Martin Brown — Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, Professional Speaker, quadriplegic

Special guest on the line and Man, we've been talking about this for so long and I'm sure he's gonna have something new to say. But anyway, welcome to entrepreneur

Corporate speaker There's so many titles I can give you but we're gonna just settle to settle with Martin Brown. How are you?

Now we've known each other for goodness knows many many years now and We I seem to recall we met one rather cold and blustery weekend in the Drakensberg

No, no, we won't say how many years but From the time I met you number one We always seem to get along and we've always had this this great sort of relationship lots of bantering and but Underlying all of that is this this profound respect and admiration that I have for you Because of what you have accomplished to date in your life. And when when I say this people listening might go Yeah, okay. So so what he's a he's a you know, he's a corporate speaker. Yeah Yeah, yeah, but you weren't always a corporate speaker and it it's has been a rather long and then definitely not an easy journey To get to where you are now share a little bit of your story with us Who is Martin Brown and who was Martin Brown compared to who he is now?

You're right, I wasn't always a corporate speaker or business person. Oh Actually, my first job David was I was selling potatoes at the start of the road out of the back of my dad's bucket It was my first job as a teenager really Yeah Okay, I actually had the opportunity of Justin Cohen what he says job was and he says job was for the customers Which I am quite strange Justin Cohen is for the Christmas Okay, just doesn't job, but that was Jackson's first job. Uh-huh Well, I enjoyed engineering. So I studied mechanical engineering in school And then after that I decided that engineering was just boring. So wins on to emergency medicine Thank you. My life changed In two ways. I really enjoyed my job and Secondly of the first year I suffered a diving accident and broke my neck Living with paralyzed from the shoulders down Only able to move my knees Yeah, everything I do in life now. I do the stick my mouth and this is the most Amazing part of the story because and often you gloss over it But I mean I know and I've grown up with a sister who has who has spina bifida, which is a birth defect But you know, you say it's so easily, you know, I was involved in a diving accident It left me paralyzed from my neck down. It sounds like yeah, okay, but Just the the the sheer Trauma that that must have been I mean you were perfectly able-bodied you were saving lives and then suddenly Like one what one weekend one afternoon bang everything changed Did you know when you dived in to that water and you heard did you hear something go snap crackle and pop? I Did and it was a matter of seconds Yeah, all I heard you was snap. It's how much like you're breaking a green tree Yeah, and immediately I felt nothing. I Was pretty conscious and I had this terrible smell of a minty night and leaves and I'm now Yeah, but I could hear my friends on the fan banks Of the river came along thought I was joking Numbers lying there face down floating in the water. I couldn't do a thing. I couldn't move I could hear them and I thought Well, I wonder how long I can hold my breath And shoot off minutes was my record and she got me out of the water Goodness me and then and then off to hospital But you say at that stage you knew something was irreparably damaged Yes, if you studied emergency medicine, you know, one of the first things is Your abc's a very breathing Circulation and you know you stay glass and make so i've worked with these injuries for years Of nursing neurology In flora clinic, so I knew what spinal cord injury were And when I struck that fan bank, I knew the signs and the symptoms I had

Wow now what do you do when when you know The the the the accident itself is over you've now been hospital a lot hospitalized and people come in and they go mr. Brown Sorry But you are not going to walk again. In fact life as you know, it is going to change What what did you feel? I mean you must have been depressed. I don't know you as a depressed person But I mean I can only imagine that must have brought you down horribly That's actually the first words Where neurologists told me that he walked out and he said make sure he said He stopped at my bed. He said you have a 1 chance of ever walking in And he left the room. Oh nice Yeah, it's like a mic drop. That's it. Yeah And you do get there's something called The curve of change you can actually google it We all go through that every single one of us in life goes through this curve of change And the first one is denial Firstly i'm going to prove this doctor wrong. He's Is no clue what he's talking about in a few weeks time. Uh, it's just a dislocation I'm going to stand up and I walk out of here And you're going to deny and deny and die and then after that anger Angle facing anger with yourself the situation what needs only the people around you And then depression fits in as well What now what am I going to do?

