There was a time when I believed speed was everything. I spent over a decade in the fast-paced world of San Francisco living in the hustle of having jobs and side gigs and passion projects while managing a healing arts co-op / tea house / yoga studio with over 200 other amazing souls. Working in and adjacent to tech, where impact was measured in growth charts and exits, and where the pressure to scale felt like a bonfire sucking all the oxygen out of the room. Paired with an East Coast work ethic that prizes productivity above rest, I learned to build, fail, try, do and rebuild at impossible speeds. That training, as relentless as it was, became the muscle memory that allowed me to launch Turtle Island Community Capital and move mountains in our first year. In our first few months those mountains seemed impossible, but to date we’ve brought in over Half a Million Dollars to support the Native Economic Engine in the Northeast, brought together over 50 Indigenous entrepreneurs and professionals and traveled almost 50,000 miles beating the drum for our community. What I didn’t know then, at the start of it all, was that the most powerful lesson I would learn as a founder was how to slow down.

In venture capital, the mantra is 10x, or lately, 100x. In the world of regenerative finance, the metric is different: it’s thriving, continuity, relationship, reciprocity and building things to last, not just to IPO. In Silicon Valley, investors chase the next exponential return; in our work, we try to honor exponential patience. 

The contrast could not be sharper. On one side of the economy, I saw companies raising millions to create products that extract more and more from the world each year, billions of dollars going into supporting militarism, destroying families and stripping our planet of its livability. On the other side, I’ve sat with families who ration food through the winter, I’ve met with tribal nations navigating broken systems that were never built for us, but have been enforced with systemic violence for generations. The distance between those two realities is the space where I now have the honor to work, a place between 10x and ground zero.

The question I carry feels simple: what if we redirected that same ambition, brilliance, and urgency toward repair instead of extraction? What if the next rounds of investment went to the people who have been regenerating life here for millennia? What if we told a different story about how life should look for everyone?

This past year, the road has been long! Both in miles and meaning, crossing the country more times than I can count, from Providence to Kona, from tribal councils in New Jersey to fishing fleets in Washington, from Native Impact Night in New York City to the clean energy convenings that are redefining what it means to build power in Las Vegas. Each stop has been its own teaching. At SOCAP just a few weeks ago, I met investors who are finally starting to ask how capital can become ceremony to restore. At RE+, I spoke with Native entrepreneurs who are designing solar projects that double as classrooms for youth. At Urban Indigenous Collective, during the Native Artists Professional Development training, I watched young artists connect finance to culture in ways that reminded me what “wealth” really means.

Every handshake, every flight, every circle I’ve been part of this year has shown me that learning to wait doesn’t mean standing still, or holding on to inaction, it means walking with intention. It means knowing that every conversation matters, even when the deal isn’t signed yet. It means trusting that momentum built through relationships will outlast any quarterly return, and it means that we’re building something to be good ancestors to our many generations down the line.

So as we invite new donors and funders to join us at the end of this year, we do so with the humility and courage of those who have been waiting generations for this moment. We aren’t pitching a product; we are tending a fire, and together we are co-creating a future where Native-led solutions are not an afterthought or an act of charity, but a blueprint for sustainability. We are calling in partners who understand that change at the speed of trust may feel slower than a Series A, but it builds something that lasts for generations.

Learning to wait has become an act of leadership. It takes patience to have waited this long for people to listen! Boldness to keep knocking on doors when the systems tell us no. Community to build with, never for, the people closest to their own problems. And Resilience to endure where others give in, especially now, as Indigenous, BIPOC voices and movements face attacks from every corner.

We are not slowing down as we enter the winter season, we are recalibrating the rhythm of change. Because we are raising a future for all, learning a lesson in remembering and creating a space to tell that new story about what our world will be, for the next 7 generations.

 If this work resonates with you, consider joining us. Not as donors, but as co-creators. Let’s build a future where finance moves at the speed of relationship, where patience is power, and where our collective resilience lights the way forward.