The Rise of the Hybrid Entrepreneur (Part 1 )

2021 – not just any old New Year.

A page has turned in history.

For almost a year, we have been feeling it on multiple levels.

For almost a year, we’ve watched it evolve on our multiple screens.

For almost a year, we have observed and felt the effects on our lives.

That was just the beginning.

Like myself, if you are conscious entrepreneurs, heart and mission-led changemakers, philanthropists, innovators, and movement-makers, we will probably be feeling like the lucky ones.

Considering all of the work we have done on ourselves over the years and our heart-intelligent approach to life, it is likely you, like me, are indeed feeling stirred, optimistic, inspired, possibly excited.

Maybe you’re even feeling a weight lifting, a sense of imminent renewal – even a sense of being re-born? Correct. That is exactly what is happening. You’re in the right place now.

It’s your time.

With so many companies and individuals pivoting in their careers and systems during this momentous ‘COVID fallout’ time, we are gradually realising that a conventional and reliable way to earn a livelihood no longer exists.

Technology has exploded that possibility wide open for us. By necessity, humankind is accelerating re-invention of the way it does business.

The online world – commerce, industry, social community and cultural structure is a leviathan environment. It is transforming the way we live, learn, earn, spend, socialise, entertain ourselves. It is replacing old, outworn institutions. Evolution itself is online.

Given Mother Nature’s response to our confinement and the upsurge in entrepreneurship and innovation, the developments that are happening hold promise both for people and the planet.

Look around you – the world will never be the same, and it is a good thing. It is even a wonderful thing.

Why?

Because we are reliving an upturn in human evolution. Right now, astrological conjunctures and all, there begins a cycle that has occurred many times in history – a revolution that ends with a catastrophe and shifts paradigm, into something new, expansive and evolutionary.

During the middle ages, a period that we recognise as occurring between ancient Rome’s fall in 476 A.D. and the beginning of the 14th century, Europeans made few advances in science and art.

Often referred to as the “Dark Ages,” that era was recorded as a time of upheaval, war, ignorance, famine, pandemics such as the plague, leprosy and the black death, having a massive impact on the global population.

But that epoch gave rise to a crucial paradigm shift in many parts of the civilised world – a rebirth or ‘Renaissance’.

The Renaissance Period was a catalytic period of European cultural, artistic, political and economic rebirth. It was the era that paved the way for the modern world as we know it,  to emerge.

Maybe you can feel the change too. Could it be that you are experiencing this pivoting time as a kind of renaissance? A rebirth?

That feeling is not anodyne.

The Renaissance period was one of the most expansive times in history.

During that period, the wisdom, innovations, arts, medicine and sciences of Ancient Rome and Greece (and even the far East of Asia) were explored; from architecture to mysticism, language, behaviour, invention, people were hungry to embrace a whole new universe of knowledge, culture and customs that would shine ideas and philosophies that would transform the dark ages.

The very notions of study, expanding culture, art and embracing new wisdom became a desirable virtue as a lifestyle.

Not just for scholars, but for any humble layman who had the wits to recognise the opportunities that lay in developing their personal life, and in consequence, human advancement.

This was the beginning of personal development for Europe!

What followed were several hundreds of years of immense cultural and societal expansion – forming the foundations of the modern age.

Yet, as history is cyclical and mankind pretty predictable, we had dived into darkness once again. For many years, despite so-called progress in science and technology, we have been living through a dark age.

As individuals, each of us has become aware of the impact that that dark age has had on our species and on the planet. We’ve witnessed the emergence of horrors of all kinds. Let’s not go there.

We know.

And this is New Year and a New Age.

We have been through these dark ages for several years, culminating in the latest pandemic and yet, giving birth to a new era of light and expansion.

Much of Humanity has at last united to address and transform our most urgent problems. I spoke earlier of these feelings of optimism and expansion rising in people’s hearts and energy; these are signs that a new Renaissance is occurring.

So, why is all this so important for you as an entrepreneur or business CEO?

It is because we are entering a new Renaissance Age!

The new humanist sciences (many of which are ancient) are becoming the bedrock of business innovation and human potential movement.

