to trust what we have always deeply known
notes on leadership, complexity, and the good life
“If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.”
~ Dalai Lama
As we enter the final month of the year, I’m thinking about this quote I read in January. It was projected on the wall in front of a room full of strangers, 40-ish people who had signed up for a course called the MBE (Mastery of Business and Empathy). The course is led by an academy and organisation called Small Giants. They shared this quote to explain the story behind their name, and their work. They work with leaders who are building businesses that prioritise people and planet alongside profit - small, mighty forces for change. When I joined their program earlier this year, I didn’t really know what I was signing up for. I just knew I needed it. I needed to meet others who might be doing completely different work, but who believe that we can use our skills and knowledge to help others, to leave this world a little (or a lot) better than we found it. I needed guidance from voices who felt aligned with my own, and I felt that if I was in a room with people who had some similar hope ... then, perhaps, we could also guide each other.
The MBE opened with a question: what makes a good society? And how do we, as leaders, contribute to building it?
In my pre-course interview with program producer Khalid Malik, he asked why I wanted to do this course. I told him the truth: “I want to learn how to be a leader.”
“What makes you think you are not already a leader?”
I knew it sounded odd coming from someone who had been leading for over a decade. “I know I’ve been leading,” I explained, “but I feel like an imposter. I guess I want to learn how to feel like a leader, so I can be the kind of leader Words of a Feather needs to flourish. So I can best serve my community.”
Khalid told me a story about how the most powerful kind of leadership can be like the wind. Quiet, but definitely felt. As we know, the wind can be very powerful. Something lit up in me, and he saw it. He added: “Of course, you don’t have to be silent.” But that image of being like the wind was enough to give me confidence to step up as that kind of leader - the kind that felt more natural to me than the masculine, on-a-stage-rallying-up-the-troops kind I never felt I could be or even wanted to be. A part of me had always felt I was lacking because of this. This conversation helped me to stop seeing my way as ‘un-leader-like.’ In doing so, I found my voice and confidence as a leader more and more throughout the year. It’s possible this change was imperceptible from the outside. On the surface, my day-to-day work and the way I show up has not changed much at all. But I definitely feel it on the inside, and that - I believe - makes all the difference.
The MBE is structured like a mandala - seven modules that stand alone but come together to form a whole, all circling back to the central question: what makes a good society? We explored our context, governance, storytelling, leadership, strategy, finance, operations, and culture. We studied frameworks like Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness and doughnut economics. We listened to a variety of inspiring guest speakers from around the world. We learned from each other. This wasn’t just another business course focussed on structure, finance, and storytelling through the lens of branding to sell and scale. The parts I find hardest about business were sandwiched between those that make sense to me: dreaming, visioning, and storytelling for purpose, meaning, and connection first.
Sustainability is important, but secondary to why we do this work at all.
As they say, you cannot pour from an empty cup.
The MBE taught us that a good society begins with a good life: living aligned with our values so that our impact can ripple outwards.
But what does a good life actually look like?
For me, it’s feeling at home - in myself, in my relationships, in the place I live, in the community I’m a part of, in this world. It’s doing work that is meaningful, contributing purposefully in a way that lights me up not necessarily because it’s easy, but because it’s needed, wanted, and valued. It’s real connections - to self, others, and nature. It’s making space for creativity, because yes, the doing and the practical are important, but without imagination, dreaming, and play - where do the ideas come from? These are what move us forward, inspire us to envision new possibilities. These are what add depth, meaning and purpose to the doing.
A good life looks like quiet mornings and playful, productive days. Moving my body, reading, writing, candles lit, sitting around a fire, storytelling. Being barefoot in the grass, living with animals, growing food or at least knowing where it came from. Paying attention to the seasons, living connected to my body’s rhythm and the rhythms of the Country I’m on. Deep relationships, strong community, and love. Regular time to go inwards so I can radiate energy outwards.
Of course, living a good life, and believing in a good society, can feel naive when we look at the world around us. There is the climate crisis, wars, questionable world leaders, people hurting each other every day on the news, wealth and power concentrated in the hands of a few. But perhaps that’s exactly why it matters.
Early this year, I wrote the final paragraph of my vision for a good society. In a way, this whole year has been me finding my way there - working backwards from that vision, discovering the pathway towards the world I want to live in, and the meaningful contribution that I now feel more empowered than ever to make towards it.
Last week, we each presented our vision of a good society - the culmination of ten months of learning, unlearning, and becoming.
After two days of presentations, we ventured to Mossy Willow Farm on the Mornington Peninsula to complete our week of celebrations. At the farm, we fell asleep and woke to the sound of rain lightly and constantly pattering on tent roofs. Kookaburras laughed through the trees. The earth squelched soft under my gumboots. I rode a horse bareback and barefoot for the first time. We were introduced to the beehives, donning beekeeper suits to look closely at the trays. And then - “Oh, someone’s ready to come out!” Jan the beekeeper said. We watched in awe as one of the covered honeycomb cells started to loosen, nudged by a tiny leg. It was like watching a baby bird hatch, but bee-sized. Slowly, she emerged: a full-size bee, if a little paler and fluffier than her adult counterparts. She wobbled across the honeycomb, a little dazed, taking her first steps. It’s not something I ever thought about or considered adding to my bucket list, but it felt magical to witness. Someone’s first moments of existence, the greatest and most unexpected of surprises.
