**Inside the Maverick Mind | Episode: Spencer John

What happens when a boy from Port Talbot - no father, raised by his nan, told at 12 he had three choices: the cemetery, prison, or the forces - refuses all three and builds option four?

Spencer John went on to a 25-year career in investment banking across London, New York, Sydney, and the Middle East. Today he's the founder of Ethos Chain, an advisor to the UK Ministry of Defence on financial warfare, a FTSE 100 non-executive director, and the chair of employment advisory boards across all six Welsh prisons.

But none of that is the real story.

The real story is about trauma rewiring a brain into a superpower. About a daily gin habit at 13 that saved a life - and nearly ended it. About waking up unable to move on Clapham Common and feeling, for the first time, completely at peace. About walking onto a Wall Street trading floor and seeing not power, but insecurity. And about choosing, again and again, to build option four.

In this conversation, Spencer and host Emyr Afan - two boys who grew up miles apart in South Wales and found each other on a charity bike ride across America - go deep on:

🧠 Pattern recognition as a survival mechanism
💼 25 years in global finance - and why he walked away at his most successful
⚔️ Advising the MoD on unconventional warfare
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Changing outcomes in Welsh prisons through employment
❤️ The Yellow Sands Foundation and giving back to the rough diamonds
🌍 The end of the global multinational — and what's replacing it

This is raw, honest, and genuinely remarkable.