2024 Make it or Break It
A Year-to-date update on all of what I've been up to since January. A quick catchup for those of you who missed me and a roadmap for the plan going forward.
I’m a sucker for a good underdog story. I’ve watched every Rocky movie so many times I know the entire series line for line. Even Rocky 5. (If you know, you know)
In this critically panned installment of the franchise, the protagonist Rocky Balboa gives his new found pupil Tommy Gunn an inspirational speech about fear. To summarize, Rocky says that fear is a fighter’s best friend. Fear keeps you sharp. Fear makes you want to survive.
BUT, you have to control it. If you don’t, it burns everything up around you.
In 2024, I made the biggest move in my business and my culinary career as a whole. I am terrified.
In this post, I will tell you what I’ve been up to in the last few months, what my plans are for the rest of this year and why they terrify me.
Last year, I began to feel discontent.
At the time, I had been working in a retirement community for about 4 years while my kids were young. The hours and stability had been nice, but I began to feel stagnant. I started Baltimore Pizza Co. as a creative outlet, but I was still sliding into a funk. At times, I think I was just going through the motions.
In May 2023, I went to stage at a restaurant that was in need of banquet cooks on call. I figured it’d be a good opportunity to learn and maybe get me out of the funk.
After a couple months of working both jobs, I quit the retirement community in July with the plan of going all in - working in a restaurant again while kicking it up a notch with BPC. Well, more than a notch. A next step maybe? Level? Level works….
The next level.
I had my eyes on a small ghost kitchen near my house since mid-2020. An old Italian restaurant went out of business years ago. After unsuccessfully trying to sell their business, they auctioned off the building to a Bricklayer’s Union that wanted it for office and meeting space. The union was about to rip the kitchen out before their realtor convinced them some up and coming chef would rent it out as a ghost kitchen. I made contact with them in 2021, but ultimately lost a short bidding war. I told them to keep my number just in case.
So fall of 2023, I now had this new sense of urgency to make my dreams happen. I made contact once again with the landlord and we got a deal done.
In January 2024, I signed the lease.
I also made myself a promise for this year – in 2024 I’m going to either make it or break it with BPC. I would not allow myself an excuse to return to the discontent that led to my culinary funk. I had one foot in and one foot out of the business for too long.
I decided BPC must realize the potential I could always see or I will not do it anymore.
So I started cleaning…
I got the keys in January and I went to the Restaurant Store and loaded up on cleaner, scrub brushes and rags. This place wasn’t filthy, but it wasn’t where I wanted it. I scrubbed equipment, did dishes, and moved things around.
All the while, I was making plans and schedules and charts and calendars. I was almost in love with the planning. But for a daydreamer like me, it’s dangerous to sit back and plan too long. It takes up time you could spend doing.
That was a lesson I began learning over the next few months.
Life started life-ing…
March and April saw some challenges pop up.
Life at home was getting busier.
Life as a banquet cook began to pick up.
Life really started life-ing for me, my friends and my family.
One night, a friend asked me how BPC was going.
At that particular time, I was dealing with a fire suppression unit and an exhaust hood mechanical issue. I also described how every completed task seemed to unearth more tasks that needed done. This friend looked at me and said “Dude, is your life ‘The Bear?’
On the second season of the show, there are constant background shots and mini montages of their ever-growing schedules and to-do lists while re-launching their restaurant. I think this may have romanticized all the planning and strategizing. It also delayed a lot of the real work that needed done.
Truth be told, a lot of that over-planning and overthinking was really a manifestation of my fear. I’m getting close to the success I had been daydreaming of for so long, and I’m afraid.
Maybe if I take a little longer to get that task done, it will delay the moment I have to become “THAT guy.” The guy who wins the fight, who gets the girl, who holds the championship belt at the end of the movie.
So, as a sucker for one liners, I started to write a few of my own down in my journals and calendars:
Nothing works without the work.
Control the controllable.
Roll with the punches.
Get up ya bum!
Yo Adrian, I did it!
(You get the picture?)
“You gotta keep the main thing the main thing.” That’s been my motto lately in the month of May and it’s working. I’ve been planning less and doing more.
This Substack, which I actually planned to launch in March (ha!) is one of those plans. But here’s the big one:
Looking forward to this new endeavor!