Announcer: 0:00

The following programming is sponsored by Marc J Bernstein. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of this station, its management or Beasley Media Group. Entrepreneur, founder, author and financial advisor, mark Bernstein helps high-performing business owners turn their visions into reality. Through his innovative work and the Forward Focus Forums, mark connects entrepreneurs to resources that fuel their success. Founders Forum is a radio show and podcast where entrepreneurs share their journeys, revealing the lessons they've learned and the stories behind their success. Join Mark and his guests for a mix of inspiration, valuable insights and a little fun. Now let's dive in. Good morning America.

Marc Bernstein: 0:42

Good morning, America. How are you today? This is Marc Bernstein, this is Founders Forum and we're working here out of Southwest Florida at the radio station of WXKB. We're here with Roger Marley this morning, our producer engineer, who I don't always say his name, but we really appreciate his efforts, and I have in the studio this morning Arnie, who I'll officially introduce in a minute, and David Calderwood, who I'm doing that we like to keep it real, so we had some things. David's name is Calderwood, which is how I would always have said it, and I did. But then all of a sudden I thought, well, maybe in New Zealand, where he's from, they say Calderwood, and. But then all of a sudden I thought, well, maybe in New Zealand, where he's from, they say Calderwood.

Marc Bernstein: 1:26

So we had to we the rare edit to our last show that we would do with David. So just, uh, just keeping it real here, guys. So anyway, uh, we're going to get right into it. I have a quote to start the day and it kind of. I had them both in the studio before for David's show and this seemed like a great quote and it's attributed to Dan Sullivan. I'm sure he's not the only one that ever said something, but it's a version. I know of other things, but he said all progress starts by telling the truth. So, Arnie, as today's guest, I'll ask you first what that means to you.

Arnie Eastburn: 2:01

The truth, I think, is what's real, what's authentic. Um, that truth is truth. I don't know how else to. How else to?

Marc Bernstein: 2:11

describe it. That's that's good, David. What's your take on it?

David Calderwood: 2:17

the truth it is. The truth is what people want it to be in a lot of cases, and it's not necessarily there's no good or bad, it's just what it is.

Marc Bernstein: 2:31

So you raised my question is like how do you tell the truth these days? I mean, it's always been the case, but with social media, with the proliferation of social media and AI and all these other things, it's really getting harder and harder to distinguish. I mean, to me, facts are either true or they're not true. Opinions, of course, are subject to other things, but there are certain basic things that are true or not true. But we're in the world now that's been quoted as alternative facts and facts that fit the situation that may be different than what we might consider to be the real truth. How do you determine that we don't have to answer this? I don't think there is an answer, Unless anyone has a brilliant idea you mentioned.

David Calderwood: 3:16

AI and I just wanted to touch on that because I was just reading an article last night about AI being used in advertising and they're already signing people up for their likeness, creating multiple images of them and making giving like a two-year contract where they can use their image and create whatever ads they like for them and you cannot tell them apart from regular images or videos interesting and well, and and so it begins right.

Marc Bernstein: 3:49

So I'm sure we'll be hearing a lot more about that. As promised, I will now introduce our guest today, Arnie Eastburn, who is co-founder and president ceo of Mozambique Inc. That is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing clean, safe drinking water to communities in Mozambique. With over 376 wells drilled across the Zambezia province, his efforts have improved the lives of more than 451,000 people. Arnie's mission, fueled by his entrepreneurial background and passion for humanitarian work, has transformed communities by combating water scarcity and improving public health. He is committed to creating a sustainable, brighter future for Mozambique's most vulnerable populations. We're going to first hear about Arnie's entrepreneurial life, but when you hear the story of the founding of this organization, you'll be truly inspired, as I was when I first heard this story. But in the meantime, welcome Arnie. Thank you, mark. So you're an entrepreneur even in your nonprofit. We've talked about this.

Announcer: 5:03

Yes.

Marc Bernstein: 5:04

You're an entrepreneur even in your nonprofit. We've talked about this. Yes, you're an entrepreneur where, and you're a founder and you've been and you found the companies along the way. And when we talk, we've talked about your childhood and how you grew up and your father was an entrepreneur of sorts. Right, that influenced you probably more in later life than early life, but but tell us about that and kind of how your journey began.

Arnie Eastburn: 5:28

Well, going back to my father, he was a church planning pastor and a plumber. So that's how I grew up as a preacher's kid, and so you have to be pretty creative being a preacher's kid, trying to figure out how to navigate. You said truth a minute ago. It's all about truth.

