Walking Across Africa: A Mission of Hope for Sustainable Water with Paul Brown | 016

Paul today, we welcome Paul Brown, founder of walk for water, Paul is currently on an extraordinary journey, walking across Africa to raise awareness and funds for a new model of sustainable water wells. As a former US military service member turned global humanitarian, Paul is activating worldwide support through immersive storytelling and movement building, his mission goes beyond awareness. He's empowering local communities with tools, training and technology to create lasting access to clean water. Paul's walk is more than a physical challenge. It's a testament to what's possible when love, faith and determination combined to solve one of the world's greatest needs. Hello Paul, welcome to leading with purpose.

Thank you, Mark. It's very kind words. So grateful to be here and for your friendship and leadership.

Thank you. I really appreciate you being here, and for me, it's 10am in Orlando, Florida. I'm just getting started with my work day. Where exactly are you and what time is it? There?

4:11pm, here, as we say here in Africa, 1611 and I'm in northern Botswana. For the past three months, we've been walking across Namibia, and we just crossed over and completed that country this morning, and walked into Botswana and processed customs, and I walked out the gate and up this hill, and about then a customs agent drove up to me and jumped out, and he said, he said, let me see your passport. Showed him a passport, and he said, Well, look, you can't be walking here. There's too many lines and Mark, I almost blurted out, was a beautiful place too. I almost blurted out, well, but you should get back in your car then. But I've decided not to be a jerk people that are looking to save my life. So he said, You should walk back down the gate. And I told him, my friend was down there. He'd pick me up. So I did, and no lions ate me today. Oh, my

God, Paul, that is so funny, because my very first question I wanted to ask is, How did you and Evans spend your day today? And I was not expecting such a fun story.

So I told the humans the other day, because we get we get so behind on posting on social media. And I said, I said, it's hard to like, we don't have the best connectivity. And like, three or four epic things will happen in any given day, not every day, but that could easily happen in any given day. So how do you post all this? Anyway, we'll post what we can when we can.

Well, you had me on your podcast recently, and just were warning me this morning to let everybody notice. Hey, you might hear some crazy noises going on. This is you showing up walking across Africa. So, Paul, what inspired you to take on this incredible challenge of walking across the continent of Africa, and how did you decide that this was the way that you were going to bring attention to the global water crisis

Being criminally defrauded of like, $1.5 million that I didn't have? So a friend of mine back in 22 raised a whole bunch of money, including his own and anybody he could get money from, all the while, his partners were deceiving him. So he was he was unwittingly deceiving us. And that came out later that year, and then we found out about it following year. What about 200 of us got, got for a collective 30 to 50 million and my part in that I didn't have it that was borrowed money. I didn't grow up this way, but as I learned business and hired mentors, I became very aggressive and in my stance towards borrowing and doing business so And ironically, that debt ended up de risking and protecting me in the long run, but that was that was obviously a challenge, and it wasn't as the fallout wasn't as bad as like it might sound, or as it could have been, but still, at the end of 23 I felt a little stuck and stopped in my life purpose, which is fixing the world's water problem in this generation. That call was given to me back in 2016 but I felt stuck in that and in my business, and so I was I was sick a few days after Christmas, towards the end of 23 I was on Facebook. I saw a map called the longest road in the world to walk, which stretched from Cape Town South Africa, up to Northeastern Russia, and people were clowning Africa and like, saying how you wouldn't make it. And I was like, actually, be safe from the continent. I've been there. And I thought about, I was like, Well, you know, I like the Africa part of that. I've loved working there. That's where probably half of folks are who. I'm here to serve. I'm here to help get water, and that's where I'm the happiest. So I wonder, could I walk across it as the biggest thing I could do to get unstuck and and push my life purpose forward? So then it just it evolved and grew from there.

What an amazing story. And I know we could go deep into a lot of that, and maybe we'll get a chance to go deeper into some of the background. But really, I love looking forward at what you've created and how it's evolved. It's amazing how, when you put yourself out there, and you show up in your purpose, all the right resources show up, including some of the challenges. And you've you've faced quite a few challenges going into this track. How far are you in? How long? When did you first start?

Started on we started walking on June 3. I got my first injury on June 4. So day two,

I shouldn't be saving your injuries. I apologize, Paul. I'm laughing with you.

