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Mark Brand

@mark.brand

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▪️Social Impact Entrepreneur▪️Cook ▪️Speaker▪️45 DJ ▪️UN Catalyst
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She said Yes 3.23.23 🤍 I’ve known intuitively since the first time I watched her walk in the room. Every time I’ve watched her do anything since, especially with the toughest things, it grows. Today we drove to the desert, wandered and laughed hard, got stopped dead by nature, shook our heads that we have this life together after what we’ve been through, together, and apart. A daily ritual. We wanted to set up a shot, but she had no idea this one was going to be very different. She set the frame, butterflies hit hard, then one visited shortly after. My actual ride or die, my soon to be wife, my forever ever, forever ever? Absolutely, in every lifetime. by @mark.brand
@mark.brand is an accomplished chef who’s driving real social impact. Through his work, he’s reshaping how food is grown, prepared, and shared, creating opportunities for those who need them most. More stories like this are unfolding across the country. Tag someone who’s growing Canada in their own way. - Mark Brand est un chef accompli qui génère un réel impact social. À travers son travail, il transforme la façon dont on produit, prépare et partage la nourriture, en créant des opportunités pour ceux qui en ont le plus besoin. D’autres histoires comme celle-ci prennent vie partout au pays. Identifiez quelqu’un qui sort du rang à sa façon. #PortraitsOfPride #CdnAg #ProudlyCanadian #LetsGrowCanada #OnSortduRang by @mark.brand
My brother @matthewlillard is the realest. He’s been in my life for almost ten years now and from the very first event we did together in support of food sovereignty for folks in the Jungle of LA, I knew just how different he was from his peers. BETTER is made for tools, and some smiles, but real takeaways from lived experience and Matt gives us a whole stack to think on, some of which are still ringing out for me. You’re probably already a Lillard fan, but if by some chance you’ve missed his big heart and brain from screen, a listen here and you’ll join our “non washed up director who shall go nameless”, side. by @mark.brand
The Venn diagram of life needs the very strongest partnership at its center, and mine’s Gibraltar, period. Existential crisis, the world in deep liminal transition is 9 o’clock, on my diagram. And on the “zombie apocalypse draft” she’s pick one, two, three, four and five (shout to @teacha_krsone ). The 3 o’clock is held by our work, and as need rapidly increases for community leadership amidst amalgamating hatred and fear, she not so gently forces rest and helps me ground when anger and shadow try and take the wheel. And at 6, living every minute left of this life tethered to the people and places we both love. Her intuition helps me sidestep landmines, and release false narratives, an extra set of aligned and love-informed eyeballs. It doesn’t hurt they’re azure blue and impossible to say no to. We’re moving through all of this together, alongside major life moments, and as we do I see more and more of the person I chose, grateful for the choice we made. We have been on the Island, building, and amidst it all, this carousel proof of all the above. Love is still and always, like her for me, Everything. ♥️ by @mark.brand
Many years ago, I stepped off stage in Toronto after hijacking my own keynote @terroirsymposium with last minute permission from the team to ask a room full of food people “Do you ever get lonely?”. I was supposed to do a talk around community building, and instead we talked about the toll the food system takes on our mental health and how we wish it could be Better. Leaving that talk, a producer (@mikebendixen) stuck his hand in my elevator as it was closing and said I’m going to reach out, about a show, and something like “Be open to it”. 5 years later, massive media changes, Radio show to podcast, multiple amazing producers and I feel like we’re back to the WHY we started this thing. To help people. We hit every benchmark of success last year, top 5% globally in all categories, so of course, I blew it up to start again. This season is a deep dive into THE cast of characters that fight for a more equitable and accessible food system, all across the planet. My team @podstarter.io our partners @eastcoastcu were an empathetic YES and I can’t wait to share what we’ve been working on. The video says the rest, but I’m dead certain, this is WHY Mike stuck his hand in that elevator, why we were meant to start this thing, period. Season 4 loading, and as always, thank you for your attention and intention with this thing of ours ♥️ by @mark.brand
“Mr. Brands objective has always been to incorporate lessons from entrepreneurship into social impact and he’s FURIOUS that food security remains an issue in a country as rich as Canada. “It should be a NATIONAL CRISIS” he said. “Water, Food, and Shelter should be guaranteed. As Canadians we have no excuse.” Thank you for letting me say the infuriating out loud, at large, nationally @pwaldie. And huge love to all the friends across this big ol country, that support without pause. I see you ❤️ by @mark.brand
