My Self-Designed Financial Education

What follows is the beginning of a narrative of what has become, only in retrospect, an alternative financial education. All degrees are self-conferred, other than a Bachelor of Arts from Colorado College.

UNDERGRAD
I have been investigating the relationship between philosophy and money since college, when he wrote a thesis paper on the necessary evolution into a three-region monetary system. The year was 1993, and the Maastricht Treay had just been signed, causing the formation of the European economic and monetary union, and creating the Euro, which would begin trading in 1999. This learning blended with my work within a political philosophy degree which framed my outlook on how humans function and evolve together.

This was the first time that I realized that monetary systems are things that can change, can be intentionally designed for a specific purpose, and that old regimes can cease functioning. Inevitably, there will be unintended consequences the designers might not imagine.

MASTERS IN FINANCIAL PHILOSOPHY
The next major inflection point was working in the venture capital fueled growth of technology companies. In the second half of the 90’s, I watched how a high volume of high risk capital can infuse a previously dormant field with a TON of innovative creation. It was a wild time watching the world wide web spring to life, and I’ll never forget the Web 1.0 startup community. By the end of the 90’s, after three startup exits, I was an internet thousandaire, and I had learned, again, that financial regimes were not perpetually stalwart.

The dot.com bust was a necessary and obvious lesson. It also provided me with the space to turn my attention to the deeper meaning of things. I was very much an independently-minded intellectual at the time, and that meant it was off the Tattered Cover, an institution of a local book shop, located in four stories of a large building in Denver’s Cherry Creek. The 3rd floor contained a warren of books on spirituality and philosophy, and I spent hours wandering those shelves. In small reading nooks, I invested hours over a dozen visits. Eventually, I had chosen the initial canon, and dove in deep. This led to my first meditation, and an awakening to a much broader perspective on life.

From there, I deconstructed most social systems, and reimagined them within the new framework of understanding I was developing. This eventually led to a deep investigation of money, including the history of money itself, and how the US dollar was created, who manages it, and for what reasons. And that can be very disturbing.

Although I continued exploring the edges of my perception of reality through metaphysics, and Zen Buddhism, I was also reading about social systems, especially more progressive and alternative models including sociocracy, systems thinking , and complexity theory. I came upon the notion of designing “alternate” or “complimentary” currency systems, and found examples from around the world of small-scale systems, serving communities that wanted an alternative to the global financial network. I studied, collaborated with, and met several of the leaders of the movement, including the architect of the Euro, Bernard Lietaer. I met, befriended, and briefly worked with Arthur Brock, who went on to design and launch the evolved and highly distributed Holo mesh network and cryptocurrency project.

I deepened my understanding of how im0ortant systems design was in any social system, especially capitalism. I broke through the mindset that our social, political, and economic systems are always the same, and came to believe we could design new economic agreements, all 15 years before Satoshi Nakamoto wrote the Bitcoin whitepaper.

MBA WITH EMPHASIS IN SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS and SYSTEMS CHANGE
I spent the second half of the 2000’s working for global impact foundations including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Kofi Annan’s African Green Revolution movement, The Arab Thought Foundation, The World Congress on IT, and Fortune Brainstorm, the predecessor to the Aspen Ideas Festival, in addition to project-based corporate thought-leader work in sustainability. This graduate degree in global change-making came complete with 1:1 interviews and collaboration with leading minds in the space, on several continents. During that time, I met with ministers of finance, global CEOs, commonly known media leaders, as well as the people doing innovative work on the ground in communities around the world. I saw how money flowed around the world, and was able to the see the United States and Europe from some very different global vantage points.

Having met all of those people, I was motivated to return my gaze from global thought-leaders to local action. I realized that if anyone could implement some of these wild experiments, it would be the people of Boulder, Colorado. Although Boulder has… let’s call them quirks… the idea that wealthy, progressive, entrepreneurial people could actually DO SOMETHING about making change in our world compelled me to build a network of social entrepreneurs and impact investors, connecting them in the pursuit of launching new impact-driven businsses. This work culminated with the launch and operation of Impact Hub Boulder, a locally owned community space, part of the global network of co-working spaces and incubators, where I sat on the Global Board of Directors, governing over 100 such Impact Hubs around the world.

