Part One: How The Pandemic Rewired Work, Purpose, and Progress

The world didn’t just pause for a while in 2020. It broke. In the silence that followed, we remember the chaos and fear of the unknown, because something like this had never happened to the world before. The eerie stillness of cities that once pulsed with activity. The endless stream of news headlines. The collective shift from boardrooms to living rooms, Zoom calls, and elbow bumps became a thing. 

But under the novelty and noise, a deeper transformation was unfolding, one that had nothing to do with hand sanitiser or face masks. COVID-19 didn’t just disrupt our routines by cracking open the systems that shaped our lives to force a radical reflection. Suddenly, everything we had accepted as normal was up for review: how we worked, what we valued, and what we were really getting up in the morning for.

The pandemic revealed how fragile and imbalanced many of our systems had become. Hustle culture, which was once the prized badge of honour, began to fray at the edges. People who had spent years grinding in the name of progress found themselves exhausted, disillusioned, and questioning whether the promise of success was ever worth the cost. Burnout became a default setting, unbeknownst to many... 

The global economy, which was widely considered to be optimised for resilience, speed, and efficiency, proved very brittle in the face of friction when put to the test. Supply chains that were finely tuned for just-in-time delivery couldn’t adapt to even minor disruptions fast enough, never mind a full-blown global shutdown.

Inequality surged like never before. While some worked from home in relative comfort, others stood on the front lines with no safety net. Access to healthcare, reliable internet, and even physical space suddenly became defining privileges. The illusion of shared experience dissolved as the gap between the vulnerable and the protected widened. 

And yet, despite the shock, the grief and the upheaval, the pandemic did something else too. It revealed not only what was broken, but what might be possible to build with purpose.

With so much of the old world suddenly suspended, people suddenly found themselves in a position of having more space (mental, emotional, and physical) to reimagine what a new way of working could mean. Remote work that was once seen either as a rare perk or a logistical nightmare became the new norm almost overnight. 

Employees had finally been freed from the dreaded daily commute and fluorescent-lit cubicles only to rediscover their autonomy. Many began to ask hard questions about what they were working towards. Some didn’t like the answers. But what followed was unprecedented: millions of people across the world walked away from jobs (careers!) that no longer served them. They weren’t quitting work, no, they were quitting meaningless work. This mass exodus wasn’t about rebellion or laziness. It was a reclaiming of agency.

As the corporate towers emptied little by little, we saw something else rise: community, purpose, and connection. In the absence of rapid response and strong central support, neighbourhoods and networks became the frontlines of resilience. Mutual aid groups, local farms, and circular systems stepped in where traditional supply chains had failed. People shopped locally, not just because they had to, but because now they wanted to. 

Even more importantly, something long neglected was finally thrust into the centre of the conversation: mental health. For years, emotional well-being had lived in the margins of business culture, often dismissed as personal or peripheral. But in the collective strain of lockdowns and uncertainty, it became impossible to ignore. Suddenly, burnout was part of the boardroom vocabulary, and empathy had become a leadership skill. The long-overdue recognition of mental health as a core part of productivity was one of the quiet revolutions of the pandemic years.

Perhaps most significant of all was the rise of purpose. During the Great Pause, many people were forced to confront the reality that life is short, and time is finite. And they asked themselves, “Is this really how I want to spend mine?” For some, that meant launching new ventures. For others, it meant switching careers, stepping off the corporate ladder, or creating work that finally felt like a reflection of who they are. Purpose became the new baseline.

This wasn’t just a series of trends; it was a global reframing of how we think about progress. What the pandemic forced us to see is that our old models of success were often based on extraction: more time, more growth, more speed, more output. But in the end, they left too many people depleted, disconnected, and disillusioned. So the thinking began to shift...

Where profit was once the ultimate metric, purpose now holds equal weight. People now expect the businesses they support and the ones they build to do more than sell. They expect them to serve. To contribute. To stand for something of authentic value. Where efficiency once reigned supreme, resilience is now the currency that matters. In a world that keeps changing, the ability to adapt and flex has become far more valuable than the ability to optimise every inch.

The lone-wolf, self-made mythology that once shaped entrepreneurship is giving way to something more collective. Success is no longer measured in isolation, but in the context of how it uplifts others. Interdependence is a strength, not a liability, as was previously perceived. And perhaps most radically of all, we’ve begun to rethink our relationship with growth. The idea that “more is better” is backsliding into a more grounded idea: that maybe success is not about accumulation, but about alignment. Maybe enough really is enough.

For impact entrepreneurs, this shift should be considered extremely validating and energising. The space you’ve been building in (often on the fringes) has moved to the centre of the conversation. You are not following the crowd anymore. You are charting the course. You are proving that it’s possible to build with conscience, lead with empathy, and still succeed. Your companies don’t just make products anymore. They solve problems. They restore balance. And they create meaning.

But this is only the beginning. We are in transition, still shaping the next chapter. One thing is clear, though: we’re not going back to how things were. Nor should we. The pandemic was a rupture, but it was also a release. A chance to let go of what wasn’t working and plant something more sustainable, more equitable, more human in its place.

The old systems cracked. You are building what comes next. Building it out of vision. Out of hope. Out of the fierce and grounded belief that business can be a tool for healing, not harm. You’re not just building a business. You’re building a better system. One that actually works.

And this is where the real story begins...

Written by - Claire Taylor (for a little bit of catharsis)