Yarrow Kraner - THE RACE BETWEEN CONSCIOUSNESS & CATASTROPHE

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09/11/22 • 58 min

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Yarrow Kraner is the founder of HATCH—a global network of innovators and co-conspirators actively doing the work to create a more beautiful, sustainable, and just world (people who Yarrow refers to as “real-life superheroes”).

HATCH'S mission is to accelerate solutions to global challenges. The how: by fueling extraordinary humans. The why: to HATCH a better world.

Yarrow is a creative alchemist whose heart has the distinct ability to draw people out of a state of self-uncertainy and into a state of self-empowerment—one that has the literal power to change the world.

I say that with no fluff.

He is, with all sincerity a creative alchemist, builder of community, facilitator of hope, and someone who shows me the truest side of friendship.

We have traveled the world together, backpacks on tight, creating safe spaces for people (like you, yes You) to see and discover their ability to make REAL change in this world.

Today, you’ll hear him wax poetic like, “There's a race between consciousness and catastrophe.” And speak truth that brings you deeper into the hope we need.

This one IS that: “You are either tapped into what you're meant to do in the world, or you have the potential to.”

This one goes out to all of us.

WORKS:
- Founder of HATCH—a global network of innovators who are actively pursuing a more beautiful, sustainable, and just world.
- Founder of H360, a machine learning platform that brings silos of organizations together to activate collaborations and create a "Network of Networks" for collaborations with the power to improve the world.
- Tate and Olivia's stepdad
- Named 2015 top 100 creatives in the U.S. by Origin
- Founder, Superdudes—the original online community (pre-MySpace) connecting and empowering real life superheroes while gamifing community volunteerism
- Director, Virgin Produced, which is the entertainment arm of Richard Branson’s Virgin group
- Filmmaker, photographer, and director, leading projects with Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Richard Branson, Sean Combs (aka P. Diddy), as well as, international brands
- Aspen Institute Fellow

TOOLS:
Reflections that help us remember the endless value of true friendship
Insights to guide you towards your own backyard and the changes in your hands
Hope—THAT’S the tool
Truths that help us restore balance in ourselves and inner-knowing

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT:
BETTER is recorded on the unceded and ancestral territory of the hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh speaking peoples, the xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations, and has been stewarded by them since time immemorial.

BETTER with Mark Brand is produced by Pamela Rothenberg of I HEAR YOU STUDIOS and Adam Karch with Orbyt Media

HATCH'S mission is to accelerate solutions to global challenges. The how: by fueling extraordinary humans. The why: to HATCH a better world.

I say that with no fluff.

He is, with all sincerity a creative alchemist, builder of community, facilitator of hope, and someone who shows me the truest side of friendship.

We have traveled the world together, backpacks on tight, creating safe spaces for people (like you, yes You) to see and discover their ability to make REAL change in this world.

Today, you’ll hear him wax poetic like, “There's a race between consciousness and catastrophe.” And speak truth that brings you deeper into the hope we need.

This one IS that: “You are either tapped into what you're meant to do in the world, or you have the potential to.”

This one goes out to all of us.

BETTER with Mark Brand is produced by Pamela Rothenberg of I HEAR YOU STUDIOS and Adam Karch with Orbyt Media

Previous Episode

Loren Cardeli - FOOD IS BROKEN AND DYING

Loren Cardeli is a food sovereignty activist confronting the unjust power in our global food systems—systems that are crippling the well-being of people who grow our food. He asks us to look at the frameworks of our minds and says "To learn, we must unlearn."

He is the Founder and President of A Growing Culture—an activist collective and nonprofit you must catch on IG (Run. Don’t walk)

I’ll wait...

@agrowingculture’s posts center farmer justice. The humanity of this issue is important for too many reasons, but one stat makes it really easy to get:

“Right now, we have a food system [where] 1.2 billion people go to bed hungry,” Loren says. “70% of them are farmers. 70% of the hungry are the ones growing our food.”

Drink that in.

These hard truths have the power to wake us up and garner global solidarity for folks who need support.

“We have no solution,” Loren says, “but I can point to 10,000 people that do, and none of them look like me. We champion those folks.”

Then he says, “There are no voiceless people. People say [to me], ‘Oh, you give voice to the voiceless.’ No. There's no voiceless. There's only silenced.”

This episode is in honor of the silenced and dedicated to the actions we are capable of together.