Marc Bernstein: 5:46

Well, there's that part of it, but I was thinking about the church planning pastor part basically went around starting churches. Yes, so, yeah, yeah, well, I'm sure he didn't get paid for it. Well, maybe he did, I don't know a little. A little bit right, buddy, buddy, you know that's an entrepreneurial activity. Yes, right, so, yeah, right. So you went to school, uh-huh, and then what happened? Like, how did you first find entrepreneurship?

Arnie Eastburn: 6:12

Well, I would have to back up to my childhood about when I found entrepreneur, when I wasn't able to spell it or even pronunciate it Right, but when I wanted my first bicycle.

Marc Bernstein: 6:23

Who knew?

Arnie Eastburn: 6:23

that word existed, who knew? But in the sixth grade I wanted a bicycle. I hadn't had one and um? So my dad told me if I wanted one he couldn't pay for it, that, uh, I'd have to get a job. So I went and got a paper route and went to the western auto store and got a bicycle and they allowed me to make two dollars and 75 cents a week payment for my bicycle. Wow, so that's.

Marc Bernstein: 6:50

I didn't know, I was six years old yeah, let's get at it.

Arnie Eastburn: 6:54

I mean, you know, I had a problem and I had a solution. I love it that's great.

Marc Bernstein: 7:00

So how did that meant? How did it next manifest yourself in your life? I'm not going to limit it to times of your life. I'm going to just ask you how did that come about next?

Arnie Eastburn: 7:09

well, probably, uh, I've always had. I guess I wouldn't make a very good employee, so I've always had to create something for myself. But, um, yeah, I had. Um, uh, I got married two weeks after I graduated from high school to my sweetheart that I started dating when I was a sophomore and she was a senior and I was Not to reveal age, but how many years are you two together today?

Arnie Eastburn: 7:37

Be 54 years in June. So I was ready to get up and get going and I wanted to get on with life. Wasn't sure where I was going. The only real goal I had was I wasn't going to be poor, and that was my driving factor and what was your first?

Marc Bernstein: 7:57

and then you went to, you went to high school, in college, college, where'd? You go to college purdue and were you working? Did you have any entrepreneurial type activities and in uh at while at purdue or afterwards?

Arnie Eastburn: 8:11

yes, during that was, uh in the insurance business started out with um, selling life and health and property and casualty, and so that's how. I had a wife and two children at the time. So I had to work, had to make money and trying to get on with it, yep.

Marc Bernstein: 8:29

And I know you had some success in that business, correct?

Arnie Eastburn: 8:32

Yes.

Marc Bernstein: 8:33

Yes and who?

Arnie Eastburn: 8:34

were you working for? We started out with the Indiana Farm Bureau, right, right, right, uh-huh. So I was a captive agent at that point and some things changed along the way.

Marc Bernstein: 8:44

That had you recreate yourself in that business, right.

Arnie Eastburn: 8:50

Yeah, After about three years I had a group of men come to me and ask me to go to Georgia we lived in Indianapolis or Kokomo, Indiana at that time to start a new life insurance company and start out with a $4 million SEC registered stock issue. And so we were out hiring stock salesmen to get the $4 million and fund a new life insurance company. That sounded pretty easy.

Marc Bernstein: 9:18

Your job went from selling life insurance to selling stock in a new company. And how old were you at this? Age 24. That's what I was thinking. Pretty fun to selling stock, yes, in a new company and you, how old were you? At this age 24, pretty, pretty fun, and how'd that work out?

Arnie Eastburn: 9:31

well, it's uh. The fortunate part was is I didn't have a lot to lose, right, but we lost everything. It, uh, we did. We thought georgia was going to be like Indiana, but uh, wow so that didn't quite happen?

Marc Bernstein: 9:47

no, no. So you know there's a lot of failures on the way to success, right? Yes, yeah so what happened next?

Arnie Eastburn: 9:54

well, I ended up make some money, had kids had to make some money and I was through with sales. I was tired of dealing with the public. So we bought a small farm in Missouri and started doing row crop and raising hogs and to have cash flow I started selling insurance, again to fund my habit wanting to get away from public. But I've, that didn't happen. I had to stay with the public.

Marc Bernstein: 10:24

Okay, I mean we did all of it, but yeah and um, and from there you created another company, I believe yes, that was uh when we got into the professional employer business uh, known back then as employee leasing, and um.

Arnie Eastburn: 10:41

So we bought uh territory from um, a company down here here in Florida actually, and started selling for it and then after a couple of years got it all figured out, went back home to Indiana and started our own professional employer organization called Employee Concepts.

Marc Bernstein: 11:01

Great, and what was different about that than the other companies out there? Because I know you had some unique things about that.

