Gerhard Moolman

00:01

So  that’s the moment  that you have to say,  I don’t know how.  The fact that I don’t know how  doesn’t have to deter you,  but I’m going to make it.  I’m going to take  that gap  and we’re going to  make this work. So that’s the economy of faith. There’s no reason for you to believe,  but  you know,  you have to believe.

00:33

Welcome to another edition of Expedition Business where we talk to inspiring South African entrepreneurs about the highs and lows of their business journey  and how on earth they manage to keep the flame of business adventure burning.  Of facing your day with a smile is sometimes the toughest thing you have to do.  My name is Christél Rosslee-Venter, your host and the one.

01:00

Lucky enough to be talking to Gerhard Moolman, mega adventurer  and entrepreneur. But before I introduce Gerhard to you, I would like to remind you to please subscribe,  like, comment  and share this podcast with as many of your friends and family as possible. Without your help, we cannot continue to share the amazing stories  of our South African entrepreneurs.

01:30

But back to why we are here today. Gerhard Moolman is the founder and CEO of ALTSA, the leading commercial and industrial LED lighting solutions provider in Africa, as well as the largest lighting replacement company in Africa. But as I say, in the commercials, that’s not all.

01:53

In December 2024, Gerhard undertook a solo crossing of the Atlantic Ocean covering over 4000 kilometers in his rowing surf ski. The journey was first of its kind and took 37 days to complete. Gerhard how is that you started with all these adventures of yours. 

Gerhard: It’s in your blood. I’ve seen many  adventurers and expeditionists and

02:21

All of these guys, they’ve got it in their blood. And so I think there’s a lot of people that’s got it in their blood that does not go that way. And probably because they’re too scared, you know, or life doesn’t present them with opportunities. So I, from a young age, I love to run over mountains, be on rivers.

02:49

And whatever brings me out there and give me a little bit of challenge. So my first very big expedition was in 2002. So I took a surf ski and I panelled from Cape Town and I panelled all the way on the east coast of Africa to a place called Lamu which is just south of Somalia on the northern coast of Kenya.

03:18

What an incredible expedition. obviously went most of South African coasts the Beacon Coast. Beacon is a very very long coastline probably 2007 kilometers. 2700 is actually a long time. It took me nearly three months and then Tanzania and Kenya. Took me half a year and hard work

03:49

But what an incredible opportunity. So learned a lot about life  and  myself.  Then after that,  for a long time,  I was yearning to do more adventure and expedition stuff.  And I eventually decided I’m going to do this cross-Atlantic  expedition.

04:17

I obviously, in the meantime, I did smaller things, know, just weak kind of expeditions, Madagascar, Mauritius,  Reunion, some very nice cycle tours.

04:37

But  the cross-Atlantic was  something that came up as a proper expedition.  I would never be the first guy. There was a German guy that did it in very early  1900s  already.  And subsequently, there were dozens of people that has done it. So I’m not unique there. What I wanted to do, I wanted to be the fastest man.

05:07

Breaking the fastest manpower record across the Atlantic was a big thing for me. Started off with a guy by name of Quinton Rutherford, that he was adamant we were going to go on a normal surf ski with a boat support. So that was going to be incredibly tough, but we thought we could do it in 25 days.

05:36

Having a supported expedition is very expensive because you have to have a yacht and you have to have a crew  and so that’s, you know, that’s expensive stuff.  And  my support crew then at once they said, look, this is a very bad idea.  And immediately I started thinking of Auxerreza. So in 22,

06:04

My company also sponsored Richard Kohler to parallel in Ossie-Ezer across the Atlantic  from Cape Town to  Brazil. So  I immediately started thinking in terms of Ossie-Ezer.  So I went down to Cape Town and I got into Ossie-Ezer and I took it for trial run on  the ocean.  And I realized …

06:34

Oh, this thing is not a great thing for paddling. It’s just too heavy. And I started putting in a rowing mechanism. Anyway, long answer. 

