Part 1. Talking About

“I confronted him about his behavior, but Wyoming dismissed me as a joke and attacked my character. Don’t tell him I told you this. I would just be careful if I were you, Cheyenne.”

She came to me not for honest advice, but for blind empathy.

“Have you considered your role in the situation?” I asked. She was taken aback, having approached me for the complete validation of her experience after one of our Songas.

But Songa isn’t just a musical theater company. Here, we learn not just how to perform on stage, but how to navigate the drama of life. The Songa Way wasn’t designed to teach us how to play a role—it was designed to help us recognize the roles we play in the grand social play of life.

“I haven’t done anything wrong here,” she said.

"Well, I’m sure that’s not how he sees it. If you want to repair the relationship, isn’t it worth considering his perspective?"

"You’re supposed to be on my side," she said, her voice tinged with hurt.

"There are no sides—only the roles we play in any given moment: Victim, Villain, and Hero. I encourage you to see all three."

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“And which one are you?” she asked.

"You’ve come to me as The Victim, expecting me to play The Hero," I told her. "But I don’t want to be The Hero. That would make me an accomplice—jeopardizing my own relationship, and warping my view of someone in our shared social circle, turning our mutual friend into The Villain. None of us are angels, so instead, I’m going to play Devil’s Advocate. If we looked at the situation from their perspective, we might say, ‘That makes sense.’"

"Why should I be the one to initiate the conversation?”

“You’re the one who brought this issue to me. And now, here we are, two people speaking in the third person. But it only takes one person to initiate a constructive and healing dialogue. Why not you? If we don't plant the seeds of open communication, and get to the root of our behaviors, the virus of disconnection and judgment will spread unchecked – not just within our community, but into future generations as well.”

“Okay, but he’s the one who should apologize. He constantly criticizes me to make me feel unimportant and elevate his own standing. I’m not the only one who feels this way either. I’ve heard others call him a bully and a manipulator."

I’d been here before—an entire life reduced to a declarative pejorative.

"Let’s label behaviors, not people," I said with a smile.

She was ready to object but stopped. She could accept that. "Okay, you’re right."

"It’s much easier to reduce someone to a caricature—shaped by a mistake, a rumor, lie, or innuendo—than to put in the hard work of understanding the messiness and beauty of an individual. Society is a master storyteller of false narratives, drafting gossip faster than it can be disproven, passing it along like messages in a never-ending game of telephone. But the truth of a person is found in speaking directly to them, cutting the cord on distortion. When we do that, we transform our black-and-white world into color.

So, let’s see if we can not just repair, but strengthen, the dynamic between you two. That is The Songa Way."

“But are we not allowed to vent to a friend about someone?” she said, worrying about losing an outlet for her anger, as if there was only one way to let off steam.

“Sure, but if someone comes to you wanting to talk about another person instead of talking with them head-on, we need to follow some guidelines. Gossip is often dismissed as the lowest form of conversation, but it can also be an opportunity for deeper connection—if approached with the right mindset. The goal is to reach a place where we can genuinely see where the other person is coming from. If we get to that ‘aha moment’—recognizing our own contribution to the situation—we can begin to address the problem head-on and face-to-face.”

“So, you’ll be my sounding board?”

“That’s exactly right,” I said with a nod and a wink. “But if we do this, I’m going to insist you speak to that person in twenty four hours and report back to me. Deal?”

“Deal,” she said.

“Let’s model the behavior with a trial run. I’ll play the role of Wyoming.”

She took a deep breath, grounding herself in her intentions. “Wyoming, I feel like I can’t do anything right in your eyes. You never take my feelings into account. It’s like you use shame as a weapon. It feels like manipulation.”

I tell her,

“Don’t Project, Introspect.”

“What do you mean? Oftentimes an accusation can also be an admission. Have you ever thought about how you might have used manipulation as a tool in the relationship?”

She hadn’t. “Sometimes it’s easier to step into ‘The Victim’ role and feel right, making those around us permanently wrong. It sounds like you’re shaming him for not being able to ‘do anything right in your eyes.’” She seemed to be time traveling back to previous interactions, reframing her perspective to create a different future.

“Do you mind if I edit your words?”

“Sure,” she responded.

“I feel like you haven’t taken my feelings into account, but maybe that’s because I haven’t spoken them clearly. Instead of saying ‘You don’t care about my feelings,’ try saying, ‘I feel hurt when my concerns aren’t acknowledged because I need reassurance in difficult moments.’ If your emotional needs aren’t stated, they won’t be met.”

“There’s a saying in The Songa Way that goes:

‘Make Requests, Not Complaints.’

She considered the f(Law) of this shared (son)GA.ME of ours that shapes the behaviors to make us better husbands and wives, daughters and sons, coworkers and friends. And she said, “I think I can do that.”

“If we don’t speak directly to someone and give them a chance to respond, resentment builds. We start scripting their motivations and dialogue in our minds, casting them as The Villain. But what character doesn’t see themselves as The Hero? Without empathy, curiosity, and a willingness to receive feedback, we lose the plot. When we take the time to understand their motivations and backstory, we can rewrite the relationship’s narrative—and in doing so, reshape our own.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. "Cheyenne, were you playing Wyoming just now, or was that your character talking?”

“That was me,” I admit.

Part 2. Talking With

“There was a time when I played Victim, Villain and Hero,” I continue. My friend sits up, leaning forward.

I sigh. “I didn’t talk withpeople, but about them. I didn’t just create breakdowns in my relationships, I destroyed them.” She’s silent, giving me the space I need. She’s not just listening, but I can tell she’s hearing me too.

"I didn’t talk to people; I talked about them. It didn’t just create breakdowns in my relationships; It destroyed them.”

She stays silent, giving me the space I need. She’s not just listening – she’s hearing me.

So, I continue, “Wyoming and I had been together for years, madly in love. But like any relationship, we faced our share of challenges, and there were moments of doubt. I thought I was insecure in our relationship, but really, I was just insecure about myself. Low self-esteem is a tricky thing, isn’t it? It distorts reality, making you question things that were never in question. But there’s a quote I once heard: ‘No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.’ But by the time I understood what it meant, it was already too late.”

“So, what happened?” she says, urging me on.

“We had a child together, a little girl. But I felt I was losing the person I was, when I’d never discovered her in the first place. We took a break from the relationship. Or rather, I did. At first, I stepped into The Victim role, telling any friend who would listen that Wyoming was emotionally distant and that I wasn’t sure if I still loved him. I told them he was using our child to keep me in the relationship. I stated a feeling as a fact. I didn’t realize then that I was the one pulling away—because deep down, I didn’t believe I could be loved. How ironic it is that when we talk about someone instead of to them, it often reveals more about us than the person we’re tearing down.”

