Welcome to the 50th Episode

Malcolm Stern 0:46

So welcome to my podcast , slay your Dragons with Compassion . This is the 50th edition , actually , so I'm really , I'm really pleased with that . We've done a lot and we've had some amazing guests . These are made in conjunction with my friends , john and Sandra Wilson , at online events , and today I'm very happy to welcome quite an interesting Joel Bravette , and joel and I had did a podcast on on his podcast , uh , better beings , and I really enjoyed the dialogue we had . I just felt there was a real kinship , there was an understanding of the way life is . That that we seem to share , and joel is in the world of finance , but he's not a typical financier , um , and he's done a lot of community projects looking to change the way we see how we finance things and what underlies all of this . But I'll let you say more than I do , because I don't know much of what I'm talking about here , joel , but I'm to you Welcome and good to see you Well .

Joel Bravette 1:44

First of all , thank you so much for such a warm welcome and I feel honoured to be guest number 50 , testament to how well you've been doing with the podcast , to get to such a milestone and for me to like land on such a number . Let's see if we can make this a special conversation .

Malcolm Stern 2:00

Lovely , that's great so you've , um , you're you're very involved with community projects , and so there's something about about your work that really is not just about going well , how can I make money from things . It's more like , um , how can I benefit the community and some of the community projects you've been involved with ? Um , well , tell us a little bit about that . What are some of the things you've been doing ?

Joel Bravette 2:25

uh , well , yeah , thank you for , like you know , and opening the frame to our conversation like that , because it is very much where I would like to go , because I think that one , especially in this moment that we find ourselves I'm aware that you want to keep your content evergreen , so I won't date it or anything but as a social and socioeconomic moment that we find ourselves , in , moment that we find ourselves in , we are , I find , moving towards a world where empathy has been sucked out of , uh , the , the room , and community aesthetic or community ethics sorry , uh have been eroding , and so for me , I have long believed that true wealth and again like wealth , maybe not in the material sense but in the spiritual sense is found in

Early Encounters with Death and Loss

Joel Bravette 3:11

communion and in like kind of lateral relationship where we kind of see eye to eye rather than kind of having these asymmetric relationships which I find prevalent in so many of the mechanisms of our modern world . So I say that to frame that for me , I would say , suggest that the majority of my working life has actually been spent doing work which hasn't necessarily been rewarding monetarily but has been so rewarding in helping me become the person that I am today , so rewarding in helping me become the person that I am today through the lessons that I've learned in those type of relationships . So , for example , in recent years I've been a trustee of the Vegan Society . I am still an ambassador , a youth ambassador , for a charity here in London , where I'm based , made in Hackney , which teaches sovereignty through food to people from underprivileged backgrounds , particularly within our locale in Hackney .

Joel Bravette 4:21

I've worked at the Africa Centre , a cultural institution in London as well , which , again , while that was an administrational job , there was also a largely , you know , kind of like spiritual and community basis on a lot of that work in helping proliferate programs and kind of like different resources for members of the African diaspora of whom I am , like you know , one of us distant sons now , you know , via the Caribbean .

Joel Bravette 4:50

That's another thing that we can pick up on , uh , as we , as we , as we go into the conversation , uh , but yeah , what I would suggest or what I would say is that compassion , uh , has been something I've found in a lot of those roles , opportunities like jobs , and that's not necessarily in how well you know , I have delivered on whatever the work or the remit of that work was , but it's actually in the , just the minutiae , the , the cooking with the kids at made in hackney , um , getting to create content to help people , you know , like you know , maybe reframe some of their , like you know , like health concerns with , uh , the , the vegan society , putting on africa in the square , in trafalgar square , with the , the , with the mayor's office and with , like you know , a host of , uh , different contributors , but these are all things that , like you know , at their heart or at the point of delivery , have all just felt very much that , like , we've created community here and in those moments is where I would , I would , I would say that I've felt the most joy in my life , and that's interesting because I think the lack of community that we see in in the world that I it's very much my in my work that I bring people together , I I like to think of .

