In 2025, my company missed its numbers.

Even writing that now catches in my throat. I entered the landscape field in 1986 and I've led The Garden Continuum for over 27 years. After decades in this industry, I'm no stranger to weather delays, staffing headaches, or the unpredictable nature of building a business around living systems.

But this season was different. It wasn't that I was idle or unaware. It was that I was following the wrong plot line.

For most of our history, our numbers were remarkably stable. Coming off an exceptional 2024 where we crushed our revenue ceiling, it was easy to assume the trajectory was set. When 2025 started feeling "off," I didn't ignore it. I stepped up. I held training sessions on the 9 types of waste, pushed for continuous improvement, and sold more work to fill the schedule. I'm a stickler for the 45-hour week. It's enough for a bit of overtime but not so much they lose their lives, so I filled the days with billable hours to protect the team and the bottom line.

I was taking action. I was watching. But I was following a narrative of effort when I should have been reading a reality of erosion.

1. The Numbers Know Before We Do

By the time I did a deep dive into our production data, I discovered our revenue per labor hour had dropped by 25%. I remember staring at the screen and feeling my stomach sink as the pattern became impossible to ignore.

I believed that if I just kept the team busy and the sales high, the profit would follow. But a healthy system can destabilize even while the leader is actively trying to fix it. I’d focused on task management, but I'd missed the core metric of efficiency. My mistake wasn't being blind. It was trying to build growth while the foundation was washing away. At the time, I didn't yet understand that contraction can sometimes be the wiser leadership move.

2. Care Without Accountability Creates Instability

I care deeply about the people I work with. But I learned that when a leader begins to sense a withdrawal of effort, the team feels that scrutiny.

Even as we did the training and they complied with the new standards, there was a quiet, underlying resistance. It was as if they knew I was finally tracking the disconnect and they didn't like the mirror I was holding up. In a regenerative system, alignment is everything. When care is detached from clear accountability, you end up with compliance instead of commitment. I realized that some of the team wasn't with me on the journey anymore, even as they continued to show up and go through the motions.

3. Leadership Evolves as Complexity Evolves

Scaling from a 9-person company to 23 people changes the demands on a leader’s nervous system. The structures that worked at one stage of growth were no longer sufficient for the next.

The real shift here is moving from being the solver to being the observer. When complexity increases, you can no longer outwork the friction. You have to develop a presence that allows you to see the gaps in your own strategy that you are simply too close to perceive. I have coaches because I need someone to help me pull back from the doing so I can focus on the being. It’s not a weakness. It's responsible leadership. Every new stage of business reveals realities you simply can’t see until you’re willing to stand still and look at them differently.

4. Healthy Systems Require Adaptation

In yoga, the concept of Spanda represents the pulsation of life: the inhale and the exhale.

Nature doesn't endlessly expand. Forests shed, soil rests, and ecosystems reorganize after a fire. Looking back, I see how much I suffered because I treated a necessary contraction as a personal failure. I thought the struggle meant I'd done something wrong, rather than recognizing that the system was demanding a restructure. I spent a lot of those early months driving to job sites in total silence, the weight of the grief physically heavy in my chest. I had to learn that contraction isn't collapse. It’s the information you need to build the next version of the business.

5. Staying Awake is the Work

True leadership is the active, daily choice to notice the erosion of trust and alignment before the 75% loss happens.

This requires a radical honesty with yourself and your team. It takes courage to say "this isn't working" and to pivot your entire focus, even when that shift feels like an admission of defeat. It means facing uncomfortable numbers and making the hard call to change direction when your current tactics are only masking the problem. I want to build regenerative businesses that thrive because the people leading them are awake to the truth of their numbers and the health of their teams.

Tending the Soil of Your Leadership

I don't believe regenerative leadership is about having all the answers. It’s about building the capacity to keep participating honestly in what’s being revealed, even when it’s hard to look at.

Lately, I’ve become increasingly interested in creating spaces where these conversations can happen honestly, especially for women leading in the horticulture and landscape industries. While many leaders carry heavy burdens, women often face a double whammy: leading teams all day only to return home to lead families, care for parents, and hold their communities together—frequently without their own support system at home.

That inquiry led me to build ReRooted, a community centered around regenerative leadership and conscious evolution. If you feel the call to grow your company and your personal experience with more intention and less isolation, I invite you to join our ReRooted Community Calls.

These are free forums designed for gathering, sharing, and opening our hearts and minds together. It is a space to be seen as an operator and a human being, without the need to perform certainty. You can join the ReRooted list here to receive your invitation to our next call.