Episode 004 - Peta Milan
When we are reminded that managing wealth always comes with responsibility
Peta Milan (b. 1977) is an Australian CEO and co-founder of JET Group, author, international speaker, LSE alumni and CEO and founder of venture studio Transcendent Media Capital, who has spent the first 20 years of her career as an entrepreneur specializing in start-ups across industries such as transportation, tourism, management consulting and corporate strategy, technology and media.
EPISODE SUMMARY
Peta explores her extraordinary path from growing up as the daughter of a middle-class family struggling to discover her own voice, the importance of perfectly random encounters and the sophisticated art of recognizing your own weaknesses with pure honesty.
RECORDED AT
Peta’s home garden in Colares, Portugal, during a bright September Saturday morning.
“I remember being seven months pregnant with my eldest son. And I was 26 and the job that I had moved to Melbourne for hadn’t worked out and I remember sitting on the concrete floor of my friend’s house with nowhere to go, and I was really thinking that I had to move into a women’s shelter. And I had called my mum to ask for help and she said no. And I just gave myself 20 minutes to cry and then I needed to figure out what to do.”
KEYWORDS & TRANSCRIPTION
Regenerative, buildings, peoples, family business, create, investing, worldview, life, chickens, journey, office, imperfection, venture, investor, money, energy, perfection
SPEAKERS
Peta Milan & Risto Kuulasmaa
Peta Milan 00:04
I remember being seven months pregnant with my eldest son. And I was 26. And the job that I'd moved to Melbourne for hadn't worked out.
Peta Milan 00:15
And I remember sitting on the concrete floor of my friend's house with nowhere to go. And I was really thinking I had to move into a women's shelter.
Peta Milan 00:22
And I had called my mom to ask for help. And she said, No.
Peta Milan 00:27
And I just gave myself 20 minutes to cry. And then I need to figure out what to do.
Risto Kuulasmaa 00:37
Peta Milan, you is an incredible human being. She's a global venture builder, running her family office, a partner, and a mom of three. Peta is a forerunner in the regenerative approach. And she walks the walk, I met Peta at her house in Portugal, where she transformed her garden from dry soil into a blooming paradise with hundreds of plant species. And yes, these are their 18 chickens singing in the background. Welcome on board, this is Talks of imperfection.
Risto Kuulasmaa 01:16
What's your definition for perfection and imperfection?
Peta Milan 01:22
This equation idea of that there is a perfection as a thing. I don't believe that that exists. And we live in a world where we focus on what we call in regeneration structures. So things we can engage with comes from this whole epistemological thing like things only exist if we can touch, feel, see smell, interact with them. And so we have these ideas of structures, like houses, cities, families, relationships, and we give it an ideal view based on our worldview. And we relate to it as perfection. And then we're constantly striving for that thing. And never happy and constantly disappointed.
Peta Milan 02:07
Because Perfection doesn't exist in the structures. When we're working with regeneration, we're looking at the patterns, the underlying worldview, and assumptions that give rise to the structures. So when we're looking at the patterns, just like the patterns of nature, everything's already inherently perfect. If it's out of balance, something will happen to bring it back into balance, and so forth. So if we see ourselves as part of a living system, we're constantly co evolving in alignment with the environment within which we're placed, then the patterns of everything that give rise, even if they're incredibly painful, and uncomfortable, or perfect, given the conditions that we're in.
Peta Milan 02:54
And if we want to shift those patterns, then we have to be willing to work at a pattern level, not focusing on the structures, like when I get this new job, then I'll be happy or when I get this next bit of investment, then I will have made it, you know, these types of things. So I think the pattern, and the perfection is in the process, not in the outcomes.
Risto Kuulasmaa 03:21
Please take us to your childhood, where this journey started?
Peta Milan 03:26
Yeah, so being Australian growing up in a lower middle class family, it was a big deal for my parents to, you know, get that first house, you know, with a mortgage in the suburbs, and my family's lineage came from a lot of poverty, and particularly on my mother's side, you know, people who were essentially homeless, or having to, you know, really go without, and, and all the complexity that comes with that, and with addiction and abuse and different things and, and that still certainly showed up in my family's lineage, even though they've managed to overcome some hurdles and get that suburban house, there was abuse and addiction was still an issue.
Peta Milan 04:11
And I think, from a young age, I was doing things that didn't make sense, in the context of my family, so much to the surprise of my parents, I, you know, was selected to play the trumpet. And there was no real musical genes in my family at all. And, and because I was an inherently creative child, and and I just never really related to things in the way that I was taught.
Peta Milan 04:42
I was always looking to do things differently. It was just how I express myself. And so I actually did at 12 at the age of 12 did a rearrangement of the Australian classic Waltzing Matilda and went to audition for a music scholarship to a high school. That was a specialist was the the top one in the state.