Malcolm Stern 6:05

the work that I do is creating sangha , which is the Buddhist term for community with others of like mind , and it feels like you've really thrown yourself into creating community . And does that spring from somewhere ? Does something sort of happen to you , or does something occur to you that actually went ?

Joel Bravette 6:23

I want to give my part of my life , my life energy , to helping the community , to creating structures that help people who perhaps are less privileged or who could do with some education in how to , how to manage who they are and how they function it's a really good question because I definitely feel that I've come to this place very much from a series of epiphanies of loss in my own life that I've experienced intermittently but powerfully at , like you know , along along the way um , losing a friend when we were uh , just young , uh , in secondary school , he had a brain aneurysm and it kind of made me realize that , you know , it's not just older people that die , and because it actually I should have before even he died , losing both of my grandfathers .

Joel Bravette 7:18

And now again I recognize that it was the passage of time , old age , they were like old men , but already the familiarity of , like you know , these patriarchs , of , like you know , the my maternal and paternal family , seeing , experiencing them , um , and again , it wasn't necessarily the the greatest their experiences , but I experienced them nonetheless . And since we experienced losing them , like you know , kind of like really , like you know , hit me , but then losing a friend , like you know , just only a couple of years later , when I was 11 or 12 , it's kind of like really highlighted the preciousness of life , because it's not just old people , young people , like you know , anybody can , can die . And so death became a real um , something that kind of , really , I suppose , narrowed focus for me . Also , my dad for a while , when I , when I was younger , his job was he used to create the , the programs for , for funerals for people within our wider church community , and so it meant , like you know , like as I kind of would come with him to go and deliver these programs to people's funerals .

Malcolm Stern 8:26

I ended up going to like more funerals and probably I should have gone to , uh , as someone who was , like you know , 11 , 11 and younger , um , but actually that may not be a bad thing because I think that we have a whole sort of thing of death is kept in the background in our society . And and again , it's been one of my , my passions I ran a death group for 10 years where people would look at death and dying and one of the women in that group died during the course of our time together and we we tightened around her and we sort of found a way of befriending death . So I'm hearing from as a young child . Death was very much in your environment , including losing your one of your close friends yeah , and I actually there's a , there's a , I think .

Joel Bravette 9:12

I mean it's just come back to my head there was a quote that I remember from the bible . Uh , you know , I was , I was a , I was a bible prodigy when I when I was a kid uh , I was , you know , I was very invested in church . But I think there was a quote , like it could be , from ecclesiastes in the bible . It was like that the living know that they shall die , but the dead know not anything . Neither shall they have any more reward , and the memory of them is forgotten . Now it's quite dramatic .

Malcolm Stern 9:39

It's bleak as well .

Joel Bravette 9:41

Right right , dramatic and bleak , and I think that it framed my early perception of death to be quite scary . Perception of death to be quite scary . And again to see a friend , grandparents , other people that I knew , loved , kind of all , entering this portal of no return . It was quite scary . Now to fast forward to where I find myself today , um , one of my . You know that my living epitaphs is the stoic memento mori .

Joel Bravette 10:13

You know , remember death and I think that now I remember death with less of the morbidity but as a reminder of how we are just parts of an , a chain , you know , of the generational cycle , the circle of life , and actually I think , ego . Death is what we are , I believe , you know , in our human experience , like most scared of . But once you actually take the ego out , like you know , death is a rebirth . You know the death of my joel identity you can intellectualize and talk on podcasts is gone , but even the nutritional benefit that you know my remains will give to the earth , like you know , are not to be , but , you know , shied or , like you know , shirked at . Like you know , there is something that we are always part of and so actually , like now , more recently , um , back to the . You know this idea of morbidity . I have a number of like friends , peers , partners , who find it suspicious , even sometimes , that one of my favorite places to hang out and just to chill , relax , is in cemeteries .

Malcolm Stern 11:21

I'm absolutely

Finding Beauty in Cemeteries

Malcolm Stern 11:22

with you on that . Actually , Interestingly enough , I sort of I remember going on a date a long time ago with a woman and taking her to Highgate Cemetery and I was fascinated and what I liked is that she was fascinated as well and I thought because I thought that she might find this a bit weird . But but I don't think it is weird . I think there's something very profoundly sobering and almost uplifting around cemeteries . I think particularly highgate , which I think is I don't know if you've been there , but it's an extraordinary cemetery um , and karl marx is there and and um a lot of famous individuals , including the Russian who was murdered the beautiful . There's a beautiful epitaph .

