How Do We Build Something Better?
This is Part 5 of a 5-Part Series: The Work Culture Energy Scale & The Future of Sustainable Leadership.
If you missed the earlier parts:
Part 1: If you feel like you’re burning out, read this.
Part 2: The Speed of Survival.
Part 3: The Accountability Trap – How Leaders Burn Themselves Out in the Name of Responsibility.
Part 4: When the System Expects Your Overwork – How to Navigate Unhealthy Workplace Accountability.
We know what’s broken. Now what?
We’ve spent the last four essays unpacking the system:
How burnout isn’t a personal failure—it’s a structural one.
How urgency culture keeps us locked in survival mode.
How “accountability” gets weaponized to justify over-functioning.
How workplaces pretend to care about balance—while quietly expecting overwork.
And now we’re at the final, most important question:
What do we do about it?
Because it’s not enough to name the problem.
We have to build something better.
But here’s the hard part: Most of us are still living inside the system we want to change.
We can’t just burn it all down—not when we still need to pay rent, feed our families, and keep the lights on.
So the real work?
It’s figuring out how to shift the way we work while we’re still inside it.
Capitalism Isn’t Working—But We’re Still Operating Inside of It
I often sit at my computer, critiquing capitalism. Capitalism isn’t working! I mutter to myself at least once a day.
Not for most of us.
Maybe not for anyone.
Even the 1%—the people this system is supposedly designed for—aren’t immune to its demands. Hoarding wealth. Chasing infinite growth. Living in fear of loss. That’s not security—it’s just a different kind of scarcity.
And yet, I write this from land originally stewarded by the Chahta Yakni (Choctaw) peoples—land that was taken, extracted, and absorbed into a system that rewards accumulation over care, expansion over sustainability. This is what capitalism does. It doesn’t just exploit labor—it consumes land, resources, entire cultures.
I won’t pretend I haven’t benefited from it. Some of us have been given more cushion inside this system than others. But at the end of the day, capitalism is the container we’re all operating within—whether we like it or not.
So let’s be clear—I’m not here to shame anyone who’s trying to make their life work inside of it.
Acquiring money isn’t just about ambition; it’s about survival. It’s about options. It’s about having control over where you live, what you eat, how safe you feel.
But at a certain point, many of us start feeling—deep in our bones—that something about this system is off.
And I don’t mean in an abstract, “late-stage capitalism” meme kind of way.
I mean:
The way work drains us.
The way leadership feels like control instead of collaboration.
The way we’re constantly told to optimize and scale and hustle—without ever asking to what end?
So the question isn’t just: How do we survive inside of it?
It’s: How do we start building something better—right now, from where we are?
Burn It Down? Or Build Something Different?
Here’s the truth: capitalism wasn’t necessarily designed to be extractive—but it evolved to be.
The moment profit became the dominant metric of success, the system prioritized efficiency, control, and expansion over balance, sustainability, and human well-being.
This isn’t just a modern corporate problem.
The way we manage businesses today is rooted in labor exploitation models that go back centuries—
From the enclosure movement that displaced people into wage labor.
To the plantation management systems that optimized human labor for maximum output.
And yet—capitalism is not the only way.
John Fullerton, in Regenerative Capitalism, argues that if we want a system that actually supports human and ecological well-being, we have to stop tweaking capitalism and start replacing extraction with regeneration.
That means:
Circulation over accumulation—wealth, resources, and energy should move through the system, not be hoarded at the top.
Empowered participation—people should have a real stake in what they build, not just work to maximize someone else’s profit.
Honoring community and place—businesses should be designed to sustain their people and environment, not extract from them.
And if that sounds too idealistic, I’d argue that clinging to capitalism as-is—the thing that’s actively burning us out, widening inequality and reinforcing inequity, and pushing the planet past its limits—is actually the more delusional option.
We don’t have all the answers.
But we do need to start asking better questions.
Which brings me to what’s next.
The Leadership Conversations We Need to Have
If this series resonated with you—
If you’ve been nodding along, thinking, “Okay, but what do we actually DO?”—
That’s exactly why I’m created something new, and it’s called COO-fessions.
COO-fessions is a limited-series private podcast exploring the future of leadership and business. It features deep, unfiltered conversations with experts on what’s broken, what’s possible, and what’s actually next..
And until April 14th, you can join the conversation at a founder’s rate.
Here’s what we’re diving into—with an incredible lineup of guests:
Growth-at-All-Costs is Dead. Regenerative Business is the Future. Hyper-growth and extraction aren’t the flex they used to be. The future of business is regenerative, cooperative, and human-centered—but how do we actually build that?
Command-and-Control Leadership is Failing. What Comes Next? Rigid, top-down leadership is crumbling. Shared power, alignment, and autonomy are the new leadership standard—but making the shift isn’t easy.
Flexibility Without Structure is Chaos. Here’s How to Fix It. Remote work is here to stay, but without strong systems + clear communication, even the best teams will collapse.
Leadership Isn’t Just Strategy—It’s How You Show Up. In a digital-first world, the leaders who thrive aren’t just the smartest—they’re the ones who can command trust, hold space, and lead with presence.
AI Will Replace Tasks—But Human Leadership is More Valuable Than Ever. AI is automating busywork, but deep thinking, emotional intelligence, and alignment are still human-only skills. The future of leadership? Less conflict, more clarity.
Productivity Culture is Broken. Time to Redefine Success. We’re still measuring productivity in a way that keeps us exhausted and chasing more—even when we know it’s not working. What if we built something different?
This isn’t a leadership course.
It’s not a how-to guide.
It’s the raw, unfiltered truth with leaders actively confronting what isn’t working—and what we can actually build instead.
The Future Belongs to Those Who Adapt.
The best leaders aren’t the ones who cling to outdated systems. They’re the ones who align instead of control, regenerate instead of extract, and communicate with clarity and vision.
COO-fessions is your invitation to ask better questions, rethink leadership, and prepare for the future of work that’s already unfolding.
This Series Was Never Just About Work.
It is about alignment.
About leadership.
About choosing not to keep playing a game that was never built for sustainability.
And if you want to binge the whole series, you can find all five parts right from the top of this post.
Because breaking the system isn’t just about saying this isn’t working.
It’s about deciding—together—what we’re building instead.
