Kurt Avery On Sawyer Products, Faith, Purpose, Clean Water & Changing The World (Inspirational)

What if the business idea, vision, or calling in your heart was never just about success—but about changing lives all over the world?

In this inspirational episode, Reginald D interviews Kurt Avery, philanthropist, entrepreneur, and founder of Sawyer Products, a company leading innovation in clean water, outdoor protection and humanitarian aid.

Kurt shares his journey from growing up in upstate New York to building Sawyer Products. Kurt built a business from the ground up, surviving years of struggle, trusting God through uncertainty, and turning Sawyer Products into a mission-driven company.  This episode dives deep into faith, purpose, leadership, social impact, entrepreneurship, self-improvement, and motivational living.

If you’ve been searching for inspiration, faith and motivation & a reminder that your vision can be bigger than you imagined, this episode will challenge and encourage you. Kurt’s story is proof that when you trust God, stay focused, and keep moving, your business and your life can bless far more people than you ever thought possible.

Listeners will gain:

• A powerful perspective on how faith, obedience, and bold vision can transform a business into a mission that changes lives
• Real insight into how to keep going through uncertainty, setbacks, and slow seasons while trusting that God is still working
• Fresh motivation to think bigger, live with purpose & use your gifts, business, and calling to make a lasting impact in the world

Press play and let this inspirational, motivational conversation challenge you to build boldly, trust God deeply, and use your life to create impact that outlives you.

Kurt's Contact Info:

Website:  https://www.sawyer.com

Sawyer Foundation: https://www.sawyerfoundation.org/donate

Book: https://www.sawyer.com/product/sawyer-think

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Sawyer-Products/61563796295518

Instagram: http://instagram.com/sawyerproducts

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/sawyer-products 

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@sawyerproducts

YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/c/SawyerProducts/featured

Transcript

Reginald D: Welcome to Real Talk With Reginald D. I'm your host, Reginald D.

On today's episode, I have Kurt Avery. Kurt is a philanthropist and the founder and president of Sawyer Products, a company at the forefront of innovation in outdoor protection and humanitarian aid.

Welcome to the show Kurt.

Kurt Avery: Thank you. That's very gracious of you.

Reginald D: Thank you so much, sir. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule to be on the show.

So, Kurt, I'd like to start out by asking my guests, can you tell us a little bit about your childhood and where you grew up?

Kurt Avery: Yeah, I grew in upstate New York, kind of a country boy out in the looney Small neighborhood out there.

It was a working farm right up until I was born. You know, they got through the Depression and all that kind of stuff,

got to see the last chicken that they killed running around the yard. So it's there. But we had a lot of acreage,

had big gardens,

went to a really good school.

It was in the district, so GE paid a lot of the taxes for the high school. So we had a good high school. We also had all the smart kids whose dads worked at ge, all the engineers and whatnot.

So they had a little bit of advanced group of 20 students, and I just barely made it. But I was 20.

I was the 20th of the 20.

And so I felt like a dummy growing up because all these smart kids, these engineer kids. So then I went to a Christian college out in Western Michigan called Hope College and kind of blossomed there because I got rid of all those smart engineers and I could do my thing.

So math oriented, got a degree in business. Then I was fortunate to get a fellowship to Northwestern University,

Kellogg School of Management.

So again, I did fairly well there and got a really good job, worked for GE in strategic planning, and then moved into the consumer goods. So it's a. Northwestern was a marketing school.

That was its forte. And I loved marketing. So we were like a duck in water there. I loved it, got a good job, and then moved my way through the corporate world.

Until one day I said, you know what? I'm ready to go on my own. I heard the boss take credit for everything I did, and I said, I see how this game work.

So that's when we went out and started. Sawyer crashed right away, forgot to downsize my marketing from corporate marketing to guerrilla marketing. So immediately lost all the money I raised.

But we dug through it.

We always like to say we lost money 23 of the first 25 years till we became an overnight success.

So we were grinding it out but we knew we'd make it, and we finally made it, so here we are.

