Working Like Nature: Transform Your Work with Sustainable and Regenerative Practices

nature based businessworking like nature

Jan 3

How Nature Works vs How Capitalism Works

Every time I step into the forest, something shifts in me. Or maybe “shift” isn’t quite right. It’s more of a remembering. A remembering that I am part of a larger web of life. That moss and lichen have been collaborating for centuries to make this moment possible. That the pace of the natural world, the pace my body feels most at home in, is nothing like the artificial pace of capitalism.

“I cannot learn about nature without learning about myself. And every time I leave a hike and re-enter the human-made world, it takes longer and longer to adjust back into the headspace that capitalism expects me to be in. Because this world wasn’t designed for nature. And therefore, it wasn’t designed for us.”

This realization is why I’ve become obsessed with a question:

What would our work look like if we modeled it after nature?

What if our creativity stretched and rested with the seasons?
What if our businesses were built like ecosystems, diverse, relational, adaptive, rather than empires?
What if regeneration, not extraction, was our benchmark of success?

This article is the start of that exploration. Let’s begin with where the disconnect began.

The Deep Disconnect Between Human Work and Natural Rhythms

Before industrialization, before quarterly reports, burnout culture, and inbox fatigue, human work was woven into the rhythms of the land. Many Indigenous communities across the U.S. and beyond continue to embody these relationships, modeling a way of working that is reciprocal, cyclical, and deeply ecological.

Examples of nature-aligned work you’ll never find in a corporate playbook:

The Three Sisters method (corn, beans, squash) — a brilliant model of interdependence and mutual nourishment.
Zuni waffle gardens — sunken beds shaped to conserve water in arid climates, reflecting intimate knowledge of natural cycles.
Lakota buffalo stewardship — taking only what was needed, honoring the animal, and ensuring long-term ecological balance.

These practices don’t romanticize nature. They collaborate with it.

Contrast that with modern work culture: fast-paced, linear, extractive, obsessed with growth for the sake of growth.

It is the difference between tending a garden and strip-mining the land. And most of us can feel that difference in our bones.

Nature-Based Ways of Being vs. Artificial Constructs

In nature:

Everything moves in cycles.
Rest is necessary.
Diversity strengthens the whole.
Nothing grows all year long.
Nothing exists in isolation.

In capitalism:

Productivity is worshipped.
Rest is framed as laziness.
Individualism is a survival strategy.
Growth (at all costs) is the goal.
Extraction is normalized.

No wonder so many of us feel burnt out, disembodied, disconnected from ourselves and each other. We’re living inside systems that violate the natural laws of life. And when we push ourselves beyond our natural limits, we mirror the overharvesting, overworking, and overextracting that is destroying ecosystems worldwide.

Learning From Nature’s Blueprint

Nature is a masterclass in sustainable design.

A few examples of nature’s “systems thinking” at work:

Forests share resources through underground fungal networks (mycorrhizae).
Oceans cycle nutrients in loops that sustain entire marine ecosystems.
Pollinators and plants collaborate in mutually beneficial exchanges.
Nothing is wasted — what dies becomes food for what grows next.

Nature is diverse, adaptive, relational, and regenerative. The opposite of a quarterly-profit mindset. When we orient our work around these principles, something profound begins to shift… not just in our businesses, but in ourselves.