How many people that aren't disappointed for one stupid little excellence? Yeah Then also if we start getting through that curve, we start making little goals We change them We go up and up Sometimes we slide down a bit then we go up and up and sometimes slide down a bit But finally we do get there and that's how it takes about six years, right? Six years to get off that virtual next event To almost back to where you were Wow, from then on it up and down roller coaster constantly and depression is one of the big things Great people think depression is a special thing. It's not it happens to every single normal person out there Well, listen, I've I've shared this on here before. I mean I used to poo poo the whole depression thing I was like there's there's not really any such thing pull yourself towards yourself You know chin up shoulders back kind of thing until it hit me when I was living in Nelsprite and I promise you Um, it is it's a thing and it's a real thing and it's a scary scary thing. It's a scary place to be It is it's a very dark place and sometimes you know what we pull up next to the robot and we see this guy standing with a Soundboard saying no food. No cauldron. No this and we have no empathy. Yeah Because we think yeah, you're just standing out digging Yeah, you know what your problem sitting in that car and these problems standing at that robot are exactly the same problems Yeah, this problem might be uh, and i'm gonna make my bond Are we gonna add bonus where we're going on holiday and i'm gonna afford the school fees?

Your problems are that big These problems are just as big for him Or why am I just and i'm gonna get a meal today? Yeah, and i'm gonna sleep in a warm place Yeah, and that's that's that's a very very sobering sobering thought but you you went through this and then You did something which I find quite amazing and when we come back I want to talk about That that period now you've you've you've kind of come to terms with the injury and you now deciding Okay, so now what and who is martin going to be going forward when we come back i'd like to have a chat about that Sure special guest on the line with me is uh, none other than martin brown So martin before we went into to the break in the songs I said we wanted I wanted to chat a little bit about um, you've now sort of recovered You know and you've you've come to terms with with your injury, but you are still essentially bedridden What did you do then because because what you do now? Um, I i still am amazed by the amount of work you actually do

Yeah break room is actually the correct term when I lived to rehab scene, so the medical aid was exhausted But only I had a manual wheelchair that Funds were collected by my daunting friends and Oh when you parallelize from this down a manual wheelchair is pretty useless So you're still being pushed around so you are still dependent on the people around you to get from parents. I to me It wasn't just for a change of scenery So really I just spend most of my time in bed watching tv feeling sorry for myself It became that moment where I had to do something So I got my pieces together, which was a real old pincha one pirate processor 486 top of the range video in monitor viki Was on the old mode in the dial-up and I started to learn how to code websites Like pure html code well, I started my first company like called living web creation Creating a little one-page websites for people but my passion really didn't line

So from where Finally, my dad worked overseas tried to get money together so we can get A decent wheelchair for myself It took three years To get an electric wheelchair, but it was suitable for me somebody like six foot three a big guy And a wheelchair that can get me more than just a to b, but c to d and everywhere else Yeah Finally, we got the money together. We ordered this wheelchair from other seas it arrived Beautiful my dreams the chair I always wanted Except it arrived without batteries And was a incorrect city Oh Lovely, yeah, no batteries Pretty good for electric wheelchairs. Well, well electric wheelchairs, I mean batteries are heavy shipping, you know, it's a problem Yeah, actually I get asked him why? And he said since I ordered it and before he shipped it the price actually went up so he decided to send me without batteries Oh, that was nice. I won't make sense That's my first. Yeah So my friends got together. We got the electric wheelchair. We shipped it and took it apart. I looked at it and I thought You know what? I can do this better But before I got back I got into that chair and for three days, man, I drove around All over here up down around the pools moving for each chair practicing Those three days though, which cost me six months in bed Using collecting really high developed pressure soul Oh, yeah, that cost me in bed for six months and while I'm in bed My chair my independence my freedom Still in the corner and I could only look at it And while lying we are 40 is this happen to me?

How many other people are struggling with the exact same problem? Yeah, they have mobility. It is both on a production line And not both for the person And that's what I've got this bright spark is Why do not why don't we both wheelchairs? To fit people instead of trying to fit people into wheelchairs And and this is where radical mobility started while you were lying in bed recovering from a bed. So I was actually lying in bed doing a an assignment for unisa with voice activated software and a laptop while looking at my wheelchair Yeah in this idea camera And so what did you do? Well, I could win. I could get up again. I've got my chair I fixed the seating a bit I got in front of my computer with a stick in my mouth Software that was donated to me care software and for four years I designed I wrote a business plan, which I knew absolutely nothing about Swat analysis and feasibility studies And marketing analysis and honey. I've got this plan together and I pitched it to about 10 20 people And I got 19 rejections Sure, okay And one took a chance