No laugh at me or with me. I don't care. I just, I like to laugh, and I like for you to laugh. So that's fine, no. And I actually think it's funny and absurd that a guy that wants to walk across the continent get in gets injured on day two. But that's life, and the way, here's how I like to tell it. That afternoon we went after I got injured, we went and we watched the last Mission Impossible movie. And we had been wanting to for a while, and we just happened to be in swaka Moon, which is an ocean town in Southwest Africa, in Namibia, that had a theater, and it was playing that movie, so we wouldn't watch it. And I remember watching the movie and being like halfway through it. So, man, I used to hate these movies because, because Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise and the Mission Impossible franchise, they'd stress me out, because they already have this impossible mission. And then, like, while they're trying to do this impossible mission, like, two or three things go wrong to make it even harder, and people are opposing them, and stuff like that. And then it dawned on me, and I don't, I don't believe much in entertainment, and I don't watch very many movies. And one of the reasons is, is because I really get sucked in, like, I go all in on on the experience, you know, so, so, but it dawned on me during that movie, I was like, well, they put that in here, because that's how life is. You're set out to do this really important thing and hopefully, hopefully so big, it scares you, and then it's not only already impossible or just very challenging, some jerk, you know, makes it even harder, or you run out of money, or you get injured on day two of a of a year and a half journey. So I just kind of chuckled at their creative genius and how I was living that right now. So a day or two later, because we're resting up thinking, well, I'll heal up in four days over the a long weekend. This happened on Wednesday, I'll be good by Monday and on Friday,

evens who had hired I'd hired to drive and assist and advise me. Actually, I didn't hire Myers dad. His dad couldn't do it, so he sent his 25 year old soccer, soccer coach, son, mechanical engineering son as his replacement. Well, so Friday evens is like, Hey, Paul, I can, I can walk back to that spot, that last mile that you couldn't do, where you had to stop, because you, we both knew, if you kept limping through it, you're just going to damage yourself further and walk that last mile for you. And can I do that? And I was like, yes, thank you. Even. So, while he's out there, he WhatsApp me this video, and it's one of my favorite lines from this experience, is it's him taking a selfie video, walking in this beautiful scene with these just massive pyramid looking sand dunes on the one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. And, I mean, it's an epic highway right there, but he has this video selfie, and in his accent. He was the walk for water continues. And so I was like, All right, you got it even. And I texted him back, all right, waterboy, which is my nickname, but because mentors like you have trained me on delegation and not coming from ego and scaling, I was like, well, waterboy, and this walk is more powerful if it's not just me and if it's not all about me. So over the weekend, I still didn't heal up, and I was like, evens, I'm really glad I never said you're I've never called you my driver, and I've never said you're just my driver, or treated you like that. It's like, because now it looks like you're going to walk for me and I'm going to drive for you, at least till I heal up. And so that worked. And then we got admin, you know, we were told you need permits for this. So we, we took care of that. Two weeks later, I still healed up. I was like, why am I taking so long to heal up? Like, this is not even this is inexplicable. Because I'm i. I'm not a couch potato, you know, I haven't done anything this long, but I I've been working out for, you

know, more than a decade. And it dawned on me, I was like, I think that God is probably caused this injury and also hindered my quick healing. So I would realize, no, it doesn't need to go back to I'm walking and evens is driving for me, it doesn't need to switch again. We need to both do it. We need to switch every day, several times a day, to where we're both walking and driving for each other. And that's the kind of scale and optics that and involvement and local, you know, local involvement and empowerment that the water movement is about anyway, the only, the only kind of charity and water movement that will work and and take hold.

Well, what a beautiful slave could be set up for me, Paul, because that, I really want to excuse the pun, but dig in. My didn't write that integral nouns. I know that a lot of organizations out there, and there's so many, I've been seeing a lot of Mr. Beast, a very famous Youtuber, and his mission now to bring this awareness. But your mission focused on sustainability and training locals to maintain them. And this is very much like what you were just talking about, the conversation, where it's not just about you and it's always you've always been about and we'll get more into servant leadership, but the idea that it doesn't have to be you, and then that goes into exactly the model that you're teaching. So tell us a little bit about more about the sustainability and the training that you're bringing to these locals.