Arnie Eastburn: 11:09

Well, basically coming from the insurance industry and where you tried to get a group of people you know, a small company, and take them to try to get health insurance and workers' comp and all of that, we just reversed that and went out and did co-employership with companies and we took on the human resource aspects, if you will, and we became co-employers and then that allowed us to go and buy health insurance and workers' comp and bring all of that big corporate benefit packages and all to the small employer.

Marc Bernstein: 11:47

And prior to that you had sold at least one, I think, your insurance selling business. You sold.

Arnie Eastburn: 11:54

Yes, yes, yeah.

Marc Bernstein: 11:55

And I say that because I know there was another accident after this company, so I know you had some challenges with the employee. We'll call it employee leasing company at the employee we'll call it employee leasing company. What kind of challenges did you have that you know the hills along the way to success.

Arnie Eastburn: 12:20

Well, the whole, of course, all of us as entrepreneurs getting started is telling people what you're going to do and how you're going to do it. And you've got to get a few to give you a shout at it to prove that you can actually do it. And you got to get a few to give you a shot at it to prove that you can actually do it and succeed. And but it was always back to having in in-house employees to handle all of the processing, payrolls and all those things. But we had to navigate a lot of insurance laws with different states and we ended up with employees in nine different states. So we had some challenges along that line with the benefits and with the workers' comp. What was the name of that company? Orny, that was Employee Concepts, based in Indianapolis, indiana, yep.

Marc Bernstein: 13:03

And we're almost at the break, so I'm going to ask you more about what happened to that after the break. What strengths did you develop to handle the challenges of the different employees and the management of the different states, and what kind of strengths did you develop? What did you learn along the way? I guess is my question in terms of Don't give up, keep going, keep pedaling. And you did that, and you did it to what level of success?

Arnie Eastburn: 13:32

pretty successful company, yes yeah, we built a great company and um 10 years later we sold it and, uh, that's what we did, yeah so to measure that success, um you like, how, how many employees did you have for employee concepts?

Marc Bernstein: 13:50

your own employees?

Arnie Eastburn: 13:50

at that we had about uh, you're saying in-house or in-house, we had 12, 12 employees but but the employees who's your?

Marc Bernstein: 14:01

that you leased out? So to speak was a big number.

Arnie Eastburn: 14:05

I know about 1200 at the when we sold, and then uh through the merging, we ended up with uh 25 000 right when you sold, yes meant that you continue to work for the company.

Marc Bernstein: 14:18

Yes, yeah.

Announcer: 14:20

So with that, we're going to take a quick break we'll be right back with our guest today, Arnie Eastburn. Imagine needing to bathe with just three cups of water. That's daily life in parts of Mozambique, where women walk miles every single day just to collect water. Not for luxury, just to survive. Girls miss school, some are attacked on the journey, all because they need water. It's hard to imagine how precious water really is until you see the struggle. But heartbreak turned into hope where people like you helped drill wells. Today, Water4Life Mozambique has brought clean, safe water to over 400,000 people, but thousands more are still waiting. You can change that right now. Go to water4lifemozambique. org and help drill the next village well. Because clean water doesn't just quench thirst, it saves lives. water4lifemozambique. org One well, one village, a world of difference.

Marc Bernstein: 15:34

Okay, welcome back to Founders Forum. So today we're talking to Arnie Eastburn and, as I mentioned before, he is founder of Water 4Life Mozambique, and we really did a quick overview of his entrepreneurial career and he had uh, he had significant successes. So, Arnie, you sold that company and then what happened?

Arnie Eastburn: 15:59

well, I went on a mission trip to africa and what, what, what came?

Marc Bernstein: 16:06

what was the purpose of that mission and what did you learn from it?

Arnie Eastburn: 16:09

well, I went with a group of people over to speak at a bible college in shai shai, mozambique, and the lord just got a hold of my heart there and I all I'd ever wanted to do. All my life was build companies, start something new, and first time in my life I really didn't care about building another business, I just felt like I had to do something for the people of Mozambique.

Marc Bernstein: 16:44

But in fact you did build something. You built an organization. You didn't do it for profit, but you did it as a non-profit yeah and it and what I know your story is. It turned out a little a little like built your entrepreneurial career in terms of how you did that. So what did you discover on that trip that motivated you to want to build what you were about to build?

Arnie Eastburn: 17:06

well, when I that trip, I really the main thing was just understanding that everything had changed. All my, my drive and and uh desires had changed and uh, I guess you could say simply I went from thinking about me to thinking about others wasn't about money anymore yeah, it wasn't about money.