Christél: So it doesn’t make you faster so that you don’t have to do all the rowing yourself. Well, the rowing mechanism is you’re doing all the rowing yourself, but it’s just the reason why rowing is better than paddling for such a heavy thing is,

07:03

your legs is just so much stronger than your arms. So when I started off doing a gym exercise with my legs, I could only push leg press 120 kilograms and I couldn’t even get to 50. So after a year, I managed to do 400 times 50 leg presses. So, you know, I managed to get my legs very strong. Your legs are just so much stronger. You know, if you compare that to your arms,

07:34

I can’t even do 50 presses of 40 kilograms like this.  So you know, my legs are literally 10 times stronger than my arms. So you’re not paddling only with your arms, you’re paddling with your whole body.  But still,  if you want to do that, rowing is the right thing. And  so I converted Ossiereza into a rowing vessel.

08:04

Christél: Which makes it slightly easier. But  a question that I have is obviously in between all of these expeditions of yours. You’ve got a business to run. How on earth do you manage keeping everything together?  

Gerhard: That’s you on the money. That’s a million dollar question. So not easy. Not easy at all.

08:33

The that I’ve got is a medium-sized lighting business. It’s busy to do lights. It’s not easy. mean, you literally have to sell  thousands and thousands of lights every month to pay for the bills. So there’s about 60 people directly employed and on contract basis probably another 150 people.  So it’s quite a big show.

09:01

business is not what it should be, we battling, so I’m under pressure  and  you know  I literally had to fly, jet  to Cape Verde, get into the boat, to race across the ocean, fly back, get back in front of my computer and even that

09:29

I had to make sure it was December, which is off time.  I had to have Starlink with me, so was on my laptop every day and see that the things are running okay. Over and above that link, I had to take care of my business and making calls and steering things in the right direction. So it definitely wasn’t easy. To my credit,

09:59

or not I work too hard, spend too much time  working.  In other words, I’m not balanced enough. So this was really great to do this thing.  And I learned a hell of a lot about,  you know, just everyday concepts of  driving a business and what it, you know,

10:28

characteristics that it takes to really get successful. 

Christél: Okay. If you could choose  to  not  be busy with business and just be  doing your adventures every time, every day, would that be an option? 

Gerhard: Absolutely, absolutely. So

10:56

Something that I’ve got,  exploring is an incredible thing for me, you so you could  paddle  the  Arctic, know, you could paddle around the world.  But  to be fairly honest, what is interesting about the sea is the nature, the birds  and the fishes. And I was very fortunate.

11:25

Atlantic to have an absolute abundance of that. But what is more important is civilizations,  know, mainland. So  a bicycle is a wonderful thing, you know, you can use there. So

11:45

can see there is history  and  very interesting stuff lying in civilizations that’s maybe today still there or not there, but it’s things that you can discover. So that really interests me. So you can go right across Africa, South America,  Asia and discover these,

12:14

these types of stories  and these  massive stories to be told. Anyway, so that’s a personal interest of mine.  Lost civilizations, if you want to call it that way.

12:31

Christél: Okay, so how much time does it take to prepare for all these adventures? Because obviously you have to spend time in the gym or wherever you do all your exercises. It doesn’t happen on its own. How do you fit spending time exercising, preparing in with your daily business routine? 

Gerhard: It takes a lot of energy and it takes a lot of time.

13:00

Takes a lot of money. Let’s take Cross Atlantic. So firstly the vessel. Just to build the rowing mechanism in. Took a team of people, professional engineer and other people. They all had to be paid, had to be designed, had to be built in. Once we’ve got this thing built in, it wasn’t working. It took me a year. I had to bring Ozeza up and it’s a big boat to, you know, to

13:29

I wrote to bring it  to Johannesburg from Cape Town. I’ve put it in the water by Emmarentia Dam where I’ve paddled.  I had to take it in and out probably 20 times. That by itself is a massive job. And  only after a year, very shortly before I  sent it in a container, I got it right. Over and above that, you know, the food.

14:00

You know, the preparation for myself, food. You’ve to go to dieticians, you have to buy the stuff, you have to pack the stuff. Body preparation, you know, go to gym for a year. Mental preparation. I didn’t have proper time for that, so I kind of lost. I kind of lost the program there and I had to rebuild it onto a…

14:29

So it’s not a cycle tour where you take your bicycle and you put it on a plane to  Mozambique and carry on from there.  It’s taking a lot of time and planning.  And you know, if you haven’t  been  there or haven’t done  a similar expedition, it takes a lot of  effort.

15:01

Christél: And where do you have time left for business? 