Thank you. Mark, so in 2016 at my first real estate investors Conference, which is all about, if you're doing it right, scaling income and freeing up your time. It's to me, that's the point of it. It's not about making money or getting a bunch of properties or drywall or two by fours. It's all about freeing up your time so you can do more and help more people, and that's what it's been for me anyway, first real estate investors conference, I was heard a very clear voice, Paul, you're going to take care of this water problem in this generation. And I can explain a little further of the four thoughts I had at once when I was given that challenge. But the short story is, I accepted it knowing well, I don't have the resources, but that's not really my problem, but that that calling that challenge caused me to build a better real estate investors business than I would have, because I took more action and risk with the weight of well, if I don't do what I'm here to do, a billion of my best friends might die or get sick for something that I already have and kind of take for granted and that I'm here to help them, them get so so, you know, the new caused me to build a business that mostly freed up my time and and in 2024, years later, I was in my commercial banker's office, and In walk one of his clients, and my banker goes, Hey, Jim, you should meet Paul here. His life purpose is getting water to the poor. And Jim said, well, buddy, I run 1 million wells, and we do just that. So we talked, and I found out what they're about, and I started supporting them, and he invited me with them to India and African nations to well, even trained me locally on the method and invited me overseas to work with them. And then I got sciatica, so I was laying on my friend's living room floor for like, six weeks. Couldn't move because my left side was basically paralyzed, and I was in excruciating pain and wondering if I'd ever walk again and and and that's one of the

reasons I don't get too mad about these injuries, is a lot of them are residual from my bout with sciatica, because most of them are on my lower left side. And so I'm like, Well, this is frustrating that my left foot's still numb and that my left calf and hamstring they lock up, or they get tired, or they're they're not as strong as my right side. But then I'm like, but this is better getting injured once a month, or even once a week is better than not being able to walk. So I'm like, All right, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll take where I'm at. I'm okay with it. I'm just glad I can walk far enough to say, Evan's help you start walking. And I'll, I'll drive. But at any rate, when I got back in shape, I went with 1 million wells to Malawi and Uganda in early 22 and what I knew, but I saw emphasized in the field, was that 1 million wells uses a philosophy and technology that impact that educates, equips and empowers locals. And when you when you do that and make it about them, it's one, scalable. It's too respectful of both parties. And three, there's dignity there. And when you've got scale. Scalability, respect and dignity, then so much more work can get done, because now we're not showing up there with cases of water or like, one time we got, we got into a village and somebody said to me, Oh, I'm so glad you're here. This is a great this was, I think this is in Malawi, but one of the locals like you're, you're going to dig well for us. And we said, No, you're gonna, you're gonna drill a well. We're gonna do it with you first one or two, and we're gonna leave, and you're gonna have the knowledge and the equipment to keep doing it. So when I saw that, and I saw how, how much from ego, 1 million wells, people were not coming from, meaning they were making about the process and helping the people, not about, oh, our precious method, or, oh, what we did. You know? I was like, All right, I can dig this. And then I saw locals like modifying the

method and making it better. And I asked the founder, RC, Crawford. I was like, actually have this video. It's one of my favorite videos. It's got Ugandans in the background. I was like, RC, they just changed your your patented Crawford drill. How do you feel about that? So how I think it's great. They've been doing this 1000s of years. They know what works here. That's what we want them to do, is improve our methods. And so I was like, All right, this is great. So I learned their methods. I train with them whenever I can. They're like a, they're like a, a mother slash sister organization. So I'm here to bring awareness for what 1 million Wells has done and is doing. And then when I'm able, when we're able to use those methods and it makes sense, then we certainly will train folks on how to get their own water. Right now, we're not so able because we're in the equivalent of a of a Camry. So this is our support vehicle, which is packed with all our stuff, because that's what it takes just to walk across the country and sleep on the side of the road, you know, four or five days a week. But the hope is that when we're properly funded and the water's close enough to the surface, we get 1 million wells, or some other locals that we've trained with 1 million wells to meet us, and we do more water projects now, I believe in lots of toolkits. So two weeks ago, a week or two ago, we were injured me, and even so, we took a long weekend to recover in a guest house, kind of like what I'm in right now, inexpensive, but, but nice. I think it's really nice. It's like they use this just beautiful Safari paradise, tropical decor. But, um, we're healing up. And he cleaned out the car, reorganized everything, and when I got, you know, just took a moment to slow down and get out from under the dust and the disorder, and looked in my suitcase, which I rarely go in, and remember, Oh, we've got all these filters, and now we're not in dry country anymore. We're finally near a river,

