Paul has a fascinating story, he was a martial arts instructor with his own business, a house, car, the lot. But unfortunately after covid, he lost what he had and ended up homeless. He says though that with his remarkably positive outlook on life, his mantra is to give back where you can and the universe will do the rest.
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00:00I was a personal trainer, sports therapist, and martial arts instructor for 20 years.
00:06Built up quite a successful company in Devon.
00:10A club, we had about 1,000 attendances a week doing martial arts and fitness.
00:16Had a three-story, four-bedroom house, a dog, a couple of cats, a relationship and everything.
00:23Then COVID hit, so literally overnight lost more or less everything.
00:29And then, yeah, relationship broke down.
00:34Lost the house, the cars, and the business and all the rest of it.
00:39But the worst thing was me having to say goodbye to my dog, to be fair.
00:44That's the one thing I really, really do miss.
00:47After COVID caused so many problems for Paul, his mother was then diagnosed with cancer,
00:52and he decided to move in and care for her.
00:54She's now doing well, and he's positive about where he is.
00:57But he says that he's no one special, and there are plenty more people in similar situations.
01:02He says giving where you can will provide a cause and thanks from the universe.
01:08The universe provides if you do the right thing.
01:11And then they've got a, you know, everyone knows the saying, never give up.
01:16But I kind of flipped that a little bit.
01:21What I think it means is always give down.
01:24I mean, I was the lowest of the low.
01:26I had no one basically underneath me apart from nature.
01:30So I was giving to nature.
01:32Always give down, and the universe will provide.
01:38Paul now spends his days litterpicking around Cardiff and being that positive influence he wants to see.
01:44He never intended for it to be what he does full time,
01:47but is happy that it's given him the opportunity to help others and especially help nature.
01:52Yeah, well, as I said, when I started litterpicking, I was only going to do about half an hour.
01:58That was three and a half years ago now.
02:01I haven't stopped since.
02:02So I just go out with my litterpicker about six days a week.
02:07I do as long as I like or can.
02:10I've got issues with my hands where they don't really work properly just due to an old rugby injury.
02:15But I do what I can when I can.
02:17Paul says that everyone should get involved in helping nature where they can.
02:21And he's part of a group that goes around every week to help clean the streets
02:25and offers his open invitation to be a part of a group that does so much good.
02:31So, yeah, we are called the Wombles of Wales.
02:35We are a litterpicking charity and we are very recently an official charity.
02:40We're a small charity without a charity number yet, but we are an official charity.
02:45And every Monday we work with other charities, with CAVTAS and an amazing group called Phoenix Heroes
02:52where we do a community litterpick around Cardiff Castle.
02:56And that's everybody can get involved.