The Regenerative Power of Collective Entrepreneurship with Joshua Prieto

Discover the transformative world of regenerative entrepreneurship with our special guest, Joshua Prieto, cofounder and director of Seeds of Tao, in this special crossover episode. Make sure to head to SeedsOfTao.com to listen to part 1!

Joshua's journey is nothing short of inspiring, as he shares his recent experiences in Portugal and his vision for building a community of entrepreneurs dedicated to a sustainable and restorative future. This episode promises a deep dive into the innovative work at Seeds of Tao, highlighting the importance of creating a collaborative network that brings together funders, educators, and professionals committed to nurturing a regenerative economy.

Join us as we explore the potential of coliving spaces to revolutionize how entrepreneurs collaborate and build communities. Joshua emphasizes the power of reciprocity and collaboration, illustrating how entrepreneurs can leverage their abundance and skills to propel each other's growth. This conversation is essential listening for anyone passionate about sustainable entrepreneurship and community building, unveiling the immense potential of spaces where collective efforts truly surpass individual contributions.

Transcript

Daniel: 0:05

Welcome everyone to another episode of ColivingDAO Insights. This is your co-host, daniel, joined today by my co-host, gareth, in a very special crossover episode with Joshua Prieto, so this is actually part two. If you want to make sense of this, make sure you also head to Joshua Prieto's podcast at seatsoftowcom, because we just recorded part one and we spoke a little bit more about our journey here at Kolevendau. Gareth and I went through some key elements of what we're doing as well, so you definitely want to check it out. Make sure you go over seatsoftowcom part one. And Joshua Prieto is our special guest today. He's the co-founder and director of the SeedsOfTaocom part one. And Joshua Prieto is our special guest today. He's the co-founder and director of the Seeds of Tao learning platform for regenerative entrepreneurs. So, joshua, great to have you here. Yes, thank you for having me.

Joshua: 0:56

I'm glad we've got a chance to chat today.

Daniel: 0:59

What we're going to be doing today. So Joshua will ask you to give us and the listeners a bit of an introduction, to find out a little bit more about what you're doing at Seeds of Tao, what motivates you, why you're doing it which, of course, it's very important, as we discussed in part one on your podcast and then we're going to go a bit more in depth on some ideas that you have about potentially setting up a co-living space, so we can give a taste to the listeners as well as in what it's like to start this process of considering becoming a community starter and potentially have your own co-living community on co-living community.

Daniel: 1:42

Joshua, can you give us a bit of background on what led you here?

Joshua: 1:53

what motivates you and what's important to you. Yeah, yeah. So for those that listened to part one, I got to spend some time in Portugal recently and met Gareth, and that's why I'm really here in this space chatting with you, because we, as regenerative entrepreneurs, went to this place called the Gathering of Tribes and really got to explore each other's businesses together Mine on my side, seeds of Tao. We're an education and support platform for regenerative entrepreneurship, and so our focus has been on really talking to people like Gareth and you, daniel, and those that are really trying to move. They're taking on the risk, and that's really what an entrepreneur is doing. Right, they're taking on the risk to create something, but a regenerative entrepreneur is taking on the risk to create and build towards a regenerative future, a regenerative economy, and that's really the core focus of what we're building at Seeds of Dell.

Joshua: 2:49

It's where we are at right now is we're building a members association for regenerative entrepreneurs or for regenerative entrepreneurship and all the stakeholders that are involved in that process. So we have funders that are a part of that process. We have educators that are a part of that process. So we have funders that are a part of that process. We have educators that are a part of that process. We have professionals that are helping those entrepreneurs get through those growth moments, maybe on a fractional level, early stage, or they're wanting to be one of the first hires in a regenerative entrepreneurial business because they're so sick of being involved in business as usual or extractive, degenerative business, and there's a lot of that right now.

Joshua: 3:30

And so that's really why we're building this association is to really help advocate for this type of entrepreneurship but also build capacity, and we have to do that in collaborative means. And that's why I think what we're having a conversation together on building a co-living space is so important, because that's really what's happening. You have these, I would say, entrepreneurs that are wanting to build a certain type of space, create that type of community and put themselves forward out in their community to find others that are willing to join in. And that's essentially what Seeds of Dow is all about. We're helping entrepreneurs to come together, collaborate and build reciprocity between one another.