Reginald D: Yeah. So I guess what inspired you to start, Sawyer? Like you said, you know, it was time to move on, and you felt like everybody was getting the credit. But how did you come up with the idea for your water filtration products?

Kurt Avery: Well, they came later. I started with a friend of mine from Northwestern, had come across a product called the Extractor to suck out the venom of a snake bite or a bee sting.

And we launched it in 84.

And. And I came home one day and told my wife, we're gonna sell snakebite kits. You know, she should have just shot me right there. But there's actually a big market for sudden vacuum, so they even use it for hand therapy to keep the muscle off the bone.

It's still in Walmart today. That's 1984. Walmart still sells it. So it worked from there. We got into natural extension, was first aid. Then we got into the sunscreens and repellents.

We did all the sunscreen for Gulf War One, the repellents for Gulf War Two.

Those were the two years of the 25 that we did well, covered up all the other parts. Never missed a bill. I have never stiffed anybody. Just got a little slow a few times.

We were camping, so they understood I had great partners.

Then came the water filtration. So there was a time where I sat down, I said, okay. I always wanted to be in water filters because we would sit in the stores, the REI stores, and we would ask customers, what do you need?

What's your problem? What's your problem? What can we solve?

You know, the way to build a business is to sell more products to the same people.

So we kept asking, and, you know, I use Henry Ford's analogy. If I asked the people what they wanted, they'd said, a faster horse.

So you gotta listen past what they asked for to what problem are you trying to solve?

And water was a big problem. They had these big clunky things you took with them. And we went to kidney dialysis. If you can clean blood, you can clean water.

So we came up with the hollow fiber membranes, and they're so much lighter. They were selling these other ones for 100 bucks a piece.

We introduced that 1995, and the store said, no way we're making 50 bucks on each one of those, and you want us to make 10? I said, yeah, but you're selling 70,000 of those.

You're going to sell millions of these.

Would you rather have $10 on a million or $50 on 70,000. So you don't have a choice because the technology is going to win anyway. So we did and boom, there it went, took off.

So then we have the water and we have the insect repellents. We do the military, so we do the repellent that you put on your clothes to keep the bugs away.

So hikers, campers, hunters, all that use it. And we do the military, the Department of Defense.

So I said to God one day, you know, hey, we got the two solutions for the biggest reasons people die. Half the world dies from either bad water or mosquito bites.

I said, we got it, why don't we just go do that? And of course we met him,

but he said, yeah, let's do that. So there we are, we started in 05,

got ourselves on the map when the earthquake in Haiti sent down a couple hundred thousand filters. So people were drinking with it stops, cholera. Same day, boom, it's over.

That put us on the map. That's when all the NGOs found us. And then we started selling, you know, so we're in 80 countries with 140 charities that do water.

So we're everywhere. North Korea, we've been in Gaza for a long time, Yemen, Iran. I mean everybody that's got a water problem, there's soyu there somewhere.

So then we've got it down now with our latest product, which is only two weeks old,

that we can give somebody 10 years of clean water for a one time cost of 30 cents.

Reginald D: Wow.

Kurt Avery: For 30 cents investment you can get 10 years of water. It goes right on the taps, the faucets,

whatever comes out of the faucets, clean to drink.

We also have other systems. We don't care if the cows are pooping in the water. Doesn't make any difference. We'll make it drinkable.

So we're kind of the only one that can do that then.

So we're doing that. I mean, that's a game changer. I mean,

hundreds of thousands of babies every year live because they have clean water. Now most places would lose a third of their kids, but now they don't lose them because they don't get diarrhea and dehydrate and die.

The little ones. But now with clean water, they don't have that problem.

We save them money,

10 to 20% of their annual income. We save the women three hours a day that they don't have to prime water,

boil it. We save huge energies.

At least half of their energy bill goes away because you don't have to boil the water. You just drink. They have time. They have health.

Huge, huge transitional product.

So we got that, and we're doing that. And right now, we're moving into doing whole countries.

We've literally done the little ones. Now we're moving into more major countries.

And then, lo and behold, our insect repellent fabric treatment got a boost.

