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Hi, my name is George Abraham and welcome to Eyeway conversations. My guest today is Hein Wagner from South Africa. He is a global adventurer, a motivational speaker, a corporate entertainer, and a lover of life. Welcome Hein, good to talk to you.
Thank you for the invitation, George and it's good to meet you again after we worked out 24 years.
That is correct. 24 years ago, you had come to India with the South African blind cricket team. So let's start from there. What are your memories of India?
Wow, you know one of my biggest memories is, of course the Indians passion for cricket. You know, I mean, I was just so surprised that every sport shop we walked in, even if it's African blind cricket team, people know our bowling figures, our betting, they knew everything about us. So we felt like celebrities in India. It was an absolute incredible experience. And we managed to go through to the final playing against Pakistan. And all of a sudden, we had 15,000 supporters supporting South African team, all the locals in India. So that was amazing. What a great experience.
Hein, I was reading a little bit about you. And there's something very interesting that I stumbled across, you know, we all ask the question when we are blind, "Why was I born blind?" And in your story, I read that you found the answer to this as you lived and discovered life. So talk us through that.
Yes, George. I think like anyone born blind or who go blind later in life, I guess your question is always why, you know, why me you know, and you got lots of questions. And I guess for half my life I was fighting that, I was going to be able to see no matter what and you know, I was fighting something that I actually couldn't change. And the day that I literally accepted my blindness unconditionally was the day that so many opportunities open up for me because I could use the same amount of energy that I was using to be upset about blindness to use it to be positive and and see the world around me, experience the things wrong. But yes, it did take a few adventures to get me to that point. And I recall one particular was sailing from Cape Town to Rio with another blind friend of mine and a deaf Skipper, crossing the Atlantic Ocean, I just remember being in the middle of the Atlantic 1600 nautical miles on a nearest piece of land when I realized I'm so small in this amazing creation and I live in and also realize that I brought myself to this point being so far away from the nearest piece of land. If I can get myself here, I can get myself anywhere. But the one thing that I have to do is I'm going to have to change the way that I look at this obstacle called blindness and when I did that, it just opened a whole new world for me.
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And one of the avenues that opened up for you seem to be adventure. You seem to have had a lot of adventure whether it's on the sea or land or in the air.
You know, I don't think it was a born adventurer. But I was in my teenage years and living in Cape Town, you know, every sighted person keep talking about Table Mountain, this perfect picture postcard view. And as a blind person, I was like, wait, I need to find out what this thing looks like. You know, I mean, they're constantly talking about and it looks differently apparently every day. So by the age of 16 I've actually climbed that mountain six times on different angles to get a perspective. And as I said, I wasn't a born adventurer. But when I did this, I completely, totally, utterly fell in love with the smell of the fauna and flora, the texture of the inside of the Protea flower between my fingers and back then I said to myself one day, you know, if I have a real job, whatever that will be, I'm going to take enough time out to go back into nature to recharge, revitalize, and re energize my soul. And I guess today, my picture of Table Mountain looks a lot different to anybody else's. But I also come to learn it honestly doesn't matter. So that for me was a start into adventure. And one thing led to another and I got to sail the cape to Rio yacht race, which I briefly referred to. And I got the wonderful opportunity to play in this African blind cricket team. Obviously, they took me all the way to India to the first International World Cup which was an amazing experience. And then the adventure really started because I then got involved in doing triathlons. Still do it today. I ended up doing also full Ironman, which is a really really tough race. It's a real test of endurance, you know, with a 3.8 kilometer swim, 180 kilometers cycling on a tandem and a 42 kilometer run all in one day. But it also taught me so many things about my life. It also taught me you know, how not to give up because I guess, you know, in all of us whether it's blindness we all have a challenge in life you know, or something we have to deal with, something we have to accept and doing these adventures has certainly helped me to deal with those things, put them into perspective and have a great opportunity to experience the world see the world from a different perspective.
And also talk to us about the Absa Cape Epic the Mountain Bike Adventure, which is like the Tour de France in the southern African Peninsula.
