Business as Devotion: What Happens When Leadership Remembers the Earth

There is a kind of success that looks impressive from the outside but feels quietly empty from the inside.

It is the success built on more. More growth, more money, more recognition, more accumulation, more speed, more proving. And while there is nothing wrong with growth, there is something deeply exhausting about a life or business that is only moving in one direction: extraction.

In my conversation with Grant Kendzior, founder of Eco Breakthroughs and Head of Strategic Partnerships at 4ocean, we explored a different way of seeing business, leadership, sustainability, and embodiment. Not as separate conversations, but as one living ecosystem.

Grant grew up between the ocean in Sarasota, Florida, and the wilderness of Montana. His love for nature was not conceptual. It was lived through water, horses, backcountry, marine life, and the kind of childhood connection that reminds you that Earth is not scenery. Earth is home.

After witnessing the BP oil spill and seeing how destructive business could be when disconnected from responsibility, Grant felt called to understand business from the inside. His question became: what if the same force that can destroy ecosystems could also be used to heal them?

That question became the thread of his work.

The More Disease

One of the most powerful ideas Grant named in our conversation was what he calls “the more disease.”

It is the conditioning that tells us success is always more. More money. More status. More visibility. More scale. More consumption. More achievement.

And yet, so many people arrive at the life they thought they wanted and find themselves burned out, disconnected, and wondering why they do not feel more alive.

This is where the conversation becomes so much bigger than sustainability. Because the same pattern that teaches us to extract from the Earth also teaches us to extract from ourselves.

We push the body past its limits. We override our rhythms. We treat rest as a reward instead of a requirement. We postpone joy. We tell ourselves we will reconnect with nature once we finish the launch, hit the goal, close the deal, or finally have enough time.

But that moment often never comes because the system of “more” is never satisfied.

Embodiment Includes the Earth

This season of Your Tru Awakening is about moving from awareness into embodiment. And this conversation with Grant opened up a deeper layer of what embodiment actually means.

We often think of embodiment as coming into the body, feeling our emotions, living our values, and becoming more congruent with what we know is true.

But embodiment is also remembering that our body is not separate from the greater body of Earth.

When we are disconnected from our own body, it becomes easier to disconnect from the planet. When we live only from the mind, from the square, from the linear, from the artificial rhythm of productivity, we forget that life is circular. We forget reciprocity. We forget seasons. We forget that everything living exists in relationship.

Grant shared a teaching he received from Tlingit elders in Alaska about the difference between square knowledge and circular knowledge. Square knowledge is the world of boxes, screens, buildings, systems, and linear thought. Circular knowledge is the salmon run, the ecosystem, the season, the relationship between all living things.

So much of modern culture has been built on square knowledge. But healing asks us to remember the circle.

Business Can Become a Force for Healing

One of the things I appreciated most about Grant is that he does not speak about sustainability as a performance or a branding trend. He speaks about it as devotion, responsibility, and intelligent business.

He shared how models like 4ocean connect business performance directly to environmental impact. When a bracelet is sold, plastic is removed from the ocean. When companies tie their growth to doing good, scale becomes healing instead of extraction.

This is such an important distinction.

The point is not that business should stop growing. The point is that the right businesses, built with the right values, can grow in ways that create more healing, more restoration, more generosity, and more life.

This is the future of business: people, planet, and profit moving together.

And in many ways, this is also the future of leadership.

Because leaders who are connected to something bigger than themselves lead differently. They make different decisions. They feel responsibility not as a burden, but as a form of devotion. They understand that their work is not only about what they can get, but what they can serve.

Nature Is Not a Luxury. Nature Is a Nervous System Reset.

One of my favorite parts of this conversation was hearing Grant speak about nature as his church.

He shared how even a few minutes outside, barefoot on the Earth or present with a flower, can change his state before speaking to leaders, CEOs, and global audiences. He spoke about doing Tai Chi barefoot between conference sessions, not as a performance, but as a way of returning to himself.

This is something I feel deeply in my own life.

Nature is my charging station. When I am in nature, my breath deepens. My body softens. My senses open. My nervous system remembers that I am not here to live in constant urgency.

And this is not separate from productivity or leadership. It is what makes deeper creativity possible.

When the nervous system relaxes, we can access greater patterns. We can hear more clearly. We can create from inspiration instead of pressure. We can lead from presence instead of reactivity.

Grant shared a beautiful analogy from one of his mentors: the bow and arrow. In order for the arrow to launch forward, it has to be pulled back.

Slowing down is not falling behind. Sometimes slowing down is what gives us the energy, clarity, and power to move forward in a truer direction.

The Ripple Effect of One Choice

A theme that moved through the entire conversation was the power of one action.

One purchase. One business decision. One leader choosing to do the right thing. One customer voting with their dollar. One company tying its products to a measurable positive impact. One person remembering that their choices matter.

Grant shared that 4ocean began with a simple mission and has now removed millions of pounds of plastic from the ocean. That kind of impact does not happen all at once. It happens through the accumulation of small choices that become a movement.

This is the medicine for the part of us that says, “What difference can I make?”

You make a difference by becoming a living example of what you value.

You make a difference by choosing companies that care.

You make a difference by building your business in a way that gives back.

You make a difference by letting your money, your attention, your work, and your leadership become expressions of your devotion.

From Extraction to Reciprocity

In so many indigenous and ceremonial traditions, healing begins when reciprocity is restored.

Not just taking. Not just asking. Not just receiving.

Giving back. Paying forward. Feeding the soil. Honoring the source. Remembering that life is not a transaction, but a relationship.

This is true with the Earth. It is true in our businesses. It is true in our relationships. It is true in the body.

The more we move from “what can I get?” into “how can I serve?” the more we begin to change the conversation of what it means to be human.

Because to be human is not only to consume. To be human is to create, to care, to imagine, to protect, to steward, and to participate in the healing of the world we belong to.

Let Earth Become Your Mentor

Toward the end of the conversation, we spoke about mentorship.

Grant shared how much his mentors, including Michael Singer, shaped his path. One of the teachings he received was that meditation was not meant to stay on the cushion. It was meant to become embodied in every action, including business.

That is the invitation.

To not only know what is true, but to live it.

To not only speak about love, but to make love actionable.

To not only believe in sustainability, but to build it into the way we buy, work, create, and lead.

And perhaps the first mentor is the Earth herself.

If you do not know what to do, sit by a tree. Go to the water. Listen to the birds. Watch the insects in the grass. Let the flowers remind you how much beauty exists without forcing. Let nature return you to the rhythm beneath the noise.

Because the Earth is always teaching.

She teaches cycles. She teaches enoughness. She teaches decay and rebirth. She teaches patience. She teaches generosity. She teaches that everything belongs to something larger.

And maybe that is what conscious leadership really is.

Not performing goodness.

Not branding purpose.

But remembering that your life, your business, your money, and your choices are part of a larger body.

And that body is asking us to wake up.