Joshua: 4:15

What can I give of my abundance to another entrepreneur that's in this space and what can they give? In that reciprocity cycle of give and receive starts to form, but also we start to form communication and collaborative circles to be greater than the sum of our parts, right, and that's what this association is all about. Seeds of Tao is going to be launching a more specific association here soon, so I can share some of that, maybe at a later time or, for those that are interested, head over to our website and you can learn more about some of the different programs that we have at Seeds of Dow to help regenerative entrepreneurs.

Gareth: 4:57

Josh, that's awesome and I really love that.

Gareth: 4:59

You're building a support system for regenerative entrepreneurs and it's not just, you know, a one-sided platform, but you're really bringing everyone together.

Gareth: 5:07

That feels really good to me and you know, just from my own personal experience of people I've met coming into the space, quite often when they meet someone like yourself who's building that support system for them, they realize, oh, I'm not the only crazy one here. You know, I'm not the only one trying to get away from these businesses that are extractive and damaging in some way. There's so many cool things I want to do as an entrepreneur or an innovator, but I don't want to use this model that causes so much harm, and the people that we meet usually feel stuck and they're looking for this unique space where they can actually find a way to build businesses that are actually going to do good. You know social and environmental missions and make money. And yeah, it just. It's great to have that support system and start to build that infrastructure for regenerative entrepreneurs and for people like myself and Dan to be part of that as well. It was amazing.

Joshua: 5:59

Yeah, yeah, no, I, I, uh, it's, it's. I built it for myself, in a lot of ways, in selfish reasons, because there's so little support. The reason why we really got into this is we were trying to build an off-grid farmstead in Montana, doing regenerative farming practices, building using regenerative land use and building structures that were more regenerative and locally sourced, and that was so we could get away from the systems that were really felt like they were kind of sucking a little bit out of us every single day. That's why we went off and tried to live off grid, but in doing so we try to we also secluded ourselves, and that was one of the reasons why community kind of came into a big play into our own life.

Joshua: 6:55

My, my wife Emily, and I have very purposely tried to do this with a young family, a large family. We were a family of six. We have four children between the ages of six and 12, or seven and 12 now. And yeah, it's been a struggle to first understand the importance of community and then also try to build community in spaces that allow you to not only accomplish your own desires for a regenerative future or a more resilient lifestyle, but to help others to do the same, and do it in a sharing journey.

Joshua: 7:37

right, and as you're doing that. It's a really hard thing, and so seeing what you guys are doing to try and help others to make that happen is inspiring, and I'm willing to learn. I want to try to create these types of spaces, but I have so much to learn. So, yeah, please help me to figure out this situation in Colombia, where we're at right now to build a co-living space.

Gareth: 8:04

Awesome, josh, and a really nice link between the tension of you know, trying to get away from the extractive systems by isolating yourself on a homestead is one way to do it right, but then you're removing yourself from community, ironically, and so trying to navigate that tension. It's almost like you're trying to create something that's impossible and that links back to new types of communities, which is almost like you're trying to create something that's impossible and that links back to new types of communities, which is exactly what we're trying to build here, or we are building here at co-living dial. We're building a way for regenerative communities and to come into being so that we don't need to isolate ourselves from the system. We become the system change right. Which leads us really nicely into our first question for you on you as a potential community starter, a regenerative community starter.

Gareth: 8:50

We had a really nice chat before about your, your family in bogota and how you homeschool your kids and how you thought it would be really nice to set up a family themed regenerative co-living in the neighborhood that you're in at the moment. What, what kind of inspired or motivated you to think about starting a regenerative co-living in the neighborhood that you're in at the moment? What kind of inspired or motivated you to think about starting a regenerative, co-living community? We've covered that already, in that you were looking to, you know, set up a homestead and escape from the system. But what then inspired you to make that connection? To wait, there's another way I could do this. How did that even enter your head?

