Know Your Money with Bronwyn Waner and Craig Finch
Know Your Money with Bronwyn Waner and Craig Finch
120. What Surviving Teaches Us About Living
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What happens when life changes in an instant? Kalvin van Baalen knows this reality all too well. After flying into power lines during a paragliding excursion, Kalvin fell into the resulting fire, suffering burns over 70% of his body. That catastrophic moment transformed him from an active, healthy 21-year-old to someone who would spend over 400 days fighting for his life in ICU.
Kalvin's story isn't just about survival—it's about extraordinary resilience and perspective. "Nothing is actually an obstacle compared to what a real obstacle was—surviving and trying to walk again," he shares with remarkable candor. Now pursuing a finance degree with plans to become a CFA, Kalvin has channeled his experience into a methodical approach toward building a sustainable future. His paragliding accident didn't just change his body; it fundamentally altered his relationship with risk, both physical and financial.
As an ambassador for disabled golf, Kalvin visits schools and works with children with disabilities, showing them what's possible through authentic engagement and competitive spirit. His willingness to be visible—playing golf in shorts that don't hide his scars—creates powerful connections with children who can truly relate to his experience. Through our conversation, we explore crucial financial planning considerations for individuals with disabilities, particularly regarding insurance options available through group coverage at larger companies. Kalvin's journey reminds us why proper financial planning isn't optional—it's essential protection against life's unpredictable turns. When everything can change in thirty minutes, as it did for Kalvin, having appropriate safeguards in place becomes not just prudent but potentially life-saving.
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Introduction to Calvin van Baalen
Speaker 1Hello everybody, welcome to Know your Money. I'm Bronwyn Wehner.
The Paragliding Accident Story
Speaker 2And I'm Craig Finch, and we are from Growth Financial Planning. We hope you enjoy our podcast. Hi everybody, we've got a very special guest in the studio today, calvin van Baalen. Calvin's a good friend of ours and he plays golf with me at CCJ and he's an ambassador, but he had a horrific accident paragliding many years ago and we'd like him to tell his story and exactly what happened. So, calvin, can you just give us a little bit of a opening. What happened to you all those years?
Speaker 3ago. So basically I was paragliding and I flew into a power line, caused the fire below me and fell into the fire and caught a light and burned. So I spent over a year in ICU and here I am. It's a love.
Speaker 1That's pretty good. Yeah, yeah, pretty amazing.
Speaker 2But you broke lots of bones and you were on. 70% of your body was burnt. Is that correct?
Speaker 3I was actually lucky. I didn't break any bones.
Speaker 2Didn't you.
Speaker 3No. The only bone I've broken is this, and that's when. I fell on my crutches and fell. My mom actually took me and then I broke my metacarpal. That's the only bone I've ever broken.
Speaker 2Wow, that was after the accident. Yeah, oh, my goodness, yeah.
Speaker 1That is amazing.
Speaker 2But your dad was at the scene. He must have been beside himself to see you on fire and that, yeah, I know you still got out of your harness.
Speaker 3Yeah, I had to get out of my harness.
New Life Perspective and Future Plans
Speaker 1True harness. Yeah, I had to get out of my harness and everything. Yeah, okay. And after all of that, where do you see yourself now? What? What is what? How do you think differently and what financial decisions, I guess, do you make after going through all of that?
Speaker 3well, I think I've definitely got more of a plan, whereas before I was just sort of young and taking it as it comes, now I'm studying, so I've got six months left of my finance degree. Then I've got a plan I'm going to go do my CFA and, yeah, hopefully build a career for myself that's going to result in a sustainable future and, yeah, amazing.
Golf Ambassador for Disabled Community
Speaker 3And you play golf, or disabled golf golf, and you're very involved in helping them with their projects, and that as well yeah, I do a lot of golf for a lot of work for disabled golf and a lot of golf for disabled golf. Um, yeah, I think I'm quite a good. I'm an ambassador for them as well. So, I think, being how I am, I'm happy to go play in shorts. I'm very happy with how I am. I'm happy to go play in shorts. I'm very happy with how I am, which is quite rare, I think, with a lot of people with disabilities and the way that I can talk and everything. I go to the schools and chat to the people.