“What did your friends say?”

“They were all too happy to pile on. I’d give them a greenlight to attack his character, validating any negative thought they harbored about the father of my child. It’s why we recommend at Songa that it’s always best to seek perspective and advice from someone who doesn’t know the person or isn’t likely to meet them. It’s why people go to priests and therapists, isn’t it?

But because they knew Wyoming, and weren’t trained facilitators in The Songa Way, they offered me unconditional support—but not the pushback I needed. No one ever asked, ‘Have you considered…?’ or ‘What would he say if he could respond?’”

I sigh. “So, I went on feeling I was absolutely right, making him permanently wrong. My friends relished the social power and validation of being confidantes, basking in the honor of holding someone’s trust. But my story was no longer my own—I had deputized others to tell it for me.

Rumors about Wyoming spread like wildfire, and I couldn’t extinguish the blaze until it threatened to consume not just his reputation, but mine as well."

“How?” she asks, worried about where the story goes next.

“The story of our relationship became warped with each telling. Until, it got back to Wyoming that I’d called him ‘emotionally abusive’ and ‘unfit to be a father’.”

“But you hadn’t,” she objects, upset on my behalf.

“It didn’t matter,” I shake my head. “My friends turned on me when Wyoming shared his side of the story, the one I never knew about, because I hadn’t asked.

These ‘good’ friends loved to talk with me about ‘the other’. I should have known they’d have no problem talking about me amongst each other.

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They called me crazy. A liar. A gaslighter.

I was cancelled by my community.

How easy it is for those in the in-group to find themselves on the outs.

I was then faced… with the Hero’s Dilemma.”

“What’s the Hero’s Dilemma?” she asks me.

“It’s when a person steps in as the intermediary, reinforcing the Victim’s dependence instead of empowering them to address the conflict themselves. As the months went on, the only friends who would talk to me were those who wanted an ally in a disagreement with Wyoming.

I could have regained a sense of belonging if I gave in.

I could have felt a sense of worth if I surrendered to self-righteousness.

But I was done with the drama.

I set out in search of a new way of life, not knowing Wyoming had done the same. He was writing a novel for the life of his dreams—which is a novel way to live indeed.

I was writing too. Not a novel, but a playbook—a new set of rules and laws for families and communities to actually communicate.

It wouldn’t be easy.

Because before we shit-talked about bosses to our co-workers at a bar, ranted about our parents to friends in a group chat, or spilled the tea about our spouses over charcuterie, we were doing it on the playground, weren’t we?

It was a matter of social survival: if the focus of ridicule was on someone else, it wasn’t on you.

It had been hardwired into us since birth. But what about before then?

Long before then—over 300,000 years ago—when our ancestors knew that becoming an outcast in the tribe didn’t just mean social death, but literal death. If members of the tribe had been cast aside as easily as they are today, they wouldn’t have survived. In a group of just 130 people, social cohesion wasn’t just an ideal—it was essential.

Reconciliation, reinvention, and redemption were all possible because, well…

They weren’t hiding behind screens. They were sitting around the village fire, where there was joy instead of judgment. They told stories about the human condition – not gossip about their neighbors.

It’s time to return to the fire.

And it was time for me to return to Wyoming.

Together, we created… The Songa Way.”

I finished speaking. I hadn’t realized my friend had been crying. She wiped tears from her eyes and told me, “I’m ready.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” I asked, placing a hand on her shoulder.

She hesitated. “You’d do that?”

“At Songa, if you feel you need a mediator, we can provide one. We recommend a guided conversation by one of our certified Songa Way Guides – to make sure there’s no gaslighting or shaming, labeling or projecting in the conversation. I can help ensure a safe space for you, if you’d like.”

She nodded and took a deep breath. “Okay. Let’s get going.” She said, standing. “I’m tired of talking about him. Let’s go talk with him.”

Some characters appear in other Substacks too—like Lewis Blues from The Happy Studio, a partner in the world of Songa at 🎙️ thehappystudio.org

Follow his blog and more:

🧢 ex-billionaire.org
🌍 theworldofsonga.com

For more of Songa’s RULES and f(LAWS), check out the full list below.

THE WORLD OF SONGA

THE RULES OF SONGA

The RULES of SONGA outline the creative behaviors we practice, protect, and pass on once you cross the portal into The WORLD of SONGA…

Read more

a year ago · Wyoming

THE WORLD OF SONGA

The f(LAWS) of SONGA

The LAWS of SONGA outline the culture of behaviors we expect, encourage and discourage after you cross the portal into The WORLD of SONGA…

Read more

a year ago · Wyoming

They call me the financial manager. I manage family money, specifically May Dove, my wife’s family fortune. Some even joke I “married into my job.” They’re not entirely wrong.

But I’ve also spent the last fifteen years trying to grow a fortune I didn’t build—while quietly trying to become a man I could respect. You see, I was raised on different soil than my wife. I’m Muslim. She’s Catholic. I come from a modest, working-class immigrant family. She comes from a legacy family in St. Louis whose name is etched into college buildings and museum wings.

I met May Dove at Wharton. I was on scholarship. She wasn’t. I used to think that made me the lucky one—because I had to earn everything. But I see now how much pressure she was under to be a “good daughter,” to steward a legacy she never asked to carry. We both felt like imposters in different ways.

After we got married, I became the guy who moved spreadsheets, analyzed family office reports, and sat in strategy calls with advisors who never looked me in the eye. My job was to grow the pot. My fear was that, if I didn’t, I’d be seen as the man who let it all slip away.

So I doubled down. On performance. On numbers. On controlling everything I could.

I thought if I could 10x the portfolio, I’d finally feel like I’d made it.

But somewhere along the way, I realized I was building a fortune but starving a family. Our kids were learning how to spend, but not how to feel. They knew how to hide behind last names, but not how to express their own. And I didn’t know how to lead them—because I was still measuring my worth by a number.

It wasn’t until May Dove stood up in a family office seminar and called bullshit on the whole system that I felt something shift. She asked the room: Who’s managing our emotional wealth? And I felt seen. And ashamed. And inspired.

I joined her on this crazy ride into something called Songa. I sat in on the songwriting sessions. Watched my kids break open in ways I never could’ve orchestrated with a 529 plan. I started asking questions I never had time for before—like what kind of legacy I want to leave that can’t be liquidated.

Now I’m still managing the money. But I’m also trying to manage something else: my ego, my expectations, and the man I want to be remembered as.

I’m not just here to pass down wealth.

I’m here to rewrite what it means to be wealthy.