Joshua: 9:22

Yeah, it's a really, really's a great question and it's really hard to not live in community when you're trying to do these types of things, and that we had to learn the hard way, being on an off-grid farmstead. We're trying to do a different type of building structure, which is called earth bag construction or super adobe, and it's basically using the site sourced materials of the dirt that's on your property. You're filtering out the organic stuff and you're putting it into sandbags and then you tamp it down and it's a lot of work. You're basically building these like bricks out of sandbags that you're curing, right, and then you set them up like brickworks and you, you create your your home. Uh, and we were trying to do this because we we felt really called that's like we should be able to do this without getting into a bunch of debt, right, uh, we should be able to.

Joshua: 10:24

One thing that we didn't recognize while we were trying to do this first off, we had to go somewhere that had to get past code, because there was no code for what we were trying to do. The codes in the states vary on where you're at. When you're trying to get a certain building approved. It depends on what's acceptable in that area. And as you're doing that, you realize that if you're trying to do anything outside the box, it's going to be a hard time getting it passed by the local ordinances and city that you're in, let alone even the community. Right, Wanting that type of home in your area, right?

Joshua: 11:10

And so what we found is like we had to go live somewhere rural. We had to buy more land to do that as well, because in more rural areas they don't pay attention to the code as much. It's easier to change the codes, right. So that's what we had done. We had moved to a place where we could be off grid. We also kind of wanted to do that. Codes right. So that's what we had done. We had moved to a place where we could be off grid. We also kind of wanted to do that. But in doing that we moved to an area that maybe we didn't even consider if we were a good culture fit for that area, right.

Joshua: 11:40

And so when we were doing these weird things and our neighbors were looking at us, they were like, oh gosh, these guys we have some hippies next to us, you know, we got all sorts of things and as we were trying to do things ourselves, like we tried building our own, we dug our own septic system and we were doing our own rainwater collection system on the property and it was a lot of stinking work, especially with two young kids. I was asking for neighbors help in those types of things, and it was a lot of stinking work, especially with two young kids. I was asking for neighbors help in those types of things and we found some really fun people there in community that were like willing to do like barn raising things for us and whatnot. But it was like one or two events and we still had a lot of work to do, Right, and so as we were trying to build this, we felt like we were running into every roadblock in our community that we could possibly run into.

Joshua: 12:33

We tried to do our own septic system and water system and we were doing that, but our neighbors were like, no, you can't do it on your own, you need someone to come in and do it. And so they called the inspectors on us and the city on us, the inspectors on us and the city on us, and we started running into these extra things and having to pay a lot more than we thought we had to, because the community didn't want us to do what we were doing right, even though we were in a place where we could get away from code, get away from some of those other things that were stopping us previously we ran into that.

Joshua: 13:04

So that was the first kind of oh no, like you almost have to have a community to build these types of or make these types of transitions, and we were trying to do it in complete isolation because we saw the YouTubers that were farm studying, or we read a couple articles and whatnot of people doing that type of stuff but then realized that it's not as easy as you think, especially if you're not willing to work with your community and find the right people to be a part of your community.

Gareth: 13:37

Wow, really good insights and interesting that the local community there were both a help and a hindrance, because they initially wanted to help you out because you were doing crazy stuff and then they actually resisted some of that crazy stuff later on in your journey because it was too much, too radical. So, yeah, finding the right community or creating a community in the right place with the right vision is maybe that's how it got you got to where, where you're considering doing that in bogota now in colombia. Dan, do you want to lead into the next question about starting a regenerative, co-living community? Does this feel like the right time?

Daniel: 14:14

Yeah, definitely. So, as we mentioned before, the main thing is really understanding the why. Why is it so important to you to do something like that? There's going to be challenges, there'll be hurdles, but if you're wise, strong enough, certainly you'll find ways to get past like that. There's going to be challenges, there'll be hurdles, but if you're wise, strong enough, certainly you'll find ways to get past all that. So the why is one thing and then, naturally, from there, developing this strategic vision what should this community look like and who is it for? So we like to use this as a starting point.

