Dorothy: [00:00:00] Cancer and sailing, what do they have in common? Entrepreneur, designer, dreamer Mike Martin took an idea born during his rehab and turned it into a once in a lifetime experience for people dealing with cancer. He saw something that didn’t work and made it into something that did. That’s the ingenuity of Mike.
He develops products that work, products that last, and make a difference. But when he created Miss Emma’s Retreat, he created a memory that people will cherish for a lifetime.
Let’s talk About Your Breast. A different kind of podcast presented to you by The Rose. A breast center of excellence and a Texas treasure. You’re gonna hear frank discussions about tough topics, and you’re gonna learn why knowing about your breast could save your life. Join us as we hear another story and we answer those tough questions that you may have.[00:01:00]
Mike: My name is Mike Martin. I am here to talk about Miss Emma’s Retreat, which is we take cancer patients sailing in Galveston Bay, free of charge. I also have a company called Capitalism to Cause where, uh, all the things that I invent, we sell, and some of the proceeds goes to, uh, the causes that we support, uh, which the Rose is one of them, so, and then, of course, Miss Emma’s Retreat.
Dorothy: Well, we’re so delighted to have you here, and I want you to tell me the story of how Miss Emma’s Retreat started.
Mike: Uh, yeah, it was a, it was a, it’s a pretty crazy story. It was a, a very challenging time in my life. I was, Finishing up from another product that I invented and I’ve worked on for about 20 years, um, is a weighted scrub brush, my first invention.
And I was in the process of selling it. My doctor had told me that I had heart disease, uh, had to have a stent put in. And so Just under a lot of stress and my parents were getting [00:02:00] sick. Candy, my wife Her parents were we were doing hospice with them at our house and so we did two years of hos— or four years with hospice with them and then My parents were starting to get towards that same stage and I was looking at having to take care of them And, uh, I was struggling with, I had three shoulder surgeries during this, uh, hospice tour from catching people when they fell.
And I would tear my shoulders up and have surgery for it. And so, uh, I got addicted to pain pills. And so, uh, and with the stent, that wasn’t very good. So my blood pressure got really, uh, out of control. And I was in a lot of trouble. And then Emma was born. Uh, in 2017 and she had a knot on her chest and that was the sign to me that my life had to change that I wasn’t going to be able to take care of anybody.
So I went to my wife, Candace, and I told her that I had to check myself into rehab to get [00:03:00] over this pain pills. She really didn’t know anything about it, what was going on. So she was shocked, but I went ahead and did it. It was, uh. The start of the most amazing chapter of my life that has ever happened.
Uh, I went in to the detox That’s what I really needed To get medicine so I could come off of the pain pills without having a stroke or heart attack or whatever and so I got there and That’s when the magic started. I mean, uh, at first there was, I don’t know, eight people when I got there and it’s always so uncomfortable when you’re sharing your worst part of life with other people.
And the next day I woke up and everybody was gone. I was at the detox by myself. And so for the next three days I got to sit and talk to counselors and, and, uh, work on myself and that helped. I was still in a lot of trouble. Uh, but then we went to rehab and that’s where it really started. Uh, the first day there, I isolated because no one wants to be where we are when we’re in [00:04:00] that condition.
And, uh, don’t want to be around anybody else who’s in the same condition. Uh, when you’re first get there, that all changes once you start talking to everybody and hearing everybody has the same stories. And the first day I went over and I was isolating by myself and didn’t want to talk to anybody in this.
Kid came up was talking about boats. I’d only been there for an hour, but I’d heard him a couple of times He’s like, hey Mike, why don’t you come over here and play cornhole with us? That’s like no, I don’t think so. Leave me alone. Get away from me. I don’t want anything to do with you He was on outpatient. The next day he came in I was in a little bit better mood, but still but he came in wearing a Baylor shirt where my daughter went And so I figured we had something in common, so I went and asked him, you went to Baylor? He said, yes, I did. I was a theology graduate, which I thought was okay. That’s pretty interesting.
