What is success? That’s the essential question of conscious business. Is it success to run a profitable enterprise and feel empty and depressed at the end of each day? Is it success to grow a company with low employee morale that offers an attractive return to investors? Is it success to expand market share of a product that slowly makes people sick? These questions don’t, in fact, have objective right answers. There’s no inarguable instruction book to leading a good life.
Yet, increasingly, a community of leaders is coalescing around a vision of success that is quite different from the messages embedded in our contemporary mainstream. Much like early advocates for the abolition of slavery or for women’s right to vote, they’re a diverse group of individuals who, for whatever reason, have come to see through and beyond the ideas that hold sway in our society’s traditional centers of power and influence. They’re saying no to profit at all costs. They’re saying no to sacrificing their personal and communal wellbeing on the altar of unquestioning growth. They’re saying no to myopic, short-term thinking. And, just as importantly, they’re saying a big, heartfelt yes to using the creative power of business to envision and invoke a more socially just, environmentally sustainable, and spiritually fulfilling world.
This new vision of success is rapidly gaining momentum. Yet despite the progress of the past several years, those of us practicing and standing for doing business differently still often find ourselves swimming upstream, reaching deep for the courage to honor our convictions in the face of a “normal” that hasn’t caught up. In times of challenge, it’s easy to slip into the trap of feeling that you are alone or unsupported. We’re here to remind you: that’s not so.
Depending on where you live, you might be the only one in your local chamber of commerce who’s committed to paying a living wage, or the lone voice of “win-for-all” in a room of “eat-or-be-eaten.” But rest assured, your kindred spirits are out there. And in the interest of advancing a new definition of success in business — which happens to be Conscious Company’s purpose — it’s our honor bring you this list of 21 role models on the journey toward a new way to be.
Our Methods
Please know that making a list like this is hard work. We started by recruiting a panel of nine top-notch judges, each a leading expert in one of the three domains of influence we wanted to acknowledge and celebrate (personal journey, aka the inner work; conscious workplace, aka the “we space”; and global impact, aka effects on society). We sent out a call for nominations, and nudged people into taking time to tell us the stories of those deserving recognition. We sorted through dozens of detailed applications and passed the most qualified to our judges. Each three-person panel convened at least once to agree on criteria and on whom to showcase. Then we gathered all the images, facts, and references we needed to share the honorees’ accomplishments. In the end, easily hundreds of hours of thought and effort went into this story, from both our staff and our community. We say this not to pat ourselves on the back, but to underscore how important such a list is.
For each of the honorees, we hope this small token of recognition helps cheer them along and helps confirm that their hard work has not gone unseen. For the rest of us, may their stories inspire and enable us to keep going, to take our own next brave step, to remember there are others floating along beside us in the river of uncertainty and change. As the oft-quoted African proverb reminds us, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” This is us. Let’s stick together and go far.
