You can hardly expect Jodi to go to Italy without bringing back some stories. In this episode of So Here’s My Story, we learn about what eating for pleasure might have to do with business, and why joy might be more important to the process than you might think.
Just as there is a difference between being full and being satisfied with a meal, there is a difference between increasing revenue and providing a service that satisfies you and your customers.
If the food we eat isn’t pleasurable, or if we don’t take the time to appreciate it, we can find ourselves at full in a search for satisfaction. In business, we are often chasing a feeling – maybe a feeling of satisfaction – that we want to have and finding ourselves at “full” instead. For lawyers, for instance, chasing billable hours to reach a feeling of success may seem like a worthwhile pursuit, but those billable hours tell us nothing about the quality of the work you delivered, or about client satisfaction.
Joy is delivered – in food and in business – when you focus on the entire production and ritual, not just the consumption. Satisfaction comes when we engage in the whole experience instead of just the result. A misplaced focus on quantity can threaten that satisfaction.
When we focus on chasing revenue and growth instead of enjoying the other aspects that we want our business to provide, we miss an opportunity for satisfaction. When we focus on fee structures instead of what pace you want to work, what kind of work you want to do, and how you want that work to feel, you can find yourself at that point of full, but not satisfied. Or we mistake full for satisfied and wonder why we don’t love our business.
There is an oft-repeated mantra that assumes that is not growing is dying. But if what you are doing isn’t satisfying, it is dangerous to assume the answer is more.