Peta Milan 05:03
Anyway, I went with my little rearrangement of this, this classic. And I remember being in the audition and playing it and they asked me, Did you arrange that? And I was like, Yeah, I did that. Anyway, I ended up getting, you know, the full scholarship. First trumpet was the lead trumpet, as a result of, of that audition, which was an amazing surprise to my family. Because I just didn't fit into that box. And, you know, I remember even getting, you know, losing some friendships from my local primary school because I was moving somewhere else, it was just kind of unheard of.
Peta Milan 05:43
And so that was kind of the theme of my life is not fitting, and not doing things the way that they were supposed to be done. And, and with that comes a lot of heartache, especially as a teenager and as a, as a young person trying to figure out where you belong. And, you know, I struggled myself as well, you know, with things that were kind of inherent in my family around addiction and different things in my younger, younger years, as I was really trying to find my way.
Peta Milan 06:08
But I found that I had a gift eventually, didn't quite land completely for me as that the not fitting piece was actually my talent. But I was just kind of going with it.
Peta Milan 06:21
So, I disappeared when I was about 22 and ran away from my life and jumped onto a scallop trawler, that was working in fisheries in the south of, of Western Australia. And anyway, ended up not really getting a lot of money out of that, because there was a lot of unregulated, not so nice things happening in that industry at the time.
Peta Milan 06:46
So, I went to a bar, I had no money, no place to stay, and I met a horse trainer and former jockey. And he let me sleep on a stretcher bed in basically what was a giant tin shed at the horse stables in exchange for shovelling horse poop. And so I had these kind of amazing experiences. And then eventually, I got a job in the bar where I'd worked, where I'd found this, this horse trainer, and met a guy. And he was building a company on the other side of the country. And I told him about my degree and different things like this.
Peta Milan 07:19
And he's like, Well, why don't you come and run it for me? And I was like, okay.
Peta Milan 07:22
So, I packed up my life and moved across to Queensland, and then started building companies for other people. And that was when I was 24.
Peta Milan 07:32
So, I found that I had this talent for finding these niche market premium pricing opportunities. One of my first jobs was working for a backpackers and anyone who's travelled to Australia know that these things are a dime a dozen, they're selling the same, you know, Fraser Island with Sunday tours for $299 on every street corner. And I was working for one of these.
Peta Milan 07:54
And so this was before internet was really big and commonly used. And they had these magazines which were called the TNT magazines. And they were basically for backpackers so that you could see what kinds of things you could do as you travelled.
Peta Milan 07:54
And it didn't make sense to me that we were selling the exact same thing as the guy across the road.
Peta Milan 08:13
So I picked up the phone and started calling all of these proprietors up the coast of Queensland and I found these amazing things like platypus night watching tours and things that were just off the beaten track that nobody really knew about.
Peta Milan 08:27
And so when people came into my office to buy these $299 packages, I started showing them all the amazing things they could do. And I, I ticketed them all the way up north.
Peta Milan 08:37
So they pre booked and I managed to get amazing wholesale rates in exchange for volume from these proprietors because they just weren't getting customers.
Peta Milan 08:45
And we will, people were spending like $1,500 with us in one sitting.
Peta Milan 08:50
And then there was the old guy who owned the backpackers hostel, and his name was Dave and he smoked like a chimney.
Peta Milan 08:55
And he came into my office and with his cigarette, he sat back and he's like, "so little lady. What the hell are you doing in here because I've not seen so much goddamn money in my life".
Peta Milan 09:08
And, you know, so I told him the the new business model that I created, and so they sent me down to, to King's Cross in Sydney to try and pick folks up a little earlier when they were coming in flying through Sydney.
Peta Milan 09:21
And they didn't even have proper ticketing mechanism back then. So we were trying to use accounting software to set up these tickets. And, you know, it totally changed the business model.
Peta Milan 09:30
And, and I did really well, I mean, the family had some crisis as a resu lt, because what I learned from that experience is that you can make incredible money, but if you're, if you don't have the emotional kind of capacity to understand or be able to deal with wealth, that can also be destructive.
Peta Milan 09:49
And so, you know, there was one of the family members took their own life in that process like they and and I didn't know how much my changing the business model and having them exposed to that level of success and money had contributed to that or not. And that was something that I really had to reconcile for myself.
Peta Milan 10:09
So I knew that with creating wealth came the, the need to develop the capacity to handle wealth, like emotionally, psychologically, and these types of things.
Peta Milan 10:23
So I had some really early formative experiences around this.
Peta Milan 10:28
And then, you know, by about the age of 32, I was working as chief operating officer for a company that I helped build. And we had been collaborating with the "Big Four" on quite large scale projects.
Peta Milan 10:40
And I was just, I'd kind of become by accident, a bit of a mining specialist. And I don't mean crypto, I mean, actual mining. Because I was living in Australia at the time, we'd move back to the West Coast.
Peta Milan 10:52
And I just saw so much fractured, broken kind of strategy that was resulting in really big devastating impacts for communities. And also ecologies. And I found this so hard to reconcile for myself, and I got really burnt out.
