In moments of uncertainty, hope can feel fragile.

Across organizations, communities, and even within ourselves, many leaders today are navigating a world marked by rapid change, complexity, and growing uncertainty. Decisions arrive faster than reflection. Information multiplies faster than wisdom.

And yet, during a recent ebbf dialogue that introduced her role as speaker and her take of the theme of the ebbf annual conference “Reorienting towards hope” Layli Miller-Muro invited participants to pause and reconsider something fundamental:

Hope is not simply an emotion we wait for. It is something we can actively cultivate.

But doing so requires rethinking how we lead, how we collaborate, and even how we understand progress.

Why traditional “capacity building” often falls short

Many institutions invest heavily in building capacity: new training programs, expert consultants, strategic frameworks. Yet these efforts often fail to create real transformation.

According to Layli, the reason is surprisingly simple: too often, expertise arrives from the outside.

Consultants, advisors, and funders come with predefined solutions — well-intentioned but disconnected from the lived realities of the organizations they aim to support. What begins as guidance can easily feel like patronizing instruction.

Real capacity building, Layli shares, begins elsewhere: with agency.
People must feel ownership over their own growth.

When individuals and organizations have the power to define their own challenges and design their own development paths, something shifts; trust emerges, participation deepens, Energy replaces resistance.

She recalls a telling moment while working with partners of the Mastercard Foundation, one of the world’s largest philanthropic organizations.

Despite being told they could freely choose whether to participate in a capacity-building program, people from a partner organization arrived skeptical and defensive. They assumed participation had been imposed from above.

The breakthrough came in an unexpected way.

The facilitator calmly closed his laptop and said: “You don’t have to do this. I’m happy to leave.”

The moment agency was restored, curiosity replaced resistance. That organization became one of the most engaged participants in the entire program.

A small shift — but a profound one.

The hidden foundation of hope

Hope, Layli suggests, is deeply tied to our worldview.

Scientific research on well-being consistently shows that individuals with spiritual perspectives tend to report greater levels of optimism and resilience.

Why?

Because spirituality introduces a longer horizon.

When we believe that life unfolds through cycles of challenge and growth — that justice and meaning may extend beyond immediate outcomes — it becomes easier to endure difficulty without despair.

Layli witnessed this firsthand during her years working with survivors of human trafficking and domestic violence at the Tahirih Justice Center.

Many of those who had suffered the most possessed extraordinary resilience. Their strength did not come from ignoring injustice, quite the opposite.
It came from a belief that justice operates on a longer arc than the immediate moment.
Even if fairness is delayed, they trusted that it ultimately prevails.

As Martin Luther King Jr. famously said:

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

Hope, then, is not blind optimism; it is a conviction that meaningful effort matters — even when outcomes remain uncertain.

In a world of instant gratification, how do we stay grounded?

Modern life pulls us toward immediacy. Notifications, news cycles, and digital distractions create an environment of constant stimulation and instant reward. This short-term mindset makes sustained hope harder to maintain.

So how do we reorient ourselves?

Layli suggests something surprisingly simple: moments of joy and beauty.

Art, music, creativity, nature — these experiences are not mere distractions, they are forms of renewal. They reset our mental state and allow us to see more clearly again. Even brief encounters with beauty can restore perspective and emotional balance.

Joy, in this sense, becomes a tool for clarity.

Three leadership practices that cultivate hope

Through her experience building organizations and advising global initiatives, Layli has observed that hopeful organizations share three characteristics.

They cultivate vision, agency, and assistance.

1. Vision: Knowing where we are going

We know that uncertainty breeds anxiety, so people need to understand:

• Where the organization is heading
• Why the journey matters
• The principles guiding the path forward

Vision does not require perfect foresight; often it simply begins with identifying a clear problem that must be solved.

When Layli founded the Tahirih Justice Center, her initial vision was modest: a small team helping dozens of women each year access legal protection.

But a clear mission created space for collective creativity. Over time, the organization grew dramatically — largely because ideas emerged from the entire team rather than from one central authority.

Leadership’s role was not to invent every idea, it was instead to communicate purpose relentlessly and hold the organization aligned with it.

2. Agency: Giving people real influence

Hope grows when people feel they can shape outcomes.
That Agency emerges through two key mechanisms:

Transparency
When information is withheld, people fill the gaps with assumptions — often negative ones. Clear communication restores trust and reduces anxiety.

Participatory decision-making
Organizations function best when people understand their role in decisions. Not every decision must be democratic. But clarity matters.

Sometimes individuals have full authority and sometimes their contribution specifically offers advice, their opinions. Sometimes decisions are made collectively, in other cases they are made by a smaller group informed by the wisdom of the collective intelligence of the organization.

What is fundamental is not so much to always have a complete democratic decision making that involved 100% of the team. Instead it is the transparency of the process, that allows people feel respected.
They understand how they are contributing to the final decision, even if they are not present in that final moment. Knowing where their role lies and how it affects the whole is a key part of creating agency.

3. Assistance: No leader succeeds alone

Leadership can be deeply isolating. Hope requires support systems.

Some of the systems that Layli experienced as most useful in her own leadership and that she shares with the leaders she now accompanies include:

• Honest feedback loops
• Trusted colleagues or mentors
• Executive coaching or peer networks

But Layli adds another dimension that many leaders overlook.
There is often an element of unpredictable assistance — moments when circumstances align in unexpected ways.

A door opens, a partner appears, A new possibility emerges. Some call it luck, some talk of manifesting, others call it grace and others see those outcomes as guided by a spiritual calling.
Either way, recognizing that such forces exist can help leaders maintain hope even during difficult phases.

Spiritual principles without spiritual language

In modern professional environments, the word “spirituality” can sometimes feel uncomfortable. Yet many of the principles associated with spirituality are already embedded in effective leadership.

Trust. Integrity. Service. Values alignment.

Each of these concepts can be described in purely operational terms — organizational culture, employee engagement, risk mitigation.

The language may certainly change, but the essence remains the same.

Spiritual wisdom often finds its way into practice even when it is not named as such.

Recognizing the “fragrance” of spirituality in organizations

During the dialogue, one participant used a beautiful quote to share how the concept of spirituality might be expressed in different ways but it still is a spiritual trait:
“Consider the rose: whether it blossometh in the East or in the West, it is nonetheless a rose. For what mattereth in this respect is not the outward shape and form of the rose, but rather the smell and fragrance which it doth impart.”

Layli suggested that this “fragrance” , the application of spirituality at work can be recognized at three levels.

Level 1. At the human level — Humility.
Leaders who remain curious, open to learning, and aware of their limitations create space for collective wisdom.

Level 2. At the institutional level
Values that are not merely written but operationalized.
Organizations that truly embody their principles integrate them into decision-making, policies, and accountability systems.

Level 3. At the cultural level - Shared norms.
Communities function best when people understand how to collaborate, resolve tensions, and move toward common goals.

When these three layers align, something intangible yet powerful emerges: a culture that quietly nurtures hope.

Why this moment should give us hope

Despite the challenges facing today’s world, Layli remains profoundly optimistic.

“I see something remarkable happening across sectors and societies, people are questioning inherited assumptions.”

They are asking:

• Do we really need to do things this way?
• Does this structure still serve our purpose?
• Are there better ways to collaborate?

This willingness to rethink established frameworks signals something deeper. Humanity is experimenting and learning. And perhaps, gradually rediscovering principles that place unity, participation, and service at the center of collective progress.

Hope, in the end, is not about certainty.
It is about participating in that unfolding process.

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About the Speaker

Layli Miller-Muro is a human rights lawyer, social entrepreneur, and internationally recognized advocate for gender justice. She is the founder and former CEO of the Tahirih Justice Center, a pioneering organization that provides legal services and advocacy for immigrant women and girls fleeing violence.

Over two decades of leadership, she helped transform Tahirih into a nationally recognized institution serving thousands of survivors. Layli now advises philanthropic foundations, social impact organizations, and global initiatives on leadership, capacity building, and participatory decision-making. Her work bridges law, social innovation, and values-driven leadership — exploring how organizations can align purpose, justice, and human dignity in practical ways.

What happens when finance remembers its soul?

What if finance is not the problem?
What if it is simply a powerful tool waiting to be guided by a different consciousness?

During a recent ebbf online dialogue, we had the privilege of welcoming Jenna Nicholas investor, systems thinker, and author of the best-sellers-list book The Enlightened Bottom Line. Three continents with a life dedicated to impact investing in China, UK & Europe and now the US. Fifteen years in impact investing. A career dedicated to rethinking capital and now, a book that dares to ask:

Can spirituality and finance belong in the same sentence?

For many, the answer feels uncomfortable. Finance is about numbers, spirituality is about meaning; markets are competitive, spirit is compassionate; growth is material, transformation is personal.

Or is it?

The dedication that says everything

Before we even entered an exploration of the key chapters in her book, Jenna brought us somewhere intimate.

