The Cracks in Your Ceiling
QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Kintsugi, meaning ‘golden seams’, is the Japanese art of repairing ceramics with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, leaving a gold seam where the cracks were.
The practice of Kintsugi highlights and emphasizes imperfections, visualizing mends and seams as an additive and an area to celebrate and focus on.
Modern artists and designers experiment with the ancient technique as a means of analyzing the idea of loss, synthesis, and improvement through destruction and repair or rebirth.
Ok, we’ve all been through our fair share of shite and I’m willing to guess that the majority of us, myself very much included, have done our best to hide it, suppress it, gloss it over rather than highlight it.
Now is the time to leverage your cracks, your experience, your failures, your growth, your wisdom.
“Greatest growth in your darkest days.”
Years ago, anthropologist Margaret Mead was asked by a student what she considered to be the first sign of civilization in a culture. The student expected Mead to talk about fishhooks or clay pots or grinding stones.
But no. Mead said that the first sign of civilization in an ancient culture was a femur (thighbone) that had been broken and then healed. Mead explained that in the animal kingdom, if you break your leg, you die. You cannot run from danger, get to the river for a drink or hunt for food. You are meat for prowling beasts. No animal survives a broken leg long enough for the bone to heal.
A broken femur that has healed is evidence that someone has taken time to stay with the one who fell, has bound up the wound, has carried the person to safety and has tended the person through recovery. Helping someone else through difficulty is where civilization starts, Mead said. We are at our best when we serve others. [Credit: Ira Byock]
I am staunchly tied to the belief that the only reason we are here is to help one another. No more, no less - simply here to help one another.
To help is the purest purpose of all humans. The purest form of help is to share our wisdom along with the cracks that led to it. Our wisdom is the gold that joins our pieces stronger.
The Question(s) of the Week are about Leveraging your Wisdom.
What are two ways you consider yourself to be wise, exclusive of your academic training?
Ask three people close to you what they consider your greatest wisdom(s) to be.
What was the lesson(s) you learned from your most painful setback in your life?
What’s one way you can share those insights to benefit your clients and prospects in the next week?
Share your brilliance and light!
It matters more than you realize.
Best,
Janet
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If you’d like to join the BBA conversation just email me - janet@hutchensmedia.com
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“There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.”
- Leonard Cohen