The Primary Cast

The architect, director and man behind the curtain at The WORLD of SONGA. Learn more about Dr Wyoming right here at The Millionaire’s Campfire.

The Millionaire's Campfire

Dr. Wyoming Schmetterling

‘I went about casting the cast of characters who had the time, talent and treasure to make this massively shared dream a reality…

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a year ago · Jack Ebstein

Forbes Nash

The former master manipulator turned misfit meaning-maker. Learn more about Forbes over at Confessions of an ex-Billionaire (and CMO).

Confessions of an ex-Billionaire (and CMO)

Forbes Nash

“Books are like our Selves. It’s hard for our loved ones to unsee the ugly first drafts.”—ForbesNash.com, recovering #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author…

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a year ago · Forbes Nash, ex-Billionaire

May Dove Munnie

The heiress, harmonizer, and first true believer in the Songa vision. Learn more about May Dove right here at The Millionaire’s Campfire.

The Millionaire's Campfire

May Dove Munnie

“Whatʼs the point of passing wealth to future generations, when we havenʼt healed the wounds we passed down too…

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a year ago · Jack Ebstein

Forbes Nash

The former master manipulator turned misfit meaning-maker. Learn more about Forbes over at Confessions of an ex-Billionaire (and CMO).

Confessions of an ex-Billionaire (and CMO)

Forbes Nash

“Books are like our Selves. It’s hard for our loved ones to unsee the ugly first drafts.”—ForbesNash.com, recovering #1 Wall Street Journal bestselling author…

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a year ago · Forbes Nash, ex-Billionaire

Sage Storries

The artist, alchemist, and emotional pulse behind the music of The WORLD of SONGA. Learn more about Sage Storries over at The '“Happy” Studio.

The “Happy” Studio @ the Home of SONGA.FM

Sage Storries

“If your art was your life, how would you live…

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a year ago · Jack Ebstein

Dr. Jack Spelling

The editor of emotional arcs. Co-author of messy truths. Rewriting relationships on and off the page. Learn more about Jack over at The WORLD of SONGA.

The WORLD of SONGA

Dr. Jack Spelling

“What if the life you’ve spent years authoring… isn’t the one you were born to live…

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a year ago · Jack Ebstein

The Supporting Cast

Cheyenne (“Shy Anne”)

The challenger, catalyst, and unshakable conscience in the room. Learn more about Cheyenne right here at The Millionaire’s Campfire.

The Millionaire's Campfire

Cheyenne (”Shy Anne”)

“Art goes where words cannot…

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a year ago · Jack Ebstein

Mohammad Munnie

The manager, husband, and steady hand reshaping what legacy means. Learn more about Mo right here at The Millionaire’s Campfire.

The Millionaire's Campfire

Mohammad Munnie

“Learning to leave more than money behind…

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a year ago · Jack Ebstein

Emerson Spelling

The visionary, volatility, and venture heart behind The WORLD of SONGA. Learn more about Emerson right here at The WORLD of SONGA.

THE WORLD OF SONGA

Emerson Spelling

“Isn’t the ultimate job of a parent to show the world how to love, and understand, their story—and their children…

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a year ago · Jack Ebstein

Erin Spelling

The quiet force, emotional mirror, and soul of the Spelling family. Learn more about Erin Spelling right here at The WORLD of SONGA.

THE WORLD OF SONGA

Erin Spelling

“The lightest of life’s laughter follows the heaviest of tears…

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a year ago · Jack Ebstein

Lewis Blues

The mentor, mythmaker, and backbone of the band. Learn more about Lewis Blues over at The “Happy” Studio.

The “Happy” Studio @ the Home of SONGA.FM

Lewis Blews

“We don’t take our art to the world, we create art so spellbinding that the world comes to us…

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a year ago · Jack Ebstein

Brand Storries

The bridge, the buffer, the brother. Learn more about Brand over at The “Happy” Studio.

The “Happy” Studio @ the Home of SONGA.FM

Brand Storries

“Therapeutic entertainment for families brave enough to change: We build culture, not content…

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a year ago · Jack Ebstein

And then read Songa’s Rules, but know its (F)laws.

THE WORLD OF SONGA

THE RULES OF SONGA

The RULES of SONGA outline the creative behaviors we practice, protect, and pass on once you cross the portal into The WORLD of SONGA…

Read more

a year ago · Wyoming

THE WORLD OF SONGA

The f(LAWS) of SONGA

The LAWS of SONGA outline the culture of behaviors we expect, encourage and discourage after you cross the portal into The WORLD of SONGA…

Read more

a year ago · Wyoming

New here?
Check out ACT 1.

We met in the control room.

Not a metaphorical one. A real one, nestled at the back of the Songa Mansion—its walls lined with cables, faders, and glowing meters. Sage held a guitar, caressing it like a child in her lap. Lewis Blues tapped a djembe with one hand, a mug of honey tea in the other. May Dove stood nearby, humming something that hadn’t become a song yet. Mo watched

Someone had written on the wall in looping green marker:

“WHAT’S THE ROI
OF THE SOUL?”


No one had an answer yet.

But that night, we tried.

My half-brother, Forbes Nash Jr., stood by the mixing console like a man pitching a hedge fund that didn’t exist yet. We don’t share a mother, but we share enough damage to build something strange and maybe sacred out of it. He spoke in questions more than sentences, metaphors more than models. His hands moved like a conductor. He said:

"What if Pixar was a bank? What if every song was an asset? What if the key to fixing capitalism… was a jam session?"

May Dove Munnie arched an eyebrow. Her husband, Mo, just looked at the console like he wanted to run a regression analysis on the chords. Emerson Spelling, ever the brand guru with a savior complex, nodded as if he’d been thinking that all along. Probably had.

I stayed quiet. Watched. Drank the tea someone had left on a coaster shaped like a vinyl record. Thought about what Bill Campbell used to say when founders got ahead of themselves:

Slow down. Say less. Let the silence talk.

Forbes was still talking. Quoting himself, mostly. Talking about trust fund kids and trap producers co-owning IP. Saying he used to be part of the problem—driving clicks with fear, selling dopamine like water—but now he wanted to build something different. Something that rewarded collaboration over conversion.

"I’m building a machine that pays people to listen."

That was my cue.

“Even is fast.
Quick is slow.”

They turned. The room stilled.

"Art isn’t software," I told them.

"It doesn’t iterate. It emerges. A love song doesn’t come from a sprint—only a slow burn. You rehearse it until it sings.”

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Emerson tried to joke. “Does this ‘singing’ come with a Q1 projection?”

"Call your therapist. Or your mother. Or your muse," I said.

May Dove asked if I was saying we had to feel things.