Peta Milan 11:10
And so it was that time that I kind of sold everything in Australia was the only time I'd ever owned a house and packed up my two kids. And we moved to Northern Thailand for me to figure out what I was going to do if I wasn't going to do that anymore.
Risto Kuulasmaa 11:25
From horse pool to venture building
Peta Milan 11:28
From horse pool to venture building
Risto Kuulasmaa 11:29
That's quite a journey. Let's stop there.
Risto Kuulasmaa 11:32
Um, now you are dealing dealing with significant assets and big money. Did you consciously work with any money wounds, because you were referring to the kind of psychological capability to handle big money?
Peta Milan 11:51
Absolutely. I mean, as I, as I moved through this journey, I had to deal with my own self limiting beliefs and my own worldview that had been unconsciously created, I guess, through the experiences of my childhood and the meanings that I'd given to my experiences.
Peta Milan 12:08
And as I got older, I noticed myself, even though at certain times, in our childhood, we didn't have enough food to eat, and we had some, you know, we didn't have enough money to put into the car, and we would break down on the highway and have to walk for miles to get a jerrycan full of fuel for $5 to put in the car, these types of experiences.
Peta Milan 12:29
I didn't really go without too much once I left home. And there were times though, where I remember being seven months pregnant with my eldest son, and I was 26. And the job that I'd moved to Melbourne for hadn't worked out.
Peta Milan 12:48
And I remember sitting on the concrete floor of my friend's house with nowhere to go. And I was really thinking I had to move into a women's shelter.
Peta Milan 12:55
And I had called my mom to ask for help. And she said, No.
Peta Milan 13:00
And I just gave myself 20 minutes to cry.
Peta Milan 13:05
And then I need to figure out what to do.
Peta Milan 13:08
So I finally found someone that I'd met who was willing to take me in and let me stay. And then I got a job at seven months pregnant and working for one of the banks selling credit cards.
Peta Milan 13:19
And so I was hugely pregnant, and had to sit on one of these big exercise balls. But for two months, I worked really hard to get myself set up. And I managed to do that.
Peta Milan 13:32
And so then as I started moving from that type of understanding my own resilience and deep capacity that I had for problem solving, and developing some trust in myself that no matter what happened, I'd be okay. I found myself achieving much more when it came to money and wealth. But I found myself still in these boom bust cycles.
Peta Milan 13:57
And I remember being younger and watching Andrew Forrest, who's a mining magnate out of Australia, and he would like build these companies and they would be number one on the Australian Stock Exchange. And then 10 years later, they'd be bankrupt.
Peta Milan 14:08
And then he disappeared for a couple years. And he'd come back and he'd build another one, it would be like top of the ASX again.
Peta Milan 14:14
And I was always curious about his boom, bust cycles, like "Why could he create wealth but not hold on to it?"
Peta Milan 14:21
And I found myself, obviously not to the degree of wealth as a mining magnate, but having similar types of patterns. And so as I work through it, I had to reconcile for myself that my deep commitment was to have powerful impact on the world.
Peta Milan 14:39
You know, really to create the conditions for the thriving of life, which was why I left a very more traditional way of consulting and corporate career.
Peta Milan 14:48
And there was a kind of nobility about that for my identity. But I felt shame around money.
Peta Milan 14:57
I felt shame around saying I am making money or I want money.
Peta Milan 15:03
And I even remember moving into this house, which is a big house, my husband and I, we moved to a farm to create a regenerative agriculture project here and the house is quite big. And I remember feeling embarrassed the first time, the first time that people came over to this house, because it's a big house, you know.
Peta Milan 15:24
And so, I had actually gone to Peru, and had worked with some shamans on this to really unlock what was still within me, but not really conscious, and I couldn't access through other means. And really finding my identity linked to this history in this story of poverty through my family. And it's interesting, because we don't know if things from previous ancestors impact us genetically or impact our predisposition, or just our worldview, or there's some energies that come through that we hold on to.
Peta Milan 16:01
But there was definitely a lot of energy for me that had shame around money, where I'm still working on letting that go.
Risto Kuulasmaa 16:10
And have you found solutions to that crash and burn volatility? Have you? Have you made it more sustainable now? Or?
Peta Milan 16:20
Well, I'm still working through it, to be honest.
Risto Kuulasmaa 16:22
Okay.
Peta Milan 16:23
Because we have moments of like, really powerful success. And I think we all have this to a degree, you know, when we have these experiences of everything's just flowing in our life, and things feel easy. And then at some point, they just feel really, really hard.
Peta Milan 16:40
You know, that's another version of these, like, boom, and bust cycles, right?
Peta Milan 16:45
So I needed to deepen my understanding around my own attachments, when I get attached to things and there might creative energy contracts, or when I feel shame around things, what's the dialogue that I'm telling myself, like, what am I vested in, and there was definitely a part of my identity that was really attached to this triumphant warrior woman narrative.
