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From goat yoga to professional play, these people took risks and found their purpose through passion

Lainey and baby goat Annie. Photo courtesy of Lainey Morse
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Oftentimes, the journey to our true calling is winding and unexpected. Take Lainey Morse, who went from office manager to creator of the viral trend, Goat Yoga, thanks to her natural affinity for goats and throwing parties.

Back in 2015, Lainey bought a farm in Oregon and got her first goats who she named Ansel and Adams. "Once I got them, I was obsessed," says Lainey. "It was hard to get me off the farm to go do anything else."

Right away, she noticed what a calming presence they had. "Even the way they chew their cud is relaxing to be around because it's very methodical," she says. Lainey was going through a divorce and dealing with a rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis at the time, but even when things got particularly hard, the goats provided relief.

"I found it impossible to be stressed or depressed when I was with them."

She started inviting friends up to the farm for what she called "Goat Happy Hour." Soon, the word spread about Lainey's delightful, stress-relieving furry friends. At one point, she auctioned off a child's birthday party at her farm, and the mom asked if they could do yoga with the goats. And lo, the idea for goat yoga was born.

A baby goat on a yoga student. Photo courtesy of Lainey Morse

Goat yoga went viral so much so that by fall of 2016, Lainey was able to quit her office manager job at a remodeling company to manage her burgeoning goat yoga business full-time. Now she has 10 locations nationwide.

Lainey handles the backend management for all of her locations, and loves that side of the business too, even though it's less goat-related. "I still have my own personal Goat Happy Hour every single day so I still get to spend a lot of time with my goats," says Lainey. "I get the best of both worlds."

Lainey with her goat Fabio. Photo courtesy of Lainey Morse

Since COVID-19 hit, her locations have had to close temporarily. She hopes her yoga locations will be able to resume classes in the spring when the vaccine is more widely available. "I think people will need goat yoga more than ever before, because everyone has been through so much stress in 2020," says Lainey.

Major life changes like Lainey's can come around for any number of reasons. Even if they seem out of left field to some, it doesn't mean they're not the right moves for you. The new FOX series "Call Me Kat", which premieres Sunday, January 3rd after NFL and will continue on Thursday nights beginning January 7th, exemplifies that. The show is centered around Kat, a 39-year old single woman played by Mayim Bialik, who quit her math professor job and spent her life's savings to pursue her dreams to open a Cat Café in Louisville, Kentucky.

Jeff Harry started making similar moves when he was just 10-years-old, and kept making them throughout his life. After seeing the movie "Big,"Jeff knew he wanted to play with toys for a living, so he started writing toy companies asking for next steps. He finally got a response when he was a sophomore in high school — the company told him he needed to become a mechanical engineer first.

He did that, and eventually got a job with Toys R Us in the Labor Planning Department where he was almost immediately disillusioned. "There was no play, no fun, no high fives, and no kids," says Jeff.

Soon after, in late 2001, he decided to quit the business and move across the country to Oakland, California. While there, he found a job posting on Craigslist for a STEM education company called Play-Well, which uses LEGOs to teach kids about engineering. Even though they only had 7 employees and only paid $150 a week, he thought it sounded promising and applied.

Courtesy of Jeff Harry

Over the next 16 years, Jeff helped grow the company to over 400 employees. By "embracing a play-oriented mindset, we said yes to everything even if we didn't know if we would be able to figure it out," says Jeff. "We were constantly doing experiments, open to failure, not fixated on certain results." Through this method, they became the largest LEGO-inspired STEM organization in the United States.

Since they were teaching lots of kids whose parents worked in Silicon Valley, they were eventually asked to run team-building workshops with some of the top tech companies in the business. They did this for nine years and excelled at it, but eventually, Jeff began to feel like the importance of play was getting lost. In response, he created a consulting business called Rediscover Your Play, which uses positive psychology and play to help reinvigorate employees and help companies tackle workplaces challenges.

Now, he finally feels like he's found his purpose because he's living, and sharing, his passion for play every day.

Your life and career path don't have to look like anyone else's, in fact, it's usually better when they don't. If you follow your gut and buy some goats or apply to an unorthodox job posting on Craigslist, you might just open a door to one spectacular future.

So, this New Year...Quit your job. Open a cat cafe. Live your best life.

Call Me Kat premieres on FOX Sunday, January 3rd after NFL and continues on Thursdays beginning January 7th at 9/8c. Starring Mayim Bialik, the show is about a 39-year-old woman who quit her successful, yet unfulfilling, job to pursue her dreams to open a cat café. Kat couldn't be any happier with her new life… despite her mother pushing Kat to get married already!

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Native women are going missing at epic rates. A 19-year-old wants you to know why.

Some college students spend their spring break partying in the Caribbean. This student walked 80 miles in four days to help Native American women.