And so later that day, we’re out there on break again. He is playing catch with somebody. He could really throw a baseball. So I went over to him. I played ball my whole life. I went over to him and said, you play baseball? [00:05:00] He goes, yeah, I was a catcher on the baseball team. And I was like, okay, well, I’ll hang out with you.
And so, uh, the next day he came in wearing a sailing instructor shirt. And I was like, you’re a sailing instructor. And he goes, yeah, I won the silver medal in the junior Olympics when I was 13. I was like, Oh my God. Right. And so that was Wednesday. Thursday was the first day that Candy is allowed to see me since I’d entered.
And, uh, Emma had just got diagnosed with cancer. And so. Uh, Candy told me that. They were starting the chemo the next day, 52 weeks of it. Once a week for three weeks and then the fourth week would be five days. And the next day we had art class and they asked us what we were going to do when we got out to pay it forward.
And I said, I don’t know about y’all, but I’m going to grab that kid over there. We’re going to go get a sailboat and we’re going to take cancer kids sailing in Galveston Bay. And I had only been sailing 20 years before that one time in San Diego, didn’t know anything about boats, didn’t know how to operate [00:06:00] one.
I lived in Clear Lake, that’s all I had. And, but that’s what we’re going to do. And I made a poster, I got a picture of it, which is sailing with Miss Emma’s Retreat, sailing with cancer kids. And that dream was put into the universe right down the next week. We went and looked at boats, boats were 3 – $400,000.
That was out of the question. I was in rehab. Uh, the next day I went and saw my parents for the first time who they both passed in 2020, but they were not pleased. And I was going into rehab at 50, 54 years old. to say the least, but let me do what I had to do. But I went down and saw my dad. He took me down to Nate’s in Galveston.
Of course, I wasn’t going to say anything about my sailboat idea that I had in rehab, but he sat me at the bar where you’re supposed to put your kid who’s in rehab at the bar and the bartender came and put a bucket down, put the ice in it. And put a bottle on top of it and I said to my dad, that’s not going to work.
He goes, what’s that? I said, that wine bucket. He’s like, who [00:07:00] cares? I said, I think I’m about to invent something and he’s like, Oh no, here we go again. And sure enough, I drew that, uh, this cool and curved wine bucket, my latest invention. And as soon as I did, and I kind of got my dad’s response when he saw the drawing that I was on to something I sat back and I again, I didn’t hadn’t mentioned anything about the boat with my dad, but I knew right then God gave me this wine bucket and I knew exactly what I was going to do with it.
I knew that he was giving me another opportunity to take a product to market, which is truly living the dream. It is invent and take it to market is the funnest thing you can possibly do just because the amount of people who help you. It’s just, I, I love what I do. And so, and I encourage everybody to do it.
Everybody’s a creator. We can all do it. And so, I told God right then, if you’re going to let me invent products, take them to market, and with the proceeds take people sailing in Galveston Bay, you can have it. I’ll, I’ll donate everything I can. I got to make sure my wife makes a little bit of money because we haven’t made [00:08:00] any money in 27 years.
But that’s the life of a starving inventor, I guess, starving artist or, uh, but I just said, if you’ll just take care of her, we’re good. And Capitalism to Cause was started and we use our inventions to generate money to give to charities. And that’s what we do with our sailboat that we got a week later.
We have a 45 foot Beneteau sailboat that we now take cancer patients sailing on. We give it a Uh, charities like yours to auction off and we’ll, we’ll raise 5- 6- 7- 8,000 dollars per charity to help with y’all’s causes. And I get to meet the people who give and I get to take them sailing and you know, people always say, Mike, it’s so great what you do now.
The pleasure is all mine.
Dorothy: That’s a great, great story. Now let’s go back for just a minute. Emma was diagnosed at four months old?
Mike: No, she was diagnosed at three weeks.
Dorothy: Three weeks.
Mike: Yes.
Dorothy: And immediately had to start, uh, treatment.
Mike: Yes, at four weeks. And so, [00:09:00] um, yeah, she was born with a knot on her chest. And it took them three weeks to figure out what it was and what they were going to do.