Peta Milan 17:06
You know, and if I didn't have an adversity to overcome and triumph three, where was my value?
Risto Kuulasmaa 17:16
That's, I think, many people can relate to it. At least I can relate to it. I got the warrior spirit running in my veins as well.
Risto Kuulasmaa 17:28
Well, let's go then back to South America. What was the insight you you receive there? What was helpful?
Peta Milan 17:37
Well, I mean, so many things. But really, I guess the primary part of it for me was that in order to create an experience on the planet, that was conducive to the conditions of thriving of life, like not just surviving, but thriving, what would that mean? And what would it mean for myself to thrive?
Peta Milan 18:01
I need to let go of having the warrior woman to find me.
Peta Milan 18:09
That I needed to move into an energy of healing.
Peta Milan 18:16
Well, I had been doing a lot of healing anyway, but more of this kind of Quan Yin energy of perfection like that everything is okay. There's nothing to fight, you know? And that leads us to this podcast, conversation around perfection. Like, what if there was nothing wrong?
Peta Milan 18:33
You know, what, if everything that showed up was actually perfect in the context of my journey?
Peta Milan 18:40
What would there be left to do?
Peta Milan 18:42
And in the process of exploring that, I noticed myself feeling bored. I noticed myself feeling undefined.
Risto Kuulasmaa 18:49
When nothing's happening.
Peta Milan 18:51
Yeah, and normally, when I put on my battle armour and go into action, I had to sit back and breathe and learn how to open and allow.
Peta Milan 19:01
And it was a totally different way of being and I still don't have enormous strength of that I still have a very kind of fire energy.
Peta Milan 19:10
And that's great, because it has me take a lot of powerful actions. It has me inspired people, it has me build powerful networks it has.
Peta Milan 19:17
So, I'm not throwing it out with you know, I'm not throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.
Peta Milan 19:21
But there is definitely a willingness to drop my armour and to say, "Okay, I'm gonna learn how to be at peace with whatever shows up now".
Peta Milan 19:34
And trust that it's perfect in the context of my vision, my purpose and my journey, even if it's really, really painful and uncomfortable.
Risto Kuulasmaa 19:45
What's your message to all the warriors and alpha's out there? What is the first step to you know, start a bit more sustainable journey?
Peta Milan 19:55
Yeah, well, I think we need to be willing to see ourselves as part of a living system, not separate to it.
Risto Kuulasmaa 20:05
No separation. Yeah.
Peta Milan 20:07
And that's, you know, my passion. And we'll get to talking about that with my family office is about investing in regeneration, because it is a mindset shift.
Peta Milan 20:15
It's seeing ourselves as part interconnected part of something that's much bigger than our own identity and our own survival.
Peta Milan 20:24
And this idea of kind of modern day economics and competition, and survival of the fittest and all this kind of stuff that's come from a long legacy of feeling like we're separate to nature, not part of it.
Peta Milan 20:44
And you know, a lot of this thinking came around through philosophers like Francis Bacon, and Descartes and these types of folks that really turned us into this very mechanistic way of seeing the world where the nested system became inverted.
Peta Milan 20:58
So if you imagine a big circle, which is the environment, and within the environments, it's our social constructs. And then within that is the economy, which is a small part of a technosphere.
Peta Milan 21:05
That's the way in which the nested system actually lives, but we've been relating to it in the reverse, the outside circle being the economy, and then the inside circle being the social human capital that we have to use as resources. And then within that, is our environment, which is natural capital resources there for us to extract.
Peta Milan 21:34
And that's how we've ended up in such a bad place with respect to climate and social inequalities, that then posing massive risks today, to the future value of our assets.
Peta Milan 21:47
And so we need to flip that around.
Peta Milan 21:50
So if I'm being regenerative, not just doing regenerative things, but if I'm being regenerative, I'm seeing myself as a part of a living system.
Peta Milan 22:00
And within the living system, there is reciprocal benefit. There's a kind of a harmony and a flow between its participants. There's a shared energy, there's a common purpose.
Peta Milan 22:14
And if I separate myself out from that, there will always be a fight for me to have. But if I see myself as an integral part of it, I can just be
Risto Kuulasmaa 22:27
And trust
Peta Milan 22:28
and trust and allow.
Risto Kuulasmaa 22:30
Trusting in a deep way, trusting the universe.
Peta Milan 22:34
Yeah. And trusting my own capacity to respond from a healthy loving place.
Risto Kuulasmaa 22:39
Yeah. Oh, that's a great segue to talk about the place where we are right now.
Risto Kuulasmaa 22:46
Because, yeah, it was pretty funny to arrive this beautiful house, close to Sintra here in Portugal. And the chickens came...
Peta Milan 22:57
Our little ladies.
Risto Kuulasmaa 22:57
Yeah, ladies came and they are so beautiful and friendly. And they, you know, you want to cuddle them. And actually, you can cuddle them, who's very special chickens.
