Kintsugi Heroes
Martin Gillespie · 57 min
After losing his mother, discovering a secret half-sibling, watching his sister die of cancer, losing his father in a freak accident, and navigating a marriage breakdown — all within two years — Martin Gillespie was then diagnosed with Stage 4 blood cancer, and chose to treat it as a new beginning.
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Martin Gillespie emigrated from Scotland to Sydney in 2000 seeking a fresh start. He built a life that looked right on paper: a senior corporate job, a wife, two young daughters, a mortgage. By his late 30s, he was running hard on a treadmill he didn't know how to step off. Then, between 2010 and 2012, everything fractured. His mother died suddenly at 68. Six weeks after her funeral, he learned his father had fathered a secret child during a 35-year affair. His younger sister Denise died of inflammatory breast cancer at 37, just days before the second anniversary of their mother's death. Six weeks after her funeral, his father fell from a garden wall and bled to death. His marriage collapsed under the weight of it all.
In the wreckage, Martin noticed a small lump under his jaw. What followed was a diagnosis of Stage 4 non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Tumours the size of golf balls lined his neck, armpits, and groin. He was told he had no stage 5. He was preparing to die.
But something shifted. A psychologist asked him to write his own obituary. Those words became a turning point. Martin stopped running from his grief and started running toward his purpose. He learned that nutrition and real food could be medicine. He discovered that asking for help was not weakness but survival. He found a team of people, a community, a way to live that was no longer about performance or hiding. Ten years later, he left the corporate world and started a wellbeing consulting company. He is not defined by what broke him. He is defined by what he built from the cracks.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses grief & loss, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au • GriefLine: 1300 845 745 · griefline.org.au
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