Building a Liberation Economy (w/ Solana Rice & Jeremie Greer)

We live in an oppression economy, built on extraction and exclusion. The path to a liberation economy begins when we choose to imagine and build differently. In this conversation, Solana Rice and Jeremie Greer, Co-Founders and Co-Executive Directors of Liberation in a Generation, join Kevin Bayuk to explore what it would take to build an economy where all people of color truly belong. Drawing from their personal journeys and decades in policy and community work, they reveal how the United States economy was built on extraction and exclusion, and why imagining new systems is an act of power.

Together, they unpack the difference between the “oppression economy” and a “liberation economy,” where safety, housing, care, and decision-making power are shared equitably. The discussion moves from co-building policy with grassroots leaders to the seven “liberation guarantees,” from income and housing to debt-free college, that reimagine collective care as a public responsibility. They also share how imagination, storytelling, and visioning exercises help communities move beyond cynicism to design real solutions.

Listen in for an inspiring look at how building a liberation economy grounded in lived experience can help us create an economy built on belonging, dignity, and shared power.

Key Points From This Episode:

  • Solana and Jeremie’s personal paths to confronting racialized economic systems. [0:02:50]

  • What a liberation economy looks like in practice compared to an oppression economy. [0:07:38]

  • Principles guiding Liberation in a Generation’s work with communities of color. [0:11:12]

  • Co-building policy with grassroots partners and redefining who holds decision-making power. [0:14:30]

  • An example of community-led social housing in California using imagination. [0:19:14]

  • How visioning becomes a practice of agency and democratic power. [0:24:56]

  • Rethinking failed tactics and experimenting with new strategies for systemic change. [0:27:50]

  • The seven “liberation guarantees” that characterize a just and caring economy. [0:35:22]

  • What Jeremie and Solana are excited about: community conversations on tax policy and future-casting through intergenerational dreaming. [0:40:59]

  • A closing call to support local organizers and embrace the belief that change is possible. [0:46:15]

Quotations:

“The economy that we live in is a racialized form of capitalism. The economy that we have is one where the theft, exclusion, and exploitation of Black and brown people is not a side effect of the economy; it is a core part of the economy that creates wealth for other people.” — Jeremie Greer [0:07:48]

“The challenge of the liberation economy is that we've never really lived in one in this country as it is formed today. — We've always lived in one in which racism has been used to extract from Black and brown people for the benefit of others.” — Jeremie Greer [0:10:01]

“The Civil Rights Movement – [used] tactics that hadn't been tried and true — they were experimenting. We have to get back to the experimentation of new approaches, new tactics, new practices, new ways of being in this work, in order to expect different results.” — Jeremie Greer [0:30:53]

“The next time you think something's not possible, a liberation economy is not possible, just ask yourself, ‘Why?’ Write it down and be like, ‘Why do I think that?’, and revisit it. Revisit it in a week and see if something might be different.” — Solana Rice [0:47:23]

“The halls of power have been captured. But they can't capture our communities, because it’s where we live. It’s where our people are, where our friends are. Support your local organizers, because they're the ones that are going to pull us out of this and bring us to a new place.” — Jeremie Greer [0:48:14]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

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Choosing Home in a Time of Displacement (w/ Fabiola Santiago)

What does it mean to protect culture in a world that’s rapidly shifting? And what role do Indigenous foodways, regenerative economics, and memory play in shaping a more equitable future? In this episode, we’re joined by Fabiola Santiago, Founder and Executive Director of Mi Oaxaca and alumnus of the Next Economy MBA program, to explore how tradition, identity, and social impact strategies converge in meaningful and transformative ways. A diasporic Zapotec from Santiago Matatlán, the World Capital of Mezcal, Fabiola brings lived experience, ancestral knowledge, and a deep commitment to community-led change.

With more than fifteen years of work in community health, policy, and narrative strategy, Fabiola shares how her immigration story, education journey, and family history shaped the vision behind Mi Oaxaca. We explore how the organization strengthens belonging, cultural continuity, and sustainable business practices by centering Indigenous Knowledge Systems. Through her work, Mi Oaxaca acts as a bridge, offering education and immersion for visitors while supporting community empowerment, land stewardship, and cultural preservation at home.

We also explore the Gala-Guetza, Mi Oaxaca’s annual celebration designed to generate cultural awareness, economic opportunity, and long-term transformation. The conversation turns toward mezcal as more than a product; it’s a reflection of land, lineage, intentionality, and care. As Fabiola explains, the nuances of mezcal making mirror human identity: complex, shaped by environment, and strengthened through time and connection.

