Paths & Ways 💜 #12
🦋 Transformation comes in many shapes and forms. In this monthly brief I curate different paths and ways to transformation that are currently tickling my curiosity.
The year is drawing to an end and there is so much to share.
2025 has been a fascinating year (yes, I remain an optimist!) and the world is in a mix of turmoil, chaos and birthing of new and incredible things.
This issue of Paths & Ways 💜 is a bit different and contains:
📚 Books: a curated list from the “Brain Expansion Group”
💬 Quotes: The End | Begin | Wonder
🔭 Outlook for 2026 and Trend Reports
💜 Books
I read, a lot. Not just books, but blogs and news boards and just about anything that tickles my curiosity. A fellow reader and transformational voice Jesús Martín González recently published a list of 2025 books on Linkedin. FOMO hit almost immediately: where had these books been? Not on my shelf yet! So now I have a reading list for the winter season.
Here they are, complete list from the original post from the Brain Expansion Group with the original texts as reviewed by Jesús Martín González:
📕”Nature’s Last Dance: Tales of wonder in an age of extinction” by Natalie Kyriacou - “What a book! Exceptional, mind-blowing, moving, heartbreaking... She has a gift for writing, for storytelling, for touching your heart, for making you think, for putting the facts in their place, for making you laugh... and for making you cry in the best epilogue I’ve ever read.“
📕”Goliath’s Curse: The History and Future of Societal Collapse” by Luke Kemp - “It’s one of the books of the decade and a beacon that sheds light on our path-dependence on the past and proposes the necessary (very difficult) changes to break free from that path-dependence. To see what is happening to us now, we don’t have to look where there is light, as in the story of the drunkard who looked for his keys where the streetlight was, but where they had really been lost, and there it was very likely dark.”
📕”52 Ways to Reconcile: How to Walk with Indigenous Peoples on the Path to Healing” by David A. Robertson - “The word reconcile comes from ‘reconciliare’ (Latin), linked to the noun ‘Concilium’ (assembly, meeting, union). Thus, reconciliare in origin is to bring someone back to the assembly, to the union & agreement with others. On a planet with as many divisions as we live in now, a reconciliation is so necessary for healing.”
📕”Deficit: how feminist economics can change our world” by Emma Holten - “The book that should be in every economics & business school. It could shake the foundations of those schools.”
📕”Positive Obsession: The Life and Times of Octavia E. Butler” by Susana Morris - “I’m in AWE of what is possibly the best biography you can read in 2025.
It’s a gem & a gift for changemakers, futurists, regenerators, weavers, storytellers, disruptors, ... positively obsessed with a paradigm shift.”
📕”Presencing: 7 Practices for Transforming Self, Society, and Business” by Otto Scharmer & Katrin Kaeufer - “This book illustrates very well what the Theory U and movement are, with their triads, infographics, connections, prototypes...”
📕”Grassroots Economics: Reflection and Practice” (Downloadable) by Will Ruddick - “This book shows us the spirit, humanity & ecology of African roots that make us reflect on the cognitive dissonances of our Western economy with the proper natural economy.”
📕”Handbook of Degrowth” (Downloadable) edited by Anitra Nelson - “This book is a ‘portal’ to the future, a big picture of degrowth that we’ll encounter either by design (co-creating) or by default.”
💜 Quotes
I love quoting other people, but this time I am going to share with you 10 quotes from my own work. Why ten? Because 2026 is a year where the number 10 will be ever present: 2+0+2+6=10. And what does that mean? As a practitioner of Shamanic Numerology I can assure you this powerful number is all about leadership. 2026 will be a year in which each one of us will have to show up from our leadership. Not the old-world authoritarian kind,… but the inner propeller of our authenticity and our talent and our contribution to a better world.
So, in setting the intention for a year of collective leadership and thriving here are 10 quotes that came from my pen or my mouth. Sometimes out of sheer exasperation (admittedly) and often out of inspiration and positivity!
The quotes all emerge from the articles and essays I’ve written on Substack and in some ways reflect how my thinking is evolving in these tumultuous times.
1 / “Change is what happens to us. Transformation is what we choose to do about change. And as a result of that, it becomes that which we create on purpose.”
2 / “At the heart of transformation is the courage to ask questions.”
3 / “It takes courage to slow down in a world that rewards speed, to think systemically in a world that favors simplification, and to embrace uncertainty in a culture obsessed with certainty.”
4 / “Transformation is as much about disillusionment, as it is about dreams and imagination. Every transformation begins with the end of the known. We gain visceral understanding that the status quo has to go: and then, transformation becomes enticing.”
5 / “The purpose of transformation is always to transcend: the current way, the current norm, the current paradigm.”
6 / “Most organisations don’t lack ideas. They lack leaders willing to rethink themselves and design the conditions for those ideas to emerge.”
7 / “Can you think of anything that isn’t transforming? The reason is that the opposite of transformation is stagnation. Transformation is the livelihood of any team or organization. Adapting to changing circumstances is what creates strength and continuity.”
8 / “By understanding projects as projections, we reclaim the power to envision, prototype, and bring into being new realities: turning uncertainty into opportunity.”
9 / “Every system delivers what it is designed for. The leaders who thrive are the ones who stay curious longer than their context stays predictable. Thus transforming the system to deliver new and better results”
10 / “We must keep learning and adapting alongside technology. Machines are made to follow the known. Humans are able to explore the not-yet-known.”
Thank you for helping me create a space to evolve my thinking, share my ideas and continue to be an optimist in our pathways to transformation.
💜 Outlook for 2026 and trend reports
Next year, some things will be transforming: the newsletter will continue to drop on Thursdays, but the Transforming Worlds podcast will move to a monthly frequency. Alongside my work in transformation design I will also be working on transformational leadership: coaching business leaders to grow into their next version, next level and next horizon. The world needs better leaders, and I am keen to support that process in very way I can.
Speaking of leadership, the amazing leaders at ACIG publish a free-of-charge and open access list of Trend Reports for the coming year, every year. The 2026 reports are now out and can be found here.
There is a lot of information in there and not all of it may be of relevance, but definitely give it a look, browse through the files and learn from anything that calls your attention. It will make you conversations all the more interesting!
Did you enjoy this month’s issue of Paths & Ways? If you did, please give it a ‘💜’ or share it with your network. Thank you!