Gerhard: It’s trinities to say the least.  Unfortunately, I don’t have a big family, but I’ve got a girlfriend and as you know, relationships takes time. So I’ve got to work very, very carefully with my off time, know,  and you know, I have to please explain quite a lot, know, so.

15:26

That’s perhaps not a good idea for you to be talking about the next expedition right now. 

Christél; So, you have to manage the girlfriend, you have to manage the employees and some way your bank account needs to be filled to pay for all of these things. 

Gerhard: Correct. 

Christél: How on earth do you manage it? 

Gerhard: Well, you need to have good people, you know.

15:56

to be able to trust people to do  the job that you’ve employed them to do. The reality is businesses  is  a chaotic environment. If you look inside, and you know from the moment seven o’clock in the morning that you get in front of your laptop  until you close at 11 o’clock at night,  there’s a lot of things.

16:25

that goes right and there’s a lot of things that goes wrong and that’s any businessman.  You know I think  the dreams of Elon Musk of having a great idea, know just things happen you know and then he quickly designs rockets and then it goes and it’s all fine. You know even  Elon Musk said you know being in the leadership of a business

16:54

is dealing with the problems. So my job is to deal with the bad stuff mostly in the business and see how we can mitigate risk and make right what is wrong. And through all of that, we have to make money. We’re fortunate that we are basically in the energy industry. So lighting is…

17:21

is energy, you’re consuming energy and if you’re using good technology like LED you’re saving a lot of energy. So we managed to do some good business by putting new technology into the place of old technology and that kind of pays for itself. I wouldn’t say that the lighting business is easy business, it is…

17:51

It is a congested space. It’s got a limited size to it. So everybody inside the spot of lighting suppliers are getting squeezed. There’s a lot of companies that do not lighting companies that do not make it past five years. There’s a lot of them. There’s only a handful that can say they’ve been around for 15 years. And that very fact.

18:21

tells you that it’s not an easy space and most certainly for us it has not been but technology  is on our side and we have to use that to make the world a better place. Think if you view the business of taking technology and using that to make the world a better place.

18:48

it will naturally propel you forward.

18:53

Christél: It sounds like  you can mitigate  any problem that comes your way. That you never have those feelings that you just want to run away.

19:08

Gerhard: We all have our days when we want to run away.  We all have that moment. Let’s run away. I think life is really about the moments  when you want to run away and not really so much about  what… It’s good to celebrate, but the forming…

19:39

and to deciding factors in life is where we feel really pressured. So I have turned, coined the phrase in my last expedition, economy of faith. That’s the moment where things go so badly wrong that there is

20:09

no reason to believe that you’re coming out of this alive, well and happy. You’re going to either die, you’re going to suffocate, you’re going to come out on the other side badly scarred. You know, you’ve got no way of thinking how this is going to work out well for you and the people around you.

20:42

There is a  very small sliver of light,  but you know, we can’t have can choose to see that small sliver of light or not and then take the gap. So that’s the moment that you have to say. I don’t know how, but the fact that I don’t know how doesn’t have to deter you, but I’m going to make it.

21:11

I’m going to take that gap and we’re going to  make this work. So that’s economy of faith. There’s no reason for you to believe, but you know, you have to believe. And quite often in life, you know,  we don’t have an option, you know, what does quitting mean?  What does quitting mean?  Quitting is just…

21:39

not an option you know so  you can you can take it different

21:48

turn off, you can decide to close your business down,  you can decide to make interrelationships, you can decide to  sell something.  So we’ve got options  that we can execute, but  quit, quit is actually an extremely dire term.  And so,  you know,

22:19

think the question is rather how strongly do you believe in the future? How bullish are you about the future?

22:31

And that’s the Wilton’s around being bullish or bearish. We’ve got that in markets, we’ve got that in businesses. And when you’ve got a business and you don’t have the ability to see a bright outcome, then it’s difficult. Because what drives that business then? If you don’t have the ability…

23:00

see the stars,  then you’re not even going to hit the treetops. So economy of faith  is a big thing when you do expeditions  and it’s a big thing in business.

23:21

Christél: Just thinking of your whole concept of economy of faith sort of reminds me of the fact that you come from a minister’s household.  Your dad was a minister many, many, years ago before he sadly passed away.

Gerhard: It was a long time ago. I grew up in a very religious house.  And yeah, what a great privilege. It was a good place to grow up.

23:51

Yeah.

