Leadership Espresso with Stefan Götz
In a world of constant change and complexity, true leadership isn’t about control— it’s about curiosity, clarity, and courage. Join Executive Coach Stefan Götz - www.stefan-goetz.com, as he helps accomplished leaders unlock their authentic leadership compass, inspire peak team performance, and achieve sustainable success—without sacrificing life beyond work. Whether you’re a seasoned executive or an emerging leader, this podcast will equip you with the mindset, strategies, and tools to lead with confidence, purpose, and impact.
Leadership Espresso with Stefan Götz
Microbz: Circular by Design - Rethinking Leadership for a Regenerative Economy
What if everything we've been taught about cleanliness, bacteria, and health has been steering us in the wrong direction? Katie Worth, MD of Microbz (www.microbz.co.uk), a UK-based probiotic company, challenges our fundamental assumptions about microorganisms and offers a revolutionary perspective on how we might work with nature rather than against it.
The conversation reveals how modern society has waged a counterproductive war against microbes that has led to two concerning outcomes: the rise of antimicrobial resistance (potentially threatening hundreds of thousands of lives in coming years) and dramatically depleted nutrient density in our foods. "You need to eat 20 carrots today to get the nutrition from one carrot 20 years ago," Katie explains, highlighting how our chemical-dependent agricultural system has stripped soils of the microbial diversity necessary for transferring minerals into plants.
Unlike conventional probiotics that isolate specific strains, Microbes harvests diverse microbial communities directly from soil and ferments them to create products teeming with beneficial organisms. This approach acknowledges the vast complexity of microbial ecosystems—what Katie calls "inner space"—and trusts in nature's inherent intelligence to restore balance. The results speak for themselves as customers experience improvements not just in gut health but in seemingly unrelated conditions from skin problems to ear infections, demonstrating how the body directs beneficial microbes where they're needed most.
Though their soil-based probiotics help address immediate health concerns, Katie's vision extends much further—toward revitalizing soil health across the UK to create a food system that naturally provides the nutrients and microbial diversity humans need, eliminating the supplement dependency cycle entirely. This regenerative approach offers powerful insights not just for personal health but for business leadership, suggesting that organizations might benefit from being viewed as living systems rather than machines with parts to be fixed or replaced.
Discover how connecting with the intelligence of nature might transform your understanding of health and provide sustainable solutions to some of our most pressing challenges. Ready to rethink everything you know about microbes and your relationship with them?
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So welcome Katie Worth, md of microbes in a startup in the south of England who is kind of reinventing gut health system, thinking about nature, and happy to have you on the show, katie. Thank you for being with us and let's talk about nature.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah, let's talk about nature.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so how is your approach different and why? What's driving you?
Speaker 2:Well, what's driving us really is nature. So we are a probiotic brand based in the UK, as you said, and unlike most probiotic brands, we harvest our mother culture or our probiotic cultures from nature, directly from soil, and we don't engineer them, we don't change them in any way. We just collect them and then we ferment them four times, which increases the number of microbes. So we feed them with molasses and we keep them warm and we look after them and they expand and multiply. So by the time we have the probiotic product, which is after those four stages of fermentation, we have a high quality, highly diverse product and we don't take any credit for that.
Speaker 2:The credit for that should go back to nature, which is, um, the thing that created all of us, and within that is this incredible microbial life which we don't fully yet understand. My dad talks about it a bit like space. You know, we have this kind of more awesome wonder about space, this incredible frontier, and we like to think about the microbiome as as that kind of inner space. You know, there's so much we don't know about it, there's so much to explore, there's so much happening and we can't see this, but we can see the effects of it. So we see the health effects of bringing this incredible microbial diversity back into people right.
Speaker 1:So, um, I understand that it's some magic behind it, but maybe there is a big foundation also in in your thinking about nature and why the joint forces. So can you help us understand? How is that different to maybe other approaches in the industry?
Speaker 2:So for us it's about trust. You know it's about we trust nature. So quite a lot of people would come back to that with the idea you know, oh, but what if there's a pathogen in there? What if there's something bad? And we were heavily regulated. So we do all of our testing, we know there's no pathogens in there and it's not our job to we don't think it's our job to completely fully understand this incredible microbial diversity, because it has symbiotic relationships that science hasn't figured out yet. But we trust it because it's shown us time and time again that it can regenerate naturally, it can help help organic systems, it it has this, uh, intelligence, natural intelligence. So I think the difference between us and other brands is that we trust that and we have had that trust reinforced time and time again the more that we use the products.
