In Brave Soles, we have a secret we believe we can all benefit from knowing. The secret goes beyond materials we use, designs we create and products we release.
It's about a decision we can each make, every single day.
Ideas that change your life and your future for good are visiting you all the time. They come in the form of longing, awakened awareness, even a butterfly flutter in your tummy when you know something makes you feel alive.
However, if we are honest with ourselves, we all spend a lot of time and devotion focusing on all the reasons that we can’t do or become what makes us feel most alive.
From the early days of our education and instruction, our lives each become a careful study in all the reasons that something can’t work, that we aren’t good enough, and that we are the exception to the laws of the universe that say we can be fulfilled and make a difference in the world.
And then, as if that’s not cruel enough, the next stage of life kicks in. Remember this: the first time you put yourself out there and experienced regret, disappointment, humiliation or even loss? These don’t become just experiences, though, do they?
If we are even more honest with ourselves, they become deeper proof that we call upon to reinforce the story that is the easiest to believe: we are just going to have to settle for the crumbs and put on our bravest game face.
But all of that is circumstances in life that we experience; they do not get to determine the makeup up who we are.
There is a freedom that is far deeper than many of us ever even dare ourselves to try to attain. It is the freedom of deciding who you are and who you will continue to become.
There is a courage that eludes us until we are confronted with the ultimate question: who do you want to be? And the scariest part about this question is that it isn’t actually asking us about a future version of ourselves.
It’s asking us who we want to be RIGHT NOW. Sometimes courage will mean that this decision needs to continually be made moment by moment, with each step you take.
And the secret that I have found is that life keeps on asking us one question: Do you want to be a victim or a creator?
A victim tells themselves a very specific story. That story is about all the reasons they are hard done by, why their life is so difficult, and all the reasons the dream can never work.
A victim finds a twisted kind of solace in disappointment because it reinforces what has become miserably comfortable for them: mediocrity, discouragement and expectations of disappointment.
Just before the idea for Brave Soles came to me, one early morning as I was wrestling with life, the question dropped into my mind and I found myself saying out loud, “I am not a victim, I am a creator”.
That statement was powerful. But it was only powerful because I decided to put it on, like a new favourite outfit - or, in my case, shoes ;)
I had nothing. In fact, in many ways, it was negative nothing. But in every other way, I had all that I needed: the seed of a truth that could change me first, so that I could start to help make the changes for others.
I don’t know you. I don’t know your inner dialogue and your inner struggles. I don’t know the stories you have stuck on play and repeat that are like a mantra for all the reasons something can’t change for you.
I only know that truth is truth. This truth that worked for generations of world shapers that have come and gone before us will continue to mould those of us who are world shapers from here onward.
The people that we create with in Brave Soles are people that we recognize are journeying with us. Whether they be our suppliers, our inner team of decision makers, or our customers, each of us create something with our choices, our actions and advocacy for a better future.
When you find yourself awakening to the fact that you don’t have to accept life or the world as you found it, you begin to take back your power to create something more beautiful. Something that you had within your grasp all along.
We all deserve the equality of opportunity to choose what we want and where we want our energy and resources to be focused.
Thanks for choosing us.
"The journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step." (Chinese proverb)