and we're about to be near two or three rivers. So we went into Angola last weekend. We walked in and we walked out. We didn't do much. We weren't there very long. But that guy stopped us on a motorcycle, and Angolan told us we were lost, and drove us to safety, into a place where we could find a hotel for the night. And I said, call him, text him, no matter what, no matter what we'll get. We're if he can't come tomorrow and meet us at the border, we'll and us train him on on how to use these water filters to filter the river water. Then we'll find we'll go in there and we'll find somebody, or we'll meet one of the guards. We'll find we're, no matter what, we're going to make it happen. We've got enough water filters. They last a lifetime. We can train these people, and now they can have clean river water instead of dirty river water. So it's not the perfect or most awesome solution, but it's still, it lasts a long time, and that water filter, one water filter, can provide enough water for 150 people per day. And for me, it was about sitting still long enough to have the realization, oh, there's something you can do here before you move on. And it doesn't have to be the biggest thing that you could do or that you'd want to do, but I can, we can do something. So we we train them, we send them back across the border with two buckets and two filters and and then following day or later, that day, we met a guy who had just showed up and started and was walking across Namibia for a day with evens. We met up with him and trained him as well. And then he sent us pictures of him going to various villages that were drinking just this nasty water, and training them on it, and leaving one with them. So it's good to have more than one tool, because not everywhere can we do a borehole, and not everywhere can we benefit from the water filter, but use what we can, while we can

Absolutely beautiful and. And again, we've talked about the model in that it's not you going out there and doing the work, but bringing in the communities and education and the resources are there. You use the word servant leadership. I use the word soulful leadership. I believe they mean very similar things, if not the same. I'm curious, just from you, the show is leading with purpose. What is leading with purpose mean to you?

It means just about everything. I was walking and talking with myself yesterday, and I was examining some of the sacrifices I've made and will continue to make in my life, and evaluating some of the pleasures and freedoms that I have and privileges and gifts that I've been given, and I'm very I'm so grateful God's been so good to me, and almost everything that I can think of, at least recently, that is Something that's really worth doing, and I'm really excited about, and it's really powerful, traces back to living and pursuing my specific purpose. And I believe everybody has an a specific purpose. I believe we all have a general purpose. You know, everybody's here for a reason, firmly convinced of that, and for for all of us, there's some similarities, but also believe that each and every one of us has a specific purpose, so specific, I call it an assignment, and when you're living on assignment, and so for me, that assignment is fix the world's water problem In this generation. And I think God gave it to me in that way. Because if he would have said, Hey, Paul, help out with a water problem. Well, I was already doing that, and that's, it's not really all that inspiring. Or if he said, you know, fix this water problem, but you can't or fix this water problem, but they'll fix it in 3000 years. Like, well, that's not very motivating or inspiring, you know, but to hear take care of and take care of this water problem in this generation, it's like, okay, well, that sounds like 20 years, and that sounds like an impossible mission. Let's go.

Just look at that before, when you talk about this being your assignment, and what is the thing, when they give them the assignment mission, impossible. What do they ask? This is the this is your assignment. Should you accept?

Should you choose to accept? And what's interesting there is that never, at any point in that series is Ethan or anyone else forced to take an assignment again. They never turn it down. And that's that's kind of my view with of God too, and my view of purpose in that we're never forced. We're never forced to do good, and we're never forced to find and pursue our purpose. We're never forced into an assignment. But the faith get made so apparently high to us that through that recursive invitation of this is your mission. Should you choose to accept it? You have to accept it, not because you're forced, but you just, you can't say, No, there's it's too much riding on and it's too fun.

