The tiniest spark of belief can unlock the impossible.

Most of us in the Caribbean grew up hearing the phrase: “faith as small as a mustard seed can move mountains.” It’s a line that carries great comfort in knowing that what is required to unlock potential and possibility is a mustard seed sized helping of faith.

I recently came across another mustard seed story. One you might not know.

In the Buddhist tradition, a grieving mother loses her only child. She begs the Buddha to bring him back to life. He tells her to bring him a mustard seed from a household untouched by death. She goes from home to home, only to find that every family knows loss. And in that realization, she discovers something bigger than her grief — that suffering and loss are not hers alone, they are part of being human.

Writer Miriam Sagan used this story to title her memoir Searching for a Mustard Seed, written after the sudden death of her husband. Her journey wasn’t about finding a miracle to erase grief, but about finding continuity, community, and the courage to keep going.

In business, in leadership, in life — we will lose things. Clients who leave. Projects that collapse. Strategies that don’t work out as planned. And yes, sometimes whole seasons of our lives will seem as if they were lost time.

The mustard seed reminds us of two truths:

• Faith can move us forward, even when it feels impossible.
• And grief, setbacks, and endings are not signs that we’re broken — they’re proof that we’re human.

And here’s something deeper: the mustard flower doesn’t come from the seed — the seed comes from the flower. The bright yellow bloom eventually fades, and from that ending comes the pod, and then the seed. The same kind of seed you planted at the start. Not something foreign. Not something disconnected. The seed is the continuation of what bloomed before.

Isn’t that how loss works? The beauty of what once was — a season, a client, a project, a relationship — eventually gives way. But in that fading is the beginning of what’s next. Every ending contains its own renewal, carrying the DNA of what came before.

Alignment means holding all of this. It means clarifying what you believe in while acknowledging what you’ve lost. It means finding the systems, support, and community that make it possible to rise again.

Strategic Reflection Prompt

Where in your business or leadership are you trying to cling to the flower, when what you really need to do is trust the seed it has left behind?

If you’re navigating loss, transition, or uncertainty in your business and want clarity on your next aligned step, let’s have a Clarity Conversation™. It always begins with The One Question™ — and sometimes that single seed of perspective is enough to shift everything.