🌱 The Lucky Seedling, Part One
Landing a dream client after years of false starts and failed attempts
This is the fourth installment of the daily ritual series, re-titled since, ironically, I haven’t been swimming since I started it 😭 Catch up on part one, part two, and part three first.
“The Japanese concept of ma [is] a pause in time, an interval or emptiness in space. Ma is the time and space life needs to breathe, to feel and connect. If we have no time, if our space is restricted, we cannot grow. This universal principle applies to every aspect of life.
Ma combines the Japanese kanji symbols door and sun. Together, these two characters depict a door through the crevice of which the sunlight peeps in, enabling growth and sparking creativity. This is Ma—the space between the edges, the space and time we experience life.
Ma is filled with nothing but possibility. It speaks of silence as opposed to sound, of stillness as opposed to motion. It is the momentary pause in speech needed to convey meaningful words, the silence between the notes that makes the music. In that stillness, free of noise, we connect on a soul level. There is a need for Ma in every aspect and every day of our lives.”
I woke up on Wednesday still struggling to shake off the remnants of yet another chest cold—one that knocked me out the minute I stepped off stage the previous week after delivering a Free Time keynote.
One training down, one to go in my mini sprint of back-to-back speaking clients.
I was (am!) so grateful for both gigs, and I wanted more than anything to ensure they went smoothly. Both audiences deserved my best energy and clearest thinking; this week, I’d make sure any lingering symptoms were my problem, not theirs.