"I’m saying you can’t fund genius if you’re allergic to silence."

Mohammad Munnie, May’s husband, had been sitting silently beside her. But now, he finally spoke.

"You realize we’re fiduciaries, right? Our mandate is to grow capital."

Forbes jumped in.

"Then redefine capital. You’re not just managing wealth—you’re midwifing culture."

That landed.

He brought up Jobs. How he got fired. How Pixar softened him. How Ed Catmull and Bill Campbell taught him to lead creatives, then humans.

"I’m the ex-billionaire who got humbled before I got wise," Forbes said. "And Wyoming? He’s our Bill Campbell. The whisperer. Also... our uncle was John—yes, that John Forbes Nash. Game theory, Nobel Prize, the Prisoner's Dilemma. And what he taught us? That rational self-interest can lead to irrational outcomes. But art? Art breaks the loop."

I laughed—told him our uncle solved equations, we’re just trying to solve each other. But maybe that’s harder.

Then he turned to Mo.

"You’re the hardest one to win over. Not because you’re skeptical. But because your job is to grow her wealth. That’s where you get your worth. But what if you grew something deeper than capital? Like community. Or courage."

"I’ll put that in a spreadsheet," Mo said.

"He will," May Dove smiled.

Emerson looked around the studio.

"You really think we can save business?"

"Not save," Forbes said. "Rewrite. In 4/4 time."

Mo stood.

"Let’s say we fund this thing. What happens when the artists run out of ideas? When courage doesn’t monetize?"

I looked at him. Steady.

"Then the money learns patience. Or it dies trying."

I said it without blinking. I meant it. The room didn’t clap or crumble. Just a quiet little shift—like the truth adjusting the furniture inside someone’s soul.

Sage laid into a groove. Not showy, just honest. A slow thump on the guitar, like she was scoring the silence. Lewis followed with the djembe—his fingers tracing the pulse beneath the conversation.

Mo crossed his arms. Bracing. He looked at May like he already knew she was going to say something that would cost him—socially, financially, or both. But she didn’t speak. Not yet.

“It’s easy for you,” Mo said to me. “You’re not the one calling the family office every quarter, justifying why we’re investing in feelings instead of funds.”

May flinched. Barely. But I saw it. Everyone did. She didn’t push back. She didn’t need to. Her silence had weight. Enough to tilt the room.

Forbes looked at me. I knew he saw me in Mo.

He wasn’t wrong.

“I used to call it stewardship Turns out, I was laundering shame through spreadsheets—and calling it strategy.” I’d worn my addiction to work like armor, but it’d left me wounded.

It landed. You could feel it. Not with a bang, but like a tax bill in a family office inbox.

Forbes turned to the Munnies. He spoke softly, but with fire.

“Maybe it’s not the portfolio that’s the problem. Maybe it’s art that’ll fix what’s aching. Not mo money.”

He winked at May. She almost smiled. Almost.

“That’s the tension between The Art and The Machine, isn’t it?

More.”

Forbes let that sink in.

Mo nodded along. I don’t know if he was starting to believe, but he was at least starting to understand.

Forbes continued,

“Most businesspeople try to scale output.

We’re trying to
scale goosebumps.

It’s not automation—it’s amplification. We’re not built on attention. We’re built on resonance.”

Mo leaned forward, like something cracked open.

Mo spoke, seeming to stumble upon the words as he went. “What if the most profitable outcome... is a culture that doesn’t need saving?” he said. “What if the next unicorn isn’t a startup? What if it’s a song?”

He looked toward the musicians like he wanted proof. Lewis answered with rhythm. Sage layered in the melody.

And before I even noticed, Mo was singing too. No sheet music. No rehearsal. Just the sound of a man unlearning.

He caught Forbes watching and shook his head.

“I can’t believe you want me to build a portfolio out of performance,” he said, laughing to himself.

“Not performance,” I told him. “Presence.”

May turned to him, took his hand.

“I’m not signing off on the math,” she said. “I’m signing off on the man.”

She looked at the group, then confessed what we already felt.

“I thought wealth meant we were winning. But I was losing myself behind designer handbags and charity galas. Keeping up with the Joneses... we forgot how to be the Munnies.”

She turned to Mo. He didn’t look away.

“We called it legacy,” she said. “But maybe the legacy our kids need isn’t in a trust fund. It’s the one we build on trust.”

Mo nodded.

“Forget the legacy we meant
for the kids someday.
Let’s build one with meaning
for them today.”

The band kept playing.

Mo and May didn’t just buy in. They sang in:

“You say you want to make a change?
You say you want to make a difference?
You say you want to be somebody?
You’ve got to be the song.”

Want more? Explore the Universe of Songa

Follow Jack Ebstein, who chronicles the people in the musical startup world of Songa at 🌍 theworldofsonga.com

Or travel to another galaxy in the solar system of Songa:

🧢 ex-billionaire.org
🎸thehappystudio.com

Become a paid subscriber
and hear the song being born.
Listen to “Be The Song” below—
where melody meets manifesto.

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As St. Louis entered what the Wall Street Journal described as ‘a doom loop,’ my life was looped in with the fate of my home city.

I’d been canceled by my community, like so many of us, in big ways or small. I’d made a mistake, like we all have. But how easy it is for people to play Hero, when we’re so quick to make the people we love a Villain.

I shut myself off from the world, slipped into isolation. My money was no comfort, my voice that had been trained at Juilliard, had been erased.

Why speak when no one would listen?

We demonize, then ostracize, those who disagree with us. But they are US. They are our neighbors. We shut people out of our lives, making US permanently right, and THEM permanently wrong. We avoid the difficult conversations where we learn about ourselves by compassionately confronting those who’ve hurt us.

We live in a city, but our city is a village. There is no space within a village for cancellation of a few, for it would mean the failure of the whole.

I was exiled by the village, cast out and ostracized: reviled. Rumors and innuendo spread. Social media crucified me. My friends turned into acquaintances and then finally, into strangers. I don’t blame them. They lived in fear of suffering the same fate as I had—being cast out from their place around the communal village fire, a fire that offered no warmth, one that had already, so clearly, been extinguished.

I had no value, it seemed, even as the valuation of my family business skyrocketed. I found that wealth was unimportant, or at least, the kind of wealth I still had.

So, I deleted all my social media accounts. I disappeared. I was gone, gone, gone.

I bought a pair of light blue sunglasses at a gas station off I-80. The world looked different through them—cooler, quieter. Like sky after a storm.

I moved to Schmetterling, Wyoming, the town where the innocent go to lie.

I met an enigmatic man by the same name, he was The Founder. He introduced me to a band of eclectic and extraordinary screenwriters, songwriters, jokewriters, codewriters, copywriters and underwriters.