Malcolm Stern 11:58

I think that's the other thing that I love about cemeteries is that is the way people are remembered , and I looked at one gravestone and I saw it said he did his best . I thought , God , that's a terrible way to be remembered . Other times it's been like you know this most beautiful man who I've loved with all my heart . There's something very exquisite around that process I don't know , you know .

Joel Bravette 12:21

So just just at that point , do you think that he did his best ?

Malcolm Stern 12:25

is like not a not a great epitaph well , I just thought , oh , he must be a priest , poor character , that that's the best thing they can get out of him , rather than he was loved or cherished or he did his best , sort of it feels to me . If someone says to me you've done your best , it means you haven't done that well , but you did your best .

Joel Bravette 12:43

But even if you didn't do well , if you did your best , what more can we give to this life , to this world , to anything than our best ?

Joel Bravette 12:50

And if people can even recognise that what you gave was your best , to me personally I would think that was one of the the greater accolades , because that , you know , just thinking about your point there and again , maybe this is a conversational segue , but I like to be , like you know , inspired and see how that can then fruit into the rest of my thinking day , thinking week .

Joel Bravette 13:11

But doing your , doing your best , I I do recognize that in our modern parlance and in our society , doing your best can be uh , uh , uh , almost a passive , aggressive , uh , oh , yeah , he did his best , yeah , yeah . But actually I think if we were to take away that that lens of status and actually and look for a lens of intention , doing your best is everything really , and that's what I would want out of relationships , out of life , and whether or not those things necessarily stack up to . He made X amount of money , worked at this company or did this . I think that if the people around me , uh , and the people whose lives that I touched in any way , said that he did his best , whether or not that was the only thing they said , whether they said , yeah , he did this or he like just know that they thought that I did my best , I think would be a very happy resting place you've reframed it for me .

Malcolm Stern 14:10

joel , you know I'm not thinking of that as a as a poor thing , and I think it was because it was quite near Lev Tinenko's grave , which he was murdered in his 30s , and his wife . There was such a beautiful , a beautiful headstone and beautiful words . I just was touched by the fact that he was deeply loved . That's one of the things that I see , and I mean I love looking at epitaphs on gravestones as well .

Joel Bravette 14:39

Well , actually , to segue back then to the first question about that feeling of love , I think the loss that I've experienced through death has also felt like a loss of love through my life , has also felt like a loss of love through my life .

Joel Bravette 14:59

And so maybe that's also why the lens for me can sometimes be about what can I give rather than about what can I expect by return , whether that is love , reward , treasure or whatever that might be , Because now I find myself in my mid-40s , but , you know , fortunately , and like you know , I'm very blessed to be a father of two , like you know , like wonderful young daughters , um , but you know , I've lost , like you know , my family , like you know , the family that I came from , even though I've now created my own , like you know , through , like you know , uh , through death , circumstance and other reasons , um , so I have definitely framed a lot of my perspective in life from an acceptance of loss and recognizing that , although that those individual losses to me , like you know , have , you know , been seismic to some extent in my own personal development , they are also opportunities to grow and for me to kind of continue carrying .

Joel Bravette 16:02

I mean , what , the what ? What are gravestones , if not physical touch points of memory for , like you know , something that has gone , uh , and so I think that what I have in my mind , or in what I kind of carry with me all the time are , uh , like you know , these , these stones , or these memories of people , places , like you know , things that I have like lost in my life , and I never allow them to lose their relevance , their importance to the shaping uh of of who I am , uh , and so , yeah , in essence , it's like I have my own , like graveyard , uh , you know , in my head , but I don't again see it through a lens of , uh , woe is me , woe is them . I'd see it as the very same beauty that I see when I visit cemeteries , that actually this is a great place of growth . Some of the best gardens , some of the best , like you know , unspoiled nature and copses that I have found in London happen to be in cemeteries .