Professor at UNC Chapel Hill did a study using our thing putting, you know, how the moms carry their baby in a wrap on their back.

If you treat that with our permethrin, which no different than what we do for the military uniforms,

we reduce malaria in the kids by 2/3, 67%.

And I'm pretty sure when we modify how we do it, we'll get that up to 90%.

So about 6% of the babies that get malaria will die.

And it's like 600,000 babies a year die of malaria.

Even if you don't die, the other 95% affects their brains.

They will become more lethargic the rest of their lives. So getting that malaria solved through age three is huge because then they start building immunities. They have a little bit in the beginning from their mom, and then we take care of it, and then they start building it.

Because you get malaria all the time over there. You just gotta be able to fight it. There's malaria,

the vaccines and medicine, and you build tolerances to it.

But they're very vulnerable before the age two,

up till their second birthday. So we're doing that now. That just got published maybe a month ago, A month and a half ago.

So our first batch came down the line yesterday,

in fact. So we're off to the races.

Reginald D: Yes, sir. Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Now, here's the thing I want to ask you.

You know, you took on all of this.

You left job or corporate America, whatever.

How did your faith guide you through the pivots? When? I'm pretty sure when you started the path, it wasn't clear.

Kurt Avery: Oh, yeah. And there were some very tough times. I went out and, you know, we didn't have any money. I mean, our first day, we moved to Florida. Our first year in Florida is not even a good day for US Shipping now.

So, you know, we lived on air. I did take some outside consulting jobs to keep food on the table. And then we had four kids.

So I have a very good wife.

That's one of the keys of this thing.

We learned to live on air for a while, and then,

you know, a little bit less and a little bit less.

So, yes, you have to have faith. I have a very big God.

I always say, how big is your God? You know,

you're talking to the God of the universe, the God of creation. I mean, the microscience, macro science, you name it. Either way, the Earth revolves around the sun and the angles and all this stuff.

So if he's that big, why do I have to be small?

So I'll just let him do his thing through us.

Don't give me credit because I'm not that smart. I just stuck to it, that's all.

Or are you a person that puts God in a little box? If you put him in a box, you won't ever get to do the big things. You'll do little things, and they're important.

He needs people doing that. I don't do details, you know,

but my God, so big. I said, why not? I mean, my,

my wife Kelly, quit saying why not? You know, why not? Let's do it.

So, I mean,

example, when Gulf War one, bro, we were making 2,000 bottles of sunscreen a year going by hand. The contract was, you have three weeks to get to 200,000 a week.

And we did it.

We just did it. You know, I picked up the phone, they said, can you do. Oh, yeah, why not? We'll do it. You know, just crazy stuff. But that's happened more than a few times,

so why not? There's no debt or prison. What are they going to do to you?

So I have what I call the rocking chair theory.

Someday you'll sit on your front porch with a little cat on your lap and lemonade nearby, and you're going to say, I wish. I wish I had this. I wish I did that.

I said, don't do that.

Put yourself in that chair now and say, what will you wish you have done?

And do it.

No excuses.

Do it. Why not?

Reginald D: Yeah, you can't sit around and I've talked about that the other day.

You know, everybody's sitting around worried about the past and, and still talking about and thinking about could have and should have.

Yeah, but you know, you got to move forward from that.

I mean, you got to take as

Kurt Avery: well it teach you to move forward with that stuff if you have a big God now. You know, we did talk about. We did put the book saw your thing.

And the purpose of that book is so you don't go off on a crazy idea. You make sure your idea is good. And there's 25 ways to look at your potential idea, your business opportunities.

But if you have a solid opportunity and it Makes sense. And you've got a market out there for what you want to do.

Why not?

Why not?

Reginald D: Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So, Kurt, you clearly have a Kingdom business.

Most companies fight to increase profit margins,

but you donate over 90% of profits annually, which is amazing.

Can you explain the impact of donating 90% of your profits and how the benefits, the communities you support?

Kurt Avery: Yeah, well, first of all, it's actually more than 90, but nobody would understand it, so we just say 90.

We're unusual. We have a very profitable retail business domestically.