Yes, George, I tell you, that is probably the toughest endurance race I've ever done. So what it actually is- it's a mountain bike race, a multistage mountain bike race over eight days, over 800 kilometers over the roughest, the toughest, the most treacherous terrain, mountains in and around the Western Cape. And there's a lot of technical single track and I found the organizers and I said, "Hey, my name is Hein. I want to speak to the MD of the race. He said yeah, sure. And I went through so I said, "My name is Hein. I'm blind. Is it okay?" He said, yeah. I just want to tell you that I'm coming to ride the 2011 race. He said, "what?" I said, "I'm blind". He said, "I heard you". I said, "Listen, I'm coming to ride the race next year". He said, "My Friend, let me just tell you something. Sighted people arrive, they break their arms, the elbows, their backs, it is impossible for a blind person to do this". He said to me even, "I don't think you can come and watch". I said, yeah well, okay. All in my face. So I just continued to nag him, eventually hr said you know, "you're so persistent, we'll give you an entry for free. As long as we can publish your story that you'll be the first blind man to attempt the impossible". I thought it was a ridiculous headline. But I also thought that if I'm going to put my mind into this thing, and we crossed the finish line, after eight days, it would be excellent media miles for the abilities of the blind. That's why I signed up for the stupid headline. So for eight months, this is how we trained you know, and we decided we're not going to do the single track, we have to complete this, carry the bike and run with the bike where we can ride will as hard as we can. So George, two weeks before the event, we got a call to say hey, there's another blind guy from Brazil coming to ride the race, he's a Paralympian gold medalist. So I just found my tandem partner said, "Look, I will not be the second block to finish the episode". But we did get through the race. But it was eight hard, tough days. But what an extraordinary experience!
This was 707 kilometers, I believe.
Yeah and it's 2000 meters of climb per day. So they say basically the height that you climb over those eight days is twice the height of Everest.
So Heim, staying on cycling, I also was reading that you did the solo cycle trip of 39 kilometers. And this was not a tandem bike. That sounds like again, let me use the word impossible effort. Prove me wrong.
Well, just let me tell you the story how it came about. When I was five years old, when my parents sent me off to blind school about 100 kilometers from Cape Town to boarding us, I couldn't believe that did that because I had so many sighted friends at home. Today, I know that was the best thing at the time because the school was really equipped for handling blind kids. Also, you know, catering for all the inclusive needs of the blind. So my parents were right and doing it but I couldn't believe it. So all I wanted to do was go back home and hang out of my sighted friends, but I had to stay at least for the first time before I could go home for five weeks because I'll never adapt to this area, new living environment if I'm not there, at least for five weeks as a five year old. So obviously I couldn't wait to go home. When I went home, the first thing I wanted to do was hang out of my sighted friends and as I got out, got out the car, my parents took me back home that first week and I was completely totally rejected by this little group of sighted kids. And I couldn't believe that and I was like what are they doing? What can I do as a blind person that will allow them to accept me back in the group, you know, we're all the same age, the only difference is I can't see. And I realized they all on their bicycles, I didn't even own a bicycle. My brother owned a bicycle. Five year old blind kids do not own bicycles Unless your parents are a little bit sadistic, you're not going to own a bicycle. But I took my brother's bike out the garage, and I started pushing it up and down the driveway and I decided I'm going to get on this bike. And three hours later, I'm still pushing this bike up. And I'm realizing I'm not going to be able to do it. And as I was about to throw the stupid bicycle down, a little voice in the back of my head said, 'Well, you take four more steps". And in those four steps, I could hear the clickety click noise from the bicycles gear, bouncing back at me from the pavement. And I could use that and focus on it, and I could hear it. And two weeks later, I was cycling in a straight line. Three weeks later, I was challenging those sighted kids and say, "Hey, do you want to dice me up keeping my eyes closed". Now, the reason I'm telling you that part of the story is 20 years later, in the very same town, I signed up for a race, a very very famous race in that town in Dumbo, for a 45 kilometer solo ride and the committee said, "you're blind, you want to ride solo, we can't allow this" I say, "Come on, you know, this is where I grew up, I know this area. And I'll put another friend of mine on a solo bike in front of me five metres, I'll follow the noise on his bike'. And that's how we did it. We just put a little thing on the spokes at the back and as his wheels turn and make the clickety click song. And we did that 45 kilometers in a reasonable time. They did let me start it before anybody else. There was about 3000 participants, so I got to go with about 20 minutes before the rest. So by the time I got back in there were still 2000 people waiting to take off, everything went well. When they announced that got the blind guys coming in. And you know, give him a nice round of applause. They all started clapping and I couldn't hear the bike in front, almost crashed on the finish line. But luckily we managed to stop in time.