She dedicated the book to her mother and grandmother — both entrepreneurs. Women who built businesses, women of faith, women who embodied strength and tenderness (and a good sense of humour) in equal measure.

Her grandmother ran a shop and was also an artist, her mother ran a bed and breakfast, then worked in real estate and introduced Jenna to the principles of the Bahá’í faith, particularly the core principles of the equality of women and men and the independent investigation of truth.

That early formation matters.
Because when you learn as a child that business and dignity can coexist…
You grow up believing that finance can serve humanity.
And that belief becomes a vocation.

The contradiction we’ve normalized

One statistic echoed throughout the dialogue:

Of the roughly $820 trillion in global assets under management, less than 3% is managed by women and people of color.

Pause.
Really?

For decades, data shows that diverse funds perform equally or better. Yet allocations remain skewed; this isn’t just a moral failure, it’s a systems inefficiency.

Why?

Because bias is embedded, because capital flows follow familiarity, because we have separated values from investment logic.
And perhaps because we still believe that doing good requires sacrificing performance.

Jenna challenges that assumption directly.

The HEAL Framework

At the core of The Enlightened Bottom Line is the HEAL framework:

• Hope, fuels resilience in uncertain markets.
• Empathy, improves decision quality.
• Abundance, reframes scarcity thinking.
• Legacy, shifts time horizons beyond quarterly earnings.

These are not soft add-ons. They are operational principles.

One example that Jenna shared during the dialogue was the healthcare company Devoted Health.

“Before each patient interaction, doctors pause and imagine the person in front of them as a beloved family member. A simple yet fundamental internal shift.
The result of this kind of focus is a strong financial growth, a high patient satisfaction and a culture anchored in care.”

A “love-based competitive advantage,” as one dialogue participant described it: small practices, systemic impact.

Enough is abundance

One of the most powerful moments in the dialogue was the conversation around “enough.”

We live in a culture trained for more; more growth, more valuation, more extraction. But what if abundance is not accumulation?

What if abundance is knowing when enough is enough?
Jenna described wearing a bracelet engraved with the word “Enough” — a reminder that fulfillment is not linear with income beyond a certain point.

This reframing is radical, because once “enough” becomes the benchmark, finance stops being an endless race and becomes a tool for shared prosperity.

Ownership changes behavior

Another story shared during the session by Ramin Bogzaran involved a company navigating the 2008 financial crisis. Rather than laying off employees, leadership took salary cuts thus ensuring that the financial sacrifice of a few would allow all to remain on the payroll.
Then, a few years later another “black swan” hit another of his companies and during the COVID period, the board decided to spread the ownership of the company , giving a greater share of company ownership to employees across all levels, literally all levels from and including the entry person.

When employees become owners, engagement deepens. Financial literacy and commitment increases and motivation strengthens; because ownership is not just financial structure, It is a psychological shift.

And perhaps this is the deeper invitation: not to redistribute leftovers, but to redesign participation.

Integration vs. fragmentation

Shiva Dustdar, one of the protagonists interviewed in the book who took part in this ebbf dialogue with the author named the paradox many of us feel:

Why do we still separate profit-making from purpose?
Why do so many companies and entrepreneurs maximise their financials, use business models able to make them billions through extractive systems and then create a foundation to compensate for the damage their extractive business model created?

What if integration replaced fragmentation?

What if environmental stewardship, fair wages, inclusive governance, and financial return were not sequential — but simultaneous?
This is not naïve idealism, it is once again using this wider lense, applying systems thinking…and it requires courage.

Small islands of coherence

During the dialogue, a quote by Chemistry Nobel Prize winner Ilya Prigogine surfaced:

“When a system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the whole system to a higher order.”

That might be the essence of this movement.
Impact funds, Regenerative boards, Employee ownership structures, Investment vehicles addressing bias, Leaders modeling empathy are not yet mainstream but they are coherent, and coherence scales.

Everybody knows… but do we know that everybody knows?

A powerful reflection emerged about cultural tipping points.

Sometimes change accelerates when we realize we are not alone — when “everybody knows that everybody knows” something must shift.

We see it in social movements, in technology regulation, in generational wealth transfer toward values-aligned investing and perhaps finance is approaching that threshold.

Because the evidence is clear:
Values-based investing performs, Inclusive capital allocation unlocks growth, Empathy improves governance, Abundance thinking strengthens resilience.

So what is missing?
Perhaps Courage? Alignment? Embodied leadership?

Managers as trace-makers

One question from the audience lingered:
What trace do we leave as managers?

Every decision leaves a trace — on culture, on incentives, on dignity.

Julian MacQueen introduced in his Innisfre Hotels, as highlighted in the book, a weekly value reflections team meeting. A sacred moment now embedded in the habits and culture of every team in his chain of hotels. Employees discuss them, bring them home, put them on their fridges, have a conversation about “the value of the week” with their families.

Strategy becomes lived, leadership becomes relational, culture becomes intentional.

The next generation is watching

From early work in China and Washington, D.C., to founding Impact Experience in 2015, to co-creating systems change initiatives such as Illumin Capital, Jenna’s journey mirrors the evolution of the impact investing field itself.

What began as a niche movement is now increasingly institutional and the next generation is demanding alignment. The intergenerational wealth transfer underway is not just financial — it is philosophical.

The question is no longer:
“Can we afford to invest with values?”

It is now:
“Can we afford not to?”

Finance as force of integration

Throughout the dialogue, a theme from the Bahá’í writings surfaced: the forces of disintegration and integration.

Finance can amplify both.

It can concentrate power, or distribute opportunity, it can extract, or regenerate, it can widen inequality, or build inclusion.

The tool, finance, is neutral but the consciousness is not.
And perhaps that is the core message of The Enlightened Bottom Line:

Spirituality in business is not about religiosity.
It is about awareness.

Awareness of impact, awareness of bias, awareness of enough, awareness of legacy.

When finance remembers its soul, personal growth and global transformation stop being opposites.

They become mirrors.

The bestseller status of The Enlightened Bottom Line is not just a personal milestone, it signals a wider desire for a new kind of future, a readiness and eagerness that was not there before.

The world is searching for models where success and service are not rivals.

And maybe — just maybe — the bottom line is most enlightened when it serves life itself.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Jenna Nicholas is an #ebbfmember investor, systems entrepreneur, and global advocate for values-aligned finance. Raised in London and educated at Stanford University, obtaining her master at Stanford Business School, she began her career investing in socially responsible businesses across China and the United States, contributing to the early growth of the modern impact investing movement.

She is the co-founder of Impact Experience, an initiative that convenes investors, fund managers, and executives to explore how personal transformation and systemic change intersect. She also founded LightPost Capital, a fund of funds designed to address racial and gender bias in capital allocation by combining rigorous research with investment practice.

Jenna’s work sits at the intersection of finance, leadership, and spirituality. Through investing, writing, and convening, she explores how empathy, abundance, and legacy can reshape financial systems from the inside out. Her book The Enlightened Bottom Line invites leaders to integrate personal growth with global transformation — and to recognize that the future of finance depends not only on capital, but on consciousness.

This article is inspired by a recent ebbf learning dialogue, you can find HERE more learning opportunities ebbf has created for you , for meaningful and useful interactions on topics relevant to you.

Considering ebbf’s name “Ethical Business Building the Future”, and the fact that coming years are expected to bring an unprecedented wave of restructuring and layoffs across sectors and geographies, we decided to dedicate a session to see if it possible to build an ethical roadmap to deal with painful decisions about our workforces.

How can organizations restructure responsibly, in ways that honor human dignity, value work, and preserve trust, justice, and hope?

This question was at the heart of a recent EBBF Learning Dialogue on Responsible Restructuring, hosted by Françoise Le Goff. Drawing from decades of leadership experience in humanitarian and corporate contexts, Françoise offered not a theoretical model, but a lived example of how restructuring — when handled with courage, consultation, and care — can become a process of collective dignity rather than collective trauma.

When Values Are Truly Tested

Everyone speaks of values when times are good. But as Françoise reminded participants, it is in moments of difficulty — when offices close, budgets shrink, and jobs are lost — that ethics are truly revealed.

Her story began in Africa, where she was tasked with closing an office due to restructuring. The economic context was harsh: high inflation, scarce employment opportunities, and families heavily dependent on stable income. The directive from senior management was clear — but the how was left to her.

That freedom, she explained, was not a procedural detail. It was a moral responsibility.

Leadership, in such moments, is not defined by the decision itself, but by the way it is implemented. And implementation, she argued, is a mirror of who we are as leaders.

Starting at the Roots: Ethics Before Economics

Rather than rushing into action, Françoise began where many restructuring processes fail to begin: with the ethical foundations of the organization.

