I refuse to do what I love most

“I read recipes the same way I read science fiction. I get to the end and say to myself "well, that's not going to happen”
― Rita Rudner

I'm huge on telling people to do what they love as their career.  I'm constantly coaching and trying to find opportunities for people to follow their dreams.  I advise jaded workers to find a passion project that they can put time toward, because it will bring them a balanced happiness and can transfer positivity and opportunity into their every-day career.  

But here's a secret: I do not do what I love most as a career.

Am I a hypocrite?  

Or am I on to something?

My second year living away from home while attending college, I received a phone call from my mom.  She told me that I should just move home and she'd help me start a catering company.  There you have it: I LOVE to cook.  I quickly shot that idea down and kept working toward my degree, which at that point was probably pre-law, or entomology, or communications.  The truth was, I wasn't interested in giving up my future as a lawyer who wrote press releases about her newest insect discovery, or whatever I was working to be.  I didn't know what I wanted to be, but I knew what I didn't want to be.

http://www.fastcompany.com/1751577/redesigning-food-trucks

Catering might have been a good fit for me as a career.  I've "catered" many a dinner party, large event, and even wedding for family and friends.  But to cook for strangers, to have to take classes on the proper use of the proper utensil and how to properly julienne and chop and dice... that didn't interest me.  I don't follow recipes, so most things I make aren't able to be reproduced.  My understanding of cooking comes from an innate understanding of portions and proportions.  I know what ratios to make whatever bread or pasta or soup or anything.  But as a career?  It didn't work in my mind, unless I could operate a food truck.  And then only maybe.

I enjoy cooking.  I make, mostly from scratch, about 10 meals a week.  I don't buy pre-packaged foods; I buy produce and meat and staple items and combine them to make whatever I want.  I get inspiration from cookbooks, but use the recipe as a guideline, barely.  I recreate foods I have in restaurants.  I make most of my creations by looking at a picture of pleasant-looking food and guessing. 

That is not how you operate a business.

I have a feeling that being a chef or caterer or anything relating to food would make me hate cooking.  I spent time as a teen working in fast food, and helped open a restaurant early in my career, but to actually devote my life's work to cooking just feels wrong.  It feels suffocating.  It feels uninspired.  I flirt with the line between cooking being a passion and work with one of my developing companies, but it's less cooking and more recipe development.  That's not cooking to me.

I do what I love every day.  I help businesses succeed.  I teach people how to operate their business and turn their dreams into profit.  And in doing that, I achieve my dreams and have success.  

I save my top passion for me. 

 I keep cooking as what I do for my family, or for my creativity, or for my relaxation.  And everyone should have something that they do, aside from work, that is just for that purpose.

So no, I'm not a hypocrite.  I truly believe that each of us need something that we love more than our job.  Something different from our families and relationships.  Something that is just ours.  And sure, we can share it with others, but they don't have to like it.  They won't always.   And that's okay, because it's just for you.

Nicole
The Restless Entrepreneur