Speaker 1What do you say when you go to the schools? What's the motivation behind the?
Speaker 3So I go to disabled schools and we just some of them just do like therapeutic golf. So I think their whole thinking was they'd rather send someone who's disabled, where the kids can actually relate. Yeah, and I'm not a shell of myself, I don't go there. And like, I'll go there. How's it going? What's up? Cool, we're going to play some golf, have a game, have fun. And they love it. Yeah, because abled people are more more competitive than abled people.
Speaker 3Yeah, I swear you want to see competitive go like there's kids in wheelchairs and we'll set up a little game and they want to like, they just want to win that's. That's actually fun.
Speaker 1Yeah yeah, I think it is a type of mindset as well, because you want to prove that you can still do things Exactly. It's not.
Speaker 2But you're a positive person and I think that rubs off on everybody that meets you, so that it's contagious that you're positivity and you can't believe after what you went through over 400 days in ICU and you still got out of there and you're still positive about life.
Speaker 4Would you have considered yourself to be more resilient before the accident or more resilient now as far as life?
Speaker 3I think definitely now. Yeah, now that I, sort of in my own head, I know what I'm capable of overcoming, so almost like nothing is actually an obstacle, sort of compared to what a real obstacle was, which was surviving and trying to walk again. I could have the worst thing ever happen to me and I'm like, oh, it's not as bad. It's not as bad as what I've had before.
Speaker 4Yeah, it's one I love is when people go, yeah, it's a real problem and then they list something that's nothing yeah.
Financial Planning After Disability
Speaker 3But I think it's weird, because you can't go and tell people that their problems are not because, just because my problem is bigger, was bigger. Well, you have perspective now. Yes, exactly. A lot of people don't get in their whole lifetime, yeah, and break their toe in the end of the world.
Speaker 2Are you less risk averse now? Are you more careful what you do, or?
Speaker 3I think so definitely, especially in my personal life. Like even walking, I can't afford to trip because it could potentially be another operation and out of golf, I can't be finishing the course for a couple of months. I don't know, golf is the reason I got to walk. Yeah but seriously, stuff like that, like even getting out of the shower I've got to put tiles down on the floor, so I don't slip, so you slip.
Speaker 3yeah, yeah, it's really, and even financially, I think I do save a lot more than what I did in the past. I mean, I am old enough, so I don't know if that's more of a wise thing.
Speaker 4You might also just be more, because of what's happened, acutely aware of the consequences of things now. Yes, Whereas before you weren't really that aware of the consequences of things now, Whereas before you weren't really that aware of the consequences of what could happen with your actions.
Speaker 3I've been a bit older and, yeah, nothing's guaranteed. Even I'll be working a job, but you don't know, I mean you could not have that job in two months' time. And then what's going to happen? I'm not in a position, I don't have a degree yet, I'm not qualified, I don't have something to fall back on.
Speaker 1So the stuff I do is sort of not guaranteed, and do you know where you're going to go and work once you get a degree? Have you put any thought into that?
Speaker 3No, I haven't really looked at that.
Speaker 4Anywhere that's got the best disabled sort of benefits.
Speaker 3No, I'm still focusing on, I think the CFA is quite a big. I'm seeing it as quite a big challenge. I don't know, have any of you done CFA?
Speaker 4no, I'm very stupid no, not you must know a lot.
Speaker 3No, we do yeah what do they say yeah, it's like yeah, I'm trying to just like that's already an obstacle, it's financial analysis and funds in that job. Like what Fund?
Speaker 2house does. Like fund house. What they do, that's their driving it's analyzing funds. That's smart stuff yeah, yeah, very smart stuff.
Speaker 1And I think an important thing, craig, do you want to maybe explain how it would work at a company, so if a disabled person was able to join a company and they have a fund yeah, a provident or pension fund.