Among these are quantum physics, epigenetics, neuroscience and neuropsychology (to name but a few), all of which explain how our biological and psychological functions contribute to our personal and collective evolution.

Then there are massive shifts in our economic structure.

Business must now consider its social and planetary responsibilities and its contribution to the needs of its global citizens. (Yes, ‘Big Pharma’ is a bit slow on this).

In this new business ecosystem, individual entrepreneurs are the pioneers.

Women and the millennial generation are forming the new leaders of that ecosystem.

The formerly disparate worlds of metaphysics and business are now harmonising into new ideals where we openly esteem our human potential to be an entity of immense value.

The new models of success and fulfilment embrace our nature as a multi-faceted being, innately connected with the whole of humankind and our planetary ecosystem.

Media, beauty, creativity, aestheticism, music, and the performing arts have never been so revered and accessible to all since the original Renaissance period.

I predict that the new business model will be infused with many of these arts!

So let’s look at themes of the modern Renaissance and how it echoes the last great Renaissance:

• an explosion of new knowledge about how our universe works
• a revived collective social and planetary conscience
• a restored desire to ‘be the change’ and not part of the problem
• a rise of motivation and multitudinous possibilities for humans to develop themselves and seek fulfilled lives
• an escalation in our desire to live in our whole great nature – mind, body and spirit, and fulfil all of our potential
• a gradually improving tolerance of religious, racial and gender differences
• a genuine yearning for a sense of connection to our humankind
• an upsurge in philanthropy and sharing of resources for underprivileged populations
• since 1950, average global life expectancy has continued to rise.

What was previously considered a normal retirement age is now the dawn of a whole new era of expansive lifestyle.

Now, twenty-somethings are the new gurus, and sixty-somethings are the new forty-somethings!

Inequality, war, disease, hunger, political and religious polarity – these challenges will continue to beset us as a human race, for as long as planet earth puts up with our nonsense and abuse.

However, a new age is dawning.

An era in which the opportunities listed above will all contribute to our potential success as an entrepreneur or company, each and every one of them.

Now, here’s the most exciting part of this revolution for you and me.

It’s time to claim and explore the incredible potential of being a New Renaissance man or woman – a polymath.

A polymath is an individual who is knowledgeable and talented in multiple subjects; he or she can unify ideas from numerous fields to solve intractable problems.

One of the most famous examples of this was Leonardo Da Vinci.

He was most famous as an artist, but he was also a scientist, engineer and mathematician.

Another Renaissance man was Michelangelo, who was a sculptor painter, architect and poet.

These exceptional men characterised the spirit of the Great Renaissance Age.

But they were not the first; Aristotle, the Greek philosopher, studied and wrote about many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theatre, music, logic, rhetoric, politics, government, ethics, biology and zoology.

More recent famous polymaths include Einstein, Jefferson, Churchill, and dozens more from eclectic backgrounds.

But look around you; isn’t the internet and business just chock full of polymaths?

Elon Musk has been cited as one, so has Will I Am.

I would propose that many Silicon Valley executives are polymaths too. And just about every modern entrepreneur under the sun.

But a few criteria have changed:

We are no longer prepared to sacrifice parts of our life for our livelihood. (If we are wise!)

We need to become skilled in many, many diverse aspects of running a business to succeed.

The more facets of our talents, knowledge, and personality we bring into our enterprise, the more satisfying, fun and rewarding are our days!

We live in an age where we can be, do and have anything we put our focus and energy on. We can have it all.

Let’s welcome in that freedom and renewal with this new year.

And let’s truly become all that we are – nothing left out.

It is time to become a new Renaissance Man or Woman.

I like to call this the ‘Hybrid Entrepreneur’.

It’s our time to rise – for the good of all, by using the whole spectrum of our skills, gifts and talents.

It’s our time to rise in personal wholeness, mind, body and soul coherent, for the good of planetary wholeness.

This new Renaissance world is our oyster.

Let’s create pearls.

Jenni Parker Brown

In part 2 of this series, Jenni Parker Brown builds on our capacity to be a multipotentialite.

Why it is key to adapting to the new business environment and why it leads us to work in our genius zone. Coming next month.