Beautiful Legacies

Work for Revival in its early days was task specific. As is common with founders who refuse to take venture capital funding, cashflow for support services needs to be carefully managed.

But as her business began to grow and success defied all industry expectations, the questions Brenda came with became more existential.

Is she leaving anything behind that adds meaning and value to lives after hers?

When she first started Revival, Brenda was not in denial of the environmental footprint of her industry. She took some solace in fact that she was curating what already existed for decades and hundreds of years. As demand these unique pieces grew, her discomfort rose around speed and frequency with which we wanted to be gratified. Her question became “If I will inevitably leave footprints behind, how can those footprints not scar, but serve as a gently lit path for others to follow towards their own dreams?”

That was the question we visited over and over, across countless conversations and experimentations. Working through doubt, fears, responsibility, guilt, holding on and letting go.

One of the interesting things about this was that there was no clear deliverable, because the founder was still in exploration.

We don’t always have a clear mark to hit.

This is especially true when we’ve taken our dreams up to the end of its particular iteration — where everything known is repetition, and what we have ahead is an unknown.

The road did not diverge in a pretty yellow wood. Instead the unknown calls through the winds, whispering for us to come to the edge, and step off.

Do we have the courage to? Do we have faith in evidence unseen? How do we let go of the familiar without knowing if our gnawing feeling for change will becomes something tangible, worthwhile, to focus on?

In our exploratory conversations, many ideas were generated. It is easy to make a list of what we can do next. It is quite another for this “next” to resonate and be meaningful to us. Something that feels right. Feels like a future us.

My task then was to flesh out — in great detail — each idea, put it down in a presentation and leave it with Brenda — until we have an idea that finally stirs something in her when she sees it fully formed on paper.

There were many that while she believed it was what she wanted, when faced with it, it didn’t ring true. Until finally, one did.

It took a few years, and that is the beauty in the process.

This is the part of the process I cannot deliver. It is something that has to be formed from within herself. My role, in this case, was to offer patience, to listen well, to support without pandering.

Even as we can begin to see the possibilities, and feel our wings strengthen, the courage it takes to step off, step away, from what we built from nothing, has to battle all our inner demons.

And battle them she did, and won. No surprises there. She is a giant, after all.

Revival Jewels is now focused developing partnerships with other players in the global industry to bring education on jewellery appreciation to the public; nurturing young future gemologists and jewellery designers through mentorship and networking support; introducing international jewellery designers, whose craftsmanship and values she believes in and aligns with, to the Asian market; and helping private collectors curate a jewellery legacy for their children or to causes they support.

In addition, our little giant learned hairdressing and volunteers at a seniors home cutting hair, at a children’s centre tutoring kids from lower income families, and getting her hands dirty at community organic farms.

What an awesomely mighty pivot.