Exopreneurs

Discussion

Charles Bass et al.:

"Exopreneurs are solution-oriented like entrepreneurs, but far more comprehensive While exopreneurs tend to be motivated by the desire to help humanity, we are different from “social entrepreneurs,” who combine commerce and social issues in a way that improves the lives of people connected to the cause. Exopreneurs are systems thinkers, and the messy issues that we are trying to solve need original and emergent solutions— just as the problems are emergent— entirely different business models, and novel combinations of partnerships. Exopreneurs are under-appreciated by investors, and tend to get locked out of grants as well. Our projects rarely fit into the silos that funders provide, such as “education” or “technology,” and our way of solving problems makes us outliers. It is difficult to find funders willing to invest the time necessary to step outside their categorical thinking and learn a new logic path that shows them why it is worth investing in exopreneural approaches to situations that might appear to be insolvable. Exopreneurs rarely have a pithy elevator pitch precisely due to the fact that what we are working on requires us to introduce new language, models, concepts, methodologies and approaches that can't be spoken of in under one minute.

Exopreneurs can be among the most brilliant and committed of those with an entrepreneurial bent. However, the ambitious scale and seeming idealism of their motives, i.e. making the world work for 100% of human and other life, 100% of the time, in the shortest timeframe possible, without diminishing the prospects of future generations to continue on this path, tend to fall so far outside the paradigm of capitalism as to render them outliers. This can lead to our ideas being dismissed out of hand before any serious consideration has been given to them. Compounding the problem is the prevalence of problem/solution binary thinking - a by-product of the engineering mindset, which is so useful in working out technical problems but which applied to emergent phenomena makes things worse rather than better. Exoprenuers render the limitations of conventional thinking but don't have handy-dandy solutions to offer, because such solutions do not exist unless and until a motivated and committed group undertakes the arduous practice of tackling a wicked mess and works through all the dynamics. Rare indeed is the funder who is willing to invest in the kind of enterprise where exopreneural approaches are used. Think of it like the old story of the man who lost his keys and is searching under the lamppost for them. Soon a friend stops to help but can't find them after a while and so asks, where exactly did you lose them? The answer is, “Over there in the dark.” When asked why they are searching near the lamp the reply is, "Because the light is much better here." Exoprenuers are usually found looking for keys in the dark!

While the external problems of being an exopreneur are obvious: isolation, rejection, and financial struggles; the internal problems are unspoken and deceptively powerful. It’s not that we exopreneurs doubt our own intelligence; it’s that many of become firmly attached to our identities as outsiders. The many ills we bemoan, such as poverty or the lack of people listening to us, actually give us our shape as visionaries who are “ahead of our time;” and, thus, never quite right for the current moment. While our conscious selves may seek validation, abundance, and happiness, there is a part of our subconscious that has grown addicted to the perverse joy of scarcity and separation, although these feelings are highly repressed and rarely discussed. As long as we are outside the system, we don’t have to deal with the heavy responsibility of success and selling out to capitalism. While we all claim that we are anxious to be funded, we often block out that possibility without even realizing it, with thousands of micro-aggressions against any displays of marketing or success. When exopreneurs gather together, therefore, it is imperative to address this dysfunction as individuals and as a collective; if it is not dealt with, we will use the law of attraction to keep ourselves in prisons of scarcity. Addressing our internal feelings of shame are the key to self-integration and the precondition for generating a collective force field that attracts capital and opportunity." (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IYuYmcQltlx7YqFETFSd8NpwmRbK_wnNUlY7sqSUPPQ/edit#)