In another life I will come back as a chef with a small restaurant in a little village with less than 10 seats inside and a quaint patio outside. Word of my talents will spread far and wide and people will come from the furthest corners of the earth to sit and sample and soak in the special little space we’ll create.
Until then, I’ll watch Chef’s Table on Netflix.
There are so many wonderful lessons for founders to take from the unique perspectives on food and business and creatively shared by the chefs the show profiles.
For even the most talented chefs, the business of starting and running a restaurant makes launching your website in your underwear look as simple as, well, launching a website in your underwear. Their stories of sacrifice, perseverance, overcoming obscurity and rising to fame are so well crafted in the course of 45 minutes. Someone could write a dozen posts just teasing our patterns for founders.
This is not one of those posts.
But, there has been one theme throughout the previous seasons that has stuck with me. And has given me a new way to frame the tired and tortured debate on work/life balance.
No one I know likes that term. No one I know with a family or a business or a personal life feels they’ve nailed that perfect “balance”.
That’s likely because balance among all those variables is an impossible goal.
But many of the chefs profiled have something about it figured out.
Not in the sense that they have struck the perfect balance of their family and their business and their obsession with food but that they marry them as a core part of the life they’re building.
In many cases, in the early days of their restaurants (and often later) they live above their stores.
Like, literally above it.
The restaurant is on the street level and they have an apartment above.
As the editors of the show take us back in the history of these famed restaurateurs you’ll often see photos of their partners, or spouses or children hauling in supplies, chopping produce or having a meal with them in the back office prior to service. You’ll see their living spaces, and the steps and stairs the constitute their commute. There isn’t some arbitrary separation between the work they’re doing and the people dearest to them. Their lives and efforts are intertwined. All invested in a shared vision, with proximity to see it take shape day in and day out.
As someone who’s a bit (read- a lot!) obsessive about the work I do, that metaphor, of living above the store, has given me a new visual framework for thinking how to incorporate my work and my family. Not with the goal of striking a perfect balance, but with blurring those distinct lines altogether.
And if I don’t figure it out in this life, I’ve always got that little restaurant in the next one to really nail it.