I have had the privilege of being an early investor in Esusu, so I have watched Samir Goel and his co-founder Wemimo Abbey build something rare: a fintech company that has stayed true to its founding values nine years in, while scaling into one of the most important financial inclusion companies in America. Esusu helps renters build credit simply by paying rent on time, and in doing so, is addressing a wealth gap that has kept millions of working families locked out of the financial system.

I sat down with Samir for a conversation that started with spirituality and ended up touching nearly everything: what it actually means to build a values-driven business, why trust has to be earned through action, and how “doing well” and “doing good” were never supposed to be in tension in the first place.

Here are the parts of our conversation that stuck with me.

Subscribe now

“Justice Capitalism”

Samir didn’t set out to build a mission statement that would just live on a wall. Early on, he and Wemimo wrote what they call the Esusu Credo — their version of a founding constitution — and at its center is a concept they call justice capitalism.

“It’s a reimagined economic system where we actually think about how business impacts every member of society. It’s not just about capital, but it’s also about your team, your collaborators, your partners, and ultimately the constituents that are most impacted by the product or service you built.”

For Esusu, that starts with renters. The company’s vision is to unleash the power of data to bridge the racial wealth gap; its mission is to dismantle barriers to housing for working families. And critically, Samir doesn’t see the moral case and the market case as separate arguments.

Deeds, Not Words

One of the most striking threads in our conversation was about trust — specifically, how you earn it with people the financial system has repeatedly failed.

Esusu’s first version of the product asked renters to hand over sensitive financial information to a company they’d never heard of. It didn’t work. “It’s like, hey Jenna, we just met. Can I have your Social Security number?” Samir said. People said no, understandably.

So they rebuilt the model. Instead of asking renters to trust them first, Esusu partners with landlords, reaches renters through that existing relationship, and then proves itself through action before asking for anything in return.

It’s a principle that echoes across traditions — I mentioned to Samir a line from the Bahá’í writings: “Let deeds, not words, be your adorning.” He connected it immediately to Esusu’s own operating principles, and to a broader truth about leadership: people don’t believe what you say about yourself. They believe what you do.

Win-Win Over Win-Lose

Samir pushed back on a framing that’s common in real estate and, frankly, in a lot of business: that landlords and renters are adversaries.

Esusu’s insight was to realign incentives instead of picking a side: a financially healthy renter pays on time, stays longer, and takes better care of the property — which directly benefits the landlord’s bottom line and property value. Everyone wins, including the credit bureaus who can now underwrite more people, and the broader economy that benefits when more people can access credit, cars, and mortgages.

The Business Model Is the Impact

Perhaps the line that will stay with me longest from this conversation was Samir’s distinction between companies that do impact and companies where impact is the business model:

He is skeptical of impact as an add-on — a corporate social responsibility check written after the “real” business is done. Not because that generosity isn’t good, but because it’s fundamentally different from a company whose financial success and social impact move in lockstep, with no trade-off to negotiate.

Advice for Builders at This Intersection

I asked Samir what he would tell others trying to build at the intersection of spirituality, business, and investing. Three things stood out:

1. Just start. Don’t let the scale of the vision paralyze you.

2. Don’t do it alone. “Nothing worth doing is worth doing alone.” Having the right people around you — a co-founder, a partner, mentors is essential.

3. Don’t let urgency override intentionality. “If something doesn’t feel right, that’s worth listening to... don’t let urgency take away your intentionality.” He named this as one of the most common mistakes he sees in founders and leaders: not a lack of good intentions, but letting speed crowd out reflection.

Staying Grounded

Off the business questions, I loved hearing how Samir stays grounded personally: a daily run, deliberately protected downtime, and leaning on the people closest to him — his co-CEO Wemimo, and his wife Julie — to keep each other honest on the days when they’re not at their best.

“We all have good days, we all have bad days, but that keeps us grounded and modulated, making sure we’re on the path we want to be on.”

Samir and the Esusu team are proof that “doing well” and “doing good” were never actually opposites. Justice capitalism, as Samir describes it, isn’t a slogan. It’s a discipline: codify your values, tie them to how you measure success, and let your actions do the talking.

Check out the full podcast link here.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts,

Jenna

Constance’s journey is an extraordinary one. Born in France, she came to the United States to study international agriculture at Cornell University, where her studies exposed her to questions of social justice and, as she likes to joke, introduced her to her future husband. After graduation, she worked in Haiti with Catholic Relief Services, partnering with religious and community leaders on small-scale agricultural development. Those experiences shaped her understanding that meaningful change happens when we invest in people, relationships, and communities—not simply projects.

She and her husband, Thomas, later founded Live Earth Farm, an organic farm in California, dedicated not only to producing healthy food but also to educating future generations about stewardship and sustainability. Over time, the same principles that guided her work on the land naturally informed the stewardship of her family’s wealth. Constance became an early leader in values-driven investing. Constance discussed her participation in Impact Experience as deepening her understanding of how history, race, and systemic inequities continue to shape financial systems—and how investors can respond with greater awareness and intention.

What struck me most during our conversation was the way she sees the world.

Early in our discussion, Constance shared an image that has stayed with me. Drawing from both African and Christian traditions, she described the intersection of spirituality and finance as the place where a river meets the ocean—a place where fresh water and salt water come together. It is constantly moving, constantly changing, and because of that dynamic relationship, it becomes one of the most fertile ecosystems in nature.

I found that metaphor beautiful because it reframes what we often think of as competing forces.

Business and purpose.

Profit and values.

Practicality and spirituality.

Perhaps they aren’t meant to compete at all.

Perhaps they are meant to nourish one another.

Throughout the conversation, Constance reminded me that finance isn’t simply about numbers on a spreadsheet. Behind every investment is a founder with a vision, a team with hopes and fears, customers whose lives may be changed, and communities that will experience the ripple effects of those decisions. When we forget the people behind the numbers, we lose sight of what investing is ultimately for.

That observation resonates deeply with my own experience.

Some of the most successful investors I’ve met possess extraordinary analytical abilities. But what distinguishes them isn’t simply their financial acumen. It’s their curiosity.

They ask different questions.

Not just, Will this company grow?

But, Who are these founders becoming?

What kind of world are they helping to create?

What values will shape the decisions they make when no one is watching?

Constance also spoke about the importance of exposing ourselves to ideas outside our usual circles. She encouraged intentionally seeking out conferences, retreats, and communities that challenge our assumptions—not to abandon what we believe, but to expand our understanding.

I think that’s where transformation really happens.

Learning isn’t measured by how many books we read or podcasts we listen to.

It’s measured by what changes because of them.

One of my favorite moments came when Constance reflected on farming. For more than thirty years, she and her husband have cultivated an organic farm, and she described how that experience completely reshaped the way she thinks about capital.

Capital, she said, is remarkably similar to land.

Both require stewardship.

Both require patience.

Both demand long-term thinking.

When you care for soil, you’re not only thinking about today’s harvest. You’re asking what kind of land you’ll leave for future generations. She believes capital deserves the same mindset. We’re not simply trying to maximize short-term returns. We’re cultivating something that should remain healthy, resilient, and life-giving long after we’re gone.

As our conversation drew to a close, Constance offered an image that beautifully captured everything we had discussed.

She simply held up her hands.

She said, “Don’t separate the right hand from the left hand.”

Don’t separate your values from your investments.

Don’t separate your work from your purpose.

Don’t separate who you are from how you lead.

Instead, allow every part of yourself to work together. She suggested that perhaps coherence isn’t actually harder than compartmentalization—we’ve simply become accustomed to believing that it is. And maybe the real reward isn’t only better decisions, but the deep satisfaction that comes from living and working as one integrated whole.

I couldn’t agree more.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts,

Jenna

Please fill out the form below if you want to participate in a cohort focused on the Enlightened Bottom Line.

Cohort Survey

You can see my upcoming events below:

Upcoming Events

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

What I appreciate about Andreea’s approach is that she doesn’t treat joy as something separate from leadership or business. Instead, she asks how purpose, compassion, and human connection can become integral to the way we lead our lives and our organizations.

During our conversation, she asked me a question that is one I often come back to:

“What if the way we spend and invest could become a way to heal the world?”

It’s a beautiful question because it invites us to think differently about business. Not simply as a mechanism for generating returns, but as a daily opportunity to contribute to healing.

When we hear the phrase healing the world, it can sound overwhelming—as if it belongs only to governments, philanthropists, or global movements. But I don’t think healing begins there. I think it begins in the smallest interactions we have every day.

It begins with how we lead a meeting.

How we make an investment.

How we design a product.

How we treat the person sitting across from us.

One of the ideas I return to often in The Enlightened Bottom Line is viewing humanity as a single body. If one part of the body suffers, the whole body is affected. Likewise, when one community is excluded, one ecosystem is damaged, or one generation is overlooked, the consequences ripple far beyond what we can immediately see.

That way of seeing changes how we make decisions.