They were all rewriting their stories, and society’s writ large. I joined them, but still had no voice to add to their chorus of dreams. All that time, talent and treasure they were using to bring their massively shared dream to life to make a better World: to reignite the village fire.

I had lost my Self. I wasn’t Cheyenne anymore. The people of Our Town referred to me instead as ‘Shy Anne.’

I had nothing to offer, and the only rule of Our Town. was that you had to reveal your true Self, and use your gifts, and your art, to get our community, communicating again.

But first we had to remove fear from the conversation. It wasn’t until Wyoming introduced me to his brother Forbes and his plan to make social media that made us more social, not less, that I found my voice.

Without judgment in Our Town, I’d found my song.

I was done hiding.

I formed The Missing Pieces Band and now we’re playing at The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this January. We’re going to show the world of means, what it really means, to have true wealth, through social wealth and emotional health.

Join us.

I met Wyoming, before I knew ‘who’ he was, and long before I discovered who he became. I wasn’t myself either, but that was the day I’d start on the path to becoming the woman I always dreamed.

It was at a family office seminar on social impact investing. You might be wondering, ‘what is a family office?’ Well, it’s a concierge investment advisor for families with multigenerational wealth. I grew up in this world of one percenters, this gilded cage my grandfather had created from a wealth event that changed the course of our family’s story.

Ever since my days at St. Louis’ Mary Institute, where the families of the ‘wealthiest’ attend, I looked around and saw just what wealth bought you: Materials but never Meaning. Those decades of questioning what ‘true wealth’ really was, bubbled, then boiled during that family office seminar. Until, I heard the proprietors of stocks and bonds were all selling gains, but not the kind that I was looking for.

Wyoming saw I was distraught, and during a break in a series of self-aggrandizing speakers, he asked me: ‘

During the Q&A portion, I stood up, not boiling, but ready to explode. I couldn’t take it anymore. ‘Our family pays you 1% of our net worth to grow our familyʼs financial wealth, but whoʼs in charge of growing our familyʼs social wealth, and emotional health?ʼ

The speaker said, “We arenʼt family therapists, May Dove, but we can refer you to one of the best in the country.”

And I replied, ‘Are you a family office, or a family wealth office?

I needed more family, less wealth. My kids were growing up spoiled and lazy. It wasn’t until I was one of the early cohorts in the ‘The Plot to Save the Soul of Business (with music),’ that I was able to begin rewriting my family’s intergenerational pain and correcting course on this scourge of wealth that had been inflicting it. Because,

Whatʼs the point of passing wealth
to future generations, when we
havenʼt healed the wounds…
that we passed down too?

And boy, did my family have wounds. My father thought he knew what true wealth was. He had used his money as a tool to give love, and to withhold it. He assumed money would destroy us, just like it destroyed him. He cut himself off from the world, and us, and made sure we stayed in it. But I wanted to be a part of this world, and heal the parts of myself that I’d filled with houses and cars and donations to colleges, to have my family’s name on a building for vanity’s sake.

I’d stopped feeling any sense of fulfillment from sitting on a foundation’s board or donating to an institution’s endowment. There had to be something more for me, and for my family. I didn’t want my children to grow up in the gilded cage that I came of age locked inside.

So I started small. I put away the things that made me feel like someone else's idea of a woman. I pulled my hair back, threw on my Oliver Goldsmith “Manhattans” — you know, the ones Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s — and looked at myself in the mirror. Not to admire, but to confront. I was finally ready to see clearly.

I was going to literally, and figuratively, find my voice and get my family singing together again with other families like Emerson Spelling and Erin Spelling did.

I once heard a quote that Sam Walton supposedly had said on his deathbed,

“Be proud of your silver spoon.
Use it to feed the world.ˮ

But I knew before I could change the world, I’d have to change myself — and my family first.

Hi, I’m Wyoming.

My friends call me Wy.

My enemies don’t call me.

I’ve been called a visionary by some, a delusionary by most. There’s not much I haven’t been called, and if I haven’t been called it yet, I’ve probably called myself that—until someone else repeated it back to me on tape. Then we called it a “testimonial” — the best rumors are the ones you start yourself, after all.

Stop writing stories. Live the stories that others’ll love to write about, while you keep loving forward.

I stopped pretending long ago that the stories we tell ourselves are true. That’s why I write fiction.

You can call me The Director, or the cofounder of Songa Studios St Louis.

I’m the Executive Producer of the immersive social musical where the surprising star is The Creator within …

…YOU.

I spent my entire life trying to find my people. 3 years ago, in a Nevada desert, I wondered, “What if I light a fire and made it easy for my people to find me?”

Rather than searching for belonging, when you create a place where others feel like they belong, you will never be alone again.

So, I, the ‘bazillion heir’, became The Director behind the living script — the story of my life, and yours — that’s being written before your very eyes, and ears, at songa.live. It’s the immersive, behind-the-scenes documentary about our traveling troupe of TV troubadours and the social change game ( songa.me) we created to invite The Culture Capitalism Revolution.

Long before our story began, I was born into a middle-class entrepreneurial family trapped in their struggling family business. I was a second generation entrepreneur and heir to the throne of our family’s business. As the oldest of my siblings, I was handed a company, and the expectations my parents thrust upon me as their ‘Golden Child.’ My half-brother Forbes thought he had it hard, but our dad was living vicariously through me. I felt the weight of his unrealized dreams and potential.

Until one day, I transformed our family business, but our family’s dysfunction didn’t improve.

It only grew worse when at the midday of my life, I became the divorced son, the brother, and nephew of one of the richest families in America, our net worth now in the high millions. But behind the scenes we were emotionally, and socially, destitute. Those more salacious readers, as many a tabloid journalist before them, may be wondering which family business I’m speaking of, but the name is of no import.

Because I’ve left that life behind. After I sold our family business to Private Equity for a life changing sum, I left behind the Divided States of America, where Capital is King and moved to a state of Wyoming, one of the few remaining United States in America, if only United in my imagination.

I was an orphan of wealth, but it wasn’t until I lost my own family—my wife, Cheyenne, and our children—that I realized I was truly bankrupt. The accountants had told me my net worth had not changed, so where had my self worth gone?

I had no dreams. And when I took stock of my life’s work up until that point, I found out it had only added up and reduced to one thing: the increasing of shareholder value.

But who are society’s real shareholders?

And what, or who, did I value more than money?

The answer was not in those smoke-filled halls of industry’s tycoons, the ones I’d been allowed entrance to, where the real money is made.

I placed on my matte black shades and rode off to faraway places, distant lands, to discover what true wealth really was. My quirky quixotic quest took me across continents and through cultures, searching for meaning, and value, beyond my bank account.

