Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Zachary Weaver. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Zachary, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?

Starting a new age of global prosperity and joy. I want to create a new world in which every person has the autonomy to enjoy what they enjoy easily, to do what they love, to do what they feel they’re here to do, and to find out what that is. I hope to co-create a world in which every person has more than enough income, so that they feel they have all the freedom and security they need to pursue their dreams, to create freely, and to share their gifts with the world.

Zachary, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am the founder of the Creative Wealth Community (www.creativewealthcommunity.com), an online community on Mighty Networks dedicated to enjoying what we enjoy easily, creating our happy level of income, and sharing our gifts. We are a brave space for people to talk about the way that they want to create income, how they want to define wealth, and the way they want to exist in the world. We are nonjudgmental, and we support people in pursuing the paths that feel right for them, even if the rest of us don’t see the way.

In 2017, I started channeling an energy named Matthias. This energy brought me tremendous peace and joy and infinite creativity. As I worked with this energy and allowed this energy to co-create with others, I came to the conclusion that one of the primary impediments to spiritual growth, to self-growth and expansion, was a lack of income and financial security. As I pondered this, I assessed that in many cases the ways for people to obtain income were inconsistent with their desires for what they wanted to be. Obvious models for creating income were inconsistent with people’s values and what they wanted to share with the world.

During this time, I was deeply inspired by Andrew Yang running for president, with universal basic income as the core policy of his campaign. I thought, “Wow, I need to be this daring!” Unconditional income would allow individuals to pursue all that they believe in, be all that they are, and align with their highest principles. I imagined people having entirely unconditional incomes (which I called empowerment incomes), crowdsourced from the people who believed in them. We’ve now branded the idea of a crowdsourced income of $1,000 a month as community-launched basic income. And one of my favorite services that I offer is unconditional income consultation. I have a wealth of knowledge when it comes to unconditional income, so I advise on whether unconditional income is a good fit for an individual or business. I enjoy advising on the tools and the language that a person can use as they build their own unconditional income.

Independently, but often in conjunction with this service, I offer channeling sessions with Matthias for individuals and groups (www.matthiasconnection.com). These sessions are great for raising an individual’s vibration and expanding their perspective. For those who aren’t familiar with channeling, I like to say that these essentially look like life coaching sessions with a strong emphasis on the individual accessing their own wisdom as they dialogue with Matthias to find the answers and the questions that they’re looking for.

Another service I love offering to people in the community is wealth optimization. I show them on a spreadsheet how to start measuring wealth by the number of days that they can enjoy their preferred reality. I like thinking about wealth in this way because I find it more grounding and less stressful than only thinking about wealth as money. I also offer suggestions for how people can save money in recurring ways while enjoying the same quality of life—sometimes even a better quality of life! For anyone who simply wants to feel more organized with their finances, this is a great way to let someone else do the initial heavy lifting. And I’ll always talk about it with you in a gentle way. Finances can be stressful, and they’re an extremely vulnerable subject for many people. It’s important to me that people have someone to talk with who’s not going to be critical or pushy. I especially love working with people who have just come into a lot of money unexpectedly (like people who have inherited wealth, but I would love to work with someone who’s won the lottery). A lot of people become afraid they’re going to lose everything. I love saying, “You have more money than you ever practically dreamed of. You’re going to be okay. Let’s look at this in an organized way so you can visualize just how okay you are.” When people feel better about their money, they tend to make better decisions with it.

Ultimately, I seek to solve the problem of self-acceptance in society. Right now, people are told to be something else in order to find success and fit in. We have no interest in that. I believe that the answers are in the people, the individuals who make up society. The answers cannot be dictated to the individuals by society. The answers must emerge. And I am here to validate individuals and empower them to be all that they want to be.

I think what sets this movement apart is that I am endlessly patient with individuals, even as I demand dramatic systemic and cultural transformation. I have a very long-term vision. We work with each other to find solutions to immediate problems, while consistently reminding each other to bring that vision into the present, to act as if we are living in the world that we dream of. I don’t get lost in the details and the stress of the way things are. I advocate for less stress. I advocate for a new way of being, and you get to decide what that is for you.

I am exceptionally proud of all of the amazing people and organizations this movement has connected with. I am proud of myself for speaking and being in a way that resonates with these world-changers. It inspires me that these people choose to be a part of our community without much incentive and without any pressure. I also want to talk about our partner organization, Democracy in a Box (democracyinabox.us). With them, I consult on hosting easy to moderate civil conversations, which we believe to be a foundation of civic education and engagement. We also have a Design Your Own Internship program, which allows interns to customize as many aspects of their internship as they want to, including having a big say in the direction of our organization. I’m very proud of this one. We do all of this in partnership with Rotary Clubs, using their legendary Four-Way Test to guide all that we think, say, and do.

