How many pies have you made?

Child Marc

As I was growing up, there were two things I hated: Discipline and Anything I wasn't immediately good at. I was an innovator, flexible, and wanted to change every day without any restriction or even acknowledgement of the past. I called anyone who had discipline dull and boring and I called anything I wasn't good at immediately silly and not worth my time. What a crock!

Looking back I can see it was fear holding me back from trying things that were outside of my natural comfort zone. Fear of failure and fear of not being good enough. Fear of committing to the disciplines of learning something and then not being good at it. It was better (or at least easier) to never try them in the first place. Behind my cockiness as I talked down to those around me, I was cowering in fear - a tiny little boy in a grown up body. Know anyone like that in your life?

Behind my cockiness as I talked down to those around me, I was cowering in fear - a tiny little boy in a grown up body.

What does this have to do with Baking Pies?

Everything. You see, I decided early in my life that baking was not for me. It required measuring, timing, weighing, sifting, checking, waiting, and patience. In summary it required discipline AND dealing with inevitable failure when you didn't get every variable just right. Child Marc was incapable of all of these traits, but what about the adult version of Marc?

Adult Marc

As an adult, I have the honor of serving as the President of Cambridge Air Solutions where there are approximately 160 families represented by the employees. The culture is known throughout the world for employee engagement and a courageous culture and the use of Video to share the story. I am paid to speak publicly about daily disciplines and overcoming fears as part of building this type of culture. I have paid executive coaches for the past nearly 20 years who have helped me overcome many of my fears of failure and helped me get Unstuck so many times it's silly. I write on courage and building a courageous culture. People have come from all over the world in person and now virtually to Tour Cambridge, and see our morning meeting where they experience first hand what Courage looks like as employees step out of their comfort zone and try new things every day. All this, AND YET, "I was still scared of baking". It was in my "Never Try Because You Might Fail" category.

It was in my "Never Try Because You Might Fail" category.

Onto Pies

So during COVID, I was watching more TV than normal with my wife and she asked if we could watch a cooking show on baking Croissants because she wanted to bake them together. I remember starting to get anxious just watching. They were measuring, sifting, folding, kneading, rolling, freezing, thawing, waiting, folding, kneading, rolling, folding, rolling and there was something about molding 1000 layers of butter into it and then baking. IT LOOKED AWESOME AND IMPOSSIBLE AT THE SAME TIME. I felt an uneasiness in my belly that made me want to throw up or run away. I told my wife, I'm scared. She knew she had me at those words because she could just parrot back what I had said many times when someone was scared of doing something. "If you're scared, maybe you should try it and see if you can overcome your fears. Wouldn't that be growth? Wouldn't that be Courageously Uncomfortable for you? Isn't that what you encourage others to do?" (emphasis added).

She was right of course. I would grow. I would learn. I would encourage anyone facing this to step out of their comfort zone and bake.

I figured out quickly that I hadn't successfully baked anything in my life from scratch. Nada. Croissants were in the top tier of difficulty - like the very top. I thought, what could I step into and try and learn and experiment and get better at that would help me get to the point where some day I could make a croissant and at least, I could overcome my fear of failure. ENTER PIE! I could try pie. Real pie. Make the crust, make the filling, and bake the pie. Much easier than Croissants, but still way above my current level and outside my comfort zone. With my husband badge at stake, I courageously declared, "I'm going to make 10 pies and see if the 10th one is edible." Melanie said, "why don't you start with one honey?" She doesn't understand. If I bake one pie, I have about a 90% chance of failure. But if I bake 10 the chances of making a good one go up tremendously.

What happened?

I can tell you that we ate every one of the 10 pies but a few of them would be considered Failures. After each pie, I would ask my sons and wife and anyone who ate them to rate the crust, the filling and the overall appearance. Then I would ask them for recommendations for anything they would like to see me experiment with in the future to improve the scores. I tried all butter crusts, all crisco crusts, and half butter/half crisco crusts (the winner). I tried Apple, Blueberry, Fig, Italian Plum, Cress, Custard, and Strawberry-Rhubarb (the winner). Some were flaky, some were chewy, some were too sweet, some not sweet enough, some were too runny, and others too dry. The point is that I learned from every one of them. All of them! The picture above is a strawberry-rhubarb all butter crust with a lattice top. It was attempt number 6 and it received an 8, 10, 10 rating from the crowd. I measured with a scale. I learned from the best chefs on YouTube and Craftsy. I practiced and I got better. I'm no longer scared of baking pies. Still haven't baked croissants, but I'm a whole heck of a lot closer and I did learn and I did grow.

Key take aways:

1. You may have some things from childhood in the "Never Try Because You Might Fail" category. I did, and probably still do. What is in this category for you?
2. Stepping out of my comfort zone intentionally is a process where I am in a great position to learn and grow from. When is the last time you tried something that scared you a little?
3. If you try something new, commit to trying it more than once and I'd recommend at least 10 times and expect some of them to be big bold failures. Learn from each one of them and ask others for how they would recommend improving. What in your life could you use the 10 pie rule to get over the starting line for and decrease the likelihood and risk of failure?

I'd love to hear your story as we Share, Learn and Grow together (little plug for AME there for all of you Continuous Improvement geeks).

Marc