What You’ll Learn:

  • Learn how Fabiola’s experiences with immigration, education, and family have shaped her work at Mi Oaxaca. [0:02:17]

  • Explore Mi Oaxaca’s role in empowering the local community to connect to its roots and educating its visitors on Oaxaca’s culture and heritage. [0:09:21]

  • Understand the organization’s pivotal role in cultural education and transformation, and how the upcoming Gala-Guetza event supports this. [0:17:08]

  • Hear about some of the factors that influence the integrity and nuances of Mezcal production and how these intricacies mirror human traits and perceptions. [0:26:45]

Memorable Quotations:

“I think for me, home is wherever we choose that we feel a deep sense of belonging and that the place that we choose also chooses us.” — Fabiola Santiago [0:03:48]

“Speak us into existence. Because without that culture, that knowledge, [or] those systems, there would be no Mezcal industry. There would be no Oaxaca-inspired restaurants.” — Fabiola Santiago [0:23:45]

“There are a lot of things we need to unlearn and just leave in the past — we can’t bring everything with us. Focus on what we can bring into the future.” — Fabiola Santiago [0:38:45]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

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Stay connected with the LIFT Economy team for more conversations and resources on building an economy that works for all life:

Science, Spirit, and the Future of Healing (w/ Dr. Shamini Jain)

True health is about more than simply taking your medicine. It’s about healing the whole person, mind, body, and spirit. In this episode of Next Economy Now, Dr. Shamini Jain, a clinical psychologist, scientist, author, singer, and founder of the Consciousness and Healing Initiative, explores the intersections of science, spirituality, and creativity in advancing health and well-being.

Dr. Jain shares her journey from early experiences with sound and mantra to rigorous scientific exploration of vibration and energy healing. She discusses how practices like Reiki, sound, and meditation influenced her path, and highlights biofield science as a framework for understanding how energy shapes healing. Drawing on research and personal stories, she explains how placebo elements, relationships, and consciousness itself play a powerful role in recovery.

The conversation also looks at scaling healing practices, shifting medical paradigms, and how creativity and community can help us process challenges while leading from joy. Tune in to learn how Dr. Jain is bridging science, spirituality, and art to reimagine what true healing can look like.

Key Points From This Episode:

  • Introducing Dr. Shamini Jain and how she found her work at the intersection of science and spirituality. [0:00:36]

  • Letting go of perfectionism and returning to singing as creative medicine. [0:06:26]

  • Exploring vibration through music, storytelling, and scientific research. [0:11:52]

  • The history and definition of the term biofield, and scientific studies showing energy healing’s effects on cancer and immunity. [0:17:01]

  • Why placebo elements are powerful healing forces, not illusions. [0:25:43]

  • Reframing healing as an interconnected system of mind, body, and spirit. [0:31:31]

  • How the Consciousness and Healing Initiative (CHI) is advancing systems change and community-based healing, and the upcoming documentary, The Energy That Heals. [0:34:10]

  • Scalable healing practices vs costly drug development. [0:39:46]

  • What’s next: new projects in music, teaching, and the Rock Goddess Collective. [0:42:30]

Quotations:

“Singing was just something that brought me back home to myself. When the world was crazy, I could sing to myself, and it would bring me back to that place, that place of soul, that place of spirit, uniting with consciousness.” — Dr. Shamini Jain [0:03:02]

“Biofield was a term that was coined in the 90s by a group of scientists and healthcare practitioners who met at the National Institutes of Science. — They were trying to figure out how they could study and explain phenomena that they were seeing that [were] relevant for healing.” — Dr. Shamini Jain [0:17:03]

“These so-called healing elements, these placebo elements, in many cases, are more effective than [the] drugs themselves.” — Dr. Shamini Jain [0:30:09]

“Healing is an interconnected system. So the way that I choose to eat, the company that I keep, the doctors that I see, the ways that I run my energy and my support system all have an effect on my healing, because healing is interconnected.” — Dr. Shamini Jain [0:33:27]

“Know that you're a creative being. Explore where creativity wants to take you.” — Dr. Shamini Jain [0:45:11]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

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Restorative Justice and the Work of Repair (w/ Tatiana Chaterji)

Photo Credit: Valarie Duran 

What would it take to move beyond punishment and toward true accountability and healing? In this episode of Next Economy Now, restorative justice (RJ) practitioner Tatiana Chaterji shares her journey as a survivor, educator, and advocate working to create alternatives to the punitive systems that dominate today’s responses to harm. With over a decade of experience in education, prisons, and community organizing, Tatiana is helping shape a vision of justice rooted in collective care and systemic transformation.

Tatiana explains how restorative justice practices, with roots in Indigenous traditions, create space for truth-telling, accountability, and healing. She shares her personal story of surviving a violent crime and how participating in surrogate victim-offender dialogues helped her find connection and deeper healing. The episode also explores how restorative practices can support social-emotional learning in schools and help address structural harm in organizations and communities.

This conversation offers a powerful look at how restorative justice can help build a society rooted in accountability and healing. Listen in to learn how restorative justice can help build a world that supports safety, dignity, and wholeness for all.

Key Points From This Episode:

  • Introducing Tatiana Chaterji, restorative justice (RJ) work, and RJ’s Indigenous roots. [0:01:03]

  • Critiquing the prison system and how to build a justice model that recognizes both harm and the humanity of all involved. [0:10:48]

  • Tatiana’s story of surviving a violent hit-and-run and traumatic injury, and how the police failed to investigate and dismissed her case. [0:14:05]

  • The process of taking part in surrogate victim-offender dialogues and how it helped Tatiana find closure and heal. [0:22:54]

  • Unpacking the sincerity and rigor of restorative work, even inside prisons. [0:33:36]

  • Why we should be working towards a society without prisons. [0:37:21]

  • Details of the book Tatiana is working on for restorative justice work in schools. [0:38:32]

  • Why true accountability requires support, not just punishment or permissiveness. [0:39:55]

  • RJ approaches to addressing sexual harm in schools and workplaces. [0:45:25]

