153: Reconnecting with Life - Ryan James on Degrowth, Worldview,and the Entrepreneur's Journey

Description:

In this thought-provoking episode, we sit down with Ryan James, a world traveler, entrepreneur, and advocate for the degrowth movement. Ryan shares his incredible journey from a promising baseball career to living in a remote village in Cameroon, and how these experiences fundamentally shifted his worldview. He challenges us to look deeper at the stories we tell ourselves about business, culture, and our relationship with the Earth.

Join us as we explore the tension between entrepreneurship and degrowth, the importance of inner transformation for creating outer change, and how we can deprogram ourselves from "business as usual" to create enterprises that are truly life-affirming. This conversation is a must-listen for any "regenpreneur" who feels the pull to create a more beautiful and harmonious world but struggles with how to do it within our current systems.

Highlighted Promotion:

Do you feel like you're trying to build a new world with old tools? You're not alone. The journey to create a regenerative enterprise requires more than just a good business plan—it requires a shift in worldview. If you're ready to explore what it means to build a business that is in right relationship with life, we invite you to join the Regenerative Business Economies Ecosystem (RegenBEE). It's our free and open community for impact entrepreneurs, where we explore these questions together. Let's move beyond sustainability and into our regenerative future, together. Click here to learn more about the regenBEE community.

Show Notes:

• [01:52] - Emily and Noam introduce the episode, discussing the tension between entrepreneurship and the degrowth narrative.
• [06:34] - Ryan James joins the conversation and shares his morning ritual of connecting with the earth and giving thanks to water.
• [13:53] - Ryan discusses the book "The Hidden Messages in Water" and the importance of giving before taking.
• [17:19] - Ryan shares what excites him about his work: reinvigorating people's understanding of the magic of life.
• [22:43] - Ryan explains his work as a process of shifting worldviews and the difference between skill set and mindset.
• [30:10] - Ryan describes the individuals who are drawn to his work, often those feeling disillusioned with the current system and seeking community.
• [32:43] - The beginning of Ryan's story: leaving a promising baseball career to explore the world.
• [37:07] - Ryan's transformative experience living in a remote village in Cameroon and confronting the saviorism mentality of international development.
• [44:29] - How his experiences led him to Hawaii, where he connected with teachers who deepened his spiritual and interrelational understanding of the world.
• [50:51] - A discussion on culture, cultivation, and how our modern understanding has become disconnected from place.
• [56:11] - Ryan challenges the binary thinking that separates humans from nature and discusses the concept of "human exceptionalism."
• [01:08:45] - Ryan's key takeaway for entrepreneurs: get curious, don't neglect beauty, and remember that every job is a climate job.
• [01:19:07] - The importance of unlearning and deprogramming ourselves from "business as usual."
• [01:20:55] - How to connect with Ryan and his work at Rebiz.

Resources Mentioned:

• Rebiz: A business-as-usual unschool that equips people with the worldview and skillsets to enact regenerative change. Visit rebiz.io
• Erin Remblance: Co-creator of Rebiz and a leading voice in the degrowth movement. Find her on LinkedIn.
• Book Mentioned: "The Hidden Messages in Water" by Masaru Emoto
• regenBEE Community: Join the conversation at the Regenerative Business Economies Ecosystem (RegenBEE)

Beyond Business as Usual: Ryan James and the Journey of the Regenerative Entrepreneur

At Seeds of Tao, our identity is that of a pioneering partner, one who helps design paths to regenerative entrepreneurship. This path is often not a straight line; it's a journey of discovery, of unlearning, and of reconnection. It requires us to be both a friend to each other—offering support and understanding—and an explorer, willing to venture into the unknown territories of new worldviews. Our recent conversation with Ryan James on the Seeds of Tao podcast was a profound embodiment of this journey. His story is a powerful reminder that the most impactful changes we create in the world often begin with the changes we cultivate within ourselves.

The episode opened with a discussion of a central tension within our movement: the relationship between business and the concept of "degrowth." For many, the very idea of "regenerative business" is an oxymoron. How can we use the tools of a system that has caused so much extraction to build a future of harmony and balance? Ryan, an entrepreneur who is also a passionate advocate for the degrowth narrative, lives within this tension. His work is not about rejecting business, but about fundamentally reorienting its purpose and practice.

This reorientation begins with a simple, yet profound, morning ritual. Ryan starts his day not with a plan or a to-do list, but with a glass of water and a prayer of gratitude. "I give thanks," he shared, "I place an intention into the water...thank you for always giving me life and for creating all of this beauty around me." This small act is a powerful practice of what he calls "right relationship." It's a conscious choice to give before you take, to acknowledge interdependence before asserting independence. It's a daily "remembering," a re-membering of our connection to the life-giving forces of the Earth.

This is the heart of the regenerative journey. It’s not about finding a new set of business strategies; it's about adopting a new way of seeing the world. As Ryan puts it, "A lot of my work and what gets me excited about it is the potentiality of reinvigorating people's understandings of the magic of life."