But I try not to make profits.

I mean, I'm fine, you know,

I get a new truck every four years. This shirt's probably 10 years old. It's hanging in there. I get shoes every five years or so. There's no U Hauls in heaven.

So what do I need it for, right? We're living just fine and a nice house and all that stuff.

So what do you need it for? You know, and I don't think.

I don't criticize people who do get things. I mean, if yacht is your thing, go get the yacht. But it's not me. It's not. I'm a country boy. I don't need it.

So why.

Why not give it away? We have the two things,

the clothing treatment and the water filters to save millions of lives. We've done. 40 million people have had water for the first time in their life.

Clean water to drink. Since we started doing this. I just write it off, you know, so I make enough profit to keep the bank happy, because I do use other people's money.

Why not?

So we keep them happy, but when we make the profit, then we turn around. We give it to the Sawyer Foundation.

So the Sawyer foundation,

if people want to donate, every single dollar goes overseas for projects, water projects, but now probably baby wraps, too.

And every time you buy our products, all those profits go overseas. So the way it's set up is when I exit the market.

That's our term for losing it, mentally or physically, when I'm ready to exit the market. And I did set up in my will that I have to be mentally tested every couple of years to make sure I don't screw this thing up.

The foundation will own Soyu products.

I get offers that want to buy Sawyer at least once a week or more. But why? They would just go for the profits.

I would rather change the world, because I think that's what God wants us to do. There is a lot of gospel sharing in what we do here, because Christians do most of the heavy lifting overseas and the charity work anyways,

so that's a good fit.

So Sawyer will be owned by the foundation and will just keep going on, going on, going on. So the foundation is up and running. I've already got my replacement set place.

I'm just having a blast right now.

So there's still work to be done, though. I mean,

you're talking.

It was only a month ago when the baby wrap was written up in New England Journal of medicine. And here we go. And three weeks from now, we're sitting in front of all the mega malaria foundations to see if they want to just do it.

I mean,

you can't solve it with bed nets because you don't spend your whole day in a bed net.

So this is the next solution.

And of course water filtration. So we got a good thing going. Why, why would you stop? You know, so I don't need the money. No U hauls in heaven. So let's do it here.

I mean, that's.

I think that's why God keeps blessing it. Because we're doing his work.

Reginald D: Right? Right.

Kurt Avery: I don't mean.

Reginald D: Go ahead.

Kurt Avery: Go ahead.

Reginald D: No, go ahead.

Kurt Avery: Oh.

If you think about it, this is the eschological question that I'm always wrestling with. You said your audience has a good faith based component to it for 10,000 years. And I'm a new earth type person.

Old universe, young earth,

young creation. The earth's been here for billions of years, but not with life on it. But that's another subject. You go to science dilemma series and on YouTube and they'll explain that to you.

But for the 10,000 years we've been here, he let bacteria kill people and now he's willing to take it off the table.

Why?

Why is God ready to change the whole way man relates to him when we take bad water off the table?

I have no idea.

So I've learned, you know, I give him a lot of suggestions, but I've learned to sit back and say, okay, you drive the train.

So it's actually picking up, picking up speed and moving pretty fast now,

man, that's good, man.

Reginald D: And I like the way you broke it down. It's like, hey, when it's all said and done, we're gonna lead us to the foundations.

Basically, it's your legacy that's going to keep going,

keep you sell it all, I mean, you know, and be gone.

Kurt Avery: Oh, I wouldn't. I could sell this for a bundle of money because we do make good money. But why?

Reginald D: Right?

Kurt Avery: Why?

Because anybody who bought it would just go for the profit. So forget them. They make their money somewhere else. Invest in something else. This is a very unique opportunity to change the world.

It's big. I mean, clean water is right up there with, you know,

penicillin and vaccines. I mean, it's.

We can save as many lives as the best vaccine you ever saw. So, I mean, we're right at that level.

Reginald D: Yeah, absolutely,

absolutely. So let's talk about profit.

Now,

starting out,

I know you went up against major corporations in the outdoor and water filtration space.