Peta Milan 23:09
They've been bred with a lot of love.
Risto Kuulasmaa 23:10
Yeah, I can, I can see that.
Peta Milan 23:12
My husband, he takes all the like, a lot of the vegetables from the garden that we've planted, and he like painstakingly chops them all up.
Peta Milan 23:20
And so they have this gourmet diet, they don't get fed chicken feed at all.
Peta Milan 23:25
And so everything is kind of put back into the earth into the animals with as much love as we can.
Peta Milan 23:33
So we've planted about 150 different species here since March of this year. And now it's September and Risto, you've seen how much we've got going on here now. We've made our errors also.
Risto Kuulasmaa 23:43
Yeah, it's a paradise.
Peta Milan 23:43
Yeah, it's getting there. We've made our own soil. So it's looking pretty fabulous. Now compared to what it was,
Risto Kuulasmaa 23:49
and the speed, it's so fast when you when you treat the soil, right. It's just stunning.
Peta Milan 23:57
Yeah, I mean, it's that's the power of a living system, right. I mean, this soil is our biggest living organism on the planet.
Peta Milan 24:04
And if we give love and care and and the right types of conditions, it will recover quickly.
Peta Milan 24:11
And that's the frustrating thing that we look at when we look at like large cities who are committing to net zero by 2050.
Peta Milan 24:18
We don't have that type of time.
Peta Milan 24:21
And investors who are still investing in traditional ways and not really understanding the power of impact or how to do impact properly, is if we're able to drive effort and energy into regeneration.
Peta Milan 24:34
It is fast, we don't have to wait, you know, 30-50 years for things to recover.
Peta Milan 24:40
And just this like little plot of land that we have here where we're, you know, working our best way to walk our talk in terms of our commitment in the world and our vision.
Peta Milan 24:50
You can see already it's a significant difference from I mean, I showed you the difference between the soil quality of what we move to because we still have some patches where we've kept that and then this oil that we've actually made ourselves and put back into the earth.
Peta Milan 25:04
And the difference between the two is quite significant for only six months.
Risto Kuulasmaa 25:12
I love this. So to segue to your business, from backyard to the, to the family office. Well, so could you describe us? Where are you at the moment with with your office?
Peta Milan 25:27
Yeah, so we created a family office called the Henmil Group Family Office out of Dubai.
Peta Milan 25:32
And we have quite a lot of venture building and tech capabilities in our business and, or in our family should say, and I see on the international advisory board for the world sustainable development forum, which was founded by the former chairman of the IPCC.
Peta Milan 25:47
And he, my beloved Dr. Rajendra Pujari, who passed a few years ago, he asked me to join because he knew I was very action oriented. He loved that fiery warrior woman spirit that I had.
Peta Milan 26:00
And he was getting a bit tired of often when we go to things like Corp, and the World Economic Forum and Climate Week, there's a lot of talk. But there's not always a lot of action that transpires out of that.
Peta Milan 26:12
And that can be really frustrating, particularly when we don't have a lot of time. And so he wanted to create this group, as an action oriented group.
Peta Milan 26:22
And then, so I also around the same time was asked to join our all hands, which is a multidisciplinary, multi stakeholder group working to counter radicalization and violent extremism. And because I'd grown up with a abuse, I was really interested in what led people to violence.
Peta Milan 26:41
You know, as a young woman becoming a mother at a young age, I had to address that for myself to in my journey, like how to break intergenerational patterns of abuse, so that I didn't become an abuser.
Peta Milan 26:52
And so, so that was also part of something in my journey that was really important. So I'd stay fascinated by that multi generational impacts, multi generational patterning and how to interrupt it.
Peta Milan 27:07
And so when I saw how the investment world was working, as a result of traditional models of investment and economics, and the lack of diversity that we just spoke about,
Peta Milan 27:21
I was seeing that money was not flowing into areas that could have rapid impact at an accelerated rate and still deliver return.
Peta Milan 27:30
So I needed to kind of create a new model.
Peta Milan 27:34
So we established the family office with a view to investing precede so pre revenue. And working with the founders or businesses that our company had designed from the ground up. To be regenerative, that means that they follow living principles design, that they work to create the conditions for the thriving of life. And they have the capacity to create impact across sectors.
Peta Milan 28:02
And a lot of the siloed fragmented thinking that I'd seen across business and across the investor landscape where it's very sector focused, it's very single project focused, it's wanting to invest in kind of growth stage, a lot of the time, there wasn't a whole lot of innovation coming about because people were only willing to invest in stuff that has proof of success already.
Peta Milan 28:28
So while other people in my age group, were getting mortgages and buying houses, I was putting everything that I had into building businesses.
Peta Milan 28:36
And so our family office still hasn't ventured into into real estate yet, but we will. But our focus is to really work on regenerative precede ventures and grow them to seed and Series A, and then invite other family offices with those proof of revenues and proof of impact to come in and co-invest.