The Unraveling of a Dream

Like many of us, Ryan's path was not one he could have predicted. He was on track to become a professional baseball player, a dream that had defined his young life. But a growing sense of disillusionment led him to quit the team and travel the world, first to Hong Kong, then to Spain. He was, as he describes it, "gorging on culture," trying to fill a sense of emptiness with new experiences.

This is a feeling many in the Western world can relate to. We are, as Ryan notes, often "disjointed from our cultural identities," living in a "pseudo-culture" of capitalism and ambition that leaves us feeling bereft of a true, rooted connection to place.

The real turning point in his journey came when he took a job in a remote village in Cameroon, tasked with figuring out why so much of the local farmers' produce was going to waste. There, living among people whose lives were deeply intertwined with the land, he was confronted with the limitations of his own worldview. "I realized that I was not going to provide them with any solution that they didn't already know," he recalled. "I started to see the weird interaction of international development and this sort of saviorism mentality that exists."

This is a crucial lesson for every regenerative entrepreneur. We often enter this work with a desire to "fix" or "save" the world. But as Ryan learned, this perspective is rooted in a sense of separation. It positions us as the heroes and the Earth as a damsel in distress. The truth is much more complex and humbling. As one of Ryan's teachers told him, "Don't ever think you're saving something. You're not saving anything. It's already safe." Our role is not to be saviors, but to be humble participants in a much larger process of healing and regeneration, a process that the Earth has been engaged in for millennia.

From Disintegration to Reconnection

After his time in Cameroon, Ryan found himself in Hawaii, on a farm and artist village with a Sri Lankan copper artist and Sadhu. It was there that his journey took a deeper, more spiritual turn. He began to understand that the disintegration he saw in the world was a reflection of a disintegration within ourselves. "We are living on Earth, not with Earth," he explained. "Even the phrase 'peace on Earth' is a dominant hegemonic statement, because it's on something, not with it."

This subtle shift in language reveals a profound shift in worldview. It moves us from a mindset of "human exceptionalism"—the belief that we are separate from and superior to the rest of nature—to one of kinship and interdependence. "The word 'human' comes from the word 'humus,' which means ground or soil," Ryan reminded us. "That's our shared context." We are not just living on the Earth; we are the Earth.

When we truly grasp this, our approach to business must fundamentally change. It can no longer be about extracting resources for human benefit alone. It must become about creating systems that nurture the well-being of the entire community of life. This is what it means to be a regenerative enterprise.

Unlearning Business as Usual

This is the core of the work Ryan now does with his organization, Rebiz, which he describes as a "business-as-usual unschool." He believes that the most important work we can do now is not to learn more, but to unlearn and deprogram ourselves from the limiting beliefs and assumptions of our dominant culture. "Most of what we need to do now is not to learn more things," he asserts. "We need to unlearn and deprogram more than we need to learn."

The problem is not a lack of intellect, but an "over-intellectualization" that disconnects us from our hearts and from the living world around us. The work of the regenerative entrepreneur, then, is to "polish the mirror," as Ram Dass would say—to clear away the conditioning that prevents us from seeing the world as it truly is: a vibrant, intelligent, and deeply interconnected web of life.

This is not an easy process. It requires courage, humility, and a willingness to be uncomfortable. It requires us to become, as Ryan says, "curious." "Curiosity is what pulls us," he explained. "It's a gravitational pull into the next level or dimension of your understanding of something." Without curiosity, we simply accept the world as it is presented to us. But with it, we become active participants in the creation of a new reality.

A Call to Remember Beauty

Perhaps the most poignant piece of advice Ryan offered was a simple one: "Never let your desire for the external systems change negate or neglect your observation and interaction with beauty on a day-to-day basis."

This is a powerful antidote to the burnout and despair that can so easily creep into this work. When we are constantly focused on what is broken, we can lose sight of the incredible beauty and resilience that surrounds us. We forget the very reason we are fighting so hard. "If we neglect beauty, if we neglect joy, if we get sucked up in always trying to make a change, we're going to degenerate ourselves," Ryan warned.

The act of regeneration must begin with ourselves. We must find ways to fill our own cups, to connect with the sources of life and joy that sustain us. This is not selfish; it is essential. It is what allows us to stay in this work for the long haul, to approach it not as a burden, but as a blessing.

Ryan's story is a call to all of us who are walking the path of regenerative entrepreneurship. It is a call to slow down, to listen, and to remember. To remember that we are not separate from the systems we seek to change. To remember that our greatest tool is not our intellect, but our capacity for curiosity and connection. And to remember that in the midst of all the challenges and complexities, there is a world of breathtaking beauty waiting for us to notice it.

Let us take up his call. Let us be the pioneers who are not just designing new businesses, but are actively remembering and re-membering ourselves back into right relationship with life itself.