Dave Letele: Overcoming Poverty, Crime & Mental Health Issues - Becoming ‘Brown Buttabean’ & Founding BBM

Dave Letele is perhaps best known as a former professional boxer 'Brown Buttabean’, but his story is so much larger than that.   It's been filled with highs and lows, from early sporting success to the failure of his supermarket business in Australia where he lost everything, including his family, and returned to New Zealand with only the clothes on his back, weighing in at over 200 kgs.  He turned to prize fighting to earn money and get fit, lost over 100kgs and shared his journey on social media. The public response to his efforts built up the movement that became Buttabean Motivation or BBM.  For the last decade, he’s worked tirelessly to create opportunities for people. He has set up free gyms in West and South Auckland, and Tokoroa, a community kitchen, a social supermarket in Tokoroa, and a Foodshare which regularly feeds thousands of people.   In this episode we cover it all, in great detail – and it’s a blockbuster. He’s a man making a huge difference in Kiwi communities and we’re so thrilled to share his story.  We’re also thrilled to announce Dave has joined us at B2B Speakers, our business that brings our guests to your events. If you’d like to hire Dave , or any of our other epic guests, at your next conference or function, get in touch by going to B2Bspeakers.co.nz  While you’re there sign up to our new weekly newsletter with all the behind the scenes B2B details.  Listen on iheart or wherever you get your podcasts from.  This episode was brought to you from the Export Beer garden studio. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.