Entrepreneurship as Worldbuilding Work
Note: The following content was first delivered as an asynchronous audio teaching in the first iteration of The Vision Society, recorded and delivered by Daje Aloh. Enjoy.
As a business owner, I’ve never been solely motivated by profit. The deeper currents that move me aren’t always measurable in margins and sales. For a time, though, I kept that hidden. I thought I had to shape myself into someone who prioritized scale and numbers in order to succeed. But underneath it all, I was tending something deeper, quieter inside of me.
Compelled by Something Other
I feel compelled by something more etheric, something quieter, wilder, and other. Sometimes this compelling tug feels like a whisper from future my future children or little ones I may never meet in physical form, but whose presence invites me deeper into this work.
I sense them asking: what kind of world are we inheriting? And if we choose this path of building and offering, what frameworks will hold us? What stories will remind us of who we are when the world is thick with change and uncertainty?
When I was younger, stepping into entrepreneurship felt like sifting through endless repetition. So many podcasts. So many blueprints. So many promises of optimization and growth, all echoing each other. I listened. I learned. But I rarely saw reflections of earth-based listening, body-led rhythms, or ancestral knowing in those spaces.
Eventually, I stopped searching and started listening to myself. I closed my first business, Brave School, and gave myself permission to re-root. I began following what felt real: the four directions, the land, the silence.
And from there, I started to build something else.
The work we do in Storywork Studio is not empire-building. It is kin-making. Worldbuilding. A quiet, relational offering to those who came before and those who will come after. A stitched-together inheritance of frameworks, values, and soul-anchored strategies.
That’s what the Vision Society has become—a breathing ground of regenerative practice. A living room for the ones who crave business design that remembers the body. That remembers land. That remembers the possibility of pleasure, depth, and dignity in how we move through the world.
Lessons from My Grandfather about Entrepreneurship
My grandfather built houses. He tore down old walls and laid foundations. He was also a reverend who sang freedom through the tension of the Jim Crow South. That lineage lives in me. I carry his hammer. I carry his hymn.
I believe our descendants deserve tools that nourish them to keep building something else. Wisdom that comes from dandelions, moss, kitchen tables, and prayer. They deserve to grow businesses that feel like extensions of their true soul values, not just reactions to market trends.
They deserve to know that entrepreneurship can be a sacred practice. A creative rite. A form of midwifing new worlds.
This work is not abstract. Worldbuilding is tangible. It happens every time we shape a space, write a message, create a container that others can step into and be changed by.
And for those of us mapping new terrain, I often return to Octavia Butler’s four rules for predicting the future:
Learn from the past. What lived experiences do we carry? What teachings want to remain in the room?
Respect the law of consequences. Every action carries an echo. What we nourish (or neglect) shapes the field around us.
Be aware of your perspective. What orientation are you building from? That lens will shape the tone, reach, and integrity of your work.
Count on surprises. The world will respond in unexpected ways. Make room for mystery.
This is the heart of my practice. A slow tending to what is emergent. A shaping of spaces where others can remember their own way.