  • Where you can find Tatiana online and what to expect from her upcoming book. [0:48:39]

Quotes:

“Restorative justice is a set of practices that challenges us to move from our authentic selves. We can locate some of the origins in indigenous peacemaking.” — Tatiana Chaterji [0:03:08]

“A lot of the Native people who have held these traditions have been erased from the conversation, and I think it's really important to be accountable for that when it comes to the Indigenous origins [of] what people call Native peacemaking processes.” — Tatiana Chaterji [0:03:40]

“I would say that most people who are serving time, serving a criminal sentence, or are on probation, or in other ways surveilled or detained by the state, that these individuals are also harmed in some way.” — Tatiana Chaterji [0:11:04]

“In the case of the offenders or the people who caused harm, they only do this [process of victim-offender dialogue] after a year or longer of preparation. They go through [an] intensive curriculum and exercises to understand what happened and how this has happened.” — Tatiana Chaterji [0:25:37]

“If you think about our criminal legal system, you are discouraged from taking responsibility, even if you know that you did it, even if you believe that it would make it better if you admitted it, you are discouraged.” — Tatiana Chaterji [0:26:40]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

More on Surrogate Repair: 

Surrogate repair is a strategy within restorative justice where people who have not directly harmed or been harmed by each other. It happens when either the survivor or the offender is not available, ready, or willing to participate in meeting directly with the other party. 

Read a description of this process from the MEND Collaborative, a trusted organization that facilitates this crucial work with incarcerated people and survivors of violence and crime. https://mendcollaborative.org/surrogate-restorative-justice-circles-and-survivor-support/

Tatiana wrote a piece of creative nonfiction capturing her experience with surrogate victim offender dialogue here: https://brightflash1000.com/2025/10/03/split/

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Reclaiming Ancestral Medicine for a Regenerative Future (w/ Laura Ash)

Today’s episode explores how ancestral plant knowledge can help reshape the future of healthcare and the economy. Clinical herbalist, educator, and consultant Laura Ash joins us to discuss the cultural, scientific, and economic power of herbal medicine—and what is required to protect Indigenous knowledge while advancing modern research.

Laura currently serves as the Director of Operations at the Beneficial Plant Research Association (BPRA), where she works on biodiversity conservation, Traditional Knowledge preservation, and equitable research partnerships. In this conversation, she explains the ongoing impacts of biopiracy, the challenges nonprofits face in funding clinical research, and why whole-plant medicine is fundamentally different from isolated compounds.

We also explore how herbalism reconnects us to community and place, what plant allies can teach us about interdependence, and why legalizing coca is not just a drug policy issue but a cultural one. Listeners will come away with a deeper sense of how plants, people, and economies are intertwined—and what it looks like to build a healthcare future rooted in both science and ancestral wisdom.

Key Points From This Episode

  • Clinical herbalist, Laura Ash, describes who she is and her path in herbal medicine. [0:01:42]

  • How she became the Director of Operations at BRPA. [0:09:37]

  • The modern reality of biopiracy and how it continues to impact Indigenous communities. [0:11:58]

  • Understanding what brings Laura energy and hope in her daily work. [0:17:38]

  • How Indigenous wisdom and scientific research can support one another in the future of healthcare. [0:20:48]

  • Why funding models for nonprofit clinical research need major change. [0:23:14]

  • How the body reacts differently to plant compounds versus whole-plant medicines. [0:24:28]

  • The cultural, economic, and social patterns revealed through deeper relationships with plants. [0:30:26]

  • Plant allies, connecting with ancestral roots, and coca legalization. [0:34:26]

  • Final reflections, words of hope, and how to connect with Laura Ash and BPRA. [0:41:30]

Quotations:

“Entrepreneurship is a disease and there’s no herbs to cure it.” — Laura Ash [0:01:57]

“You have to understand the weight and the power that you have as someone who can come in with funding or come in with a promise, that your ideas can change the minds of people even if it’s not aligned with their cultural values.” — Laura Ash [0:17:20]

“What’s alive for me most right now is connecting people, in-person, with plants, with nature, and with one another.” — Laura Ash [0:18:22]

“As much as science and research and new technology have come up, I think it’s going to be even more important, especially with AI showing up, for us to dive deeper into our traditional ways.” — Laura Ash [0:20:05]

“Research is our ally, traditional medicine is our foundation, and in our modern research, we get to do things that we have never been able to do before.” — Laura Ash [0:21:30]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode

Explore More from LIFT Economy

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10 Principles of Next Economy Enterprises: A Guide for Designing a Regenerative Future

The 10 Principles of Next Economy Enterprises serve as critical guideposts for designing organizations from a socially just and environmentally regenerative perspective. They are emergent and malleable, derived from work with hundreds of social enterprises. Here is an outline of the 10 principles:

10 Principles of Next Economy Enterprises

1. Meet Basic Needs This principle prioritizes providing human-centered essentials like nourishing food, clean water, shelter, and medicine. It directly challenges the Business as Usual (BAU) economy, which is geared toward fulfilling greed rather than human need, by providing essentials without destroying habitat and ecosystems. Enterprises adhering to this principle also look for ways to consider ecosystem repair as an impact outcome of their business functions.