Malcolm Stern 17:08

Yeah , yeah , that's true . So it feels like you've got a very broad , a broad perspective on life . I know that , you know , as I'm now in my mid-70s , and so it's a long , long way , a long way off , and it's like I'm I'm now looking at what I do with my time and I used to be very much about how do I , sort of like , finance my work , how do I make my work , make money for me , and actually what's happened for me and it feels like it's happening for you at a much younger age ? What's happened for me is is that , is that how do I ?

Malcolm Stern 17:40

Um , does this lift my spirits ? Am I contributing something to the community ? Um , does this feel like I'm using the best talents I possibly can ? This is now much more for me , and of course , we have to make a living as well , but this is much more for me . What ? And of course , we have to make a living as well , but this is much more for me . What work is about and I won't just do work for money , which is a privileged position I understand as well , but it is nice to be reimbursed for what we do , and I'm wondering what created your connection with the work that you do and how you finance it , especially because you are in finance as well .

Joel Bravette 18:18

so I'd be quite interested to hear that yes , so I have found myself now in this financial

The Bar That Burned: A Story of Resilience

Joel Bravette 18:26

sphere uh , only recently , uh , really in the last two years like as such that I would put a title and a name to it that finances the world and what I do . But I would say that even the reason why the opportunity has come to me and I've been able to embrace it and take it is because what some of the principles at the Venture Studio and then even at the investment partnership but I'm part of recognize in me is that I think quite uniquely to a lot of their experiences . They have all had careers and I've just had a life I didn't have , I haven't had a career in . In that sense , uh , my life is this patchwork of experiences , projects , learning , learnings , epiphanies , different locales , different groups of people . And if there's one thing that I have done through all of it is I've learned lessons and I continue to bring those lessons through to the next thing .

Joel Bravette 19:30

And now I think that when I hear and I speak to many of my friends who we went to the same school , college and I think it may also be worth mentioning that at college I studied international baccalaureate here in the UK rather than doing A-levels , and at the time when I did the baccalaureate it was , there weren't many places that were doing the baccalaureate , weren't many places that were doing the baccalaureate , but I think it really opened up my mind to the idea that I could be the author of my own life , rather than the blinkered idea that you've done your GCSEs , which are 12 subjects , to then do A levels that are three subjects . That then becomes a degree , which is then one subject , and then a career that then follows that and everything is kind of narrowed and sure , you have choice within it , but you have choice of limited options and and then that is what you now do . And , um , I think that when I then look at so many of my peers and friends and see the crises that they've ended up having , you know , with regards to an idea of purpose , to , you know , connection with people , you know in authentic ways , that I can recognise that what has maybe been the barrier to some of the evolution of their personal and spiritual development has been the career , because the career demands so much of them but obviously as well , well , it rewards , like you know , monetarily , like materially . Uh , and what I have noticed is that , you know , as people's , like you know , earning goes up so often does their lifestyle in accordance , and so , in essence , they are kind of leveraged that you now , uh , you can't leave that career or you can't leave what it is that you're doing , because now you've got yourself a mortgage at this rate , a car , your kids go to this school , they do that then , and there's all these things that it's like right , if I didn't even want to do something different . I'm kind of boxed in by the , the costs of , like you know , just existence now , and so I think for me that you know again , this is using that as a yardstick , and an example is that , uh , been an entrepreneur from a young age .

Joel Bravette 21:38

I opened my , my , my first like you know , big business , a bar I had when I was still at university . Um , and the , the , the perils , the difficulties of entrepreneurship have been like , in essence , yeah , fully your own boss , but then also your , your your own like bottle washer , your own like negotiator , your everything , like you know , in the , in the business , really taught me , like you know , the importance of tightening your belt , like you know , if you can , keeping your costs as low as possible , because you never know when any of that surplus that you are then able to . You know , amass would need to be , like you know , sucked into paying an emergency cost of this or doing that , and so I think that what I learned quite young from that was to live really frugally . But then , with the frugality of living like that by being an entrepreneur from so young , it did actually afford me a freedom to then continue exploring things , knowing that I never really built my life to such a place that there was a material expectation that I could now no longer keep up with , and so that's what's kind of then allowed me , over this kind of , as I said , patchwork experience , to be everything from girl band manager , haird hairdresser , um , a bar owner , a promoter .