23:53

Christél: Okay, but it sounds like you can go and inspire a whole congregation still today. 

Gerhard: You know what, if you’re a religious guy, or I’m a religious person, if you’re a religious guy or a non-religious guy, we all believe in something.

24:23

And so the themes that I’ve got as a religious guy is quite often relevant  to people that believe in a different way from myself.  So I absolutely believe in divine intervention  in  many ways, you know, but…

24:53

person that’s non-religious, you know, he would interpret that as  the universe  or just the world.  He believes in the structure of the world,  you know,  and I would be able to argue with an atheist. say, well,  that structure in the world comes from a mighty being.

25:23

And he says, no, no, that’s just the world.  But a lot of these concepts of faith and belief and economy are faith. It’s universal.

25:35

Christél: Okay. Gerhard,  when you are out there underwater, what extent does your faith help you to push through when you want to give up? Or is that not an option? There is no one to come and collect you in the middle of the ocean? 

Gerhard: Maybe I can perhaps tell this story.  So I got closer to South America and I…

26:04

see there was these massive gyres which is the circular current. So you have to navigate very carefully through that and I jumped into a specific place in one of these gyres and I basically a conveyor that carried me and I got my calculus wrong and not to my credit my bootcress who you know he was a very good

26:33

a scholar engineer, he helped me with navigation. I probably didn’t listen well enough.  And I got… 

Christél: Have you ever listened to him? 

Gerhard: And so I got into a wrong place. I got into a very wrong place.  And  on the evening of the 31st of December, he said to me, you’re not going to go to the end point. But what that actually meant at that point was this expedition has failed.

27:03

You’re not going to finish. So the prognosis at that time was dire. I got myself in the wrong place and I had to,  instead of taking  two or three sips of Jack Daniel’s whiskey, I had to get out in the cold, get into the paddling seat, paddling right through the night. And I did my calculations and it meant that I’m going to have to paddle for three days.

27:33

Constantly.  During the second night, an interesting thing happened. I was just looking at the compass and it had to be on north. If it goes a little bit more west, if I started going west, then it wasn’t good enough, then I had to pedal harder to keep it at north.  And I heard this voice saying to me, don’t worry, you will go to Cayenne. That’s the place where I’m planning to go to. You will go.

28:03

And I just, there was absolute no reason for me to believe that I’ll be able to make it, you know. It is physically impossible. I was blown over.

28:20

A current  that I had to stay in by the wind and I got into the  wrong place and I you know I just so I heard this voice said don’t worry you know it’s going to be fine and what it actually meant for me there was a there was a great story by uh by Gary Kirsten our cricketer

28:49

before he hit his double century. It meant to me to surrender because you’re not in control. So, you know, I’m a strong guy and I can pedal for three days, but you know, there’s a limit to what I can do. And so, you know, that’s meant to surrender. You know, if you’re a religious guy or not a religious guy, you know, there’s a

29:18

place  where you got to realize  you’re not in control, you got to surrender.  And so that was a, you know, from a  religious point of view, that was a great lesson for me  to understand what it means to surrender.  And on day three, something happened. Just

29:47

instantaneous. I managed to put a seed row in and I anchored myself in the water and the wind didn’t blow me anymore and I my trajectory changed and I managed to get to where I wanted to be. So that was a wonderful lesson for me in terms of economy of faith. So there was physically it was totally impossible. It was just not

30:17

It was a David Goliath situation. And  it  worked out  well, you know. And so that same principle  I apply  in business now.  You cannot see the outcome here. It’s not going to be positive. We’re going to crash.  But if you…

30:47

If you surrender, you could close your business  or you could  turn off and say, look, I’m not going to be able to make it. Let’s just, you know, let’s just stop this project. Let’s not carry on.  But, know, there’s points in life where you got to, you got to have economy of faith. Obviously, your emotions tells you this is, you know, I cannot carry on your emotions really plays on you.

31:16

And I think  that’s also  a point where you have to say.

31:26

My faith?

31:30

and  my goals and my objectives are bigger than  my current  emotions. Because we human beings, make decisions quite  and act quite often based on our emotions. So, you know, we’ve just got, we feel very bad about it. We feel  totally demotivated and desperate.