Inspired by a booklet (FREE DOWNLOAD available here) developed by ebbf’s original founder George Starcher with the International Labour Organization, she and her team returned to fundamental questions:

• What do our values actually mean when livelihoods are at stake?
• How does our code of conduct guide us when no option is painless?
• What responsibility do we hold — not only legally, but humanly?

Economic realities were not denied. Organizations must remain viable. Costs matter. Efficiency matters. But economics, she emphasized, must never override humanity.

When finance and legal departments dominate restructuring without a human lens, the hidden costs — loss of trust, court cases, reputational damage, long-term disengagement — often far exceed the savings.

The Invisible Costs of Losing Work

One of the most powerful insights from the dialogue was Françoise’s reflection on the value of work.

Work is not the same thing for everyone.

For some, it is primarily financial security. For others, it is social status, identity, or belonging. For others still, it is intellectual fulfillment or technical mastery. When work disappears, the loss is not merely economic — it can destabilize a person’s sense of self.

Responsible restructuring, therefore, requires understanding what work represents to each individual. A uniform severance package may address financial needs, but it may completely miss the deeper losses people experience.

This realization shaped every step of the process that followed.

Consultation as a Tool for Dignity

Rather than designing solutions behind closed doors, Françoise established a joint employer–employee committee. Over several months, they explored together what work meant, what people feared, and what support would truly help them move forward.

The result was not extravagance, but fairness: a compensation package co-created through dialogue, proportional, transparent, and grounded in local realities.

Each affected employee received a written proposal — not an ultimatum. They were invited to take it home, discuss it with their families, and return with questions, ideas, and plans.

What happened next was remarkable.

Every person came back with a life project: starting a small business, investing in education, relocating, or transitioning to another organization. The company then supported these transitions — through references, connections, and accompaniment.

People did not choose to lose their jobs. But they were given the dignity of choosing how they would move forward.

Trust Is Built — or Broken — in the Process

Throughout the dialogue, participants shared their own experiences of restructuring — some handled with care, others marked by silence, deception, or violence.

Stories of being fired by text message, kept in the dark until bankruptcy, or forced to reapply for one’s own job revealed the devastating consequences of fear-based leadership. Such approaches destroy trust, polarize teams, and leave lasting scars — not only on those who leave, but on those who remain.

By contrast, Françoise’s process — six months long, transparent, participatory — ended with something almost unheard of in restructuring: a collective gathering where people laughed, expressed gratitude, and acknowledged the journey.

As one employee said that day:

“Yes, we lost our jobs. But we were treated with dignity and we can now build out future from that dignity.”

Courage, Kindness, and the Role of Leadership

Responsible restructuring requires courage — not the courage to cut fast, but the courage to slow down.

It demands leaders who are willing to:

• Prepare thoroughly and anticipate risks
• Communicate openly and consistently
• Accompany middle managers, who often carry the emotional burden
• Recognize vulnerability — on both sides of the table
• Place people at the center, not as a slogan, but as a practice

Kindness, Françoise emphasized, is not weakness. It is strategic. It reduces conflict, legal risk, and long-term damage. And it affirms something essential: that people are not disposable assets.

From Crisis to Responsibility

As layoffs increase globally, organizations face a defining choice. They can treat restructuring as a technical exercise — or as a moral one.

The EBBF Learning Dialogue offered a powerful reminder: there is always a choice in how we act, even when the decision itself feels unavoidable.

Responsible restructuring is not about avoiding pain. It is about ensuring that pain is not compounded by injustice, disrespect, or silence.

When consultation replaces coercion, when ethics guide execution, and when leaders choose dignity over speed, restructuring can become — if not painless — at least humane.

And in times like these, humanity may be the most responsible strategy of all.

Your next opportunity to be part of an ebbf learning experience here: more learning opportunities ebbf has created for you .

ABOUT FRANÇOISE

Françoise Le Goff is an international leader, advisor, and facilitator with decades of experience guiding organizations through complex transformation, crisis, and ethical decision-making. Her career spans senior leadership roles in humanitarian, international, and corporate environments, where she has worked at the intersection of strategy, people, and values.

Known for her deep commitment to dignity at work, Françoise has led and supported organizations facing restructuring, downsizing, and systemic change in highly sensitive social and economic contexts. Her approach integrates ethical reflection, consultation, and practical implementation — demonstrating that responsible restructuring is not only morally sound, but operationally effective.

Throughout her career, she has championed leadership grounded in trust, transparency, and respect for the intrinsic value of work. She is particularly recognized for her ability to accompany leaders and teams through emotionally charged transitions, helping them navigate uncertainty while preserving cohesion, justice, and hope.

A long-standing member of EBBF (Ethical Business Building the Future), Françoise contributes actively to global dialogues on ethical leadership, corporate responsibility, and human-centered governance. She brings lived experience rather than abstract theory — sharing lessons forged in real-world complexity, where decisions have lasting consequences for individuals, families, and communities.

Françoise continues to mentor leaders, design learning experiences, and advocate for a shift in how organizations approach restructuring — calling for courage, preparation, and humanity in moments that define both institutional culture and personal legacy.

“Spirituality at work?”

When Denise Cumella raises the topic, she often sees the same reaction: surprise. Sometimes skepticism.

What does spirituality have to do with deadlines, budgets, emails, machines? Aren’t those separate worlds?

And yet, the more we listen to the stories people tell about their working lives, the more urgent the question becomes: “How do I survive in a toxic workplace?” … “Work isn’t made for us” …“I just have to endure it”

We hear these phrases everywhere. Across industries. Across cultures. Across generations.

Work, for too many, has become something to survive.

But here lies the contradiction: we spend the majority of our waking lives working. How can something that occupies so much of our existence be considered insignificant — or worse, a prison?

Denise invites us to confront that contradiction directly.

A paradigm shift long overdue

For centuries, work has often been framed as necessity, an obligation, even punishment, “you need to work hard … work needs to be taken seriously”.

But what if that framing is flawed?

Denise draws inspiration from the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh, who offered a radically different perspective: when work is performed in a spirit of service, it can be considered an act of worship.

Pause there.

Not charity after work, not spirituality on weekends, but work itself — as worship. This is not metaphorical romanticism, it is a reframing of meaning.

If I sit at my computer in the morning with the intention of serving humanity, something shifts. My role — however ordinary it may appear — becomes part of something larger.

Every job serves someone, every process supports someone, every system affects someone. Work, seen consciously, becomes participation in human progress.

What story are we writing?

Denise asks a simple yet deep and thought-provoking question:

What kind of story do I want to help write?

Humanity is authoring a collective narrative. One day, future generations will look back at this era. What will they see? What part did we play?

Meaningful work is often imagined as humanitarian missions in distant lands. But service should not be geographical, limited to one region, it should be intentional and unlimited to single places or moments.

A teacher, an accountant, a manager, a technician, aparent balancing spreadsheets and school runs.

For all of them, if the intention is contribution, the work is noble.

And life is short.

Imagine reaching the end of your life and realizing you spent thousands of hours resenting your workplace instead of discovering its hidden opportunities for growth and service.

Work is part of our legacy.

Beauty in the eyes of the beholder

“Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder.”
Denise returns to this idea often but not as naïve optimism, but as disciplined perspective.

Of ten interactions in a day, perhaps seven will not go as planned. We can anchor ourselves in frustration, or we can choose differently.
The real dialogue happens within us.

Instead of seeing colleagues as incompetent or irritating, what if we saw them as noble human beings with latent potential?

Human beings, she reminds us, are treasures of inestimable value.

If I change the story I tell myself about others, my interactions change. And culture begins to shift — not through policy, but through perception.

Spirituality is love in action

So what do we mean by spirituality?

For Denise, spirituality is not abstract mysticism, it is love in action.

It is the daily effort to develop virtues such as kindness, justice, patience, integrity, and to apply them practically.

One of the simplest tools we possess is language.
Words can wound, they can heal. Words can divide or they can build unity.

Imagine entering your workplace each morning with a deliberate commitment:

“Today, I will speak with kindness.”

A kind word nourishes the spirit.
Encouragement strengthens morale.
Recognition awakens potential.

Gossip, on the other hand, erodes unity. It corrodes trust quietly and efficiently.
Denise proposes becoming a “hunter of virtues” where we are deliberately searching for the positive qualities in others and naming them.

This is not denial of weakness. It is cultivation of strength.

Unity over being right

In many organizations, departments compete rather than collaborate. It is frequent to observe or to be part of these challenging confrontations: sales versus administration, strategy versus operations.

But a company is one body.

And here lies an extraordinary principle:

unity is more important than being right.

It is better to make an imperfect decision together in unity than a “perfect” decision in division.

When unity is preserved, adjustments can be made and the people involved can understand, reflect, progress together.
When division dominates, morale is most likely to be lower.

In a polarized world, this principle feels revolutionary.

Constructive forces in an age of fragmentation

We live in an era saturated with negativity. Media amplifies crisis. Social platforms reward outrage.