What mindset does it take for a small company starting to disrupt massive industries?

Kurt Avery: There's a chapter in the book, and you can find it on. Go online and look up what's called bell curves.

So the market is a bell curve. It's all over the place. You have little bitty Fiats and you have Mercedes Benz and,

you know,

whatever the market, and then you got all the stuff in the middle.

So somewhere on that curve, there's a market for you.

So we really built this company on what's called early innovators, early educators.

People that have time to do the homework, want to do the homework, looking for the next technology.

And they found us. We found them. You know, they're the REI customers, not the Walmart customers.

So we found them. Other people are just so busy. They're just, you know, that's why they buy the other repellents, because, you know, they kind of work. But, you know, you can't use them all week, really, you shouldn't.

So, you know, military uses, our clothing and our topicals, because they're very gentle, but they work.

So you find that niche.

And when you're in that niche,

off cutter repel, they can't touch us, not in our niche. I can't touch them where they are. They can't touch us where we are. Different market, different customers.

And the beauty of the innovators and the educators, they can't help themselves.

They just have to tell their friends,

you know, who tell two friends, who tell two friends. So that's how we built it with that little slice of the market.

Now we're moving broadly. And really where we took off was the influencers.

We've always had the best products. One thing I did learn at Northwestern, there's no me too. Every type of product you have should move the technology ball down the road.

You should always have nothing but the best product on the market. And every product that goes out our door is the single best product for its application in existence.

So influencers are stuck. They have to talk about us because we're the best.

So really, if you watch our sales, it just took off. When the influencers started taking over the Internet and doing the marketing for us.

That's when we took off. And we have a great relationship with them and we keep bringing out new stuff. I brought out some really good products last year, got a new one coming.

They're going to do the marketing for us.

Reginald D: Man. It's working all the way around for you.

Kurt Avery: Yeah. And the world changes. I mean, you know how much the world has changed. I'm big on channels of distribution.

How do you get from you to the consumer? The methods have changed. I mean, Amazon changed all the rules and now Walmart's catching up to them. But, you know, where are the little shops?

They're gone. I mean, you know, used to be distributors and there's no distributors out there anymore.

The Internet allowed the small shops to bypass them. There's still a lot of strength in small shops.

They're out there on the Appalachian Trail,

you know, when people stop and walk to it. So.

But expectations of the consumers have changed.

They want it now, you know,

so you have to change. And another part of the book is creative destruction.

How is the world going to change? It's either a law, it's culture or technology.

And they all move. They move very fast, you know, culture. I mean, look how fast people went from Instagram to TikTok, you know, and now what's next? I don't know what's next, but it'll be something next.

So when our technology, I mean, we, the Internet, the cell phone, look at how it's going. I mean, Amazon in two years went from 70% of their sales being on a computer to 70% being in a mobile device, either a tablet or a phone.

We were the first ones to make the change because we saw it coming.

So what's going to happen?

So you should be looking three to five years down the road. What is going to change?

Everything changed destroys something.

And everything that changes creates something.

And there's opportunities on both sides.

You can make money on the destruction side, you can make money on the creative side. But you better know where the world's going to be three, five years from now and get there before anybody else.

Reginald D: Yeah, you got to have forward thinking. And one thing you said,

and I believe that a lot of people have ideas or have things they're pursuing and in the course of doing it,

they miss the shift.

Sometimes it's not exactly how you see it down the road. Sometimes you have to shift as you're going,

and if you don't shift, it'll mess you up every time when it's time to shift.

Kurt Avery: Yeah. There's another chapter in the book called Decision Matrix, and what that does is you're making a decision, and usually you're emotionally hung up on one or two or three variables.

You know,

whatever it is, you know, should I go to this college or that college? Should I put the restaurant here? Should I put it there? And you don't think through all the other variables.

So we force you to come up with at least 10 more things that will affect the business, maybe 20 on college. There's 20 things that'll pick whether you have a good college experience or not.

And the reason is they may or may not change your decision. But you'll be surprised how sometimes the smaller things will change your decision.

But more importantly, it made you think about it.