Speaker 1:Okay. So for some people in the business or in the industry, you know, trust is a big issue and we all want to know how this works. And I understand you say, okay, we see the effects, the positive effects, but they are grounded in you know. Can you just elaborate a little bit about it's like a circular system, it seems. So maybe you know we can better understand if you give us that whole picture of the trust where you trust in.
Speaker 2:So a couple of things spring to mind for that. So microbial life is all about balance. So if you have a microbial system which has an overpopulation of pathogens or negative microbes, the whole system goes into kind of a it's not healthy. When you have a balance of positive, beneficial microbes, that changes the whole system, the whole environment, to a beneficial, healthy system. And that happens in many different parts in the body, in soils, in the environment. So there's this kind of balance bit which is part of the trust.
Speaker 1:What is the balance about about, and why is balance so important?
Speaker 2:well, all systems balance and you know, basically we've tried for such a long time to kill all microbial life and it's a bit like the war on drugs it just will never, ever work. You just end up making the bad guys more powerful and stronger. And now we're facing this huge issue of antimicrobial resistance, which is a big deal for um agriculture and for livestock and for humans. So there's a. Some people think in the next 10 years in the uk we could be losing 300 400 000 people a year to diseases which cannot be treated with antibiotics anymore. So we've had this kind of war on microbes to try and kill the bad guys, which hasn't worked, and so now we're interested in-.
Speaker 1:Are you stopping this idea? Good guy or good whatever good chemical versus bad whatever Good bug?
Speaker 2:versus bad bug. Yes, exactly, so you don't need to kill all of the pathogens in your home by using antibacterial spray. You need to introduce beneficial bacteria, which is the job for you or in your gut, katie.
Speaker 1:Just let's be practical. Yesterday I was in the kitchen, I had to clean it up and I had the choice to take either the chemical version of some big brands or I had your choice. Your microbus cleaner, which is life, and I was so tempted, just the ordinary. I would take the chemical, whatever because I have to kill, I have to make it clean. Whatever because I have to kill, you know I have to make it clean. So, um, how could you help me? Maybe take a better choice next time.
Speaker 2:Well, I would say you have an outdated idea of what is clean. So in your mind, you're equating the idea of killing bacteria with the idea of things being clean, and this is a mindset, it's a mentality that's being drilled into us through advertising. You know, of course, sterile surgical environments need to be sterile. There's a reason for that, of course. But your kitchen counter will never, ever be a space that has no bacteria on it, and if you spray it with antibiotics or with with those kind of bugs, you just kill, like you kill everything in your stomach. If you add beneficial microbes, they do that job for you. They out-compete. They basically live in the crevices of your countertop and out-compete bad bacteria. So you're working with nature, you're using nature to do all these jobs.
Speaker 1:Okay, there's an interesting idea. So the microbes help me kill bad bacteria.
Speaker 2:Say that again.
Speaker 1:Pardon me.
Speaker 2:Can you repeat the question?
Speaker 1:It looks like that the microbes you say they're beneficial, the microbes kill bad bacteria on my kitchen counter or whatever.
Speaker 2:So we would use the word out-compete. So they basically neutralize the threat by out-competing it, by becoming more populated, so microbes kind of they grow this biofilm on surfaces in your gut and other surfaces which out-competes pathogens. So it's not like the war on drugs where you're trying to kill them, it's about out-competing them so dominating, so it's out-competing them so dominating, so it's out-competing.
Speaker 1:How is that beneficial?
Speaker 2:Well, it's beneficial because every time you kill the bad bacteria in your house, it learns how to modify itself against that threat in the future and it turns into something that is that is genetically um or adapted to to fight that threat. So you're creating a super bug. I mean in the extreme level. In hospitals in the uk we now have this mrsa issue because we've spent so long trying to kill all this bacteria. It's mutated in order to to not be impacted by the same chemicals so I understand it's like um, you're not.
Speaker 1:Your idea is never about going against something that will reinforce it. You name the issues about hospitals. You know, having multi-resistance uh issues, uh ends on the fourth. But your idea is showing forces with nature and your idea was building like a living film, because we are living organisms that support each other. Is that the idea?