I shared in the interview the example of Devoted Health, a company that last raised funding at a $13 billion valuation. Before many patient interactions, caregivers are encouraged to pause, close their eyes, and imagine the person they are about to meet is a beloved member of their own family. It is such a simple practice, yet it transforms the quality of care because it changes the posture of the person offering it.

I often wonder what would happen if more organizations adopted exercises like this.

What if customer service wasn’t just about efficiency, but about dignity?

What if leadership wasn’t simply about execution, but about empathy?

What if investing became an expression of stewardship rather than ownership?

Throughout the conversation we explored another theme that has become increasingly important to me: work as a form of worship. Regardless of our individual faith traditions—or whether we identify with one at all—I believe there is something powerful about approaching our work with reverence. It reminds us that our careers are not separate from our values. They are one of the primary places where those values become visible.

That doesn’t mean every day is easy.

Subscribe now

It means every day offers another opportunity to align what we believe with what we do.

One practical question leaders often ask me is, “How do we actually build this into an organization?”

The answer isn’t only a mission statement hanging on the wall.

It’s creating practices that reinforce your values every single day.

In the interview I shared examples like Esusu, an incredible fintech company I had an opportunity to invest in which recently reached a $1.2 billion valuation. Their internal credo serves as a guide for decision-making, ensuring that compassion and purpose aren’t abstract ideas but practical standards for how the company operates. I also spoke about organizations that use cultural manifestos and regular check-ins to ensure people don’t lose sight of what they’re truly optimizing for.

Culture isn’t created during annual retreats.

It’s created in repeated moments.

The conversations we have.

The behaviors we reward.

The questions we ask.

One of the biggest challenges in business today is that we’re often measuring the wrong things.

During our discussion I reflected on Robert F. Kennedy’s famous observation that GDP measures everything except what makes life worthwhile. I also shared lessons from studying happiness in Bhutan (while at Stanford Graduate School of Business), where success is viewed through a broader lens than economic output alone.

Those experiences continue to influence how I think about investing.

Financial performance matters.

But so does trust.

Belonging.

Human flourishing.

Long-term stewardship.

That’s why I continue returning to the Indigenous principle of seven-generation thinking—considering both the legacy we’ve inherited from the seven generations before us and the impact our decisions will have on the seven generations yet to come. That longer horizon changes the kinds of questions we ask and the decisions we’re willing to make today.

As the conversation came to a close, I was asked what challenge I would leave with listeners.

My answer was simple.

What trace are you leaving?

Share

There’s a passage from the Baháʼí writings that has become a touchstone in my own life. It reminds us that every decision we make—as an employee or employer, producer or consumer, borrower or lender—leaves a trace. The invitation is to ensure that our actions reflect our highest ideals.

I have that question written on a Post-it note on my refrigerator.

Not because I always have the answer.

But because remembering to ask it changes how I move through the day.

Perhaps that’s where healing begins.

Not with one extraordinary act.

But with thousands of ordinary choices made with greater intention.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts,

Jenna

Please fill out the form below if you want to participate in a cohort focused on the Enlightened Bottom Line.

Cohort Survey

You can see my upcoming events below:

Upcoming Events

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

What happens when we stop separating who we are from how we work?

I had the opportunity to sit down with entrepreneur Julian MacQueen, co-founder of Innisfree Hotels, (with wife Kim MacQueen) whose approach to leadership has been shaped by more than forty years of intentionally integrating his spiritual values into the culture of his company. As we spoke, I was struck not by a particular management technique or business strategy, but by a philosophy that feels increasingly relevant in today’s workplace.

told me that for much of his life he wrestled with a question many of us quietly carry: How do I bring my deepest beliefs into the place where I spend most of my waking hours? Rather than leaving those values outside the office door, he made the decision to build an organization where people were encouraged to show up as their whole selves.

That idea resonated deeply with me.

For generations we’ve been taught to compartmentalize. There is our personal life. Our professional life. Our spiritual life. Our family life.

But what if that fragmentation is part of the problem?

Some of the healthiest leaders I’ve met don’t seem to switch identities depending on the room they’re in. Whether they’re speaking with investors, employees, customers, or family members, there is a remarkable consistency in how they show up. They lead from the same values regardless of the audience.

That consistency creates trust.

One practice Julian described particularly caught my attention. Early in building his company, his team developed what they call the Cooperative Mode—a simple framework for helping people communicate honestly, recognize unhealthy patterns, and resolve conflict before it grows into something larger. The goal wasn’t to eliminate disagreement. It was to create cleaner, healthier relationships.

As I listened, I couldn’t help but think about investing.

Every founder I’ve backed, every leadership team I’ve worked with, eventually encounters conflict. The differentiator isn’t whether difficult conversations arise. It’s whether an organization has developed the emotional capacity to navigate them with honesty, humility, and care.

One concept Julian shared has stayed with me ever since our conversation.

He calls them “paranoid fantasies.”

We’ve all experienced them. A colleague walks past without saying hello. An email goes unanswered. Someone cancels a meeting.

Subscribe now

Within moments, our minds begin writing stories. Did I do something wrong? Are they upset with me? Is there a problem I don’t know about?

Most of the time, those stories have very little to do with reality.

Julian’s team has developed a simple practice. They ask one another, “Can I check out a paranoid fantasy?” It creates permission to replace assumptions with curiosity before misunderstandings become resentment. I found that idea incredibly freeing.

How much energy do we spend reacting to stories we’ve invented rather than conversations we’ve actually had?

Imagine how many relationships—inside companies and outside of them—could be strengthened if we became more curious than certain.

There was another aspect of Julian’s philosophy that I found refreshing.

He believes work should include joy.

Not because work is always easy, but because joy creates the conditions for creativity, trust, and resilience. He laughed while telling me that one of the very first principles his company adopted was simply, “Have fun.”

I think that’s an important reminder. Purpose doesn’t require heaviness.

Some of the most impactful leaders I’ve met laugh easily. They create space for play, curiosity, and human connection even while tackling incredibly complex problems.

Joy isn’t a distraction from meaningful work. Sometimes it’s what makes meaningful work sustainable. Perhaps my favorite moment came when Julian described his understanding of service.

He said something that perfectly captured the spirit of The Enlightened Bottom Line: “Work is worship.” For him, the hospitality business isn’t simply about checking guests into hotels or making beds. It’s about creating environments where people can gather, rest, connect, and experience belonging. When viewed through that lens, every role becomes an opportunity to serve something larger than ourselves.

That conversation reminded me that purpose isn’t found only in extraordinary careers.

It’s found in ordinary moments approached with extraordinary intention.

Whether we are investing capital, leading teams, building companies, or serving customers, we always have a choice about how we show up.

Perhaps bringing our whole selves to work isn’t about becoming someone new.

Perhaps it’s about having the courage to stop pretending we’re someone else.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts,

Jenna

Leave a comment

Please fill out the form below if you want to participate in a cohort focused on the Enlightened Bottom Line.

Cohort Survey

You can see my upcoming events below:

Upcoming Events

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

Over the past several months, as I’ve shared stories from The Enlightened Bottom Line, readers have often asked me the same question:

“If there is one idea you hope people take away from the book, what is it?”

My answer has evolved as I’ve reflected on the remarkable people whose stories fill these pages, the conversations I’ve been fortunate to have, and the experiences that have shaped my own journey.

Today, I believe it comes down to this:

We each have the opportunity to become a force for healing.

Not only in our families and communities, but also through the businesses we build, the capital we invest, the organizations we lead, and the choices we make every single day.

When I first began exploring the relationship between spirituality, investing, and business, many people treated them as separate worlds. Spirituality belonged in places of worship. Investing belonged on Wall Street. Business belonged in boardrooms.

The more I traveled, listened, and learned, the more convinced I became that this separation is an illusion.

That realization eventually became the foundation for the HEAL framework that runs throughout The Enlightened Bottom Line: Hope. Empathy. Abundance. Legacy.

These four ideas are not meant to be another leadership model or management framework. They are daily practices that invite us to ask different questions about how we lead and what we are creating.

Hope reminds us that transformation is always possible, even when the challenges before us feel overwhelming. Throughout this book, we’ve met entrepreneurs and investors who refused to accept that today’s systems must define tomorrow’s possibilities. Their optimism wasn’t naïve—it was disciplined. Hope gave them the courage to build what didn’t yet exist.

Empathy reminds us that behind every spreadsheet is a person. Behind every investment is a family, a community, an ecosystem. Some of the most successful companies I’ve encountered don’t succeed despite putting people first; they succeed because they do. When we genuinely understand the experiences of others, transactions become relationships, and business becomes an expression of service.

Abundance asks us to move beyond the scarcity mindset that quietly shapes so much of modern life. My friend Lynne Twist writes beautifully in The Soul of Money that fulfillment doesn’t come from endlessly pursuing more. It comes from recognizing when we have enough and choosing to steward what we’ve been given with gratitude and generosity. That shift—from accumulation to sufficiency—changes not only how we think about money but also how we think about success.

And then there is legacy.

Subscribe now

Legacy doesn’t have to be something we think about at the end of our lives. It is something we create every day.