Marita GrowingThunder, a freshman at University of Montana, walked 20 miles per day across the Flathead Indian Reservation from March 25 to 28. The goal of her “Save Our Sisters” walk? To raise awareness about violence against native women.

[rebelmouse-image 19534246 dam="1" original_size="960x688" caption="Marita GrowingThunder (third from left) and supporters of her 80-mile walk through the Flathead Indian Reservation. Photo via Save Our Sisters MMIW/Facebook." expand=1]Marita GrowingThunder (third from left) and supporters of her 80-mile walk through the Flathead Indian Reservation. Photo via Save Our Sisters MMIW/Facebook.

The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women movement, or #MMIW, spans across the U.S. and Canada, where indigenous women face disproportionate levels of violence. According to the CDC, in the U.S., indigenous women and black women are nearly tied for the demographic with the highest murder rate. Homicide is the third leading cause of death for indigenous women ages 10 to 24.

In Canada in 2015, a quarter of all women murdered were indigenous — a sharp increase from 9% in 1980, which was still disproportionately high.

One last photo from the display yesterday #MMIW #saveoursistersmmiw

A post shared by Marita GrowingThunder Fogarty (@maritagrowingthunder) on

GrowingThunder, who is a member of the Fort Peck Assiniboine Sioux tribe, had two aunts who were murdered. “I haven’t met a family who this hasn’t impacted,” she told Montana Public Radio.

What GrowingThunder is saying echoes what I've heard from my Native American friends and acquaintances. But many Americans remain unaware that this crisis even exists. We tend to place our country’s terrible treatment of Native Americans in the distant past, despite ongoing injustices and struggles caused by colonization.

Marita GrowingThunder is only 19, but she has been using her body, her voice, and her creativity to support the MMIW movement since long before spring break.

In fall 2016, GrowingThunder undertook a project to create and wear a different dress each day of her senior year of high school to honor native women who have been lost or killed.

Just a handful of the 180 dresses Marita GrowingThunder made and wore during her senior year. One dress per day — each honoring a missing or murdered indigenous woman. Photos via Save Our Sisters MMIW/Facebook.

People across the Native American community donated supplies for her sewing project in the name of specific women and families affected by the crisis. GrowingThunder dedicated each dress, about 180 in all, to a different specific missing or murdered indigenous woman.

GrowingThunder is a soft-spoken but self-assured young woman who believes young people can make a difference. "The youth have a lot of power," she says. "Not just politically, but just for humanity in general. I didn't realize I had this much power... I think people underestimate their own power."

You can hear her speak about her activism in this video:

GrowingThunder completed the 80-mile walk in 2017 as well, and both times she received a mixed response from American locals. She has been spit on, yelled at, and flipped off by people driving by. But others have offered water and kind words of encouragement.

The purpose of the walks is to honor and remember the countless women affected by this violence. But GrowingThunder also wants to draw attention to the fact that there is no database to track how many indigenous women are missing or who have been killed. Because there's no central data, statistics are sketchy and no one actually knows the exact extent of the issue. The Government Accountability Office has stated that investigations are needed to better report on trafficking within Native American populations.

Information is key. So is awareness, followed by action.

[rebelmouse-image 19534248 dam="1" original_size="641x428" caption="Photo via Save Our Sisters MMIW/Facebook." expand=1]Photo via Save Our Sisters MMIW/Facebook.

Feel inspired to help? Here’s how all of us can support the MMIW movement.

This issue is multifaceted, but there are a lot of real ways to help.

Encourage your legislators to support Savannah’s Act. This bill bolsters the data tracking of missing and murdered Native Americans, standardizes law enforcement and justice protocols, and requires the Department of Justice to provide training and technical assistance to tribes and law enforcement to implement new protocols.

Support the Red Ribbon Alert project. Since there’s no database tracking missing and murdered indigenous women, this project offers an alert system for when a Native American woman goes missing. Like their Facebook page and share missing women alerts from your area.

[rebelmouse-image 19534249 dam="1" original_size="700x350" caption="Images via Red Ribbon Alert Project/Facebook." expand=1]Images via Red Ribbon Alert Project/Facebook.

Get to know the tribes near you. Start by learning about them, and follow the social media accounts of local tribes to find out about what's happening in their communities. Attend public events and get to know people. (In the interest of cultural sensitivity, you may want to check out articles with advice from Native American people before you go.)

Learn about domestic violence and support organizations that support victims. As with other female demographics, murder stats of Native American women are strongly connected with domestic violence. The National Domestic Violence Hotline launched the StrongHearts Native Helpline specifically for indigenous populations, and they offer helpful information about supporting all domestic violence victims. You can donate to the hotline here.

