Why Acting Like a 3 Year Old Has Been a Key To My Success
First of all, everyone defines success differently. To me, it means meeting and/or beating ones goals. Whatever those may be. I say I am successful because though life may look a little different today than I imagined it would fifteen years ago, the key components are all in place. Back then, I wanted to be retired and relaxing on a beach somewhere. Nowadays I realize that retirement would be boring! But, I will spend the next three weeks exploring the beaches of southern Mexico while I am “working”. I’m still on my own schedule and I get to decide where I work from, which are the two things that ultimately make me happy.
Now with that out of the way… What the hell am I talking about acting like a 3 year old? No, I don’t throw fits in grocery store nor do I get mad when someone takes my toys. But to this day, just as I started to do oh so many years ago, I still ask “why?”.
It started out innocently enough
I’m sure I had no clue of the reason, and I am positive my parents were ready to pull their hair out at times. “Why mom?”, “But why dad?”, were constantly heard from my lips. After a stream of answers my dad would shut me up for a few minutes with the retort “it just is”… Until I would ask “but who decided it was good enough?” or the like.
A mind in constant curiosity is one without much rest. When every new thing presented to you brings about a series of questions, your mind never stops searching for answers. Sometimes that means I am distant around friends or seemingly daydreaming at the wrong times. It also means that I am always looking for a better way to do things.
A better way
Always asking why at a young age led me to seeking a better way. Plain and simple, this one trait of mine is the key to me being where I am today. Never settling for the status quo, always bucking the trend, constantly questioning the rules. I realized long ago that I enjoy regular and mostly controlled change in nearly every part of my life. I’d rather get done with what I know will happen so I can move on to the new stuff.
Back in school this was a self defeating behavior. Schools, and more specifically teachers, generally don’t like students that constantly ask why. I would get an assignment and ask the teacher why we were to learn this piece of whatever, then promptly throw it away if they couldn’t answer. On one hand I was ahead of the curve as it’s generally later in life that you learn to work efficiently and get rid of the fluff. On the other hand, I was behind the curve as I didn’t really know why I was asking why, just that it gave me an excuse to skip the work. In the end, I never graduated high school. I even flunked out of my culinary program! Yet I have made a career out of being a chef and businessman…
So here you have a know-it-all sixteen year old kid asking his teacher “Why are we reading Catcher in the Rye?”. To which Mrs. Rende gave what must have been a good enough answer for me to read the book. Sort of… In the sake of efficiency I read the first and last chapters. Then the first and last paragraphs of each chapter in between. This gave me enough fodder to ask educated questions during class that would have the teacher explaining what she wanted us to learn, which ultimately ends up on the tests… twenty some years later my experience says that I should have asked “Why do we need to read the whole book if all we need is a handful of answers?”.
Then came college years where I felt as if I should go the path that everyone seemed to agree was the best. (Yes, even without a high school diploma you can get into college. Again- “why?”) I started out with an introduction to business class, in which the instructor kept me after class one day to ask me why I was there. Long story short, I passed with an A and never went back!
Not always better, but always different
This attitude of curiosity leads me to always take a new path. If for nothing more than the sake of trying, seeking out reasons for why we do things means trying different things to see what works best. In building a catering company that I ended up selling last year, I didn’t go the “normal” route of marketing or selling customers. Today I am known as a chef, yet I haven’t cooked in a professional kitchen for a year or so. When people ask me what I do for a living I like to say “whatever I want”. It always gets a sideways look, to which I sometimes follow up with “Do I have to pick one thing?”.
As a chef I was always trying to find a new way. Though I respect tradition, we don’t need to make the same dish the same way for generations. To me that’s the exact opposite of the creativity a chef embodies! As I research food, I always go back to wondering why it is made the way it is to start with. This often leads to long days studying the history of a culture or ingredients, only to turn that into my own version anyway.
This all leads me to writing this from a cafe in Coyoácan, Mexico and realizing that to this day I still cannot make it through breakfast without wondering why. The restaurant I am eating in is busy with English speakers in a generally non touristy part of Mexico City. Why? How did they find El Beneficio de la Duda in Coyoácan? Why did the guy next to me move his seat to box me into a corner? Why do the same owners have a cafe two doors down hat sells the same menu? Why am I more concerned with these questions than finishing this post?
Ok, back to it…
If anything, acting like a kid gives you the excuse to just go ahead and do it. Asking why gives you the excuse to explore, without the inhibitions that come with adulthood.
Every human has their own level of comfort in change. Some folks love routines, they find peace in knowing what the day will bring and they happily live their life knowing that the boat was always stable. Then there are people, like me, that wake up in the morning excited for something new. And hopefully I will die happy knowing that I never stopped searching.
Asking why leads to looking at things differently. Looking for a new way to do the same thing. Always searching. Always innovating. Always questioning the norm. It’s a way to open your mind a bit to the possibility of change. These are the same traits that have made humble men world leaders and college drop outs billionaires. And though I am neither of those, it has allowed me to live a life where my biggest tasks for the day are done by noon and my next big question is how long I should stay at each beach over the next few weeks…
But why?
Good question! Hopefully you’ll see that constantly asking why can lead to some fun and interesting stories in your life. Maybe you’ll get a laugh out of the thought of me throwing a tantrum in a grocery store. Or maybe I just write these thought pieces to explore my own mind a bit more and find therapy in sharing. My why doesn’t have to be your why. But at least we are both asking the question.
If you find yourself constantly frustrated by the same old thing, maybe asking yourself why and finding the interest to look at new ways will bring about a change for the better. Just because your parents made a life out of consistency, or society telling you that going to college and getting a career are the way to live doesn’t mean that’s your only choice. Ask why, and find your own answers!
I’m Clint Jolly. A chef, food explorer, entrepreneur, constant thinker, traveler and vagabonding traveler. Sometimes I share food based stories, research, recipes and the like on my blog. My writings here are more personal and business based. Thanks for following along!
