Special March 2026. read on website/ Reading time 7 minutes.
It wasn’t just a book.
March 25th, Emotional capital for the triple win Axiom received a Silver Award in the Independent Thought Leadership category from the Business Book Awards—an annual program established in 2007 by the Jenkins Group that recognizes influential voices shaping how we understand leadership, innovation, and marketing in more than 20 categories, spanning both traditional and independent publications.
When I applied, it was with a quiet sense of entering a much larger conversation. In 2025, Sir Paul Collier received the Silver Award in the Economics category for his work on regions lagging behind in economic development. As the Blavatnik school of government wrote, “This recognition marks another milestone in a career dedicated to bridging economics with ethical and practical policymaking.”
That view resonates deeply, that economics is never just about systems. So does business. It’s about people. It’s about the realities we live through, the pressures we bear, and the choices we make within them.
And perhaps that’s why this moment feels so difficult to put into words.
Because it was never just a book.
For the better part of several consecutive years, I carried a question that seemed too big to ignore.
However, this was not easy to prove.
I spent countless sleepless nights trying to give a voice to something I felt deeply but struggled to express.
In a world full of noise — what’s right, what’s wrong, what’s important, what’s not — I kept looking for something else.
i saw our.
I have seen people, fully engaged in the system and yet, in many ways, silently harming themselves.
Some seemed to be growing fast and still looking healthy, but without deep enough roots to hold it up during the first meaningful storm.
On the one hand, I see that economies and businesses are stimulating demand at levels of material consumption that the planet can no longer sustain.
On the other hand, I’ve seen people — good, conscious, well-intentioned people — who still haven’t bridged the gap between what they believe and how they live.
And I kept asking: Why?
The answer that emerged during my research was uncomfortable, but deeply human.
we are tired We are under pressure. We are trying to conform to norms and statuses that were never meant to reflect who we are.
Every day, we carry this silent pain — like a lonely, disconnected heart seeking relief, something, anything to fill the void.
Feeling good, even if we know it’s short-term. It’s not because we’re careless, but because for many, use has become a coping mechanism. Empirical research consistently shows that a significant part of purchases is driven by emotions: estimates range from 40-80% in certain contexts (Rodriguez et al., 2021), 27-80% of general purchases (Khan et al., 2015), 30-50% of automatic purchases, 30-50%. 2020), up to 62% in grocery settings (Cobb & Hoyer, 1986), and up to 68% in online consumption (Wang et al., 2022a).
When I realized that up to 90 percent of our purchases can be made on impulse, I knew we needed to have this conversation differently.
Not with judgment, but with truth.
This concept is not new. Thinkers, from the Club of Rome to pioneers like Hermann Dali, have warned us against overconsumption.
But we never quite ask: Why do we as humans hold onto it so tightly?
My book is an attempt to bring together years of research and hundreds of academic voices for an in-depth look. To understand not just the system, but ourselves.
Because the climate crisis – however one defines its causes – is no longer abstract. I feel it here in Cyprus: in the heat, in the scarcity of water, in the growing tension over resources. Material resources are limited if we cannot reproduce them. No business on a dead planet.
And yet, I feel something else:
We have had enough. We can get through this.
But only if we start a new kind of dialogue – one about The mental cost gap.
On distinguishing psychological needs from material costs. About redefining value — not as what we own, but how we live, connect and care.
Imagine an economy built not on extraction, but on it emotional capital – Wealth that every human being already carries.
Imagine a business that addresses loneliness, mental health and money — not through the products we endlessly buy, but through solutions that truly support us.
This award means this conversation is finally leaving the cage. It is beginning to be heard more widely – across disciplines, across borders.
This means that each voice from the more than 300 excerpts from this work, which we deliberately put together with my brilliant partner, Practical Inspiration PublishingNow part of a broader dialogue. This idea is not mine alone. Most importantly, it meant I was right to listen to the nagging feelings that kept me awake.
This book is academic. It’s complicated. But our problem is complex.
And complexity deserves honesty.
This award means more than recognition. This indicates that this conversation is gaining traction – and that it resonates beyond a single voice
Thanks to Axiom Book Awards for viewing this work. And for those willing to engage with it – critically, openly and thoughtfully.
We are not what we have. What we feel, what we give and how we connect.
Perhaps this is where meaningful change begins.
