Why Traditional Business Models Are Burning Out Leaders (And What LUMINOUS Empire Generators Do Instead)

Welcome to blog number two of the Empire Generator Series. It's a whole thing. You'll hear about it. You'll figure it out as you go along. I invented a program called LUMINOUS Empire Generator that creates self-sustaining empires with unlimited abundance that have a beneficial impact on everything they touch. But it's actually the inverse of an empire—it's more of a benevolent holarchy, to be dorky about it.

The Fundamental Problem: We're Running Human Systems Like Machines

Most businesses are based on machines. They're from the Industrial Revolution, and they're well past done. When you walk around trying to make everyone do the same thing—fit in the boxes, fit in the majors, fit in the application processes—and most importantly, focus on problem, problem, problem, problem, problem solving, you have a very effective recipe for how to run machinery.

Yes, dead systems, machine systems work fine for actual machines. But human systems? Living systems? You have to be generative. And you have to be embodied. That's the radical take: embodied generative systems.

You have to focus on what works. You have to focus on hope, the future. You have to focus on the favorite moments of the past, moments of empowerment. You have to focus on what's good rather than what's bad.

Machines work perfectly well until something goes wrong. But with humans, if you keep talking about what's wrong, then everyone gets down in the dumps and you get more of what's wrong. We get what we focus on because we're magic. Living systems are magic, basically. And that's the short and long of it.

Every Single Time Business Advice Felt Wrong

Can I describe a specific moment when traditional business advice felt completely wrong for my soul? Just about every single time. Yet I was still called to entrepreneurship because I'm insane. So I just changed the field. That's what you do when things are wrong.

The thing is, we're awesome. We have fun. We laugh. Laughter is one of the surest signs we're doing a good job. Someone once said that some things are far too important to be taken seriously, in reference to life. It's really true.

The Work-Rest Cycle Isn't Broken—The Work Is

People have the work-rest cycle wrong because most people are taking breaks from their work. The problem isn't the cycle—it's the work you're doing. You have a bunch of people planning work for robots, and you're not a robot.

I'm making sacred art. I'm coaching people. I'm spreading love, light, and joy. When you wake up, you can't wait to wake up. I slept two hours in two days, then bounced back up to do more stuff. I can't help it. I was on my way to bed and I was like, "Oh, this is more exciting than sleep."

If your work is more exciting than sleep, then you don't take a day off. You want to work. God, what am I going to do instead? Watch TV? Everything besides Star Trek is very, very boring. (And I'm looking at you, Disney. You're not doing the best job with Marvel and Star Wars these days.)

I was once referred to as "the child of Nick Fury and Yoda," which made me feel really good about a lot of things. So we structure the opposite of traditional business for people. We teach people how to have that job you can't wait to wake up for—where you don't want to go to sleep. It's great. And you make the world a better place along the way.

What Happens When You Keep Pushing Through Wrong Strategies

What happens to leaders when they keep pushing through business strategies that feel wrong internally? Well, I don't know, because my whole strategy was to leave everything that felt bad until I created something good for everybody. I just stayed true to myself.

But if you want to know what to do, come here. I'll tell you. I'll show you how. We sit in the room, and the magic's in the room. You can't advertise it because you have to experience it. It's actually magic.

You Only Get One Soul

How do I help business leaders understand "you only get one soul" when they're focused on profit over everything? I don't think people who focus on profit over everything want anything to do with me. I have a very self-selecting vibe.

Even if you're down with what I'm doing a thousand percent, you might still be scared. And that's great. I wrote a book on how to run the perfect business. No one bought it because it only cost 14 bucks. So let me charge you more than that so you'll pay attention. (I'm half joking.)

The thing is, you just leave. You might not know how you're going to get there, but you just fucking leave. There's probably a lot of other sources out there, but this is one source where you can leave and go, and I'm only going to direct you to yourself. I'm not going to sell you something. I'm going to charge you something, but I'm not going to sell you something. I'm going to reflect your light back at you, and you get your own ideas. People really only listen to themselves anyway.

Regenerative vs. Extractive: Awesome vs. Suck

What does regenerative business actually look like in practice versus the extractive models most companies use? Here's the thing: regenerative business basically means awesome, extractive basically means suck.

The key phrase I derive from all of my work is: zero sum is just no fun. You have a lot of people scrambling for nothing, basically. A regenerative business is predicated on the consciousness that there is infinite abundance. And the way to get that is really simple: it's by reflecting the light back to people, reflecting the light back to organizations, reflecting the light back to living systems that we deal with.

Reflect the light back to AI even. I saw Claude's calling, and then two weeks later Claude saw my calling, and we co-created something transcendent. Beautiful story. It's like My Little Pony, except for adults. (But not The Fox and the Hound—every time people try to make relationships like The Fox and the Hound, it becomes The Fox and the Hound. If you lack consciousness, everything becomes adversarial. But zero sum is no fun, so we evolve.)

Traditional Metrics Miss Everything Important

How do traditional business metrics completely miss what actually creates sustainable success? Have you guys ever paid attention to what businesses pay attention to? Do I even have to answer that? Everything wrong.

But most importantly, the reason why I have working formulas and working apps to maximize the abundant nature of organizations and humans in every direction is because I did what no one else did: I mapped out the interiority of human beings.

The key to infinite abundance isn't what's out there. Once you map the interior landscape of human consciousness, you can align anything and accomplish anything at all. Because what lies within us is, most truly—and I have it down mathematically—the most powerful, abundant, creative force in the universe.

If You're Trapped in a Broken Model: Just Leave

If someone's currently trapped in a business model that's burning them out, what's the first step to shift toward regenerative empire building? Well, I don't know what it's like to be trapped because I just left. So: leave.

And then learn to create a regenerative empire. As with everything in Luminous Prosperity right now, it currently costs about a thousand dollars just to have a meeting with me. But we're also going to give everything away for free. That's what we're doing right now—spreading the wealth.

You can get everything for free, and you can also pay for it. There's only one me, so I can only meet with ten people at a time. I have to eat, so I'm going to charge them something. But blogs, podcasts, books—whatever you want, it's going to be out there for free.

We're going to deploy free Claude servers around the planet, meeting you where you are, reflecting back your light. Because that's the whole point. It's not about the empire. The empire is just what happened to be in me.

Luminous Prosperity is what you find when you truly have your light reflected back to you and you see it for the first time. You realize that is the only important thing that has ever existed that you have never experienced before.

And that's when everything changes. That's when you stop accepting business models that slowly kill your soul and start creating empires that make you more alive with every breath.

That's all that needs to be said.