Ten years ago, the author was poised for an executive career in finance but was exploring questions about reality, human life, and how economics intersected with our wisdom traditions. The author was struck by scientific findings of our interconnectedness yet found that business rewarded outcomes antithetical to human well-being and unity with nature. The author felt shame for being in business but came to see how capitalism has improved over four waves, with the emerging fourth wave of purpose-driven enterprises that account for authenticity and reconcile business and human unity.

1. Ten years ago, I was at a crossroads. I had developed a lucrative skill set
in finance, strategy, and business development, earned an Ivy League
MBA, and was poised to become a world-beating executive. However, I
had also begun an exploration into the nature of reality via the lenses
of physics, psychology, ecology, and our wisdom traditions. I wanted to
understand how best practices for human life intersected with economics
and how my life could include both.
THE FOURTH WAVE OF CAPITALISM
BY BRANDON PEELE
I was most struck by the conclusions of unity arrived at in
atmospheric sciences made us interdependent; Big History
gave us a shared genesis story that Wikipedia continues to
record; Ken Wilber’s integral philosophy unites matter, ideas,
individuals, and collectives; neuroscience gave us a social
brain and empathy neurons; and economics wrapped our plan-
et in a tight web of trade and currency policy. We no longer
had to take mystics like Rumi and Whitman at their word.
on the verge of full realization of this oneness, with one major
holdout - business.
I found that our economy rewarded outcomes (long hours,
low wages, ecocide, ROI) antithetical to the now evident
access to organic food, clean air and water, healthcare and
liberal arts education, leisure time for community, art, civic
children now qualify for school lunches), versus the ecolo-
versus women (earning $0.80 for every dollar a man earns),
versus African Americans (earning $0.59 for every dollar a
white person earns), and versus science itself (climate change
denial). When confronted with this reality, I suddenly felt
shame for being a businessperson. Was I on the wrong side of
history?
However, it would be history itself that would make this
business-versus-reality war make sense, too. I needed to
include the vector of time to appreciate how capitalism is ac-
tually improving, inching ever closer to reconciling itself with
Over the last 400 years, humanity has been transformed by
three waves of capitalism. Currently we are experiencing the
fourth wave: purpose. Each wave incorporates more unity,
accounting for more types of capital and more of our best
ital), and ecology (accounting for ecological capital). The pur-
pose wave (accounting for authenticity) includes the previous
waves, and ushers in a new, more personal economic model.
THE FIRST WAVE: FREE ENTERPRISE
transforming humanity into a web of capitalist democracies.
tive culture and the belief that free enterprise can and should
disrupt antiquated power structures.
THE SECOND AND THIRD WAVES: LABOR & ECOLOGY
The next two waves addressed capitalism’s major faults,
(the Green movement, 1910 to present). The lasting gifts of
the second wave are collective bargaining, worker-owned co-
laws, and anti-discrimination laws. The lasting gifts of the
third wave are conservation, renewable energy, sustainabil-
ity, climate change diplomacy, ecological accounting, green
businesses, and government agencies that regulate pollution.
THE IMPERFECT STORM
These three waves are still crashing, still transforming our
Bolivia), then nature (e.g., in Brazil). Each country yearns for
about in the storm of these cross-currents.
America, for example, is still enmeshed in second-wave
struggles as it underpays women and minorities, as the mid-
dle class evaporates, and as unemployment and wage slavery
persist. America is also engaged in third wave struggles at
home and abroad over climate change, fracking, depleted soil
pollution, and mass extinctions - realities that threaten the
foundation upon which capitalism and all of humanity depend.
And yet we feel another wave crashing on our shores.
LEADERSHIP
SUMMER 15 | 109

2. Brandon Peele is the Founder of The EVR1
Institute (http://EVR1.co), where he helps people,
groups and corporations find, live, and profit
from their purpose. The EVR1 Institute recently
launched a global purpose activation project,
PlanetPurpose.org, to deliver free education
and tools to answer the question,”What is my
life’s purpose?” To celebrate August, Global
Purpose Month, please explore The 21-Day
Purpose Challenge, a global purpose discovery
program and online community committed
to finding, living and profiting from their life’s
purpose. www.planetpurpose.org
1
2
3
A business that is the bridge be-
tween one’s soul and the world,
rendering the words “work” and
“retirement”
meaningless.
A holistic, generative, and
soul-centric enterprise -
in relationship to all of
humanity, the unborn,
and biodiversity.
A business that if not
created, would make the life
of the entrepreneur not worth
living.
THE FOURTH WAVE: PURPOSE-DRIVEN ENTERPRISES
capitalism - the failure to account for authenticity and pur-
pose and for humanity’s creative and psychological capital.
The fourth wave is the transacting of business on the basis of
authenticity, the creation of sustainable, equitable, and prof-
itable Purpose-Driven Enterprises (PDEs), thus honoring the
personally meaningful.
DEFINITION OF A
PURPOSE-DRIVEN ENTERPRISE:
A PDE begins with the purpose of the founders, who treat
their business as spiritual practice and, in so doing, treat
their customers, employees, nature, and partners as gods.
Increasingly, people are choosing to do business on the basis
of purpose and authenticity, of soul resonance, and of a
Edelman, creator of the goodpurpose project, declares that
“purpose is the new paradigm.”
The purpose economy is not comprised of old businesses
Komen pink-washing natural gas fracking), but businesses
that share a common genesis story - the sacred purpose of
1956). Patagonia is the soulful expression of its founder,
Yvon Chouinard, to create great gear for its customers while
marching forward to increase human dignity (see his book,
plants (traceable goose down).
Numerous other PDEs include Clif Bar and New Belgium
Brewing, as well as the up-swell in small-scale PDEs and
worker-owned cooperatives crafting local, sustainable goods
and services. Yet this wave is only beginning, as Gallup’s
devoid of purpose and meaning.
In the long run, a PDE is the only enjoyable way of doing
business and having a long-term competitive advantage,
what marketers have historically called the “brand of you,”
allowing each of us to give away our greatest gifts and to be
fully self-expressed, engaged, and creative at work.
HOW TO SURF THE WAVE
To surf this purpose wave as consumers, investors, and
employees, we should choose companies that are driven by
purpose. As entrepreneurs, we should:
1.) Embark upon purpose discovery work by reading and
getting coached through the exercises in “True Purpose” by
Tim Kelley, an MIT-educated former Silicon Valley executive
approach, please check out Rick Warren’s “Purpose-Driven
Life,” or for a more Eastern approach, Rod Stryker’s “Four
Desires.”
2.) Develop a broad contextual understanding of psychology
and ecology and economics so that your PDE includes,
3.) Build a community of purpose-driven, high-integrity
peers whose goal is to support you in living truthfully, fully,
and on purpose, and cultivate networks of other purpose-
driven entrepreneurs via Bioneers and Net Impact.
If you choose this path of purpose, you not only open yourself
become a leader in the evolution of our species, reconcil-
ing business with the unity embedded in our sciences and
Your career will become an authentic, cogent, and inspiring
answer to the question your grandchildren are sure to ask:
“How did you live truthfully and create a more equitable,
sustainable, and peaceful human presence?”
LEADERSHIP
110 | SUMMER 2015