How to Add More Humanity to Money and Let Money Help Humanity Do the Right Thing - Chats For Change with Joel Solomon and Christine Gebhard

How to Add More Humanity to Money and Let Money Help Humanity Do the Right Thinga chat with Joel Solomon

For over 30 years, Joel Solomon has been involved in the growth of socially and environmentally conscious organizations. His brilliant book The Clean Money Revolution: Reinventing Power, Purpose and Capitalism shines a bright light on what's happening in business and our communities and how we can create change by dealing with money differently (even if we are not entrepreneurs).

The conscious leadership movement is also a money movement. Having a thriving business and doing good does not need to be an either-or proposition. What we need is a shift in mindset:

How do we contribute to this world?
What's our personal and our business's relationship with money?
What do we want our legacy to be — as an individual or as a leader?

It's about purpose.

Now, before we dig deeper into the connection between our purpose and money, let's make sure we're starting with this understanding: profit is as important for a conscious or purpose-driven business as it is for any other organization. But for them it's not about taking anything away from someone, "beating" another business, or greed. For many of us that means a shift in our relationship with money is overdue. To be conscious leaders, we can't be driven by a sense of lack or limitation or by a conviction that money in itself — or the idea of capitalism — is oh-so bad.

Nor can we as entrepreneurs base our business on a value-blind quest to get more, even if it's in the name of a worthy do-good goal. That goal might get your venture a great image for a while, but your business will be hollow inside and implode sooner or later if you try to force the external to be shiny when the internal is anything but.

Joel has realized it already decades ago, and we need to catch up: it's time to transform our money mindset. Not only to help ourselves but to enable the healing of our planet and harmonize the way we do business.

In his book The Clean Money Revolution, Joel asks the tough questions and shows us how others and he himself have risen to the challenge of answering or solving them. And yes, love plays a big part. In the end, all of us have to listen to our own heart and soul to understand what is the right (unique) path for us. However, it is great to know that we are not alone on this quest and can benefit from the experience of those like Joel who have long been trailblazers on the path to social and environmental goodness.

In this Chat for Change, Joel and I dig deeper into...

why values are key to business success and what's the cost of value blindness.
what questions we have to ask ourselves to grow our relationship with money and bring more purpose into our lives.
the role love plays in creating a healthy economy.
the importance of looking at who we are as human beings and how we relate to the bigger picture.
why we should act now, on a personal and company level, to make transformation happen.

Enjoy!

Joel Solomon is a founding partner of Renewal Funds, a certified B Corp since 2010 and Canada's biggest "mission venture" capitalist firm, which focuses on organic food, organic skin care, and environmental technologies. He is also a founding member of the Social Venture Network, the premier community of social leaders and entrepreneurs across the world, and has been the board chair of the unique Hollyhock Leadership Institute.

External resources mentioned in this story:

Joel Solomon: www.joelsolomon.org

The Clean Money Revolution: www.joelsolomon.org/the-book/

Renewal Funds venture capital: www.renewalfunds.com

Social Venture Network (now IC-SNV): www.svn.org

Hollyhock Leadership Institute: https://hollyhockleadershipinstitute.org/