Now, you know, we all run marathons, and you've run many of them. And, you know, running a marathon on flat ground in a city is bad enough. You chose to go and run and do the marathon at Antarctica. What's the story there?
Yeah, so it's always been a dream of mine to run a marathon on every single continent all seven, including Antarctica. So I applied in 2005. And I finally got a slot eight years later because there's only 100 people that can go once a year that do a trip for about 100 people. And you basically go down from the most southern city in Argentina, you cross the Beagle channel, Drake Passage that's the roughest part of the ocean, we went down on an older Russian icebreaker. And so we made it to the Antarctica. We did the Antartica marathon and it was tough because it was extremely cold though it was summer, it's chill factor of minus 20 degrees. So it was rather messy, no real road and it was extremely cold, you basically go on land with a boat to the zodiac and then you go back. There's no way to stay on the Antartica. So we lived on the boat for about 15 days on the trip around. But the interesting part was that the next day they were saying we're going to sail into Paradise Bay. This was the day after the marathon and I was like who in the right minds called the coldest place on the planet Paradise bay, what a sense of humor. When we sailed in the next morning, my cabin mate and my guide he was sitting at the window looking at the window and my question in the morning always what does it look like outside and he said, "I know you're going to ask me a question but I can't answer you today". I said "what do you mean?" He said, "no, I can't explain to you what it looks like because it is impossible. It's too beautiful." I said, "Come on. You have to be able to try at least." So he went on to say you know outside of the boat right now is a glacier which is probably 2000 feet high. And the perfect reflection of this entire ice mountain is crystal that the water is so clear. I can see all the colors, the perfect reflection. There are a couple of icebergs drifting past us right now where a few seals are having a good old sunbathe. And I must be honest, I felt a bit envious of the sight at this point, but what I didn't know is I was the only blind guy on the marathon and they arranged for me that they took a kayak in amongst those icebergs so I can get a feel for what it's about. And it was so they set me free on the Antartica, on my own on a kayak off I went and it was honestly 1000s and 1000s of tonnes of matric ice and snow around me, it was so extraordinarily beautiful. It was the first time in my life that I could actually hear the view. And I guess that in so many ways made that adventure one of the top ones on my list because it was extraordinarily beautiful and completely untouched by the human hand.
Incredible. Now moving on to another amazing piece of achievement that you had was the land speed record, the world record that you held till very recently. Now, a blind guy driving a car and that too at over 300 kilometers an hour. It's quite unbelievable. How does this happen? And I believe you had another madman called a navigator sitting next to you.
I became the fastest blind man on four wheels, he became the fastest backseat driver in the world. My first attempt was at the age of 45. And first of all, I did a bit of research. So while there was a British guy who drove 223, I thought that can be beaten. So I called up the Ferrari Maserati importers in Cape Town, I spoke to the CEO and I said, "yeah, I want to break the world blind land speed record, will you give me a car?" Have you won a fast enough to beat it? I said no problem. He said, "Are you sure it is for the World Blind land speed record?" He said, of course. So when he said yes, I got such a fright that I just put the phone down. So I phoned him the next day, and I said, you said yesterday, you know, we're gonna sponsor me a car. I guess we need to sign a contract. He said, "What are you talking about?" I said, "I spoke to you yesterday about the world blind land speed record". He said, "yesterday, my friend was the first of April, I thought you were kidding". I'm serious. So he actually sponsored the car. But it took me six months to get somebody to get in. So I found this guy. He ran a company Speed Record is a promoting South Africa as a land speed record breaking destination. So I called him he says, 'Oh, it sounds dangerous. But come see me face to face". And I'm already thinking waste of my time. But anyway, I'll see him face to face. So we started talking to him, we went for coffee. And he said, you know, how are we going to do it? I said. "I don't know but you must tell me where to go, you know?" And very quickly he said, okay, well, I've got a bit of a problem. I'm not so good to my left and my right. And I'm thinking I'm totally blind, did not understand, but he's like I'll stick it on your left, and I'll stick it out on your right hand. I'll see your hands on the wheel all the time. I can't mess it up. I'm thinking okay, maybe. George, five minutes into the conversation with him. I also realized the man has an incredible stutter. So can you imagine driving a 260 kilometers an hour and he goes lalalalalala, left, somebody's going to get hurt. That's when we worked out the system of numbers, where five is the middle of the runway, we say six I'm going too far to the righ, 4 I'm going too far to the left. So basically stay on five to stay alive. So yeah, we first set the record at 269 that was broken, smashed by a guy in Belgium at the year later by 308. We went back and reclaim the record of 322.52 kilometers an hour. And I can also tell you that my navigator is now completely rid of his stutter. We don't have to go back. But as you know that yes, it was broken. We did it in the SL 65 AMG Black Series in 2009. But it was recently broken by Dan Parker in a modified I think so the record stood for a while. But I have reached out to my fellow South African Elon Musk from Tesla. And I actually challenged him because his new Roadster is going to be over 400 kilometers and hours. Well, if you believe your cars are the safest that I should get into the passenger seat to me, so let's see if Elon would be willing to jump into an Eevee and tell me where to go.