Because I don't believe in unintended consequences.

All that is is something happened and you weren't prepared for it. You should have thought about that.

So there's tripwires, there's unintended consequences. So if you get past the two or three variables that you just hung up on and look at all the other stuff, it's going to make you better prepared for when you do go.

So I'm also a big proponent of put the phone down, turn it off, and just sit there an hour or two a day and just think.

Just think.

Challenge yourself with what's going to happen, what changes are going to be made.

The problem is people don't think now. And for heaven's sake, don't just Google it.

There's always more than one reason, and Google's going to give you one and one only.

A lot of other reasons for everything.

Reginald D: Right? So, Kurt, what do you see Sawyers, in the next five to 10 years?

Kurt Avery: Oh, we're going to be anywhere from two to five times bigger than we are now. Still not going to make any profit. We're going to find a way to give it away.

Water filtration. We've done 40 million people. You know, how many more need it now? We can only do what we can do, but now we've gone out and we've asked other people to join us, and we're getting there.

I mean, we.

We are literally up at the highest level in the US Government saying, here's how we can help you with foreign policy.

What if we went to Guatemala and within two years, nobody's sick and the GDP raises by 10%.

That little filter can do that.

That's all it is. That's how big it is. It can do that. That little thing can do it. And it never wears out. You escape using it for year after year after year, day after day after day.

And malaria, I mean, what if we took malaria out of play?

You know, you got dengue fever going crazy in Southeast Asia right now, and you got malaria in Africa, and you got Chukahunga over there in Asia and other areas.

What if we could take that out of play?

We can.

So all those things are like, right here.

They're just right here. And they're going to blow.

So how they're going to blow, I don't know when they're going to. I got our theme song from Paint yout Wagon, if you remember that old movie. So.

And Subaru, I think, used it in a commercial. He goes where we're going, I don't know. When we get there, I'm not certain. All I know is we are on our way.

Reginald D: That's it.

Kurt Avery: Yeah. Sawyer is on its way. So I got great people. I have no fear of how Sawyer's going to go down in the future. I have the best of the best.

So it's going to be interesting. I think it's going to be some fun stuff.

Reginald D: Yeah, absolutely. So let's talk about this. What advice would you give to other entrepreneurs looking to combine business success with social impact, like you do?

Kurt Avery: First of all, why not? Okay, so as a Christian, we were charged with going to Jerusalem, Samaria, Judea and the other most parts of the world. So I think we do that.

We do local charities, we do it within the country, we do it within the hemisphere. We do it out of most parts of the world. So we work in all four areas.

And we do more. We do things like we take veterans out in the woods because we're outdoor company,

so get them through their PST TD and go out. And we're on the veteran part of the thing.

We do schools, teaching kids how to be future leaders in the outdoor world. So we're multitasking. The point is, you can do it. Now. The book helps you make your business more profitable.

Really.

But if it's more profit, what are you gonna do with the profits?

You know, do you need it? How much money?

I'm not at all saying don't take care of your kids and don't take care of your yourself. So you don't want to be, you know, having to work at Walmart and be homeless when you're 80 years old, but you can take care of that stuff.

You know, we're a big country. We'll take care of you.

But the satisfaction of. You have a skill set. You absolutely have a skill set, or you wouldn't have a successful business.

Who else needs that skill set or needs the fruits of that skill set?

You know, in the book, I use the thing of a restaurant.

You know, first of all, can we make your restaurant more profitable? Have you thought through whether they're going to put a highway and wipe you out? Can you add to your menu?

Can you focus your meal? Can you make more profit? But it's not giving away your extra food to a food bank. It's the fact that you can buy at wholesale because they have to buy at the grocery store, but you buy it from the wholesaler.

So you can donate that thing for a fraction of the cost of if they had to go to the store and buy it.

So, you know, think of it that way. What do you have that's unique that can be passed on to benefit other people?

That's the way to think about it. And let's make you more profitable so you can. The reward is great.

I mean, it's fun,

but. Yeah. And I'm not saying you don't take care of yourself. You got to do that. But there should be room to improve your business enough that you can do both.