Daniel: 14:46

I know a lot of people and it's kind of a natural thing in the journey. A lot of people start from a building and say I have this building, I want to do something with it, and it's understandable. A lot of companies have a product or a technology and say I got this technology, how can I sell it? But in general, we like to reverse engineer from the vision and who is it for. And from there then we say, okay, if we have a building, great, how can we utilize this one? Or even consider different locations, and I'm not surprised sometimes when people start with one location in mind and, after developing a strategic vision. They might have an entirely different location, or the same one. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but let's start from this. So why is this so important to you and what's your vision of the space that you want to create?

Joshua: 15:37

Yeah, it's super early. I mean we've thought about living in community, we've thought about building our own communities. We've obviously gone down those journey, journey and path. The main why that always kind of leads us back to like living in community or trying to create things in collaboration with our community usually comes down to future generations.

Joshua: 16:05

For me and for Emily, it's really important that we leave something for our children that is greater than what we had, and I think every parent feels that in a lot of ways they want to see their children have a better or live a life that is in the right alignment with them and for us. That's really why we've always tried to move forward with living in community and trying to build up our community, wherever we're at, for the purpose of that helps our children and helps the future generation. We don't want to see in so many ways. We don't want to see our children struggle, but in a lot of ways that's how they grow and I think struggling within a community is so much more. You learn so much more from it, but it's also it also helps you through that struggle.

Joshua: 17:10

Like there's that support network and there's that ability to to to be held by the community but also to to show up for the community, and I think that's something that I really want and value. But I haven't necessarily seen in the communities that I've lived in Right To some extent. When I do see it, it's like wow, this is amazing. I get that within my church community people helping one another out, being able to see when someone's in need, someone going and helping that person in need when someone's in need, someone going and helping that person in need, and that gives me really strong, feel goods but also it makes me believe in this type of lifestyle, this type of community living.

Joshua: 18:01

And then you see the other side of things, when people are living really close to each other and yet they don't know the neighbor, they don't know their community members and they don't interact with one another and even they're a little standoffish and maybe even afraid of connecting with one another, and to me that is something I don't want my children to grow up in.

Joshua: 18:25

I feel it's really sad to see that. That's kind of where it's become the norm in so many ways. So when you do see the opposite, it's like, oh, I really want that and that's kind of the purpose that has kind of led us is like, can we build towards that type of community living, and not just within? You know, a shared space, but you know we're in a city. I expect the co-living to be one small community, but the community outside of that as well, and I feel good going out into my community, getting getting involved in my community, uh, being vulnerable in my community and and for others to do the same. And that, I think, is is really what drives, uh me is to see my, my children and their gender, their, their children see that type of change right To be able to build that type of community.

Daniel: 19:16

Brilliant. Yeah, that's very inspirational. I'm so glad our listeners have the ability to hear all this directly from you, Joshua, because I'm sure this may well be inspiring a lot of people as well. So that's brilliant. And if you want to imagine, let's say, a typical day in this community, what is it going to look like for the people that live there?

Joshua: 19:45

to look like for the people that live there? Ooh, a typical day. That's a good question. Um, I I would hope that, um, the community's, uh, fairly family oriented those that, um, I I I would hope that we have both that are willing to have children on and those that have decided not to have children living in the community.

Joshua: 19:59

But everybody loves being able to foster the, the, the youth, and and, and, and and be a a space for that type of enrichment of, of the next generation, Right? And so I would really hope that it's a diverse group of people that's in there, that there's different views and different thoughts, and maybe that clashes sometimes, but in reality, the hope is that that diversity also brings new thoughts and a willingness to help on the things that we do care about together, right? So some of the things that we would care about together in this space would be the future generation, would be lifting up the community that's even greater than the co-living space that we've created, and so that's what I would hope is that it's a space that really, really protects each other, but also helps and explore how to help others outside of their circle and outside of the community, the smaller community, the co-living community.

