By Tom Braford
One of our social impact investors recently asked us if we thought that maybe our Ecovillage project was stuck. He cited the history of financial challenges faced by many intentional community developments and the experience of his sister as an instructor having to talk down inexperienced rock climbers who got to a difficult spot in a climb and were too scared to go further and too spooked to come back down.
I told our friend that it’s more about skill and the courage that comes with experience along the way. I cited the example of the guy that recently free soloed El Capitan supported and financed by a team intent on making money and making history.
In training with ropes, he initially fell several times while traversing a horizontal area several hundred feet off the canyon floor. I told our friend that his investments so far have been like the ropes that let us learn to safely traverse most of the difficult horizontal areas and get further than most with millions invested and millions more committed. Now we have the technically, socially and economically sustainable model that will make history by going a long way towards reversing climate change and many other challenges.
Of course, we are not yet completely across the horizontal zone because there is one thing inexperienced capitalists fear more than losing their life, which is losing their capital.
Luckily, the experienced investors can see that we are close to the straight-up portion of the climb and that if they stick with us we will all soon be standing on the top of the mountain together. Once we start the vertical ascent, everyone will want to get in on the action.
It’s the equity partners and early team members and buyers, as always, that will reap the biggest rewards and cause historic breakthroughs together.
You too can be a green capital pioneer and cause a sustainable future. Pioneers and entrepreneurs are not reckless; they take calculated risks because they know to live is to risk and to become immobilized by fear is no fun.
Contact: braford@sbcglobal.net
www.ArizmendiEcovillage.com