This morning I found myself in an existential spiral about impact.
I’ve been on the entrepreneurial path for decades now. Like most of us, I started with purpose and ambition, a desire to do meaningful work and make a difference in the world. But impact is a tricky word.
In business circles, it’s often defined by metrics like revenue, profit, market reach, and brand recognition. Those are tangible, measurable, and in many cases essential. Yet when I look at what truly drives me, and many of the business owners I coach, the meaning of impact feels much more intimate.
When you work in the ecological or regenerative space, it’s easy to feel small. The scale of global crisis can make our daily work seem insignificant. If you build one meadow while two miles down the road a forest is stripped for development, it’s hard not to feel like a speck of dust. But that’s only one way to see it.
Because here’s the truth: that one meadow matters. It’s not a token gesture, it’s a living system. You’ve changed the fate of every pollinator, microbe, and bird that calls it home. You’ve added beauty and breath to a place that didn’t have it before. You’ve changed the chemistry of that little ecosystem, and that is not nothing.
Your business, your craft, your choices are not small. They are local power in motion. Every action you take sends ripples through the fabric of the living world.
Bruce Lipton wrote in The Biology of Belief:
“The moment you change your perception is the moment you rewrite the chemistry of your body.”
That line stops me every time. It reframes impact as something that begins on the inside.
When you decide that your small actions count, you shift your perception, and that changes everything. You move from scarcity to possibility, from helplessness to agency. You start seeing each choice, each project, each conversation as part of a regenerative pattern that grows meaning over time.
This is the real meaning of impact. It’s not just what you build in the world; it’s what you cultivate in yourself.
Every small business owner I know carries a unique kind of courage. We don’t have massive safety nets or distant investors. We have belief in our craft, our clients, our teams, and the difference we can make.
But belief alone isn’t enough. It has to translate into movement, into pattern, into the small things we do every day that reinforce who we are and what we stand for.
As Darren Hardy reminds us in The Compound Effect:
“You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.”
Each choice compounds. Each habit becomes culture. Each interaction builds trust or erodes it. Small actions, repeated with awareness, become the architecture of lasting impact.
Impact isn’t born from grand gestures. It grows through consistent, regenerative action, the composting of ideas, the tending of relationships, the steady choice to keep going when results are invisible.
In a regenerative world, every living thing contributes. Nothing is wasted. Even rest and reflection play their part in renewal. So if you ever feel like what you’re doing is too small to matter, remember this: scale doesn’t define significance. Intention does.
When belief fuels daily action, the ripples are infinite.
If this speaks to you, I want you to know you’re not alone. The work you’re doing, the care you bring, and the belief that keeps you moving forward all matter deeply. You’re part of a quiet but powerful wave of business owners who are choosing purpose over pressure, meaning over metrics, and connection over competition.
That’s what we’re building inside the Regenerative Business Community. One purpose-driven, heart-centered soul at a time. Each person who joins brings a story, a spark, and a voice that may be exactly what someone else needs to hear in order to keep going.
If you’ve been craving that kind of community, this might be your place.
The Regenerative Business Community Insider is a 24-week program for business owners who want to grow meaningful impact through shared learning, honest conversation, and regenerative leadership.
The next cohort begins November 11.
What would be different if you stepped into community today?
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