And they usually do not take chances on people that want this little money I only asked for 500 000 money to start off They usually do two and a half million and above They took a chance on me And that we had all exploded and it all started and finally It was you know, the satisfaction the same way the thing is always be there to give then to receive Finally I could take my training my education my Life that I enjoyed serving people in a way And I can now do it again I could build a wheelchair But allow people to explore different areas and I could serve people And that is the most amazing feeling But through all of this and and and you're doing this. I mean, yes, you've you've you've had Um, you've had like some some some pretty pretty serious help. I mean, I know Everybody calls your mom mom because she is like everybody's mom, but she's always been there But the design work in that and I don't think people understand because talking to you on the phone, you know You go. Okay. Yeah martin, but to actually see how you operate your wheelchair because it's all it's it I mean you've got a little ball on a stick and uh, that's that's where it all happens from I mean from there you operate your chair you Can uh, you can access the the the the the internet now phone calls you do the whole lot and I often forget and The one day, um, I think I was I was either going to be talking to you or sending you a message where i'm like Could this guy just hurry up?

And my fiance is like well, that's a little bit insensitive. Don't you think and i'm like why? What he's got to do is answer me and I was like, yeah, okay I understand it takes him a bit longer, but i'm not going to give him any slack for that But it is every last thing that you do is is something that's it's the challenge is multiplied 20 30 times Well, let me say you're not completely set up quickly, um I Don't use voice activation much because it really slows me down as irritating and it doesn't understand what i'm saying And then I start swinging at it, which it doesn't even understand less So I took my mouse which is a normal mouse I turned it back to front Yeah The little tail is facing me. Mm-hmm I've got a doll stick with a piece of plastic at the end and a piece of rubber at the other end Which are pins between my two teeth Yeah, and I led how to control my mouse back to front and upside down In front of that i've got a keyboard normal keyboard light forward. So that's what i tap on My mouse I can left click right click click drag do everything like that. Mm-hmm So that's my pc my keyboard is eye level. My mouse is in front of me and i'm i'm a pretty short game Pretty awesome the gaming initiative You game as well as long as you're not in the rocket league because I believe you know You've got some competition in rocket league at the moment with uh, yeah with young ryan hogan

Now you you've you've gone out you've built radical mobility which is a company that does It's bespoke wheelchairs essentially and I mean i've i've seen some of your wheelchairs I've seen the tests that you take it on. These are like Serious wheelchairs. I mean they you've thought this thing through the batteries last long They've got great sort of they've got great talk so they can take bigger people around. I mean I I could probably quite easily Being almost yeah, I think i'm your height. We're both about six foot three. Um, you know, your wheelchair could take me if it needed to Um, and then recently I saw that you've actually made one now that'll help people stand Yes, we've actually exported quite a few standing four by four wheelchairs Which we were actually the first in the world to create a standing four wheel drive wheelchair And I mean that was to somebody who's either always lying down or always sitting that must be Absolutely amazing to be able to experience that but this still wasn't enough for you Then you decided you wanted to do the public speaking thing, which which sounds great, you know When you become a corporate speaker, it sounds great. But once again, you had a whole bunch of challenges to overcome there Yeah, the corporate speaking environment is

You know what i've got i've learned so much in business i've won other non-entrepreneur awards of Worked with my guys With only me and the guys in the factory Yeah, so and my guys have been with me for 15 years So something I must be doing right in the leadership part I must be creating a good working environment That site working environment So it explores the fact that you know what? I need to share this knowledge with the people out there I need to state a story How we can create as leaders how we should be serving leaders and create a safe working environment and this is the thing because This is what amazes me about about your setup and about the factory is is exactly that Do you have people that have worked with you for 15 years? Um, and I know that those guys that work with you have gone Above and beyond the call of duty on numerous occasions and you attribute this to this this whole concept of servant leadership Um, and and obviously that's what you're talking about now, but explain to me. What is a servant leader?

