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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10 months 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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10 months 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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10 months 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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10 months 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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10 months 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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9 months 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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10 months 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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10 months 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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10 months 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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10 months 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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10 months 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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10 months 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…

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10 months 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…

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10 months ago · Wyoming

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