster higher levels of psychological safety in your team.
- How to deepen trust and build high-value relationships with co-workers, customers, and clients.
- How to build an inclusive culture
- Bringing collaboration back post COVID
Change Resilience
Change is a reality for all and it comes at us in many ways. But be careful, history shows that only a small number of change strategies succeed. Your people will enable it, or obstruct it.Change Resilience
Kath knows what it takes to support change in an organisation. Having high instances of change in both her personal and professional life, Kath now helps organisations around the world to adapt to the new, pushing progress forward and into the now and future through a proven framework of gratitude, perspective and kindness.
Kath will build a bespoke offering with key and actionable take aways for the audience to implement immediately to overcome resistance, manage the change process and land on key messages for your business.
Key Takeaways:
- Key steps to implementing change and how best to manage it
- Providing perspective to overcome resistance to the change process
- How to create and navigate opportunity in the change process
- How to bring choice to periods of change
- Adopting a resilience mindset in the face of change
Video
Kath Koschel | Saxton Speakers | Showreel
Kath Koschel is the founder of Kindness Factory, a global not-for-profit organisation and movement which inspires ordinary people to do extraordinary things. A former professional cricketer and Iron Man competitor, Kath has defied all medical prognoses by teaching herself to walk on three separate occasions. Despite facing other serious personal, mental and physical setbacks, her resilience allowed her not only to overcome these challenges but also to see the good in the world when most others couldn’t.Kath Koschel, Founder, The Kindness Factory @ PTTOW! 2018
If breaking her back on two separate occasions and learning to walk for the third time in her life wasn't enough to break her, losing her partner, the love of her life to suicide pushed her terrifyingly close to the edge. Through her astounding resilience, Kath Koschel was able to create joy out of sorrow, to become one of Australia's youngest CEO's and the founder of the global movement and not for profit organisation Kindness Factory.Kath has amazing integrity about her when she speaks. She has a way of connecting with those she addresses and builds rapport with the most diverse audiences. I have seen Kath in various for ... keep reading CEO, Northcott
Kath's presentation at our premier's dinner was incredibly moving and inspiring and left all those in attendance uplifted and in awe of her incredible strength. She is very relaxed and relatable. She was able to adapt and keep the audience engaged, event through a technical difficulty. She is simply remarkable.
Kath is an amazing individual who has found the inner light and strength to push forward through tremendous adversity and difficult times. When she shares her personal story you notice that it has an impact on all those who hear it. Her story puts matters in to perspective as to what is really important and she brings light to the power of self-belief and determination. You cannot walk away without a shift in thinking; she challenges you to choose a different way to interpret the world. Kath is inspiring and we were all in awe of the person that she is.
Working in Human Resources I am fortunate to meet many wonderful people who share their stories of challenge, adversity, determination, tenacity to show us that people face many difficulties in this world and can overcome them, learn from them and grow. In meeting Kath I found her story unique and incredibly inspiring sharing with use her journey, of overcoming tremendous challenges on a number of occasions suffering loss and heartbeat. Her story also showed the kindness and generosity of humanity and it has made me stop and think about others more. I was truly moved by Kath's story and feel that many in the room where too. I hope that I get the opportunity to cross paths with Kath again some time, but in the meantime it has made me think and teach my children how to be kind to others who may not be as privileged as our family is.
Kath was fantastic. We had some technical difficulties with the projector the conference facility and she just ran with it until we switched rooms very professional. Her talk was amazing and a lot of people spent time chatting with her afterwards. I have also sent her website details onto all of the delegates as many asked for more information.
Kath is down to earth, kind, caring and generous. She also has an inspiring story to tell and tells it in a way that does not seek sympathy but encourages kindness. We loved having her as the keynote speaker for our dinner of 300 and would highly recommend her.
