Radically regenerative principles for purpose-aligned leaders.

I find myself feeling vulnerable, observing a changing climate, trusting in my heart’s intuitive guidance through seemingly endless layers of unknowns. I am going all-in on building Más Allá, a hub for purpose-driven leaders on Ometepe, and I’ve never done anything like it before. Yet I’ve been dreaming about this, designing healing spaces that activate latent human potential, for well over a decade. I believe it is now of vital importance for leaders around the world to go beyond what’s known and come get involved.

When I look at the world today, I see great opportunities on one hand and challenges on the other. I perceive old social and environmental systems reflecting great destruction, and principled ways of building a new earth emerging. Let me be clear: I believe that better ways of thinking lead to better ways of living, and better ways of living aren’t always glamorous. For example, over the past 3 years I have chosen a path of renouncing many conventional luxuries. I went from living a penthouse apartment next to the mediterranean sea to living, primarily, in a tent in the forest. Why?

At a certain point I simply realized that I want to live a principled life, to carry out a mission of building community consciously, with ecological integrity. In order to actualize my mission, I needed to let go of material comforts and embrace the wild. I needed to find greater leadership within my own heart. Through my journey of letting go of the conventional luxuries, I discovered principles to live by that I value more than anything material. By saying “no” to getting by in a misaligned society that is systematically destroying the environment, I discovered what it’s like to say “fuck yeah” to expanding in purpose-aligned community that is regenerating holistically.

To navigate through this ongoing evolution, I find it useful to apply principled thinking. Allow me to walk you through 25 principles that I’ve learned to value. These are principles I have discovered as integral in my own healing journey, and I trust they can be of service to anyone with an open heart to receive them!

Permaculture

Permaculture is a systematic approach to creating a permanent culture. It is both a design system rooted on an ethical foundation, and a principled a way of thinking. While there are many agricultural applications to permaculture, I suggest that when you choose to put this principled way of thinking into practice, you will cultivate greater leadership qualities within yourself.

I began studying permaculture at Teva Haadam, a relatively small ecological farm and retreat center in Israel. Designed to facilitate inner healing, my time at Teva Haadam left a powerful impression on my way of thinking. For 6 months, I would wake up and begin cooking breakfast with friends at 7am before dynamic days full of stewarding the farm, deep work, and inner growth.

In many ways, by the time I began studying permaculture – I had reached a breaking point. I saw old corrupt systems that no longer served me, and I saw that ethics and principles are necessary to design better systems that serve all. Permaculture design is based on 3 ethics and 12 principles, described in detail by Bill Mollison in works such as Permaculture: A Designer’s Manual.

Ethics: earth care, people care, fair share. 

Principles:

1. Observe and interact

2. Catch and store energy

3. Obtain a yield

4. Apply self-regulation & accept feedback

5. Use & value renewable resources & services

6. Produce no waste

7. Design from patterns to details

8. Integrate rather than segregate

9. Use small and slow solutions

10. Use and value diversity

11. Use edges & value the marginal

12. Creatively use and respond to change

Applying these ethics and principles has enriched my life in a way that money simply does not buy. A better way of life, for me, can be as marginal as enjoying time and space to focus on what matters. Only a few years after volunteering at Teva Haadam, now I find myself playing a leadership role to build a permaculture oasis on Ometepe – Más Allá. This oasis has agricultural components, for example we’ve planted over 400 trees and 60+ species, rich with medicinal, edible, and biomass plants. Yet this oasis is designed to be a hub for purpose-driven leaders – with a ‘current’ of thinking that flows through the land inspired by permaculture.

Humanity-Centered Design

The deeper I immerse myself into this wild way of living, the more I see opportunities to build technology with care for humanity as a whole. While many technologies, from bombs to phones, are produced in a way that is antithetical to people and the planet thriving in harmony – I want to offer perspective on ways to design technology in harmony with nature.

With gratitude to Don Norman, a pioneer of UX Design, I lean into these 5 principles of humanity-centered design and share them with you:

1. Focus on the entire ecosystem of people, all living things, and the physical environment.

2. Solve the root issues, not just the problem as presented (which is often the symptom, not the cause).

3. Take a long-term, systems point of view.

4. Continually test and refine the proposed designs to ensure they truly meet the concerns of the people and ecosystem for whom they are intended.

5. Design with the community, not for them.

My perception is that humanity-centered design is essential to create technology that advances permaculture adoption, and permaculture adoption is essential to create solutions for social and environmental regeneration. Realizing our connection with nature seems fundamental to unleashing creativity in a way that advances quality of life for humanity as a whole. Humanity-centered design is exactly about designing with the power of nature – leveraging billions of years of experience iterating on this beautiful earth!

Heart-Based Leadership

For permaculture and humanity-centered design to fulfill their potential, to correct social and ecological destruction, and for regenerative paradigms to advance – I see great leadership is of paramount importance. I think great leaders don’t create followers; great leaders create the conditions from within which inspire greater leadership to flow through the heart of humanity.

To support this, I discovered 8 principles for heart-based leadership:

1. When in doubt, calm the breath and listen to the heart.

2. Empower the master within by meditating on questions that serve all.

3. Release the ego's desire to control by trusting yourself to be enough.

4. Share definite optimism by preparing plans that guide inspired action.

5. Accept your power for self mastery by practicing self-discipline.

6. Reason is powerful, and, more powerful than reason is love.

7. Create joyfully by combining clear intentions with elevated emotions.

8. Illuminate your mind with peace by remembering principle #1.

These principles emerged in my awareness while I was studying David Hawkin’s Map of Consciousness and considering the path from courage to joy 🙂 with new layers of unknown revealing themself daily – the purpose of these principles is to support you into the intuitive action of being who you are.

Heart-based leadership, paradoxically, demands effortless effort. It is about harmonizing your doing with your being by listening to your heart.

Fundamentally, I suggest that building the new earth is not a mental concept. It is not about memorizing anything. It is a living process. It is about being true to why you are on this earth – what gifts you have to share – and how you can leave this planet better than you found it. One heartbeat a time.

May we thrive in connection with the land and one another.

For those who hear the call, I invite you to get involved!