2. Share Ownership Sharing ownership ensures that traditionally underrepresented groups—including people of color, women, and immigrants—benefit from the ownership of their labor and ideas. This principle encourages organizations to confront existing systems of wealth concentration and build cross-racial, multi-gendered, and multicultural models of ownership. This often manifests in structures like worker-owned cooperatives, Employee Ownership Trusts (EOTs), or Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs)

3. Democratize Governance This involves creating an explicitly non-hierarchical, democratic, and inclusive culture within the organization. By engaging and trusting staff as "sensors and actors in the system" and involving them directly in decision-making, organizations can achieve greater stability and longevity. When democracy is practiced consistently in the workplace, individuals are empowered, which leads to greater support for implementation of decisions.

4. Support Local Communities This principle aims to build a resilient, locally self-reliant economy by countering the over-centralization and fragility inherent in the BAU economy. Local businesses tend to recirculate assets back into the community at a significantly higher rate than national chains, supporting local economic ecosystems and fostering community wealth (the "multiplier effect"). Moving deposits from large corporate banks to local community banks and credit unions is also a strategy that supports local lending.

5. Integrate Education This principle seeks to reverse overspecialization by empowering so-called consumers to become producers through embedding education on "how to do or make something" into the product or service. By sharing solutions open source, organizations provide people with the knowledge to meet more of their own needs, which allows the enterprise to move on to solving the next set of problems. This gives satisfaction and security to individuals who can provide for themselves and their community.

6. Promote Open Source Open sourcing moves away from leveraging intellectual property for outsized returns (the BAU paradigm), recognizing that valuable solutions can be an intellectual contribution to humanity. Instead of growing one company larger ("rapid scaling"), growth is achieved through decentralized, regional replication of information and organizational models adapted to local economies of scale. Open source should include attribution and acknowledgment, and sometimes generous compensation, particularly to marginalized groups whose contributions have historically been erased.

7. Embody Transparency Transparency requires organizations to share real data, truth, and challenges with staff, fostering collective intelligence and collaborative problem-solving. This counteracts the traditional belief that power and critical information must be concentrated at the top, instead building loyalty, accountability, and trust. A clear manifestation is Open Book Management (OBM), where team members are trained in financial literacy and manage metrics related to their roles.

8. Regenerative Operations This principle requires using a systems design lens to ensure that every interaction—from supply chains to operations—generates a net positive benefit for people and natural ecosystems. This includes sourcing regeneratively grown raw materials, designing buildings with carbon sequestering materials, and considering processes that are reciprocal, restorative, and reparative to enhance the life-giving capacity of a place. The goal is to avoid operations that perpetuate harm and instead enhance biodiversity, restore watersheds, and increase soil fertility.

9. Supports movement building for broader systems change Successful organizations must engage in interdependence and collective action to achieve system-wide transformation, as independent success is insufficient to solve entrenched problems. Enterprises can leverage their resources to align with and organize around broader movements to influence governance structures, policies, and laws. Examples include advocating for the creation of public banks, land-back policies, or mandating true-cost accounting.

10. Supports personal growth and development This principle posits that the workplace should be treated as a crucible for personal advancement and fulfillment. Organizations invest in advancing the health, emotional intelligence, conflict transformation skills, and overall personal goals of team members, viewing this as a long-term investment. The goal is to become a "Deliberately Developmental Organization" (DDO), where an aspirational culture inspires greater performance and sustained positive impact.

Building Climate Resilience Through Lo-TEK (w/ Julia Watson)

Climate resilience is not only a matter of innovation but also of honoring what communities have practiced for centuries. In this episode, Julia Watson, designer, activist, and leading expert on Lo—TEK — a term that combines low-tech and Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) — shares how traditional practices offer vital solutions for sustainable design and regenerative economics.

As the co-founder of the Lo—TEK Institute and author of Lo—TEK: Design by Radical Indigenism and the forthcoming Lo—TEK Water, A Field Guide for TEKnology, Julia explains how traditional ecological knowledge offers some of the most sophisticated climate solutions on the planet. From India’s living root bridges to Bali’s Subak rice terraces and Kolkata’s wetlands, Julia highlights how Indigenous innovations safeguard food systems, water, biodiversity, and community governance. The discussion also explores conservation as a colonial legacy, the urgency of biodiversity protection, and the hybridization of ancestral technologies with contemporary tools.

This episode is a powerful reminder of how sustainable practices and regenerative economics can grow from social impact strategies that honor cultural wisdom and ecological balance. Tune in to this impact podcast to learn how Lo—TEK can inspire resilient futures and guide the green economy.

Key Points From This Episode:

  • Julia Watson’s background and early influences in Australia, including the Aboriginal environments course that reframed her worldview while studying architecture. [0:03:08]

  • Studying contested sacred landscapes at Harvard, challenging Eurocentrism, and guiding students to uncover Indigenous technologies [0:07:12]

  • A discussion on conservation as a colonial legacy and why Lo—TEK matters today. [0:14:48]

  • Examples of Lo—TEK: living root bridges, Bali’s Subak terraces, and East Kolkata wetlands. [0:27:18]

  • Hybridizing ancestral technologies with contemporary design. [0:39:37]

  • Examples of hybrid projects, from sponge cities to seaweed thatching. [0:45:00]

  • Protecting Indigenous intellectual property through blockchain. [0:51:44]

  • Using blockchain and Living Earth curriculum to protect and teach Indigenous knowledge. [0:51:44]

