Most career stories are told in glossy highlight reels. The job wins. The big promotions. The successful fundraises. But the truth is never that straight.

The Japanese philosophy of Kintsugi,repairing broken pottery with veins of gold, offers a better metaphor. The cracks are not hidden. They’re the point. They show resilience. They tell the real story.

In my own career, the cracks have been plentiful. Redundancy after leading a sustainability-focused rebrand at Arq. A short, high-intensity year at Ekiva that ended abruptly but left me with hard-won experience in AI and telecoms. Moving into biofuels at Flying Forest with no prior liquid fuels background, learning on the job while raising the brand profile and investor confidence.

At the time, each felt like a break. Something lost: security, continuity, confidence. But looking back, each has been filled with gold.

At Arq, the redundancy forced me to see the lasting value in endless iterations of investor decks for capital markets storytelling and sustainability positioning, skills I now use daily.
At Ekiva, the short tenure proved I could create GTM frameworks, secure funding, and deliver new brand clarity at speed.
At Flying Forest, the leap into an unfamiliar industry has reinforced the fact that my skill isn’t bound to one sector. It’s in simplifying complexity, shaping narratives, and building confidence when the ground is shifting.

The cracks haven’t weakened the story, they’ve made it stronger.

Too often we’re asked to present flawless career arcs for LinkedIn, job applications and CV’s; unbroken lines of upward mobility. But Kintsugi shows us a better way. The breaks and repairs are the parts people remember. They’re where resilience, clarity, and experience are made.

Every career setback is an invitation to identify what was learned and lost, to acknowledge the break, and then ask: where is the gold? What unexpected strength emerged? What new path became possible?

Don’t pretend the cracks don’t exist, show how they shine.