IFyou are a bottle of champagne, a quarter turn means the difference between the worst or best quality.
Champagne has become one of our iconic ways of celebrating the good life. It’s fizzy, yummy and who doesn’t love a good clink when two champagne flutes touch?
Champagne needs to be turned a quarter turn every so often to continue to displace the sediment that happens with the yeast inside. It’s a time honoured tradition and the skill that it takes is not easily acquired.
A quarter turn may not seem like much at first glance, but it can dramatically affect the future outcomes.
When I first learned about this, I thought about how incremental change has brought about huge results in my own life. Asking myself simple, honest questions like:
- What are the implications of my decisions?
- How can I have just a little more grace for myself and my history?
- What’s one thing I can choose that will help move the bar forward for my life and the lives of those I care about?
- What are some areas that I can stop compromising in?
A quarter turn is full of infinite possibilities.
From the first day we opened up shop at Brave Soles, I was sure of one thing. I wanted to build a company that was a reflection of the kind of stories I wanted to have as my own.
I am not perfect. I am no Mother Teresa or David Suzuki. I have made some pretty epic bad choices over the years without considering the consequences of my actions. But when I think about how I want to move forward and how we can help people do the same, I think about the quarter turn of a champagne bottle.
There is no judgement on the sediment that collects in the bottle. It just is.
You don’t know what you don’t know - until you know. Knowing doesn’t need to be heavy and gloomy. It means recognizing that a quarter turn in how you think gets you a little closer to who you want to become.
I recently had a quarter turn shift in my own way of thinking. After discovering that 40% of our customers have returned to shop with us again, I asked a question.
What does this show us about the people who are sharing in the story behind Brave Soles? I think it tells us a few things.
First, I think it shows us that there are people out there like us. A lot of them, actually. The kind of people who love simple, beautiful things.
Second, our team has come to realize that when you truly want to build something that matters, you have to make what matters the top priority. People and planet matter to a lot of us. This is the tightening lens that we are doing our best to make decisions through at every turn that we take.
And third, the people that support us are the kind of people that we want to please and delight. They are willing to get behind what reminds them that their choices matter.
We are all a work in progress. We can get better at what we do and how we do it if we are willing to try.
Does knowing where your clothes, shoes and accessories come from change the world? Not in the cataclysmic way we wish it could - yet.
However, it will help to change the story about the world we all live in today.
Simply because everything we own tells a story.
So, cheers to you, my friend. Your love for a better future is worthy of acknowledging.
We all have a long road ahead of us, but with the willingness to continually challenge our current level of thinking, we can get there, together.