Daniel: 21:16

Beautiful, yeah, it's very nice to be able to almost visualize that, as you describe that. So some beautiful imagery coming up and what's really important that's an exercise which might take a bit of time is something you may want to do in your own time as well, to really go deeper on what type of person, what persona, what profile, what avatar, if you may is going to be interested in living in a place like this. In fact, not just interested, but would love to live in a place like this, be willing to really go out of their way to go and live in a place like that. We spoke a lot about themed co-living spaces and, for the listeners that missed the episode, definitely go back into the history. We did it quite recently. Listeners that missed the episode definitely go back into the history. We did it quite recently and we believe in the value of having a very intentional community live in a certain space and we know the value of proximity.

Daniel: 22:14

Proximity is one of the most important elements in human nature. It's what builds relationships, whether it's friendships, romantic relationships. Really, every type of relationship is built by proximity. Primarily, to be studied what this means is the value of living together with other people if they are the type of people that someone wants to attract in their life. It's really really high and therefore we want to imagine a community where, even if people were to travel really far and completely relocate just for the community element, that would be worth it to them. So who are these people for your particular community? Who are these people that would potentially be willing to really go out of their way just to live in this space surrounded by truly like-minded people?

Joshua: 22:55

Yeah, I would say definitely a family oriented person. They don't have to have children per se, but definitely believe in that sense of family, right, that sense that you know, families are kind of forever. Families are kind of forever. Families are a space for unconditional love. You know, when there's that situation of like, oh man, I really don't like the decision my son or daughter or my niece, my nephew or my, my brother is making, but at the end of the day, you're, you're there to help them, you're there to love, love and show that unconditional love for them. And and that's that's the type of persona I would I would hope would would be enjoy this space and and with that like family thought, families don't get to choose each other in a lot of ways, and so diversity is probably what key to me People that are willing to be in community and living with one another. And yes, we do need our own space and we do, you know, families need their own space and those types of things, but when it comes to we're going to be bumping into each other and in proximity of those types of things they're willing to not get.

Joshua: 24:42

I guess the word that I could possibly use there is like not get bugged by one another and the dynamic that we have within that type of thing.

Joshua: 24:51

Like I have four kids You'll probably hear them while we're doing this. I live on the second floor of a two-story. We call them four plexus here, so there's four units essentially, and it's a big home that has four units, right, and so I'm probably bugging the crap out of the person below me because my kids are stomping around, yelling, screaming throughout the day. But in the end you kind of almost feel the sense of, like that family, that community that's oh yes, there's children playing around Like that's. That's the type of persona that I, that I want to to embody. Like people are looking and seeing the different generations and how they're interacting with one another, and then we live in this fourplex, just just ourselves. I sense I want to see that multi-generational effect of it, right, I want to see the older generation and my children playing with the older generation, going and talking to the older generation and, you know, hearing stories from how it used to be and you know, engaging with other adults as well.

Joshua: 26:02

I think is really important for children to be able to to understand and be able to speak their mind to other adults, not to be, not to cow in in in the corner when, when an adult talks to them, or or to be so shy that they can't chat and and understand and and engage as a as a person Right, chat and understand and engage as a person, right. So that's some of the persona Like, if you're weary of children, probably not the space, right. If you're wanting to live in a multi-generational space that shares information, shares wisdom and shares life together, that's probably the space for you. Beautiful, shares life together, that's probably the space for you.

Daniel: 26:39

Beautiful and it's really great to hear you and see you create all this vision and going deeper into these different types of personas resident personas because we can really see the passion growing as you expand on all this. So this is a great exercise that we generally encourage everyone to do, and even over a period of time and go even deeper, just to crystallize the vision and make it more granular as well. So it definitely helps. And from there then start thinking about the more practical elements. So logistics building, knowing that now you're realizing something that you already have a vision of, rather than trying to create from scratch, not knowing where you're going Now for some time constraints, we won't be able to go in depth on all, let's say, the financials and the different elements, but it's been great to see this vision taking shape. Great to see this vision taking shape and that's something that we not just us, but in general, that co-living business world uses, which is the idea of the three C's, which is community, convenience and cost. So usually to really develop a plan around all this, starting from community, which is the C that we've explored today.