But Denise reminds us:
“there are always two forces at work — constructive and destructive,
we choose which one to align with.”

We can amplify despair, or we can build narratives of hope. We can use our conversations, our posts, our tone, our example.

Rather than a denial of difficulty and not wanting to see any of the negative that surrounds us, Hope is a commitment to possibility.

A personal turning point

Between 2011 and 2013, Denise experienced a period of deep professional dissatisfaction. A common situation for many: long hours, exhaustion, ayoung child waiting at home.

One day she asked herself: “I am an enthusiastic, energetic person. Why am I allowing work to drain that from me?”

Together with her husband, she began hosting small educational gatherings in their home — spaces where families reflected on virtues such as justice, kindness, and purity of heart.

Those gatherings did not eliminate workplace challenges, they integrated her life. Work, family, service were no longer fragmented, instead they were aligned and created harmony in her and around her.

Balance was restored not by escaping work, but by reframing it within a broader purpose.

EBBF and the integration of faith and business

Denise encountered ebbf - ethical business building the future a Bahá’í-inspired Forum for professonals early in her career. Founded in the 1990s by business professionals seeking to apply spiritual principles to economic life, EBBF asks a foundational question:

How can business serve humanity, using the Values of the Baha’i Writings?

Across continents, EBBF gatherings reveal a powerful truth: regardless of nationality or culture, professionals share similar aspirations .
They all strive for and wish to work in a work environment where dignity, unity, meaningful contribution are at the centre of what people do and of how people behave.

Peace and unity are not distant ideals. They are practical outcomes of changed perspectives.

Technology now allows collaboration across continents. Conversations like the one that created this article connected Colombia to Europe, Africa to North America. Global unity is no longer theoretical. It is operational.

Excellence without competition

Excellence, in Denise’s view, is not about defeating others. It is about refining oneself for the good of the community.

We can and should move from a zero-sum competition mindset and objectives to a collective elevation.

What she shared is how in an age increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence and automation, what remains uniquely human is character.

Of course machines can optimize processes, but only humans can choose kindness. Only humans can choose unity and can choose to align with constructive forces.

The invitation

Work does not have to be a cage, something you are stick in, where you are the prisoner of a system.

Work can be an arena for growth.
You can see it as a laboratory for virtue and a platform for service.

The shift begins internally and we can decide how we speak, how we perceive, how we choose to narrate our experience.

It is clear that change does not happen overnight, it always unfolds through education, reflection, and consistent action. By trying things out, by moving gradually and with consistency forward towards what matters.

So tomorrow morning, when you sit at your desk, try looking with new eyes and ask yourself:

What story am I helping to write?
What trace am I leaving?
Which forces do I decide to strengthen?

Spirituality at work is not about adding something extra to your day.
It is about transforming the way you live the day you already have.

ABOUT DENISE CUMELLA

Denise Cumella is a seasoned writer, editor, and publishing consultant who helps authors bring their ideas to life with clarity, purpose, and impact. through her Book Publishing Company.
With decades of experience in ghostwriting, book coaching, and editorial strategy, she supports leaders, thinkers, and change-makers in shaping stories that matter — stories that both honor personal truth and contribute to collective understanding.

Denise’s work spans a wide range of genres and contexts, from business and leadership to spirituality and personal development. She is deeply committed to exploring how our inner lives inform our professional identities, and how everyday work can be an expression of service, meaning, and ethical contribution.

In her writing and consulting, Denise emphasizes the power of narrative — not just as communication, but as transformation. She believes that each of us is engaged in writing a larger human story, and that our work, our choices, and our daily interactions contribute to that unfolding legacy.

Denise is also a board member of ebbf — ethical business building the future

Reflections from the latest ebbf Meaningful Morning Dialogue with Rahmin Bender and Gilberto Morishaw (next dialogue you can join here)

The dialogue started with a deceptively simple question:
We often talk about silos in organizations.
Marketing doesn’t speak to finance, Academia doesn’t speak to practice, Policy doesn’t speak to people. But what if the deepest silos are not institutional — but internal?

What followed was not a tidy theory — but a living exploration.

The Silos We Build Ourselves

We often talk about those organizational silos but Rahmin offered a powerful opening reflection:
“many of the compartments we inhabit are self-constructed. We learn to separate the “professional” self, the “playful” self, the “serious” , the “spiritual”, the “creative” self.

We are told we can “bring our whole self to work” — but within structures that still reward conformity, extraction, and performance above all else.
So we comply.

We become different versions of ourselves depending on the room. And slowly, something inside us gets dampened. Not destroyed — but ironed out.”

The Dog That Wanted to Fly

Rahmin shared a simple story: he remembered when he was a child playing with his niece and a dollhouse. Whilst the girls were playing with their dolls, he was assigned the role of the dog.
He suggested the dog could and would fly but his niece objected. “Dogs don’t fly!”

A negotiation followed. Maybe the dog could fly outside the house?
It was a funny, playful, open negotiation .

But it revealed something deeper: children constantly renegotiate rules. Adults, by contrast, inherit scaffolding — norms, incentives, financial pressures, social expectations — that harden into invisible structures.
Over time, the imagination that once asked “Why not?” becomes the adult that asks “Is that appropriate?”

And perhaps that is where coherence begins to fracture.

Singing in the Street

Then Gilberto spoke.
He has a habit of singing in the street. Not metaphorically. Literally.

At first, it required bravery. What would people think? Would it bother someone? Would it look odd or unprofessional? But over time, it became something else: a practice of liberation.
Singing not as a performance but as alignment.

A way of reconnecting with himself while moving between places. A way of inhabiting liminal spaces with intention.

And something unexpected happens when you sing with love rather than ego.
People join.

He shared what happened once: “I started singing and then gradually people joined in and we had a train carriage becoming a choir!”
He saw how that journey and that singalong became a shared moment, a momento where strangers became human.

Gilberto described it as an invitation to liberation — not only for himself, but for others. When one person expresses their spark without apology, not as show but with love, as service, it creates space for others to recover theirs.

The Courage to Fail — and Be Loved Anyway

Another theme emerged: the fear of failure.

Many of us were taught that adulthood means anticipating the worst-case scenario and choosing the least damaging option. That seriousness equals responsibility. That to be lovable, we must be competent.

But what if joy and trust are not signs of naivety — but of spiritual maturity?

What if adulthood is not about building protective walls, but about trusting that we are loved enough to try, to fail, to grow?

Children fail constantly. They slam the door fifty times to understand how it works. They experiment. They laugh.

Adults often avoid trying anything that risks visible imperfection.

The dialogue suggested something subtle but radical:

coherence is not about regressing into childhood innocence. It is about reclaiming childlike wonder — while fully aware of consequence.

It is less about ignorance, it is more about living the moment and living with trust.

Freedom and Consequence

Mahmud Samandari then offered an important nuance: freedom does not mean freedom from consequence.

“We are free in action, but consequences follow laws — natural and spiritual laws — that we do not control.”

Coherence, then, is not recklessness, it is alignment. It is acting with awareness of reality, not denial of it.

Mahmud then shared how his then 93 year old father lived many moments with awe. “My father marvelled at the things he saw around him and would call be, Mahmud look at this, isn’t it wonderful how this watch was crafted, its mechanism, the beauty of its functionin”

And perhaps we should cultivate this pleasure to marvel at things but this requires that we stop our actions, better said our constant state of re-action to all that happens around us and stop to … contemplate.

In a world of constant reaction, coherence requires pause. To marvel. To observe. To see the depth in what appears flat.

Like those old 3D images that reveal hidden dimensions only when we focus long enough.

Without contemplation, we live on the surface, with it, depth and reason and meaning emerges.

Power as Overflow

One of the most beautiful threads of the conversation was this idea:

When joy comes from overflow and abundance — not scarcity — it transforms environments.

Singing shifts a train, presence shifts a workplace, playfulness shifts tension. And this the conversation did not describe as being childish, it used a very different definition:

It is power.
Not domination. Not force.
But the power of spiritual capacity — love, honesty, courage, justice — expressed coherently across contexts.

And when that happens, the supposed dichotomy between “work” and “life” begins to dissolve, there is only life.

Coherence as Integration, Not Performance

Perhaps the question is not: “How do I bring my whole self to work?”

Perhaps it should be: How do I stop fragmenting myself in the first place?

How do I integrate joy, responsibility, professionalism, spirituality, creativity — not as competing identities, but as harmonized dimensions of one being?

Coherence does not mean sameness in every setting, it means authenticity in every setting. It means acting from the same center — whether in a boardroom, a grocery store, or a train carriage.

And sometimes, it means singing.

An Invitation

The conversation ended not with conclusions, but with gratitude.

We all spent time contemplating the ideas of others and this gave us gratitude. Gratitude for learning, for community, for being alive in a time that demands courage.