And, uh, they did big studies on her and everything. And they, they said they probably did a little bit overkill, but they didn’t know. I mean, this was the first one that’s ever been born, uh, with this. And so, uh, they went at it real aggressively. But like I said. She never cried to the whole thing. She just, she battled through it.
She, you know, she’d get sick, but she just battled through it and smiled. I got pictures on pictures on pictures, and it was just amazing to watch. And like we said, the nurses, everything involved in it, you know, Is it a tragedy? Not in my eyes. I mean, it was the most beautiful thing that’s happened. And we got one of the most beautiful little girls on the planet.
And, you know, as we get to know her more, you’ll see her personality. It’s Can’t put money on that.
Dorothy: And she is a beautiful little girl. She’s now how old?
Mike: She is now six years old.
Dorothy: And she Went to chemo for a year.
Mike: [00:10:00] For a year, 52 weeks. Yes. And this is her fifth year outside of her chemo. So this is a big year for her.
Dorothy: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. We need to celebrate that one.
Mike: Yes, we do. She rang the bell when she was one year old. And that was magical. That’s on our Facebook page and, and stuff. All the nurses and doctors that came to, to see her. And again, cannot say enough about the nurses and the doctors that helped do this whole thing.
I mean, it’s just, it’s, you just cannot put words to it. Just how kind they were and just how much love was there. It was just an amazing journey.
Dorothy: So this is in 2017. And there was also a major storm that came through that year, and that all happened kind of together, didn’t it?
Mike: Uh, it did. I had just got my boat, my, the kid who was in rehab with me, Lawrence Mayer, uh, he was, uh, teaching me how to sail.
We sailed a bunch, and I had [00:11:00] my own personal sailing instructor for six months, so, which was just amazing. But we went out the weekend that Harvey was coming. We were on Thursday. Hurricane Harvey is coming in. The first band actually hit us while we’re out there, which was amazing. Uh, but we were talking out there and when it rains, my house floods.
Uh, and we always had to do something about that when big storms come in and Hurricane Harvey was coming in. Emma, on a side note, was having her surgery to have that walnut removed that was on her chest on the Monday. Uh, Hurricane Harvey was coming in on Saturday. And Emma’s surgery was on Monday. So it was Thursday.
I had to go talk, we got in from Salem and I had to go talk to my neighbor about fixing something to keep the water from going in my house. And so she was outside and I walked over there and, uh, She was staying out there and her granddaughter came walking up [00:12:00] and I asked if this was her granddaughter and she says it was and again We had this surgery coming up with little Emma and we were scared to death We didn’t know what was gonna happen and they didn’t know what was gonna happen because they just they’d never seen it before right?
And so anyway, the little girl comes running up. I asked Audrey— Audra— If that was her granddaughter, she says, yes, it is. I said, oh, our granddaughter’s having surgery on Monday. And she goes, really, uh, how old is she? I said, she’s four months old. And she goes, really, is her name Emma? And I said, yes, it is.
She goes, I’m the head nurse in the operating room. And so, uh, that was the first, uh, not the first, but one of many signs that the man upstairs, a woman upstairs was, uh, in charge of all this.
Dorothy: Absolutely, absolutely. So you call yourself, um Disruptor, uh, I know you’re an, and you invent things. How, how many different products have you actually taken to market?
Mike: This is my second. I have [00:13:00] uh, three patents have some trademarks, uh, but my heavyweight scrub brush called the heavyweight was my first product that I did back in 1995 I guess about four weeks after I met Candy And then I did this one starting in 2018 I invented it and Again, after, after rehab, it took us three weeks to get the boat.
And it took us eight more months to get the buckets into my garage. So it was a very quick process, the whole thing. And we were a lot faster at it with the bucket only because we had done it before. And so, but, uh, this is our second product and, uh, things are, you know, we’ve had some hurdles and some mistakes that, uh, they’re not mistakes or just lessons learned, but I’ve had some hard lessons learned and, uh, but now, uh, things are really starting to roll.
And I think we’re about to find our stride and go.
Dorothy: And so tell us again, because you, you mentioned it before, but when you purchase this bucket, [00:14:00] part of that can go to any charity, to a charity you pick, right? Or you’re—
Mike: yes.
