After You Mastered the Basics – Then Work of Art (post by Kirk Weisler)

My family and I are fans of the show “MasterChef” where home cooks compete in a series of high pressure elimination cook offs until finally the last one still cooking in the kitchen is crowned “Master Chef”.

So far I think we have watched 4 complete seasons.  I have noticed that each season it seems that at least 2 and sometimes more contestants are eliminated not because they couldn’t cook but because they were trying so hard to show case some of their specialty skills that they forgot to focus first on the basics.

An example would be a cake that was decorated to the hilt and looked like an easy win when compared to the competition. Except for one small thing.   The wannabe Chef was so excited to showcase their decorating skills that they lost focus on the fundamentals of just baking a good cake.  In the case I just watched they used salt instead of sugar.   If they had just once sampled their batter they might still have had time to catch and correct this mistake.   But even this fundamental taste your creation step was dismissed as seemingly to novice for them.

When Master Chef judge and Gordon Ramsey tasted the cake … it was over. No amount of frosting, and pretty presentation can change salt into sugar. Likewise no amount of excuses, blaming others or good intentions can make up for lack of our own mastering the fundamentals.

As I was looking for a good cake picture for the blog post I came across this one.  It wasn’t from the MasterChef show but it is another good example.  Spelling might not seem like a needed fundamental skill for cake decorating…but hey?

However, After we have mastered the basics and are foolproof with the fundamentals we can and indeed we should begin to add to the mix our very own unique talents and innovative spirit. This is where we truly get to turn mere work into a work of art and sign it with our signature moves.

The following video can serve as a wonderful illustration of this principle. In it we see a man doing some pretty amazing moves on a treadmill. The question we might ask ourselves or our teams as we watch the video is this…. “Do you think this is his first time on the treadmill?” Or “How many hours do you think this person spent mastering the basics of this treadmill before he began to turn his work out into a workout of art?”