Joel Bravette 22:58

I mean I've been a public figure , like you know , with a , like you know , entertainment and music , um , I mean there's no aside from things that I take applied , uh , and specific , like knowledge . I've never been a brain surgeon , I've never like engineered , like major structures or bridges , but anything that involves human connection , talking and and a little bit of creativity . I've probably had a dabble , and I think that all of that is then what kaleidoscopes into . Now , when talking to entrepreneurs , investees and even investors at the startup or pre-startup stage . I can speak with experience of having not only done that and been at every single stage of that journey , from inception through to delivery .

Joel Bravette 23:37

But I've also kind of like you know , I'm not , uh , only theoretically talking about pitfalls , I'm talking anecdotally about them , and it resonates so much more when you're talking with people and it's your lived experience rather than the stuff that you learn at your water and MBA . So I think that it's been very valuable for me to have kind of like accumulated this , like patchwork life , which I like to think I bring to , like you know , my parenting , but then also to , like you know , my mentorships and like you know my parenting , but then also to , like you know my mentorships and like you know , some of the like coaching and then even the podcast . And , like you said you know at the top of this conversation , when we talked on my podcast and not on the better beings podcast , how we connected , I think was because of the different experiences that we've both had but where we saw similarities in some of them , and then I think that that has always been like what serves as the cement that brings me together in such a great way with so many people .

Malcolm Stern 24:33

I think it's right because I'm just reflecting on my own sort of experiences of of many different things in my life . You know , my my dad was desperately keen for me to be a professional and sort of paid for an expensive accountancy training while I was in articles and I just thought I don't like this very much . It's like it's not what I want to do and I've I've sort of like sailed on the rainbow or a warrior with Greenpeace . I was a professional gambler for a while . Um , you know , I've done a lecturing and psychotherapy and all sorts of . I worked in a terminal cancer hospice and I think all of those things have brought me a richness that being in one .

Malcolm Stern 25:09

You know , strict constraint would not have brought me except it might have brought me money , and I know that you're we talked about . You know you talked about . Your first piece of entrepreneurial ship was , if that's the right word , was the bar that you started . But you had quite a story that went with that as well .

Joel Bravette 25:28

So perhaps we could actually because I remember being quite shocked hearing your story of the bars perhaps you could hear that from you yeah , no sure , uh , I mean again , weaving all of these conversations , like you know , like in and out all these threads , it's back to the story of loss , uh , because , although I had experienced so much personal loss with , like you know , friends , family and others in my younger life , my bar which I mean , yeah , even today , like I mean the story is from 2003 , 2004 , and , like you know , 20 plus years later , it kind still like has um , emotional pangs . But to , to top the story , uh , my bar was petrol bombed by , like leeds locals . It was , uh , in leeds , in west yorkshire , where my bar was . It was my university town , uh as well , or university city . Sorry to anybody in leeds who thinks I am , uh , I am pushing you down , I didn't mean to um , it had been a very difficult business to , to , to start and begin . As I said , it was mine and my business partners our first real foray into , you know , entrepreneurship of this level . I was still a student , uh , with no discernible job or income , and my business partner and I managed to convince at that time HSBC to give us a hundred thousand pound loan , unsecured , to start a bar in an entertainment venture in the center of town .

Joel Bravette 27:04

Now , I don't come from a background where , like , a six-figure sum is something that you just oh , yeah , but like mum , I got 100 grand in the bank for me to build a bar . Like , uh , it was , yeah , it was , it was , for me it was life-changing and it actually added , like you know , a layer of pressure to my life that I hadn't felt . And back to that point about how , when you are , you know , enriched in this current , like you know , societal paradigm , with , with money , with whatever it is that a weight comes with it . Like you don't just like have it . Like you know , now it's like , what do I do with it ? I don't want to mess this up , like , how am I seen ? What does it mean ?

