Watching the world right now has left me speechless. Every time I’ve sat down to write, any business topic I considered sharing has felt trivial in light of the suffering we are witnessing.

We are living through a moment of profound violence and rupture. Years of ongoing genocide live streamed to our phones. Videos of innocent civilians shot in the street for exercising their right to peaceful protest. Journalists targeted and intimidated for telling the truth. Families torn apart. Entire groups of people dehumanised and demonised because of the colour of their skin or their desire for a better, safer life. The rise of fascism is no longer abstract or theoretical. It is visible, organised, and moving frighteningly fast.

To witness this is a lot to hold.

I have felt grief, rage, fear and utter disbelief. A sense that the ground beneath us is no longer solid. That what once felt unthinkable is now being normalised in real time.

Alongside all of this, there has been a quieter question, one I hear echoed again and again in my work.

What does it mean to talk about business at a time like this?

I see thoughtful, conscious business owners struggling to focus. To create. To sell. People questioning whether it is ethical to want stability, income, or success when there is so much suffering in the world. People going quiet because they do not want to be seen as frivolous, complicit, or disconnected from reality.

I want to name that this response makes sense.

This is what happens when people with compassionate hearts and intact moral compasses are exposed to ongoing injustice and violence.

But this is not the whole story.

Alongside the horror, I am also witnessing so much hope. People mobilising around their neighbours and communities. Mutual aid networks forming and strengthening. Ordinary people showing up for one another, refusing to look away. Acts of courage that will never make headlines, but matter deeply all the same.

There is fear. And there is also resistance.

And in this context, I want to be explicit about something that matters deeply to me.

When businesses rooted in care, ethics, and collective wellbeing go quiet or disappear, it creates even more space for those who are willing to exploit fear, amplify division, and prioritise profit over people.

In a piece I wrote years ago called Conscious Business: What It Is and Why It Matters, I shared my vision for a better world and the role conscious business plays in shaping it. In that piece I wrote:

“Imagine for a moment a world where business was a force for good rather than greed. A world where the primary concern of business was the betterment of humanity and the furtherment of equality, health, and wellbeing for all people. A world where business owners genuinely care for their clients and customers and have their absolute best interests at heart. A world where the business owners who operate with the highest levels of integrity are the most prosperous. A world where meaningful business takes priority over the meaningless.

This is the world of conscious business. When we change the way we do business, we change the world.”

A world where the business owners who operate with the highest levels of integrity are the most prosperous. Sit with that for a moment.

It is precisely in moments like this that businesses committed to positive impact, that care for people and planet and integrity must thrive. These must be the businesses with reach. The ones shaping narratives and culture.

This is why I believe that your business thriving is not a luxury. It is a necessity.

Where money flows matters. Who holds resources matters. Who has the capacity to keep going, to support others, to fund care, and to choose values matters.

This is what I mean when I say: when we change the way we do business, we change the world.

Not in some grand, idealistic sense, but in the everyday choices about how we earn, how we sell, how we treat people, and how we refuse to replicate the very systems we are resisting.

And it is not only how you do business that matters. It is what you are doing with your work. The coaching. The healing. The therapy. The teaching. All of it contributes to a better society. A kinder, more compassionate, healthier world.

I am not here to pretend everything is fine or to offer business as an escape from reality. I am here to build, and to support others in building, work that contributes to the kind of world we actually want to live in.

Hope, for me, is not passive optimism. It is active participation. It is choosing to keep showing up, to keep resourcing ethical work, and to support those who care to succeed. 

This is not business as usual.

This is business as a practice of care, resistance, and possibility. I hope you are with me.