Discovery Your Secret Ingredient!

I asked my first chef mentor, “What’s the secret to your success from all of these years cooking for others?”

I expected something from the cooking Holy Grail of information or something. I mean, after all, this guy has done it all. Cooked on a cruise ship, entertained royalty and dignitaries, so I figured that this secret has got to be real good!

So what was his answer, quite simply, “Flexibility!”

What! Flexibility, what does that have to do with entertaining and cooking?

Well this guy was a bit of an eccentric so I thought it’d think about it and get back to him.

Later that night, I got an order from the dining room that was a bit unusual. One of my very “soigné” (that’s kitchen talk for VIP) customers had come in with his young son who really wanted pizza. So knowing that we baked our own bread for dinner service, he asked the head waiter if that would be possible make a pizza. Of course the answer, as is now in our team building business, is always YES, then we figure it out later.

The young man only wanted a simple cheese pizza, nothing fancy, but a pizza none the less. Even though we baked bread and had a bread oven that the pizza could bake directly onto, we didn’t have a pizza peel (flat metal or wood platform with a handle to build the pizza directly onto and slide in and out of the oven). So I used instead a poster cardboard which worked quite well in a pinch.

Bottom line, our soigné customer was so impressed that he left the waiter and the kitchen a generous tip in appreciation for the extra effort and flexibility. Later, while I was sipping the beer that our kitchen tip bought, I thought back to my mentor’s secret to success, flexibility. I got it.

By the way, that wasn’t the end of the story, the very next day, that grateful customer booked his company’s holiday party, with a large deposit because of the extra consideration and flexibility that we showed.

It makes you think, what other success would an organization have if flexibility was adapted as a key value to follow?

When a Pinch is Not a Pinch!

PInch of Salt

I was sharing a 4^th of July summer salad recipe with a friend on Facebook and referred to a measurement as “a pinch” ,for one of the ingredients. Which brought up the question, “what exactly is a pinch”. Well I know what a pinch is to me, but I wanted to see what a pinch meant to other people. So I started asking that question to others.

“What’s a pinch?”

From such a seemingly easy question came a variety of answers. For some, it’s the amount a person can hold between their thumb, forefinger and middle finger, or for others, it’s the amount a person can quickly scoop with a thumb and forefinger or for one person, they mixed up the term pinch, and thought we meant a dash (we’ll leave that for another conversation ).

As confusing as this quest to discover what this measurement means, this illustrates what we do to each other all the time! We’re constantly sending out messages to each other and thinking that we “get” what you are saying to us! We’re a delusional society, running around shouting stuff that no one understands.!

Well maybe that’s a bit of exaggeration, but you see my point. We, well I mean I, assume I know what is being said, but I am always, always listening with my unique set of filters. And you will listen through your unique set of filters and the only way we can get a clearer view of what is really being communicated is through doing three simple things:

1. Being in a constant state of of awareness in both our speaking and especially in our listening. Get that we don’t get it!

2. Ask clarifying questions that allow you to get it (what exactly do you mean by a pinch?)

3. Listen from a place of “nothingness”. Leave the visor that we all wear, called filters, off and listen like it’s the first time we’ve ever heard this person speak. It’s magical what you’ll experience. It’s like pulling out a fresh sheet of blank white paper and allowing an artistic vision to transform that paper into a work of art.

So while we’re on the subject of a pinch, my meaning of this measurement is as follows, the amount that you can hold comfortably between your forefinger and thumb. Oh, and that’s not to be confused with a “smidgen” .

Can you think of times in your relationships, with people in you life, your sweetheart, your boss, your clients, that something was said that meant something else and how it affected that conversation?