The brafe.space Approach by Joana Breidenbach
At this year’s brafe.space Camp I spoke about the very specific brafe.space approach. A number of people approached me afterward and told me that my description had greatly helped them to intuitively understand what brafe.space was all about. They asked me if I could convert my spoken words into a blog post. Here it is. Of course, not verbatim, but following loosely the arguments made.
At brafe.space we have a mission. It states: to create space for entrepreneurs to evolve themselves, their organizations, and society
Our initial impulse
Our initial impulse as (now 8) co-founders and co-creators to come together was two-fold: we had all had negative experiences with abusive leadership, unhealthy organizational cultures, cut-throat competition, overreaching funders. But we also all had some very positive experiences: with empowering and distributed leadership, holistic company cultures, and co-creative dialogues between founders, funders, and partners. Based on the latter, we felt inspired to create and support new forms of entrepreneurship and innovation. We wanted to explore what it means to be a different kind of entrepreneur, to shape vibrant organizations, and to contribute to the world in a much more meaningful and effective way.
Our understanding of the status quo
When looking at our own lives and the world, we notice that we are as busy as never before but totally stuck, what Ivo Mensch at the British think tank Perspectiva has called “frantic inertia”. Many of us experience the paradox that while there is a lot of movement and activity, this often leads to little or no progress or transformation. We are hyperactive and yet stuck. We follow an incessant drive for more - doing more, achieving more, buying more, knowing more, communicating more. But all that doesn’t lead to substantive action, deep fulfillment, or a better society.
Instead, we are confronted with a number of meta-crises - on all levels. On the global level we have the climate catastrophe, but also any number of other looming existential risks nobody is able to control, from bio-weapons to the rise of new forms of artificial intelligence. On the societal level we see - amongst others - an ever-increasing fragmentation and polarisation, the rise of authoritarian regimes and strong men. In the world of work, we see perverse levels of extraction and many employees and leaders are de-motivated and burned out. Finally, on the individual level,
we are confronted with a deluge of symptoms: from the loneliness epidemic and mental health breakdowns to a general atmosphere of exhaustion, anger, and sadness.
But regardless of our hectic activities, we seem to be unable to adequately respond to all these real-life dangers.
Now. let’s assume that stuckness is a symptom of transformation. That we are in the middle of the birthing pains of one world - the old industrial age, centered around nation-states, and values such as productivity and hyperindividualism, - coming to an end and breaking down, while a new world is struggling to come into existence. In such a transition, our efforts to “change” or even “save” the world with the tools at hand are doomed to fail, because: How could we solve the problems created by our current way of thinking, being, and doing with the same tool set? Of course, we need an update to our tools, new thought patterns, new ways of being and acting. The question we ask ourselves at brafe.space is: How can we as entrepreneurs - both for-profit and non-profit, funders and founders - help the truely NEW into the world? What role can we play in this deep societal shift?
Our Theory of Change - Include more
Three years ago, we started brafe.space with the conviction that our world is in the state it is in because we ignore and exclude whole areas of reality. But reality is whole and all parts want to be seen and included, otherwise, they show up in tensions, pathologies, and crises. Our premise is that we have excluded large parts of who we are as human beings - mainly our vulnerable and tender parts. But if we don’t acknowledge, include, and value them, they haunt us in the shape of depression, anger, and emptiness.
We (and this “we” refers to privileged people like myself) have excluded large parts of society - basically everyone who didn’t fit into the narrative of the mainstream, white, achievement-oriented middle-class society. Among the excluded: people of colour, from working-class backgrounds, people who are neurodiverse or with disabilities. But we all are paying a price for this exclusion. The excluded in the form of poverty and pain, despair and shame. The privileged (a much lesser prize) in the form of numbness and emotional emptiness, which accompanies doing harm (even if unintentionally and unconsciuosly).
And we have, of course, excluded huge parts of nature from our political and economic processes. We have forgotten that we ARE nature and instead exploited and destroyed our environment in an unprecedented way.
But what can we do to counteract this exclusion? Contrary to our first reaction, the antidote to exclusion is not inclusion, but a deeper acknowledgement of exclusion. Because exclusion is so deeply ingrained in our (mainstream) identity, that we mistake it for “normality”. We are like fish in water, not seeing that water is a very special substance (check out Derek Foster Wallace’s beautiful commencement speech from 2005 “This is water”).