31:59

And how do  you see the sun through the mist?  You’ve got to believe that the sun is there, you know, and you’ve got to carry on until the sun breaks through the mist and then you can see.  But that moment  is the defining moment  where  you say, well, my faith is big enough to

32:29

carry me through this  critical threshold, carry me across the Rubicon.

32:39

Christél: And I suppose, and you sort of said it as well, bringing all those experiences back to your business is so vitally important. And it sort of, I think, sells the fact that you’re away so many days on all your adventures to make it okay, because you’re bringing all this wisdom back to your business. 

Gerhard: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

33:06

I think it gives you a little bit more…  If you do these type of expeditions, it gives you a couple of things.  Discipline, mental discipline, because if you sit and row or paddle under very tough conditions for eight hours a day,  you got to discipline your mind.

33:34

because you could say, well, the only things that you’re experiencing is exhaustion and pain and boredom, or you can manage  and discipline your mind to think about positive things.  when you start mastering that, you realize that…

34:01

your mind and your thoughts are serving you and not the other way around. So quite often we’ve got these fears and we’ve got these worries and you know and so we kind of delve into that and it becomes bigger and it mushrooms and then we start making decisions on that. Whereas you say listen I you know I’m very disciplined  in  how I think about things.

34:31

You’ve got to be very positive, obviously, and positive energy attracts positive energy. And I’m a firm believer, you know, if you put that positive energy out there, then that attracts positive energy. I mean, that story about speaking words of love to water, and then you freeze it, and you’ve got the beautiful crystals, and then you talk back to the water, and you freeze it, and it’s got this…

35:01

disorientated patterns, you know,  is that a phenomenon that I’m talking about? Putting out  positive energy.  Dale Garnighi  wrote a beautiful book about how to influence people, make friends and so forth.  And you see the people very quickly.

35:30

your employees, if you’ve got positivity  and  inspiring  action and words, then that shows very quickly on that side.  If the things goes wrong and you get anxious and you say, who did this?  Then that’s the natural reaction, right? But that doesn’t always

36:00

grow the business to where you want to.

36:09

mental discipline you really learn during these expeditions which you have to bring home and employ in your business.

36:22

Yeah,  these lessons that you learn about stick with the program, you know. So we’re going  to Cayenne.  You’re not going to turn off because of bad conditions and then go to some place in Brazil where you’re going to have bigger problems. Stick to the program and let your goals drive you.

36:52

Instead of let the world drive you, let your negative thoughts drive you, let your goals drive you. That’s very, very key questions in the business world.

37:10

Christél: But something that comes out quite strongly is your goal to get to Cayenne. And I think a lot of the times in business it’s sort of a… in Afrikaans we talk about a mochtrof where you don’t necessarily have a specific goal, you just see how it flows. But without that goal, without having that end destination, you cannot plot your route.

37:37

Gerhard: Yeah, so  defining your goals  is obviously one of the most important things  in life.

37:51

I firmly believe that…

37:58

We need to let ourselves drive by greatness within ourselves and greatness in the world  How do we contribute to to the world so? When you have got goals. You need to align those goals to that  And for each person that is different. When I took on this expedition I said number one.

38:28

I want to go and broaden my mind. I want to really see the world once again from a different perspective.  Learn, learn from the fishes, learn from the sea, learn from  big philosophers that talk to me by an audible where I’m going.  And so that was the most  important  goal.

38:57

Yes, I wanted to get to Cayenne, but what did I want to achieve by getting across the ocean to Cayenne? There was another very important goal of mine. I wanted to be the fastest man across the Atlantic, so I wanted to break the human-powered Atlantic crossing record, extremely COVID record. Many guys…

39:26

big portion of their lives  in order to get this record.  And  I was  well within reach of the record.  The boat that I had, the vessel that I had was probably my biggest tool because it was fast.  It’s  a narrow little boat, one meter wide, where

39:56

The normal vessels the guys row in is about 1 meter 41, 1 meter 50, which, you know, it just makes a world’s difference. They go in luxury. This thing is all but luxury. You’ve  got three places for your feet to stand  on the cockpit. You know, it is  really very uncomfortable, but it’s fast.  I’ve had other things that…

40:26

went for me.  Good navigation,  working with currents. I’ve got good data about currents and winds.  I’ve got a  very, very effective row mechanism. So the row mechanism drives a propeller on the bottom of the boat, way more efficient than all.  So I was in line to break this record and I, you know, I did everything to do that.