Joel Bravette 27:47

Like , so all that kind of came of it and so I was very responsible , uh , because I suppose I had also having , quite you know , like god-fearing first uh , generation immigrant , like you know , caribbean parents . They're not profligate people like , very , very , like you know , conscientious , very , very like abiding by the rules , like you know , doing things the way that they should be done . So I mean already for me , like you know , like you know , going out on a limb and getting an unsecured loan while I was still a student and stuff like you know , like you know , rock my poor mum's heart like like , uh , um , what are you doing ? Like what is going on ? Um , and especially that you know to , to , to sell alcohol as well . I mean , that's a that's another thing , but , uh , it was a very difficult business . My business partner actually ended up , uh , finding the pressure too much and he ran away , uh , like skipped the country , uh , uh , with all of the money from the till taking . So it actually left me , uh , more in debt than we . We were ran away . I'm now the only signatory left in the uk had to build the business up .

Joel Bravette 28:54

You know , as I said , like you know , doing the night I was working behind the bar , I was doing the paperwork , I was doing the clean down like till three , four in the morning , but then been up at 7am to get the you know the barrels like in , uh , you know cleaning out the basement , doing every single like function just to try and like keep costs down . But make sure that we didn't go under and that you know I became liable for a debt that I was unable to now service . So , actually , after a while , channel four came along , uh , and actually asked if they could make a tv program about the bar . Uh , and I mean , for me at the time I just couldn't believe my luck that I was going to have this opportunity to , I suppose , promo what I was doing to a national audience . And again , although the majority of people probably watching daytime television on Channel 4 aren't likely to have been the patrons of my City Centre Leeds bar , it was still good that so many people saw it because because of that there was , like you know , just like you know , uh , interest a lot of people did start coming and actually started to pick up and the bar started , like you know , to go really well .

Joel Bravette 30:00

But then , yeah , unfortunately , uh , as it had started to pick up , uh , the the leeds locals had actually never really taken to me and there was a particular , like you know , faction of Leeds locals who you know again , I let your audience , you know , read into it . But they would always be like go back to London , like where you come from , like what are you doing opening a bar or doing this ? Like you know , in would always be like , go back to london , like where you come from , like what are you doing opening a bar or doing this . Like you know , in our town it's not , and so I kind of would , I could , I could feel that there was a , a vibe that people , like you know , kind of had a little bit of um , anger , resentment , like you know , about me being this really young and , like you know , very kind of extrovert I mean , probably you're picking up as well , very talkative , you know , young , young fella , youngest bar owner in town and so , yeah , it kind of like , sadly like , ended with some of the Leeds locals like smashing the windows and Molotov cocktail , you know , the back bar whole thing went up in flames .

Joel Bravette 31:05

As I said , because I was trying to live so frugally at the time .

Joel Bravette 31:07

All of my possessions , like you know , the things that I'd had since childhood , my memories and everything , like you know , that I'd brought to university with me they were all in the building so all of that got destroyed .

Joel Bravette 31:17

So all records , like you know , my old photographs , you know , my , all of the things that , like you know , that made me feel like me up until the age of , like you know , 21 , 22 , were all burnt and destroyed and so it also felt like a part of me died , like you know , with that uh , when that uh whole scenario happened and I mean , as I said , I , I never , in the aftermath of it , like you know , had any therapy anybody to talk to about it , and so absorbing the loss of it you know , had any therapy anybody to talk to about it , and so absorbing the loss of the bar , and you know the financial responsibility , this economic project was one thing , but the loss of everything that was also in there , then the loss of the life that I'd come to know as this publican .

Joel Bravette 32:04

It was the biggest amount of loss that I'd ever experienced in one , like you know , moment . But I would say that the little losses that I've been accruing through life , I think are the reasons why , in that moment , I didn't totally collapse , that I recognized already that actually , each time I've bounced back , each time whenever things have gone awry in my life , there has been a time for recalibration , but ultimately I have recalibrated , I have made it back .

Malcolm Stern 32:34

So , uh , it was very what makes us stronger as well , that every you know , every time we we encounter a loss and find a different part of ourselves yeah , we create ourselves . Isn't that what makes makes us um bigger as human beings ?

