Overview
Feature length movie capturing the essence of what we can do RIGHT NOW to change the world for the better. This is the second round of fund raising. We’re actively out filming this movie right now and will keep sharing amazing stories with you from the field.
If you’re tired of hearing about all that’s wrong with the world and would rather get up and do something about it, then you’re in the right place. Doom and gloom can only go so far before we’re depressed and stunned into inaction…all while the world continues to slide.
What can we do to help offset our impact on the planet and make this place safer and friendlier for our children?
My name is Pedram Shojai. I’m a NYT Best Selling Author (The Urban Monk) and this is my third movie. My first one, “Vitality” was an exploration of why the healthcare system doesn’t work and it was about helping us understand our personal role in getting healthy. I followed that with one called “Origins” which looked at all of the environmental toxins that may be smothering our health. That movie ended on a very positive note and, in looking for actual solutions to the world’s problems, I had to follow the money. That’s how we ended up here.
Let’s take a closer look at our definition of “Prosperity”.
Progress at any cost has cost us plenty.
There’s a concept in economics where things that don’t fall onto your balance sheet are called “externalities”. For instance, a coal company makes a ton of money but the environmental impact: cleanup costs, mercury in the oceans, smog, deforestation, and all the illness that comes from this somehow “isn’t their problem”. Society is left to deal with these externalities. Taxpayers, non-profits, fish, and wildlife all pay for their profits. Uncool.
Prosperity is following a new generation of companies that are doing the right thing and deserve our attention (and money). There’s an emerging movement of “For Benefit” companies that are building into their bylaws the new ethics of conscious companies. In the old days, a CEO could be sued by the board if he/she didn’t maximize profits at any cost. Now, companies can elect to be “For Benefit” and factor in doing the right thing over just profits alone.
This is revolutionary and is changing the game.
Our feature length movie is following the key players in this movement and showing a real positive way out of the mess we’ve inherited and helped co-create. The more we support this blossoming movement, the more money goes to people who care…people who will take a stand for our values and our environment.
We have our cameras on these heroes and are going to break some amazing news in the release of this movie. From CEOs of major public companies, to urban farmers, and remote tribes, we’re covering the whole story in a powerful narrative.
Pedram Shojai, OMD is a man with many titles. He is the founder and CEO of Well.Org, the editor of Be More! magazine, the author of the NY Times bestseller The Urban Monk (Rodale, 2016) and Rise and Shine (Process, 2011), the producer and director of the movie Vitality, the executive producer and writer for the film, Origins and the Host of two weekly video podcast series, The Urban Monk and The Health Bridge. In his spare time, he’s also a Taoist priest, a Doctor of Oriental Medicine, a kung fu world traveler, a fierce global green warrior, an avid backpacker, a Qi Gong Master, and an old school Jedi bio-hacker working to preserve our natural world and wake us up to our full potential.
Carl Lindahl is an award-winning executive producer of documentaries & non-fiction programming. As both an independent producer and as a television executive at Turner Broadcasting System’s TNT and A & E Networks’ History Channel, Carl has developed and produced hundreds of hours of acclaimed documentaries, series and web content including the Emmy award-winning documentary Beyond The Moon and the long-running TV series The Universe. His productions span a variety of genres and topics: social issues, sports, history, science, comedy, live events, reality and have received many industry awards including four Emmys (list of productions at IMDB.com). In 2015 he joined Well.Org as VP of Program Development & Production to grow programming and further extend the company’s health & wellness mission.
Mark Van Wijk is a world traveler, cinematographer and documentary filmmaker based in Cape Town, South Africa. Mark’s passion for Adventure and Natural History, often appear as metaphors in his films, and is clearly celebrated in his work. In 2010, Mark began a creative collaboration with Dr Pedram Shojai to make documentaries that inspire healthier, happier living, with respect and care for Mother Earth. After assisting in the production of the film, Vitality, the film’s success lead to Mark directing and filming Origins, a documentary journey from mankind’s natural birth to the unnatural technologies that now choke our environment and poison our bodies. Mark is currently in production on Prosperity, and is amped by the powerful message in this new project – scheduled for release March 2017!
