Your Happy Hour - Wealth Through Wellness

Episode Date: June 13, 2026

In this inspiring episode, we have a heartfelt conversation with James Bashall who shares his journey from studying finance in South Africa to building a life centered on well-being, self-care, and authenticity and discovering the importance of filling your cup first, the intricate play between wealth and wellness and embracing life's uncertainties with grace.The Feels is all about having those honest conversations, the power of community for personal growth and taking those actionable steps towards being our authentic selves.Thanks for tuning in! Keep it raw and real out there xYHH is produced by swartkat.co - captured via riverside.fm & shared via rss.com.

It's the Friday Feels and we're back with your first sip of the weekend. You're now tuned in to this week's episode of your happy hour. I'm your host Nicole Carmine and it's amazing to have you here. Joining me this week as we uncover the truths about being a human and a working professional. What are you up to this Friday? Well, whatever it is, this moment is just for you. And we're back with another episode on the Fields podcast, the Your Happy Hour series. And we're still talking about the theme, the surprise of self-care this June.

And it's also our very last month of this season. So we're going out with a bang. And I'm very happy that today I get to speak to a really dear old friend that I haven't spoken to in a long time on this topic and on the journey of life. And so a really big welcome to you, James, to the Fields podcast. And the last time I saw you, we were in the same city, New York City, and you're still living there. So it's really wonderful to have you here today and chat more about your life and what the journey has been like. Yeah, thanks having me. It's really fun.

Love what you're doing here. Thank you. Thank you. And so, yeah, tell us a little bit about what you do today, how you got to this place and what the journey has been like for you. Yeah, it's been a journey. I always think when we get that question like, what do you do today? The reset is like age 18. What did you go to college to do? University, which I think maybe overshadows how much else goes into what you do today and how you got here. But if you work backwards, like I currently live in New York City

with my wife Laura and we just had a kid. So young both. is three months old and we live in a 400 square foot apartment in the West Village in Manhattan. Like it's a very different life from that which I might have expected to live having grown up in Cape Town South Africa and you know studied finance and accounting. So I think there's lots of turns to life that results must get into where we are and I think so many people are like you're in exactly the place you're supposed to be and I'm always like no I'm just in a place. You know making the most of what's in front of me.

And yeah, it's really random how I ended up here. I mean, we met studying finance undergrad in like 2008. So I guess that's a pretty good kind of departures to how I got here. It was studied finance and accounting, which were not things I ever should have studied. And the master's degree after that in finance, but in behavioral finance. And I was like, wow, like the psychology is fast. And then went through, like became a chartered accountant, and worked to consulting and then private equity

and ended up in wealth management. And was always fascinated by the human side of it all. And the principle of like, how do you live a good life? And I think that was hinged around, my mom died young, she was 52. And I always think about like, she had such a full good life, but in many ways she was lucky. It just happened that way.

And I've always been very intentional about like, about like, well, if that did happen to me, I'd rather, you know, I was very intentional about having built a good life regardless of how long it was. So I went back to university and studied positive psychology, which is basically the science of well-being, and had no idea what I was going to do with that. And they ended up back in wealth management because of this fascinating overlap between money and well-being. And all the while went through this journey of getting married to an American and moving to New York City and trying to discover who I am in this crazy metropolis.

And, yeah, loads of kind of elements of origin that all come together in this 400 square foot apartment, which is really fun. I love that, yeah. And it's so interesting to me how we both studied finance, but we both ended up doing more like even artistic things. Yeah. And also, I really love that you, like, I feel. feel like you're one of those people who've allowed yourself to change with grace, you know,

because a lot of people get really stuck. And I think this is kind of where the self-care comes in. It's like, we don't really care enough of ourselves and look after ourselves enough to allow ourselves to adapt and change. And like you're saying, being in a place, allowing yourself to be just where you are and that's okay. Like, that doesn't mean it's where you're going to be to-borrow. But, yeah, I mean, what does it look like for you when you think of, like, Yeah, I think maybe why we both studied finance was because we came from a very, a, risk-averse, but maybe be, like, opportunity-constrained environment. Like, it wasn't, you know, like, someone was just my apartment, they're like, oh, like,

that's a cool portrait. And I was like, oh, my grandmother did that. And, like, my grandmother was, like, this artist. And then my uncle is this, like, now kind of famous artist who's, like, painting huge famous people around the world. And it's like that opportunity didn't really exist where we grew up in many ways. Like it wasn't like, go be an artist. It was like, no, get a job in finance because there are only so many jobs.