So perhaps the invitation is simple:

• Where have you silenced your spark?
• Where have you accepted seriousness as virtue?
• Where might a small act of joyful coherence shift your environment?

Not as rebellion, not as branding, but as love in action?

Because coherence is not an abstract ideal, it is a daily practice and sometimes, it begins with a song.

YOUR NEXT CHAN TO BE PART OF AN
EBBF LEARNING EXPERIENCE HERE:

About Gilberto Morishaw

Gilberto Morishaw is a community leader and advocate for human dignity whose life and work center on liberation — personal, relational, and societal. Deeply rooted in values of love, justice, and service, Gilberto explores how everyday acts of authenticity can quietly reshape environments and awaken possibility in others.

Whether through professional leadership, community engagement, or simply singing in public spaces, he embodies a form of courage that is both gentle and transformative. His practice reminds us that leadership does not always require a stage — sometimes it begins with a small act of sincerity that invites others to rediscover their own spark.

Gilberto’s contribution to the ebbf dialogue reflects his conviction that coherence is not an abstract aspiration, but a lived experience — one that becomes contagious when expressed with humility and joy.

About Rahmin Bender

Rahmin Bender is a leadership practitioner, facilitator, and systems thinker committed to nurturing spaces where inner coherence and collective transformation can unfold together. His work explores how personal alignment, spiritual maturity, and structural change are inseparable dimensions of meaningful leadership.

With a deep interest in the unseen architectures that shape our behaviors — from cultural norms to internalized beliefs — Rahmin invites leaders to examine not only the systems around them, but the systems within them. His approach blends reflection and action, contemplation and courage, encouraging individuals and organizations to move beyond fragmentation toward integrated ways of being.

Through dialogues, workshops, and lived example, he challenges the quiet compromises that dilute our authenticity — and offers a vision of leadership grounded in integrity, awareness, and trust.

By #ebbfmember Luke Rivers

I recently finished reading The Spirit of Hope by Byung-Chul Han. His thoughtful exploration of hope’s essential role in meaningful change, alongside his critique of optimism as short-sighted and performative, sparked this essay. Han’s argument clarified the pitfalls of a culture that increasingly runs on optimism, not hope.

The most powerful institutions of our age, particularly in technology and finance are fueled by optimism: the projection of a better future from the trajectory of present trends. At its core, optimism is a confidence that things will improve if current patterns continue. For many, optimism has become more than a feeling, it is the shared framework through which we imagine (and just as often, fail to imagine) the future. Hope, by contrast, is an internally rooted, resilient orientation toward the transcendent. As the playwright Havel put it:

Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.

As we’ve traded traditional frameworks of meaning for the secular structures that have fueled much of our progress, hope’s deep well has been quietly paved over by optimism’s shallower channels.

In the news, we’ve all watched optimism marshal hundreds of billions of dollars in a matter of months for ever-larger data centers, while the crisis of meaning and addiction driving homelessness in the very cities at the heart of this progress has not budged. Why is it that we can bet with greater certainty on the future of our server racks than on the future of our neighbors? The difference between hope and optimism could be a part of the answer worth examining.

Opposites in disguise

The difference between hope and optimism is not semantic, but structural; shaping how we perceive time, measure progress, and organize collective action. Optimism has its place, especially in motivating innovation and material progress, but when it comes to lasting transformations of society, culture, or the human heart, only hope will suffice.

Time horizon:

Optimism is intrinsically bound up with time because it is built on extrapolations from what can be measured externally. It tends to surge and collapse overnight like stock prices reacting to earnings reports and world events.

Hope, by contrast, is rooted outside of time in transcendent values and can therefore project its influence across any time horizon. This timelessness is what gives hope its defining resilience when external realities worsen, enabling individuals and communities to persist through decades of struggle.

In a society with an over-reliance on optimism, movements lose their momentum and splinter when early results fail to materialize.

Metrics and meaning:

Optimism, like pessimism, is governed by the external and measurable. It is not difficult to see why optimism has been able to take such a strong hold of our societies given the incredible measurable progress that has been made in the past centuries. That dependence on the external also fuels the opposite side of the same coin: pessimism. Given the growth in scale of the violence and destruction that these same centuries have brought, it is not difficult to see why such a fragile framework leaves humanity disoriented and fractured.

Hope operates in the realm of values that resist quantification such as love, unity, and justice. It orients us to that which is worth striving for regardless of external conditions. For most of human history these values have been anchored in religious and mythic narratives that situated individual lives within a larger moral arc, but they can be found in any lasting movement in recent history. Nelson Mandela endured 27 years of imprisonment and inspired a generation by drawing on such values.

When metrics dominate our framework for understanding the world, our moral vision contracts to what can be counted and the value of an upright character and a united community lose their traction since they cannot be easily measured.

Organizing action:

Both hope and optimism are forces that can organize and initiate action. The modern corporation is an organized form of optimism, and capital is its most effective channel. They bring individuals together through mutual benefit and the promise of profit. These organizations can be incredibly powerful, but reveal their fragility as soon as the winds of external circumstances shift.

One of hope’s organized forms is the community. Community is built on human connection and shared transcendent convictions. Through them action can be initiated to enact change that would appear impossible when judged by external conditions. Although typically slower to form, communities are far more resilient to change — a necessary condition for organizing action to address humanity’s most pressing needs.

In a society where hope is increasingly displaced by optimism, it is unsurprising to see communities weaken while unprecedented power accrues to corporations. However, I know I am not alone in believing that a recovery of hope is both necessary and worth striving for, as unlikely as it may appear.

Toward a recovery of hope

Our challenge is not to eliminate optimism, but to restore it to its rightful place. Its power to mobilize resources and accelerate material progress is real and necessary. Yet without a deeper foundation, it cannot be channeled toward the transformations that matter most. We need a framework that does not deny our extraordinary material capabilities, but roots them in a shared, transcendent vision of what life is for. Hope is not a solitary shift in perspective, it binds us together in a shared future. In the words of Han:

In our narcissistic society, the movement of blood is, in fact, limited to the narrow circulation within our egos. It no longer flows out into the world. Worldless, we circle around nothing but our own ego. Hope has a vastness. It founds a We. In this, it differs from a wish or a simple expectation.

Because of this outward orientation hope is expressed in the slow, patient work of building with others who share common values. I experienced this working with a group of friends when we set out to provide virtues-based classes for young children at a local recreation center. It began with a slow start: hours of outreach, only one child at the first class, with the second child stumbling upon our class by sheer coincidence. Over time, we faced challenges, from leadership changes at the center to families dropping out. Yet in a hopeful context, each setback became another opportunity to come together and act. The work continued, not because the odds of success were favorable, but because the commitment was anchored in the transcendent.

In such spaces, we are not lone fighters in an un-winnable battle, but builders of havens, however small, that quietly foster lasting change in the communities we shape and belong to. As we take action, we begin to see those we encounter as fellow protagonists in the process, trusting that it is in all of our natures to contribute to efforts grounded in hope. In this way, hope becomes infectious; like water, it begins as a trickle, then gathers into a stream, and eventually a river powerful enough to alter even the hardest rock beneath it.

These are just one individual’s reflections and surely paint an incomplete picture, but my wish is that they help spark your own reflections on where we can foster hope: in your work, your communities, and in the visions you carry of the future. Hope is the wellspring of what is truly new and transformative. As that vision becomes shared, we create the conditions in which humanity’s highest aspirations can take root and grow.

What has helped you foster hope in your own life and community?

“Be thou ever hopeful, for the bounties of God never cease to flow upon man. If viewed from one perspective they seem to decrease, but from another they are full and complete.”

— ʻAbdu’l-Bahá, Selections from the Writings of Abdu’l-Bahá, pp. 205–206

About Luke Rivers

Luke Rivers is a globally-minded professional bridging business strategy with human-centered impact. He has lived and been shaped by life in Switzerland and New Zealand, experiences that infused his worldview with both international perspective and grounded empathy.

Luke is passionate about purposeful work — not as a buzzword, but as a lived commitment to serving others through his career, his writing, and the choices he makes every day.

His professional journey has moved him to the US where he graduated from UCLA in Aerospace Engineering and then spanned roles in customer strategy and consulting as Associate Consultant at Bain and currently as Partner at Squint, continually focused on aligning value creation with meaningful contribution.

Luke brings a thoughtful voice to conversations about work, identity, purpose, and how each of us can embody service to humanity in practical, everyday ways.

Luke is also the author of THE EDGE OF MEANING a channel where you can find articles such as this one was etrapolated from: seeking meaning in an age of increasing fragmentation, materialism, and rapid technological change. Essays exploring religion, philosophy, and more for a humanity in transition.

What happens when leadership stops thinking in terms of isolated projects and starts envisioning ecosystems full of dignity?

Sometimes, that transition doesn’t stem from a master plan, but from a genuine human encounter.