40:56

After seven days into the expedition, the one component that I didn’t have a spare of broke. It was a drive shaft. And  I ordered the drive shaft spare, I didn’t drive in time and I thought it’s fine, know, how can the drive shaft break? It did break. And then I had to make a decision very quickly. You know, you can cry about  your goal that you didn’t achieve.

41:27

Because at that stage I had  to  let go of my goal to break this record. It was a big goal, but it wasn’t my biggest goal. So I had to let go.  had to say, now we’re priorities here. We changed the goal. We focus really just on what we’ve got. So I had to take a pedal and I had to pedal it again.

41:56

make some changes to the boat, and I paddled it all the way to the finish  in a very good time.  37 days,  you know, I needed six days. There was other things that went wrong with my navigation skills.  That was three days,  the resistance in the boat  that was there, too much weight and  other …

42:26

that grew onto the boat that I didn’t manage well.  There was another two days in there. So  it was well within reach, but I needed to shift, move the goalpost a little bit. I needed to say my objective, my goals, is going to move. So I had to make that  move. It was reality-dictated that

42:55

It’s just impossible at that stage to go for something  unattainable.  And when I finished at the end, I got the big prize.  I wanted to.  I got back as a liberated person, I  set my  entire…

43:19

frame of reference.

43:26

mental equilibrium, I brought that back to where I wanted it to be. you know, and after all, inspiring people, you know, I think that I was I was blessed with that, you know, I had a great following and I had great media coverage. And so I think there’s a lot of people that that got something out of that. So. Yeah.

43:55

I was a happy man at the end.

44:01

Christél: You’ve also raised funds for Doors of Hope.

44:08

How did that go? 

Gerhard: Very well. So Doors of Hope, just very quickly background on them. They look after abandoned babies. We’ve got a massive problem in this country. We’re sitting here daily with  dozens of babies that die because of abandonment.  You know,  it perhaps speaks to  a broken set of morals  in this country. Broken

44:37

value

44:40

that we’ve got.

44:44

There’s a big story there, but the fact is that…

44:50

social issues like baby abandonment is big in South Africa. You know, the differences that the door of hope makes is to take a baby that was going to die,  you know, and now they  take it to adoption. Most of adopted babies, they are future  graduates.  So massive difference,  you know, that it makes to  people’s lives.

45:21

So I said just this is a fantastic beneficiary. And we looked at different guys in that space, doors of hope were doing the best job. So we set target 200,000. Through the website, we did 170, but I did a black tie gala dinner. We did probably 70,000. There’s a

45:49

different pledges that came from different avenues that went directly to the Doors of Hope. So we probably over 300,000 at this stage. So it was all in all a very good success. 

Christél: Wow. And lots of PR, extra PR for Doors of Hope. 

Gerhard: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. For them it was incredible PR. think that was probably the

46:19

The biggest factor for them, the PR that they received out of this was massive. I did probably 10 TV interviews, lots of radio interviews, newspaper, probably 15 articles. So they got great exposure.

46:46

Christél: Fantastic. Gerard, as an entrepreneur, because this is essentially an entrepreneur podcast, if you could do anything different, if you were 20 years old and you could make any change, what would that be? 

Gerhard: No, I would have started earlier being an entrepreneur.

47:16

You would remember right after varsity, I had a  business  in George called Towerkwas. It was just painting, contracting. It wasn’t massively successful, and I thought I’ll have to use my engineering degree to  just get some engineering exposure, which was right. But I…

47:45

I then stuck it out for probably 15 years before I went into  my own business. So when you build a business,  it takes a long time to build this thing, you know, and some of these things just take time. And if you started earlier in your life, you know, you would have been further. So

48:14

No regrets,  but some of my very energetic years I spent working for other companies  and you know telling banks how to run their business and they didn’t listen in any way so why didn’t I do it?  

Christél: I’d like to come back to you say in your energetic days, but it sounds like you still have lots and lots of energy.

48:44

Gerhard: You know, they say,  they always say to me,  know,  it’s like  life is like a bicycle ride. You know, it’s uphill until you get 50 and then from 50 you hit straight road, level road, and then from 60 it’s getting downhill. But guess what? When I got 50, the incline got steeper, way steeper. And so, you know, I’m just, I’m thoroughly believing I’m just starting to

49:14

starting to get momentum.  So that’s part of energy.  That’s part of energy.  And the way that you feel, if you’re low on energy and you’re physically not feeling great, it’s very difficult to  pump energy into business.