Dorothy: Yeah. How does you just go online and buy them or what?
Mike: Yes. You go to coolincurve.com and that’s C O O L I N C U R V E. And when you check out, when you buy your Coolin Curve, I have it personalized or branded. When you go to check out, you get to a point where you want the proceeds to go to. 35 percent of the proceeds will go to one of the causes that we have. Uh, listed, uh, in the checkout and then what we do at the rest of the money is I use with Miss Emma’s Retreat.
So we try to use as much as possible of the money to go to helping. And so, and again, the more buckets we sell, the more we’re going to be able to help. And again, so the, the keys to, to sell 20 million buckets, you make $5 a bucket. That’s a hundred million dollars. I don’t need a hundred million dollars.
You give me one we’re good. So you can have the 99 and we’ll go make another invention So, you know, we’ll make a [00:15:00] difference with the 99 million dollars.
Dorothy: And for our listeners this bucket is absolutely gorgeous, but it has a way of allowing the Bottle to just go into the ice without All the hassle of trying to get into it.
And I, I’ve never seen anything like this. It’s amazing.
Mike: Yeah, no, it’s a curved bottom beverage chiller is what it is. And it’s pretty simple when you use a regular wine bucket, you can’t get the bottle into the ice because the ice doesn’t move out of the way well, because we curved it. When you put the ice in, or put the bottle in, the ice just rotates around the curve.
There you have it.
Dorothy: There you have it.
Mike: A Curve Bottom Beverage Chiller.
Dorothy: Now Mike, I know, and you kind of went very quickly over this too, the, the yacht, or the sailing experience that you offer. That is totally free to that cancer patient. And how you help us make money from it, which, by the way, Mike, we had the most fabulous Shrimp Boil we’ve ever had.
We’ve never made that much money, and [00:16:00] some of that’s attributed to you. Absolutely. You gave us one and then you donated another one. And I mean, the people were going crazy. They just thought that was the best gift of anything. It’s an experience.
Mike: Yes.
Dorothy: And, and it really meant a lot to us to even know this kind of resources out there for cancer patients.
So thank you first. Uh, and so When you say it’s open to any cancer patient?
Mike: Uh, yeah, and even family who’s, has lost someone in cancer. I mean, we just wanna, when you get on a boat, when we go out there, it’s, you’re with God. Uh, we call it God’s breath in the sails. You hear it. I don’t, we don’t listen to music because it defeats the whole purpose of being out there.
So we sit out there, you turn the motor off, the sails are up, and they’re just, ta ta ta ta ta ta. And it’s just in the wind, and it’s God, and it’s just absolutely magical. And so, uh, what we do is we’ll take up to six guests out on [00:17:00] the boat, uh, free of charge. We feed them. We have a chef, Chef Scotty Campbell, who, I guess he’s 65 now.
Uh, but he had a heart transplant four years ago and is our chef. So he is amazing. Uh, just does amazing food. And so as long as we have him, he got COVID kind of got him a little bit, but as long as we have him, I think that makes the cancer sail even better and not just cancer sail with the auction sales, because he’s just magical himself.
What a great story. But yeah, we just go by word of mouth. Anybody wants to go, you just call us and we take you out. And it’s not just a one time thing. If you need to go sailing, we take you sailing. So I use sail time, which I don’t own my boat. I got it through a membership. Again, when I was in rehab and I went and looked at boats and they were $300,000.
Again, I just think rehab and $300,000 don’t go together.
Dorothy: Don’t work, no.
Mike: So, uh, that wasn’t possible, but when I [00:18:00] was researching, I found a company called Sailtime, and Evan and Amanda, who are absolutely amazing, and it’s a timeshare, and so you just pay a monthly fee, and I get to boat seven times a month, and I use my seven times to take cancer kids sailing, or cancer people sailing.
And, uh, it’s just worked out fantastic. The big vision down the road is to have all the sail times in the country. And the people who sail with Sailtime, like me, I’m not the only one that wants to help people. There’s, everybody wants to help people. And to take them sailing out on their boats, what a greater thing, what a great thing to do.