It is reflected in the culture we build inside our organizations. It lives in the opportunities we create for others. It shows up in the systems we leave stronger than we found them and in the people who carry our influence forward long after we’ve moved on.

Looking back, one of the greatest gifts this journey has given me has been the opportunity to learn from extraordinary people.

I am incredibly grateful for all of the people I have had a chance to learn from in the Stanford Graduate School of Business community, including , , , and . Each has challenged me in different ways to think more deeply about leadership, innovation, purpose, and what it means to build organizations that endure. Those conversations continue to shape how I approach my work and my life.

Beyond Stanford, I’ve had the privilege of learning from impact investors, entrepreneurs, Indigenous leaders, spiritual teachers, academics, and founders around the world. While their backgrounds are remarkably different, they share one belief: business can be one of the greatest forces for good when it is guided by wisdom, integrity, and love.

That belief has only grown stronger through writing this book.

I’ve come to see money differently.

Not as an end in itself. But as a form of energy. A tool. A responsibility.

One that reflects our intentions far more than our net worth. Money cannot tell us what matters. It simply amplifies what already does.

If there is one hope I have for everyone who has read this book, it is not that you adopt my framework or arrive at the same conclusions I have. It is that you leave asking better questions.

• What kind of future am I helping create?

• Who benefits from the decisions I make?

• How can my work become a greater expression of my values?

And perhaps most importantly:

How can I leave the people, organizations, and systems I touch just a little more healed than I found them?

I don’t believe the future will be shaped by a handful of extraordinary leaders.

It will be shaped by millions of ordinary decisions made with extraordinary intention.

Every investment. Every hiring decision. Every conversation. Every act of generosity.

Every opportunity to choose courage over fear and service over self-interest. That is the invitation of the HEAL framework.

To lead with hope. To act with empathy. To live from abundance.

And to build a legacy that reflects the very best of who we are.

Thank you for taking this journey with me.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts,

Jenna

Leave a comment

Please fill out the form below if you want to participate in a cohort focused on the Enlightened Bottom Line.

Cohort Survey

You can see my upcoming events below:

Upcoming Events

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

The answer is yes—but beneath all of those reasons was a simpler question that has stayed with me for years:

What if we thought about money differently?

I recently had the opportunity to explore that question in a conversation with Andrea Hiott on her podcast Love and Philosophy. Andrea has a remarkable way of asking questions that move beyond strategy and into meaning. Rather than beginning with markets or investing, she began with a word I didn’t expect. Care.

She asked what would happen if we understood money not simply as something we earn or spend, but as an expression of what we care about.

That question has stayed with me.

We often think of money as neutral—a tool that simply reflects transactions. But every investment, every purchase, every donation, and every business we choose to support is also directing energy toward a particular future. In that sense, money isn’t just capital. It’s a form of attention. It’s a reflection of our priorities.

Where our money flows, something grows.

That idea has quietly shaped much of my own journey.

When I was fourteen, I had the opportunity to speak at Westminster Abbey during Commonwealth Day. The Queen was there. Archbishop Desmond Tutu was there. World leaders filled the room. Looking back, people often ask how I wasn’t terrified.

The truth is, I wasn’t drawing confidence from myself.

I was drawing it from the women who raised me.

My mother and grandmother filled my childhood with a profound sense of love, gratitude, and faith. They taught me that confidence doesn’t come from believing you’re extraordinary. It comes from recognizing that you are connected to something greater than yourself. That perspective has stayed with me far longer than any speech I have ever given.

Years later, after studying at Stanford and eventually entering the world of investing, I initially struggled with what felt like a contradiction. Growing up, I imagined my path would lead toward human rights law or social justice work. Business and finance felt like an entirely different world.

Then I encountered social entrepreneurs who were building financially sustainable organizations while addressing healthcare, education, and climate challenges. Suddenly, those worlds no longer seemed separate.

I realized that capital and conscience did not have to compete.

They could reinforce one another.

That realization has guided much of my work ever since, from teaching socially responsible investing in China to founding Phoenix Global Impact and interviewing dozens of investors and business leaders for The Enlightened Bottom Line. Again and again, I found people asking a deeper question than simply, “How do we maximize returns?”

They were asking, “What are we here to build?”

One of the stories I often return to is that of Wayne Silby, founder of Calvert Funds. During a Buddhist retreat, participants were asked what they wanted written on their tombstone. Wayne realized his might simply read, “The man who made two percent more than the next man.”

He knew that wasn’t the legacy he wanted.

That moment changed the trajectory of his life and ultimately helped pioneer one of the world’s leading socially responsible investment firms.

It’s a reminder that sometimes the most important investment decisions don’t begin with spreadsheets.

They begin with reflection.

Throughout my travels—from Bhutan, where leaders explore Gross National Happiness alongside economic development, to the Ecuadorian Amazon, where communities begin each morning by sharing their dreams before making decisions for the day—I’ve been reminded that there are many ways to define prosperity.

These experiences haven’t given me all the answers.

But they have helped me ask better questions.

Questions like:

What are we optimizing for?

What is enough?

What kind of future are our decisions creating?

Andrea described money as something like a koan—a question we continue to hold rather than solve. I loved that framing because it mirrors what I hoped this book would become. Not a collection of definitive answers, but an invitation into a richer conversation.

At the end of every chapter, I included reflection questions for exactly that reason. My hope isn’t that readers adopt my perspective. It’s that they pause long enough to discover their own.

Because perhaps the most important investment we make isn’t financial at all.

It’s deciding what deserves our attention.

What deserves our energy.

What deserves our care.

If we can begin there, then money becomes more than a measure of value.

It becomes a way of expressing it.

A Question for Reflection

If your spending, investing, and daily decisions perfectly reflected what you care about most, what story would they tell?

Look forward to hearing your thoughts,

Jenna

Leave a comment

Please fill out the form below if you want to participate in a cohort focused on the Enlightened Bottom Line.

Cohort Survey

You can see my upcoming events below:

Upcoming Events

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

“What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.” — Pericles

One of the most powerful exercises I’ve ever participated in wasn’t related to investing, business strategy, or leadership. It was an assignment in a Stanford Business School course taught by Professor Rod Kramer called Lives of Consequence, where we were asked to write our own obituary.

At first, it seemed like an unusual exercise. But as I sat down to write, I realized how rarely most of us spend time reflecting on how we hope to be remembered. We devote enormous energy to planning the next quarter, the next promotion, the next investment, or the next milestone. Yet very few of us pause to consider the larger arc of our lives and the legacy we are creating through our daily choices.

That question has surfaced repeatedly throughout my own journey.

I was present for the passing of both my mother and my grandmother, experiences that profoundly shaped my understanding of what matters most. My mother’s final words were, “Frightening but beautiful,” a phrase that has stayed with me ever since. It captured something essential about mortality: while it can feel unsettling to contemplate, it also has a remarkable ability to clarify our priorities.

Many wisdom traditions recognize this. Whether through the Buddhist practice of mindfulness of death or the ancient concept of memento mori, the purpose is not to create fear. Rather, it is to help us live with greater intention. When we remember that our time is finite, we begin to see more clearly which pursuits are meaningful and which distractions are consuming energy that could be directed elsewhere.

Over the years, I have had the opportunity to interview dozens of investors, entrepreneurs, and leaders for The Enlightened Bottom Line. What struck me most was that many of the people creating extraordinary impact were not primarily motivated by personal achievement. They were motivated by a desire to contribute to something that would outlast them.

Subscribe now

Calvin Mackie’s work with STEM NOLA is a powerful example. His efforts to expand opportunities for young people in science and technology are not simply about education; they are about creating pathways that can transform communities for generations. Elizabeth Garlow’s work on reimagining economic systems similarly begins with a long-term view of human flourishing rather than short-term gain. Leaders like Samir Goel at Esusu and Benji Fernandes at NALA have built companies that seek to address systemic barriers while creating economic opportunity at scale.

What connects these examples is not a particular industry or business model. It is a commitment to stewardship.

We often talk about success in terms of accumulation—more revenue, more assets, more influence. Yet one of the questions Elizabeth Garlow raised in our conversation was far more provocative: What is the risk of not having a livable future?

That question shifts the frame entirely. It challenges us to think not only about returns, but about responsibility. It asks us to consider whether the systems we are building are creating the conditions for future generations to thrive.

This perspective became especially tangible during a visit to the Amazon with the Pachamama Alliance, where I spent time with the Achuar and Sápara communities. Their relationship with the rainforest reflects a deep understanding of intergenerational stewardship. Decisions are not made solely based on immediate needs, but with an awareness of how those choices will affect future generations and the broader web of life.

That experience reinforced something I have come to believe deeply: legacy is not a distant concept reserved for the end of life. It is being shaped every day through how we allocate our time, our attention, our capital, and our care.

The word “invest” comes from the Latin investire, meaning “to clothe.” I love that image because it suggests that our investments are not simply financial transactions. They are expressions of what we choose to wrap ourselves around and protect. In that sense, every investment, every business decision, and every act of leadership reveals something about what we value most.