That’s what happened in August 2025, during the first ebbf Hispanos in Latin America, held in Santiago de Chile. In that space of profound dialogue, Sebastián Peralta and Osvaldo Costa — two people who had never met before, from different countries, backgrounds, and contexts — discovered that they shared more than just an interesting conversation.

They shared a deep conviction:

👉 Access to decent housing should not be a privilege, but an attainable right.

From that meeting, an unlikely alliance was born.

And from that alliance, Proyecto Aurora.

The Challenge: A Housing Shortage That Is Also a Systems Shortage.

The Dominican Republic faces an estimated housing deficit of between 1 and 1.5 million homes. This is one of the most painful paradoxes of an economy that, at the same time, has shown remarkable resilience: average growth of 5% over the last two decades, a GDP exceeding US$125 billion, and a construction sector that represents approximately 14% of the national economy.

And yet, thousands of working families — the very ones who fuel that growth — still cannot afford their own homes.

Public subsidies exist.

World Bank funds exist.

Preferential credit lines exist.

What has been historically lacking is a comprehensive, scalable, and human model that connects these resources with people in a sustainable way.

Sebastián and Osvaldo then asked themselves a key question:

What if the problem wasn’t a lack of money, but a lack of systemic vision?

The Aurora Vision: From Housing to Integral Well-being

Aurora is not just a real estate project.

It’s a planned community spanning 225,000 square meters, designed to house 5,000 sustainable and affordable condominiums, built within three years, with a direct impact on the lives of thousands of Dominican families.

But what distinguishes Aurora is not only its scale, but its approach:

• 5,000 units already have secured buyers.
• Each family receives government subsidies of between 20% and 48% of the house’s value.
• The remainder is financed through soft loans already arranged with the country’s second-largest bank.

Aurora demonstrates something fundamental to contemporary ethical leadership:

👉 Social impact and economic viability are not opposites; they can reinforce each other.

A Community, Not Just Condominiums

Each unit — with 2 or 3 bedrooms, between 37 and 65 m², costing from $30,000 to $50,000 — is designed as a base that can grow with the family: progressive improvements, balconies, common areas on rooftops, expansions according to future possibilities.

But the true heart of the project lies in the shared spaces:

🌿 Spacious green areas and community gardens

🎨 Spaces for artistic development: music, theater, painting, writing, cooking

⚽ Safe and accessible sports facilities

👶 Daycare centers, community schools, and spaces for seniors

🧘 Areas for meditation and prayer

🛍️ Small local shops and essential services

♿ Universal Accessibility

🔒 24/7 Community Lighting and Security

From the moment a family makes its first deposit, it becomes an active part of the community. Not as a passive beneficiary, but as a co-creator of the social fabric.

Sustainability as an Ethical Decision, Not as an Ornament

Aurora integrates sustainability into its design:

• Conscious use of building materials
• Conservation of existing vegetation and reforestation at a 3:1 ratio
• Solar energy in common areas and the possibility of its progressive adoption by buildings
• Passive design to reduce energy consumption in tropical climates
• Use of rainwater and wastewater for gardens and cleaning
• Minimization of impermeable surfaces
• Infrastructure for recycling

Here, sustainability is not marketing. It’s an intergenerational responsibility.

Governance, Trust, and Scalability

All project assets are structured within a robust trust, protecting investments, optimizing fiscal efficiency, and fostering long-term confidence.

Aurora relies on a team with over 30 years of experience in the construction sector and a well-established network of local stakeholders. Government permits — backed by strong state interest — could be obtained in 45 days, although the project is planned with prudent margins.

Moreover, the Aurora model is scalable and replicable, not only to serve the more than 500,000 families already identified in the Dominican Republic, but also in other countries with severe housing shortages, such as Ghana and other regions of the Global South.

The Spirit Behind the Project: Unlikely Pairs, Real Impact

Aurora was born from what we at ebbf call unlikely pairs: people who, by meeting in a purposeful dialogue, discover that they can build something much bigger than themselves together.

This project reminds us that:

🌱 Encounters matter

🌱 Well-sustained enthusiasm creates real structures

🌱 Accompanying transforms more than simply assisting

🌱 Ethical leadership connects capital, humanity, and the future

All of this began at an ebbf event. Not as an “expected outcome,” but as a natural emergence from a carefully cultivated space.

When Leadership Becomes Home

The Proyecto Aurora is a powerful invitation for leaders, investors, and organizations to rethink development, to reconcile purpose with profitability, to design systems that care for both people and the planet.

Because when home becomes a system, and the system is designed with dignity in mind, the future ceases to be an abstraction.

And it begins to be built — brick by brick, relationship by relationship — with justice, hope, and meaning.

Picture from the first #ebbfhispanos summit in Santiago de Chile. You can see upcoming opportunities created for you to interact with these new ideas and actions here: https://www.ebbf.org/events

About the protagonists who brought the project to life:

Sebastián Peralta Hiraldo

Sebastián Peralta Hiraldo is a strategy and transformation analyst with experience in consulting and social impact businesses. A graduate of the Gallatin School of Individualized Study at New York University, Sebastián combines interdisciplinary thinking with a deep social responsibility to contribute sustainable solutions in the economy and community. His focus has been on designing projects that integrate economic justice, community development, and spiritual principles into business systems — always ensuring that human dignity is at the heart of economic decisions. Sebastián is the co-founder of Inmobiliaria Nur and one of the key authors of the Proyecto Aurora, working with the Dominican Government and the World Bank to build 5,000 affordable homes in the Dominican Republic.

Osvaldo Costa (Uruguay)

Osvaldo Costa, originally from Uruguay, supports this project by contributing his experience, vision, and commitment to social impact and community development initiatives. While several people with the same name work professionally in public networks, Osvaldo has been key to shaping the vision of comprehensive support for the beneficiary families within the Aurora team, connecting transformative purpose with strategic execution. His contribution focuses on ensuring that human and community values ​​guide every project decision, from its conception to its operation, reinforcing a sense of dignity, cohesion, and collective growth.

You can find here the next ebbf learning dialogue experience created for your learning and exploration: https://www.ebbf.org/events

What does it mean to contribute to humanity — not as a slogan, not as a KPI, not as a heroic ambition — but as a way of being?

This was the quiet, persistent question at the heart of a recent EBBF learning dialogue led by long-time board member Mika Korhonen. It was not framed as a call to “change the world,” nor as a strategy for maximizing impact. Instead, it unfolded as something more demanding and more liberating: an invitation to rethink the very game we believe we are playing.

From Strawberry Fields to Systems Thinking

Mika describes himself as “a child of EBBF.” He joined the community more than twenty years ago, coming from what he calls “the strawberry fields” — a life far removed from global dialogues on ethics, leadership, and systems change. Looking back, he says with disarming honesty that his younger self would not have recognized the person he is today.

This transformation did not come through a single insight or decision. It came through lived experience — through trial and error, through applying principles too literally and getting fired, through observing people whose lives were organized around something fundamentally different from success or status.

For years, Mika worked in the corporate world, raising children, learning, serving where he could. Yet a question kept returning: How can my work be more meaningful? How can it contribute to something lasting?

The surprising realization was not that he needed more impact, but that he was seeking something else entirely.

Changing the Game We Think We’re Playing

To explain the shift, Mika offers a simple but powerful metaphor: Monopoly.

In the version most of us know, the goal is to win by accumulating property, extracting rent, and eventually pushing everyone else off the board. Harshness and domination are rewarded; collaboration is naïve.

But what if the purpose of the game were different?

What if success meant keeping everyone playing as long as possible — and creating as much shared value on the board as we could?

Suddenly, every move would change. Strategy, relationships, even the meaning of “winning” would be transformed.

For Mika, contributing to humanity meant realizing that he no longer wanted to play the old game. And leaving it required letting go of some powerful illusions: career as identity, CV as worth, income as safety, ego as motivation. This was not an act of heroism — it was a gradual, often uncomfortable process that took decades.

There was no shortcut.

Becoming, Not Achieving

One of the most striking insights from the dialogue was Mika’s insistence that this shift cannot be taught — it must be lived.

“How does becoming happen?” he asked. “How does one become a genuinely good person?”

There was no formula offered, no checklist of virtues. Instead, participants reflected on daily practice: choosing again and again to orient away from ego and toward community; accepting that failure and imperfection are part of the journey; recognizing that growth unfolds over a lifetime.

Service, in this sense, is not an activity we add to our lives. It becomes the organizing principle of everything we do. Work becomes a way to uplift others. Leadership becomes an act of care. Progress is measured not only by results, but by trust, hope, and human development.

The Danger of Burnout — and the Wisdom of Limits

Several voices in the dialogue named a tension that ethical leaders know well: the fine line between service and self-erasure.

History offers us powerful examples of self-sacrifice — figures like Gandhi, Mandela, or ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. But most people are not called to live at that scale. Many who try to do too much, too alone, too relentlessly end up exhausted, disillusioned, or burned out.