So, I hope that we can do this all over the country. We can, uh, spread the word about the wine buckets. They’ll sell, they’ll sell the wine buckets, the wine buckets will pay for the food, they’ll pay for the sailboats, and off they’ll go and we’ll, we’ll help people all around the world, uh, who are struggling with cancer.
Dorothy: Well, that’s a big vision. But it could come back. It could come together easily. I mean, with the things that you’ve shared with us, the community stepped up and helped anytime [00:19:00] that you had another one of these crazy ideas and made it happen. Tell us, tell the us about the Sunday trip you just took.
Mike: Uh, Hey, yes.
And this is, uh, it was magical for sure. And this is something that happens quite a bit. It wasn’t looking very good because there wasn’t a whole lot of wind. It looked like we had a north wind that was coming in and it was going to rotate and become its normal southeast wind, which we normally have. But when it turns like that, you go to zero and no wind means hot.
And so, uh, a lot of times when it’s hot on the here, it’s not hot on the water, you have a cool breeze. And so, Uh, but we went out on Sunday. It was hot. I had one sail up because there was no wind whatsoever. There wasn’t even a ripple in the water. I mean, it was smooth. And I had to keep the motor on because there was just no air on the boat.
And we were probably out there for about an hour. And then. God does what he [00:20:00] does. He showed up and we had, uh, two grandparents, two kids, and then two grandkids on the boat. And the grandkids were hot and, you know, getting a little bit anxious and All of a sudden, God showed up and brought us dolphins, and I don’t know if you saw the video, but—
Dorothy: Oh, I saw it. It was amazing.
Mike: Yeah, I know. I mean, they were doing flips out there. They were playing with jellyfish. They were jellyfishing each other. One almost jumped in the boat, it seemed like. The guy was banging on the back of the boat, and the dolphins kept coming up to us. And I tried to explain to them that this just does not happen.
And so Uh, it’s happened in different levels to some other people when we needed it, but I mean, it’ll be, it’ll be raining in Houston pouring on a day of our sail and people call, are we sailing today? It’s like, just get to the boat, just get to the boat. Oh, you sure get to the boat. They get to the boat, it stops raining.
We put them on the boat. We go out there, we have this in [00:21:00] beautiful sale for five hours, come back in, put them on land, get them in the car, it starts raining. I mean, it’s. That’s just how it works. I mean, God just shows up when it’s time to sail. So, uh, again, that goes back to, Oh, Mike, I can’t believe you do what you do.
No, it’s fun. I mean, again, I I’m the one who wins out of all this just to get to witness.
Dorothy: I love that. God just shows up. Boy, we need a lot more of that, especially when you’re battling cancer. Are your yeah. Dealing with a loved one who has cancer. Wow.
Mike: Yeah, it’s tough. And we, we have a lot of them. My mom died of breast cancer.
My two brother in laws just passed right away, uh, from cancer. Both of them had it a year maybe and, uh, they both passed. And so, I’m with a lot of people that, uh, that that happens to. And so, you know, it’s tough and, uh, and it’s sad, but it’s also, There’s so much beauty in it. Uh, I, we had, my parents died in [00:22:00] 2020 and I was down there taking care of them.
And they were married for 63 years. They were together for 79 years. uh, held hands in first grade and they told me their whole life, Oh, we’re going to, we’re going to die at home. You’re going to be one takes care of us. Um, you know, uh, it’s going to be perfect. And I don’t know how they knew that, but sure enough, uh, they died, they died at their beach house.
And I managed to put them in the exact same spot in the house. And so they died in the exact same spot. So if there’s a portal that you go through to be together, I got them in that portal.
Dorothy: Oh my, what a story.
Mike: Yeah. And, but the day after my, my dad died on August 1st, on August 3rd, one of my first cancer patients had, uh, put on Facebook that he was looking for a beach house in, uh, Surfside.
If anybody could help out, he’s looking for a discount because he wants to take his daughters, uh, for one last vacation before school started. I knew [00:23:00] his condition and it, I knew it was more of one last vacation for him. And so, uh, I. Looked at our beach house. I was like, well, this one just emptied out. Why don’t you come here?