As part of this wider gathering at the farm, which included former MBE graduates and other Small Giants partners and friends, I was invited to lead a writing workshop. Storytelling for Changemakers: Self, Us, Now explored three interconnected layers of storytelling: the personal stories that ground us in our why, the collective narratives that bind communities together, and the urgent stories of our time that call us to action.
Leading this workshop felt so aligned with everything I’d learnt throughout the year. Just before me, Danny - an osteopath and fellow 2025 MBE graduate - led a workshop on how the body keeps the score, focussed on looking after ourselves first so we can then help others. So many of the things he said were the same as what I had planned to say in my workshop. Same message, different forms. It reminded me of the interconnectedness of all things - how our individual stories are always a part of something larger, how the work we do ripples outwards in ways we might never know.
Throughout the year, and in our presentations, I noticed that despite our varied backgrounds, skillsets, and experiences, our visions were strikingly similar. They included both urban spaces and nature. All of us leaning into our gifts and sharing them like stories - as valuable as tools and housing, food and water, vehicles and infrastructure and technology.
Something my basecamp guide Gayle Hardie said often throughout the year has stayed with me: “both/and”.
We so often say “but” when we could say “and.” Both can exist. Both can be true. Our world needs leaders who can hold the complexity - of humans, society, and the world. Nothing is black and white or straightforward, nor should they be. Think of the most perfect systems: the human body, a forest, a cell, space. In these systems, there is no boss. There is no hierarchy. There are no KPIs. There are SO MANY moving parts. And yet, they work. They thrive. They adapt. They evolve.
It’s hard work, growing into the people we want to be. We need mentors, and community. People and spaces to remind us, again and again, that we are not lone explorers on a mission, but unique individuals in a collective of unique individuals, each of us with gifts to contribute and vulnerabilities we need extra support for. Together we can fill all the gaps. It requires trust, and that is hard too.
We will be let down. We will be surprised. We will be taken aback by the sheer immensity of the work in front of us - systems that feel immovable, challenges that seem insurmountable. AND the glowing ember of our vision is a powerful force. Quietly burning, there is an ancient part of us that extends beyond the beginning of human existence - a part that knows this can become a flame. This is the same stuff that makes a star. The sun. Planets, moons, galaxies, universes.
Over these ten months, I’ve learnt something about leadership: that it is not something that calls us to step up or ahead, but amongst. Like the wind - even when it is quiet, it is felt. This is the kind of leader I hope to be: inviting, supportive, generous, reliable, unwavering in my belief in what’s possible, and celebrating our collective success - because your success is my success. When one of us succeeds, we all do.
This year has grounded me in what I have always deeply known: that stories and creativity matter. That it is not only possible to make a living doing this work, but to live doing this work - that it is life-giving, not only for those of us who want to be writers, but for everyone. Stories are the thread that connects us. Storytelling and story-writing, story-sharing, are life-elevating skills that carve space for us to truly see, hear, and understand one another - and through that, to change and grow together.
I don’t know exactly what’s next. I’m just holding the vision, taking one step at a time in that direction. Perhaps that’s all leadership is. Perhaps it’s simply being who we want to see in the world, and trusting that this is enough.
The MBE course opened with a question: what makes a good society? I’ve spent this year discovering that the answer begins with another question: what makes a good life - for you, for me, for each of us? When we know what that is, when we live it as fully as we can, our impact ripples outwards. We become the small giants, quiet in the gargantuan scheme of things, and definitely felt.
What is your good life? What is your vision of a good society?
From one small giant to another,
Amy x
P.S. To my course guides - Gayle Hardie, Simon Fieldhouse, Tamsin Jones, Joel Pearlman, and Khalid Malik who each brought their wisdom and care; and Berry and Danny, the Small Giants founders who created this space for transformation - thank you. And to my fellow 2025 cohort: we’ve journeyed together deeply and widely. We are no longer strangers, but friends. I’m inspired by every one of you and look forward to staying in touch, to continuing to learn from and alongside you.
P.P.S. A little video, and a few more photos.
In other news:
My short story The Spirit Mender appears in EVOLVE - a Words of a Feather x The Provocative Inklings anthology. We’re having a launch party this Saturday December 6 - you’re invited!
Writ-Bits: Magic & Mystery is also launching later this month, featuring extraordinary work by young writers at Words of a Feather, from ages 7-14.
In the new year, I’ll be hosting these school holiday workshops and a Writing Day (a mini writing retreat) in January, our next Story Soirée in February, and in April, a coastal Writing Retreat in Venus Bay. I’d love to see you there!
My memoir about the Camino, A Field of Stars, is due for publication in early 2026 - stay tuned!
Amy, thank you for your gentle wisdom with words. It has brought me so much joy to share the MBE with you. Like you I feel that I have returned home, and I do not know what comes next other than knowing I will always have this feeling to call up, and this will ground me into the future. I too want to be open to what comes next. Through the MBE I have found my voice and I see our beautiful planet Earth in more colour than ever before. Thank you Amy for our incredible journey, thank you to all in the MBE cohort, thank you to our guides Tamsin, Gayle, Simon and Joel and thank you to Danny, Berry and all those at Small Giants for making this all possible 🙏🏻✨
Thank you for this wonderful letter, Amy! Exactly what I needed right now. xx