The John Dass chapter is coming to a close...
How a year of sabbatical under a creative pseudonym transformed my approach to flow states, building products and leading teams
Over the last year I’ve been fortunate to embark upon a creative sabbatical under a pseudonym “John Dass”. As this chapter closes, I wanted to recap some of my creative pursuits, share key learnings and celebrate my collaborators. While building startups taught me a lot about business, technology, and design—taking a creative sabbatical deepened my ability to enter into flow states, expanded my horizons for working with different types of people and allowed me to master the latest AI tools across video, image, text and coding.
What started as an experiment in creative freedom became a catalyst for one of the most transformative chapters of my journey so far—both personally and professionally.
It helped me identify and disrupt some of my deepest held biases and ultimately led me to meet the love of my life. As I step into the next phase of my career as a technologist and founder, I’m going to be using “John Dass” only as an artist name for my musical pursuits.
Why use a pseudonym?
During my sabbatical I felt constrained by the ‘founder and technologist’ identity I’d cultivated my entire adult life. I wanted the psychological freedom to explore music, indigenous wisdom, and documentary filmmaking without feeling like an imposter. So I published under the pseudonym ‘John Dass’ to create separation between my professional identity and experimental creative work.
The practice of creative pseudonymity has deep roots—from George Eliot to Banksy. These artists understood what I discovered: Sometimes we must shed our known selves to discover what we’re truly capable of creating.
Pursuing childhood dreams
Ever since I was a kid I dreamed of playing music, writing a book and being in the movies. During my sabbatical I followed my interests with a childlike curiosity—allowing myself to try new things, to be bad at something and to practice daily. By pursuing multiple disciplines simultaneously, I cross-pollinated skills and developed a richer latticework of mental models. Learning to read waves while surfing, for example, taught me how to create focused momentum on-site with a film crew during high-energy live events.
If you’ve ever wanted to take a year out to explore your creative passions, maybe there’s a creative sabbatical calling your name too?
Below is a quick recap of my creative endeavors, what I learned and where I fell short. At the end I share a glimpse of what’s next for me professionally. 👇
Music
Playing music has been an on-and-off pursuit that never fully materialized until my sabbatical. As I navigated major life transitions I found myself processing through my voice—using frequency as medicine. My goal was to create a five track studio EP. I released three singles with two others in production!
Releases: New Light, Find You, Gather Round The Fire
Learning: Writing music taught me the importance of discipline in the creative process, the power of live performance and the magic of a studio environment with professional musicians.
Reading: The Creative Act by Rick Rubin & Effortless Mastery by Kenny Werner
Many thanks to: Patrick Blooming: my songwriting coach, João Sampayo: my producer
Shortcomings: I wish I would’ve invested more time in playing live at open mics and small gigs before recording.
Filmmaking
When Luke and I set out on our Pilgrimage together, my startup background reminded me of one crucial lesson: Start small.
So instead of Luke’s original vision of an epic cycle journey from England to Egypt, we did a 12-day pilgrimage in India with a documentary film crew. We invited Siriani Txana (Huni Kuin) from Brazil and Swami Nardinand from Ujjain—creating a cross-cultural interfaith pilgrimage in a time of great polarity.
Filming at the Maha Kumbh Mela, the largest festival in human history, taught me about coordinating large diverse teams, working with influencers and creating compelling storylines. We captured amazing footage but overspent on production due to unforeseen complexities of filming at an event with over 400M attendees. This left us with a deficit in post-production, releasing only a trailer instead of the first full episode.
Note: We’re fundraising the final stretch of post-production—if you’re keen to partner with us to get this story to the festival circuit, please get in touch!
Learning: Always get a local co-producer onboard before going into production who can help access grants, subsidies and local logistics. Evaluate big ideas with small tests to see if you’ve got the right team and vision in place.
In process: After a summer break due to my wedding, we’re now picking back up on our fundraising—preparing a campaign on Seed & Spark to get the first episode onto the festival circuit!
Many thanks to: Massimilliano Bulgheroni: our Executive Director and Producer, Fatma Ghedira Ellison: my beloved bride, Swami Ogananda, Luke Ram, Siri and Gabi, Swami Nardinand, Luca as well as all the donors who made this project possible: Christina Loh, Dr. Daphne Hering, Raina Petrova, Sudheer Perla, Joerg Hoffmann, Luke Iida, Swami Ogananda, Prem, Felix Grote, Djimo Serodio, Moh Al-Haifi, Ogi’s Mama, Vasiliki Grigoridou, Olga Ku, and Luca Sumitra Fischer.
Podcasting, blogging & reeling
After 2.5 years creating content at ReFi Podcast, I decided to hand it over to my friends Tereza and Maya and launch my new show “Regenera.” While I enjoyed expanding beyond climate and crypto, I encountered many challenges.
Bootstrapping meant working with affordable overseas producers and unfortunately the results were very disappointing. I went through three producers in three months before reverting to a talented local Portuguese friend who did great work, though at a higher cost. Moving from a studio with engineers to managing everything myself in the wild was a massive headache. While the nature footage was amazing, the quality was harder to achieve and I had equipment stolen twice—once in Lisbon, once at a regenerative village.
