Dr Wyoming Schmetterling

The ‘Keeper of the Flame’ at the Millionaire’s Campfire

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

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.

But you can call me 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 that’s being written before your very eyes, and ears, at songa.live, the social change game that saved the Soul of Business– and St Louis (with music), songa.me.

Long before my 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