Risto Kuulasmaa 28:55
And what I really appreciate in you is really the you walk the walk and and I think that the project you guys did in Mexico City, I think that's a great example of this thinking and the holistic approach.
Risto Kuulasmaa 29:14
Maybe you could share a bit about that?
Peta Milan 29:18
Yeah, well, that wasn't us that delivered that that was our delivery partner in the US but what they did, it was working on the water issue in Mexico City because Mexico City has a lot of problems with with drought.
Peta Milan 29:34
And we're starting to see that arising now even in Europe.
Peta Milan 29:38
But what they did was they took a regenerative approach. So they work with multi stakeholders, including one of the major universities there and also local business and government and also civil society.
Peta Milan 29:50
And what they realised was that the main highways that they'd built through the SIF, the centre of Mexico City was actually sitting over the top of underground streams.
Peta Milan 30:00
So the community got together and did these like picnics on the meridian, they called it where they brought a lot of people into the light, grassy meridians of these massive highways, to bring awareness to that people were driving over the top of their water.
Peta Milan 30:15
And they basically invented new technologies in which to share water.
Peta Milan 30:23
And to be able to access these underground streams.
Peta Milan 30:27
And I think there was a big earthquake in 2017, I'm not quite sure if that's the exact date. So if I'm wrong, I apologise.
Peta Milan 30:36
But nevertheless, there was a big earthquake, and the risk factor was 4 million homes without water as a result of that, but because they had already discovered these streams by doing this regenerative project in the city, and they built these water sharing capabilities within the community, that entire disaster was averted.
Peta Milan 30:55
I mean, the earthquakes still happen, but there weren't 4 million homes without water.
Peta Milan 30:59
And so, that is definitely the power of working regeneration. And the perfection is in the process, not in the outcomes.
Risto Kuulasmaa 31:16
And how you define success for yourself?
Peta Milan 31:25
For me, success, So I have for myself a very clear sense of, of purpose and direction, in service of the kind of world I would like to see, which is one that's thriving, one in which all of life has an opportunity to thrive.
Peta Milan 31:45
Sometimes along that journey, I have to make really difficult decisions that almost can seem anti regenerative.
Peta Milan 31:52
Like maybe I have to sack one of my employees, maybe I have to negotiate really hard on a deal.
Peta Milan 32:02
I think for me, success is the degree to which I can be really growing my own awareness around my own imperfections.
Peta Milan 32:17
And how, to what degree I can keep calling myself forth in service of that vision.
Peta Milan 32:23
And I'm not going to do it perfectly every time I'm going to mess up, I'm going to have moments of not really knowing what to do, I'm going to feel incredibly vulnerable and scared at different times and going to experience pain, and maybe I'll unintentionally cause pain to others.
Peta Milan 32:41
But the process of living in alignment with one's purpose is about how open and willing am I to be vulnerable and in service of this direction.
Peta Milan 32:55
And it's got to be bigger than one's ego and identity. But I know I still give myself a hard time if I feel like I mess up.
Risto Kuulasmaa 33:02
Del Dosa spoke in beautiful words from a recovering warrior? Right?
Peta Milan 33:07
Yeah. I'm trying.
Peta Milan 33:12
Yeah.
Peta Milan 33:13
Recovering warrior. I like that.
Risto Kuulasmaa 33:16
So what imperfections of your own you're working with right now?
Risto Kuulasmaa 33:26
What is the kind of current theme?
Peta Milan 33:30
Yeah, I think, I think I'm still really working to deepen my relationship to safety, in the face of uncertainty.
Peta Milan 33:45
Coming from the experience of the childhood that I had, there was a lot of unsafety. Right. And, and there was a lot of volatility, too. I mean, when you have a parent, that's an abuser, you're constantly vigilant, you're constantly watching out for, you know, the next signal that something is gonna erupt.
Peta Milan 34:05
And I had to work really, really hard to move beyond hyper vigilance.
Peta Milan 34:12
And so now I feel in this really strange space of deeply profoundly trusting the process, like with my every cell in my body, and at the same time when certain outcomes don't occur in the timeframe that my mind thinks that they ought to struggling with anxiety, or the lack of safety around that.
Peta Milan 34:39
And I mean, that's an example of a dyadic relationship, right?
Risto Kuulasmaa 34:43
There you go.
Peta Milan 34:43
Exactly. So, so I'm really working to to deepen my, my my capacities around that. And to, to, to be able to be very compassionate with myself in those moments.
Risto Kuulasmaa 35:03
And what has been the most significant professional risk you have taken?
Peta Milan 35:13
Well, I mean, one of the companies that we came into, we realised that the business model wasn't going to work. And we had to reposition the business model of the company, where the company had acquired quite a lot of debt.
Peta Milan 35:32
And in the country that the company was incorporated, there was no limited liability structure for a company.
Peta Milan 35:38
So we had to take on quite a large number of 100.000s of euros worth of personal debt in order to reposition that company, with no guarantee of its success.
