Four months now, I’ve been writing The Burn Blog as a place to spark ideas, challenge conventions, and share the lessons I’ve picked up along the way. But today, I want to try something new—something that feels closer, sharper, and perhaps more resonant.
This week, I’m trying a new format: the mini-story. It’s an experiment, inspired by the power of metaphor and storytelling to distill big ideas into smaller, more human moments. Let me show you what I mean, derived from my own experience
Here’s a story about a captain, his crew, and a lighthouse:
The sea was calm, deceptively so. The captain stood at the helm, eyes fixed on the horizon where a faint light flickered—a lighthouse, distant and steady. He knew what it meant: safety, progress, a new shore waiting to be reached.
But the crew saw only darkness.
“There’s no light,” they muttered among themselves. “The captain is chasing shadows.”
He called them to the deck, pointing toward the faint glow. “Look closely,” he said. “It’s there, guiding us.”
Some squinted, others shrugged. One spoke up: “Captain, we’ve sailed this route for years. There’s nothing out there but open water.”
The captain’s grip tightened on the wheel. He could feel the tide shifting beneath them, the promise of the lighthouse pulling him forward. Yet doubt rippled through the air like a storm brewing in silence.
As the days passed, the murmurs grew louder. “We should turn back,” someone suggested. “This course leads nowhere.”
But the captain held firm, even as the weight of their disbelief pressed against him. Every night, he climbed to the crow’s nest alone, scanning the horizon until the light flickered again, reassuring him. It wasn’t just a beacon—it was a promise of what could be.
One morning, as the first rays of sunlight stretched across the water, the lighthouse came into view—not faint, not distant, but clear and undeniable. The crew fell silent, their doubt replaced by awe.
The captain didn’t say, “I told you so.” He simply steered the ship onward, toward the light, knowing that the hardest part of the journey wasn’t navigating the sea—it was following a light no one else could see.
This isn’t just a story about a ship and a lighthouse. It’s about leadership, conviction, and the quiet struggle of holding onto a vision when others can’t see it yet. It’s a lesson I’ve lived—and maybe you have, too.
With this mini-format, I hope to give you something new: a story to sit with, a metaphor to explore, a spark to carry into your week.
Let me know what you think. Does this lighthouse resonate with you? Or does it spark a different kind of light entirely?