In this excerpt from the "Power of Communities" series, Canay Atalay expands on the ideas introduced by Richard, emphasizing personal responsibility that begins with examining our own thought and feeling structures. She argues that many leaders habitually prioritize certain beliefs, trying to shape the external world to fit those internal hierarchies, which she calls a pervasive human addiction. Atalay advocates for a practice of observing thoughts and emotions without immediate judgment, recognizing the wisdom they can convey—particularly emotions like anger. She critiques existing societal structures (accounting, politics, media, business models) for neglecting human emotional sensors, urging a redefinition of what counts as an asset and why we organize. Communities, she suggests, can provide a space for humans to reconnect, allowing diverse thoughts, emotions, and stories to surface through genuine, child‑like listening and co‑creation. Drawing on personal experience (transitioning to veganism after a retreat) and her work in conscious business model design, she highlights the need to treat nature and future generations as stakeholders, a perspective accelerated by the COVID‑19 pandemic. Atalay stresses that transformation does not require a hero or linear time; instead, it requires listening across generations—children, elders, and all ages—recognizing that time is holographic rather than linear. By confronting resistance, giving undivided attention to new voices, and aligning with personal values, individuals can catalyze broader societal change.
Chapters
Maybe I can take from there. What Richard was bringing us back to is the personal responsibility and starting with our thought, own thought and feeling structures. Because the real control, the initial control starts there. When we start thinking some things and not letting some thoughts visit our being. And when we start having hierarchy over some beliefs than others, then we want to identify with those thoughts and we wanna control the outside world to fit into our thought structure. So, this is a basic human addiction, which is very wide, especially among the smart people and the leaders around the world. We like repeating our thoughts. But what we can do actually is, we can really start analyzing what we are thinking, what we are believing, and allow the thoughts and the emotions to come, and without the feeling, the need to judge them, can we really look at what we are thinking and feeling? Because when you allow anger, for example, and it comes and visits you, and if you don't want to control or change it immediately, that anger has a lot to say to you. There is wisdom in it. And I love this conversation, and coming back to the community topic, because in the structures of for example, accounting or the political structures or the media we created through technology or the business model design as it is, they don't include human sensors, very evolved human sensors like emotions, for example, into consideration, which is the most important technology and the asset. So we need to redefine what is an asset, we need to redefine why we are doing business and why we are organizing organizations. So I think communities has the chance to allow us, to give us the space to be human again, to allow different thoughts, emotions, stories to emerge. But how can this happen? Only when we learn, unlearn actually, and go back to real listening like children do. Because we don't listen to each other. We always think something, we always script something. If I were to listen to you right now with nothing in mind, with no agenda, then that would, would be a real co-creation in action. And there is only now, now that we have— I used to eat fish and cheese 5 years ago, then I went vegan, but it was thanks to someone that I met in a healthy a life retreat that led me to think it is possible. So being role models to each other also works. It's not just a lonely journey. We look at the mirror of each other and we believe another life is possible. When I am doing conscious business model design with leaders of companies, entrepreneurs, 2 years ago, and when I invited them to think nature as a stakeholder or futures, future generations as a stakeholder, people were like, "Oh, let us first survive and then we think about our impact or our responsibility or what we can learn from nature later." But look what happened. Now with this pandemic, although many, many things have collapsed and people are suffering, we are also, if we are smart, we can learn a lot from this. We don't need to wait for another crisis, to learn, to refresh ourselves. We don't need a hero or a political leader to come and tell us what is possible. If we can be courageous enough to stop and just ask ourselves, why am I here and what are my values? And as Richard was saying, what is my impact in the community that I'm a part of today? Then there we can lead anything, any type of transformation. And I also want to say I just want to say one thing to Rachel. The change that we want to trigger in the world is not from past to now to tomorrow, because with children and with elderly, we are actually representing all generations simultaneously. So it's like a hologram. Time is not linear. It is so important to listen and understand the resistance to the change and allow the new to have the stage to talk by giving them undivided attention, to new generations. I believe that can be a very powerful transformation starting with us, but me and you, it's also another topic, another maybe pass the mic session. What is time? What is you and me? I represent all generations, all my cultures and everything that I learned in the school system. Same as you. So, when we come together, even 4 of us, 5 of us, we can, we can co-create a lot of things.
