I had a bunch of flight credits on United that were due to expire the first week of December. Checking on flights, I could either fly to Tampa for $800 a person or to Amsterdam for $750. Flying to Tampa for $800 a person? No thank you. So, I took my wife and 4-year-old twins to Amsterdam for Thanksgiving.
It was fun, pretty, and a great adventure, but that’s not the point of this story.
On a day trip to the city of Haarlem, we stopped at what many people say is the best fry stand in the Netherlands, Friet Kamer. Really cool corner shop. Great fries. Filled with pride.
The owner, who works the counter every day, loves his fries, loves his customers, and he loves his shop, which also happens to be his life. Day after day, he opens his store, prepares potatoes, makes the sauces, sweeps the floor, balances the books, and manages his team. For him, his life is perfect.
Earlier that week, I read an article about a guy who left his job as a tech company facility manager to run a typewriter repair shop. He found out about the shop by reading a different article about its owner — a 90-year-old guy who owned the shop since World War II and spent every day since fixing typewriters. Typewriters are finicky things with lots of parts and very fine tolerances to work without jamming. It takes a skilled hand to keep them running well. While most of us haven’t used a typewriter in 20 years, they still serve a function for people who prefer the analog. And somebody still needs to fix them.
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The old typewriter repairman had found a rhythm to life. One where he loved to work with his hands fixing one typewriter at a time and earning the gratitude of those he helped. He even slept in the shop! Work and life were in balance, because work and life were the same. And it was good.
The new typewriter repairman, even though he had a career that paid very well and had time to do whatever he wanted, felt unbalanced, unfulfilled, and drained. He wanted what the old repairman had for more than 70 years: A life in work with meaning in the small.
Over five years, he learned the trade, became proficient, and when the time came, took over the shop as age finally caught up with the original owner.
Back to the amazing fries and the point of this story.
The owner of Friet Kamer figured out how to be fulfilled through the simple act of frying sticks of potato very well. There is no pretense and no focus on grandeur or growth. Just a perfect fry that makes customers very, very happy.
The new typewriter repairman found a life that provided meaning through the repetitive act of fixing an old-world mechanical product. A life that cannot grow much beyond his own capacity to fix them. No pretense, no grandeur, no working on the business when working in the business remains so satisfying.
These two stories made me reflect on what it means to work. For my career, I have always chased what is next — the big challenge, the new opportunity. Rarely have I found the pure satisfaction of a job done well on repeat.
But maybe the best job is one where it and your life intertwine, with nary a space between. Where the goal is not to make the most money, or be the most successful, but to cook the crispiest French fry, repair a worn-out typewriter, or build the perfect rack.
Yes, this applies to our industry, too.
I know my partner, Matt Bernath, might kill me for saying this, but it is okay to love your work and not want to grow, hire extra people, or do anything other than the specific, satisfying work the job requires.
This work mode is not one where more time on the golf course is desired. It is not one where a second location will ever be opened. It is not one that results in becoming a millionaire.
The focus becomes perfecting a craft, where the customer receives a fantastic experience, and you go home every night knowing that you delivered the best possible service you can deliver, and nothing less.
To those that discover this Zen state of work, I am jealous. Chances are I will never get there — it’s just not my mentality. But as we enter the New Year, maybe take this time to reset your goals. Perhaps the goal is not more — money, projects, whatever — but less.
And you might just find that shooting for less is all you ever needed to be happy.