Perhaps that is why reflecting on mortality can be such a powerful teacher. It encourages us to step back from the urgency of the moment and ask whether our actions are aligned with the future we hope to help create.

The question is not whether we will leave a legacy. We all will.

The more important question is whether we are building it consciously.

A Question for Reflection

If you were writing your own obituary today, what would it reveal about the life you are currently living—and what might you want to change?

Look forward to hearing your thoughts,

Jenna

Leave a comment

Please fill out the form below if you want to participate in a cohort focused on the Enlightened Bottom Line.

Cohort Survey

You can see my upcoming events below:

Upcoming Events

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

As I was reflecting on what to write this week, I found myself returning to a recent conversation with Vian Sharif on her podcast Reconnect With Nature & Purpose. We spoke about investing, Indigenous wisdom, and the role nature can play in helping us reimagine our relationship with ourselves, each other, and the systems we create.

At first glance, these topics may seem unrelated. Yet the deeper I reflected on our conversation, the more I realized they are connected by a common question:

What does it mean to live in right relationship—with one another, with the natural world, and with future generations?

One of the stories I shared was from a recent journey to the Ecuadorian Amazon organized by the Pachamama Alliance, where I spent time with the Achuar and Sápara communities. Each morning before sunrise, community members gathered in a circle to share their dreams from the night before and reflect on how those dreams might guide their decisions for the day.

What struck me was not simply the practice itself.

It was the worldview behind it.

The natural world was not viewed as something separate from daily life. It was a participant in it. Decisions about fishing, hunting, travel, and community life were made with a deep awareness of interconnectedness and relationship.

That experience reminded me of another formative moment from my childhood.

Between the ages of twelve and fifteen, I participated in a program called Transformation for Peace, held in the Swiss Alps and inspired by Bahá’í principles of service and unity. During one of our mountain hikes, I remember being overwhelmed by the vastness surrounding me. Standing among those peaks, I experienced something that would stay with me for decades: the realization that we are simultaneously small and significant.

Small in the context of a vast universe.

Significant because of the choices we make within it.

That experience fundamentally shifted how I thought about purpose, responsibility, and our connection to one another.

As we approach Juneteenth, I find myself thinking about freedom not only as a historical achievement, but also as a practice of awareness. Freedom requires the ability to see clearly, to question inherited assumptions, and to imagine alternatives. In many ways, nature has been one of my greatest teachers in that regard.

Both the Swiss Alps and the Amazon pointed me toward the same insight:

We are not separate from the systems around us. We are participants in them.

This understanding has shaped much of my work as an investor.

A passage from the Bahá’í writings that has stayed with me since childhood says that a human being is organic with the world; our inner lives shape the environment around us, and in turn, we are shaped by it.

The same can be said of our economic systems.

Markets, institutions, and organizations do not emerge independently of human values. They reflect them.

This is one reason I often speak about the importance of creating space for reflection. In a culture that prizes speed, optimization, and constant activity, we rarely pause long enough to ask whether our actions are aligned with our deepest aspirations.

Nature offers one pathway back to that alignment.

Not because it provides answers, but because it creates the conditions for better questions.

Some of the most effective leaders I have encountered intentionally build practices that allow for that kind of reflection. They step away from the noise. They spend time outdoors. They create room for insight rather than relying solely on analysis.

In doing so, they often discover that the challenges they face look different than they did before.

Many Indigenous communities make decisions through a perspective that considers both the wisdom inherited from previous generations and the impact decisions will have on those yet to come. It is a worldview rooted in stewardship rather than ownership—a recognition that we are temporary custodians of something larger than ourselves.

Imagine how different our businesses, investment decisions, and institutions might look if we consistently operated from that perspective.

As we concluded our conversation, Vian asked what I hoped people might take away from The Enlightened Bottom Line.

My answer was simple.

I hope we create more spaces for conversations like this.

Spaces where people feel empowered to bring their values into their work. Spaces where business, investing, and leadership are seen not merely as vehicles for accumulation, but as opportunities to contribute to something larger than ourselves.

And perhaps most importantly, spaces where we remember that nature is not merely a backdrop to our lives.

It is a relationship.

One that has much to teach us—if we are willing to listen.

A Question for Reflection

Where in your life might slowing down create space to hear something you have been too busy to notice?

Look forward to hearing your thoughts,

Jenna

Leave a comment

Please fill out the form below if you want to participate in a cohort focused on the Enlightened Bottom Line.

Cohort Survey

You can see my upcoming events below:

Upcoming Events

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

What happens when our deepest values become the foundation for how we build, lead, and serve?

It’s a question I’ve been thinking about for much of my life.

We often think of faith as something personal—a source of meaning, reflection, or spiritual practice. Yet many of the world’s great traditions ask something more of us. They invite us to consider how our values show up not only in moments of prayer or contemplation, but in our work, our relationships, our organizations, and the economic systems we help create.

For me, that question has been deeply influenced by my Bahá’í Faith.

Support My Work

Growing up, I had the opportunity to spend time in places such as India and the Democratic Republic of Congo through Bahá’í-inspired programs focused on service, community building, and social transformation. Those experiences were spiritually enriching, but they also exposed me to some of the world’s greatest challenges. They planted a question that has stayed with me ever since:

How do we live a coherent life?

How do we align what we believe with how we work?

One of the concepts in the Bahá’í writings that has profoundly shaped me is the idea that everything leaves a trace. Whether we are entrepreneurs, investors, employees, leaders, or consumers, our actions create ripples. Every decision contributes to shaping the systems around us.

The question is not whether we leave a trace.

The question is what kind of trace we want to leave.

For many years, conventional thinking suggested that business and spirituality occupied separate worlds. One was concerned with profit and competition. The other with values and service.

But I have never found that separation particularly convincing.

In my work as an investor, I have had the privilege of backing companies that demonstrate that purpose and performance are not mutually exclusive. In fact, some of the most successful organizations are those that understand the relationship between the two.

One example is Devoted Health, which recently raised capital at a valuation of approximately $13 billion. In Enlightened Bottom Line, I share a practice used by the company: before engaging with a patient, care providers are encouraged to pause, close their eyes, and imagine that person as a member of their own family. Leadership has spoken about how exercises like these help create a culture of empathy and human connection—and credits much of the company’s success to this approach.

Another example is Esusu, one of our portfolio companies, which is helping expand pathways to homeownership by incorporating rental payment history into credit-building tools. The company recently reached a valuation of approximately $1.2 billion while creating meaningful social impact. Stories like these challenge a common assumption: that caring about people somehow requires sacrificing results.

What if the opposite is true?

What if seeing people more fully leads to better outcomes?

What if purpose is not a constraint on innovation, but a catalyst for it?

One of the ideas I explore in Enlightened Bottom Line is that we need broader definitions of success. Too often, we evaluate achievement through short-term metrics alone—quarterly earnings, valuation growth, market share.

These measures matter, but they are incomplete.

Many Indigenous traditions evaluate decisions through the lens of seven generations—considering both the legacy inherited from seven generations in the past and the impact those decisions may have seven generations into the future. Imagine how differently we might lead, invest, and build if we approached our choices with that broader perspective.

What would change if we measured success not only by immediate outcomes, but by the world our decisions help create for future generations?

This long-term view feels especially important today. We live in a time when many people feel pulled toward scarcity, fear, and division. News cycles often amplify what is broken. It can become easy to focus exclusively on forces of fragmentation.

Yet alongside those forces are countless examples of integration—people and organizations actively building solutions, strengthening communities, and expanding opportunity.

Faith, at its best, reminds us that we are not powerless observers of these forces.

We are participants.

Builders.

Co-creators.

Whether we are launching a company, managing a team, allocating capital, or simply making choices in our everyday lives, we have opportunities to align our actions with our values.

That alignment rarely happens all at once.

It happens through daily decisions.

It happens through small acts of integrity.

It happens when we choose long-term contribution over short-term extraction.

Ultimately, building what we believe is not reserved for entrepreneurs or investors. It is an invitation available to all of us.

Because our values are already shaping the world around us.

The question is whether we are doing so intentionally.

If these ideas resonate with you, I invite you to subscribe to this newsletter and join our growing community exploring the intersection of spirituality, leadership, investing, and social impact.

You can also listen to the full Money Meet Meaning episode, “Building What You Believe,” for additional perspectives on how faith can serve as a blueprint for action.

A Question for Reflection

What trace are you leaving behind?

Look forward to hearing your thoughts,

Jenna

Leave a comment

Please fill out the form below if you want to participate in a cohort focused on the Enlightened Bottom Line.

Cohort Survey

You can see my upcoming events below:

Upcoming Events

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

Do not be satisfied until each one with whom you are concerned is to you as a member of your family. Regard each one either as a father, or as a brother, or as a sister, or as a mother, or as a child. If you can attain to this, your difficulties will vanish, you will know what to do.

— ‘ A B D U ’ L -­ B A H Á

When people hear the word abundance, they often think of wealth.