Servant leader let me simply is a person that listens more and speaks less It doesn't mean I don't speak Because remember resourceful even means we need to communicate communication is not just a one-way street Yeah, you need to listen and you need to speak But as a leader We need to listen more And speak when everybody has spoken We need to eat lost We need to leave the office lost We need to lead as a servant But sometimes you look in people's got 3000 employees in their company and they say well I care for every single one of my employees Oh, it's absolutely rubbish. You don't know all 3000 employees in your business Yeah, but you do know the 20 people that are close to you If you pick leader you create the atmosphere But those three people that are close to you are creating the same atmosphere For the three people that are close to them and close to them and close to them When because I come out of the environment where we're sitting the fire department working emergency medical where we are very closely in that community Where you look out for the person next to you? You know what in the military in the army and the police We look out for the people next to us because when something goes wrong, they'll step at me and do it for us Yes in the corporate environment We actually get paid to Get people To do things for us We get the miners

Well, that's actually backwards, isn't it? Yeah, I should be Okay, you should get a bonus because you perform great Not because other people perform great

Oh, okay. Sure. That's not going to go down well in this country No, and that's why we already are because we are self saving leaders. Yeah, we are not servant leaders Okay Yeah, and the thing is nobody can nobody can actually challenge you on this and go listen mate What you're saying is not right because you are living proof that that that living the philosophy of the servant leader Um, it it impacts your bottom line in a very very positive way It does Because we are all about the profit. We're not about the people Yeah And they they used to change the second. We've got a new generation of people entering into the workplace Our generation is in And they are the generation that are post 9 11 They grew up in a war-torn party in economic downturn But i'm not the generation why a generation of these they want to see A change in the workplace. They are not there for promotion and titles They want to see change and if you either can't implement change or create environmentally people can change In sorry, you're bound to be out of business pretty soon Wow, okay. So now this is this is what what you're doing You do you do the the the corporate gigs as well But when we come back we're running out of time, but when we come back Not only do you run radical mobility not only do you do the public speaking?

I know you do a lot of uh of of other charitable work as well, but there's one specific aspect of what you're doing That I want to chat about because I just I just found this absolutely fascinating my special guest is entrepreneur and speaker uh seems to be author as well martin when we come back i'm going to talk about the author part, okay? Uh, and so we'll be turning to him a little bit about that i'm going to put him on the spot when we come back About the book, um and find out what the progress is there it is mix 93.8 This is legendary radio. My name is david. What's an absolute pleasure to be with you It is what's involved on this monday night. My special guest on the line with me Is martin brown who is uh an entrepreneur the owner of a company called radical mobility? You need to go and check out what they do. Uh, I said when we came back martin I was going to ask you about uh your writing. So let's start there because i've been hearing about this book for a while now

I thought you forgot about that

No, I haven't and uh, you know, um, I did I did I have to tell you this And I have to confess I did speak to mom earlier today as well And uh did a bit of spying about how the book was so, uh, she encouraged me to ask you about it Thank you i'll speak to you later

Well, i'm about half way david and i'm not trying to purely i'm a little bit stuck Because it's a very difficult period in the book writing. It's at that period where i'm in bed Contemplating what is why that um, i'm having it a bit difficult to put it down in words But yeah, i'm still like one of my friends basically said it's just Vomit all the words out and sorted out later That actually i've heard that advice before and then you know for certain things. I think it is it is very very good Advice is get it out there and sort it out But I can't imagine because now what you're doing is is you're going through the process in this book and you in fact reliving those those very very dark times as well because you know There are times when you when you when you're in a position like that I can only imagine that you you're sitting to suffer What is the point in going on and yet you found the points and and you made it your mission to do this and You know when you describe you working on the computer everybody goes, you know, well, it's easy typing a computer You need to remember that me sort of very casually going, you know, when are you going to finish the book? You have to type everything with your special stick that you have Every single letter in the book is topped with one keystroke with a Other with a stylus on a cell phone. Yeah, or with a stick on my computer All right. So, you know what? I think we'll be fair We will give you what what what do you think is a fair time?

I mean, when can we look forward to because i'd love to interview you about the book when it when you when you release it So so what sort of time frame would you uh, would you give it?

