What’s the most valuable tool that you have? Is it your car? Your computer? Your smartphone? Your multi-tool?
I used to think that it was my hands. I mean, I use them hundreds of not thousands of times a day, everyday. And I can’t drive my car, use my computer or smartphone or hold my multi-tool (or any tool for that matter) without them. My entire career in food has been built on what I’ve been able to do with my hands.
“Chop those potatoes!”
“Reduce that stock!”
“Medium steak ready to plate in 5 minutes!”
All get done with my hands. My hands must be my most valuable tool right?
Wrong!!!
While a knife or a screwdriver is useless without a hand to use it and your hand is useless without a BRAIN to give it instructions. Your hands and mine are nothing more than organized masses of flesh and bone. They don’t DO anything until your brain tells them to. And if we go a little deeper, your brain is just a mass of nerves that fires electrical impulses. It’s also just a tool! Everything that makes anything useful at all comes from YOU! Your thoughts, your desires and your decisions. YOUR MIND. We can go on and on about the existential theories another time. The point is that your mind is truly your most valuable tool. I might go so far as to say that it’s really your only tool and that everything else is simply an extension of it. After all, I have to think of a recipe before my hands can pick up a knife, spatula, pan etc to make it happen.
Everything follows your mind!
The better shape that its in, the better everything else works. Have you tried to slice tomatoes with a dull knife? I have, it sucks and I have the scars to prove it! “Take care of your tools and they will take care of you.” I’m sure this has been said since the dawn of time because it’s absolutely true! The same is true with your mind and I’ll explain how you can take better care of yours.
Here are 5 essential ingredients that will keep your mind sharp and in great shape
- Get enough sleep! This is how your mind recharges. Do you leave the house with your phone battery at 10%? Let’s not be silly! I have seen many try work a shift on little to no sleep. Trust me, it’s always ugly and sometimes I can still smell the burnt food. You need to be well rested to meet the challenges that you will undoubtedly face. Make sure you get uninterrupted sleep for as long as you need. Everyone is different but you probably need less than you think.
- Feed your mind! Knowledge is power and your foundation for growth. The more you learn, the more powerful you become. Think of it like sharpening your knife before slicing those tomatoes. I suggest spending time reading or at least listening to an audio book every day. Videos are good too but I would also suggest that your time is most effective when you’re intentionally learning rather than being entertained. I personally like audio books because I can learn while I do other things like driving, cleaning or cooking. I also try to reserve at least 20 minutes every day just to sit and read.
- Remember your dream! We all have a dream for our ideal life. It’s our purpose and our one true motivation for everything. It’s why we get up in the morning and why we go to work. It’s why I can still smile after cleaning a smelly, filthy grease trap (Barf!) The dream gives us the strength and fortitude needed to do difficult things to achieve it. My own dream is one that gets me amped to start my day, kick ass and finish it strong. If your dream doesn’t get you all that excited to live your best life, I would suggest that you should dream a little bigger.
- Have a great attitude! This is a big one! I see attitude as your emotional operating system with the world around you. When you think about your problems, you feel a certain way about them and your actions reflect how you think and feel. Negative thoughts=Negative emotions=Negative action(s). I suggest having a strong and positive “can do” attitude where you are willing to take on any challenge that comes your way. Not only will difficult things not seem so difficult, but you’ll actually start to crave more difficult things to conquer! More content on attitude in later posts.
- Gratitude! By far the most powerful thing you can practice. We all have at least hundreds of things we are or should be grateful for in our lives. Although we have problems and we want more than we have, gratitude shifts your perception away from what we don’t have or don’t want. I suggest making a list either mentally (good), verbal (better), or written (best) of everything that you’re grateful for every morning and every night before bed. Try it and see how you feel. If you don’t feel worlds better about your life, add more to the list because you missed something.
If you practice these 5 things every day for a week, I expect that you will feel great and see an immediate and drastic change in your productivity and emotional stability. Instead of problems, you will perhaps start to see solutions. Instead of dreading your day, you might start looking for new ways to prove what a badass you are. You will push your limits and possibly discover that you, in fact, have no limits except those you have self imposed. Best of fortune to you all.
Helpful stuff
This is a great book to help start you on your way
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If you’re very serious about making a change in your life and your income, here’s is someone who has really helped me.