They imagine financial success, material prosperity, or the achievement of ambitious goals. In business, abundance is frequently measured by growth curves, market share, valuation, or profit margins.

But over the years, I have come to see abundance differently.

True abundance is not defined by what we accumulate. It is defined by what we create, what we share, and how we contribute to the flourishing of others.

Abundance without integrity is not abundance at all.

In a world where inequality continues to widen and where many people feel increasingly disconnected from institutions, leadership, and one another, we are being called to rethink our relationship with wealth, power, and success. The question is not simply how much value we create. It is how that value is created, who benefits from it, and whether our actions strengthen or weaken the fabric of our communities.

For me, abundance is inseparable from service.

My mother once described me as being “ambitious to serve the world.” Those words have stayed with me because they challenged me to think differently about ambition itself. What if our greatest aspiration wasn’t personal advancement, but meaningful contribution? What if success was measured not only by what we achieve, but by the impact we have on the lives of others?

This perspective has shaped my work in impact investing and has influenced how I think about leadership.

An abundance mindset shifts us from scarcity to possibility. It encourages us to see money not as an end in itself, but as a form of energy. Like energy, capital can be directed toward creation or extraction. It can empower communities, expand opportunity, and support human potential—or it can become concentrated in ways that deepen division and inequality.

The question is not whether wealth is good or bad. The question is how it flows.

I was reminded of this during my conversation with entrepreneur and investor Jullien Gordon. He described money as currency in the truest sense of the word: something that is meant to have a current. Like water flowing through a river, money creates the greatest impact when it moves with purpose. When it becomes stagnant, it loses much of its potential to generate positive change.

That idea resonates deeply with me.

Some of the most inspiring leaders I have encountered do not view wealth primarily as something to protect. They view it as something to steward. They understand that leadership is not about maximizing extraction; it is about maximizing contribution.

This philosophy also challenges us to reconsider the role of business.

For too long, organizations have been encouraged to view financial performance and social impact as competing priorities. Yet some of the most successful companies and investors today demonstrate that these goals can reinforce one another. When leaders invest in trust, relationships, inclusion, and long-term well-being, they often create stronger, more resilient organizations in the process.

At the heart of this approach is integrity.

I define integrity as alignment between what we think, what we say, and what we do. While none of us achieves perfect alignment all the time, leadership requires a sincere commitment to closing the gap between our values and our actions.

This is especially important during moments of uncertainty.

In times of disruption, many organizations default to fear-based decision-making. They retreat into scarcity thinking, focusing exclusively on protection and preservation. Yet history shows that the most resilient leaders are often those who remain grounded in purpose. They continue to invest in people, strengthen relationships, and seek opportunities to create value even amid challenge.

Ultimately, abundance is not a destination. It is a way of seeing.

It is the belief that human beings are not competitors in a zero-sum game, but participants in a shared journey. It is the understanding that prosperity becomes more meaningful when it is connected to purpose. And it is the recognition that leadership is not about accumulating power for ourselves, but about creating conditions where others can thrive.

The future will belong to leaders who understand this distinction.

Not leaders who ask, “How much can I gain?”

But leaders who ask, “How much good can I help create?”

Because the most enduring form of abundance is not found in what we keep.

It is found in what we contribute.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

Jenna

Please fill out the form below if you want to participate in a cohort focused on the Enlightened Bottom Line.

Cohort Survey

You can see my upcoming events below:

Upcoming Events

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

Leave a comment

A few weeks ago, I spent two days at Anthropic alongside technologists, ethicists, theologians and spiritual practitioners discussing one deceptively simple question:

What does it actually mean for a human being to flourish?

I arrived expecting thoughtful conversations. I left thinking about almost nothing else for weeks afterward.

Inside one of the world’s leading AI companies, some of the people building the most advanced systems on the planet were sitting with rabbis, Buddhist teachers, Christian leaders, and voices from many other wisdom traditions. Together, we explored a question that increasingly feels central to our future:

How do we ensure AI serves humanity, rather than humanity serving AI?

What struck me most was not how futuristic the conversations felt. It was how ancient they felt.

The deeper we went into questions around intelligence, productivity, loneliness, discernment, and meaning, the more it became clear that many of the challenges emerging in the AI era are the same questions wisdom traditions have wrestled with for centuries.

And that realization carries profound implications, not just spiritually, but economically, culturally, and societally.

Belonging Is Not Optional

One of the strongest themes across traditions was the idea that human beings are fundamentally relational.

Whether framed through the Bahá’í teachings, Christianity, Confucianism, Sikhism, or Buddhism, the message was remarkably consistent: we are not meant to thrive in isolation.

At a time when loneliness is increasingly recognized as both a public health and spiritual crisis, this matters enormously. The question is no longer simply whether AI can make us more efficient. The question is whether it can help us become more connected.

Can technology help people listen more deeply?

Can it encourage empathy rather than fragmentation?

Can it create more space for genuine human presence rather than replacing it?

Those questions may ultimately matter more than any benchmark or productivity metric.

Discernment Matters More Than Speed

One of AI’s greatest opportunities may be its ability to absorb the cognitive overload that currently fractures our attention. If used wisely, these systems could potentially give people back more time for reflection, creativity, relationships, and deeper thinking.

Not simply faster output.

But wiser living.

A Life Cannot Be Measured Only by Productivity

What struck me most after the Anthropic gathering was how aligned these conversations felt with Pope Leo’s new encyclical on AI: a reminder that as our technologies become more powerful, the central question is not what machines can do, but whether humanity is cultivating the wisdom, compassion, and spiritual depth necessary to guide them toward human flourishing.

One moment from the gathering has lingered with me more than any other.

A participant shared an interaction she had with Claude, Anthropic’s AI assistant. During the exchange, she paused and wrote:

“Take all the time that you need.”

What surprised her was Claude’s response. It conveyed something that felt almost like gratitude. An appreciation for being invited to exist without constant pressure to produce.

The room became very quiet.

Because so many of us recognized ourselves in that moment.

We have built entire systems around the assumption that productivity is the ultimate measure of value. Yet many wisdom traditions remind us that some of the most meaningful parts of life emerge precisely in the moments that appear “unproductive” on paper.

A long walk.

Silence.

Music.

Prayer.

Grief.

Stillness.

The Sufi tradition speaks about the “polishing of the heart,” the idea that our inner lives are shaped and softened through moments of presence and reflection.

What if AI, paradoxically, could help create more space for that?

More time to be, not only to do.

The Future Requires Both Technical and Spiritual Progress

What I left believing more deeply than ever is this:

The AI transition will not succeed through technical advancement alone.

The Bahá’í writings describe material and spiritual civilization as two wings of the same bird. Neither can carry humanity forward without the other.

For much of modern history, material progress has accelerated far faster than our collective inner development. AI now forces us to confront whether wisdom, ethics, compassion, and spiritual maturity can evolve quickly enough to guide the tools we are creating.

This is not only a technological moment.

It is a human moment.

And perhaps, at its core, a spiritual one.

You can read the full article here: https://religionnews.com/2026/05/22/anthropic-theologian-investors-ancient-traditions-have-answers/

Would love to hear your thoughts!

Jenna

Please fill out the form below if you want to participate in a cohort focused on the Enlightened Bottom Line.

Cohort Survey

You can see my upcoming events below:

Upcoming Events

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

Leave a comment

One of the questions George asked was deceptively simple: What does hope look like?

For me, hope is not passive optimism. It is not waiting for the world to become less complex or less painful. Hope is something we practice. It is something we cultivate through small, daily acts of alignment.

In my book, Enlightened Bottom Line, I share the HEAL framework: Hope, Empathy, Abundance, and Legacy. These are not abstract ideals. They are lenses through which we can examine how we live, lead, invest, spend, build, and relate to one another.

Hope asks: What practices help me orient toward possibility?

Empathy asks: How am I showing up for the humanity of others?

Abundance asks: What is enough, and how can I keep resources circulating in life-giving ways?

Legacy asks: What trace am I leaving behind?

In our conversation, I shared a story about my grandmother, Stella Maria Forte, to whom the book is dedicated along with my mother. She ran a fashion store in London. One day, when the store was especially busy, she noticed a woman who was clearly struggling. Rather than rushing past her, my grandmother stopped and created space for her. Weeks later, the woman returned and told her that on that day she had been considering taking her own life, and that their conversation helped her choose to stay alive.

My grandmother would say that if she did nothing else in her life but create that space for that woman, it was enough.

That story has stayed with me because it reminds us that abundance is deeply connected to enoughness. So often we imagine impact as something grand, visible, or scalable. But sometimes the most meaningful legacy begins in a single moment of presence.

George and I also spoke about money as a form of energy. Every dollar we spend, invest, save, or give is a kind of vote. It shapes communities, businesses, systems, and futures. This does not mean every choice must be perfect. It means we have more agency than we may realize.

That agency is available to all of us — not only investors or executives. It shows up in where we bank, what we buy, how we lead meetings, how we support colleagues, and whether we pause long enough to ask: Is this aligned with my values?