So I called him up and said, uh, Hey, why don’t y’all come down to our beach house and stay here for a few days? I’ll, I’ll step out and y’all can have it. And then, uh, we’ll go sailing and have a good time. And they said, okay. And. Uh, they came down on two weeks later on a Monday, and he got out of the car from Edinburg, uh, John Castillo, and he got out of the car, and he was sick.
I mean, he was. He was close. I, you know, he was, he was near the end of his battle, his journey, I should say. And so we got him upstairs and I was like, Oh my, what have I done? Cause now I had my parents just passing this house and now I might have another person passing the house. So I [00:24:00] was a little concerned about that.
I didn’t tell my brothers that I’d done that. And so I’m the youngest troublemaker, of course. We got him upstairs, got him into bed, my mom’s bed, the Tempur Pedic that Gallery Furniture sold me, thank you Mac, uh, adjustable, and we got him up there, which I know he was in heaven in that thing because my mom loved that bed.
And, but he was too sick to go sailing, I thought, but sure enough, when I was leaving, he said, Hey, Mike, are we going sailing tomorrow? I was like, of course we’re going sailing, you know, and again, I didn’t know what to do with that. So, but the next day we were waiting at the boat for him and I didn’t think he’d show up.
I thought he’d be too sick, but he showed up and we took him sailing, him and his family, his girls and his wife, uh, Lesvia. And I have one of the most amazing pictures I’ve ever taken on the boat, and it was with him when he was in trouble, I mean, he was in trouble on the boat, but he was happy, uh, and his daughters were in the front and they were just at peace, and it was so [00:25:00] magical that you could have such a heavy situation and still be happy, you know, and that’s just what happens.
And so, anyway, we got him in, uh, after the sail, and Got him back to the house, which again, another amazing moment then and then, uh, he died two weeks later and it was a magical sale, but I still see. post today on Facebook of them in the beach house and them on the sailboat. And so that’s a big mission is to have a house in Waterford to where people can come and stay overnight and then we’ll sail and they won’t be rushed and we’ll have our chef there take care of them and just really have a great program that isn’t just about sailing, but just care and everything. So, and you had mentioned earlier, it might happen. It will happen. I will make this happen.
Dorothy: Oh,
Mike: it’s God doing it.
Dorothy: I believe it. And, and I think, I think what you’re doing is, you know, it’s like you’ve invented something else totally different.
And this is that experience and you know, cancer does involve the entire [00:26:00] family. And sometimes we need to have those good experiences, not just the bad memories or the hard memories. So.
Mike: Yeah.
Dorothy: Wow, what a gift you are to so many, Mike, and oh, I didn’t know all these things about you. I’m just amazed.
Mike: Again, it’s, I’ve been so blessed my whole life, and I’ve, I’ve been around, I don’t know, I was trying to put a number on it, I guess 12 people who passed that I was really close to, I mean, and with them, right?
And it’s just, it’s, Sad, of course, but it’s also magical. This isn’t the end, this is just the beginning. This is, life is, I don’t think we really know what life is. Life is much more than what we make it down here on this planet. And we can make it better by just quieting the old Noodle and, uh, living in the present and because in the present, in the moment, why I found that’s where God lives, because that’s where he makes everything happen and I just watch it.
Dorothy: And God [00:27:00] just shows up.
Mike: He does show up.
Dorothy: Oh, thank you for the story. Thank you for sharing with us. Thank you for supporting the Rose. So appreciate you.
Mike: I hope 37 more years.
Dorothy: So that wraps it up for today. And don’t forget, we’re doing a episode every single day. You’re going to get your daily dose of Let’s Talk About Your Breasts during the month of October.
Post-Credits: October is the month of pink, and for The Rose, a Breast Center of Excellence. That means we’ll be airing podcasts every day in October to celebrate Breast Cancer Awareness Month. We’ll be sharing everything from bikers writing for breast cancer to areola tattoos. Be sure to share with family and friends because there’s a little something for everyone.
To find out ways to help The Rose, visit our website at therose.org. Remember self care is not selfish, it’s essential.