Sure. Makes life a whole lot more rewarding.

Reginald D: Oh, yeah, Absolutely. A word of wisdom. A word of wisdom. And I often think about this, and I'm gonna ask you this question.

You know, out of everything I do, it always comes back to this.

When your chapter closes one day,

what do you hope people say about Kurt Avery, the businessman, believer, and world changer?

Kurt Avery: Well, first of all, I hope God says, well done.

A good and faithful servant.

I don't care what people say about me. I really don't. Because I don't want them. It wasn't me.

God gave me these skill sets and gave us this vision and gave us these tools.

It took us a long time. So remember, now we're 41 years old, and we've only shared the story of what we do the last three years.

I don't want to be on the pedestal. I don't want people thinking I'm special.

It's God's deal. It's not mine. I'm just the vessel. I'm the vehicle. He gave us other. So I want Sawyer to have the legacy of changing the world. Don't attribute to me, because be honest, with you.

There's a whole lot of people behind me that you don't see that'll make this happen.

I don't know diddly **** about the Internet now, but I got people who do. I didn't design a single one of these products, but I got people who did.

So don't point the finger to me. Point it to Sawyer. Sawyer's much bigger than me.

And I would be disappointed if they try to put me on the pedestal, because,

you know, in Matthew, that's your total reward.

So I don't want to be my total reward.

I have so many good people that have made this thing happen. Besides God, but just the people, too.

We're all in. The whole company's all in.

All the way down to the people that put bottles on the conveyor belt. They're all in on what we're doing.

Reginald D: Yeah. That's amazing. And that's what it is,

I think. You know, I always talk about leader,

servanthood.

You know, servanthood, leadership. You may be the guy, God gave you the division and all that stuff, but then he brings people along to help you make the vision on the past when it's all said and done.

And like I say, I'm like you. I don't want any credit. I don't want anything.

Just let his will be done, and then we all good, right?

Kurt Avery: Yeah. Well, I have one mantra that says, know what you can do, and know what you can't do,

because you can't do everything.

And what you can't do, find the people who can do that for you.

So I'm a real good delegator. I have built a team with all the things I can't do, and there's plenty of them.

So together we can do it. I mean, you know,

the quarterback couldn't play without the lineman. You know, sometimes you can't play with them, but, you know, he can't play without. So it takes a whole team to do this stuff.

So,

you know, you're arrogant if you think it was you.

So the book will tell you know what your skill set is. Don't trick yourself to think you can do it all, because you cannot but know what you're good at, and that's what you do.

And you fill in around you with the others. And the other part is, you know, God created every person.

Respect that.

Enjoy them. I love to spend time in the factory,

chewing it on with, how's your kid doing? And, you know, what are you doing now? What do you do? You go fishing. You get anything So, I mean, why not enjoy people?

So I do a lot of that too.

Reginald D: Right, Exactly. So, Kurt, what I have is I call rapid fire questions. Oh, there's no right or wrong answer. So, number one, one word that defines soy submission.

Kurt Avery: If I only get one word change, if I can do it, fundamental change. But, yeah, all right.

Reginald D: If you could solve one global problem tomorrow, besides water, what would it be?

Kurt Avery: Well, malaria. That would count. But even outside of those two things,

obviously the gospel,

life is binary. You're going up, you're going down,

and I hate to see people going down.

Reginald D: Yes, absolutely. What's one risk you took that everyone else thought was crazy but changed everything?

Kurt Avery: Oh, you think there's just one?

I think this Gulf War one sunscreen was the real game changer that put us on the footing that from which the rest of it built or being able. Well,

marrying my wife was huge. She is a rock.

And getting into Northwestern was absolutely huge. That changed everything.

Reginald D: Right, right. So if clean water had a voice, what would it be saying to the world right now?

Kurt Avery: Why not?

Reginald D: Why not?

Kurt Avery: Why not? We have the solution. Why not?

Reginald D: Yes, yes, and finish this sentence. Impact matters more than.

Kurt Avery: Than just talking about it.

