Tending the Soil: Leadership, Energy & the Art of Stopping Early

On my desk sits a Chinese money plant.

It’s elegant, round-leaved, and quietly persistent, but lately I’ve neglected it. A film of dust gathers on its leaves, the soil has hardened, and yet it still stands there, doing its job. Waiting.

I’ve been thinking about that plant while working with healthcare leaders in Hong Kong, Dubai, and the UK.

They, too, are holding on. Upright, committed, and quietly depleted.

Healthcare systems are running beyond capacity. Long hours, endless targets, and the sense that the system itself is fraying. In recent months, every senior leader I’ve coached has shared some version of the same confession: “I’m putting everyone else first.”

They know the rituals that help - hydration, breathing, rest, walking - but under constant pressure, those rituals start to feel like luxuries. We keep harvesting from soil that hasn’t been fed. And like an overworked field, we lose the capacity to nourish anything new.

There’s a phrase from an old ITV survival series, Last One Out.

The presenter described the moment when, in the wilderness, you feel the urge to push on, to get just a little further before dark. But that’s when most accidents happen. The wise move, he said, is to stop before you need to. Make a fire. Boil water. Gather wood. Prepare while you still have the energy.

That’s regenerative leadership in practice: the art of stopping early. Not out of weakness, but out of wisdom. Because once the light’s gone, it’s too late to build the fire.

During one of Saïd Business School’s leadership programmes, I coached a paediatrician from Australia. He’d been working such long hours that he simply stopped drinking water. He was so busy saving others that he forgot to save himself. One day, he collapsed and woke up in an ICU bed.

That moment changed him. He realised that care begins with self-care. Hydration, rest, and nourishment aren’t “nice-to-haves.” They are essential to performance, recovery, and leadership.

A thriving plant doesn’t strive. It simply lives in conditions that support its life. In regenerative systems, we design those conditions with care.

What if, one day, in healthcare, rest - even a few minutes of breathing or resetting - wasn’t a luxury but an expectation? What if pausing, like gathering firewood before dark, was seen as a professional discipline rather than a personal indulgence?

Because the more united our healthcare systems become with our living systems, the clearer it becomes: nothing regenerates from depletion.

Look at your own Chinese money plant. Is it gathering dust, quietly surviving rather than thriving? Where could you pause before dark - before exhaustion sets in? Tend your soil. Drink water. Stop early. That’s where regeneration begins.

Warm regards,

Mark