Arnie Eastburn: 17:29

And so I went over and started volunteering and doing uh, traveling with a jesus film team and going into remote villages and uh, sleeping in tents and carrying a, a gas power generator and showing a video of the movie of Jesus. And that's what we started doing.

Marc Bernstein: 17:51

And then we were I took men over and women and volunteer to build churches in villages and took pastors over to speak in the Bible school and did that for about 10 years and then, when I asked, want to point out, I'm sorry, I just want to point out, I'm sorry, I just want to point out you weren't, I know, early in life you had not that much interest in religion and you weren't going to be a pastor and you weren't going to be a plumber, but but you in fact ended up being a, a, um, a pastor, maker of churches again yeah, right yeah, so, um yeah, so that's how you originally started out.

Marc Bernstein: 18:31

Yeah, so how did it get from that to water? Well?

Arnie Eastburn: 18:35

uh, basically, as we were doing all those things and I asked the pastors that we're working with church planning pastors up in the northern part of mozambique, what's your greatest need? And they all said water, said our churches are growing, people are coming to know Jesus, but they're still dying from drinking dirty water. And that's when I knew that's what I needed to do is provide clean safe drinking water.

Marc Bernstein: 19:05

And, by the way, as I've told you, um, we don't usually do religion on the show, yeah, but I'm so inspired by your story that I felt like we we had to do this one, and so so for me, it's ultimately about well, we've we actually talked about, you know, we've talked a little bit about what. We started this show by talking about the truth. You know what?

Marc Bernstein: 19:27

the truth is yeah well, the truth in this situation was and I know what's really moved you and you for those that can't tell you have tears in your eyes now and I'm getting them and it's because what you learned about the people there, why they needed the water, is, to me, is the part that really hit me yes and so talk about that a little bit well, you're talking about a country, and keep in mind, 60 percent of the population on the african continent doesn't have access to clean drinking water.

Arnie Eastburn: 19:58

so it it doesn't take a genius to figure out the need, which I'm not but uh, from the standpoint of the little girls especially, it's the girls and the mothers in that culture. They are the ones responsible for collecting the water, and you got little girls walking two miles, five miles, on paths by themselves and going to water holes to collect water and then carrying that back home. That's about 50 pounds of water and that really puts them at risk, both to men as predators and animals that are predators. So it really it saves. You know, they risk their lives just carrying water every day.

Marc Bernstein: 20:43

And when you hear those stories, like for me, the first thing that popped in my mind is my daughter as a teenager and if she had to do that, and what the risks were and the potential damage that could be, done, and so what happened was, when you recognize this problem, we didn't mention that you would work, you know, part-time, helping your dad in the plumbing business as well, right, so not only were you now working in the pastoring business, but now you had to teach what you knew about plumbing to the pastors.

Announcer: 21:16

Yeah, if I'm not mistaken right yeah that you that you had had brought on as pastors.

Marc Bernstein: 21:21

Yes, and and so what did you do with what? How did that work? What did you? You started digging, I guess right well, what we did?

Arnie Eastburn: 21:29

um, we knew that there was water there.

Arnie Eastburn: 21:31

It wasn't a because you had a lot of uh hand dug wells, if you will, uh, 25 feet deep uh, and they were hitting water.

Arnie Eastburn: 21:40

So we knew it wasn't an issue of getting water, it was a matter of keeping it safe, getting deep enough to where it didn't dry up in the dry season, that there was a constant flow and didn't get contaminated, and all. So what we did is I uh gathered uh some uh people that had been with me to mozambique and kind of fell in love with moambique, and we formed Water4 Life Mozambique and they funded all of our costs in order to purchase all the equipment needed. So we bought all of our equipment in Bangkok, thailand, had it shipped into Mozambique, and then we took this group of church planting pastors that were up there in their villages and trained them how to drill wells with the equipment there in their villages and trained them how to drill wells with the equipment, and so we started drilling wells, and that's how we got started. And how long ago was that? That was in 2015, when we drilled our very first well.

Marc Bernstein: 22:36

We formed in 2014 but gathering, doing donations and all, but we drilled our first well in september of 2015, and that was 386 wells ago now and almost 10 years ago, yes, so, and you and you, you don't say this, and I know I have to, but I know that you put your own money into this as well and kind of started the whole thing off. So what kind of progress has been made over that time?

Arnie Eastburn: 23:03

Well, we have 863 wells drilled and that covers approximately 1,200 people per village, or per well, if you will. So that means we're just under 500,000 people now are having water, and the beautiful part of it is it's not a one and done, it's not like you drill a well and yeah, we donated 6900 and have a well drilled, uh, but that well, we stay focused in a central area to where we can help maintain those wells, so they're all continuing to work gotcha the water keeps flowing.