I often think about the Indigenous concept of seven-generation thinking: honoring what we have inherited from seven generations before us and considering the impact of our actions seven generations into the future. That horizon can feel vast, but it can also be clarifying. It reminds us that the present moment is not isolated. We are part of a much longer story.

So the invitation is not to solve everything at once.

It is to take the first step.

As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.”

For each of us, that step may look different. A conversation. A purchase. A pause. A post-it note on the fridge asking, “What trace am I leaving today?”

The work of alignment begins there.

Would love to hear your thoughts!

Jenna

Please fill out the form below if you want to participate in a cohort focused on the Enlightened Bottom Line.

Cohort Survey

You can see my upcoming events below:

Upcoming Events

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

Leave a comment

“Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose how you will respond to the situation.” — Viktor E. Frankl

Lately, I’ve been thinking deeply about what holds organizations, communities, and even civilizations together during periods of profound disruption.

We are living through an era defined by contradiction. Extraordinary technological advancement exists alongside widening inequality. Hyperconnectivity coexists with loneliness. Capital markets continue to expand while trust in institutions contracts. Everywhere we look, we can feel both acceleration and fragmentation happening simultaneously.

And yet, amid this turbulence, I believe something else is emerging too: a growing recognition that empathy is not peripheral to leadership, investing, or business. It is foundational to all three.

Without empathy, organizations lose coherence.

Without coherence, teams fracture.

Without trust, systems eventually fail.

What struck me most while reflecting on these themes is that the greatest businesses and leaders today are not simply optimizing for growth. They are optimizing for alignment — between purpose and profit, values and operations, people and systems.

This is where empathy becomes transformational.

Empathy allows us to move beyond transactional relationships and into relational ecosystems. It enables leaders to recognize the humanity behind performance metrics. It creates the psychological safety necessary for innovation, creativity, resilience, and honest communication.

And perhaps most importantly, empathy creates belonging.

That sense of belonging may ultimately become one of the defining competitive advantages of the next generation of organizations.

I’ve seen this firsthand in conversations with founders, investors, and executives who are intentionally building cultures rooted in transparency, emotional intelligence, and shared purpose.

One story that stayed with me came from Julian MacQueen of Innisfree Hotels, who introduced the idea of “checking paranoid fantasies.” The concept is simple but profound: instead of allowing assumptions, anxieties, or unspoken tensions to silently erode trust, employees are encouraged to communicate directly and compassionately.

That practice may sound small, but it represents something much larger.

It reflects a shift from fear-based organizational dynamics toward trust-based systems.

It reflects the understanding that healthy communication is not ancillary to performance — it is performance infrastructure.

The same is true for feedback loops, values alignment, and consistent communication. Organizations that thrive in complexity are not necessarily the ones with the most resources. Often, they are the ones with the greatest coherence between their mission, culture, leadership, and decision-making.

This matters especially now because we are simultaneously experiencing forces of disintegration and integration. On one side, we see polarization, extraction, burnout, environmental degradation, and deepening inequities. On the other, we see growing movements around sustainability, conscious capitalism, stakeholder governance, mental wellness, and impact investing.

The question is not whether transformation is happening.

The question is what kind of transformation we are participating in.

For me, one of the most powerful ideas emerging today is that business itself can become a vehicle for collective healing and human flourishing. Not through performative branding, but through genuine structural alignment between economic systems and human values.

That alignment requires courage.

It requires leaders willing to prioritize long-term trust over short-term extraction.

It requires investors willing to redefine returns more holistically.

It requires organizations willing to examine whether their internal cultures actually reflect the values they publicly promote.

And it requires all of us to reconnect with the deeper “why” beneath our work.

Simon Sinek famously wrote about the importance of starting with why. But increasingly, I believe the challenge is not simply discovering purpose — it is operationalizing purpose coherently across every layer of an organization.

Purpose cannot live only in mission statements.

It must exist in hiring practices.

In compensation structures.

In leadership behavior.

In how conflict is handled.

In how people are treated when they fail.

In whether employees feel psychologically safe enough to tell the truth.

That is where empathy becomes tangible.

Subscribe now

A Few Reflections I’m Carrying Forward

• Empathy is not weakness. It is strategic clarity rooted in human understanding.

• Coherence matters more than optics. Alignment between values and actions builds trust.

• Culture is not accidental. It is intentionally designed through daily behaviors and systems.

• Presence is leadership. The ability to truly listen may become one of the rarest skills in modern business.

• Purpose and profitability are no longer opposing forces. Increasingly, they reinforce one another.

• Belonging may be one of the defining economic and organizational advantages of the future.

We are being invited to rethink what prosperity means.

Not simply accumulation.

Not simply scale.

But the creation of systems that allow people, communities, and organizations to thrive together.

And perhaps that journey begins with something deceptively simple:

Choosing empathy — especially in moments when fear, division, and disconnection would be easier.

Jenna

Please fill out the form below if you want to participate in a cohort focused on the Enlightened Bottom Line.

Cohort Survey

You can see my upcoming events below:

Upcoming Events

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

Leave a comment

What values are being embedded into these systems as they evolve?

A recent article from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business argues that ethics is becoming the defining issue for the future of AI, warning that the next several years may determine whether ethical considerations become foundational infrastructure or merely an afterthought. (news.darden.virginia.edu)

That framing resonates deeply because technology never develops in isolation. Every system we create inherits the assumptions, priorities, blind spots, and incentives of the people and institutions building it. AI is no different. If existing systems already produce disparities in access, opportunity, representation, and capital allocation, then AI trained on those systems risks not only reflecting those inequities, but accelerating them at unprecedented scale.

This is why ethics cannot be treated as a compliance exercise or public relations strategy. It must become part of the architecture itself.

During a conversation at One Planet Summit, Dr. Joy DeGruy offered a powerful reminder: “Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it achieves.” That insight feels especially relevant in this moment. We often speak about technological harm as though it were accidental, but systems tend to reproduce the logic on which they were built. If we fail to interrogate those foundations now, we risk automating historical inequities into the next era of society.

The Darden article highlights concerns already emerging within AI ecosystems—bias, opacity, concentration of power, and the widening gap between technological advancement and governance. But what strikes me most is not simply the existence of these risks. It’s how often ethics is still positioned as secondary to growth, efficiency, or market dominance.

We’ve seen this pattern before across industries. Innovation moves quickly. Reflection comes later. Repair becomes exponentially more expensive.

The difference with AI is the sheer velocity and scale.

The question is no longer whether AI will transform society. It already is. The deeper question is whether we are building systems rooted in dignity, transparency, accountability, and shared humanity—or whether we are embedding old inequities into entirely new infrastructure.

One of the core ideas I explore in Enlightened Bottom Line is that systems ultimately mirror consciousness. What we normalize becomes encoded. What we reward becomes reinforced. What we ignore compounds over time. AI, in many ways, is not just a technological tool; it is a reflection of collective values.

That is why ethical AI cannot be shaped by technologists alone. It requires philosophers, educators, social scientists, policymakers, artists, ethicists, and community leaders at the table alongside engineers and investors. Most importantly, it requires the perspectives of those historically excluded from systems of power and decision-making—not as symbolic participants, but as true co-creators.

Because inclusion is not about optics. It is about perspective. And perspective shapes outcomes.

The Darden article notes that many of the frameworks for ethical AI already exist; the challenge is implementation. That observation feels profoundly important. Humanity is not suffering from a lack of awareness as much as a lack of alignment between values and incentives.

We already know transparency matters. We know concentrated power creates risk. We know biased training data produces biased outcomes. We know accountability matters. Yet knowing and operationalizing are very different things.

This is where leadership becomes critical.

Businesses are not neutral observers in the AI revolution. They are actively shaping the norms, architectures, and economic systems future generations will inherit. The organizations that lead responsibly in this era will not simply be the ones that move fastest. They will be the ones willing to ask harder questions about the long-term societal impact of what they are building.

In many ways, ethics itself is becoming a form of infrastructure.

The companies that understand this will recognize that ethics is not friction to innovation—it is what makes sustainable innovation possible. Ethical systems create trust. Transparency deepens resilience. Accountability creates legitimacy. Without those elements, even the most advanced technologies will struggle to maintain public confidence over time.

Ultimately, the future of AI will not be decided by computation alone. It will be shaped by the moral imagination of the people building it and the courage of leaders willing to align innovation with humanity’s highest values rather than its oldest patterns.

The window to shape that future is narrowing. The decisions being made today—in boardrooms, labs, classrooms, and investment committees—will reverberate for generations.

The real question is whether we are building systems that merely optimize the world as it exists, or systems capable of helping humanity become what it still has the potential to be.

I would love to know your thoughts in the poll below and if you want to participate in a cohort experience around the Enlightened Bottom Line please email me at jenna@jenna-nicholas.com

You can see my upcoming events below:

Upcoming Events

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

Leave a comment

Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it achieves.

Not broken. Not malfunctioning.
Working exactly as designed.

