My husband owns a restaurant where, in 7 minutes he takes a handmade ball of dough, spins it into an eighteen-inch thin crust, evenly spreads on a delicious sauce, thickly distributes the right amount of a mix of cheeses with added toppings, and slides that prize into a large convection oven which holds room for a total of 6 massive disks of joy.
He sets the timer for 6 minutes and expertly spins that half baked pie inside the hot oven after about 3 minutes for even crisping. When that bell rings, the large wooden paddle goes in and magic comes out. Letting the pizza set for one minute on the tray, expertly sliced, and out to the customers.
Hungry? Me, too.
Seems really fast, right?
Can you imagine producing something that is the heart and soul of your business in less than ten minutes?
Me, either.
The TRUTH is, the customers do not know the exhausting struggle of managing the business that allows the restaurant to continue to serve. The laws that have to be honored. The ever-changing regulations that must be adhered to on a daily basis. The amount of time to maintain the hundreds of ingredients needed for every item on the menu.
Remember that simple ball of dough? There are hundreds of hours that no one sees to get to that place. The 25-pound batches of dough that are ruined by missed timing on the yeast or fail due to the temperature of the water. The struggle is real.
What we must recognize is that the pizza that feeds your family is a proud final step of a lengthy and tedious project.
I produce feature films where our process is so long that sometimes the idea of delivering a delicious product to our customers seems like a pipe dream. We hear of many, many entrepreneurs in our field that get lost on the way. For them, maybe the waiting is just too damn hard.
Like other successful soldiers on the hard-fought creative battlefield, I find it easier to set milestones to celebrate on the way to the premiere.
And I CELEBRATE these achievements! My LinkedIn photo is a selfie of us with a bloody, severed hand (you’ll have to read the book for details on this!) on the day we finished the first manuscript for the first YA Thriller in our original MY GOLDEN BLOOD series, Crossing to Existence.
I allow myself to FULLY appreciate the moment where we move on to the next goal. Permission to get emotional, feel the pride of achievement, revel in the steps that it took to get here and recognize the incredible gratitude for all of the help and support that propelled my partner and me to reach this place.
Then, using the fuel created by that achievement, we launch forward for the next long haul.
Choosing a satisfying career is not only about our skills and aptitudes, it is about our level of patience and persistence.
My husband is extremely good at what he does, although he feels that almost every pizza or catered event he produces could be better. It’s a good thing he has another chance for perfection in 7 minutes.
Our milestones propel me forward with such velocity that I don’t dwell on the little missteps in our past knowing that the lessons learned will make us better filmmaking entrepreneurs for the future.
Eating pizza while watching a movie is a great combo and for our shared market, these different life cycles of business — which dovetail into a wonderful evening — are a very, very good thing.
“Choosing a satisfying career is not only about our skills and aptitudes, it is about our level of patience and persistence.” BOOM! The Olympic judges just gave you a “10.” We are the “let me see the results NOW people” – and I was often one of the perpetrators. I am a recovering “now” addict.
Please reserve a seat for me on your couch, Wendy. I’ll take a slice of sausage and another one of your profound pieces of wisdom.
Jeff, you are exceedingly kind. You have a permanent place on our couch, Jeff. Oh, and all the pizza you can eat.