And what I found in those small villages from the jungles of Acre, Brazil to the ashrams of Nepal was something I’d known was missing, but could never name. They shared in song and verse, story and conversation. They listened to each other, and they heard, me, finally.

There were disputes, but there was no victims, villains or heroes in their stories, and they taught me how to release mine. There were no judgments, only understanding.

They had held onto something, we’d lost: the village fire.

And I had found the secret to a novel way of life: social wealth and emotional health.

What is the point of more,
when you already have more
than enough?

I realized then that it was up to US to lead a societal shift: to show the tycoons and titans of tech, media, and business—and the families trapped in the capitalist system they had engineered—what true wealth was, beyond the haze of those smoke-filled rooms.

Because a life of privilege is a privilege. A privilege to be used wisely. So, I returned home to St. Louis with a dream in hand: to teach families how to dream again. It was the only way we might be able to change the course of the future of this disconnected world we live in, by reconnecting with the world we’d lost.

If not for us, but for our children’s sake.

We must create a new Terms of Service for society—not the terms of service your world’s tech companies change without your permission—the terms of service under we serve each other. And the terms under which we expect THE HOLDERS of wealth to SERVE THE CREATORS of wealth. The entrepreneurs, artists and artisans are The Creators, true creators who create for silence, not applause.

We must unite the global culture class in a new breed of culture capitalism, that supplants the venture capitalism of old with leaders, investors and creators who model a new way of being and investing, brightening the hearts of the families of every person in their span of care.

But I knew that…

Execution is the difference between vision and illusion.

They might call you an egomaniac, but don’t you have to have an ego to think you’re special enough to change the world? It didn’t matter what they called me anyways, I no longer cared for titles. And I’d changed my name when I left Schmetterling.

While you read, listen to a rehearsal of the song we sing when we leave Schmetterling Gone, Gone Gone — LIVE from Songa Studios

I deleted all my social media accounts.

I began living under a pseudonym: Wyoming.

I cast myself as The Director and went about casting the cast of characters who had the time, talent and treasure to make this massively shared dream a reality.

It started right here, in America’s Heartland, where we awakened the hearts of America and inspired a world suffering from wealth to invest less in companies and more in the company they keep—the social circle whose happiness most impacts yours, ours and theirs. If all of my children’s friends are happier and their social circles are happier, then my children will be happier too.

And so I set about creating a new town, and we called it Songa.

And the serious fun began. Because it would take an intergenerational band of artists and their families from the disciplines of business, music, film and the clinical sciences.

Each member of our band received a Golden Ticket and they and their families were invited into the story of a lifetime: Our lifetime.

But if I was going to get people talking again, I had to get back on speaking terms with my estranged-genius-of-a-half-brother, and the former CMO of disgracebook: Forbes Nash.

He never forgave me until… I invited him to Songa.

Less than 3 months after his first visit, we hatched a Plot to Save the Soul of Business (with music) that would send us hurtling toward an elaborate plan to infiltrate the planet’s largest gathering of capitalists in Davos, Switzerland where we’d make our pitch to Sequioa Capitol™, and the world.

The collection of luminaries we’ve assembled may be the only hope we had of reshaping capitalism before it was too late for us all.

All identifying details were carefully disguised to protect the innocent, and the guilty.

But how the hell would we get a meeting with the largest most respected venture capital firm in the world, while operating under fictional names?

-wyoming

Here’s a teaser of what you’ll get as a PAID MEMBER. It’s the debut transmission of a song being born — I DON’T WANNA BE PRESIDENT. (less than) by Louis Conphliction.

Read the story behind the song at listen.songa.fm/less-than.

New here? Read ACT 1 before continuing.

Davos wasn’t even an ember in the flame, but the spark had been lit. The village had begun to gather.

The writers’ room was dim, with pages of drafts strewn across the table and a candle flickering gently at the center like a miniature campfire. Wyoming sat with his legs folded on the sofa, a marked-up manuscript in hand. Brand Storries paced the floor with focused intensity. Across from them, May Dove Munnie—the poised, polished, and effortlessly composed family office maverick—sat with her sunglasses pushed to the top of her head, watching them both with the bemused curiosity of someone who had grown up surrounded by far more opulence and far less meaning.

The conversation that follows is a behind-the-scenes eavesdrop—available exclusively to Paid Members.

Wyoming began softly, reading aloud. “This isn’t a story about wealth. It’s about what we forgot to build with it…”

Brand interrupted him almost instantly. “Wait—stop. That’s your opening line?”

Wyoming nodded. “Yeah.”

“It’s poetic,” May Dove said gently, “but it assumes the reader already agrees with you. Most of the people you’re trying to reach—especially the ones like me—don’t even know they forgot something.”

“That’s the point,” Wyoming replied. “The forgetting is part of the journey. And so is the remembering.”

Brand crossed his arms. “But you only get one shot. If I’m some Aspen tech founder scrolling at 10 p.m., I need a reason to care before I even click. You’ve got to set the stage before you light the fire.”

Wyoming tilted his head. “So what—you want a welcome mat before the curtain rises?”

May Dove leaned forward slightly. “I think what Brand’s saying, in his way, is that this reads like an invitation to a conversation that’s already in progress. That’s fine if you’re on the inside. But for the reader who’s standing at the edge of the metaphorical woods, they need to know what kind of fire they’re walking toward. You’re offering something sacred here—but it’s wrapped in satire, mystery, cleverness. All of which I adore, by the way. But if you want to speak to the wound underneath all that wealth, you have to make the medicine feel safe.”

Wyoming looked from one to the other. “We literally say it’s a true story presented as fiction.”

Brand laughed. “So did War of the Worlds. People still panicked.”

May Dove smiled. “When I first joined this journey, I wasn’t looking for a story. I was looking for relief. I needed a way to breathe again inside the gold-plated cage I was raised in. And I needed someone to ask the questions that no one in our world ever dared to ask—at least not out loud.”

Wyoming exhaled slowly, the air settling with realization. “Okay. Warmth. Invitation. Context. Permission.”

“And clarity,” Brand said. “Just enough clarity.”

“Just enough,” May Dove echoed, “to open the door—before you burn down the house. Not what they need,” she said. “What they’ll recognize. Try something like: ‘Welcome to the Millionaires Campfire. Not a story about wealth—but a reckoning with what we never learned to do with it.’ That line doesn’t threaten. It reveals. And it makes room for the reader to see themselves in it.”

Brand clapped his hands once. “Clean. Human. That line could carry an entire ad campaign.”

“I’ll take it,” Wyoming said, jotting it down. “But what about the tone? Too ironic?”