That's great. I love it's too much riding on it and it's too fun. That's great. So Paul, for those that are listening, who may never walk across Africa. What's one action that they can take right now to be part of the solution and bring clean water to communities that are in

Thank you. That's a great question. To keep it simple and singular, I would say consider donating $1 per month to to what we're doing here, to what me and evens are doing. You can go to water dot work, or waterwalk.co it's going to redirect you to the same place. It'll link you to the donation page that will keep you connected with what we're doing. I'd love to hear from you. You can respond to the newsletter, and you'll get it. I read every response, every comment, and sometimes it gets lonely out here, but every now and then, you know, people will respond, and I'll respond like back as soon as I can, because I want them to know. Now that was really encouraging. I thank you for that, but yeah, to answer your question, just to reiterate, go to water.org find the donate button $1 a month. There's a reason why I use that number, and that is this, solving the water problem, solving the world's water problem. That sounds huge, right? They even joke about, like, Oh, we're not trying to solve world hunger here. Like, if you're in some business meeting about the most and

Their horrible problem could possibly be we're not trying to do that

Right well, and there's this assumption that it can't be solved. Sometimes people even misinterpret the Bible and theology around that. But I'm not talking about making everyone the same, like we all have decisions to make, and we're responsible for our own lives. So if Mark. Wants to live in a really expensive house, and I don't like that's fine, like, when I walk down these, these Namibian streets and now Botswana and I see grass huts or grassroots like, I don't feel sorry for like, it's like they might be more free. They might have a more free life than than many folks that have these nice houses. So I don't judge or impose my standards on them. However, water, access to water, whether you're walking across the street or you've got it plumbed into your house, that's really important, and when you don't have it, now we're looking at disease and death and wasting all day and maybe even danger to go get that water. So that's why I'm so passionate about it. But, um, I get that it sounds like a really big problem, like solving the world's water problem in this generation. But here's the deal. It's like a it's like a two to $20 billion problem, and that sounds like a money too, until you really think about it. And so here's what I mean for me, and mark here to put our bank accounts together, we still probably won't have two to $20 billion and you, dear listener, probably not two. But here's the thing, just to, just to put that into some scale, and I'm naming, I'm not shaming or blaming, but Americans spend like $12 billion a year on bottled water. It's nothing wrong with that. They should keep doing 12 billion, yeah, on bottled water. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. Keep doing it. Nothing wrong with it. It's bottled water. You want to drink your bottled water. I do it sometimes. I'm part of those Americans spending the money on the bottled water, but I'm just, I'm just putting it in a little bit of conics. But more importantly, I'll say

this affects, probably in the worst way, about a billion people. So if it could be solved for two to 20 billion, and it's affecting a billion now we're talking about saving lives for two to $20 a head. So that's why I say donate $1 a month, you could be potentially saving a life a month. Maybe it takes longer, so maybe you're saving a life every two years, but now you're involved in the water fight. I'm not letting this go, like, I'm, I'm gonna Ethan Hunt this and like, stick to it no matter what, until we get this water problem solved, and then we'll, then we'll work on something else. A message is, yes, it's a big problem. However, there's a lot of people that do have water, that do care, and getting involved in a little bit of way. That dollar a month will keep your awareness of it, because it'll your bank account or your checking account or your credit card or whatever, and then you'll say, oh, I need to encourage that guy. Or let's see what they're doing, or let's pray for them, or let's send them some, some well wishes, or whatever you might do, and I will appreciate all that. So will even and so will all the future water boys that that join us on our wall.

And I love that again, you're talking about $1 a month 12. $12 a year is more effective than the $20 just as a one time donation, if you're not getting the newsletter and you're not getting the reminders, and not sending you positive love and all the people that you're affecting, if you were sending out that positive energy, and that's one of the things you're talking about, that monthly piece keeps you connected. And people could do $1 they could do $5 they could do $20 you have donations where it's $100 you can actually show what the different levels and the impact that it has, but it's whatever commitment level moves you and makes you feel like this is something that is significant, and even $1 for a lot of people is significant. But if it doesn't feel significant, do five or 10 and amplify that impact. Well, thank you, Mark again, going back to the monthly thing, this is a way for people to stay involved energetically and to remember that things are going and I really appreciate that. But one of the things that you said is that each of us are assigned our own mission, and world's water problem isn't everybody's mission, but this is one way that you can be a part of that, for anybody who's still looking for their assignment, or maybe they've heard their assignment, it's been whispered, and it might have you've been yelled at, but there might be resistant. You understand the resistance that comes with hearing the assignment, especially the resistance in your head. Is there any kind of guidance, inspiration, motivation, something that may have helped you that you could pass on to the listeners to help them get the courage to take the assignment,