Andrew Hewitt is the Founder of GameChangers 500, an organization spotlighting the world’s top For-Benefit businesses. An alternative to lists like the Fortune 500, GameChangers 500 looks beyond revenue as the “point system”, adding purpose and values as criteria for determining success in this new game of business. His efforts have led him to be featured in BBC World News, Forbes and Fast Company, speaking engagements at TEDx and the Social Entrepreneurship World Forum, collaborations with universities such as Princeton, Harvard, and the United Nations University for Peace, and work with both innovative new companies like Zappos.com and century-old corporations like Kraft Foods. Andrew’s work earned him a seat on the Advisory Council for the Fourth Sector Mapping Initiative that is helping the US government formalize the For-Benefit legal model to become a new fourth sector of the economy, joining the existing three sectors—for-profit, non-profit and government. After years of growing up in snowy Canada, Andrew now spends most of his time defrosting in Encinitas, CA, where he leads the charge to build a regional ecosystem to support local For-Benefit businesses.
We are determined to keep this movie pure and about the message so we need your partnership. We’ve identified a handful of awesome people and businesses that are doing the right thing and a few have agreed to match funds from this campaign (or donate perks) in order to make the movie.
There are lots of people who want to throw money at this and align their name with the movement but many are just greenwashing. We are determined to make this movie for the good of all humanity and cannot allow wealthy patrons to control the message.
Your support here assures journalistic integrity. Many of these stories are taking place in remote areas of the world and we need to be there…the stories we bring back are for you.
Doing it right costs money and we all need to put our money into things that help make the world a better place. This movie is yours. Please invest in helping us tip the scales.
We already have 20 million emails committed to promoting the movie and will raise another promotional budget to share it widely online. This movie will be FREE FOREVER and will be online internationally. Well.Org has pioneered this model and that’s how our movies have spread rapidly. The Huffington Post, Collective Evolution, MindBodyGreen, The Sacred Science, David Wolfe, and Thrive market are just a few of the major networks committed to supporting this movie. We don’t need the gatekeepers anymore. They get in the way and are often sponsored by the companies that are the worst polluters. We anticipate 10-100 million views of this movie within the first year and are working on dozens of actionable items, tools, and resources everyone can use to easily become a better global citizen. This isn’t a movie-it is a movement and YOU are an integral part. It starts with how you spend your money.
Give it to the people and companies doing the right thing so you empower the change. Amazing things happen from there. We’ll track this and share all the goodness with you. This movie is just the beginning. Shifting the supply chains and getting money to the actual producers of our goods is bringing Prosperity to their communities and is radically changing the world we live in. We see it happening. This movie will share what we already see with a world that needs some good news.
This is our third movie so it will get done. The challenge is sponsorships. Again, there are lots of companies that throw money at trying to buy an image and we can’t take their dough. There are also projects out there that call themselves conscious but are shaking down people to “pay to play”. That’s gross.
Prosperity is a state of mind- it is a way of being. We are making this movie together and are counting on you to share this and help spread the word like wildfire. Our last movie had 260,000 shares in just 3 weeks.
We’ve learned a lot since then and have lots more friends. Our timeline is aggressive so we’re working very hard right now. It will come out in March 2017 and our challenge is intercepting some of these interviewees as they are busy people who are out there doing it. Many of them aren’t the “look at me” types but we’ve identified them as the real heroes. They are making a difference at an impressive scale and are changing the game. The billionaires of the future are going to deserve it. We’ll see to that.
Share, share, share! Think about what kind of money you spend on things that end up in landfills or support lobbyists that work against our best interest. Help redirect that money to companies who care and are taking a stand for a brighter future. The movie will really shed more light on this, but start now and watch what it does to the world around you.
YOU MATTER. Every cent you spend is a vote. Where are you investing the energy and prosperity of your family. Join us in creating a brighter future- one purchase at a time.