Peta Milan 35:51
And I know that investors do that all the time, they put money in to things without any guarantee of success.
Peta Milan 36:01
But making the kind of transition that we needed to for this business was going to be a challenging one.
Peta Milan 36:07
But I really believed in the potential and the purpose of it. So we did that anyway.
Peta Milan 36:15
So we've continued, in general, to really walk our talk around investing in precede ventures, and to not deviate from that thesis.
Peta Milan 36:26
And that has meant in the short term, at least, anyway, over the past five or six years, we haven't been able to invest in other types of things that may, you know, like property or whatever, because we really, because of the venture building and the technology expertise that we have, we've been very, very hands on with those ventures, sometimes stepping into management roles if we needed to, whatever.
Peta Milan 36:49
So we're not so we're not focused as a family office on becoming the next billionaires, we're focused on really creating powerful companies that are really fundamentally transformative and deliver really good returns.
Peta Milan 37:02
So we don't mind doing the venture building stuff, because as far as my brother, and I can sense the stuff that really lights us up anyways.
Peta Milan 37:10
But I would like to be able to shift to being able to work more full time on the family office side of things, rather than in the operations of businesses at some stage.
Peta Milan 37:20
But as we scale, we'll be able to do that as we build, we're opening up a Talent Network, actually, we're offering for free, I guess, training education, to folks in regenerative frameworks, with a view to coming in and working with us when when jobs become available, because it takes some time to really be able to work and function with these frameworks powerfully.
Peta Milan 37:45
So we thought it was better to open that up and do that free out to the marketplace, rather than employ someone and then have to spend six months training them up and grooming them for that it would help us scale a bit faster.
Risto Kuulasmaa 37:58
Let's talk about family office dynamics.
Risto Kuulasmaa 38:01
I find it quite hilarious.
Risto Kuulasmaa 38:03
Well, because you have the archetypes always running around there.
Risto Kuulasmaa 38:07
You have the you know, the spender boy is on the yachts and you know, doesn't give a sh*t about the future of the office, then someone is in India searching for herself.
Risto Kuulasmaa 38:21
And the third one is like reluctantly taking the lead. You know, when the when the flutter is passing?
Peta Milan 38:28
Yeah, this succession plan? Yeah.
Risto Kuulasmaa 38:31
Yeah, I think it's always kind of fun to observe the dynamics, how it goes with with your brother and the family?
Peta Milan 38:41
Well, I mean, so?
Peta Milan 38:46
Well, yeah, I think it's interesting because my husband doesn't actually really want to be hands on part of it. He wants to do his work on the farm.
Peta Milan 38:56
So I guess he's kind of the reluctant spender, even though he's not on a yacht.
Peta Milan 39:01
He's out with the chickens.
Peta Milan 39:06
And I'm the very archetypal kind of entrepreneurial visionary.
Peta Milan 39:11
And my brother is this amazingly talented guy who has a PhD in an earth science, air sciences, not air sciences. Anyway, he's a biologist.
Peta Milan 39:23
And he is really a powerful powerful regenerative practitioner, amazing talent there.
Peta Milan 39:25
And he really loves people and he loves getting his hands really into the operations and, and, you know, working in the operation side of things.
Peta Milan 39:41
So, for me with my brother, it feels completely harmonious.
Peta Milan 39:46
It's like, I create the vision I come up with, you know, what's in alignment. If it resonates with him, he's totally on board and he's like my powerful implementer partner.
Peta Milan 39:58
And so that frees me up to do The thing that I love to do, which is like working with founders and working with the networks of family offices, and, you know, creating that doing the kind of like concept design for the niche market premium position, like business models
Peta Milan 40:13
And so it's really interesting harmony between my brother and I wasn't always like that between us.
Peta Milan 40:22
But we've both been so committed to our own healing and growth journey, that we've just found ourselves in this place, this perfect moment in time, where our paths are aligned in service of a common a common vision and a common purpose.
Peta Milan 40:39
And we haven't had those conversations yet, because our kids are still pretty young.
Peta Milan 40:42
I took my 19 year old to a Web3 event, and he looked mostly bored.
Peta Milan 40:52
And he's, he's not really like the network a guy.
Peta Milan 40:55
Yeah. I mean, are the kids are still quite young, like 12 and 13. So they've got time.
Peta Milan 41:00
So yeah, I mean, when it comes to the succession planning, it'll be really interesting to see how our kids grow and develop and who feels called forth towards pursuing something similar to what my brother and I are doing.
Risto Kuulasmaa 41:12
And that's when the fun starts.
Peta Milan 41:13
Yeah, that's a complex dynamics, exactly.
Risto Kuulasmaa 41:17
How far the mission spans because that's usually interesting in in family offices and leanings of business, because the division is usually quite, quite long, right?
Peta Milan 41:30
Yeah, of course.