And those are the ones that they're in abundance of and we need a job to feed yourself. And then, you know, the self-care thing is much less important or even like your autonomy to live the life you want to live is so much less important in that context, in a very risk-averse-strain context. But then when you, you know, step back and. when you when you live life a little bit more with a bit more autonomy when you get older and you get away from that narrative of like constraint and risk aversion and for like you then discover oh there's a me behind that and i discovered that through travel was you know i finished my chartered accountant articles at the age of whatever it is 25 and moved to europe and lived in amsterdam for six months and then came and came to new york actually for a month and did a road trip from from New York to Patagonia over eight months. And when I stepped out of that rat race, or perceived rat race, I mean, it wasn't real, it was like a contract.

When I stepped out of it, I realized how important that kind of personal journey of life actually was and how looking after yourself allows you to give more through your life. You know, it's like you fill up your own cup. And yeah, I think that's become a really important theme. You know, it's, I really want to give a lot, but you also need to look after yourself to be able to give.

Episode topics that I really want to talk about a lot more is this fill your cup first concept. So maybe we should title this one there. Because I completely agree, and I think maybe as South Africans, we also not taught to do that as well, as you might see in other places in the world. But that's something you have to discover for yourself. Maybe travel is that. maybe being able to know that when you're traveling on your own, it's like it's you and you look after you in that moment and, you know, you don't really always have someone looking after like

watching your back or, you know, you can't necessarily completely lose yourself in a night out because, you know, you still have to get home. So, but I love that you, that you did that for yourself that you went and found me. I mean, we always talk about like on the fields having, what does your feels life look like? What is, what does that mean to you when you stepping into your feels life? And someone asked me recently, like, so what is the feels life? And I was like, well, what is it for you?

You know, what does it look like for you? So what does that look like for you? Do you feel like you've built that for yourself and what you've done? Yeah, I think it's always in construction, because it's always within the this veil of sustainability, I think, is, there's always this overarching theme of like, can you actually be that person in reality? And maybe that's the risk aversion that comes from growing up in a very small place. You know, there wasn't exactly abundance around us.

And there was not that perspective of like you have, you were kind of, like, we were kind of irrelevant in the story of sustainability within the concept, within the contract of South Africa. I think interestingly, you know, hearing you talk about that, you know, filling up your own cup, for example, moving to the US has been quite shocking because the narrative is so upside down here in reverse to what we're used to. It's like, well, it's me, me, me, me, without the objective of actually giving back to. And there's this symbiosis that is about collaboration and about giving that creates a good environment around us. And if your cup's empty, you can't partake, but if your cup is sealed, you also can't partake.

And there's this element of like filling up to give. And from positive psychology perspective, giving is one of the most fundamental elements of well-being. And so it's all in there. Like you've got to look after yourself, but it does need to be with the intended outcome of some degree of like participating in a society and giving. back something. Does that even really make sense? Yeah, it does. I think like naturally when you're

feeling good and full, you run over, like you flow over with energy that you want to spool into the world. So I've never really thought about it like that, but I mean, it makes sense. Like you, I think we raised in a way to say like it was almost like loving from the outside in, but when you love from the inside out, like you, it's just a different kind of energy. You, you actually have so much more to give the world. And you want to because you have enough of it, you know. And so there's a positive psychology professor and is Barbara Fredrickson. And she wrote a theory called Broaden and Build.

And the idea was when you build positive psychological resources, which ultimately means like, you know, being happy, you do two things. Like you build resources against negativity. So when Bumpy Road does eventually come across, you're not debilitated by it. You're able to constructively approach it and work through whatever complexities

have come to your life. That's the building of resources. But the broadening is about broadening your aperture and it's about seeing more opportunities. When you come from a good place, that inside out mentality, if you're happy and well and are like feeling robust, you see things in a much broader opportunistic lens.