Finally, what I would most like readers to know is that if you’re reading this, you are free now. You are free now to use anything I am doing, to duplicate it with or without my permission or involvement. You are free to share anything that you love about what I’m doing. And you are free to do it differently as well. You cannot get it wrong, and you cannot step on my toes. The world is big enough for all of us. Please, create the world you envision.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

When I first started the Creative Wealth Community, I planned to charge a fee for membership. And in short order, I realized that this was something I was only trying to do to make it more acceptable or marketable—except that it was more difficult for me to market because it was out of alignment with my own values.

So, I returned to a principle that I call All You Love to Give, which is, for simplicity’s sake, a version of pay what you want. I truly believe that whenever possible, people should have the freedom to give what they actually want to give, rather than introducing an experience of exchange that is for me in most cases an experience of me withholding. So, I pivoted to inviting people to contribute to my unconditional income on the Ko-fi crowdfunding platform. In fact, for all of the services and creations I offer, this is what I tell people:

“Everything I do, I do for free or All You Love to Give, which is any amount of anything at any time to anyone. And my favorite gifts to receive are monthly donations through my Ko-fi page because they help stabilize my income. If you decide to give me a monthly donation through my Ko-fi page (ko-fi.com/zacharyweaver), I would like you to choose an amount that feels REALLY good to you (and you can change the amount or cancel the donation at any time).”

Making the Creative Wealth Community free allows me to welcome everyone I encounter, and that’s the way I like it.

Alright – let’s talk about marketing or sales – do you have any fun stories about a risk you’ve taken or something else exciting on the sales and marketing side?

So, one risk that we took was putting community-launched basic income at the front and center of our community. As we made the shift, we felt that it was important to have one really strong example of people who have unconditional income and who are actively creating the new world with it.

Sam and Luci Williams are transcendent musicians and global community leaders (ko-fi.com/samandluci). They have navigated the last several years of their life without much income while still managing to inspire and change the lives of countless people all around the world. I knew they really were the perfect people to demonstrate the liberating power of unconditional income.

But this was still something that, with the exception of Scott Santens raising a basic income for himself while advocating for universal basic income, has never been done before. Challenging every social norm around money and income and what a business model can be is a huge risk. I’m really appreciative of this question because I honestly think I forget how much of a risk this was. My conviction in unconditional income is so strong that I really just saw this as fear that I needed to overcome. I’m so grateful to Luci and Sam for taking this risk with me, because it’s definitely paid off.

I think a big challenge with unconditional income at this early stage is that it requires the person to strengthen their self-worth to even open up to receiving it. There were plenty of other ideas, plenty of other ways that Sam and Luci could pursue money. But I asked them to remember that with unconditional income, they would be able to create all of the things they want to create without needing to build up a different revenue stream each time—something I feel is vital for the momentum we need to create the new world. This is in addition to all of the other benefits, such as the ability to stay in alignment with their highest values.

Our goal was to get them to $2,000 a month. That’s $1,000 a month each, which matches the amount of Andrew Yang’s Freedom Dividend policy. Recently, they reached $2,408 a month! I felt absolutely elated. I was amazed because it required so much less outreach and so much less asking than I imagined. What it really took to create this income was Luci and Sam becoming more of themselves as they pursued what they believed in. It came out of them giving all they wanted to give to the people they wanted to connect with. This is exactly the way I hoped it would be.

Ideally, this is what it takes: people becoming more of themselves. This was very powerful confirmation of everything I believed to be the case with unconditional income. The process has really been a process of talking ourselves into this reality in which we value ourselves for all that we are instead of for only a few select things that we do. It’s been a series of conversations where we reinforced the knowing that this will be helpful to so many people, and that Luci and Sam will be leaders in championing this income, inspiring others to do it for themselves and building trust in humanity as we go.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.creativewealthcommunity.com
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU51pODdxa_A1YWW8hz1SHA
• Other: Matthias website: www.matthiasconnection.com Zachary Weaver’s Ko-fi page: ko-fi.com/zacharyweaver Sam and Luci Williams’ Ko-fi page: ko-fi.com/samandluci Democracy in a Box website: democracyinabox.us

Image Credits
Kirk Decker