WORKS:
- Founder and President of A Growing Culture—an activist collective and 501c(3) nonprofit working towards a future of food sovereignty
- Keynote speaker, addressing agricultural issues through the lens of economics, political science, and life sciences while promoting farmer-led research and innovation for the purpose of helping farmers throughout the world create sustainable, self-driving futures.
- AGC PROJECT: “SEED IS POWER” - Seed is Power is a fund to ensure that seeds stay in the hands of the people. These funds support seed savers on their own terms. It’s designed to disrupt the status quo of philanthropy that often inadvertently harms communities. Instead, it creates a reciprocal system that redistributes power, building equity and community among seed savers.
- AGC PROJECT: “HUNGER FOR JUSTICE” - Hunger for Justice is a storytelling series designed to center justice in food system dialogues. The series is an opportunity to shift our focus away from symptoms, like hunger, and towards the injustices at the root of our failing food system. AGC provides an emergent and interactive global platform for movements on the frontlines of the struggle for food sovereignty to connect with broader audiences and with each other. Until every last million of us hungers no more, we must hunger for justice.
- AGC PROJECT: PEASANT AND INDIGENOUS PRESS - a bi-monthly forum, media workshops, a monthly dispatch, and a journalist fellowship program, Peasant and Indigenous Press centers and connects Indigenous and peasant communities with media and cultivates a more holistic and nuanced storytelling ecosystem.
- AGC PROJECT: BIPOC FARMER LEGAL FUND - The BIPOC Farmer Legal Fund provides pro-bono legal services to majority BIPOC-owned agricultural entities to create pathways for agricultural futures.

TOOLS:
- Access to the most empowering definition of activism you’ve ever heard
- Reframes for how to lift up voices that aren’t yours
- Reminders of our true humanity and connectivity
- Stories that emphazie why we say “If the community is unwell, we’re all unwell.”
- Root definitions of words that will teach you how language distorts reality
- Questions to ask yourself about belief versus fact and what narratives are running the behind the scenes of your daily life
- Reframes for how to think about power and where it belongs

BETTER with Mark Brand is produced by Pamela Rothenberg of I HEAR YOU STUDIOS and Adam Karch with Orbyt Media

Next Episode

Jennifer Crawford - THE STAKES OF AUTHENTICITY

Jennifer Crawford is a gender creative queer who I could happily gush about for the entirety of this episode.

We first met cooking for an organization called Sistering in Toronto, which does critical work with women and trans people who are predominantly street entrenched and fleeing violence.

You’ll hear that story upfront. (I promise, it’s a warm one.)

Jennifer is also the first queer winner of MasterChef Canada, and—wait for it—a professional wrestler who goes under the moniker of Moon Miss. BOTH of which make it super easy for us to talk about the inherent multi-dimensionality that comes with being a person (period), and that leads us right into talking about the trauma that first causes any of us to mask, and the secondary trauma that comes from the pain of masking.

It’s a lot of uncovering.

"There's a lot of peace in learning how your mind works and giving yourself that permission slip to treat the stakes as high as they are. When I think about authenticity, it's not something I think about a lot in terms of like, ‘Oh, am I being authentic?’ I think about the stakes being so high—and they are for so many. It's not just a thing we do for clout online. It is a thing we do to survive, and connect with other people, so that we can thrive together.” - Jennifer Crawford

Take that in. And get ready to feel a whole lot of permission.

(*Check the list of tools below for the full scope.)

WORKS:
- Winner of MasterChef Canada (Check their recipes at jenniferecrawford.com)
- Professional wrestler, under the name Moon Miss
- Columnist and author of the platform, “My Queer Kitchen" on Daily Xtra
- Columnist for SaltWire

TOOLS:
- Reminders that free you from having to mask who you are
- Truths that come from permission-granting lived-experience stories
- How sobriety can help us discover more nuance about ourselves
- Insight into the beauty and gift that comes with noticing yourself
- Reflections that help us depart from codependent patterns
- Lived lessons on finding the balance between humility and self-abandonment
- Truths that show you’re always worthy of nurturing
- Wisdom that creates doorways into small degrees of change (rather than the pressure to 180)
- Connection and truths revealed about lone-wolfing life and how to break away from the damage of this trauma response
- Ideas that free you from the trappings of niching down your life

BETTER with Mark Brand is produced by Pamela Rothenberg of I HEAR YOU STUDIOS and Adam Karch with Orbyt Media