What Cooking Has Taught Me About Life, Creativity, and Mastery

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The process of making food taught this expert to be mindful, embrace creativity, and push for mastery. Food is the most fundamental of needs for our survival and almost every major event in our lives revolves around it.

Like many, I was introduced to cooking when I started college at 17 — to survive. Since then I have traveled many miles, experienced many cuisines, and cooked many meals.

Along the way I have learned a few things about food, the process of cooking, and the impact it makes on our mind, body, and soul during good times and bad times. Food is the most fundamental of needs for our survival and almost every major event in our lives revolves around it.

It plays a vital role in the development of social interactions and social relationships. I find food to be sacred and the process of making food to be awakening and insightful. Although I am not professionally trained, cooking has become a joyful passion.

The process of making food has taught me to be mindful, embrace creativity, and push for mastery. Below are a few lessons that might make you think differently the next time you enter your kitchen.

RITUALISTIC COOKING CAN ENHANCE MINDFULNESS

Along with billions of others around the globe, I suffer from the daily grind of life. My affinity with mindful living is not grounded in any kind of scientific research — rather from constant self-analysis. I have found cooking is a means towards that journey of mindfulness. It’s been said that the only two jobs of a Zen monk that are more important than sitting zazen (meditation) are cooking and cleaning. Cooking is a great way to practice mindfulness.

Mindfulness is a state of active, open attention to the present. It simply means living in the moment and awakening to experience. And it takes practice to be mindful. I have found that when I ritualistically cook on a regular basis it enhances my ability to be mindful about everything else I do.

In the 13th century, Japanese Zen master Dogen wrote “Instructions for the Tenzo,” or head cook. In examining the manners and methods of preparing a meal at the Monastery, he reveals how to “cook” — or refine — your whole life. In one such instruction, he says “When you boil rice, know that the water is your own life.” How do we cultivate the mind that cares as deeply for an ordinary thing, like water, as it cares for our very own life? Sounds simple — but it’s actually pretty hard — go ahead and try it. It comes from putting our entire mind into those simple tasks, concentrating deeply, and doing them intentionally and completely. And when we are mindful, it allows us to better connect with the:

• Past — What we have completed
• Present — The task at hand
• Future — How our task at hand moves us forward

I believe, if we consciously think about the ingredients we choose, their preparation, the way we cook and the way we eat, it can contribute towards the development of mindfulness.

CONSCIOUS OPENNESS IS AT THE HEART OF ANY CREATIVE PROCESS

I don’t ever follow a recipe for my cooking. I like to experiment, mix and match, and “design” my meals. I make my decisions based on availability, my eating companions, and the hour of the day.

Over the years this awareness (during cooking) of resource, audience, and need helped me hone how I think. When I started cooking at the age of 17, just like life, I was unsure of the kitchen. Now I try to “create” my food with confidence. It is entirely natural for me to mix Japanese mirin with Indian turmeric and Mexican chilies.

In 2006, chefs Ferran Adria of El Bulli, Heston Blumenthal of The Fat Duck, Thomas Keller of French Laundry and Per Se, and the writer Harold McGee put forward what they termed “the international agenda for great cooking,” and while its focus is food, it could well serve as a manifesto for anyone who is in the business of creativity:

“We believe that today and in the future, a commitment to excellence requires openness to all resources that can help us give pleasure and meaning to people through the medium of food. In the past, cooks and their dishes were constrained by many factors: the limited availability of ingredients and ways of transforming them, limited understanding of cooking processes, and the necessarily narrow definitions and expectations embodied in local tradition. Today there are many fewer constraints, and tremendous potential for the progress of our craft. We can choose from the entire planet’s ingredients, cooking methods, and traditions, and draw on all of human knowledge, to explore what it is possible to do with food and the experience of eating.”

Just like making music or poetry, cooking requires understanding interconnectedness and harmonies. Anyone can mix and match two random sets of ingredients together, but not everyone can cook. Understanding the relationships between the ingredients and their interactions is crucial to creating a successful dish. This conscious openness is precisely what is at the heart of any creative process regardless of what we do and the medium we use.

MASTERY COMES FROM ENTHUSIASTIC AND DEVOTED PRACTICE

Most mornings I prepare my son a balanced breakfast and a lunch pack between 6 a.m. and 6:15 a.m.

I have about 15 min to cook eggs, toast bread, chop fruit, make a sandwich, etc. Not much time, right? Actually, it’s plenty. It comes from skills, practice, confidence, and organization. It begins with breaking down the process into mini goals:

• I first decide what I want to cook based on what’s available
• I do all the prep work needed to create the meal
• I start cooking based on the cooking time and how I will serve the meal

Along with clear thinking, being productive requires skills. And mastery comes from enthusiastic and repeated, devoted practice. In the video clip below from the movie Julie & Julia, Julia Child demonstrates what 100 pounds of onions and deliberate practice can achieve. She began with one onion and continued to use deliberate practice to master one skill at a time until she became known as the best teacher in French cooking.

I have come to believe that whether we like to cook or not, these same principles apply to just about anything else we undertake. It’s about the awareness we experience, the devotion we apply, and as a result, how we create.

Happy cooking — whatever you may be cooking up!

Published @BusinessInsider, @HuffingtonPost, and @FastCompany.

Also published on Common Ground Magazine.

Copyright © 2017 by Faisal Hoque. All rights reserved.

I am an entrepreneur and author. Founder of SHADOKA and other companies. Shadoka enables aspirations to lead, innovate, and transform. Shadoka’s accelerators and solutions bring together the management frameworks, digital platforms, and thought leadership to enable innovation, transformation, entrepreneurship, growth and social impact.

Author of “Everything Connects — How to Transform and Lead in the Age of Creativity, Innovation and Sustainability” (McGraw Hill) and “Survive to Thrive: 27 Practices of Resilient Entrepreneurs, Innovators, and Leaders” (Motivational Press). Follow me on Twitter Faisal Hoque. Use the Everything Connects leadership app and Suvvive to Thrive resiliancy app for free.