#3 Songyi Lee - From Korea With Love Artwork

In The Spirit of Business

“In The Spirit of Business” is a podcast about the new era of business and co-creation. We hear from people who left the old ways behind and successfully work at the intersection of business, spirituality, sustainable & integrative culture, and new paradigms. “Business as usual” is coming to an end around the globe! Let's the new generation of stories about work, money, community, creativity, and collaboration.

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In The Spirit of Business

#3 Songyi Lee - From Korea With Love

August 19, 2020 • Episode 3

Songyi Lee welcomed me into her house near Wellington in New Zealand on a beautifully rainy afternoon. We talked about her journey from working at an NGO to becoming a Silicon Valley crypto startup CEO - until she chose to leave the company during what she calls the "The dark tunnel” (we all go through it at some point).
From there she discovered meditation and mindfulness to support herself and started teaching that to others. She integrated mindfulness into her everyday life and work and founded Weave, a Korea-based purpose-driven collective that has mindfulness, income-sharing, and values that support the connection between all the members and customers at its core.
We talk about the importance of autonomy in community, and how disconnection from the true self is at the core of many crises.

Songyi is currently is a chief weaver of Weave as well as a strong advocate for the use of blockchain in disrupting the status quo. Prior to founding Weave, Songyi co-founded 37coins, a Silicon Valley startup, to empower the world’s unbanked population by providing access to payments through bitcoin and a decentralized SMS network. She is also a founder of Zentrepreneurs, a mindfulness education program for entrepreneurs and businesses and is an active member of communities like Enspiral, Edmund Hillary Fellowship, or Nonce.

Then there are all the small things she does and doesn’t even mention, for example after our interview, she said “I have to get ready for a presentation in a bit” when I asked about what, she casually said, “Well, we are helping North-Korean defectors to integrate into society and start their own businesses and teach them about entrepreneurship”. That was a normal afternoon for her :)

Episode Links
Weave Collective: http://weave.work

Books Songyi Recommends
- Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn
- Search Inside Yourself by Chade-Meng Tan
- The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
- A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

Apps Songyi Recommends
- Headspace (for beginner)
- Insight Timer (for self-practitioner)

Meditation
Vipassana - https://www.dhamma.org/en-US/index