Daniel: 28:00

So what type of community do we want to attract? What's the day-to-day like? What do people like, and it can be continued thinking about events that can be proposed, who's going to manage them, is there going to be a community manager, or maybe is it going to be more like resident-led and so on. And then going to the convenience of what services are offered, what amenities there can be, and also that can include the partners as well. So outside of the strictly speaking, the co-living community, there can be partners around. There might be some local community that gets involved as well, whether as service providers or in different capacity. And then, once these elements are clear, then one can talk about financial. So what's the pricing structure going to be like? And then checking that everything is in line. So is this price justified? Looking at the type of community, the value we're adding, the convenience and amenities and so on, and just working out everything, seeing the big picture. So this is pretty much how we run this process. And, gareth, do you want to add something?

Gareth: 29:08

Yeah, sure, what struck me there is the convenience element, because Josh was talking about very family-themed co-living, which would be a fantastic environment for the kids, but it's also a great environment for the parents and the older generations in terms of convenience. Right, and you know, if you're thinking from a very selfish perspective, you might think I've got instant babysitters on tap, excellent, or. But you know that's great for the kids because they can go and hang out with other kids in the neighborhood there on the doorstep convenience factor huge babysitters for the parents is a real thing. The doorstep convenience factor huge babysitters for the parents is a real thing. In our society parents are isolated the same way that single people can become isolated because you're in a family unit, you're maybe deep in suburbia and you haven't really connected with the local community and you're having to raise kids on your own as a parent sometimes, or even the even two of you and a couple can be a big challenge because you're actually isolated from those other connections.

Joshua: 30:01

So yeah, yeah, thinking about that would be amazing. To have that type of community where I feel safe enough to allow my community to hold space for my children and engage with my children. I think that's a hard one as far as as as how, how, how do we make that happen? And even the the uh, it's just very complex. And if you think about going even into the financials as well, like the complex complexity of like um, how do you get into those?

Joshua: 30:44

And I know that's like the really big stuff and I know we're we don't have the time to explore it, but I would hope that there's the ability for these types of spaces to come to light amongst all the complexity and and I would love to dive more into that with you guys as as and hope others dive into that complexity as well, because, because that I think that vision is what's going to keep you moving forward, like, like we even said on the first uh part one of this right Um, daniel, you had mentioned that being a huge part, um, but the the other side of it is like you're going to dive into the these complex moments and I'm really just curious on how that's going to unfold for this type of space. Can I work through all the complexity in Bogota? Are there other people willing to work through that complexity with me?

Gareth: 31:42

We would love to have that conversation more in depth, absolutely. In a nutshell, josh, the complexity element. You talk about what we offer as a foundation for a community to make decisions in. So there's a container and there's a way that decisions are made in that container, and so that that is what a lot of communities are also missing, like how are decisions actually made? And we provide a way for you to make those decisions. So it takes away some of the complexity, using the tools of the community and the co-living dial blueprint. But, yeah, we'd love to talk to you about that in more detail later, but I'm a bit conscious of time at the moment. For sure, for sure.

Joshua: 32:18

Well, thank you, thank you. I've enjoyed this, this conversation awesome.

Daniel: 32:22

it's been great to have you here. Uh, josh and um, just before we wrap things up, do you want to tell people where they can find you or find out more about you, about what you're doing? And, by the way, just a quick reminder for everyone, this is part two of a crossover episode, so definitely head over to Joshua Peter's podcast as well to check out part one.

Joshua: 32:45

Yeah, yeah. So to check out part one, you can go to our podcasts on any of the platforms. The main platform, spotify, itunes, apple podcast, those types of things. And then DAO is spelled T-A-O, like the Dow Day Chain, so go ahead and head over there. It's not D-A-O like Decentralized, autonomous Organizations, but T-A-O. So thank you for taking the time, go ahead and view our podcast. And there's also, if you're an entrepreneur out there creating regenerative change, there's lots of resources on our website at seedsofdaocom.

Daniel: 33:29

Brilliant. Thank you so much for being here. Thanks, gareth as well, and for everyone who's listening. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast, make sure you share it with whoever you know that might be interested in this type of regenerative talk, and we will be back, as usual, with more, so stay tuned.