Joel Bravette 32:48

well , well , exactly that , malcolm . I mean I think that , as I said it was , it's nice to kind of like touch on that and I think that's maybe enough of of that story . But I think what it serves as a great anecdote of , as I said , the resilience that I think I bring to engagements , to life , to conversations , to my relationships now , because an argument isn't reason for me to walk away , it's actually a reason for us to figure it out . Let's try and make this work . I think that we have evolved , I would say .

Joel Bravette 33:21

I mean , I don't know if it is an evolution , but we've evolved a modern society where , because we have so much choice , people often don't fight for things anymore . But you know whether that be like you know relationships , like you know if our investment is based on stuff that we believe in , even if that investment sometimes feels like it's , you know , like not always on the upward trajectory , you know it's actually time to double down , like dig deep when it feels like it's going the other way , because actually those investments are us as much as they are the investment . They are , in essence , a mirror of you know how much we commit and how much we are prepared to give , and so , yeah , I like to think that in difficult moments like , yeah , rather than burying my head , that I kind of use that difficulty to almost , like you know , absorb myself in it and see how I can kind of grow from it .

Malcolm Stern 34:20

Because if my history has taught me anything , how I am here today is because of those moments so you , we're coming towards the end of our , of our podcast , which I'm really enjoying , sort of like you know , the richness you bring to you , to the dialogue as well , and what I can see is that you've sort of like you've had a very rich and varied life and you , you've also got this very solid financier position . Now that you're you're in the financial world , I'm wondering where you see and maybe you don't see yet , but where you see your life heading from here on in . So you've invested a lot in the community , a lot into your entrepreneurialism , but also now you've got family , and so our lives change and our circumstances change . Where do you see yourself going ? I ?

Joel Bravette 35:07

they do and that's really yeah again , like it's actually the , the , the crossroad that I kind of am feeling myself at in in this moment of my life . And my degree was in accountancy and finance , so I kind of do have that background . It was also part of why the bank they weren't foolish in giving me that money . I mean , we did prove with a solid business plan back at the time ,

Building Community Through Varied Experiences

Joel Bravette 35:32

however , not that anyone would get 100 grand unsecured these days , but so I kind of I have that underpinning . But now in this finance space , I really had to wrestle , especially after spending so many years , like you know , in what many would call the social justice warrior space , like you know , the vegan society . Like you know , like charities focusing on sovereignty and , like you know , and impoverishedoverished , you know , like communities and groups . I have thought I would have to look at this capitalist model through a lens that I was able to reconcile my beliefs with , because what I didn't and I don't want is to become enslaved to the material world and the material system . I've seen again , I've been very lucky that in moments of my life I've experienced the you know I would consider the highs of what it is to of , of , of of materiality . You know , you know the best hotels , the best drinks , the but you know the most , like you know , expensive company or whatever it is that people kind of like look at as yardsticks of success . And I think that most of those moments , like you know , as much as I enjoyed them in the moment , they kind of like left me feeling empty afterwards , like is , do I want to live at a forever party ? Like no , like you know , do I want any of these things in perpetuity ? Probably not . They're great for experiences . But also great for experience has been , like you know , sleeping in a forest with a tent that's blown away and what's , having to figure it out . You know , like , what , what , what , what makes an experience good or bad ? Like ultimately , it's like you know how it impacts you and the memory of it . And so I'd say that the things I've learned from , like you know , the tougher things have actually been things that I've learned from more .

Joel Bravette 37:35

But what I now bring to this financial space is an outlook that investors are always going to want to return on their money and the market's always going to want to return on their money and the market's always going to want new and innovative products . So , for me , the the space where there is wiggle room , where we can kind of like , play around and play around in a way that , like you know , can honor , like you know , my ideals and objectives . For , uh , you know , looking after people , looking after the environment , as well as turning a profit , is looking at how we produce things and the provenance of the materials with which we produce things , and so the strategy at the studio and , uh , at the investment partnership that I'm at , in both cases , like you know , looks at expanding or opening , like , new markets . One slot , particularly , is looking at people who traditionally haven't had access to finance , which , surprise , surprise , is basically anybody who's not a white guy . So I mean like bringing , like women people , like you know , like non-Western people also as well from other protected , you know , characteristic groups like LGBTQIA , like you know , disabled people , people of different abilities , but people who actually have different insights into , like , what products or what things might best serve them .