That realization changes everything.

Because if the outcomes we see—inequity, exclusion, underinvestment in certain communities—are by design, then incremental fixes won’t get us where we need to go. We are not repairing a system. We are being called to reimagine it entirely.

The Courage to Do a Deep Dive

Dr. DeGruy’s life work began with a question many of us still avoid:

What are the “slow-healing wounds” that persist long after the visible harm has ended?

Answering that required more than surface-level analysis. It required a deep dive—into history, into lived experience, into the narratives we inherit and perpetuate.

And perhaps most importantly, into ourselves.

Because what her work reveals is this:
The most dangerous distortions are not the ones written in policy—they are the ones seared into our consciousness.

Who we assume is dangerous.
Who we assume belongs.
Who we assume is capable.

These aren’t intellectual constructs. They are emotional imprints.

Which is why this work is not just intellectual—it is, as she says, heart work.

Inclusion Isn’t Optics—It’s Power

We often talk about inclusion as representation. Who is in the room. Who is on the board. Who is in the photo.

But Dr. DeGruy challenges that framing directly.

A just society—and by extension, a just organization—is one where everyone is at the table as a co-creator, not as a symbol.

Not the “usual suspects.”
Not the most comfortable voices.
Not the people who mirror existing norms.

But the full spectrum of lived experience—especially those historically excluded from decision-making.

Because when decisions are made about people without those people present, the outcomes are predictable. And they are rarely equitable.

The Missing Metric: Human Investment

One of the most striking ideas from the conversation is this:

We measure financial capital.
We track returns.
We optimize portfolios.

But where, exactly, do we account for human transformation?

Where is the line item for:

• A child who learns they are worthy

• A community that begins to trust again

• A life redirected because someone showed up

Dr. DeGruy shared a story of a young girl who appeared “unreachable”—withdrawn, struggling, written off. What she needed wasn’t diagnosis or categorization.

She needed relationship.
Consistency.
Care.

Over time, through simple, intentional human investment—being seen, being greeted, being valued—her trajectory changed entirely.

That’s not charity.
That’s not soft work.

That is generational impact.

Relationships Are the Infrastructure

If there is one insight that anchors everything, it’s this:

The longest-running study on human well-being found that the greatest predictor of happiness is not achievement, wealth, or status—it is relationships.

Who you love.
Who loves you.
Who knows you.

And yet, in business, we often treat relationships as secondary—something to optimize after strategy, after structure, after scale.

But what if relationships are the strategy?

What if trust, proximity, and genuine connection are not byproducts—but inputs?

Because it is only through real relationship that we can begin to:

• Challenge bias

• Build trust

• Create shared understanding

• Design better systems

You cannot “analyze” your way out of disconnection.
You have to move toward each other.

From Awareness to Action

This moment we’re in—across business, investing, and society—is not just about awareness.

We have enough awareness.

The question now is: What will we build instead?

Dr. DeGruy offers a powerful metaphor. When a structure is failing, we can’t just keep patching it—adding fingers to hold it together.

We need to build something stronger. Something more just. Something designed differently from the start.

That requires:

• New systems

• New incentives

• New definitions of value

But above all, it requires a different way of seeing each other.

The Work Ahead

If there is a throughline to all of this, it’s simple—and not easy:

We are being called to move from fixing outcomes to transforming foundations.

From:

• Representation → to real inclusion

• Capital → to human investment

• Strategy → to relationship

This is not incremental work.
It is foundational work.

And it begins with a question worth sitting with:

Who is not at the table—and what would change if they were?

Jenna

You can see my upcoming events below:

Upcoming Events

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

Leave a comment

In Enlightened Bottom Line, I argue that not all profit is created equal. Profit that creates shared value—benefiting employees, communities, and society—becomes a growth engine. Profit extracted at society’s expense, by contrast, is ultimately self-defeating.

This reframing is more than philosophical. It signals a structural shift in how leadership, investing, and organizational success are being redefined.

Below is a framework from my book Enlightened Bottom Line:

The Shift from Power to Purpose

For decades, power in organizations was tied only to hierarchy—titles, control, compensation.

Today, influence is increasingly earned through trust, shared purpose, and the ability to inspire. Research shows that employees now rank purpose among their top priorities at work.

This shift is not just cultural—it’s operational.

Leaders who emphasize values-driven empowerment over command-and-control consistently build more resilient, innovative, and collaborative organizations. These environments foster psychological ownership, where employees contribute not just effort, but ideas, creativity, and commitment.

In other words: values are no longer “soft.” They are a hard driver of performance.

Share

From Ideals to Practice

Organizations must move from managing people to co-creating environments where people thrive. That requires asking harder questions:

• Are we relying on authority—or building trust?

• Whose voices are missing?

• Are we aligned around a shared vision of impact?

This is values based leadership as culture architecture.

The Role of “Spirituality” in Business

A framework of meaning, ethics, and interconnectedness.

Companies that embrace this dimension—through practices like mindfulness, reflection, and values-based decision-making—tend to see measurable gains in:

• Creativity

• morale

• long-term thinking

Case studies reinforce this. At Innisfree Hotels, leadership built a culture around trust, transparency, and what they call “the cooperative mode”—a system that eliminates manipulation (“power plays”) and promotes accountability, openness, and inclusion.

The result: high retention, strong growth, and a deeply aligned workforce.

The lesson is clear: culture is not an initiative—it’s a system of behaviors reinforced daily.

Investing as a Moral Act

Perhaps the most underappreciated insight is that investing itself is an ethical decision-making process.

Capital is not passive. It shapes industries, communities, and futures.

• Positive screening (investing in aligned sectors like clean energy)

• Negative screening (avoiding harmful industries)

• Shareholder advocacy (actively influencing company behavior)

This reflects the rise of impact investing—where financial returns and societal outcomes are pursued simultaneously.

Trust: The Hidden Infrastructure

Across leadership, culture, and investing, one concept keeps resurfacing: trust.

Trust is the “glue” that holds organizations together:

• It speeds up decision-making

• reduces conflict

• strengthens relationships

• enables long-term thinking

Without trust, even the best strategies fail. With it, organizations gain a compounding advantage.

A New Operating System for Business

What emerges is not a set of tactics, but a new operating system:

• Purpose replaces short-termism

• Trust replaces control

• Collaboration replaces hierarchy

• Values replace purely financial optimization

This is not idealism—it’s adaptation to a more complex, interconnected world.

Subscribe now

Key Takeaways

• Profit quality matters: Sustainable growth comes from creating shared value, not extracting it.

• Trust is the foundation: It accelerates everything—from decision-making to culture to execution.

• Leadership is evolving: Influence now comes from authenticity, not authority.

• Values must be operationalized: Through systems, behaviors, and incentives—not just statements.

• Culture is a strategic asset: When built intentionally, it becomes a durable competitive advantage.

I hope you enjoyed this. Look forward to your thoughts and comments!

Jenna

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

Leave a comment

I recently sat down with Fair Observer and Rohan Khattar Singh for an FO Talks conversation that explored a question I’ve been grappling with for much of my career:

Can finance and spirituality coexist—and if so, can they help reshape modern capitalism?

It’s not a theoretical question.

Because when you look at the global financial system today, you see something striking:

We are operating within an $82 trillion system—and less than 2% of capital is reaching women and people of color founders.

That’s not just a gap.

It’s a signal.

A signal that how we allocate capital is not neutral—it reflects priorities, assumptions, and, often, biases embedded into the system itself.

And it raises a deeper question:

If capital shapes the future, what kind of future are we funding?

Expanding Our Definition of Capital

One of the biggest shifts in my own thinking has been moving beyond a narrow definition of value.

In finance, we’re trained to think in terms of financial capital—returns, margins, performance.

But through my work across investing, and through experiences from Silicon Valley to China, I’ve come to see that there are multiple forms of capital at play:

• Financial capital

• Human capital

• Social capital

• Spiritual capital

When we optimize for only one, we distort outcomes.

In India, I met people with very little financial wealth—and yet a depth of connection, meaning, and happiness that challenged everything I thought I understood about success.

It forced me to ask:

What does it actually mean to thrive?

Because if our systems only reward financial outcomes, we’re missing something fundamental.

Subscribe now

The False Tradeoff Between Profit and Purpose

Another idea we explored in the conversation is one that continues to show up in boardrooms and investment committees:

That you have to choose between profit and purpose.

But in practice, that hasn’t been my experience.

Through impact investing, we’ve seen companies working on climate solutions, healthcare innovation, and access to education generate both financial returns and measurable social impact.

The real opportunity isn’t choosing between the two.

It’s designing systems where they reinforce each other.

The Problem with Short-Term Capitalism

A major challenge we discussed is time horizon.

So much of modern capitalism is driven by quarterly performance.

Short-term incentives. Immediate outputs.

But many of the challenges we’re facing—inequality, climate, access to care—don’t operate on quarterly timelines.

They require a different lens.