  • What’s next for Julia and Lo-TEK, including her Lo—TEK Water book release, the launch of the Lo—TEK Office, and upcoming coursework. [01:00:17]

Quotations:

“The conservation story isn't a story that we can disassociate from the atrocities of ethnocide and stolen lands.” — Julia Watson [0:08:22]

“I think the — realization at the end of this century, [will be] that we have actually lost some of the most important climate technology that exists on this planet, that has existed for millennia, that has upheld all of the planet's working, vital, healthy ecosystems and its biodiversity.” — Julia Watson [0:20:35]

“The intention of these traditional systems and traditional technologies is not to extract, is not to make money, is not to make profit. The intention of these systems is to provide for the next seven generations. The intention is [that] this will be long-lasting.” — Julia Watson [0:25:23]

“I think that [linear], extractive technologies – will die. And we're starting to see that with the death of fossil fuels. Regenerative, circular, or cyclical, — technologies, like renewable energies, they will keep going because they understand how time works.” — Julia Watson [0:43:58]

“What's beautiful and super sophisticated about [Traditional Ecological Knowledge] is that it doesn't have to be ‘not artificial’ or ‘not digital’. It can be ancestral and digital. It can infuse artificial with ecological. It can be both at the same time.” — Julia Watson [0:50:26]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Julia Watson — www.juliawatson.com
Julia Watson on LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/julianicolewatson/

Lo—TEK Institute — https://www.lo-tek.com/
Lo—TEK Design by Radical Indigenism — https://www.lo-tek.com/book
Lo—TEK Water, A Field Guide for TEKnology — https://www.lo-tek.com/product-page/preorder-lo-tek-water

Kevin Bayuk on LinkedIn —  https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbayuk/

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Dive Deeper With The Next Economy MBA

Interested in exploring Next Economy principles in a community of practice with other entrepreneurs, changemakers, and impact leaders? Offered in the spring and fall, the Next Economy MBA is a nine-month online course for folks who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g. vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from an equitable, inclusive, and regenerative perspective.

Join the growing global network of 500+ alumni who are catalyzing a global shift towards an economy that works for all life. Learn more and sign up for news about upcoming cohorts: https://lifteconomy.com/mba.

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Freedom Practice in an Unfree World (w/ Autumn Brown)

Autumn Brown returns to Next Economy Now for her third conversation with Ryan Honeyman. Autumn is a mother, theologian, facilitator, musician, and cohost of How to Survive the End of the World alongside her sister adrienne maree brown. In this episode, she shares her journey of moving from cooperative leadership at AORTA into a new phase of life focused on music, writing, and martial arts, as well as her forthcoming book on fugitivity. At the heart of her work is the question: how do we practice freedom in an unfree world?

Together, Autumn and Ryan dive into what has shifted since 2020—exploring the backlash to racial justice movements, the difference between symbolic versus relational change, and why so much of today’s organizing can feel performative when not grounded in real relationship. Autumn emphasizes the need to move beyond fear, resentment, or judgment and instead organize from love, courage, and grief—energies that replenish rather than deplete. The conversation touches on coalition building across difference, how to choose when to hold firm and when to meet people where they are, and what it means to reach for governing power while staying rooted in liberatory practice.

Toward the end, the two reflect on martial arts as a surprising but powerful practice for those committed to nonviolence. Autumn shares how Aikido has reshaped her relationship to conflict and power, while Ryan reflects on his own entry into boxing as a healthy channel for rage and resilience. Though a smaller part of the discussion, it underscores a central theme: the practices that help us stay grounded, embodied, and awake are essential to sustaining movements and our lives within them.

Key Points From This Episode:

  • A brief overview of what we have missed in Autumn’s life since we last spoke. [0:06:40]

  • Autumn shares her thoughts on the current political climate and what that says about who we are as people. [0:14:52]

  • Navigating how to create actual social change (not symbolic change) in a damaged political system. [0:23:52]

  • Autumn shares how to balance prioritizing safety and political education in different environments. [0:35:23]

  • The danger of performative gestures and asking yourself what you can do and will do to identify where your fear lies. [0:44:25]

  • Reframing how we see people and why Autumn doesn’t see humans as fundamentally good or bad. [0:48:40]

  • Challenging your worldview and considering the most generous interpretation of a situation. [0:54:43]

  • Autumn tells us about her new book and the concept of practicing freedom as a fugitive. [0:57:41]

Quotations:

“It is often the case that people who are organizing for social change forget that they are deeply a part of the system that they are trying to change and that anything about that system that they find problematic lives inside of them.” — Autumn Brown [0:16:55]

“When you have social change relying on symbolic and not deeply understood actions, that sets us up for failures that we can’t anticipate.” — Autumn Brown [0:24:30]

“[Our political system] relies on oppression to function.” — Autumn Brown [0:29:43]

“I take the position that humans are neither fundamentally good nor fundamentally bad.” — Autumn Brown [0:48:48]

“We live in a society that is fundamentally violent in the way that it’s shaped, and in order for us to be functional inside of that society, a lot of us have to walk around in a fugue state.” — Autumn Brown [1:00:01]

Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Autumn Brown: https://www.iambrown.org/ 

Autumn Brown on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/autumn-brown-0bab514/ 

Autumn Brown on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/autumnmeghanbrown/ 

How to Survive the End of the World: https://endoftheworldshow.org/ 

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Dive Deeper With The Next Economy MBA 

Interested in exploring Next Economy principles in a community of practice with other entrepreneurs, changemakers, and impact leaders? Offered in the spring and fall, the Next Economy MBA is a nine-month online course for folks who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g. vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from an equitable, inclusive, and regenerative perspective.