I'm I'm gonna say the time frame in stone houses. Yes. I like this. I like commitment now February done sorted because it's not finished by February. Yes

May the whole listeners of mix it and come down on me. All right We shall and we shall bring rotten fruit and veggies to throw at you like they did in the old days Um, listen, we are running out of time but very quickly because that's not all you know And this is the story of martin brown. Uh, every time I want to say something I just like but that's not all because you know how to look around and you decided that uh people in in less privileged areas in in some of the the townships of townships, etc etc You noticed there was a problem there and you decided to do something about it. Talk to us very quickly about that Yeah, the problem actually started running my work is coming to work late and Didn't actually get into the morning And this is not normal for him So I find out what the problem was in because in the rural areas sometimes it'll be just you for 10 hours Sometimes two weeks and all they've been have is one primer stove or one little gas stove to cook on So I sat and I listened to the guy's work the problem was but now this this goes back This speaks back to to this whole concept that we've been discussing this evening of the servant leadership because normally if you're if your employees are late or whatever the case may be the first thing you do is, uh, Um, you know we we we sort of you know blame them and shout and scream etc etc. You didn't you ask them what it was?

And you listened Yeah, we read from on we warnings and all those things There must be a problem and it was these guys couldn't get ready for work because it was no hot water So I searched around and I'm not going to reinvent the wheels. I found something called a rocket stove Now this thing is simplistic But you use this very little fuel and it burns extremely hot And it takes me about an hour to make it out of spread fuel that I have placed from building energy Yeah, so I thought about you know what if I can do this for one of my guys Why don't I start a thunder fund page And give people to sponsor one rocket stove We will build them and give them away so so okay, hang on people Is that around my factory? Yeah, because he saw shango those areas So it can help live And then in turn And maybe we can help us to shed lead power Sheesh I think I think it's amazing. So so you Are you've got this? Sort of like gofundme page people then donate and you said it costs For you to to put the whole thing together costs about 50 us dollars That's a case and let's put together deliver at the person Working walkable and then what does this mean to them because and i've actually seen this rocket stove in action It's phenomenal because they get to boil water There's a whole lot of stuff that that they can do which just it makes it a lot easier It's so much easier and really you can you put it down there It's so much safer and really the women and the children are usually the one that does the cream because the man's out working Yeah, so with all this traditional way of making fire They breathe in all this switch all the smoke The wood doesn't usually burn all the way through so you always lift a piece of wood where this rocket stove is so clean burning So hot that it does a traditional job. It takes two to three hours A dozen minutes and it also saves on the environment Because you're not chopping down trees to fuel a inefficient fire Martin I think again, this is this is mind-blowing what you're doing if people want to Contribute to this project. Where do they need to go?

They can go find us on our facebook change Everything is set up on there and from there. It will take an hour. It's just called jet stove Africa jet stove Africa on facebook. That's the thing to look for and Martin if people want to get hold of you, let's say somebody's listening. They want to get involved Maybe they they they need a wheelchair or know somebody who needs of a wheelchair. What is the best place to get hold of you? Like in these two places I can Go to radical mobility dot com Yeah, they'll find everything that we do there concerning disability and related products The one which was speaking gig they can find me at martin brown dot co dot zay And what i'm doing now is half of my speaking gig will go to the jet stove Africa project Oh, that's brilliant. So you you're just you really are putting your money where your mouth is. Uh, so martin brown dot co dot zay I'm going to give you that one. It's the easiest one martin brown dot co dot zay Martin before I let you go messages came in it goes awesome show as always. Thank you. David Martin is a very courageous and strong gentleman who reminds me that thinks that things aren't as bad for me as I may think Never miss a show. Thank you for your work. So so there you go And this is what it's all about though And this is the thing that I found with with martin is when you meet martin Well, I think it happens for most people certainly with me is I never saw the disability I saw the mind behind it in the sense of humor and and just the profound respect I have for what you've done martin Thank you so much for taking time out and having a chat to me Great. Thanks. Thanks for having me again. David Absolute pleasure. We will chat again in febri. I'm gonna hold you to that. There we go That was my special guest martin brown on air with me. Uh, you gotta check it out Okay, just check out the stove and everything. He does amazing amazing work and he's such a great speaker Speaking about great things coming up next I guess i've been I'll tell you when i've got him on the line, but i've been a bit of a stalker been trying to get hold of him for months Um, he is a man currently I think based in los angeles Uh gentlemen by the name of ian stanley If you are not really in the online and internet world, you may not know about him But you're about to learn a lot about what this man does and his philosophy on life because i've got to tell you it's absolutely vaccinating what he does and how he's accomplished what he's accomplished and uh, yeah to give you an idea He took tim ferris's advice about that whole four hour work week. He took that really really seriously We'll be back with ian stanley