The Business(case) of Consciousness, Part 2
How We Cultivate the Social Soil
of a Conscious Economy
Eighteen months ago, I wrote the first part of this blog: The Business Case of Consciousness. Back then, my main question was Why? Why would anyone invest in their own consciousness? Why would a business care about something so, seemingly, intangible?
I argued that the evolution of consciousness matters not only for our wellbeing, but also for innovation, collaboration, and long-term sustainability. I tried to create a business narrative, for business people… What I could not yet see, however, is that the very definition of “business” was waiting to expand, in me.
Since then, my world has changed, as for many of us: both the outer one and the inner one. I thought my role was to “bridge” business and consciousness. Today, I see it differently. Our business IS the state of our being. Economics, as the Aboriginal elders in Australia reminded me, again, comes from the Greek word oikos, meaning household. Our economy is nothing other than the way we care for our shared home, Earth.
So, the question is no longer why but how.
How do we play our role in evolving human consciousness for the wellbeing of all life?
The Social Soil: The Ground of Transformation
Reading Otto Scharmer’s Presencing gave me a deep clarity that felt like a homecoming. He writes about social soil — the qualities of awareness and relationship that people in a system operate from. Just as healthy soil determines the fertility of a garden, the quality of our collective social soil determines the future we are able to grow.
And like real soil, it requires care. If we neglect it, it erodes. If we tend to it, it nourishes life. The social soil practices Scharmer describes are not new; they are remembered wisdom. Ancient cultures have always known this. What is new is our urgent need to bring these practices into our economies, democracies, and learning systems.
For me, one practice resonated most deeply: Presencing — holding space for the future as it wants to emerge through us. I realized that this has been at the core of my work for decades, often without having the language for it. It’s about creating conditions of trust, stillness, and openness, so that what is possible can take root.
From Ego to Eco: Shifts We Cannot Ignore
Scharmer speaks of three great transformations that humanity is now facing:
Shifting economies from ego to eco.
From extraction to regeneration. From profit-only to wellbeing for all.Shifting democracies to new formats.
From polarization and representation, to participation and co-creation.Shifting lifelong learning from transactional to transformational.
From simply transferring knowledge, to awakening wisdom.
Each of these shifts depends on how we cultivate our social soil. They are not technical problems to be solved, but relational challenges to be lived into. As we know from Einstein: ‘We can’t solve our problems with the same level of consciousness that created them’.
Islands of Coherence: The Smallest Scale First
The smallest island of coherence is me.
It is you.
When I align my attention, intention, and agency, I become a living seed of coherence. And when a few of us come together in this alignment, something extraordinary happens: we form islands of coherence that can grow into ecosystems of coherence.
These are the places—whether in families, organizations, or communities—where a different future is already being lived. Where collaboration feels natural, where care outweighs competition, where innovation arises not from pressure but from flow.
The invitation is ‘simple’: protect the flame. Stay connected to the sources of your own essence, to the land beneath your feet, to the ecosystem around you, and to the highest potential calling you forward.
Practical Seeds for Cultivating Social Soil
So, how do we begin? Here are some simple, practical steps:
Pay attention to your attention. Notice where your energy flows, and choose consciously. This is the first act of cultivation.
Create spaces of stillness. Individually and collectively, pause more often. Silence is fertile ground.
Practice presencing. Meet conversations, meetings, or even conflicts not with pre-set answers, but with openness to what wants to emerge.
Connect in three directions.
Downward: to the land, place, and ancestry.
Horizontal: to peers, collaborators, and ecosystems.
Upward: to the highest potential within you, waiting to be born.
Build small islands of coherence. Don’t wait for systems to change; start where you are.
Living the How
The How of consciousness evolution is not a manual, but a practice. It is a journey of the heart—learning to see with new eyes, to sense with new ears, and to act with a new courage.
And perhaps the most important shift of all is this: we are not here to save the future. The future is here to save us. It is already present, looking at us, waiting for us to notice it and give it form.
What if everything we are experiencing right now is exactly what we were born for?
When we hold that question in our social soil, we begin to walk differently. We begin to dream differently. We begin to live as if the wellbeing of all life depends on us—because it does.