I was in New Mexico recently and got to have lunch with Chip at the great farm-to-table restaurant Los Poblanos. I was updating him on the projects I had created since retiring, including the Gratitude Dojo and The Appreciation Effect. Chip looked at me, paused for a moment, and said, “You’re a grace entrepreneur!”
The phrase struck me. Back in 2022, I attended MEA’s “Soul of Money” workshop, with the extraordinary Lynne Twist. In it, she asked us to consider dedicating our skills, energy, and life experience in the second of our lives to the “social profit sector.” She called upon us to be “social prophets” – people who speak a social vision, and enact it.
Lynne continued: “What do you stand for? A stand is when you let go of your own point of view, and you rise up and see it all. Stand takers in history change things. They take a stand that is greater than they can do themselves. They stand for something that can’t be accomplished in their lifetime. Stand takers do not have a position of authority. They stand outside of it. They stand in their moral authority.”
Lynne asked us to contemplate what we stood for, what social profit could we dedicate our lives towards.
She believes that we ultimately find freedom and fulfillment by living a committed life:
“I have lived what I call a committed life; a life that is governed by my highest commitments, not by my desires. If you live a life of commitment, where you give your word for something larger than yourself, you are constantly in a state of fulfillment. I am not saying that there are no struggles, no problems. It leads you to a life you could never have planned. It does not have anything to do with ambition. It has to do with surrender. You cannot surrender to get that kind of a life because that is cheating. You have to really surrender and somehow it is given to you. When you’re living a committed life, your own small desires start becoming petty. My commitment wakes me up in the morning and tells me what to wear, who to meet with, why to go here or there.“
The commitment I made in that workshop was that I wanted “to help people participate in grace.” As a Franciscan spiritual director, I’ve come to believe that we are drenched in grace, we couldn’t avoid it if we tried. The only choice is whether we choose to see it, and participate in it. I met one of my great friends and mentors, Terces Englehart, on the bus from the airport to my first MEA workshop in Baja. The question she always asks people is “What’s the experience you’re committed to?” My answer is gratitude, which is the only logical answer to grace.
So that’s why Chip’s phrase “grace entrepreneur” struck me. An entrepreneur creates and develops projects to produce profit. And that’s why I do projects like the Appreciation Effect and Gratitude Dojo. It’s to create and develop new and innovative ways for people to participate in grace.
In the second half of our lives, as we transition from ego to soul, we’re all called on to become social prophets. What is the social profit you’re called to create and develop? What commitment residing within you are you willing to commit to? May you discover the wonder of wings, the freedom of flight.
-Douglas
Douglas Tsoi is a former lawyer and Quaker educator. He runs a school of longlife learning called Portland Underground Grad School. He also teaches personal finance and writes the Substack newsletter Money and Meaning.