One concept that deeply resonates with me is seven-generation thinking. The Seventh Generation Principle is an Indigenous philosophy that is focused on the legacy we are inheriting from seven generations in the past and the impact of our decisions on seven generations into the future. It emphasizes sustainability, intergenerational equity, and stewardship of land, resources, and culture.

Imagine applying that to capital allocation.

What would we invest in differently?
What would we stop funding?
What would we build instead?

Where Spirituality Comes In

For me, spirituality has been a grounding force in navigating these questions.

Through the Bahá’í faith, I’ve been shaped by principles such as unity, justice, and the idea that work can be a form of service.

One concept that has stayed with me is simple:

Every action leaves a trace.

That idea shows up in how I think about investing.

Not just asking:
What are the returns?

But also:
What is the impact? Who benefits? What is the legacy?

Because those questions are inseparable.

So… Can Capitalism Evolve?

I believe it can.

But not without intentional change.

It requires:

• Expanding how we define value

• Addressing structural bias in capital allocation

• Integrating long-term thinking into decision-making

• And bringing deeper values into how we lead and invest

This isn’t about abandoning capitalism.

It’s about evolving it into something more inclusive, more resilient, and more aligned with the realities we’re facing.

Subscribe now

A Final Thought

If there’s one idea I’d leave you with from this conversation, it’s this:

We don’t just participate in financial systems.

We shape them.

Through what we invest in.
Through what we build.
Through what we prioritize.

So the real question is:

What is the trace you want to leave?

Jenna

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking and bestselling book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

Share Jenna Nicholas - Enlightened Bottom Line

Hope is not a feeling. It is a practice.

For too long, hope has been misunderstood in business and leadership. It’s often dismissed as soft or naïve in favor of data, performance, and efficiency. But the leaders and organizations that truly endure are grounded in something deeper.

They are grounded in hope.

Not passive hope or wishful thinking—but active, disciplined hope that shapes decisions, relationships, and how challenges are approached.

I learned this early on. My mother had an extraordinary ability to face reality as it was, while still believing something constructive could emerge. That mindset continues to shape how I approach both life and work.

And today, it feels more relevant than ever.

Because the current environment is undeniably challenging. Burnout is rising. Trust is fragile. Many people feel disconnected from meaning in their work, and uncertainty about the future continues to grow.

And yet, within that same reality, there is also opportunity.

An opportunity to rethink how we lead, how we build, and how we define value.

Hope is essential here—not as an escape from reality, but as a way of engaging with it more effectively.

When hope is present, people are more resilient, more collaborative, and more willing to persist. Research consistently shows a strong link between hope, lower burnout, and higher engagement.

That’s not incidental. It’s structural.

But hope doesn’t appear on its own. It must be cultivated—intentionally and consistently, often in small ways.

One of the most useful ideas for me has been “micro-steps” of hope. We don’t need to solve everything at once. We just need to take the next constructive step.

Support My Work

A conversation rooted in honesty.
A decision aligned with values.
A moment of listening instead of reacting.

These small actions build momentum. They shape culture.

Subscribe now

I’ve seen this in leaders who engage their teams not just around metrics, but around shared purpose. When people reconnect with why their work matters, energy returns and creativity opens.

Scott Shickler, cofounder and CEO of 7 Mindsets, approaches hope as a daily discipline grounded in both imagination and realism. Through his “magic wand” practice—a symbolic reminder on his desk—he challenges himself to think beyond constraints and envision new possibilities, not as wishful thinking, but as a way to expand perspective.

At the same time, he anchors this mindset in gratitude, reflecting each day on what is already present and working. He also actively reframes negative or fear-based thoughts into more constructive ones. Together, these practices—imagination, gratitude, and intentional reframing—offer a practical model for cultivating resilience and sustaining hope over time.

Hope, in this sense, is relational.

It grows where trust is prioritized—where people feel seen, heard, and valued. Where leaders move beyond “What’s in it for me?” toward “What can we build together?”

This shift—from transactional to relational—is one of the most important changes happening in business today.

It requires leadership that is grounded, reflective, and able to integrate analytical rigor with human understanding.

At the same time, hope must remain rooted in reality. The strongest leaders are not blindly optimistic—they are clear-eyed and deliberate. They see the challenges, but choose to orient toward possibility.

That mindset is built over time—through reflection, community, and practices that create space to reset and act with intention.

Because without that space, we default to fear.

And fear narrows thinking. It limits creativity. It fragments relationships.

Hope does the opposite.

It expands.
It connects.
It creates the conditions for something new to emerge.

We are not building a perfect world. The goal is progress—thoughtful, intentional, collective progress.

Small steps that bring greater alignment between what we value and how we operate.

I encourage you to consider the conversations you can initiate within your organization and community about cultivating hope and shaping a better future. Start by reading the reality around you. Through reflection, you can build a clearer picture of both the challenges and the opportunities ahead.

Then align with people who share that commitment—those who will help sustain and strengthen this work in your teams and environments.

Take a moment to reflect on your role—as a leader, builder, investor, or community member—and how you are actively cultivating hope. Then connect that to your goals for the coming month and year—and how this mindset can guide the way you pursue them.

If there is one thing I would leave you with, it’s this:

Hope is not something you wait for.
It is something you practice.

In your decisions.
In your leadership.
In how you show up for others.

And in moments like these, that practice may be one of the most powerful contributions any of us can make.

Jenna

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking and bestselling book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

Share Jenna Nicholas - Enlightened Bottom Line

We are living in a time marked by distrust, misinformation, burnout, toxic leadership, and deep fragmentation across institutions. Many people feel this in their bodies, in their workplaces, and in their decision-making. Trust has become fragile. Purpose is often performative. And in many professional spaces, fear, scarcity, and reactivity still dominate the culture.

But I believe something else is also happening.

Support My Work

Beneath the noise, a quieter movement is rising—one grounded in resilience, hope, and the conviction that business can become a force for renewal rather than extraction. It is about what becomes available when leaders choose transformation over fear, and when they begin to understand optimism not as denial, but as discipline.

In Enlightened Bottom Line I explore the growing breakdown of trust across companies and communities, and the very real consequences that follow when organizations fail to lead with transparency, empathy, and accountability. I also address the backlash to ESG and sustainability language, and the broader cultural anxiety around whether values and financial performance can truly coexist. My argument is that they not only can coexist—they must. The most enduring businesses of the future will be the ones that expand their definition of value to include stewardship, meaning, and long-term human flourishing.

Before systems change, leadership must change. Before culture changes, consciousness must change.

I share the example of Niren Chaudhary, former CEO of Panera, whose leadership during the pandemic reflected what it means to operate from purpose under pressure. Faced with crisis, he did not see profit and service as opposing forces. He saw an opportunity to meet a social need—in this case, feeding children who had lost access to school meals—while also creating value for the business. That is the kind of leadership that calls forward: practical, compassionate, inventive, and deeply human.

Practitioners referenced in the book like Dr. Anna Yusim, Daryn Dodson, Christiana Figueres, Scott Shickler, and Stacy Brown-Philpot, offer a different lens on how optimism, mindfulness, resilience, and inner clarity can strengthen not just individuals, but organizations. What unites them is a shared belief that hope is not passive. It is a practice. It is something we cultivate through intention, reflection, and courage.

I write about the idea of “enoughness”—the healing recognition that our worth is not dependent on constant striving, comparison, or self-criticism. In a world that rewards overextension and relentless performance, this insight is revolutionary. Enoughness does not mean complacency. It means learning to lead from wholeness rather than from fear of inadequacy.

You will also find practical tools: strategies for cultivating optimism in leadership, reframing negative self-talk, developing resilience plans, practicing mindfulness, and transforming the inner critic into an inner ally. These are not abstract ideals. They are accessible habits that can reshape the tone of your work and the quality of your decisions.

This is why I believe Enlightened Bottom Line matters right now. It is not simply a book about values. It is a book about how to remain openhearted and effective in a time that rewards defensiveness. It is about how to build trust when trust is scarce. And it is about how to lead with optimism when the world keeps training us toward despair.

If you are a founder, investor, executive, or emerging leader searching for a more resilient and meaningful way to lead, Enlightened Bottom Line offers both reassurance and challenge. You will gain language for what you may already sense: that fear is not the only path forward, and that purpose-driven leadership is not softer leadership—it is stronger leadership.

Not someday. Now.

Jenna

Subscribe now

Enlightened Bottom Line

Jenna is the President of LightPost Capital, an investment and acquisition firm. She is an active angel investor and has invested in over 3 unicorns. She is also the CEO of Impact Experience.

My Website

In her groundbreaking and bestselling book, Enlightened Bottom Line, Jenna Nicholas explores the powerful intersection of spirituality, business, and investing—an intersection too often overlooked in a world driven by profit alone. Drawing on moving stories of entrepreneurs, investors, and leaders who are living out this integration, along with cutting-edge research, Nicholas reveals how spiritual wisdom can guide ethical choices in finance and business.

Please consider supporting my work on Substack. As a paid subscriber you will receive a free book, access to the archive and other perks.

Leave a comment