Speaker 2:That's the idea, definitely. And coming back to something you mentioned before, how does it work? Microbes are wonderful at two things. They build life, so in your gut, they take nutrients from food and they help make that into the short chain fatty acids and proteins and stuff and they're also incredibly good at breaking down life. So, um, you know, breaking things down into their fundamental parts, uh, releasing carbon, all that kind of thing. So they have these, these two jobs in the cycle of life. The cycle of life is about growth and building and creating and then about decaying and fermenting that and releasing all those basic level proteins, carbons, back into soils or bodies. So they have this incredible ability themselves to close this cycle of life and for us, it's not about, it's about harnessing that incredible power. It's not about trying to understand it scientifically and replicating it. It's just trusting that in any situation, they will know what to create and what to break down for recultivating the garden, helping pets, animals, even for us human beings.
Speaker 1:So you told me the idea is maybe not even selling my crops that help us, you know, fill a hole, but even go further. So maybe you can, you know, widening the picture and the frame of your approach.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you. I find this so important. I feel really passionate about it. So you know, if we take a step back from supplements, so supplements is something that we take more and more. The supplement business is growing very fast and that's all about putting stuff back in your body like zinc, magnesium you know all these vitamins and minerals and I feel like society has slept, walked into that reality without really asking the question why do I need to take all these supplements? So, from our perspective, that is about nutrient density in food. So one of the reasons people need to take more supplements is because the food that they're eating is less nutrient dense than it was 20 years, 50 years ago, is less nutrient dense than it was 20 years, 50 years ago. So if you eat a carrot today, you'll eat you'll. You'll need to eat 20 carrots today to get the nutrition that you got from that carrot 20 years.
Speaker 2:One carrot 20 years ago oh, and I even don't eat one carrot a day, you know yeah, but there's this kind of nutrient density which is decreasing in food and um and that we believe is due to soil health. So soil health in the uk has dramatically. It has been damaged dramatically and there's not much life left in it and it's been over, chemicalized, overused. It doesn't have what it needs to have in in it in terms of microbes, organic matter and minerals to get nutrients into foods and those nutrients to then be passed into the human body.
Speaker 1:So we would rather this sounds weird and insane. Now be practical again. I go to my supermarket and, uh, it sounds like even though I buy fresh food, the fresh food is kind of dead because there's no living life back in that fruit. And then I'll take it knowing it's kind of dead, and then I need supplements to help me make dead food healthy. More, you know, bring, bring back what's not in there.
Speaker 2:So it's mad, isn't it? It's absolutely mad when you, when you, step back, that's mad. It's mad and we don't need no, it's basically all the, all the micronutrients, like um, like phosphorus and calcium and zinc. We don't need very much of these things, but we need little bits regularly. So that's and that's what we're missing and that's why supplement culture has been. And it's quite incredible how, basically, if a carrot's growing in the soil, what it does is it sends out enzymes or sugars into the soil and the microbes go out and find phosphorus and zinc and magnesium and stuff and bring, bring it back to the plant's roots, which it then absorbs into the plant. So it's a microbial system that gets this nutrient density into the foods in the first place.
Speaker 1:And if the soil doesn't have those microbes in it, it can't transfer those nutrients nutrients into the, into the foods so, coming back to this overall idea of circular thinking, close to this would mean we need to work with the soil, maybe even first, to bring out fresh not just fresh food, but alive, living food living food.
Speaker 2:Living food yeah.
Speaker 1:Into our bodies, that bring the microbes into our bodies that are beneficial and help the entire gut system to you know, we know that the gut is just, it's the intelligence of, of the entire body. You know it has a big connection to the brain. So if you have a health gut, then you're healthy in life, you're powerful. You're strong, you can lead the way. So how do you close the loop now?
Speaker 2:so a couple of things here. So our product, what it basically does is it takes loads and loads of beneficial soil microbes and herbs and minerals and gives you that in a supplement. So it's like here you go, here's all the stuff that you're missing from your, from the soils, uh, in in a supplement. And what we see from that is people's health generally dramatically increases and they get they. They see relief from some severe gut health issues, but we don't want to have to give you this soil-based probiotic forever.
Speaker 2:We would love to be able to fix this soil issue in the uk, to bring life back into soils and have a food system which is local and which is healthy, so that you don't have to take supplements anymore because the road, the road, that road feels like a dangerous road. You know how much, how much longer do we have soil health for? How many more supplements do we need to take? The supplement industry is a is a wild west industry. It's full of people who are giving you things that you can't absorb. So in the long term, the road needs to be back to a, a natural system, a soil-based, healthy system.