I continued writing at the intersection of indigenous wisdom, emerging technology and modern science—growing my Regenera subscribers to over 900 and reaching 650k views across platforms. I had my first three videos go viral, mainly by securing major influencer partnerships. While I grew a solid membership base initially, I struggled to break the $1k annual subscription ceiling as I produced less content due to wedding preparation, honeymoon and setting up a new life with my beloved.
Published: 6 podcast episodes, 18 newsletters and 37 videos
Progress: Grew 700+ subscribers, reached 650k+ views across platforms
Learning: Bootstrapping a niche show without sponsorship is incredibly difficult! Producing a quality show at home on Riverside is 10x easier and cheaper than a multi-camera film setup outside in nature.
Thanks: Many thanks to Pohema my video editor and Marco my videographer, to Matthew Monahan,
, Anna Vrsnik, Florijn de Graf, , and for their support!
Seeking indigenous wisdom
During my time at ReFi DAO I sensed that solutions to the climate crisis wouldn’t come from the modern, western, colonial mind—in fact, this was at the root of the crisis itself. As I began uncovering indigenous wisdom, I started writing about insights from a mythological lens in The Eagle & The Condor and The Condor’s Wisdom. This framework guided my sabbatical—looking to understand and integrate the relational, indigenous kinship worldview while actively decolonizing my mind.
I was introduced to leaders working with indigenous tribes in The Sierra Nevadas of Colombia. First was Tiamo from Sun Nation supporting the Arhuacos with bioregional research, cultural preservation, renewable energy and ecosystem regeneration. I supported Tiamo and an Arhuaco leader to travel to Istanbul to explore how crypto could finance ecological regeneration.
Second was Grandmother Jyoti Ma from The Fountain working with the Kogis on establishing sacred land trusts to restore ecosystems and establish harmony in The Sierras. We hosted gatherings together in Portugal and explored a Pilgrimage documentary collaboration. I was grateful to contribute towards consultations with the Mamos and look forward to filming an episode together one day…
Hosted: 5 gatherings with indigenous leaders
Read: 9 books on indigenous wisdom
Learning: Working with indigenous communities requires deep care and expertise—but above all, patience. There are so many ways to get it wrong. They work at the speed of nature. You need a constant mirror to prevent colonial patterns from repeating!
Highlights: I wrote about my experience with Siriani Txana (Huni Kuin) and Swami Nardinand (Shaktipat) in The Wisdom of The Serpent.
Books: Reading & Writing
I embarked upon an ambitious book project Symbiocene: Visions of A New Earth that I hoped to finish during my sabbatical but soon realized would likely take several years, immense research and lived experience given the initial scope. I appreciated the deep dive into speculative fiction and indigenous futures but realized the work requires broad life experience and interactions with indigenous communities to be worthwhile.
I’ve gathered good seeds for this creative work, but to finish it I need to spend large chunks of time with tribes in different parts of the world. I’d like to visit sit Drea Burbank and her team at Savimbo in Colombia who are pioneering biodiversity credits with several local tribes. I’m also super keen to visit the ‘Women Who Heal’ initiative that Siriani Txana is spearheading with many other female leaders of indigenous tribes.
Love
I remember the first time I met her. It was the opening circle of the Planetir residency in Tunisia, just five days before my 34th birthday. She was holding a dark black shamanic drum, preparing to lead the circle.
There was something mysterious and tribal about her presence. She was stunningly beautiful, and yet I could see she was also a fierce warrior. I looked at her and felt a deep resonance in my chest, thinking, “She’s the one.”
Fast forward some eleven months and here we are: Married, in love and building a beautiful life together. We celebrated our union this summer in a magical castle by the sea with friends and family. In some ways it was felt fast for both of us… and yet it feels like we have known each other forever—it feels like home.
The wildest thing is that together we seem to represent The Eagle and The Condor—the very mythology I sought out to embody when I embarked upon this creative sabbatical. Little did I know that I would meet my condor queen along the way and that it would be through her that I would learn everything I could have dreamt to learn about kinship, relations and community.
Our super talented friend Hamza Helali made an amazing short film from the wedding for those who want a glimpse into the gift that has been this love in our lives! 👇
What’s next?
Over the last six months I began to feel a deep itch to build again. In the same way I felt the magical pull of the climate crypto movement in 2021, I believe there’s a multi-trillion dollar AI gold rush happening right now. With major breakthroughs in ‘vibe coding’ (AI-driven app builders), I realized that helping indigenous leaders and builders in the global south access these tools to build real solutions for real people is definitely an avenue that I would like to explore.
Vibe Coding
To get my hands dirty ‘vibing’, I used Replit to build Interbeing—an AI-powered habit tracker inspired by my friend David Ngo’s Spark Habits. Interbeing connects daily routines to planetary impact via Greenspark, so your meditations can plant trees and your morning runs can clean up plastic from our oceans. I’ve also been exploring the AI x crypto landscape with trustless agents enabled by the new the ERC-8004 primitive.
Lastly, I’ve re-launched my personal website john-ellison.com and am actively looking for product and growth opportunities again. If you’re building something exploring AI, crypto and climate—I’d love to hear from you. Likewise, if you have a thorny behavior challenge either inside your organization or for your customers I’d be honored to see if I can help.
Until next time,
J