Last week, over coffee with Marcello Palazzi, we were exploring how we could bring together entrepreneurs, executives, and investors who truly care for themselves, for others, for the planet, to support each other and our public leaders in initiating meaningful initiatives for sustainable communities?
It was a rich and heartfelt exchange. And somewhere in the middle, we stumbled on the word ‘complexity’.
It’s a word that comes up a lot in the sustainability world. And yes, many of the systems we work in—energy, food, finance—are refined, interconnected and intricate. But as we sat with it, I found myself wondering, is complexity perhaps also an excuse:
Is the actual shift we need to make really that complex?
Or does it just feel that way because of how tightly we hold on to what we already know?
Because here’s the paradox: out of fear (ultimately, a fear of death) we cling to the systems, identities, and comforts we’ve built. We grasp at the known. But the harder we cling, the more we accelerate the very thing we’re trying to avoid, not metaphorically, but biologically.
We hold on to survive, and in doing so, we forget how to live.
But when we shift our thoughts, our words, our actions toward contributing to life—not just our own, but life in its broadest, most interconnected sense—something begins to change. Not just morally, but healthfully.
Life wants to regenerate and when we align ourselves with that impulse, everything becomes more clear, more natural. There is no longer a need for hard work, to force or to fear. We return to heart work, the flow we were made for.
The cost of holding on
It turns out that what’s most complex is not the transformation itself. It’s our resistance to it. The resistance comes from layers of identity, habit, and cultural conditioning, especially in the West. From the ways we’ve been taught to define success, safety, and self-worth. We’ve been shaped by a worldview that values individualism, control, speed, and domination over nature. In that paradigm, letting go feels like failure. Rest feels like laziness. Uncertainty feels like danger.
So much of that is built on things we now need to let go of:
- The need to always know
- The belief that speed equals value
- The illusion of control.
- The addiction to endless growth
- The myth of the lone hero
- The avoidance of uncertainty, grief, and failure
- The habit of comfort over truth
- The belief that pain is something to fix, not feel
But letting go isn’t loss: it’s the opening to something more natural and alive.
Many Indigenous, Eastern, and traditional cultures live with a far deeper sense of interconnection. A respect for cycles, for mystery, for the intelligence of nature. They remind us that we are not separate from the Earth, and that our wellbeing is bound up with the wellbeing of the whole.
These cultures offer something we’ve forgotten: that wisdom doesn’t always move in straight lines. That growth includes rest. That not-knowing is an incredibly powerful beginning.
Rather than extracting or appropriating from them, we might instead approach with humility, learn to listen again and unlearn that what doesn’t serve us. To learn from their perspectives and re-member this also in ourselves.
What about suffering?
In our pursuit of comfort, we’ve gradually eliminated suffering. We do this through medication, distraction, perfectionism and performance. But in doing so, we push away one of our greatest teachers – suffering!
Almost all the people who inspire me most are those who have suffered deeply, and who allowed that suffering to shape them into wiser, deeper, more humble, and compassionate human beings.
What if suffering isn’t an interruption to life’s path, but an initiation into it?
We’re not talking about romanticizing pain. But we are talking about restoring its rightful place in human growth. Suffering humbles us, it softens the ego. It strips away illusions and brings us into contact with what matters most.
When we stop running from suffering—our own, and that of others—we become more real. And with that comes the capacity to truly serve.
Because without walking through the dark, how can we ever become people others can trust to carry the light?
A new kind of leadership
And so, leadership should also change. Not just in style, but in substance.
The leaders we need now are not those who always know what to do, but those who are willing to be with what is. Who can hold space for uncertainty. Who know how to listen before they act.
They must become stewards of learning, not enforcers of certainty.
They must know how to:
- Create spaces where people can experiment, stumble, and try again.
- Value questions more then answers and encourage questions that have no immediate answers (and may even lead to better, underlying questions).
- Celebrate progress that comes not from control, but from curiosity and discovery.
- Make room for mistakes—not as weaknesses to be punished, but because we are human, as the natural ground of growth.
- Protect the space for truth to surface, even when it’s uncomfortable.
Today’s culture of compliance and risk management—necessary in some ways—has gone so far that we’ve made mistakes taboo. We’ve wrapped ourselves in CYA policies and performative correctness, but in doing so, we’ve strangled the possibility of real learning.
The future needs leaders who know how to hold space for life, grounded in presence, humility, and service, not control and status.
From complexity to clarity
So yes, the systems are complicated. But the shift itself, the deeper movement, is very clear.
What’s being asked of us is not more speed or strategy, but radical simplification.
A return to the deep truth that we are part of life, not above it.
And that everything we do—every decision, every product, every conversation—should serve that life.
You may think that is unrealistic and idealistic? To me aligning with life is actually it’s the most practical and natural thing we can do: a catalyst to radical simplification.
Shall we jump and start really living again?
Please let us know what you think, we would love to hear from you via sendlove at heartwork dot earth.