Several things and that that's such a great question mark. You know, they say, I don't remember who said it, but I think it was Brian Tracy, if I'm misquoting. Oh, well, but the quality of your life will be determined by the quality of your questions. Such a great question. First, I'll say the biggest single thing you could do to increase your happiness, income, impact, wealth. Yeah, and self respect and self worth would be to find and walk fully in your purpose, your assignment. Now, some people are like, well, I don't, I don't know what it is yet, so I can't really, I'm not just going to make it up and I get it. There's, there's exercises you can do to zero in on it, or at least to get closer. But I'll say two things. One for the person who doesn't know it yet. For me, I found both my why, which is my purpose, and my how, which is the method. Just was primarily 1 million Wells who I continue to train with, volunteer for, partner with all that. But I found both my why and my how in the normal course of doing business, taking steps to get educated, to build my real estate investing business, and then later on at the bank, building relationships with one of my bankers so that I could borrow more money to build the real estate business. So Martin Luther King says that faith is taking the first step without seeing the first I mean seeing, seeing all this the steps in the staircase. He said it better than me, but you know that you know, and you know, it's just like you would never lit you'd never leave your house saying, Oh, well, once all the great, once I get in the report that all the lights have turned green, then I'll leave my house. No, you just go. And you might get stopped by some but they'll turn on the way. So if there's something in business for you to do then, and you think that it will provide value, and therefore, through that value and through that service, now you can make money and provide some freedom for yourself. Go for it. It

may find you along the way. Now notice I did not say if you're passionate about something, and there's something you love to do, and you'd always wanted to do this, then go build a business around that. Because, for the most part, that's kind of a terrible idea. People get confused. Love what you do with do what you love. And so if the market's already saturated with something you love to do, that may not be the best thing for you to build a business around for for a variety of reasons that I could go into it another time. But so the point of business is to provide value through service. So if you figure out that it's by selling something like this, like no one ever said, Oh, I love, I love retailing or wholesaling, you know, electrics or electronics. Like no one's passionate about that, but if you're providing service, and it's therefore making you money, and now you're getting financial freedom, and you're able to help more people, now you can really start to like that. I'm giving a silly example because, I mean, you're probably not going to go and sell chargers, but I'm just demonstrating the point. Take the step in something that you think could provide value to your community, to the person who knows their assignment and knows their purpose and hasn't gone full bore into it, what are you doing? That's the second thing I have to say. That's the thing I have to say for you. What are you doing? Like, don't waste your life and don't sit there and say, Oh, well, it's just so much safer to do a when you already know that b is working and B is either in or supportive of your purpose. The third thing I'll say, because I don't want to confuse what I just said with this next point, which is really strong, and that is a sustainable business, and I would say sustainable capitalism. By the way, a lot of times people slam capitalism and they're slamming perversions of it, or they're slamming people doing it in a silly way. But all those systems of economics

have their have their challenges, so whatever, but capitalism works really great when you're when you're loving everyone involved, and you're not just benefiting the shareholders, but all the stakeholders. And when you're doing something like, Hey, a certain percentage of of this business's revenue goes to support X charity. By the way, I know a charity or two that can fill that gap in that sentence if you're interested, but that's not why I'm bringing this up. I'm bringing this up to say when you are able to do both and pursue your business and your passion simultaneously, and build both simultaneously, not without distracting each other. I'm not talking about multitasking, but in the same year you're building both, maybe even in the same month, you're going to skyrocket both. You're going to skyrocket your business and you're going to skyrocket your your passion project, or humanitarian aid, or whatever it is. And then the last thing is, you don't always have to reinvent the wheel and start from scratch, and you shouldn't. Most cases. So even what we're doing the walk is bringing attention to 1 million wells method, and what 1 million Wells is already doing, and it's now an organization, you know. So I'm giving praise and glory to them, not myself, and I'd love to always be able to in every village, stop and do what they do, but that's not the reality right now. So I'll focus on what I can do, which is we can walk. We can meet people. We can see what rural Africa is really like. Show the world when we find needs. We can showcase it like jatani, who we met two or three weeks ago in a walking four hours with a baby on her back, carrying 180 pounds of water, not at the same time, but like, relay, the 90 pounds wore me out. I don't know how she was doing it, but you do both. You grow both together. Both are going to grow faster than if you're like, oh, I don't have any money or income, but I'm going to go save the rainforest while I get rained

on, and then a month later, you have to come back and because he appears your income is not sustainable or, well, you know, I'll just, I'll work hard for the man for 50 years, and then I'll be able to retire the richest person, the old folks home and, and what, what have you done with your What have you done with your purpose? So do both, but no multi does it work?