Joel Bravette 39:03

Because , again , I don't need to go into any anecdotes of so many things that exist in our modern , like you know , material environment are things that were invented for the like , you know , with the view of the people who invented them , but not necessarily for you know , a great , a great market fit like one that I can think of off the top of my head really quickly , because someone's reminding me recently was about uh , elastoplasts or plasters , and the reason why plasters are the colour they are was to kind of try and match the skin of the people who first created those plasters .

Joel Bravette 39:32

I understand , and I'd never even thought of that . I just always thought , like plasters are just like this weird yellow colour on my dark skin , but then I saw that a company then started creating plasters for different people , for their different kind kind of like uh , skin tones and backgrounds . Again , in cosmetics . Cosmetics were first made for a certain type of face , but then you see a proliferation in those spaces with people like you know , rihanna , you know creating a really successful brand because , like you know , recognizing that , uh , in cosmetics and in lingerie that there are different body types , different , and so I think all these things highlight that it's good business sense to recognize that , um , you can try and you know , uh , force , uh square pegs into round holes all the time , or you can do research and see what , like round holes are saying , and then you can make round pegs specifically that's a great example you've just given as well .

Malcolm Stern 40:25

Never , never , never would have occurred to me . So we're coming towards the end here now , and um , there's always a question I ask at the end and I'd like it to come spontaneously just off the top of your head as well which is which ? What particular dragons have you had to slay , what obstacles have you had to overcome to be who you are ? What's the , what's the ? The number one thing you go yes , that that I've . I found my way through that forest .

Joel Bravette 40:51

I think it's been the running theme of what we have discussed or what you've kind of dotted in a couple of questions to my soliloquy here . But I would say , yeah , it's , it's been loss . But when

Finance with Purpose and Social Justice

Joel Bravette 41:06

I say that it's it's been loss , but when I say that it's , it's , see loss as , as a yoke . Because at the beginning of my loss journey it was very much a like curl up in a ball , cry , like you know , like I don't know what to do now , inertia from loss . But in slaying the , the , the , that , that that lost dragon and I mean again , like you know , forgive me for , like you know , bastardizing your , your allegory here but instead of even slaying the dragon , what I did was I , I , I , I corralled the dragon and now I ride it . You know it's my dragon now , rather than a dragon that once gave me fear that you know that I would cower , afraid of its flames , afraid of everything that comes from loss .

Malcolm Stern 41:53

I've now learned to embrace that and in the embracing of that , it reminded me of Game of Thrones when you said that yeah , yeah , yeah exactly .

Joel Bravette 42:01

Yeah , dracarys , it has . Yeah , really , really good , actually that I agree , because that was that story , wasn't it that everybody was that story yes , the fear of the dragon , but actually like no , like you know , ride the dragon , like you know being extreme power of the dragon , isn't it so ?

Joel Bravette 42:20

yeah , yeah , and so I would say that , yeah , even now , like you know , as uh you know , I am uh divorced , uh , and so my children , they don't live , uh , in the uk , they live in the netherlands , and so , even that , even though I get to see them and I'm actually off to go and see them in a couple of days um , there was a great sense of loss when they left the uk , you know when , like you know , their mom and I got divorced , uh , and they and they went there . But I've learned to turn all of these losses whether they're great , small , you know , uh , natural , indifferent , like into fuel , and I would not say that that's kind of creating a false positivity around thing , but it's instead , I believe , seeing hope , and I think I can see hope in everything .

Malcolm Stern 43:05

That's really lovely . It's a great way to finish . Thank you so much , joel , for joining me today . And number 50 , boom boom .

Joel Bravette 43:12

Well , thank you . Well . Thank you so much for having me . I hope that for a 50th episode it was something that you , your listeners and even me , when I listened back to .