Insurance Options and Medical Coverage
Speaker 2Yeah, so that's another way, calvin, because at the moment an underwriter would probably run for the hills when you come asking for cover. But if you join a bigger company they would have a pension fund in place and on that pension fund there's something called a free cover limit, group life, so group life. So you've got group life and group disability cover. Mostly it's a lot of the companies have income protection. So if you lose the ability to earn your income, like you were in hospital for 400 days, so you can have cover like that as a waiting period, maybe a three-month waiting period, and thereafter your salary gets paid all the way until you get back to work. And if you could never have worked again, thank goodness you could all the way until you're 65 years old.
Speaker 2So there is that cover in place. So free cover limit means that anybody who joins that fund, doesn't matter of your current condition health-wise, you automatically are accepted on that fund. Automatically you'll get the group life cover. Automatically you'll get the loss of income cover and maybe funeral cover as well, to the point of the free cover limit and you'll have and a lot of companies will have a continuation option. So if you leave that company. After a number of years you can take that those two elements or three elements, with you into your own policy and you can pay that for the rest of your life. So there's not no hope about getting cover. You can definitely get cover, but via a bigger company where there's a big pension fund. And that would be where I would consider one day you end up, not because you'd only want to be there for that reason, but it's a nice to have reason to get cover.
Speaker 3What about things like life insurance cover and disability? Would they see me as like a bad life insurance investment because I'm not going to make a certain age?
Speaker 2No, I think they'd look at your. I think life cover is less risk because you're a normal 27-year-old risk person because you, but your condition of disability, you've got issues with the leg, maybe issues with your back, et cetera, and then they'd want to exclude that. But if you join this company, that would be included so you could get cover going forward and also severe illness cover as well, so you can get all those things if you're part of a big group. So there's no hope of not getting cover. And then your medical aid you'll carry on forever because you know the importance of that and importance of private medical aid. Because, as you said to us, that if you didn't have the medical aid you'd go to a state hospital and there's no guarantee that you would have made it there.
Speaker 3No, I wouldn't have yeah.
Speaker 2Oh so.
Reflections and Closing Thoughts
Speaker 1Yeah, I think it's good to know how you are thinking about your future and what you're thinking of from a financial perspective, but then also just to give people that sort of hope that if you are positive and you want to keep going and you want to make a life, there are options for you to still have those things. And I'm sure life cover is important for you if you want to have a family one day and be, able to provide for them.
Speaker 2But also Calvin. It was probably scary to realize that one minute you were soaring like a bird and everything was great, and the next minute you were nearly dead.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2At one second it happened.
Speaker 3I always say the weirdest thing was being fit, healthy, 21,. Half an hour before the accident I ran off a mountain and then flew a bit, crashed and half an hour later I couldn't even stand up. That's how quickly it happened, and then I couldn't stand up for another what? Three years. I don't know if I can stand with this mic, but I swear for me the during my rehab, the thing that I never thought I'd be able to do was just get up off a chair like this I never thought I'd be able to do that like I just used to watch people and I was like how can you do that?
Speaker 3Yeah, I was just absolutely. You know, the stuff can change quickly.
Speaker 2But with your positive attitude, it's been amazing to see what you've done, in golf particularly, and how every time we play with you and the people that play with you can't be amazed how far you hit the ball and how accurate you hit it.
Speaker 3It's amazing how good you are.
Speaker 4How far do you hit?
Speaker 3it About 250.
Speaker 2That's a long way, and he's accurate as well. He hits it straight as well.
Speaker 1Awesome. Thank you so much and good luck thank you, good luck for the future.
Speaker 2See you on the golf course soon. Keep positive and keep helping everybody you meet. It's wonderful to see you. Thank you for today, thanks, thanks. Thank you for listening. If you have enjoyed this podcast would like to subscribe, please visit our website, wwwgrowthfpcoza. The information we have provided in this podcast is our personal opinion. For more detailed information, please discuss your financial situation with a financial planner.