Speaker 2:So we would love to close that you know and I'm talking 50 years you know I don't expect this to happen next week, but in the uk I don't know how it is in germany we do have a lot of companies and farmers and organizations who are really passionate about soil health. So it's becoming quite a big and, you know, exciting issue and world to be in and we all envisage a future which is healthier now can you, um, you know, give us some showcases about health effectiveness.
Speaker 1:You, you, you know you can bring to life. Yeah, sure I mean what do you see when with your products?
Speaker 2:So one of the things that I love that I see often with the products is people start taking it for some for a reason whatever reason that would be so IBS, ibd, you know some kind of gut health issue and then they realized that something else clears up, so their skin clears up.
Speaker 2:The weirdest one I ever had was somebody had really itchy ears and they couldn't they couldn't get, they couldn't do anything to stop this itch and they took the probiotic for a gut health issue and their ears cleaned up. So what I take from that is we all have individual microbiomes and we have this very diverse soil health microbial population and it's our belief that that the microbes have an intelligence and the body has an intelligence and they kind of work together to fix issues. So often things are sorted out that I wouldn't have imagined would have a microbial impact. So it reinforces this idea that the body is this incredible microbial system. We have micro billions of them in us and if they're given more diversity, more balance, they can sort issues out for themselves. They don't, they don't need us being like, oh, what you need is this particular microbe for this particular thing so you see, that's the trusting nature thing.
Speaker 2:We trust the body and we trust the microbes that they can help bring about life.
Speaker 1:They can help people thrive so my takeaway from our podcast today is one is your approach is a uh, circular approach, a regenerative approach. Uh, from you know, some call it from cradle to cradle, you know, from the soil to the microbes, the living beneficial microbes that help the body self-heal.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:My second takeaway is you don't focus on proving something. Your focus is on healing. Your focus is on seeing the effects and trust nature that nature does its job. So that's the second one. The third one is that you strongly believe about this balance. What I understood you know life is imbalancedbalanced.
Speaker 1:It's different to the classic traditional thinking which is you have a problem, you have to fix the problem and you have to go against whatever it causes and you say no. If you go against something, you make it bigger, so you don't actually solve it. So your approach is what I understand is more, you go for the underlying support system to support a balance. This is why you don't go for kind of supplements, what's missing? But you re-infuse life into a dead body, a dead, dead fruit, a dead soil. So these are my three takeaways. Um, am I missing something?
Speaker 2:no, just thank you so much for you know, for giving, for giving me this ability to talk about it, and I would say just to end that it's we take no, um, we take no acclamation for this. We feel like it's the microbes and their magnificence and their marvellousness that does all of this. It's just our job to facilitate it. It's just our job to kind of rewild or populate these microbes, but actually they're the ones that do these incredible things.
Speaker 1:Katie, coming from this, I mean I'm in the leadership business but this gives me some thought, or fruitful thought, about some inspiring questions. One is, uh, you talk about nature and soul and we know a company or organization is also a system, and how would that system be treated different if we didn't look like there's something missing? We need a training or coaching or something, but if we see it as a social soil system, that you know where we, where we bring in life, you know, coming from purpose. So that's one thought that's really hitting me. How can you know, see it totally different?
Speaker 1:The second one is that's already in in the business. They call it circular design thinking or cradle to cradle, and I saw an example with bmw launching, uh, what they call, uh, neue class, a new class, uh, where they design the cars, you know, in a circle way, so in the end of the life cycle you can reuse everything and don't have to dismantle and recycle. So how can that thinking be reinforced, from cradle to cradle, coming from nature? And the last bit is an inspiring question to me is this not going against something, but like it's more like joining forces with, with a basic idea that people want to contribute, like nature wants to contribute?
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you know, and then thinking about, if we are a system, there's nobody to be blamed if we don't perform, but it's more like going of what can I give like from nature, you know, and we don't understand it, maybe fully, but we see the effects. So these are the three inspiring questions to me that come from our podcast today. Uh, and everybody who wants to know more about it, just uh, katie, I'm sure you're more than willing to answer more questions. Certainly, you can buy products I put it into the link below but it's microbescouk and we should talk another time when you see more effects coming up in a bigger scale.
Speaker 1:So for now, katie, it was a pleasure, and let's join forces with nature.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:Thank you.