And that is so much more constructive for everyone. It's like, oh, suddenly you can be creative and you can solve problems and you can help people and you can give freely without fear of running out of those resources. So it really is rooted in abundance, but it takes so much intentionality to build those resources in the first place. I don't know if we're taught that enough in, you know, risk-averse environments. No, we're not. And I think that's where it's interesting that you actually did finance and went back into wealth because so much of like I just hear you using the word resources and immediately my mind is going to like money you know and financial resources and actually it's not just that

it's like what is your whole energy bubble of resources you have but naturally in the world that we live in you do need the financial sustainability to feel it I mean it's like maslow's pyramid you have to feel safe and then you can be creative. But what did that look like for you when you brought those tools together? Like what was the most profound thing that you might have learned? Yeah, I think, you know,

going back to the theory, you know, I was trying to ground my experience in theory because I always think I'm just a small data point. But the theory of well-being as relates to financial security was largely disputed for a long time. You know, Dan O'Connor, who's the guy who wrote Thinking Fast and Slow

and he's a Nobel laureate, and he was like the father of behavioral economics, which became behavioral finance, which became the finance of well-being. He released a paper, I think it was in 2010, that basically said, after a certain level of income, once those needs are met, the correlation between wealth and well-being falls away.

So once you, if you think through a Maslow's hierarchy lens, you like once you have security and once you have, you know, food and your shelter, you're good. Like, that's all you need. Now it's up to you to go and like, find well-being. And that was the prevailing or prevailing thought as relates to wealth and well-being. And then in, I think, 22, a guy called Matt Killingsworth at University of Pennsylvania came out and said, he used smartphones to measure well-being in moments rather than at a point in time. So you get like a notification multiple times a day, say, how do you feel right now?

what are you doing? And you correlate that with a whole bunch of metrics, and he was able to run this really robust, thousands, if not millions of data points of what is driving well-being. But one of the things he dug into was our wealth correlated with well-being. And what he found was, yes,

the strong positive correlation to the kind of base level of Mazos hierarchy still exists in line with what Kahneman said, but it doesn't fall away at a certain level. And that level in the US was, I think, an annual income of $75,000. They were like, once he earned $76,000, like, there's no positive return. He found a very positive return, and that was that wealth allows you to spend money on a good life.

You know, we are both travelers. Like, you can't travel without having money. It's not, you know, not really an option. Or at least you can't travel in a way that fits into the way our world is structured. Of course, you can travel with no money. Like, I'm sure you've hitchhiked at some point. I hitchhiked through Patagonia. it was great, but I had loads of time on my hands, and, you know, you sit with your thumb out

for half the day because people on inclines pick up a sort of bearded shaggy man on the side of the street. But, you know, that is possible, but in reality, if you want to do lots of things in your life, you've got to fall within this contract of a capitalist society, and wealth plays such an important role there. And it's not wealth for wealth's end, it's wealth to be invested in doing things you love doing. And so when I started putting those two together, it was really like a penny-draft.

of oh this is almost like the next evolution of capitalism and so much of our world in which we live in these big cities it's just like consume consume it's like advertising and you open Instagram and they try to sell you something and everything's about sales sales sales and this is about the reverse of that being like what I want now what do they want me to want and it's really fun helping people build lives in line with their values in line with their values in with what they really want, but empowered by wealth and empowered by a strong financial foundation. And I feel like it's like talking to where I am in my life at the moment as an artist, as being building businesses as an entrepreneur.

Recently I've been kind of looking for more like part-time jobs. And it took me a long time to be like, it's okay. I can go find financial stability in this so that I can finance my auntie. and my music. And it's okay sometimes, you know, like if you're still on the journey to say that I need to build foundation of wealth, to be able to build into the well-being that I need and to feel fulfilled in my life. And it is like, it's a mix between what's happening in society and what's going on in yourself and your own journey and you have to see the holistic picture for what it is. So I love that. And I also, I really do believe wealth is just

energy. Like, we, we came up with cash and obviously that's a way we transact in the world, but it's just your energy. It's just a different way of interacting, you know? So we are controlled by it in some way. Unfortunately in the world, maybe they will collapse. But it's just being able to come back to, like, again, like you said, like cultivating that what is the energy bubble?

What is the life that you want to live and go from the center out? What was that like for you? Did you do that exercise? and go like these are my values. Yeah, it's an ongoing exercise. I don't think you ever figured out because my like, I think we all have anxieties that lack like anxiety, I think is like a latent reality and it latches on to things in your life.

You can have a perfect life and if you're an anxious person, you'll find something to be anxious about. And so there's always a layer of anxiety, I think that everyone carries with them at all times. And a lot of my anxiety is latch on to financial security. I live in New York City. It's, you know, most often rated the most expensive city in the world. There's always a random city that seems to like a bit of the top.