“Let me be blunt,” Brand said. “You’re speaking to people who’ve been burned by wealth and to those still basking in it. The satire is sharp—and brilliant—but it might cut the wrong way. You’ve got to let both groups feel like they belong at the fire.”

“And you can’t assume people want to laugh at themselves in chapter one,” May Dove added. “Many are still grieving—quietly. You can’t make them feel foolish for what they once believed. They need to feel held before they feel seen.”

“So,” Wyoming said, “we earn the laugh.”

May Dove nodded. “You earn the laugh. Invite the tears. And if they trust you—open the door to transformation.”

Brand turned to the manuscript. “That line about trademarking Sequoia Capital and walking in with a manuscript instead of a pitch—that’s your opener for an ad. That’s the one that gets shared at dinner parties in Jackson Hole.”

“And pair it with this,” May Dove added, her voice soft but deliberate: ‘What do you do after you’ve won the game of capitalism? Come home.’ That’s the kind of line that stops a millionaire in their tracks. Not because it shocks them. But because it names the ache they didn’t know had a name.”

Wyoming exhaled deeply, the air heavy with the weight of realization. “Okay. Warmth. Invitation. Context. Permission.”

“And clarity,” Brand said. “Just a touch of clarity.”

“Just enough,” May Dove echoed, “to open the door—before you burn down the house.”

Some characters appear in other Substacks too—like Lewis Blues from The Happy Studio, a partner in the world of Songa at 🎙️ thehappystudio.org

Follow his blog and more:

🧢 ex-billionaire.org
🌍 theworldofsonga.com

Then continue the journey below:

Disclaimer

What you are about to read is a “true” story, presented as fiction, because, let’s face it, you wouldn’t believe us if we told you it was true anyway.

This is a work of parody and satire—at times deadly serious, at others, seriously funny. Either way, we’re not kidding. Except when we are.

It was pieced together from over 2,000 hours of authorized eavesdroppings and on-camera interviews around The Millionaire’s Campfire, as well as off-the-record interviews, behind-the-scenes studio recordings, live rehearsals, iPhoneX recordings of Uber rides with a dude named Duuntu, and other first-person accounts.

Dates, locations and other identifying details have been carefully disguised to protect the innocent…

…and the guilty.

Enjoy.

About The Book

The Mllionaire’s Campfire is more than a book—it’s the financial flame at the center of .LIVE, a genre-defying, immersive experience where storytelling, music, and social reinvention collide, blurring the lines between page and stage, book and Broadway.

Forged in the creative fires of Songa Studios, this interactive musical audiobook unfolds in real time—right here, before your eyes, and ears. It beckons readers, listeners, and visionaries to co-create a new kind of cultural legacy—not written in ink alone, but improvised in the moment, a daring collaboration between artists, families, and the bold entrepreneurs who dare to dream with them.

Culture jamming is an art form that exploits the world’s flaws in order to change it, often using satire, or parody. For a complete definition, visit the Wikipedia page for culture jamming.

THE MILLIONAIRE’S CAMPFIRE: A “True” Story About Culture, Capitalism, Community and Coming Home is the opening chapter in a living world—where patrons of the arts and their families co-create films, music, comedy, and transformation with a handpicked ensemble of screenwriters, songwriters, jokewriters, codewriters, copywriters—and, of course, underwriters.

This is culture capitalism at its most intimate, absurd, and unforgettable.

“In a world plagued by artificial intelligence, manipulative media and relationships, REAL is the new luxury.”
— Forbes Nash, #1 WSJ bestselling author

Subscribe to join our band and help us polish this work before it is served to an aching world next year at The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

New chapters and music will be released weekly on Substack, beginning on Father’s Day.

WARNING: This book may be dangerous.

Subscribe now

Back Cover

“We’re not here to change the world. We created a new one, and invited the world into it.” — Wyoming, the millionaire co-founder of The WORLD of SONGA

The Millionaire’s Campfire is a modern fable about culture, capitalism, community—and the quiet act of coming home. It’s the story of how an eclectic band of artists, culture capitalists, and modern-day Medicis rebuilt their hometown, and created the social radio and TV station in America’s Heartland that awakened the hearts of America.

It begins, as many stories do, with a few people gathered around a fire. Some were founders. Some were heirs. Some were burned out, some still burning. All of them were searching for something they couldn’t find in their portfolios: connection, meaning, and a way to repair what money had broken.

What followed wasn’t a business plan. It was a song. A ritual. A template. A way to remember who we are to each other—before the metrics, before the masks.

Whether you’re stewarding a family legacy, questioning the one you’ve inherited, or quietly wondering what comes after success, this book offers an invitation:

To gather.

To grieve a lifestyle that’s been lost.

To begin again—together.

And to belong, be strong, and reach far.

Subscribe now

The Millionaire’s Campfire is the world’s first audiobook scored like a Broadway musical and improvised with (not for) an intimate LIVE studio audience in a Victorian-era mansion located in the heart of St Louis’ vibrant arts district.

About the Authors

Meet the keepers of the flame at The Millionaire’s Campfire and co-founders of

Forbes Nash is the former Chief Manipulation Officer (CMO) behind disgracebook’s darkest algorithms. Wyoming is the wiser, softer brother who didn’t cancel him, and called him home.

Together, they joined forces with fellow St. Louisan, Dr. “Jack” Spelling, a family therapist who traded the couch for the writer’s room, and the Nashville troubadour whose lyrics trace the path from heartache to hope, Lewis Blews.

Want more? Paid subscribers get access to the cast—and their sidequests—below.

Subscribe now

New here? Read ACT 1
before continuing.

Late January — by Wyoming

Thirty-three years after my first visit—and more than 2,000 years since Caesar crossed the Rubicon to defy the Roman Senate—I stood at the banks of a different Rubicon.

This one wasn’t made of water.

It was made of wealth. Of a thousand well-intentioned lies wrapped in success. And I was crossing it not on their terms, but on mine.

I had returned to the building I once hoped would become the command center of a quiet revolution—to save the soul of business, with music.

Sequoia Capitol™, we call it in The Whimsical World of Songa. Although I’ve heard it spelled differently in your world.

The belly of the millionaire beast beckoned me a second time. But the siren song of success held no power now. I’d already tasted it.

“I’ve grown,” I whispered to myself, stepping through the revolving door. I reached for my Old Self Phone, pulled from my left pocket, and texted the Managing Partner.

I’m here. I bet you $10 million in no-strings-attached seed funding they won’t recognize me at the front desk.
—Wyoming

Then I slipped it back into my blazer and pulled out my New Self Phone, from the right.