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You started your career as a front desk officer or a front desk receptionist or whatever. And then you went into the IT industry and so on. And one fine day you decided to switch professions and move into motivational speaking. Why don't you talk us through this journey.
So my first job was at the bank yes, as a switchboard operator answering the phone and it almost drove me crazy because it was 950 times a day answering but I continued to invest time and energy into qualifying myself in IT. I wouldn't even think fixing the bank's computers at the time. But my manager still thought I was too blind to work in the IT department. But one thing led to another and then eventually I ended up working for a number of IT companies. And my last job in IT was actually for international security company SSL security company Mark Shuttleworth, a South African and at that stage, I was international sales manager with a huge decided team, massive quarterly goals. So yeah, so I did end up in working in IT and when I achieved that I felt completely empty and I couldn't understand why, I was like this was my I wanted to do this. I wanted to get the car, the home, the t shirt, the job, the cool job, the good pay, and that all happened but I felt empty and I realized that I didn't understand my purpose and in trying to identify my purpose, I guess, in a way, helped me ending up in the speaking business becoming corporate entertainer and a motivator because it was always right in front of me. All my purpose was to help people to turn huge obstacles into major opportunities because that's exactly what I did with my blindness. And when I discovered that it opened a whole new career for me. So at first I was speaking at schools, and then, you know, the parents found out that there's a guy that can maybe motivate them. And that's ended up being a career for the last 16 years, being able to travel the world, and have amazing experiences the world over, and working with leadership teams of multinational small, large companies. And it has also been a huge personal growth access. And you know, during all of this, I had to start qualifying myself during my article, all of a sudden, I had just managing 20- 30-40 people. So I enrolled at the Open University of London for a management qualification, you know, to make sure that I can at least support these youngsters, you know, from an HR perspective, from a business perspective and on a personal level on all levels, and support the business. And that foundation also helped me to understand the challenges that businesses are going through today. And you know, what kind of leadership context they need, what kind of inspiration I need to inspire this stuff. So that journey also took me back to India a number of years ago, where I had probably one of the most phenomenal experiences of my life. And also a huge lesson on the outskirts of Mumbai is a tiny little, on the cusp of one of the big slums, a tiny little school, where there are 40 Kids, these kids happen to be deaf and blind. When I spoke at this event, they told me about the school. So I went to the school, and I meet one of the teachers there who is also completely deaf and blind. He's been at the school for 55 years, he started as a eight year old deafblind kid, finished his schooling, went on to achieve a master's degree in education, gone back to the school is teaching fellow deafblind children. The man sits in front of an ordinary computer, a big screen in front of me, for anybody that can see his benefit. Look over his shoulder whilst he's typing on a normal touch type keyboard, I've got the braille display under my fingers, so we can communicate. And you know, my first question to him, given the opportunity to type on his keyboard was how on earth did you achieve a master's degree in education, you're completely blind and deaf, what a world. I can't imagine my world without being my entire experience is made up by audible cues. You know, the tapestry of the world is painted with audio, that's where it starts. So I was so fascinated. And he said, well, you know, we developed a tactile sign language at the school, where the kids can feel when they move their fingers, they hold my hands, they can feel what the other child is saying. It was just the most phenomenal thing and seeing this guy, experienced a guy with a master's degree in education. It just, I don't know, people ask me sometimes would you want to be deaf or blind? I don't know. But I can tell you this. I certainly don't want to be both deaf and blind. And that taught me the biggest lesson in life, that's the law of appreciation. Because we should all appreciate what we've got. Because there are hundreds and thousands, in fact, millions of people out there that are less fortunate than we are the things that me and you the things we take for granted. Someone else right now is praying for. And I had to come to India for that lesson. And it was a huge lesson in humility, and also a lesson that served me so well in my career as a speaker and absolutely everything that I do.
