Seal Life’s Cracks with Your Golden Purpose
By Rob Craven
When I was a boy and my dad received a terminal cancer diagnosis, my world turned upside down. His encouragement to me to always be bold and make a difference helped me get through the tough times and become the person I am today.
Sometimes the worst moments from our past can lead us on the path to our purpose in life. This notion lies at the heart of our ScalePassion project and informs the business philosophy of the remarkable business owner Marie Kondo. She has devoted her life to tidiness through her company KonMari, which sells products and services that promote the Japanese philosophy of wabi-sabi, or “experiencing beauty in simplicity and calmness.”
This blog concerns the wabi-sabi technique of kintsugi, the beautifully bold act of using gold-dusted lacquer to mend broken objects, mended cracks and all. The joy of experiencing wabi-sabi doesn’t rely on perfection, which can’t be attained, but on appreciating and caring for your possessions rather than hiding or repressing them. You can read more about it here.
As a business owner, you can live and work in wabi-sabi—experiencing beauty and simplicity and calmness and presence—when you are busy fulfilling your purpose. What’s more, your purpose journey will most likely require you to perform some kintsugi with something from your past.
That something may have brought you joy or pain but it shaped who you became—whether or not you’re conscious of it. So, become conscious of it. Take the precious pieces of your past and put them back together with gold dust.
The purpose-driven business connection
“It shouldn't have happened to me” offers a place to start on your story. Maybe it should have happened to you? I'm a big believer that everything happens for a reason, and even the worst things we go through can teach us a lesson, and those lessons can bring to light our purpose. In terms of kintsugi, my dad’s cancer diagnosis was my broken saucer, and his encouragement to me became the gold dust I continue to use to shape my life.
Maybe your past has made you creative or adventurous or resilient or bold? Recall the broken moments from your past. Then begin to reassemble your story by turning something that happened to you into something that is happening by you right now.
Practitioners of conscious leadership will recognize this as movement from below the line to above the line. Conscious leadership, wabi-sabi, and purposeful living are first cousins of calm and clear-sightedness.
Can you get there? We at ScalePassion think you can. Come tell us your story and we’ll help you figure out how the story you believed happened to you is actually happening by you.