 Join the growing global network of 800+ alumni who are catalyzing a global shift towards an economy that works for all life. Learn more and sign up for news about upcoming cohorts: https://lifteconomy.com/mba.

Show Notes + Other Links

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If you enjoy Next Economy Now, please consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it really helps folks interested in Next Economy work discover our show. With your help, we can reach folks looking for podcasts about regenerative agriculture, worker co-ops, racial justice, and more.

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Music by Chris Zabriskie: https://chriszabriskie.com/

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Intentional Living and the Future of Tiny Housing (With Jewel Pearson)

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Freedom and fulfillment aren’t measured in square footage; they’re shaped by how we live and what we value. In this episode of Next Economy Now, we welcome Jewel Pearson, a tiny house expert, intentional living advocate, and longtime voice for representation in the tiny house movement. With over ten years of experience living in a tiny house, Jewel brings lived experience and deep expertise as a consultant, educator, and speaker. She challenges traditional ideas of housing and wealth building, helping people design homes and lifestyles rooted in sustainability, equity, and community.

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A Journey to Personal Liberation (with Christine Platt)

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In celebration of our second cohort of Next Economy Living, we’re launching a mini-series on the podcast to explore ways to build our individual and collective resilience strategies during these critical times. 

If you enjoy this episode and are excited about designing your life in alignment with your values in a supportive community environment, consider joining our fall cohort of Next Economy Living. In this six month learning journey, we’ll learn how to deepen our security and resilience practices to thrive and flourish amidst ecological and economic challenges. Learn more and sign up for a free coffee chat with one of our facilitators at bit.ly/nexteconomyliving.

When you understand the power of a limiting belief and change it into a liberating belief, you get to take your power back and achieve personal freedom. In this segment of our Next Economy Living mini-series, we are joined by author and advocate for personal liberation, Christine Platt, to talk about her new book, Less is Liberation, and to share her liberation story. 

Christine felt she no longer resonated with her success that was deeply rooted in her afrominimalist identity and decided to take ownership of her own life and liberate herself from the constraints of a career that didn’t serve her deepest desires. Tune in to hear Christine share her story, how she let go of limiting beliefs and fear, why she’s passionate about storytelling, the power of personal freedom, not just collective liberation, and so much more! Christine redefines ‘selfishness’ for listeners and, in doing so, shows us how we can free ourselves from limiting beliefs. We also discuss the five foundations of wellness before delving into learning how to ‘get well’. 

Finally, Christine touches on where limiting beliefs stem from and how you can pinpoint them. To hear all this and be inspired to seek out personal liberation and figure out who you truly are, be sure to press play now! 


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Key Points From This Episode:

  • How Christine’s first book, The Truth About Awiti, kick-started her path to liberation. [0:04:16]

  • The power of storytelling and sharing stories that need to be told but aren’t. [0:13:16]

  • Letting go of limiting beliefs and behaviors and choosing to go on your journey. [0:16:24]

  • Christine’s first act of career liberation and how frightening liberation is. [0:21:40]

  • Personal liberation versus collective liberation, and what a limiting belief actually is. [0:24:50]

  • Redefining ‘selfishness’ and the danger of not being able to self-assess. [0:32:01]

  • The five foundations of wellness and how a health scare changed Christine’s life. [0:43:04]

  • Pinpointing your limiting beliefs in order to achieve collective wellness and freedom. [0:50:41]

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Quotes:

“We are living in the lasting implications of decisions of those who came before us – [and] the decisions that we make hold that same power.” — Christine Platt [0:14:46]

“People don’t talk about how liberation is frightening – [and] how hard it is to make a decision that is going to impact and change your entire life.” — Christine Platt [0:21:59]

“A lot of the overwhelm that we experience in our lives is self-induced.” — Christine Platt [0:23:50]

“Our bodies are always trying to be well. So you will ‘get well’ but you have to learn how to listen to your body.” — Christine Platt [0:47:42]

“Until we, ourselves, are liberated, until we, ourselves are well, there’s not going to be collective liberation.” — Christine Platt [0:53:51]

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Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Christine Platt: https://www.iamchristineplatt.com/ 

Christine Platt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-platt-afrominimalist/ 

Christine Platt on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamchristineplatt/ 

Less is Liberation: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/christine-platt/less-is-liberation/9781538758304/ 

The Truth About Awiti: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-truth-about-awiti-cp-patrick/12074086?ean=9780692287736&next=t 

Afrominimalist: https://www.afrominimalist.org/ 

Necessary Losses: https://bookshop.org/p/books/necessary-losses-the-loves-illusions-dependencies-and-impossible-expectations-that-all-of-us-have-judith-viorst/16021189?ean=9780684844954&next=t 

The Untethered Soul: https://bookshop.org/p/books/necessary-losses-the-loves-illusions-dependencies-and-impossible-expectations-that-all-of-us-have-judith-viorst/16021189?ean=9780684844954&next=t 

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Stay Connected To Next Economy News with our Newsletter!                                                                                             

Interested in receiving the latest news from the Next Economy? Sign up for our newsletter and receive monthly tips, advice, and resources from our team and partners: https://lifteconomy.com/newsletter

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Dive Deeper With The Next Economy MBA

Interested in exploring Next Economy principles in a community of practice with other entrepreneurs, changemakers, and impact leaders? Offered in the spring and fall, the Next Economy MBA is a nine-month online course for folks who want to learn key business fundamentals (e.g. vision, culture, strategy, and operations) from an equitable, inclusive, and regenerative perspective.