Reginald D: Yeah, I was actually talking to somebody about that the other day. You hit it right on the head. I was like, man,

you know, you can't make a decision by just talking about it. You have to make a decision to go forward with it.

Kurt Avery: Yeah. It's the difference between the politicians and the doers.

Reginald D: Right. So lastly, Kurt, how can people follow you on social media or purchase your products?

Kurt Avery: Well, anywhere camping is sold, we're there for sure. Obviously, we're really big on Amazon, but we're, you know, we're in Walmart, we're in all the camping stores, Academy, you know,

****'*, whatever,

Rei, that kind of stuff.

Soyo.com is a good place to start because we will teach you why our products are better than anything else out there.

Social media, we're on all of them. You know,

you'll find soya products on every platform.

We are educators. That's what separates us from the other brands. We want you to understand how sunscreens work. We want you to understand how repellents work and how you can get the most out of them when you need them, when you don't.

Same thing with the water. We are very big on doing a lot of research and turning that research into answers and sharing those answers. So we have a pretty good following.

You can buy any of our products easily, obviously, Amazon, but any of the other Places. But we do spend a lot of time educating those people so they can tell you about our products.

But again, you go to sawyerfoundation.org and it's a 501C3, so you get a tax deduction. And every dollar, every penny that's donated,

Sawyer covers the overhead.

So any external money is going to go overseas on either water or malaria project.

Reginald D: Man, that's amazing. And you have your boot right there with you too, right? I do the products, you hold it up.

Kurt Avery: Saw your thing.

Reginald D: Okay.

Kurt Avery: We want your business to be more successful. There are stories about how the water impacts you too. There's. Every chapter ends with something that'll touch your, touch your emotions about what water did for people's lives.

You know, we. I don't know if you want a little story, but we went to Uganda. A guy goes in there and he's there for a week, a missionary. And he says, you don't name your kids till they're three years old.

Goes, yeah, because we lose so many of them, we know if they make it to three, they're going to live. So that's when we name them. And before that, we don't bother naming them because we don't know if they'll live.

Goes back, puts in ozer village, took 250 filters, goes back again.

They name them at birth.

They've never lost a baby since then.

Reginald D: Wow.

Kurt Avery: Yeah, that's the impact that. How do you not do that if you can do that? I mean, that's 250 filters. How many lives did that save?

Reginald D: Right?

Kurt Avery: So now we do millions of filters a year. How many lives are we saving and improving? I mean, you gotta do it.

Reginald D: Yeah, you have to.

You have to,

man. Kurt, I'm leave that right there, man. That is,

that.

That is very impactful, man. I thank God for people like you and following your heart and your vision and things that God gave you because you could have easily kept going to corporate ladder and do your thing and go home every day and.

And be cool with it. But you decided to take on this challenge and it has really paid off for you.

Kurt Avery: Yeah. First 25 years, I wasn't sure I was going to say that, but we knew we'd make it. We had the right stuff. It just had to grind it out. But yeah, those.

God bless my wife. That was some tough years. Four kids,

no money. Yeah, we made it and here we are living the life. It's just.

That's cool.

Reginald D: That's what God does. Once you jump into the situation, you be obedient, then he's going to test you through it, because he got to get the story,

the glory out of it when it's all said and done.

Kurt Avery: Yeah, and that's why I don't want people attributing Sawyer legacy to me. You know, there is that little thing called the Ten Commandments. I'm a jealous God, have no other God before me.

So do not make yourself on that pedestal. I live in Florida. We have lightning here.

Knock me off that pedestal faster than I get on it.

Reginald D: Absolutely.

So, Kurt,

thank you so much for taking your time out, man, and coming and talking with us and talking with me, and I'm sure the audience is going to love it.

Your story is amazing.

Keep doing what you're doing, and anything I can do for you, man, just let me know.

Kurt Avery: No, we. We appreciate you giving us a voice.

Reginald D: Absolutely. Kurt Avery, everybody.

Thanks for listening to Real Talk Reginald D. If you enjoyed listening to Real Talk With Reginald D.

Please rate and review on Apple Podcast. See you next time.