What the cracks taught me ⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses abuse, addiction, violence, 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 Michelle grew up in a broken home, moved in with her father at 11 to escape neglect, then endured two abusive relationships as an adult, one physically and emotionally violent for four years, another involving addiction and financial control. After leaving the second relationship, she set a five-year goal to build a house and open a cafe, achieving it in four. The business thrived in Port Noarlunga until a structural failure forced closure; she was then given poor legal and accounting advice that led to liquidation in 2024. Rather than stay stuck, she retrained as a nutritionist, started a vending-machine business focused on healthy hospital food, and built Elevate Capacity to teach young people entrepreneurship and self-discovery. She now frames each setback as material for the next chapter, anchored by her father's family motto: Spero meliora, hope for better things, aspire to better yourself, inspire others. Michelle Gregory is a nutritionist, entrepreneur, and founder of Elevate Capacity, a capability-building organisation for young people and women. She is a domestic abuse survivor who has rebuilt her life multiple times, most recently after losing her cafe business in Port Noarlunga to a structural failure in 2024. She now coaches others through adversity using nutrition, breathwork, and her own lived experience. In this Grit Diaries conversation with Mon & Mazz, Michelle shares the story behind the moments below. 🎙️ IN THIS CONVERSATION:• Resilience is built through repeated setbacks and choices to move forward, not innate; Michelle rebuilt her life three times after different fractures. 🕒 CHAPTERS:00:00 Family motto: hope for better things04:41 Growing up in a broken home, choosing safety08:00 High school chaos: father's heart attack and stroke09:49 House fire and homelessness15:20 The three major fractures17:13 Police rejection after domestic abuse25:51 COVID pivot: camping trailer to cafe29:40 Roof collapse and business loss36:37 Meeting her husband, starting over again42:24 Vending machines and Good Shepherd support52:57 Elevate Capacity: teaching young people56:03 Final wisdom: resilience, help, and Spero meliora 🎧 If this story moved you, follow Kintsugi Heroes in your podcast app so you never miss an episode. 📌 RESOURCES MENTIONED:Lifeline Australia: 13 11 14Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ABOUT KINTSUGI HEROES━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Welcome. We're glad you found your way here. Kintsugi Heroes was created from a simple belief: every person has a story worth sharing, and sometimes the story we need to hear arrives exactly when we need it most. Our name comes from the Japanese art of Kintsugi, where broken pottery is repaired with gold. Rather than hiding the cracks, they are honoured as part of the object's history. We believe people are much the same. The experiences that challenge us, break us, shape us, and help us grow are often the very things that connect us to one another. This channel is home to honest conversations about resilience, hope, grief, recovery, courage, love, and what it means to keep moving forward when life doesn't go to plan. Here you'll find six podcast series, each sharing stories through a different lens: • Kintsugi Heroes, hosted by John Milham• Animals & Us, hosted by Natalie Stockdale• Grit Diaries: From Grit to Grace, hosted by Simone Allan and Maryan Bova• From There to Here, hosted by Emma Bellamy-Dodd• Golden Threads: Stories of Disability & Resilience• Pride in Stories, hosted by John Dwyer Every story shared here is offered with the hope that it helps someone feel a little less alone. A little more understood. A little more connected. Whether you're navigating a difficult season, supporting someone you love, or simply looking for meaningful conversations, you're welcome here. New episodes are released fortnightly across our series. If you'd like to help us keep these stories freely available to everyone, you can support our work here: https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au/donate Thank you for being part of this community. We help people tell the stories they need to share so others can discover the story they need to hear. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━CONNECT WITH US━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🌐 https://www.kintsugiheroes.com.au▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@kintsugiheroes📘 https://www.facebook.com/kintsugiheroes📸 https://www.instagram.com/kintsugi.heroes💼 https://www.linkedin.com/company/kintsugi-heroes #KintsugiHeroes #LivedExperience #ResiliencePodcast #GritDiaries #FromGritToGrace #DomesticAbuseSurvivor #StartingOver #EntrepreneurJourney #RebuildingALife #MentalHealthMatters #YouthEmpowerment ———Show notes by Kintsugi Studio · Approved by Tony Bailey · Australian English Mentioned in this episode: Support Kintsugi Heroes Kintsugi Heroes is a not-for-profit, and every story we share is free for the people who need it. If this show has meant something to you, you can help us keep going. Visit kintsugiheroes.com.au and click donate. Every contribution helps us keep telling these stories, and it's tax-deductible. Kintsugi Heroes Follow the show, share it with someone who needs it, or share your own story at kintsugiheroes.com.au. Your story matters.