Understand how the oil, gas, and other extraction industries affect human trafficking in Native American communities. Joye Braun, member of the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe and the Indigenous Environmental Network, explains that the "man camps" set up to build pipelines, such as Keystone XL, threaten the communities, women, and children.

"Apart from the huge environmental crisis this pipeline would bring," Braun says, "it would threaten the very lives of our people with sex trafficking, drugs, violence, and death." We can learn more about these issues, offer our own voices in protest, and advocate for alternative energy sources.

Members of the Cowboy and Indian Alliance marched on horseback to protest the Keystone XL pipeline. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images.

It's no secret that Native Americans have suffered at the hands of white supremacy and colonization through all of our country's history. But by amplifying voices like Marita GrowingThunder's, we can take inspiration from her story and her walk. And we can honor her 80-mile sacrifice by doing our part.

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Millennials are making money by investing in the future.

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The Rockefeller Foundation

If you invest $30,000 in three specific stocks, you could triple your money in 10 years.

At least that’s what acclaimed financial analyst Malcolm Berko wrote in his advice column last year.

The stocks you’d have to invest in, he said, are Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Lockheed Martin — three defense companies. In other words, what he’s saying is: You could triple your money in 10 years, but you’d be capitalizing on the U.S. revving up its defense spending.

But here’s the thing: Some investors, especially millennials, aren’t concerned with only the returns.

Image via iStock.

As a generation, millennials want to put their money into stocks that are good for the world.

They’ve seen firsthand how much can change in 25 years. They’ve seen technology move at warp speed, lived through major policy shifts, and watched the world’s population grow. They know they can effect change in the next 25 years — and they know we need change.

Millennials are also more apt to distrust financial institutions. As a generation, they had to enter the workforce amid record high unemployment rates, stagnant wages, and larger student debt bills than any previous generation. That’s why many millennials want to take financial matters into their own hands.

In the next several decades, an estimated $30 trillion will be passed down from baby boomers to younger generations. That means $30 trillion of the world’s assets could be reallocated into humanitarian endeavors.

In addition, by 2020, millennials will comprise 46% of the workforce, and as they become the primary earners, they will have an even greater effect on investing in this country.  

Image via iStock.

In fact, they may well be the first generation that considers making the world a better place along with investment returns.

And it makes sense if you think about it: This is the generation that was promised a return on investment on their college tuition and instead got stuck with a massive bill and waning job prospects. The world they grew up in taught them to put less stock into promised returns and care more about tangible value.

But there is a smart way for millennials to invest in making the world a better place. It’s called impact investing.

Impact investing essentially means putting money into causes that effect social change, explains Adam Connaker, an associate at The Rockefeller Foundation, a foundation that is working to solve the world’s biggest and most entrenched challenges through innovative finance mechanisms.

“You have a right as an investor, no matter your size, to ask what impact your investments are having in the world,” says Connaker.

If the projects do well, the investors see good returns on their investments. It proves altruism and making money on your investments are not mutually exclusive.

Eric Letsinger, founder and CEO of Quantified Ventures, says we are witnessing the largest transfer of wealth in our country’s history, while simultaneously seeing government funding for health, social, and environmental programs dry up. As a result, impact investing will likely get a huge boost from millennial investors thanks to inherited and newly accumulated wealth.

Many of these impact investing projects allow members of a community to invest in public works that will improve their own neighborhoods. For example, Jason Anderson, president and CEO of Neighborly Securities, worked on a deal in Burlington, Vermont, that encouraged residents to invest in public projects like building sidewalks, rehabilitating bike paths, and improving waterfront access to Lake Champlain.

Photo via Garrett Brinker/Neighborly.

“We've talked to resident investors up in Burlington who told us that the main reason they invested in the issuance was because they commute to and from work on that bike path every day,” says Anderson. “Because of their investment in the city, they can have a direct impact on that rehabilitation project.”

Putting money into city-centric or environmental initiatives allows investors to directly affect the future of our communities.

Image via iStock.

Letsinger says that in 2016, they worked on an environmental impact bond with DC Water. The project financed green infrastructure as an alternative to building large concrete tunnels for Washington, D.C.’s water utility.

“If the project succeeds, it presents a win-win to both the investors and DC Water: The investors earn a higher return than they would have on a standard municipal bond from DC Water, and DC Water has then proven that green infrastructure is highly cost-effective,” explains Letsinger.

In addition to the high returns for investors, the DC Water investment helped create green jobs and improve neighborhoods, and the success of this project will have future implications when it comes to making cities more environmentally friendly.

Because many millennials are a generation that would rather see green infrastructure go up in their neighborhood than watch their bank balance go up on a computer screen, they’re the first generation that could make impact investing the norm.

If the millennial generation commits to investing in causes, it could change how we see money.

Image via iStock.