But, like, New York City is always second. And it's a vulnerable place to live. I mean, you lived here. You know how that feels. You, like, go out for dinner and you're like, what did I just pay for dinner? Was it that good? And there's a bit of insecurity that comes from that. So a lot of the work that I do is to try and, like, liberate myself.

from that using data, like looking at, you know, and you run simulations what the future would be and you're like, oh, I'm fine. And then it's like this weight released and like, oh, I can go and pursue things. Like I can, you know, do stuff. Go to go like pursue experiences. A good example is this will raise it with you. South Africa is playing New Zealand rugby in Baltimore, Maryland. And so Baltimore was like four hours away. How random. To live in New York City and suddenly there's like a rugby game. And I'm not a massive like rugby guy, but you know, it's so much fun and it's so much

part of our heritage and who we are. And so I'm going with a friend and the tickets were insane. Like the dollar price of the tickets is what we would have paid in RAND in South Africa, which means it's whatever the dollar round exchange rate is times the price. So like 16, 17 times the price. I mean, it's nuts. But you've got to step back and look at it and go, this is going to be like pursuit of experience is so much of what life is

and diversity of experience. And you're adding to that kind of memory bank. The data is the only thing that could help me feel secure enough to spend a crazy amount of money or something like that. And it does. Makes you feel great. You're like, oh, that's fine. That fits within the plan. It's all good.

And, you know, that's why I, you know, in a work sense put up with things I don't necessarily want to put up with, which is similar to the almost like contracting roles or the part-time gigs is like we feel like a sellout against our core beliefs, but really it's just facilitating things. It's enabling you to do what you want to do and what you need to do. And I love that interaction. You know, it links back into that self-care principle of you've got to spend resources, not necessarily money, but resources on self-care, time, energy, attention. And it's hard to do. if we allow ourselves to feel in a resource scarce environment.

So creating a feeling of abundance is really important. And the financial work to create a feeling of abundance is a lot. It's really important. Yeah, it's such a big part of playing the game of life, I think, and the way it's structured. And maybe tomorrow things change and the world looks different and the game of life looks different. But it's also kind of owning, I've realized, like,

I came here to be a human, to be in this life, in this way. And, yeah, maybe we're also here to change things in some way, but along the way you still have to eat and, you know, and work within the constructs of what has existed. And so I think often maybe for myself, bits of self-care has been just acceptance, acceptance of yourself, of your journey, and having grace in the process, you know. so yeah. I don't know who wrote it, but they,

I think it's the guys at the Stanford Design Lab, they spoke about gravity problems. They're like, if you wake up in the morning and you're angry at gravity, you've picked the wrong fight. You're not going to beat it. Like, you've got to accept that gravity is a reality. And it feels, you know,

the 24 hours in a day is a gravity problem, for example. Like, it's just, and the need to sleep, is a gravity problem. And the need to eat is a gravity problem. And the need to be able to afford rent and pay for the food and, you know, allow you to be able to sleep is also a gravity problem, which is financially oriented. Like, these are the construct in which we exist. And so acceptance of them, I love that,

is just so fundamental to being able to really kind of squeeze the juice out of what's left within that construct. And that's what life is. I think life's just a big story that we're putting together. and how we make the most of what we have in building that story is what we'll measure our lives by, you know, when we look back in the future. That's like a beautiful gem to take away from a week. Thank you.

And on that, I actually want to do a little segment called The Gems. And it's like a moment to say in this last week, what did you feel gratitude for? Or is there something that you learned specifically? And for me, I just moved apartment into a new space into Paris, which has been so nice. And just being able to have gratitude for that and being able to step out and know that I don't have to transport really far to get anywhere. It feels like a whole new chapter that's opened up. And I also had a really interesting situation where I was being a model for a hairdressing friend who's working on his exam. and I was there for his exam and then the time it wasn't working and I don't know I walked out there

with different colors in my hair and talking about acceptance you know it's just like he's fixed it now but but it's just the fact that you get to experience life and people's journey with them and knowing that it's all okay it's like it's going to turn up fine you know and so that was really just big gems for me this week it's like gratitude and acceptance and new spaces and things and yeah what about for you Yeah, I think a big one was, it's been a stressful week. And that's acceptance that that's okay is a big thing. It's okay that a week can be stressful. Every week shouldn't be stressful, but every now and there is one.

But I think a big one was I get very wrapped up in whatever I'm doing. My wife tends to say I'm like a black hole of concentration. I just like get wrapped up in something and she's like, all the energy has flown to you, like share it with the world. Because I'm very focused and I'm very like, yeah, like involved, you know. And I look up and I've lost an hour and off. And like, wow, on one hand, amazing flow state, on the other hand, slightly dysfunctional. And, you know, I carry that stress with me.