To contribute to humanity sustainably requires discernment and boundaries. It means learning when to say no, when to rest, and when to accept that we cannot meet every need. Goodness that destroys the person offering it cannot be the goal.

Service Begins Close — and Small

Again and again, the conversation returned to a deceptively simple insight: service begins with those closest to us, and it often looks ordinary.

Helping someone navigate technology. Listening without rushing. Saying yes when someone asks, “Can I talk to you?” Offering time — the most precious resource of all.

One participant shared how a brief conversation years earlier had unknowingly changed someone’s life. Another described how helping an elderly woman reach a bottle on a supermarket shelf made her, briefly, a superhero.

These moments rarely feel significant at the time. Yet they ripple outward in ways we may never see.

Community Before Contribution

A recurring theme was the necessity of community. In an individualistic culture that glorifies heroic leadership, EBBF offers a different pattern: find community first, then serve together.

Service rooted in relationship is more joyful, more sustaining, and more humble. It reminds us that we are not meant to carry the weight of the world alone — and that our contribution is always partial, always interdependent.

One participant described service as “tuning into the field” — paying attention to the cracks, contradictions, and unmet needs in the environments we inhabit, whether a university, a workplace, or a neighborhood. Contribution emerges not from grand plans, but from presence.

Lowering the Basket

Perhaps the most moving image shared by Mika was a personal one.

He spoke of playing basketball with his children as they grew, gradually raising the hoop over the years. The marks of those adjustments are still visible on the wall. “I stayed the same height,” he said. “They grew.”

For Mika, this became a metaphor for mentorship and service. True teachers and companions do not elevate themselves; they lower the basket so others can play. They meet people where they are, without judgment or condescension.

This, he said, is one of the greatest gifts he has received from the EBBF community.

Love, Practiced Daily

As the dialogue drew to a close, one word surfaced again and again: love.

Not sentimentality, but love as action. Love as attention. Love as responsibility.

One participant offered a simple acronym:

• L: Look inside yourself for your strengths
• O: Observe where those strengths are needed
• V: Visualize a slightly better world because of their use
• E: Engage — simply begin

Another reminded the group that we are always being observed, often unknowingly. Our words, our presence, our way of being can shape lives in ways we may never fully understand.

A Quiet Invitation

To contribute to humanity, then, is not to seek importance. It is to live attentively. To clarify one’s values. To reflect daily. To act with care. To stay human in inhuman systems. To choose, again and again, to play a different game.

It is not abstract. It is not heroic. It is not finished.

It is a way of being — practiced in community, sustained over time, and offered with humility.

And perhaps that is enough.

“… is it not the object of every Revelation to effect a transformation in the whole character of mankind, a transformation that shall manifest itself, both outwardly and inwardly, that shall affect both its inner life and external conditions?”

(Bahá’u’lláh, The Kitáb-i-Íqán)

About Mika Korhonen
Mika Korhonen is a creator of conversations and concepts that help people and organizations reimagine growth, purpose, and impact. His work focuses on transforming how we understand human development — from individual achievement toward collective development. Mika helps communities discover new ways to work, learn, and be together so that everyday action becomes an expression of service to each other, to their surroundings and eventually to humanity.

¿Qué ocurre cuando el liderazgo deja de pensar en proyectos aislados y comienza a imaginar ecosistemas completos de dignidad?

A veces, esa transición no nace de un plan maestro, sino de un encuentro humano auténtico.

Eso fue lo que ocurrió en agosto de 2025, durante el primer EBBF Hispanos en América Latina, celebrado en Santiago de Chile. En ese espacio de diálogo profundo, Sebastián Peralta y Osvaldo Costa — dos personas que nunca antes se habían conocido, provenientes de países, trayectorias y contextos distintos — descubrieron que compartían algo más que una conversación interesante.

Compartían una convicción profunda:

👉 que el acceso a una vivienda digna no debería ser un privilegio, sino un derecho alcanzable.

De ese encuentro nació una alianza improbable.

Y de esa alianza, el Proyecto Aurora.

El Desafío: Un Déficit Habitacional que es También un Déficit de Sistemas

La República Dominicana enfrenta un déficit habitacional estimado entre 1 y 1,5 millones de viviendas. Es una de las paradojas más dolorosas de una economía que, al mismo tiempo, ha mostrado una notable resiliencia: un crecimiento promedio del 5% durante las últimas dos décadas, un PIB superior a los 125 mil millones de dólares, y un sector construcción que representa cerca del 14% de la economía nacional.

Y sin embargo, miles de familias trabajadoras — las mismas que sostienen ese crecimiento — siguen sin poder acceder a una vivienda propia.

Existen subsidios públicos.

Existen fondos del Banco Mundial.

Existen líneas de crédito preferenciales.

Lo que ha faltado, históricamente, es un modelo integral, escalable y humano que conecte estos recursos con las personas, de forma sostenible.

Sebastián y Osvaldo se hicieron entonces una pregunta clave:

¿Y si el problema no fuera la falta de dinero, sino la falta de visión sistémica?

La Visión Aurora: De la Vivienda al Bienestar Integral

Aurora no es solo un proyecto inmobiliario.

Es una comunidad planificada de 225.000 metros cuadrados, diseñada para albergar 5.000 condominios sostenibles y asequibles, construidos en un plazo de tres años, con un impacto directo en la vida de miles de familias dominicanas.

Pero lo que distingue a Aurora no es solo su escala, sino su enfoque:

• 5.000 unidades ya cuentan con compradores asegurados
• Cada familia recibe subsidios gubernamentales de entre el 20% y el 48% del valor de la vivienda
• El resto se financia mediante créditos blandos ya acordados con el segundo banco más grande del país

Aurora demuestra algo fundamental para el liderazgo ético contemporáneo:

👉 impacto social y viabilidad económica no son opuestos; pueden reforzarse mutuamente.

Una Comunidad, No Solo Condominios

Cada unidad — de 2 o 3 dormitorios, entre 37 y 65 m², con un costo de 30.000 a 50.000 dólares — está pensada como una base que puede crecer con la familia: mejoras progresivas, balcones, áreas comunes en azoteas, ampliaciones según posibilidades futuras.

Pero el verdadero corazón del proyecto está en los espacios compartidos:

🌿 Áreas verdes amplias y jardines comunitarios

🎨 Espacios para el desarrollo artístico: música, teatro, pintura, escritura, cocina

⚽ Infraestructura deportiva segura y accesible

👶 Guarderías, escuelas comunitarias y espacios para personas mayores

🧘 Zonas de meditación y oración

🛍️ Pequeños comercios locales y servicios básicos

♿ Accesibilidad universal

🔒 Iluminación y seguridad comunitaria 24/7

Desde el momento en que una familia realiza su primer depósito, pasa a formar parte activa de la comunidad. No como beneficiaria pasiva, sino como co-creadora del tejido social.

Sostenibilidad como Decisión Ética, No como Adorno

Aurora integra la sostenibilidad desde el diseño:

• Uso consciente de materiales de construcción
• Conservación de vegetación existente y reforestación 3 a 1
• Energía solar en áreas comunes y posibilidad de adopción progresiva por edificios
• Diseño pasivo para reducir el consumo energético en climas tropicales
• Uso de aguas lluvia y residuales para jardines y limpieza
• Minimización de superficies impermeables
• Infraestructura para reciclaje

Aquí, la sostenibilidad no es marketing. Es una responsabilidad intergeneracional.

Gobernanza, Confianza y Escalabilidad

Todos los activos del proyecto se estructuran dentro de un fideicomiso sólido, que protege inversiones, optimiza eficiencia fiscal y genera confianza a largo plazo.

Aurora se apoya en un equipo con más de 30 años de experiencia en el sector construcción y una red consolidada de actores locales. Los permisos gubernamentales — respaldados por un alto interés estatal — podrían obtenerse en 45 días, aunque el proyecto se planifica con márgenes prudentes.

Más aún: el modelo Aurora es escalable y replicable, no solo para atender a las más de 500.000 familias ya identificadas en República Dominicana, sino también en otros países con déficit habitacional severo, como Ghana y otras regiones del Sur Global.

El Espíritu Detrás del Proyecto: Pares Improbables, Impacto Real

Aurora nació de lo que en EBBF llamamos pares improbables: personas que, al encontrarse en un espacio de diálogo con propósito, descubren que pueden construir juntas algo mucho más grande que ellas mismas.

Este proyecto nos recuerda que:

🌱 Los encuentros importan

🌱 La ilusión bien sostenida crea estructuras reales

🌱 Acompañar transforma más que asistir

🌱 El liderazgo ético conecta capital, humanidad y futuro

Todo esto comenzó en un evento EBBF. No como un “resultado esperado”, sino como una emergencia natural de un espacio bien cuidado.