Same message. Different recipient. This time, The Founder.

That’s $10 million, I thought, smiling as I pressed Floor 3.

Present.

I didn’t come to Davos to network. I came to burn the whole thing down.

It had been years since I walked out of this fortress of wealth and whispered power.

And yet here I was again—basement level, past the brushed metal walls, the security scanners.

The ones who inherited the world were still here, circling capital like vultures around culture’s carcass—reminding me that even after becoming a millionaire, I still wasn’t welcome back into the world I’d left.

But exposing the secrets of these smoke-filled rooms to the wider public—in a manuscript tht had begun to circulate, codenamed The Ridiculous, Staggering, Whimsical World of Songa.—had made me persona non grata. Excommunicado.

No matter.

Being extraordinary—out-of-the-ordinary, extraterrestrial—is a lonely experience.
Because the hardest part of being out of this world… is knowing you’re not from it.

Once these were my people, now I had no people.

Creativity kept me company on my loneliest days.

I’d lost investments. I’d made fortunes. Burned through both, then raised them from the ashes more times than I care to admit.

But during my darkest days, I never lost the one thing that mattered.

Because the only thing worse than losing money… is losing love.

But as I entered Davos, love was the last thing I was feeling from the financial zealots now staring at me as heretic.

A general partner from BlackRock stared at me like I’d risen from the dead. Maybe I had. I was unshaven, untucked, uninvited.

“Is that... Schmetterling?”

I kept walking. I wasn’t heading to the main forum stage. Sequoia had taken over a private suite beneath the Belvédère Hotel—tucked past a fake “Maintenance” sign anddown a corridor that smelled like old power and new lies.

A junior associate from Sequoia stepped in my path.

“Do you have a meeting?”

“No,” I said. “You called me.”

He blinked. Before he could speak, a voice from down the hall broke the tension.

“Wyoming Schmetterling! as I live and breathe.”

The Founder of Sequoia. The man who once called me a visionary. Or batshit crazy. I forget which.

“What in God’s name have you done now?”

“I trademarked Sequoia Capitol™,” I replied. “Waited for your lawyers to send a cease and desist. And that’s exactly what they did.”

“I know that, Wy—but why?” the Founding Partner said.

He exhaled, looked me over, saw the state I was in. “Everyone said you were off in the wilderness somewhere outside Cheyenne. We thought you’d…”

“Lost my mind?” I offered.

He shrugged. Didn’t deny it.

“I have a pitch,” I say. “You’ll want to hear this one. Biggest ROI you’ve ever seen.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“Well—a different kind of ROI.”

I paused.

“It’s not for you... It’s for the world.”

He opened the door to their private suite and motioned for me to take a seat at the head of the conference room table.

2 years earlier. The Polo Lounge at the Beverly Hills Hotel, California.

“What other books are you working on?” I asked Dr. Jack Spelling, our first meeting.

He hesitated. “Can’t say much. It’s about a multibillion-dollar startup that reinvented the lodging industry.”

“Oh, they did it backwards,” I said. “I want to write the story of the billion-dollar unicorn before we build it. The world doesn’t have 20 years to rebuild community the old-fashioned way.”

He stared at me, trying to decode the space between metaphor and madness.

“Attract the cast of characters through the fictional story,” he finally said. “Then make it true.”

“Exactly. Uber, Amazon, Spotify… in the beginning, all were just words on a page.”

Or, in this case, on an LCD screen in a Sand Hill boardroom.

“The trick is to get them to believe it,” Jack said.

“That’s where you come in.”

Back in Davos. 15 minutes later.

We sat in a silent, windowless boardroom. A pot of stale coffee faintly steamed between us.

I placed a worn manuscript on the table. Its edges were gilded, its pages stained by time and intention. A single card—heavy, gold, impossible—slipped out.

The Founder stared at it like it might explode.

“It’s not just a book,” I said. “It’s a movement—one that might even become a miracle, if we let it.”He didn’t smile.

“It’s called The Ridiculous, Staggering, Whimsical World of Songa. It’s a living script for a novel way of life.”

I let the words linger.

“It’s everything we forgot capitalism could be.”

Apparently, word of its circulation, and the economic heresy within its page, had reached him. He was none too please, but still turned the book over slowly. The cover shimmered—part gospel, part prank.

“What do you want me to do with it?”

“Read it. Share it. Tear it apart if you must. But don’t ignore it.”

I paused.

“Just don’t confirm to them I’m behind it. Or they wouldn’t receive it. I don’t need this win. Our kids do. The world does.”

He tapped the golden ticket.

“What’s this?”

“Access,” I said. “To something new. A different kind of seed round. One thousand copies. Ten thousand dollars each. Every book is a share. Every ticket is a key.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You’re a multi, multi-millionaire, Wyoming. What the hell do you need seed money for?”

“I don’t need money,” I replied. “I need belief.”

I leaned forward.

“I need you to believe the story. I need you to believe me. One last time.”

The word hung between us like a dare.

I’d spent years trying to prove myself to the world. Now, I came to serve it.

“We’ve spent decades building platforms that divide. Systems that reward anger, distraction, and disconnection. This…” I nodded at the book, “…is the start of a platform that heals.”

He said nothing.

“We’re not crowdfunding,” I said. “We’re crowddreaming. To make this work, we must leave blanks in our story—so others can find theirs in it.”

I slid the manuscript toward him.

“This isn’t about investment. It’s about involvement.”

He looked tired. Curious. Still skeptical.

“Someone’s going to buy in,” I said. “Not because they want a return—but because they want redemption.”

I stood up.

“One patron. One billionaire willing to become the bank—offering liquidity to a peer-powered, creative community of culture capitalists, artists, and families. Someone ready to stop running away from this planet—and start daring to invest in a world worth racing toward.”

He glanced at the clock. “They’re calling the room to order.”

“Good,” I said. “That means we’re right on time.”

He slipped the ticket into his jacket.

“And who’s presenting this madness?”

I paused at the door.

“Forbes,” I said. “My brother.”

Then I left toward the great hall of The World Economic Forum. It was time.

Ready for more? ACT 3 is free — scroll down 👇

🎭 Meet the cast shaping the story.

Some appear in other Substacks too—like Lewis Blues from The Happy Studio, a partner in the world of Songa at 🎙️ thehappystudio.org

Follow his blog and more:

🧢 ex-billionaire.org
🌍 theworldofsonga.com

Then continue the journey below:

The “Happy” Studio @ the Home of SONGA.FM

Lewis Blews

Lewis Blues is the Musical Heartbeat Behind the Music Reawakening the Hearts of America's Heartland @Happy Studios…

Read more

a year ago · Jack Ebstein