Join the growing global network of 500+ alumni who are catalyzing a global shift towards an economy that works for all life. Learn more and sign up for news about upcoming cohorts: https://lifteconomy.com/mba.

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Show Notes + Other Links

Thanks for listening! If you enjoyed the show, you can view our previous episodes and show notes here: https://lifteconomy.com/podcast. Feel free to share with colleagues or friends searching for podcasts for social entrepreneurs, too!

If you enjoy Next Economy Now, please consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it really helps folks interested in Next Economy work discover our show. With your help, we can reach folks looking for podcasts about regenerative agriculture, worker co-ops, racial justice, and more.

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Stay Connected With Us On Social:

X: https://twitter.com/LIFTEconomy

Instagram: https://instagram.com/lifteconomy/

Facebook: https://facebook.com/LIFTEconomy/

YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/Lifteconomy

Music by Chris Zabriskie: https://chriszabriskie.com/

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Rethinking Home and Belonging Through Intentional Community (with Cynthia Tina)

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What if the solution to better housing, health, and happiness isn’t greater independence, but deeper interdependence? In this episode of Next Economy Now, sustainability educator and regenerative living advocate Cynthia Tina invites us to rethink how we live, highlighting what it means to live in alignment with shared values, and why intentional communities are emerging as a powerful response to today’s social and ecological challenges.

Next Economy Living: Cultivating Consciousness, One Choice at a Time (with Farai Harreld)

Living with intention can be a radical act in a world driven by consumerism. In this episode of Next Economy Now, host Kevin Bayuk speaks with writer, herbalist, and former Black Minimalists podcast producer Farai Harreld about how ancestral knowledge and mindful practices can help us reclaim agency over our health, homes, and everyday choices.

Investing In Nature-Based Solutions (NbS): Jonas Philanthropies Announces Latest Projects

As we mentioned in our last project announcement, these are critical times for philanthropic funders to come together and invest in Nature-based Solutions (NbS) with an Equity-Centered approach. Jonas Philanthropies is excited to share its latest round of grant recipients, who are taking a community-led, frontline approach to the climate crisis.

As outlined in this Jonas Philanthropies whitepaper on Nature-based Solutions, these projects focus on several Impact Areas that have been identified as key drivers in climate solutions efforts from a Nature-based lens:

  • Conservation hydrology (also known as Watershed Restoration; Drought Proofing) to promote tree-growing, reforestation, landscape rehydration, and ecosystem restoration.

  • Meeting Human Material Needs for food, fiber, medicine, health services, ecosystem services, building materials through Nature-based Solutions.

  • Human Health Nexus to leverage ecosystem restoration to promote improved nutrition, access to medicine, improved sanitation and access to clean air and water, reduction in risk of zoonotic disease, and a multiplicity of other health outcomes that can be accrued through a focus on ecosystem health.

  • Rewilding to promote large-scale efforts to restore biodiversity and ecosystem health by engaging human communities to steward core wild/wilderness areas, provide connectivity between such areas, and protect or reintroduce apex predators and highly interactive species (keystone species).

  • Leveraging Additional Capital (e.g., federal dollars, multilateral funding, impact investment) to expand and sustain the power of collaborative grantmaking to improve NbS outcomes.

  • Social Enterprise Development to support self-sustaining, community enterprise, leveraging NbS, for durable impact over time independent of continued philanthropy.

Restoring Endangered Salmon Habitat and Cultural Lifeways, California

Photo: Sawalmem

Meaning “sacred water”, Sawalmem is a Winnemem Wintu-led nonprofit restoring sacred lands and bringing salmon home. They have already rematriated over 1,100 acres of ancestral land and are in the process of creating an eco-village where ceremony leads, fire cleanses, and Winnemem lifeways return.


This project aims to secure an additional 7 miles of the Winnemem Waywaket (McCloud River) and 3,000+ acres of waterfront to establish a fishery and bring salmon home. Funding will reduce wildfire risk for the current village and land base for the tribe and restore, map out, and survey the riparian restoration work for the McCloud River and endangered salmon habitat.

Photo: SOIL Haiti

Circular Economy Sanitation for Cities, Haiti

SOIL Haiti is a US-based nonprofit providing sustainable, revenue-generating sanitation services in Haiti since 2006, transforming human waste into compost through ecological treatment that improves public health, soil, and food security. 

SOIL focuses on creating sanitation solutions that are tailored to climate vulnerable neighborhoods and utilize a circular economy approach to waste treatment. Their safely managed sanitation solution transforms household human waste, a potential public health threat, into organic, agriculture-grade compost through ecological waste treatment, thereby transforming a public health crisis into an environmental solution that restores soil health, saves precious water, creates jobs, stops the spread of waterborne disease, and helps grow more food and trees. 

