Episode 148: Conquering Adversity with Trent Brock

I am originally from Louisiana and consider myself a slightly redneck Southern gentleman. I graduated from college with an MBA in Information Technology in 2000.

I have always been one of those people that continually challenges myself. I love to go to new places, have new experiences and try things I have not done before. I traveled around the US for five years as an IT consultant. I took a break and lived in Spain for a year teaching English, attempted to learn Spanish (that was a bit of disasters lol!) and traveled around Europe on the holidays. I went back into IT and ended up in settling in New Zealand over fifteen years. In 2010 after living in New Zealand four years, I stumbled upon an opportunity to start a kettle corn business with another American guy I met in the boxing gym, who traveled to NZ to prepare his boxers for fights. Kettle corn was non-existent in NZ at the time. After researching over the weekend, I thought it would be a winner. Boy, were we right! We are thirteen years in business and the #2 popcorn manufacturer in NZ. We have two factories, fifteen staff, four popcorn lines and more popcorn products than I can keep track of! In the spring of 2019 after limping around the factory and several doctors, I got diagnosed with hip bone cancer. The surgery to remove the cancer that left me crippled with my left leg four inches shorter than the right. On my next scan I got lung and then pancreas cancer (had a less than 5% chance to beat it). I changed my diet, exercise routine and began to work on my mental/spiritual outlook. I retrained my mindset to believe I could beat cancer even though five specialists told me to plan my exit and gave me a year to live. Whipped all three of the cancers while still running NZ Kettle Korn, but I did move back to the US in spring 2021 for pancreatic cancer treatment. I am now 19 month cancer free and currently a patient with Mayo Clinic doing multiple surgeries over several months that will give me the four inches back. This is a custom, never done before hip implant and bone lengthening procedure that will be published in the medical journals. 

Connect with Trent:

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: /in/trent-brock-22313b1 

Facebook:@trent.brock.73 

Instagram@trentbbrock