The Sacred Business of Emergence

Nature always follows the path of least resistance, maximum reward. Are we doing the same?

If you didn’t know, I have a Master’s in Education, specifically in teaching and learning for secondary schools. I graduated with a research focus on religion and spirituality in education, where I found something simple but profound: when we teach holistically, with deeper human values at the root, everyone benefits. Restrictive, polarising systems, however, tend to breed dissatisfaction. They lower engagement, performance, and connection across the board.

Sound familiar? Education. Politics. Relationships. Business. Life.

I’ve carried this same belief into the business world, especially while working in the space of emerging technology. Take the word emerging. Emerge. Emergence. Emergence is defined as “the process of becoming visible after being concealed,” or “the process of coming into existence or prominence.” And I would be a terrible ex-Classics teacher and member of the Columba College Latin Club if I didn’t say it in Latin: Emergere, to bring to light.

Recently, I came across a clip from the late Professor Brian Goodwin, who spoke about emergence in nature. How nature always follows the path of least resistance and maximum reward.

Reflecting on my time as a leader in Aotearoa’s emerging tech space, I laugh at how forceful so many businesses have become, especially in tech. So obsessed with disruption, acceleration, domination. But real innovation, like nature, knows how to move with the current, not against it.

Because when I think of emergence theory, nature’s path of least resistance, I realise most of our systems function in the opposite way: maximum resistance, minimum reward.

We’re taught to follow the standardised formula. In return, we’re promised comfort. Money. Success. But it’s rarely enough to sustain a truly flourishing life; it’s just enough to keep us dependent on a form of safety that’s been carefully prescribed.

And so, I find myself here, rebuilding. Dismantling what I once believed was the only path, and choosing to create a business not for the world that was, but for the world we’re now entering. Or the one I hope we can create together.

Emergence in Action

Old systems are dissolving before our eyes. The rigid hierarchies, extractive structures, performative progress. In their place? A call for intelligence that serves both the human and the collective. A new way of thinking and creating that responds to the world as it is, not as we wish it were.

Reflecting on my own work, I see boldness and intuition as the core drivers of this new era. Creative fire, experimentation, and curiosity become not just tools but guiding principles.

Innovation isn’t about burning everything down for the sake of rebellion. It’s about asking: What are we building with our energy? What kind of structures, communities, and systems do we want to bring into being?

What’s the Why?

Because in a time defined by dissolving systems and emerging possibilities, we can no longer build from old paradigms of pressure, productivity, and performance for performance’s sake. Those models are tired. We’re tired.

So I’ve returned to something quiet, but foundational: my why.

It’s not just a mission statement scribbled on a whiteboard. It’s a visceral sense of purpose that lives inside me and the part that knows why I’m still here. Still showing up, even when it all unravels. Without that deeper “why,” it’s too easy to lose yourself in noise and burn out trying to match a pace that was never yours to begin with.

But when your purpose is rooted in clarity, not performance or perfection prescribed by others, you become agile. Unshakeable. You stop seeing pivots as failures and start recognising them as sacred realignments. You let things fall away. You learn from them. You trust what wants to emerge.

This is how I’m rebuilding: from alignment, not ambition.

When you're building something soul-led, the architecture reveals itself over time. It grows in its own rhythm, sometimes quickly, sometimes quietly. But it always grows if it’s meant to.

The world doesn’t need more “business as usual.” It needs business as ritual. Strategy that’s responsive. Growth that’s regenerative. Models built not just for capital gain, but for collective healing and true abundance.

That’s what I’m creating, and I hope you can too. Something designed for this moment in time, and for the future we’re all dreaming into being.

What’s your why?