Watershed Restoration in the Madrean Archipelago, Arizona

Photo: Borderlands Restoration Network

Borderlands Restoration Network’s Watershed Restoration Program enhances ecological function and climate resilience in the biodiverse Madrean Archipelago by implementing low-tech erosion control structures and native vegetation restoration across diverse landscapes. 

Borderlands Restoration Network works directly within communities in remote, often hard-to-access areas, partnering with diverse stakeholders to implement climate-adaptive restoration at scale. As their impact grows, so does the need for services—requiring them to take on more projects, reach more sites, and support a broader range of partners.

Permaculture Training For Students, Uganda

Afghanistan’s highest mountains are home to almost 4,000 glaciers, critically important for drinking water and irrigation. However, these glaciers are melting at an alarming rate — almost 14% of the total glacier area was lost between 1990 and 2015, leading to catastrophic, rock-laden floods.

Photo: Tina Teucher

The Rwamwanja Rural Foundation is a refugee-led organization launching a 6-acre permaculture initiative in Ugandan refugee settlements to improve food security, education, and resilience through hands-on learning for children and adults.

The project will establish a demonstration site including mushroom production that supports school feeding programs, teaches self-sufficiency, and creates income-generating opportunities like community tourism.

Tissue Culture Lab To Restore Native Trees, Hawaii

Photo: Nation Of Hawaii

The Nation of Hawaii is restoring a Hawaiian Ahupua'a, the traditional watershed-scale food system of the Hawaiian people.This project will establish a small-scale tissue culture lab to propagate native trees as part of a long-term ahupua‘a (watershed) restoration effort in Hawai‘i. Much of the region’s cloud forest, once supplying up to 50% of freshwater, has been lost to invasive species, flooding, erosion & sediment runoff.

By reforesting with native species and removing invasives, the effort seeks to restore ecological balance and water capture. The lab will reduce reliance on expensive nursery stock and provide hands-on learning for Native Hawaiian students through partnerships with organizations like Purple Mai‘a, which supports agroecology and student-led research.

Cap Rouge Learning Center for Regenerative Practices, Haiti

Photo: Grown In Haiti

Grown In Haiti aims to restore Haiti’s ecosystems by restoring forests, strengthening local food systems, and empowering land stewards with knowledge, seeds, and solidarity. They do this through land-based education, seed sharing, and long-term community relationships that build resilience from the ground up.

The Cap Rouge Center will equip local communities with regenerative land practices and sustainable enterprise skills through hands-on training in conservation, agriculture, and post-harvest processing. The two-year project will build the center, provide expert-led education, and support eco-friendly livelihoods that promote long-term environmental and economic resilience.

Community Tree Planting, Food Systems, and Capacity Building, Uganda

Photo: Inhabitat

FOLONA, a community-based organization focused on permaculture, is launching a 7-month project to restore land and improve food security for 3,200 refugees by planting 6,000 trees and companion crops across 15 villages. This initiative will enhance biodiversity, nutrition, and climate resilience through training, planting, and sustainable land management.

Expanding The Reach and Impact of Nature-based Solutions

Each of the communities and projects shared represent a powerful new way of thinking about addressing our collective climate crisis while supporting human and community flourishing and resilience. There has never been a more important time to shift philanthropic capital towards community-centered initiatives.

If you are a funder interested in supporting Nature-based Solutions projects, or if you have a project that would benefit from philanthropic or organizational support, get in touch with LIFT Economy through the form below. 

A Theory of Change: Closing the Skills Gap for the Next Economy (with Kevin Bayuk)

How do we equip people with the skills and support they need to build a regenerative, community-centered economy? In part two of our series on the hypotheses that guide our work at LIFT Economy, Kevin Bayuk and Ryan Honeyman explore the critical training and skills gaps facing entrepreneurs and organizations working to create economic systems rooted in community well-being, environmental regeneration, and the common good.

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How to Transition to Shared Ownership (with Jason Wiener)

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Transitioning to shared ownership is one of the most powerful ways a business can align its values with its structure. In this episode of Next Economy Now, Jason Wiener, founder of the law and consulting firm Jason Wiener P.C. and co-founder of Colorado Cooperative Developers, joins Ryan Honeyman to unpack the legal, cultural, and financial considerations behind alternative ownership models, from worker cooperatives to purpose trusts.

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Patagonia's "Tools to Save Our Home Planet" (w/ Nick Mucha)

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As social and environmental crises intensify, the need for skilled, grounded activism has never been greater. In this episode of Next Economy Now, Nick Mucha, Senior Director of Environmental Issues and Strategy at Patagonia, shares what it takes to support movements and build capacity for lasting impact. Nick also introduces Patagonia’s new book, Tools to Save Our Home Planet, a practical guide for changemakers at every stage of their journey.

A Theory of Change: Showcasing What’s Possible in the Next Economy (with Kevin Bayuk)

How can we transform the global economy to serve all life? In this conversation, Next Economy Now co-hosts Ryan Honeyman and Kevin Bayuk reflect on the podcast’s 10-year journey and dive into the regenerative economic strategies that guide their work at LIFT Economy. They discuss what inspired the creation of the show, how it has evolved, and the values-based conversations it has helped surface around topics like worker ownership, sustainable business practices, and corporate social responsibility.