Cuando el Liderazgo se Vuelve Hogar

El Proyecto Aurora es una invitación poderosa para líderes, inversionistas y organizaciones:

a repensar el desarrollo, a reconciliar propósito con rentabilidad, a diseñar sistemas que cuiden tanto a las personas como al planeta.

Porque cuando el hogar se convierte en sistema, y el sistema se diseña desde la dignidad, el futuro deja de ser una abstracción.

Y comienza a construirse — ladrillo a ladrillo, relación a relación — con justicia, esperanza y sentido.

Foto del primer summit de #ebbfhispanos en Santiago del Chile, puedes ver aquí las próximas oportunidades creadas para ti, para interactúar con estas nuevas ideas y acciones: https://www.ebbf.org/events

Acerca de los protagonistas que dieron vida al proyecto

Sebastián Peralta Hiraldo

Sebastián Peralta Hiraldo es un analista en estrategia y transformación con experiencia en consultoría y negocios de impacto social. Graduado de la Gallatin School of Individualized Study de la Universidad de Nueva York, Sebastián combina pensamiento interdisciplinario con una profunda responsabilidad social para aportar soluciones sostenibles en economía y comunidad. Su foco ha estado en diseñar proyectos que integren justicia económica, desarrollo comunitario y principios espirituales en sistemas empresariales — buscando siempre que la dignidad humana esté en el centro de las decisiones económicas. Sebastián es co-fundador de Inmobiliaria Nur y uno de los principales artífices del proyecto Aurora, trabajando con el Gobierno Dominicano y el Banco Mundial para construir 5,000 viviendas asequibles en República Dominicana.

Osvaldo Costa (Uruguay)

Osvaldo Costa, oriundo de Uruguay, acompaña este proyecto aportando su experiencia, visión y compromiso con iniciativas de impacto social y desarrollo comunitario. Aunque hay varias personas con ese mismo nombre profesionalmente en redes públicas, dentro del equipo de Aurora Osvaldo ha sido clave para dar forma a la visión de acompañamiento integral para las familias beneficiarias, conectando propósito transformador con ejecución estratégica. Su aporte se enfoca en garantizar que los valores humanos y comunitarios guíen cada decisión del proyecto, desde su concepción hasta su operación, reforzando el sentido de dignidad, cohesión y crecimiento colectivo.

This article is inspired by a recent ebbf learning dialogue, you can find HERE more learning opportunities ebbf has created for you , for meaningful and useful interactions on topics relevant to you.

There is a moment early in the conversation when Wendi Momen — author, activist, development practitioner, co-founder and board member of EBBF — laughs gently and says:

“I’m not sure why I’m the one giving this session. I’m probably the most disorganized person you’ll ever meet… apart from my husband.”

In a world obsessed with curated perfection, there is something profoundly grounding about a leader who begins not with certainty, but with humility. And it is precisely this humility that becomes the doorway into the theme of the evening:

How do we remain coherent — rooted, principled, authentic — 
in a world that feels increasingly incoherent?

Coherence is not time management, nor perfect order, nor idealized balance. As Wendi reveals, coherence is something deeper, something lived, something evolving. It is the lifelong work of aligning who we are with how we act — across the many competing spaces of work, family, community, and self.
And it begins with a single question …

“Who am I, really?”: The First Question of Coherence

Wendi shares that since the age of fifteen, she has asked herself the same question every day: “Who am I, really?” She learned it from a passage in the Bahá’í writings that describes the highest station given to the human being as the knowledge of our own selves.

This is not self-obsession; it is self-examination. Not judgment; but truthfulness with oneself.

And in a world that often pushes us toward fragmentation — toward wearing different masks for different roles — Wendi challenges us to see coherence not as perfection, but as presence with our own inner truth.

We may be parents, partners, leaders, colleagues, caregivers, advocates, volunteers. But beneath the roles lies a moral center, a set of values we consider “worthy,” as Wendi puts it — values that contribute to the long-term well-being of humanity.

We become coherent the moment we stop outsourcing our identity to circumstance and instead let our values — clarified, examined, chosen — become the compass of our daily living.

Why Most of Us Mistake Coherence for Time

When asked why so many people equate coherence with time, Wendi smiles and shares: “Because that’s what our culture teaches.”
We are taught to “balance” our lives as if life were a set of competing buckets — work, family, health, self-care — each waiting for its fair share of the clock. But time, she reminds us, is not coherence.
Our calendars do not make us whole.
Coherence is not how we distribute our hours; it’s how we distribute our purpose.

A mother who spends the whole morning caring for a child with patience and love may be living her deepest values. A volunteer who gives one hour a week to their community with sincerity may feel more aligned than someone volunteering twenty hours out of guilt.
A leader who cancels a meeting to protect their mental health may be honoring their values more than one who pushes through exhaustion.

The question is not: “Do I have time?” but rather: “What value is animating this moment?” And how consciously do we choose it?

The Thin Line Between Values and Expectations

One participant asks a powerful question: “How do we know if we are acting out of our values… or out of habits, fears, or external expectations?”

Wendi shared how sometimes we do act according to expectations — and that’s not wrong if those expectations reflect values we have consciously chosen: caring for a child, respecting a spouse’s needs, fulfilling a responsibility at work.
These may originate as external expectations, but they become coherent when aligned with inner purpose.

Coherence is not rigidity. It is discernment.

It is asking, in each situation whether I am acting from fear or from principle, from pressure or from conviction, from habit or from intention?

“We are not the idealists. They are.” — Reframing Pragmatism

One participant wonders how to remain idealistic in a world that seems to punish principles. How do we balance coherence with pragmatism?

Wendi’s husband — often her philosophical sparring partner — once responded to such a question by saying:

“The real idealists are the ones who believe the world can keep going as it is and everything will somehow be fine.”

This line shifts the entire paradigm. Those of us trying to build a just, sustainable, ethical world are not naïve. We are pragmatic about what is needed for humanity to survive and thrive.

It is not idealistic to care. It is not unrealistic to aim for justice. It is not impractical to operate with integrity.

The dangerous idealism is believing that greed, division, and exploitation can sustain a civilization.

Coherence, then, is refusing to compromise our deeper vision — even when we must navigate environments that don’t yet reflect it.

The Evolving Nature of Coherence Across Life Stages

Coherence is not static, it shifts as we grow.
One participant describes four life stages — each fifteen years long — where our responsibilities and expressions of coherence fundamentally change.

Wendi agrees.

As a young adult, coherence may mean activism, exploration, stretching into the world. As a parent, coherence may mean service expressed primarily in the home. As an elder, coherence may mean mentorship, wisdom-sharing, deep listening, cultivating safe spaces.

Our values do not change, Wendi insists. But their expression expands.

What matters is that at each stage, we ask: What is coherence asking of me now? What is the smallest meaningful action I can take today?
Because coherence is not measured in grand achievements, but in small consistent choices that reflect who we want to become.

Bringing Coherence Into the Workplace

How do we take these values into our work?

Several participants shared practical examples:

• A business owner who treats employees with dignity — checking on their families, offering flexibility, building trust.
• A manager who prioritizes kindness, presence, and consistency — values that make leadership predictable and psychologically safe.
• A CEO who invests in unity through simple rituals like shared lunches or “value of the week” practices that link home and work life.

All of these are not soft skills but structural forms of leadership.
Because coherence at work is not about perfection; it is about integrity in the face of complexity.
It is about creating — no matter how toxic the environment — a small sanctuary of humanity, as Wendi describes it:

“We can create an environment , even in poisonous environments, where people feel honored.” This, she says, is the practical expression of hope.

The Founding Vision of EBBF: Work With a Social Purpose

As the conversation draws to a close, Wendi reflects on the early days of EBBF which she was a part of originally co-founding back in 1990.

The founding principle was simple yet revolutionary: Business has a social purpose as well as an economic one.
Over time, that principle expanded: all work, of every kind, has a social purpose.
And beyond that: All work can be soul-enriching.

Work is not merely a means of survival. It is a means of becoming. It is a canvas on which to embody coherence. “Work,” Wendi says, “should be joyful, purposeful, uplifting.”
Even when the world feels incoherent. Especially when it does.
Because coherence is not the absence of chaos. It is the light we bring into the chaos.

A light made of values, of presence, of humility, of courage, of small meaningful actions that reveal our inner truth.

And perhaps most importantly:
A light we do not carry alone.

About Wendi Momen

Wendi Momen MBE, JP, FRSA is an author, social activist, and global development practitioner dedicated to advancing women’s empowerment, ethical leadership, and sustainable community-building. A founding member and longtime board member of EBBF — Ethical Business Building the Future, she has spent decades helping individuals and organizations align purpose with practice.

Wendi also serves on the board of the International Environment Forum, works extensively in humanitarian and educational initiatives, and has authored numerous books exploring justice, empowerment, and social transformation. Across her diverse roles, she is known for her clarity, compassion, and unwavering belief that work is not only a social responsibility — but a soul-enriching expression of who we are.