When Things Crack – The Quiet Skill That Gets You Through
- Brainz Magazine
- Nov 13
- 6 min read
Updated: Nov 14
Lukasz Kalinowski is an executive coach, mentor, and keynote speaker who helps leaders break barriers and achieve lasting impact. Combining strategic insight with transformational coaching, he empowers executives to lead authentically and drive meaningful change.
When things fall apart, our response defines us more than the fall itself. “When Things Crack” explores the quiet discipline of resilience, how to hold your shape under pressure, rebuild with intention, and find strength in the very moments that test you most.
The morning after
At 06:12, your phone lights up with the message you hoped would not come. The client walked. The project slipped. The person you backed is leaving. You stand in the kitchen with the kettle and feel that small internal snap. Not a dramatic shatter. A hairline crack that changes how the day sounds.
Everyone breaks. The real difference is style. You can splinter and hide, or you can learn the quiet skill of breaking well.
What it means to break well
Breaking well is not pretending you are fine. It is not collapsing for applause. It is the craft of keeping your shape under stress, naming the crack early, and rebuilding with more truth than you had yesterday. You return stronger and a little kinder. That is the point.
Pain is information
Muscle grows through micro tears. Bone becomes denser where force keeps passing through it. Brains rewire through clumsy first attempts that feel awkward and slow. None of this is comfortable. All of it is how strength forms. In work, the same pattern holds.
Missed quarters, hard conversations, public mistakes. Pain carries data. Breaking well starts by listening.
What actually broke
Most spirals come from vague pain. Before you fix, you must see. Write one clean sentence that begins, “What actually broke was.” Keep it plain. The plan, not the people. My pace, not my values. My boundary, not my courage. Precision cools panic. Add one more line, “What this is trying to teach me is.” If nothing comes, wait five minutes. The second answer is usually the true one.
There is a reason this steadies you. Naming shifts your attention from threat to task. The system calms when there is something to do.
Hold your shape
When people break badly, they rush. They add meetings, noise, and promises. The shape dissolves. Holding shape is boring and brave. Eat something simple. Step outside for seven minutes and move. Then write a single page that explains what happened and what happens next. Make two calls, not twenty. Give times, not “ASAP.” Tell the truth early, even if the truth is, “I am still gathering facts and will return at 15:00.”
This is not performance. It is cadence. Calm is a decision that travels.
Rebuild the rhythm
Repair is rhythm before it is triumph. Pick one small standard to raise and keep it for a week. End every meeting with who, what, and by when. Or call the customer first, not last. Or cut one recurring decision time from five days to two. One standard, kept daily, lays new bone where the pressure flows.
Field note 1: The Thursday collapse
A COO lost a major account on a Thursday. The team was white with fear. She did three quiet things. She wrote her two lines and pinned them above her screen. She sent a one-page explainer to the board with times for updates. She made five calls to the people most affected and asked, “What do you need from me today?” No theatre. By Monday, the room had a centre again. A month later, they were calmer and faster than before. The crack had shown where they were thin.
What not to do
Do not outsource your centre to a deck. Slides are tools, not spine. Do not perform optimism you do not feel. People can smell it, and they will not lend you their trust again. Do not punish the nearest person to look decisive. Anger is fear in armour.
The body helps the mind
There is a reason the simplest acts help. Long exhale breathing, a short walk, a glass of water, a real meal. They nudge the system from alarm towards steadier ground. You think better when your body is not convinced you are in a burning building. Keep it simple. Sit tall. Breathe out longer than you breathe in. Then decide.
The quiet disciplines that hold you
Three habits make breaking well more likely.
A hardship ledger. When the sharp moment hits, write three lines. What happened. What I did that matched my values. What I will try next time. Ten minutes, then stop. Over weeks, a pattern appears. That pattern is your training plan.
A rule of life. Three short lines you will actually keep. A sleep window. One meeting-free hour a day. No promises without a date and owner. These rails hold you when the day pulls.
A witness. One person who will tell you the truth. Share your two lines with them. Give permission for, “You are drifting.” Pay with honesty and gratitude. Solitude makes good people strange. Witnesses keep us human.
Teams that break well
Teams fail loudly or they fail cleanly. Clean failure is a skill. Teach people to write one-page briefs. Insist on clear handshakes at the end of meetings. Publish decisions with owners and dates. Run short “pressure drills” for the moments that always shock you. A client escalates. A key person leaves. A budget is cut. Rehearse the first ten minutes, who calls whom, what you say, what you check. Under pressure, you fall to your training.
So train.
Field note 2: The messy promotion
A regional leader stepped into a bigger remit without the title. On paper, nothing changed. In reality, everything did. He taped his rule of life to a dull filing cabinet. He kept a ledger. He counted decisions, not meetings. He scheduled two pressure drills with his lieutenants. After two months, the gossip changed. “He seems calm,” people said, which is a strange way of saying he knows who he is. The title arrived later. By then, he had become the person the title expected.
The identity returns
In shock, you do not rise to the level of your intentions. You fall to the level of your habits and your held identity. A single sentence helps, “I am the kind of leader who keeps clean promises under pressure.” It is not branding. It is ballast. When the room shakes, you decide from that line, and the room borrows your steadiness.
Repair without becoming hard
There is a risk in all of this. If you only harden, you become brittle. Breaking well includes softness. Small thanks said out loud. The apology that arrives quickly and without excuses. The check-in with the person who looks fine but is not. Strength without kindness is loud and short-lived. Strength with kindness lasts.
Measuring without turning into a robot
Keep the numbers few and useful.
Commitments kept on time. Decision speed from issue to decision. One deep-work block per day. A three-question Friday pulse on energy, clarity, and workload. If a metric does not drive a decision, drop it.
The smallest drill for a hard day
Try this on the next tough day.
Write your two lines. “What actually broke was.” “What this is trying to teach me is.” Send one clear message that sets times and next steps. Make two human calls. Ask, “What do you need from me today?” Listen. End every meeting with who, what, and by when. Send a two-line recap. At 18:00, write the ledger entry. Close the day. Five moves. Thirty minutes in total. A different night’s sleep.
The relapse to watch
After a win, drift is common. Praise loosens grip. People copy your last success and call it growth. Guard against this. Keep returning to the sentence, the ledger, the rule of life. The crown sits on habits, not hype.
Closing image
Tomorrow, the kettle will boil again. The phone will light up. Somewhere in the day, a choice will open. Splinter or shape. You already know which one you want. Breaking well is how you get there, one clean line and one kept promise at a time.
Read more from Lukasz Kalinowski
Lukasz Kalinowski, Executive Coach, Mentor & Keynote Speaker
Lukasz Kalinowski is an executive coach, mentor, and keynote speaker specialising in leadership transformation, resilience, and strategic growth. With a background in business management and coaching, he helps leaders break through limitations, navigate challenges, and achieve lasting success. Drawing from years of experience in high-stakes leadership roles, he empowers executives to lead with clarity, confidence, and authenticity. Passionate about resilience and personal development, Lukasz shares insights on overcoming adversity and unlocking true potential. Connect with him for more expert content and coaching.