I don’t celebrate holidays that hurt my friends. What I do celebrate are the parts of conveniently removed uncomfortable truths about Hallmark Holidays, being day lighted. North Americas history isn’t up for debate and the latest run on racism for “new settlers” that unequivocally make our country stronger, vastly more interesting, and simply richer in every sense of the word, always strikes me as obtuse. @robertegger and I had a very emotional and powerful interview last week, that will launch BETTER this year, alongside an incredible line up of guests, but he said “Above all politics I gauge things off SMART or DUMB” and boy do I love that. Unless you’re indigenous, let’s recollect, all together, WE’RE all settlers, and most of our ancestors were also colonizers. They didn’t add value, they stole it, very different to today’s settlers. VERY different. We decided to give thanks to all of those settlers from the last hundred plus years who gave their lives proudly to build this country, through cooking some of our absolutely favorite dishes from them. Crab dumplings, “sweet & sour” chicken (as a nod to my Mic Mac Mall Pizza Cook days and the family at Look Ho Ho) acidic veggies and quick pickles, finished with Sarah’s apple cake that I went on about so long she gave me the “enough” eyes, but I’m passionate about cake (and her). Turning “arrival” stories into feel good capitalism machines is not great. Convening with family and friends to eat and learn, great. Giving thanks for a harvest on land taken by treaty violation, while Indigenous communities in Canada carry some of the highest rates of food insecurity in the country, not great. Giving thanks for the people in anti-colonial work, and advocating for justice, great. Being dumb and defensive, out. Being smart and curious, in. You can’t go backwards, but can take steps to go forwards 🧡 by @mark.brand
There’s a particularly tingly set of pins and needles’ nerves that comes with walking onto a stage in front of more than 350 event professionals, the hawk eyed and detail focused people who build the rooms the rest of us get the honour to stand in. Closing @theeventmpi in Vancouver felt like being handed the rock for a pickup game in front of 300 Jordans’ who’ve seen every move, run every clock, and caught every missed cue long before anyone else notices. I’ve been doing this for fifteen years and I still feel it all in my chest every time I take stage, being given peoples time, their most precious resource, is never, ever, lost on me. So we started, like I always do, with a breath together before we shared who inspires us and why, dove into trust exercises, and then turned the hyper local collaborative lunch into a working session where every table opened a door on their very next event and walked away with one promise tied to another person in the room, of IMPACT. No book to sell, no mountain climbed, no “sage on the stage” and not a powerpoint in sight. We worked, laughed, collaborated, and definitely hugged it out. My deepest gratitude to the @elmcityevents team, to everyone at MPI who trusted me with the close, with the courage to make it participatory and confronting, and my long lost brother @kevinlimonair for holding the space like the pro he is, and to every planner, supplier and venue partner who stood up, turned to someone they’d never met, and truly listened, because you proved my mom right. There ARE “Two types of people in the world, those who listen and those who wait to talk”, and that ballroom was full of listeners. An honour, and a pleasure, to GET to do this work. by @mark.brand
Securing our future, we bought the building/s🙏🏼 When magic happens in the walls, and you don’t own those walls, instability for you as an operator is consistent. I’ve leased 20 plus spaces in my time, paid the mortgages for landlords who then in turn made rents untenable. Our North End building managers came to see me in July and asked if we could speak privately, my stomach immediately turned, knowing the all too familiar conversation coming. “We’re selling the building”. But instead of the normal response of “How long do we have” I asked them to pause on listing the property and if we could buy it/them. They said yes, a rapid series of negotiations happened, and @upwardkitchens now owns both building on the historic Nora Bernard, streets I grew up around, and streets where we feed thousands, train hundreds, and employ, every year. Now, forever. We also get to be a different kind of landlord, keeping our tenants stable at below market rents in a market that continues to price people out. The marathon continues 💙❤️ by @mark.brand
Help me find our next person? Victoria or island based a huge plus, you’ll also help me manage our 15 plus partners here in Vancouver. It’s a hands on in person job, you’ve gotta love people, and especially people that need help. Hit us direct, appreciate your amplification. Everybody gets their job because of a friend, be that friend. *I also definitely thought grey hair on my chin was a spot and tried to nonchalantly wipe it off so I didn’t have to do another take and just ended up looking strange, but here we are. by @mark.brand
How many summers do you think you have left? A speaker asked that at a US conference I was speaking at about 13 years ago, and my answer at the time was “endless”. Life does what life does and now I count every day over 30 degrees as a gift, but measured like a handful of sand, not an endless resource. I have gotten greedier with those granules. My No’s come quicker, but my Yes’s are somehow more emphatic and definitely more deliberate. And with the people that really SEE me. Gone are days of trying to make anyone comfortable with the aggression and relentless use of these same granules to make people feel safe and loved. Any hesitation, is met with a puff of smoke, it’s all too precious. A few of the people and moments I appreciate so much, woven into a bank of memory devoid of regret or second guesses, with one particular starring role. My whole ass world, aka my forever ever aka my ride or die. I make castles out of what I’ve got with her, that pile still feels endless ❤️♾️ by @mark.brand
I woke up back on the West Coast yesterday, 4 hours behind the east, to a phone full of beautiful messages and these photos. This newspaper I delivered when I was 13, got delivered to us on the day of my Moms heavenly birthday (an actual full circle moment I would give just about anything for her to see) with our work front and center. Little ass me, slogging papers up and down (5 miles to school energy) the hills of Dartmouth, would have never dreamt this journey up, let alone thought he’d get surprised with a cover piece. My families have taught me a lot of things, chosen and blood, and all the best of them are distilled in this work I have the honour of leading, in communities I love very much. Upwards ❤️ by @mark.brand

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