Seeing humans as possibility, not resources
I hired my first W-2 in April 1991. By April 2026 that’s thirty five years of leading without a map. I had no role models anywhere I’d worked as a young adult: trades, retail, restaurants, or academia. I watched histrionics, othering, and sexism, inside a culture that ran light on structure. I entered as a gardener of land and became a gardener of people.
In those early years I saw plenty I never wanted to repeat. I came for plants and soil. I stayed because I realized a company is a living system too. It needs tending. Not the corporate kind of tending. The human kind.
My yoga practice changed the lens. People aren’t headcount. They’re living, changing, meaning-making creatures. Sadhguru’s teachings nudged me to look for possibility in people rather than problems. When I remember that, the work doesn’t get easier. It gets truer.
Let’s call this month what it is: commercialism on overdrive. The rush to make properties “holiday ready,” the retail sprint, the inbox flood. It’s real, and it’s hard on nervous systems. It can turn crews into production lines and leaders into air-traffic control if we let it.
I’m not above the stress. I get tired. I snap. I project my fatigue onto the nearest person and call it “their attitude.” When I catch it, I can pause and come back with care. When I miss it, I’ve got repair work to do. That’s the season we’re in. Fast. Frayed. Human.
I’m writing this with Amber Czech in mind. A 20-year-old welder, bludgeoned to death at her station. A place that should’ve been safe. A young woman in a male-dominated shop. Some reports say she went to HR multiple times. I don’t know every detail. I do know her death shook me off center. I couldn’t write for days. If we reduce humans to cogs, we ignore discomfort, fear, and early warnings. We pretend culture happens by itself. It doesn’t.
Violence is usually the last stop on a long line. Microaggressions are the training ground. The eye roll. The “joke.” The nickname that isn’t funny. The cold shoulder. The silent treatment. Shunning. Those small cuts normalize hostility. That’s exactly where leaders and crews can act. You can’t always stop a sledgehammer. You can stop the early warning signs. Talk about them, even if it feels silly or “too sensitive.” It’s not. It’s safety.
I’m not chasing corporate jargon, but this one earns its keep: psychological safety. In plain words, it’s the shared belief that you won’t be punished or humiliated for speaking up with ideas, questions, concerns, or mistakes. On teams with real safety, people raise a flag early. On teams without it, they shut up and hope the problem passes. I’m not running a tech firm. I’m building an ecological landscape business. The pattern still holds.
Vanessa Van Edwards’ People School sharpened my delivery in the field. Lead with warmth so people stay open. Follow with competence so direction is clear. When those two signals match, feedback lands and we move. Safety plus clarity is how possibility grows.
I like speed. I care about excellence. When the pings keep coming, that next ask can land heavier than it should. Depth psychology gave me language for that moment. When I’m tight, I start projecting. I turn my own fatigue into a story about someone else’s laziness or disrespect. If I can catch the projection, my agency returns and the story softens. Then I can meet the person in front of me as a person again.
Yoga helps me hold that line. Svadhyaya is self-study. Santosha is contentment without passivity. Tapas is disciplined heat, the willingness to do the hard thing without burning the house down. Those three let me hold people as possibility without abandoning standards or timelines.
Keep it simple. Keep it human.
Say the quiet thing out loud. “December is pressure. If something feels off, flag it early. You’ll be thanked for the flag.” Then prove it the first time someone speaks up.
One-minute reset. Thirty seconds to breathe and unclench. Thirty seconds to name three facts and one next move. Use it before you answer when you feel the snap coming. Teach your leads to do the same.
Protect dignity in feedback. Before you correct someone, ask, “What dignity am I protecting with this sentence.” If it’s ego, rewrite. If it’s safety, quality, or care, proceed.
Close the loop. If someone raises a concern, circle back with what changed. Silence kills trust.
Bystander language. Give peers a script: “I heard that joke. It landed off for me. Let’s keep it clean.” Small, steady course corrections build the culture you want.
When I hired that first employee, I thought leadership meant showing her the plants I loved and the systems I trusted. I didn’t realize how much of the job would be learning to hold other people’s nervous systems with care while holding my own.
The “people as possibility” lens changed my choices.
It changed how I handle friction. Instead of labeling someone “difficult,” I ask what the behavior is protecting. Pride. Fear. Overwhelm. A family story. My story. Often there’s wisdom in the mess if we slow down enough to see it.
It changed how I read performance. In a resource mindset, a person is a unit of output. In a possibility mindset, a person is shape-shifting capacity. Strengths thicken with practice. Weaknesses soften with support and structure. People change. I’ve watched so many do it.
It changed how I treat policies. Not as weapons but as containers. Containers hold heat so transformation can happen without chaos. Tapas without burning the house down.
It changed how I hold myself. When I’m flooded, I’m not fit to lead. That isn’t failure. It’s data. I can ask for a beat. I can come back clearer. The work deserves that. The people deserve that.
Thirty five years is a lot of seasons. I’ve employed hundreds of people. Some stayed a decade. Some stayed a season. All of them changed me. They taught me that structure matters, that safety is soil, and that people are possibility. I still snap sometimes and then I practice repair. That’s leadership. That’s gardening. You tend, you correct, you try again.
If you lead in the trades, you know how easy it is to slip into a resource mindset. We track hours and yards and trucks. The math matters. So does the lens. When I remember to look at people as possibility, I make better choices. I speak with more care. I listen longer. The work gets deeper and more reliable, which is good for clients, good for the land, and good for the humans who go home at night to their families.
For Amber. For every worker stepping into the rush this month.