Beyond solutions — our story problem: Interview with Dr. Dominique Hes

I had the honor of interviewing Dr. Dominique Hes — regenerative design pioneer, educator, co-author of Designing for Hope, and one of the biggest influences on my own thinking over the past two decades.“We have become very good at changing the stuff. We have paid far less attention to changing the story.” — Dr. Dominique HesThat distinction (and how it came to matter to Dominique) framed almost everything we discussed.For years, Dominique has worked across science, engineering, architecture, and regenerative development. Yet she increasingly believes that:Our greatest challenges are no longer technical. They are narrative. Because economics is a story. Planning is a story. And so is law. organizations. and markets. Even many of the systems we experience as fixed are, ultimately, stories we collectively agreed to live inside.Stories are infrastructure.That conversation led somewhere neither of us expected: the regenerative brain. The possibility that our collective excellence in analytical, literate, reductionist thinking has left us less practiced at noticing, relationships, presence, and seeing wholes.Perhaps regeneration requires a different way of paying attention.“Listen with the intent to learn.” — Dr. Dominique HesListen not to reply, persuade, or defend, but to understand. That feels rare. And vital.Another lovely moment came from me asking Dominique, What kind of changemaker do you consider yourself to be?“I’m mycelium.” — Dr. Dominique HesNot a profession. Invisible infrastructure in healthy forests. Connecting ideas, people, and places. Moving nutrients where they are needed. It struck me because invisible work was one of the themes of my Field Notes for Q1 2026. Perhaps some of the most important changemaking resembles mycelium far more than the visible leadership we tend to celebrate.Nature on the BoardWe also explored one of Dominique’s newest experiments: serving as the Voice of Nature on the board of Regen Melbourne. Not symbolically. Practically. She reads every board paper twice: once as Dominique (the left-hand page in her notebook) and then again as Nature (the right-hand page). Her description of the moments when the two disagree—and how that practice has changed the board’s governance — was one of the most thought-provoking parts of our conversation.What is hope?We finished on hope, which is in the title of Dominique’s book and at the heart of her work. Not hope as optimism, but hope as a practice of contribution, one relationship at a time.If you’ve been following the recent conversations here — from Laura Mae Lindo, Whitney Austin Gray, Andrew MacLeod, and now Dominique Hes — you may notice a thread emerging. Again and again, the work comes back to the same question:How do we create the conditions in which better futures become not merely imaginable — but normal?Dominique’s answer is both deceptively simple and profoundly challenging:Perhaps to expand what is possible, we must change our stories.References* Designing for Hope (2015) by Dr. Dominique Hes & Dr. Chrisna du Plessis: https://www.booktopia.com.au/designing-for-hope-dominique-hes/book/9781763874909.html?srsltid=AfmBOor4mU4litT-1fW7VPrEDuHkx_CPiZ2G5tqNjOQq8isD1fYkTstd* Mycelium Seed, Dominique’s Substack: https://myceliumseed.substack.com* Regen Melbourne: Nature on the Board https://regen.melbourne/gazette/dominique-hes-nature-on-the-board* Change the Story, Change the Future: A Living Economy for a Living Earth (2015) by David Korten. https://www.amazon.com/Change-Story-Future-Living-Economy/dp/1626562903* Right Story, Wrong Story (2023) by Tyson Yunkaporta. https://www.amazon.com/Right-Story-Wrong-Tyson-Yunkaporta/dp/1922790958▶️ Watch or listen to Changemakers Handbook on Substack, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts.https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/changemakers-handbook-with-elena-bondareva/id1828981728<a target="_blank" href="https://open.spotify.com/show/4MGxEQM72DhSvpURHo7IQS?si=e6cef2