During that time, I helped to steward the movement of capital from wealthy individuals and funds into professional teams. We hosted educational events, expert speakers, as well as a decentralized incubator project that helped a generation of businesses find their feet in Boulder. I was intimately involved with dreaming, building, funding, and launching responsible, sustainable, and conscious businesses, often connecting visionaries, entrepreneurs and investors. Over this tenure, Boulder’s business culture evolved from the Techstars ethos of “Do More Faster” to a culture of conscious capitalism where social and environmental concerns we integrated with a cultural focus on mindfulness and self-awareness among entrepreneurs and investors.

I learned about the intimate nature of success and failure in impact business, and learned how difficult it is to change society and the economy from the starting point of grassroots entrepreneurship. I observed hundreds of millions of dollars worth of impact investments achieve relatively little, and grew more suspect of the claims of people who think they can “change the world.” I intimately experienced the triumphs and tragedies of change making work, watched impact investing principles devour well-meaning entrepreneurs, and learned how the evolution of personal consciousness protected the psyches of “our heroes.”

PHD IN IMPACT FINANCE (ONGOING)
At the Impact Hub I was ultimately recruited, for my current role. “You’re already doing the work of a wealth advisor, you’re just not getting paid for it,” said Michael Tracy.. And, it turns out, he was right. I studied for and passed the Uniform Investment Adviser Law Examination, and now hold a Series 65 security license, issued by the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

Since late 2015, I have put all of the previous learning to work, balancing it with a Fiduciary Responsibility to manage assets in alignment with law and tradition, while simultaneously applying emergent principles. In 2018, I joined Conscious Capital Wealth Management, and have simultaneously built a network and book of business among evolved clients, while also collaborating on building a new generation of wealth advisory and financial business.

In actively managing clients, building portfolios, vetting and collaborating with investment, legal, and tax professionals, I have developed a unique view into the possibilities and boundaries of impact finance. A dynamic balance is necessary in working within a highly regulated industry while still innovating and challenging notions of financial models, investment structures, and risk.

Podcast: Dignities and Disasters of Wealth with Robert MacNaughton

The Dignities and Disasters podcast takes a multi-perspectival look at structural issues that affect our society and culture. In this episode, we take on the weighty issue of wealth, and look at if from many different perspectives, understanding the complexities and paradoxes inherent in living with wealth, and especially trying to do something good, or at least responsible, with it.

We answer a few potent questions:

• What is valid in the negative view of wealth? Why do so many people want to burn the system down?

• What are the good things that come from the accumulation of wealth?

• We compare Elon Musk, Charles Eisenstein, Jack Dorsey, and The Lorax.

• Is growth bad?

• How do we relate to wealth inequality?

• How do we value the wealth of the ecosystem?

• BONUS: What is Modern Monetary Theory, and does it get us out of this economic mess?

I was incredibly pleased to talk with Robert MacNaughton, a good friend, extraordinary leadership coach, and fellow former organizer of progressive community in Boulder. Robert and I have dreamed, created, produced and lamented many unique ways to support conscious community. Deep thanks for the opportunity to talk this through, and especially for letting me run along with a few proper rants.

Podcast: How Do We Change How We Think About Money? With Sacred Changemakers.

In September 2020, I met with Jayne Warrilow, the founder of Sacred Changemakers, a network of professionals with a commitment to doing positive impact work in the world. I really appreciate Jane’s blending of a spiritual centeredness with a mind for business. To me, it’s that balance that has a chance of saving our species from the “extinction level events” that seem to be popping up every month.

In the podcast, we talk about how to integrate spiritual experience and wealth advising, what money means to us a human beings, and how we come into a peaceful relationship with money, investments, and wealth.

Check out Jane’s great work at Sacred Changemakers.

Podcast: Align Your Money and Business With Your Values; on Awarepreneurs

In January 2020, I sat down and spoke with a good friend, Paul Zelizer, about how to align your money and your business with your values. Paul is the founder of Awarepreneurs, a national network of conscious small business owners. Paul is a kind human and an excellent interviewer, and we had a very human and probing interview about my background, how I developed a holistic perspective about wealth, and what it means — pragmatically — to do business in a way that supports your own sense of purpose. We talked about success and failure as a conscious entrepreneur, divorce and mindful dating, and what it means to be a Whole Wealth Advisor.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

As Bob Dylan wrote in Love Minus Zero / No Limit,

Some speak of the future,
My love she speaks softly,
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all.