49:42

It’s very difficult to make positive decisions. It’s very difficult to  feel positive and to make people around you feel positive.  So, physical health  is massive. That’s one of the only real assets that we’ve got.

50:06

Christél: Fantastic. Gerhard, do you ever get time to read?  Or do you just listen to audios?  

Gerhard: I like audible because you can listen while you’re driving and so forth. But I like reading. I like reading. There are some very interesting books that I… Any specific books?

50:36

Gerhard: Yeah, but there’s a couple of books that I’ve done  on this expedition. The one that  I liked  that’s  relevant today is William MacAskill, What Do We Owe the Future? Wonderful philosopher. so talks about, you know, what is your contribution to this world?  And then  how is this world behaving?

51:05

going forwards.  He says that, know, homo sapiens sapiens must think as a race, we must think in terms of billions of years. Whereas, you know, lots of people think of the homo sapiens sapiens as something with a very short lifespan because we self destructive.  But we got to get out of that mind frame, we got to get into a mind frame of

51:36

We’re doing very well. Life is,  the world is a much friendlier place than a hundred years. It’s a much better place to live than a hundred years. So we’re not doing badly, but we’ve got,  you know, we’ve got limited time to  get to a place where we are really sustainable. So I think sustainability  is a very relevant topic in all businesses today.  I’m for that.

52:05

I’m in sustainability business. So I really like that.  something totally away from business that’s relevant  today is  the history of Jerusalem by Simon Montefiore. And  it just talks about the brutal history of Jerusalem, you know, the wars that’s been fought.

52:35

Jerusalem. Hundreds, hundreds of wars, know, it’s a very interesting place. And now today once again  we’ve got a war there. So that was just from the side note that was interesting.

52:57

Christél: If you had any advice for entrepreneurs that want to combine their love for adventure with business, what would it be? Follow your dreams, do what you want to do because your days are counted. It might be 140 years but do

53:24

what you want to do because you know when you get to the place where you  don’t have the physical abilities you you’re going to be your basket is going to be slightly empty so if  you want to do  expeditions there is nothing more rewarding in life than doing  an expedition might it be a  bicycle tour

53:54

for a week, might it be the freedom challenge  or  walking the Camino trail.  You’ve got to set your targets for that and do your adventures in life.  It’s  for  South African entrepreneurs in general,  technology.

54:22

Technology, technology.  We have to operate outside of the borders of South Africa. The only way that we can do that  is to be more clever than the rest of the world. So we’ve got to  employ  technology. And I think everybody agrees that AI is  changing everything.  The world was  one of the biggest…

54:52

threat to  almost sapiens today is stagnation.  That’s contrary to what we believe because we think, oh, we developed so fast. that’s truth is,  stagnation is a great threat to us. And I turn that around.  And  that’s really going to, in many ways, I believe is going to play a role  in

55:22

Uhhh…

55:25

changing technology and driving technology in future. And us, as South African entrepreneurs, needs to get our confidence back and go and play in the international arena. We’ve got a… Unfortunately, the reality is the South African economy is a stagnating beast. So…

55:54

growing inside a stagnating economy is difficult. In a growing economy like  Australia, that’s easier. So, you know, it’s not easy for South African entrepreneurs.  But the one key that we’ve got is technology  to open those big coffers that we’ve got internationally.

56:25

And we’ve got incredible examples in South Africa  of businesses that’s gone out internationally and competed internationally and dominated certain market sectors.  So we know it can be done.

56:46

Christél: Well, I think if you can row over the Atlantic Ocean Anything is possible.

56:59

I suppose also I love your concept of the economy of faith. In the end if you have your economy of faith  the world is your oyster. 

Gerhard: Exactly.

57:18

END

Christél: What  an insane testimony of grit, determination  and  faith.  But it makes me wonder what would  you do to live your life to the maximum?  What would be your biggest goal that you still want to achieve and what are you planning  to do about it?  Please share your crazy goals with us in the comments below.  The winner

57:45

might just walk away with a year’s subscription of an adventures mission membership where you will receive online training, online coaching and a whole lot more to ensure that you keep your business adventures going. But until we meet again, don’t forget to be awesome.