Hein, you are married to Monica, tell me how did you meet her and how did things evolve.
Of course, of course. People always often ask me, how do we meet. I say, well, we met on a blind date, at least half of us were blind. Right? I actually met Monica in Sweden, where I reside now in Sweden. I mean, eight years ago, I came to speak at a conference here. And we met at the gala dinner that evening. We just had a conversation and, you know, we chatted and there was an instant connection. And two months later, she came to visit me in South Africa. And as they say, the rest is history. And yeah, we got married a year after that. And yeah, we decided to start a family and my little girl is is now six years old. And interestingly enough, her name is India. I after my experiences I've had in your incredible country. I mean, back in when we won the World Cup for Africa, I already said to myself, if I'm gonna have a daughter one day, I will call it India. And it took me a very long time to have children because my blindness is hereditary. And with my previous partners, it wasn't for them. It wasn't an option to have children. But Monica, this is well, you know, who's going to be a better role model for your, for your child than you if it happens to be but it's not a guarantee that the child is going to be blind. And lo and behold, her eyes are perfectly fine. She's a very fit and healthy six year old and she's getting very witty and keeping papa very, very busy as a blind husband and father.
As a blind husband and father, what are the challenges? Of course you don't call challenges challenges, you call them opportunities. But what are the challenges that you found to create into opportunities as a blind father and husband?
You know, I was very fortunate due to the work that I do that I could actually spend them, COVID also forced us all to go back home and you know, refocus and relook at situations on so many levels. But I decided, because there are only going to be small young, so I decided to take some time out as well when she was very small, to spend a lot of so there's a very strong bond between me and her. But it's fascinating how, over the last six years, you know, she's started to grasp the fact that I'm blind. So initially it was very little understanding. Now she doesn't understand it 100% yet, but she does a lot better. I mean, it will be going anywhere. She's the one who wants to guide me, she knows how to do that and but she is so funny because once we say to her, you know papa can't see with his eyes, but he can see with his senses, and she heard she had sensors, so she thinks I've got very special sensors that she often says to me, you know, papa, from now you have to turn on or turn off your senses, you're not allowed to see this, you know, turn off your sensors. You know, we have a very special father and daughter bond and, you know, I guess besides obstacles in the house, she loves to leave the Lego on the floor, you know, our kids do you know, and she doesn't really care that papa can't see. So I was actually rehearsing for a corporate virtual talk a while ago, and I was walking around the house saying, just doing my opening line. I was born blind. But that has never stood in my way of living a full and adventurous life. And she shook me and said, Yes, Papa sure, but you keep walking into things all the time. She definitely has got a sense of humor for sure. And, you know, I guess as a dad, the two things that I want to teach her is and she's already getting it, she's grasping it, and it's already creating success in her life. And the two things my dad taught me was to be kind, and be generous. And if you can master those two, the world will be an oyster.
Wow, that's wonderful. And it's really nice, Hein Wagner that I could catch up with you after 24 years and spend this time talking to you. Thank you very much for accepting this invite to be on this conversation. Wish you the very best.
George, thank you. And I just want to use the opportunity to say a very big thank you to you for all the work you've done in blind related circles. I mean, you were the pillar of putting the whole Blind Cricket World Cup. I know you retired from the sport in 2008. But you put the whole thing together and no other team on the ground or local organizing committee but you were the go to and that experience has enriched not only my life, but so many youngsters and inspired blind youngsters around the world taking cricket to blind people and you were instrumental in making that happen. So just from my side, a big shout out for you for all the hours, dedication and devotion you've put into this.
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