The French sociologist Emil Durkheim used the term collective effervescence to describe the times when we escape our humdrum day-to-day routines and to dissolve our identities into a group because as we gather an electricity is released and we share emotions and we're transported beyond ourselves.

Now most of us just cannot wait for the moment when the physical restrictions that currently separate us are lifted

and we can all gather again to F of us.

And I'm sure we will all feel this new electricity flowing between us,

our friends, our family, and we will appreciate it far more sharply than we ever did before.

The kindness economy is also about this kind of collective electricity. It's about a group of

people building or working within companies who share a common

purpose as they reach for something more. Of course they want to create or maintain a healthy,

profitable business, but they can also see that this must be done in a much wider context

than just looking at the bottom line.

They're acknowledging just how much damage has been inflicted on so many people and of course

the planet by how we've been doing business for so long.

You see, we incentivise growth at all cost and we ignored the damage that this does.

We were singular in a way that cut the threads of interconnection we all should have guarded

much more fiercely because it's the warp and the weft of these threads that create the fabric of society that binds us

all together and has the potential to lift us all up as one. It's important because the kindness

economy isn't just about do-gooding. It's not a question of being selflessly kind to others.

It's about our collective experience because when I lift you up, guess what?

I am lifted up too.

Doing business in a way that honors the environment and our fellow humans will do more good to all of us.

What's the point of maximising profit if we're all living in a world that's dying?

Or doing so at the cost of our well-being, all of those at the bottom of the ladder?

...