In 2001, Paul Brown was diagnosed with a rare degenerative eye condition. All at once, he was faced with having his driving licence revoked and a future with a less than positive prognosis. However, rather than let it hold him back, he’s gone on, with wife Nicola, to build his Kleeneze business up and achieve many of his goals – most recently a gruelling 100km trek through the Sahara!
“Both Nicola and I worked for a large travel agency, but after our son, Niall, was born, I started up my own travel company from home,” explains Paul.
“I needed an extra £50 a week, though, to help with funding advertising for it, so I started to look around for something to do part-time. That’s when we found Kleeneze.
“Within the first full period of being in the business, my cheque was £216, which set out for our objective of £50 per week. We knew then, straight away, that the business worked and were really pleased with the results. We started to put more focus into Kleeneze in order to increase our income and slowly started dedicating more and more time to it. Ultimately, we had to make the decision whether to carry on with the travel business or concentrate on Kleeneze. Kleeneze won.”
There were challenges, though. When Paul was 37, he was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), a rare condition, which affects the retina and causes loss of vision, eventually leading to blindness. Some of the symptoms Paul suffers with include night blindness, patchy frontal vision and he also struggles with depth and colour perception.
Determined not to let it hold him back, Paul became very creative with working his business.
“I was becoming very clumsy, tripping over things and having trouble following things like the flight of the ball at football. I went to see my optician and he referred me to see a specialist and that’s when I was told I had RP. It was quite a blunt diagnosis. I was told I’d lose my driving licence and eventually go blind. I’m a positive person and at the time I was loving life, travelling and having independence, so it was a traumatic time.
“For so long I was in denial and didn’t tell anyone about my condition or ask for help. I have always been a focussed, determined individual, but all 3 fundamentals of the business – retail, coaching and sponsoring have their challenges.
“I started to retail on foot and then, when cataloguing further away, Nicola would drop me and the books off on her way to work and I would walk or get the bus back. When collecting the catalogues, it would be the opposite way round – I would walk or get a bus to the village with my empty bags and slips, then collect all the books and leave them in a hidden place for Nicola to collect at the end of the day when she came home from work. I would plan my banking to coincide with my straggler collections and catalogue drops in town as you have to be organised if you are walking everywhere. I clocked up to 10 miles per day doing my retail.
“I’d have to plan my appointments around when Nicola was available to take me and we’d take our baby, where Nicola would feed and change him in the car while she waited. And in the winter, my days were shortened so I had a limited time to retail as it was too dark by 4.30pm for me to see at all and get around safely.”
Nevertheless, Paul continued to build his business, going onto qualify for Miami and achieve a personal best cheque of £2,800. But it was a personal challenge closer to his heart that was his next goal.
“Unfortunately, there’s no cure for my condition at the moment so I really wanted to do something to help the charity RP Fighting Blindness to help not only raise money for treatment, such as stem cell therapy, but also to raise awareness.
“The charity were looking to encourage a group of visually impaired people to do something extreme that sighted people would probably find difficult. So it was decided that we’d do a trek in the Sahara. It came up last year in May 2013 and was scheduled for April 2014. With Kleeneze being flexible, it was easy for me to take the time off.
“The trek itself was 100km over four days. On average we were trekking for 11 hours per day in extreme temperatures of up to 40 degrees – it was like a furnace. The terrain was very diverse and difficult. The other demon we had to conquer was drinking water, it had to be chlorinated and after a while it would make you physically sick having to take the water in, but we knew we were losing a lot of body fluids throughout the day. We had to consume up to 5 to 6 litres of fluid per day.
“When you’re focused and determined to do something, nothing will stop you – I learnt that through Kleeneze and self-development. There were very tough moments during the trek I where thinking ‘what am I doing here I can’t continue’ but something just gets you through. The last day physically seeing the white tents, when we camped in the evenings, in the horizon it was very emotional for all of us because we’d actually achieved something we’ve found very tough and very rewarding at the same time.
Paul raised £1,200 for the trek and now has more extreme fundraising on the agenda, including Kilimanjaro!
“The beauty of being in this business is that I’ve done most of my fundraising through Kleeneze friends and a lot of my Kleeneze customers were very supportive and generous in their donations towards my charity trek too. Kilimanjaro is one of my goals – I want to do that within the next couple of years while my sight is still at the state that I can.
“From a business point of view, my goal is to consistently earn £4,000 every 4 weeks and also be able to experience the overseas destinations with Kleeneze.”
As Paul still has some frontal vision, he’s been more than low-key about his condition and has rarely asked for help. Through Kleeneze, though, he’s finding his story of determination is inspiring people throughout the Network, although he’s still surprised as to why!
“It doesn’t matter what challenges you have – we all have our own challenges. The main thing is you need to share your story, because it could help other people. Through raising more awareness for the trek, speaking out at meetings and talking to my colleagues and friends, I found it was inspiring them. It does surprise me, because I think I’m just a normal person, I just have to be more creative and more determined to find my end goal. It’s all down to goal setting and having that focus. If your goal is big enough, you’ll find whatever resources that are necessary to achieve it.”
I think I’m just a normal person. I just have to be more creative and more determined to find my end goal
Paul’s tips:
• Always involve yourself with other like-minded people – they will help to keep you on track. Never try to do it alone and be open minded.
• Self-development is fundamental in this business, because all the lessons and guidance you learn from the events, books, CDs and training will stay with you forever
• Be a student of life – listen – strive to be a better person today than yesterday
• Don’t take your eyesight for granted
• Embrace and learn technology it is there to help you develop new skills and make life easier
• Never underestimate the influence of your peers
• Walk with pace and posture
• Sponsoring, plan, prepare and put into action
• Remember, this business is a marathon not a sprint, focus on the future but celebrate your achievements so far – a daily to-do list, plan, prepare and enjoy the journey
• Always retain your sense of humour
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