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Good Rising beautiful freinds of Bēhere. 🌞
I am a bit off schedule from the original plan to drop a RE Paper every other day across two moons 🌑🌗🌝🌑🌗🌝. There certainly is a content plan with a great outline : )….
But like Mike Tyson says: “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face”.
Fortunately, I have not been punched in the face. But we are preparing to say good by to this view out our tiny home window without knowing where exactly we will land.
Between building our new we.behere.re portal and preparing for our move out of the Sunburst community with four kids in tote, I fell a bit behind on the RE papers. And I am also feeling the call to REthink the delivery of this second wave of 7 articles from the original plan. I don’t want the papers to feel preachy. I don’t have all the answers. Frankly, I’m a guy who doesn’t know where my family is going to live in February. This mission to Rethink Education at Bēhere with Brooke and our incredible children has been an ongoing act of faith. And We have certainly reached a pivotal moment in our journey where we have been asked to be okay with with trusting for just a little while longer, and trust in a greater divine plan to unfold.
Is this the cutest heating pad ever?
Meet the Menstruation Crustacean—the microwaveable, ultra-soothing lobster heating pad that brings major comfort and a little comic relief. Just pop this plush crustacean in the microwave and let its warm weight melt away period cramps, backaches, or any random aches life throws at you. Plus, it features a soothing lavender scent to boost your mood when it’s that time of the month. This little guy is hilarious and functional – the perfect Secret Santa gift or stocking stuffer for this holiday season! Check out the rest of the Menstruation Crustacean gang, too.
In Early 2023, I embraced the opportunity to live and work on the beautiful thousands of acres in an intentional meditation community established in 1969 by the late Norm Paulson, who had discipled with perhaps the most recognized of Yogi’s from India — Paramahansa Yogananda (the Author of Autobiography of a Yogi). The community pioneered organic farming in America and launched over a dozen natural foods grocery stores in California, Arizona, and Utah in the decades following. Most of the New Frontiers grocery stores were sold to Whole Foods in 2014. The community continues to share the practice of Kriya Yoga with several retreat offerings throughout the year.
With many members of the community reaching an incredible 55 year tenure — The community was in want of younger man who valued meditation and was able to help work the ranch and cattle operation. I was honored to over-fill the one tiny-home vacancy that was available at that time with our family of 5, moving our family from Thousand Oaks area to this stunning ranch so close to the Gaviota coast of Santa Barbara.
I believe it was healthy and good for me to learn new skillsets grounded in the earth, away from a desk and in community. I am filled with gratitude for the opportunity. I learned to fix barbed-wire fences for miles and miles, helped round up cattle, unearth and repair broken water pipes in the mud, build water drainage culverts with the ranch team, Plow, Disk, and seed fields on a tractor, operate a skid-steer, weld the corals, and on and on.
We have received many gifts from this community, and the time has been valuable — transformative, even. Our family has grown (we added Van to the mix!). Brooke and I’s marriage has grown and we have gotten more aligned than ever on our vision for Bēhere. The growth did not come with comfort. Quite the opposite. Ranch hand work does not pay a family-mans wage - even with an ‘affordable’ housing opportunity. I made several efforts to offer my artistic and creative skillsets to the community and presented opportunities to raise revenue, but found my skill set not wanted.
While the time away from a desk has had it’s great and beautiful moments in the rolling green hills — I heard and felt the call to return to the desk to use my professional skills and creativity to re-invigorate Brooke and I’s mission to Rethink Education and grow Bēhere by first streamlining our accounting and core ‘business model’ logic and systems.
The industries I have spent my career working in have been profoundly affected by the acceleration of technological advances with the arrival of AI. We are just now arriving at the moment where several roles are now converging into ONE. For many companies, especially smaller ones, the designer, engineer, and marketer are becoming the same person.
The opportunity in this moment is to SEIZE MY DREAM JOB. I already have it✨🙏❤️. But deprogramming myself from the 9-5 mentality has not been easy. Building Bēhere on a bootstrap budget without comfortable runway or significant investment has not been easy.
The future of work looks and feels different. We’re in the very early stages of this revolution still, and it is uncomfortable at times. But it is also very liberating. My background in graphic design, UI and UX design, web development, and publishing does feel uniquely perfect to seize the moment. I wouldn’t let this opportunity pass by for the world ; )
I am seeing more people sharing this sentiment with tweets like this:
I have been an ‘Idea Guy’ for a long time.
The opportunity to build and implement those ideas now is absolutely irresistible.
Onboarding our guides, and parents to software that I built is satisfying.
Building a unified view into Bēhere financials across Quickbooks, Stripe, and Venmo in our own custom app has been a long time-coming and it is finally here. ❤️
It has been wonderful to feel our Bēhere Children’s Outdoor Enrichment offering to the Buellton / Santa Ynez community loved and appreciated by the parents and children in our program. We know we are doing something right.
We are looking for the path to remain growing our community across the 805 landscape between the two places we have called home in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties.
We have been working towards a new product launch that I believe can and will provide the revenue we need to sustain ourselves in Santa Barbara County.
We have some exciting conversations in the mix to potentially add new Bēhere chapters to the mix and we look forward to meeting new Guide’s who can join us in delivering the education and enrichment our children deserve.
If you or someone you know is interested in joining our mission — the application is here. We are working towards a model that allows Bēhere to scale to wherever it is wanted - wherever we can facilitate meeting demand with supply.
The we.behere.re portal is becoming the platform that will help to organize the homeschool and alt-ed revolution.
Thank you for tuning in to this 100% human-written RE paper. 🙏
We look forward to continuing to serve the 805 and beyond. Together, we are creating a new paradigm families and a new paradigm for education. ❤️ 🌊🌊🌊
What do you think? We’re always curious to know what you’re thinking out there. These RE papers are meant to establish a foundation for dialogue on the road to Rethinking Everything.
In freedom with presence,
The Bēhere Team