Marc Bernstein: 23:42

Listen, I don't know if you can hear in the background, but roger, our engineer, doesn't usually talk much, but he's he can't help, but like he's like wow, like he's blown away by this whole thing, as am I, thank you. I mean, it really is, it really is amazing work. So we always ask about um. You know future vision on the show and you chose um again.

Marc Bernstein: 24:04

Three-year vision is what off I I just an interesting aside is that I think most people pick three-year vision and I think there's a reason for that. And I like three-year vision because that's, that's. 10 years today is, with rate of change in the world, is almost impossible to imagine. And, uh, one year, you know you're just still formulating what you're going to do, so three years seems to be a good number. Yeah, so if we're sitting here talking and it's it's, you know, now, april of um 2028 and you and I are talking, or any, what would have to happen in your life and, and, and, and also specifically for Water4L ife Mozambique for you to feel that that was a successful and fulfilling period of your life?

Arnie Eastburn: 24:49

Well, you know you started out by saying truth. The truth is, if we just drill one more well and one more village, as clean, safe water and the little girls are able to go to school instead of carrying water and the little children that die, at the rate of one out of five under the age of five die every year, so three years from now, if we've saved 60, 70 000 kids from death and we've had drilling 100 wells a year, that's, that's what's important. It's like the starfish on the beach. You know it was important to that one.

Marc Bernstein: 25:30

yeah, what, um? What kind of what kind? So I don't usually plug businesses or non-profits specifically on the show, but this is a very inspiring one, and if you're listening to this podcast, you would have already heard a commercial that we donated for Water4 Life Mozambique. But what can people do to help you, is my question. How can they support your efforts if they're inspired as we are?

Arnie Eastburn: 25:58

Donations. We're solely based upon donations and it's individual donations. We're solely based upon donations and it's individual donations. We're not searching government grants or that type of thing. So people donating dollars on our website can go there to Water4 Life and Mozambique, and you can donate stocks, you can donate crypto or you can donate hard cash.

Marc Bernstein: 26:27

We take it all without giving financial advice.

Arnie Eastburn: 26:29

You know um iras are a good thing if you're retired, you know yes and appreciated property, like stocks, as you mentioned that funds a lot of our wells, or people that donate their uh their disbursements out of their iras every year um, and you're, and that would be Water4L ife Mozambique is where you can find it and the 4 is the number 4. So, water Number 4 Life Mozambique is how you can find it, and Mozambique's hard to spell, so if you just went to W4LMOZ. com, it'll take you right there.

Marc Bernstein: 26:59

W4LMOZ. com. There you go, that's great. Like I said, I'm a pretty simple guy, mark and speaking of simple guys, I'm going to ask you one simple question your favorite book?

Arnie Eastburn: 27:11

it'd have to be the bible and why is that?

Arnie Eastburn: 27:15

I mean I, you know, I know it's the greatest stories ever told yeah, well, like I said, my grew up in a pastor's home and I couldn't wait to get out of the house and out of church and for 30 years I never went to church. And I started reading at the age of 49, after selling the companies and all, and started reading the book Mein Kampf. That was a book I always heard so much about and as I was reading that, um, after about two or three chapters I just the darkness of reading that and then I just heard, uh, the dominant thought was here.

Marc Bernstein: 27:56

I am probably the darkest book ever.

Arnie Eastburn: 27:57

Yeah, or one of them yeah, and that's what I, the dominant thought, was. Here I am reading a book that Satan inspired. When I haven't read the book, that got inspired and I put it down three times I tried to read it and that occurred. So then I said, okay, I'm a little slow, but I catch on, mark, I told I just said, lord, I'm going to read your book from start to finish before I read anything else. So that's what I did that year and I've read it through every year for the last 24 years.

Marc Bernstein: 28:28

That's an inspirational story as well. Well, listen again. I'm going to just say Water4 Life Mozambique. Check it out. It's really amazing work that you're doing and you're saving lives, and if anyone's listening and would like to support Arnie's efforts and the organization's efforts, please do. I want to thank you so much for telling your inspirational story here. David Calderwood, I want to thank you for being here today and thank you all for listening to Founders Forum and we'll see you again next week.

Announcer: 29:05

We hope you enjoyed your time with Founders Forum and that you found value to take with you throughout your day. Join us again next week for another episode of Founders Forum on WXKB 1039 HD2. Sponsored by Mark J Bernstein. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of this station, its management or Beasley Media Group.