Peta Milan 41:31
I mean, for me, our family offices working in service of the planet, and the living systems, which includes, you know, humanity.
Peta Milan 41:40
So how long is that?
Peta Milan 41:42
I don't know, according to Elon Musk, not very long.
Peta Milan 41:45
He's trying to get us to Mars.
Peta Milan 41:47
But you know, I'm very, very loyal. So I'm all about the Earth, I'm not interested in Mars, I'd really like to see this beautiful system, you know, recover, and really kind of regenerate new life and bring back a lot.
Peta Milan 42:01
I mean, we're looking at, you know, depletion of 75% of eight insect species, and, you know, we're on target for, you know, loss of 90% of plankton in the oceans and things like this, which are fundamentally devastating, not just to humanity, but to all of life.
Risto Kuulasmaa 42:16
And what would need to happen, if we would bounce back to, you know, 2050. From, you know, if we will look back from 2050. And we look these, these sad times, in the 2020s, what needs to happen, really, that we are back in beautiful biodiversity and, and the planet, this is driving?
Peta Milan 42:46
I think, a mindset shift.
Peta Milan 42:48
Because if we have a mindset shift, and we start to engage with ourselves as part of a living system, a value adding part of a living system, where we're committed to adding more value than we extract, then our behaviours will shift, you know, in our way, our investment strategies will shift, our way of doing business will shift how we design evolutionary business models will shift.
Peta Milan 43:09
And so I think, I think tackling these structures is a really ineffective way to do it, which is what we've been doing, we've been investing into the SDGs.
Peta Milan 43:21
And I don't want to knock the SDGs, but they can be quite siloed.
Peta Milan 43:25
Some folks will say I'm only focusing on SDG five, or I'm only focusing on SDG 17.
Peta Milan 43:30
And then when, you know, we're looking at Investor funding, it's going into an oceans thesis, or an energy transition thesis or something like this climate tech, we're not actually looking at the systems and investing in transitions.
Peta Milan 43:47
And so our goal in our family office is to create a fund sometime in the next two years, which will be small McKinsey's estimates that it will take 275 trillion to invest in all the transitions needed by 2050.
Peta Milan 44:04
So we will do a small one of a billion and invite other family offices and investors to participate in that so that we can do whole city transitions.
Risto Kuulasmaa 44:13
And what's the role of female leadership in all this?
Peta Milan 44:18
Diversity? I think it's diversity.
Peta Milan 44:24
We just we don't have enough I mean, let's not talk about male female as bodies let's talk about energies. Right?
Peta Milan 44:33
So I can be a woman I can still have very masculine energy, and that's, you know, my warrior princess energy.
Peta Milan 44:39
But then there's, you know, but I don't want to say that too, because there's many feminine archetypes as well.
Peta Milan 44:45
There's not just you know, the soft nurturing Kuan Yin is represents all feminine, no, then you've got the powerful Carly, and you've got all of these other different types of feminine, but I think it's bringing together the energies in balance within ourselves.
Peta Milan 45:00
And then also at the investor tables and at the boardroom tables, in order to bring in balance.
Peta Milan 45:05
I'm really good friends with Nilima Bhatt who wrote Shakti Leadership with Raj Sisodia.
Peta Milan 45:09
And it's talking about bringing together the masculine feminine energies in leadership. And I really, really believe in that. I mean, my, my brother has a beautiful feminine energy about him.
Peta Milan 45:20
I'm probably a little more on the dominant masculine side on the energy side.
Peta Milan 45:24
But we're both working on our balance, right.
Peta Milan 45:28
And I think that that's fundamentally important. But I do think that you need to have more women, more people of colour, more definitely more ethnic groups, at the leadership tables, because we need that diversity, you know, in order to have multiple worldviews that deepen our understanding of living systems.
Peta Milan 45:48
If our view of living systems is, you know, and I'm sorry to play stereotypes, I don't normally like to do it.
Peta Milan 45:54
But in the investor world is largely white men who've been to some ivy league school that teach certain types of curriculum that have come from certain types of families.
Peta Milan 46:03
We have a very monoculture worldview.
Peta Milan 46:07
And we're not able to see beyond that when we're making decisions.
Peta Milan 46:12
So I think deepening our diversity with women, but not just women, is critically important for us to create greater balance and harmony with our living systems.
Risto Kuulasmaa 46:25
I think you summarised it all there.
Risto Kuulasmaa 46:28
It's a beautiful spot to to end and kind of let that manifest, right.
Peta Milan 46:37
Well, I hope he does manifest into something. We're in a decade of action.
Risto Kuulasmaa 46:43
We have to do that. Cool. Thank you so much for joining Talks of imperfection. This was a beautiful session.
Peta Milan 46:50
Thank you. So it's really an honour to be here.
Risto Kuulasmaa 46:53
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Risto Kuulasmaa 46:53
Thank you.
Risto Kuulasmaa 47:12
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Risto Kuulasmaa 47:15
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