Weaved into each story was a human resource lesson of one kind or another.

For example, Kelly told of how his mother, a secretary and waitress, decided to become a police officer in the 1970s.

"It was a steep climb for her," he recalled.

Passing the physical presented one of the biggest challenges. His mother was required to climb over a 7-foot wall. To help her prepare, his father built her a wall slightly higher than that in their backyard.   

"After months of practice, she got over that wall in four-and-a-half seconds instead of nine seconds, as required. And so she became one of the first female police officers in that part of New Jersey," Kelly said.

Her success, he said, showed him the power of having a plan, a goal and working hard to achieve it.

After spending a few earlier, "directionless" years, Kelly developed a "pretty lofty" goal for himself: He decided he'd be the first person to walk on Mars.

"Well, I did get kinda close," he said. "I made it into space four times."

"Think how impressed the aliens were," he joked. "When I told them I had been to the planet Earth five times, they were really impressed."

Kelly also spoke of his experiences as a combat pilot, sharing that he often questioned whether he was up to the job.

"I did so poorly, I think Tom Cruise would have been better at it," he said, referring to the actor's star role as a fighter pilot in the hit movie, "Top Gun," in the 1980s.

The HR lesson there? "I didn't give up," Kelly said. "How good you are at the beginning of anything you try is not an indicator of how good you can become."

"As HR pros, keep that in mind," he urged the audience. "People can become really good at stuff."

Practice, persistence and the drive "to never, ever give up" are all that are needed, he said.

Kelly also talked about the importance of adequate communications in any organization.

On his first combat mission, on Jan. 17, 1991, he and his navigator bombed a hangar at an airport in Basra, Iraq. To get there, they had to avoid two surface-to-air missiles.

Rather than return over the same hostile territory, he decided to fly into Iranian airspace. The maneuver spared him from being fired up again by the Iraqis but American ships came close to shooting him down because they mistook him for an enemy aircraft.

"I learned that there's never an excuse for not talking to the people you work with," Kelly said. "Timely and accurate communication is so important to what we do in the military, in the space program and in what you do in your company.

"There's no excuse for not having great communication" he continued. "I didn't do it that night, and it nearly cost me my job."

His wife's ordeal, he said, also holds plenty of lessons for HR managers, primarily those related to decision-making – the critical decisions included how best to repair her bullet-shattered eye socket – and the danger of ignoring the opinions of less-seasoned hands in favor of following an accepted course of action that might not always be appropriate.

"None of us is as dumb as all of us," he said, quoting a message on a wall in a NASA conference room.

"A team can make a bad decision. (At NASA), we are aware of that and try to guard against it," he said.

The power of the human spirit, Kelly said, "is an incredible thing."

His wife's battle, he said, "reminds me to deny the acceptance of failure."

Giffords spoke briefly after her husband, thanking SHRM for inviting them to the conference.

"It's been a long, hard haul, but I'm getting better," she said to a standing ovation.

"Be patient, be courageous, be your best. Thank you very much," she said.

The event closed with "America," the song by Gifford's other big favorite, Neil Diamond.