That's a beautiful answer to both very deep questions on living your life purpose. I hate to go back, but I think it's really important, because you brought up something that reminded me of a question we asked earlier. And again, I love the background of real life on the road, you mentioned the dollar a month. And for people that are donating, that might sound like a lot, but for some it might, it's not selling anything. But no matter what people are giving, they're always wondering where the money's going. And this is something that you've made very clear. Is none of the money that people donating are going into food in your mouth. They're not, you're not that. That money is all going kind of into the mission to be able to do what you're doing. Can you kind of summarize that before we say goodbye,

Got two commitments. One is like a forever commitment. One is a I've been able to keep it till now, and I want to keep it for as long as I can. So when you deal with a nonprofit, so servant leadership Charities is an established eight year old, 501, c3, I didn't do much with it for the first seven years, but, you know, I did what I could now. It's, it's what's used to raise funds for this mission of walking across Africa to raise awareness for water over the next year and a half. So when somebody donates, it's a tax deductible donation. And there's certain requirements that the IRS and also zeffy zeff.com is the lending I mean, the donation portal requires just for you to have that designation in the first place. But usually five, one, c3, is nonprofits a certain percentage. It's usually between like 10 and 40% goes to admin or overhead, and what admin is is like marketing so they can raise more funds and salaries so they can make the business keep running. And I'm not judging that. There's nothing wrong with that, like the organizations have to exist and grow and people have to eat and and pay their rent and their mortgages. But what God's blessed my business to be able to provide for my life, and also some, some also through some injury sustained wells in the army. So my life long, forever commitment is that I'll never take, I've never taken, and will never take a salary or pay from this waterwork, and that's whether it's through my organization or some other one. And then the second part is that I want for as long as possible and as much of the admin costs, like, you know, marketing, or if there's some kind of non mission related admin cost for what we're doing. I want my self, my business, to pay for that too, so that, just like you say, people can see a higher percentage at this point, it's 100% is going to the mission, instead of my salary or the admin work. So now, with my goal of raising in the next year to $6 million and

then ultimately billions to fix the water problem. Like, there probably is going to be some admin costs in there, but even at that point, I still won't be taking a salary, and I still want to keep the admin as low as possible so that when people donate, they're like, all right, it's efficient as possible. I've even toyed with like converting my business to some kind of like donating houses that the business controls to a separate nonprofit so that, so that ultimately the business and its assets can can fund the admin you. Yeah, and then people will be like, Well, I hate this house anyway. You know, instead of selling it to some investor, I'll donate it or sell it cheap to the Water Foundation House Project or whatever we come up with. But at any rate, when you're when you're open and, oh yeah, I haven't shared this with you, but recently, sometime in the last year, I committed to, like, non ownership. So I don't, I don't actually own anything, and I'm not looking to to own stuff or increase my ownership or my assets. I'll steward what's, you know, under my control of steward. But when you work with friends and you cooperate, and you're not making things about me and my and, you know, how do I get more monopoly cards? And how do I how do I raise my net worth, which for all prices? Just so you know, we're all prices, you can do a lot more.

Do a lot more. Oh, Paul, this has been such a beautiful, beautiful conversation, and I know it's just the beginning, like you left a lot of open loops there that we can come back to. I definitely want to have some more episodes. We want to hear how the journey is going. I know you'll be coming back into this days, taking a break on that to attend a couple of our events. You mentioned your website. I'm going to put all the links below. But could you say your websites again for people who do want to donate monthly?

Yes, I'm going to say the link that will redirect you. Then I'm going to tell you the website so you're not like all freaked out when it redirects you to the right website. But the easiest thing to hear and type in is water dot work. Water dot w, O, R, K, all right, I will redirect you to servant leader charities.org, which maybe you caught that. But it's easier to type in water. Dot work.

Boom, Paul, I love you. I appreciate you. Thank you for being such a wonderful role model, for leading with purpose, and I look forward to talking to you

Mark, thank you so much. Love you too.

Bye for now, and thank you keep shining your light. You.