In fact, Letsinger says that most of the impact investors his company works with are millennials. Working with clients who are motivated not just by making money but by improving the world for future generations allows impact investing firms to target niche causes in various communities around the world.

He also says 2017 was a particularly good year for impact investing, which bodes well at such an early stage. He means that the returns on investment were good — but also that they saw more interest among people looking to make a difference.

With impact investing, “values and returns can coexist, allowing investors to fight climate change, produce more affordable housing, and develop clean energy,” says Anderson.

If this trend continues, 20 years from now, financial advisers might be primarily offering environmental causes to invest in, rather than defense stocks.

Putting some savings into investments is something most people either already do or are going to do in the coming years. That doesn’t need to change — what can change is where we put that money.

We can no longer rely on our government to fund the social and environmental efforts needed to improve our society and planet as a whole. This financial shift to impact investing will allow us to pool our money with other people who also want to create positive change. As a result, it can happen on a larger scale than we ever thought possible. Plus, as an added bonus, you’ll likely find you can do well for yourself while simultaneously doing good in the world.

For more than 100 years, The Rockefeller Foundation’s mission has been to promote the well-being of humanity throughout the world. Together with partners and grantees, The Rockefeller Foundation strives to catalyze and scale transformative innovations, create unlikely partnerships that span sectors, and take risks others cannot — or will not.

Heroes

EPA official resigns, explains why cutting his department will cost us all in the future.

The head of the EPA’s environmental justice program has handed in his resignation letter.

Mustafa Ali at the Wilson Center in Washington, D.C., in 2016. Photo from the Wilson Center/Environmental Change and Security Program.

Mustafa Ali — who helped found the office in 1992 under George H. W. Bush — resigned as the head of the environmental justice program in a letter dated March 7, 2017.

The justice program was created to ensure all people had equal access to a clean and healthy environment, regardless of race, national origin, or income. However, a recent budget proposal from the Trump administration would cut the EPA’s funding by a quarter overall and get rid of the justice program altogether.

“I never saw in the past a concerted effort to roll back the positive steps that many, many people have worked on … I can’t be a part of anything that would hurt those [disadvantaged] communities. I just couldn’t sign off on those types of things,” the Washington Post quoted Ali as saying.

But before he left, Ali penned a letter to the EPA’s new administrator, Scott Pruitt, imploring Pruitt to think before slashing funds. The full text of Ali's letter was tweeted by Emily Atkin, a staff writer at The New Republic.

Here are four key points from Ali in that letter:

1. “Communities of color, low-income communities and indigenous populations are still struggling to receive equal protections before the law.”

Those communities are more likely to be affected by air pollution, crumbling water or sewage infrastructure, hazardous waste, and lead in the water.

That last one rings especially true, given that Flint, Michigan, still doesn't have clean water (and now they must now pay for that water again, even though it’s still unsafe to drink without a filter).

Flint water protester in 2016. Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images.

2. “I wonder if our new leadership has had the opportunity to converse with those who need our help most.”

Communities speak for themselves, Ali says and notes that some of the best results have come from working collaboratively with local communities through grants and programs. Administrators just have to listen. But cutting out the small grant and collaborative problem-solving programs that formed the backbone of this relationship could silence these people’s voices.

“I strongly encourage you and your team to continue promoting agency efforts to validate these communities’ concerns, and value their lives,” Ali wrote.

3. “Any cuts to this program will increase the public health impacts and decrease the economic opportunities.”

Flint residents holding up contaminated water during a news conference. Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images.

“One of the points that you shared with staff in your recent town hall was that you were looking for opportunities to balance the environment and the economy,” wrote Ali. “There are countless examples of how the local communities vision for revitalization have grown into productive collaborative partnerships.”

He also pointed out that the program makes good economic sense. In 2016, Brownfields revitalization (cleaning up formerly contaminated sites) leveraged more than $16 for every dollar the EPA spent and created eight-and-a-half new jobs for every hundred million spent.

4. “The upcoming choices you make will have significant impacts on the public health and environment of our country.”

He ended his letter with a reminder: “Administrator Pruitt, you have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to bring people together, to ensure that all communities have safe places to live, learn, work, play and pray,” he wrote. “I wish you well as you move forward on protecting the public health and environment of our nation, as you help make the American Dream a reality for all.”

And he's right. Environmental protections affect everyone who lives in our country, but the proposed budget cuts could defang anti-pollution measures, blindfold our watchdogs, and stifle clean-up measures. Restoration along the Chesapeake Bay, Gulf of Mexico, the San Francisco Bay, and Puget Sound could be slashed or completely eliminated.

Without strong protections, it's hard to see how Pruitt could live up to the legacy Ali is leaving behind.

Ali is moving to a job as senior vice president at the Hip Hop Caucus, a nonprofit that gets younger Americans involved in grass roots activism.

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