My daughter is almost five. When I watch her choose to go barefoot on our country walks, stop to study tiny seeds, or ask me how fallen autumn leaves become soil, I’m reminded how naturally children live in relationship with the world around them. She hasn’t yet learned to see herself as separate from the rest of life. Caring for her has taught me to slow down, to deepen my presence, and to make more conscious choices, because every choice I make shapes the world she will inherit.
The bond between a mother, or any loving caregiver, and a child is a sacred treasure. At our best, we act from love rather than fear, creating perhaps the clearest example most of us will ever know of a relationship built on contribution rather than extraction. And it holds a question every business leader should be asking: what are we growing, who is it for, and what legacy are we leaving?
Business got us into this mess
We have become very good at building businesses that grow, adding customers, revenue, products and markets year after year. Yet much of that growth has come at the expense of the living systems that sustain us: the soil, water, communities and relationships that we depend on.
Business got us into this mess. Now it must become the vehicle that gets us out of it. It is one of the most powerful ways we have to organise creativity, capital and human potential. It creates livelihoods, shapes culture and determines what enters our homes and our children’s lives every single day.
This is not about saving the planet. The Earth is resilient and will find its way long after us. The real question is whether we can protect humanity, and whether we can leave our children a world in which they can thrive. Our responsibility as leaders is not just to the next quarter, but to our children, their children and every generation still to come.
What is a Sacred Business?
A Sacred Business thrives by contributing to life. It does not succeed at the expense of people and planet, but because it serves them. This does not mean having to choose purpose over profit. Profit is part of a healthy business, but it is not the whole definition of one. A Sacred Business creates economic value while caring for the people, relationships and living systems that make that value possible, and over time it aims to give back more than it takes.
This is what the future is calling for. Indeed, the future of humanity depends on a transition to Sacred Business.
In my book Sacred Business (Bloomsbury), I share nine shifts that form the Sacred Business Wheel, moving through mind, being and ecosystem. They include shifts from fear to love, from linear to cycles and from short-term to evergreen. Each shift is both personal and strategic, because business is an expression of our consciousness, of our inner worlds. We can only create impact in the world that reflects our inner state as leaders. If we lead from fear, scarcity and control, that is what our businesses will spread. If we lead from love, presence and trust, our businesses can become a force that nourishes life.
Only as we transform ourselves can we become the new era of leaders who create success by serving life, and who thrive in harmony with life rather than at its cost. That is why the Sacred Business journey begins on the inside. Inner transformation and strategic action are two halves of the same path.
Growing in harmony with life
Can we really call it success if we are burning down the very foundations on which the future of humanity rests? Today, we still do, using narrow, numerical definitions of success that fail to acknowledge the full reality of our impact and our responsibility.
So much of the business world still demands constant, linear growth regardless of its cost. Living systems show us another way. A forest is resilient because of the relationships between its trees, soil, fungi, water and insects. Resources flow and are shared, and life continues to cycle in balance. Businesses can thrive in the same way, through collaboration rather than competition, and by strengthening the ecosystems they are part of. This is the new definition of success: not extraction, but life-giving thriving.
From fear to love: the story of Bare la Terre
Bare la Terre was born from the bond between parent and child. Two mothers, Elise Som and Nicola Takada Wood, created the brand alongside their daughters and a paediatric dermatologist, in response to something they were seeing both in the wider culture and in their own homes. Children were being drawn towards adult skincare that was never designed for them, often marketed in ways that play on insecurity and the pressure to look a certain way.
That is fear-based business at work, extracting from the self-esteem of children before they have even reached their teens. Bare la Terre’s founders chose a different response. They stripped things back to the essentials, with gentle formulations developed for young skin and careful choices about ingredients and packaging. These decisions are not initiatives added around the edges. They are the backbone of the business. Because ultimately, a business tells us what it values through what it does, not what it says.
Every step matters
Making good choices for our families is not easy in a complex and often overwhelming world, where so many underlying systems are still designed to extract from life. None of us gets it right all the time. The Sacred Business journey does not require perfection. It asks us to look honestly at our impact, the relationships we depend on and the choices we make, and to bring them into greater alignment, one step at a time.
Every step in the right direction matters, and our children are watching. They learn far more from what we do than from what we say. When we choose with care, slow down, treat our bodies as we hope our children will treat their own, and treat each other and the Earth with respect, we show them what it means to live in harmony with life. That is how we help them move from being cared for to caring for themselves, and eventually to caring for the world.
When I watch my daughter on our walks, I think about the world she will grow into, and the kind of businesses that will shape it. This is the opportunity of Sacred Business: to create businesses that do not thrive despite life or at the expense of life, but because they serve it. For our children, and for every generation still to come.
Written by contributor Nikki Trott
Nikki Trott is the author of Sacred Business, an entrepreneur, strategist and speaker working at the intersection of consciousness, regeneration and business.
Her acclaimed book Sacred Business, highly commended at the Business Book Awards 2026, is a manifesto for inner transformation to create a new era of business that thrives with life. She’s the founder of community platform Sacara, where visionary leaders alchemise the sacred and strategic, and host of the global top 2% Going Conscious podcast. She’s a brand strategist, founder adviser and partner for impact-led companies including Vivobarefoot, Bugaboo and The Usual Hotels, and founding partner of regenerative food investment fund Rooted.
Find out more at nikkitrott.com
Connect on Instagram @nikkitrott and LinkedIn /nikkitrott
Get your copy of Sacred Business from all good bookshops and as an audiobook or kindle.