At brafe.space we explore what we are sitting and living in. How exclusion operates in us. We ask what is my current experience? What can I relate to - in myself, in others, in the world? And what do I need to exclude (because it threatens my sense of identity/ safety etc)? What do I need to keep at a distance, to judge negatively?
Our method of change - First person experience
To explore the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion, we experiment with a very specific approach: we start from first principles. We believe that in order to really re-imagine ourselves, our organizations, and the world, and create something new, we need to start with our first-person experience.
When we come together, we don’t discuss economic theory or social justice ideas, but share our own felt sense of the world. Even though we deeply love our intellect, mental models, and sharp minds, we are equally interested in how we feel and sense. We try to access our own “raw data” - physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually.
So we ask people to join us in an experiment: to suspend our normal ways of interacting, to slow down, to point our attention softly away from our wonderful sharp minds, and instead soften into our body, our emotions and other ways of knowing. Another way of stating this is that we try to speak not “about” ourselves, but “from” ourselves. This can seem awkward at first, because speaking from within is often slower and not so polished. But instead of repeating well-worn phrases, we expect to surprise ourselves with new insights, which feel fresh and true.
There is a very specific reason for this approach: our expanded felt experience of the world is an amazing resource to create something new. To come up with completely new insights and thought patterns. Our self-contact and a deeper self-awareness of our needs and longings, our deep interests and values, is the basis for creating radical new ways of being and doing which are more adequate to who we are as individuals and as a society.
Two superpowers: Relating and multiperspectivity
At brafe.space we focus on 2 competencies: 1. relating to myself in a deeper way and 2. relating to others and being able to hold multiple perspectives.
Why are we interested in how you relate to yourself? Well, it is actually very simple: our bodies and our senses are our gateways into the world, they are the only knowledge instruments we have. But this also means that I can only experience something in the outer world if I have the capacity to experience it in myself. If I can’t feel sadness or anger, I won’t be able to see it in the world. That’s why we are deeply interested in expanding our ability to feel and relate - because only if we feel and relate more will we be able to develop solutions, business models, company cultures, activism strategies, or whatever we are interested in, which can resonate with and include wider parts of the world.
We also explore the interface between ourselves and the things we are trying to shape and change in the world. How do I relate to them and which wider effects am I creating with my behavior and my actions?
It is quite easy to relate to something similar to oneself. So the really interesting question is: how do I relate to difference? To somebody else's perspective, which might be very different from my own? This multiperspectivity is a prerequisite if we want to build stuff, create adequate structures and processes not only for a small niche group but for a complex, multifaceted world.
A mindset of unfoldment
And let me point to one last assumption which we hold: We are not running forward to a specific set of goals and objectives.
While we are deeply interested in actual change and getting things done, we don’t believe that the future can be known from the past. We try to let go of fixed ideas. We hold an intention- include more! - while deeply believing in a mindset of unfoldment. We assume that the present moment holds an evolutionary potential, which we can help to unfold. A bit like a midwife who helps a new consciousness come into the world.
We don’t come together to envision an ideal world - out there, in the future. Change doesn’t come from me being somewhere else, but me being fully here, in the present. So while we sink deeper into ourselves and explore our relationships to each other, we - at the same time - metabolize the wider social, economic and political structures we are part of. We expose old ideas, which don’t serve us anymore. We design and test new structures and processes that may be better adjusted to the dynamics of our current reality. This is a deeply embodied, alchemistical process, through which we might become the change we want to see in the world.
A place for non-action to act better
Processes like this need time and space. Unfolding doesn’t happen faster if we push or pull it. That’s why we at brafe.space create, first and foremost, a SPACE for feeling, sensing, being, and thinking. We resist the entrepreneurial automatism to act and create immediately. But only after we have received fresh and relevant new insights, which have a high potential to make a difference. We are disinterested in productivity for its own sake, but wait for meaningful action to arise. Yes, we do want to manifest new structures and processes. Yes, we do want to change the flow of resources in our entrepreneurial ecosystems. But only after we have received truly new information from our inner selves, each other, and the world. Anything else would just be a prolongation of a past no longer adequate for the challenges we are facing and the longing we are feeling.
As the Nigerian philosopher and poet Bajo Akomolafe so beautifully puts it: Times are urgent, so let us slow down.