I'm always thinking and always doing. And there's been this incredible grounding in getting home and just picking up, my son. And just being like, oh, you know, like, oh, it's so simple. Like, what are all those worries? And there's this grounding in just the moment. And it's impossible to feel stressed around new life. I don't know. I think a lot of people, it's funny, people have said that my wife and I are so relaxed as parents.

And we're like, no, I just think we've done a lot of stressful things in our lives. So comparatively speaking, it is relaxed. But it's so grounding. And so this week has been maybe because I've been asked that question a lot, like, what's like being a parent? You're like, oh, it's great. is the realization of like that's really what matters right now. And there's always something that matters in life and making sure you know what the thing is that matters,

allows us to have that perspective and enables us to step out of what is often a construct of stress. It's not real. And it's been really fun to have that this week. I love that. I love that. Yeah, love is the only thing that's real, really. and the fact that you get to share it with a new human is amazing.

The kids are amazing like that, really. They just bring you back to reality, and that's a really nice dream. Thank you for sharing that. And I also want to give a little bit of gratitude to our sponsors, our partners along the journey, and that is rs.com, who help us distribute this into the world,

and also to blender bombs, which is in the US, and these nutritious snacks, and they're given our all. audience a beautiful discount if you use the code the feels. We get 20% tall. And also last thing, but not least, we in ESIM, best network ever since then is travel. Well, also you can use a native.

I use it every single day and it's really affordable data. But they also have wonderful ESIMs that you can hop around easily in the world and with connectivity. And they've also given our audience a discount. You keep that one of surprise. You can DM us on the socials on what that is. and you feel free to share all the fields of us. We'd love to hear what your feeling.

I wonder what everyone's feeling and thinking about this topic. Maybe you need to go and sit down and write down your values and do a little bit of a heart mapping to what you are doing in your life now. But I also would love to give a little shout out to what we always say, the people place or space, the PPS, who does have reveals. And this week had a really beautiful experience with something I don't actually like doing is karaoke.

Because I am a singer, but I'm so perfectionistic that karaoke is just never quite the same experience. But we went as a group of friends to this thing called Bam Karaoke in France. And you book like a box and you go in and you just have the best time and two and half hours just go by. And I just want to give them a big shout out for what they've created. I think more people need to be singing, releasing, having fun together. And so we just love your feels, guys. Thank you for being you in the world. And then I just have one more question for you, Jones.

And that is our reading list. It's called The Stack. And so I'm curious about what is in your stack. It could be a book that you've been eyeing and you haven't picked it up yet, or maybe one that you've read and liked to recommend to our community. That's really fun. Thanks a question. When you have a small child, you tend not to read alone.

I'm looking at my, like, my boys' reading list here. There's a lot of baby books. I'm actually reading. There was a series I read the trilogy of a few, maybe a year ago, called The Red Rising series. It's absurd. It's not something I would ordinarily necessarily gravitate toward. It's kind of like futuristic dystopian sci-fi set on Mars,

interplanetary, whatever. it's so much fun and it's a trilogy that became seven books so it's not really a trilogy but i'm reading the fourth book and i think so often when we're very stressed and busy we need something that is that can detach us from that reality and yeah the red rising books are a 10 out of 10 if you're looking for something that's just really fun really philosophical if you allow you yourself to absorb the greater meaning of everything that they're exploring. And I've told so many people to read it, even though it's something I would never, you know, it's not Socrates Aristotle. I'm like, yeah, but you should read it. Which is really bad. I love that. Thank you for the

recommendation. We're definitely going to be adding that to the stack, which is growing and growing. And all the guest recommendations are on the website if you want to go check out the books. And I love fantasy so I will definitely be adding that one to my list that's also in way too long and I need to get to all of them but thank you for recommending that and just thank you for coming on and sharing so openly and honestly and with your heart and it's just such a pleasure to see you again even if it's remotely I hope we can give each other hugs in person sometime soon yeah thanks to having me it's super fun if you haven't just here follow Friday Feels on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and LinkedIn, you can share with us all your

fields this week by tagging us at Fridayfeels.com. And you can also find the website at that handle. And now, as you ease into this weekend, take a moment. Celebrate who you've become, what you've overcome and what is yet to come as you do the crazy and cool things that you do. as the authentic you. You know the truth about life and work is that it's hard, but the beauty is this global working experience that you're in while we are in it together. So keep connecting, empowering and inspiring this week.

And of course, keep it raw and real. Until next time.