Mindy Tsonas Choi

What if our businesses were tools for liberation & social change? In the world of mainstream business & marketing, profits and growth come first, people are "followers" and commodities, and speed is the name of the game. We are sold programs and tactics designed to exploit, manipulate, and coerce people into buying our offerings. We're encouraged to "charge what we're worth", as if human beings have a price tag. The language of empire building is normalized and even celebrated (though as Pam Slim explores in her new book, "The Widest Net," empires are only ever good for the people at the very top). The "experts" - usually rich, white, cis, thin, able-bodied folks with huge podcasts - assure us that wealth and success are on the other side of their dazzling, testimonial-laden program and rarely do we hear anything about addressing inequity, power, or tending to the state of the world. Deep down, we know this way of doing business i

Our next make-your-own card adventure is finally here! Inner Alchemy Collage: Build A New World Deck (online) is an artful exploration of language, learning, inspiration, and collaboration, that delves into important ideas around activism and systems of oppression. This is a way for us to examine and disrupt harmful dominant narratives, tell new stories, and inspire one another to use our creativity and personal power to help build the collective world we all want to live in! In the end you will have a beautiful and meaningful handmade deck of 35 oracle cards to use as unique a tool for guidance and reflection whenever you need it.  I'm your host,  Mindy Tsonas Choi , an artist, organizer, radical belonging activist, and the founder of the Be Seen Project - a grassroots initiative resourcing BIPOC artist and makers working in activism. Join me along with other stellar artists, makers and co-creators who have also been exploring social justice and activism as part of their creativ

  Because your worthiness is not a commodity that can be bought or sold. As long as we attach any of our human value to what we produce and create, we will always be selling ourselves short. This is the extraction of capitalism deeply embedded in our culture. This is also the doorway in to disrupt the harm it causes. The shift is relational, and de-centering profit. It is founded in our commitment to invest in ourselves, our happiness, our well-being, our wild ideas, our creative process, our unique perspectives, our wholeness and healing, and owning our value from the ground up. Grassroots nurturing and care. When we put the relationship with ourselves first, we can then invite others to invest in our potential as well, and not just buy our stuff. Can you feel the subtle difference? When we truly see the inherent value in ourselves, it also allows us to see the same innate value in others. This is core to dismantling systems.  The things we make are the fruits of our labor, but they a

a Poem by Jena Schwartz

You, my community, are really so amazing. Which is why I want to create things that are connective, intimate, inspiring, thought provoking, mold breaking, useful, impactful, reciprocal, and especially joy-giving. If this last year has taught me anything, it’s that we absolutely need each other. So... this is me opting out of what no longer serves. I’m doing things differently and turning capitalism on its head. And it’s an experiment we will co-create together! I want to talk about hard things and nurture trust. I want to create experiences from a place of passion and care, not from a place of production, exclusion or exhaustion. Most of all, I want everyone who wants to come along to be a part of the work. Welcome to my new Patreon Portal - it’s free and always will be - and it’s probably not what you’re used to seeing on that platform. I’m breaking the mold to use it to open source my work all in one place. To join, all you have to do is be present. If you throw a few dollars into

As someone who use to sell belonging and believed I was creating something universally magical , I now have fresh eyes on the harm that I once caused. I understand what can (and was) incredibly healing and impactful for some, was at the same time excluding, marginalizing and undervaluing others. First, to anyone who ever felt like they did not belong to anything I created because they were unable to afford it or felt like they did not have the social capitol to join -  I am sincerely sorry for not seeing you sooner .   To our entire creative community as a whole, I urge us all to think about belonging in new and equitable ways, and to do the work of dismantling these hierarchical structures that leave so many people out of the circle. We all deserve to have access to creativity and belonging, and I'd go so far as to say both are fundamental basic human needs and rights. Selling belonging can look like... Creating spaces and experiences that can only be accessed by buying in at one,