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WRU JOURNAL
Volume 1, Issue 1
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WRU JOURNAL
Volume 1, Issue 2
Xander Schultz gives voice to the voiceless. He is a social justice entrepreneur. If indeed our energy is our currency, then he is wealthy beyond even his actual impressive net worth. Xander has accomplished so much at a young age. But he begs his viewers to see that he is NOT special, that he is simply the product of the promise and performance that can come when one has hope. As a young man he wound up inheriting enough money that he no longer had to worry about a roof over his head. He then became valedictorian and founded and sold companies such as Complete, and Kifi, which was acquired in 2016 by Google. He thrived not because he was a self-starter, but because he got a way out of survivor mode and went from flight-or-fight into do-and-do-more. He stands for the disenfranchised, the marginalized, because he knows from experience what that feels like. He saw the recent United States Presidential election 2020 as a call to “lean in to the existential threat.” He effects change with his hands-on service and inventive technologies, including his latest Defeat by Tweet platform which raised money for his Justice Fund every time Trump tweeted. He does not shy from challenge. Xander believes in change, “New people in positions of power are not going to compromise like they have in the past,” he intones with urgency in his voice. His Justice Fund exists to help “rectify a legacy of pain and torture.” He sees a new, “infrastructure being rebuilt in a way that has never happened before. We are starting with African American communities because that’s where America has the most reckoning.” Xander only does things that will bear fruit for those less fortunate, less “lucky,” he insists. His is a story of triumph and a work in sleeves-up progress. Proof of the power one person’s choices can make in the lives of multitudes.
Olivia Daane (OD): “What set you on this path of social justice?”
Xander Schultz (XS): “My father was an olympic wrestler, murdered by the heir to the Dupont family. I grew up around refugees who were typically political foes. The myth of the “other” was completely destroyed. I was raised by an uncle who was gay, had aids, and eventually overdosed. I went to 5 public highschools and dropped out. I had friends across economic and racial spectrums. Then I came into a trust when I was 18 and all of a sudden I’m a millionaire highschool dropout. I went back to school and was nominated for valedictorian. I started and sold tech companies before my college graduation.”
“I’ve evolved but I know why I evolved.”
OD: “What’s something where you feel you’ve really made a difference?”
XS: “I lived in a refugee camp all of January 2020. I try to stay in community with everyone. I was at The Hope and Peace Center which provides distribution of necessities to refugees in the nearby Kara Tepe Refugee Camp on Lesvos Island in Greece. There’s the direct service stuff to disaster areas—that’s great, but this refugee situation is a manmade disaster, wtf is this, this is not a hurricane! At the end of the day my mission is to shift how the world’s economies work so we eradicate desperation.”
OD: “How do you handle being in the thick of all this human strife? Do you take time for yourself to refuel, to heal? You said you keep your energy clear by taking in good information. What’s on your playlist?”
XS: “I take on a lot of energy working with these communities. I feel a lot. The people you meet along the way risk a lot more and do a lot more than I do with a lot less. Right now it’s important to ask—What are you consuming? What’s your input? Right now my wife makes the playlist and I’m listening to heart-centered music: Trevor Hall, Nako.”
OD: “Any time for reading? What’s on your bedside?”
XS: “Enders Game is a favorite. (The story of the young, prodigy who sees what will unfold before others can). “Dune” is on my Kindle paperlight. I am also reading the version of the Bible called The Message. So much custom and culture has been built around this text. The Old Testament sounds worse than the world we’re in now, so that’s a helpful counterbalance!”
Xander Schultz is called an ideas guy, a risk taker, but Xander is the same guy—the one who was being chased by gangsters, in a vortex of danger and fright, who was headed nowhere fast. He then landed in that sense of access that changes our vibration and our ability to manifest and to focus and to dream—big. He recently hired some new employees from tough backgrounds and they asked him about what rules that were most important not to break. Thinking back to his days living in this reality stuns him. Rules don’t matter now to Xander like they used to and like they do to his new employees being brought on board. “My incentives are to go for it, bend it! This is a hidden privilege not an intrinsic characteristic. I’ve been given the grace to take risks and the room to explore ideas, and a stabilized life to do any and all of that!” He is grateful and he is aware of, “The grace I’ve been given to make mistakes.” Now he wants to “eradicate desperation,” and he’s not afraid to bend the rules in the process, rules that, as a young, prophetic prodigy, he knows are ready to be broken—now, ready or not?
