The lie of mise-en-place
I love the phrase “mise-en-place,” which is common to professional kitchens and translates to “everything in its place”. The phrase appeals to my inner neat freak.
In restaurants, chefs arrive hours prior to service starting to prepare for the evening ahead. These are the unseen and unsung aspects that make a restaurant successful.
We had a Zander Media video shoot at our film studio in Berkeley last week, and had a luxurious four hours to set up before the clients arrived on set! As a result, it was among the best lit shoots we’ve ever done.
Mis-en-place in a restaurant means arriving hours ahead of time to prepare your ingredients and workspace. Mis-en-place in my video business means keeping our gear closet clean, our batteries charged, and knowing what we need to film long before the actual day.
Preparation matters, but it is only as part of the equation.
Change is coming
In November 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT. At the company’s internal meeting that morning, they discussed that it would be a silent launch, and that “no significant impact on sales” was expected, since the “audience is mostly researchers.”
They couldn’t have been more wrong.
In the thirty months since, we’ve seen a complete transformation of the technology industry. There have been macroeconomic swings – seesawing markets and mass layoffs. The biggest tech companies are pouring billions of dollars into AI, while also laying off thousands of workers.
AI has changed how we work. But the emergence of AI drives home the broader lesson that any organization or industry can be shaken up at any moment.
If entire industries can shift overnight, the real skill isn’t external preparation. It’s learning to stay clear-headed when everything falls apart.
Operating amidst chaos
The premise of Responsive.org is that the world is changing more rapidly than we have ever seen before in human history. This wasn’t an accepted fact when the manifesto was written a decade ago. But today, especially because of the acceleration brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, we take this acceleration for granted.
The lifespan of the most successful companies in the world has plummeted over the last three decades. Companies on the S&P 500 are expected to remain in the index for an average of fifteen years, compared to sixty-one years in 1958. The only companies that survive are those that adapt quickly to change.
The world we are living in is chaotic. It is no longer the case that the unexpected might happen. It can, and probably will, happen at any moment.
Mise-en-place is important. Preparation does matter. But at least as important is the ability to regulate your own response.
The Serenity Well habit
When my good friend was preparing for the birth of his first child, I asked him what he was doing to prepare. He said that while his wife was reading all of the baby books she could find, he was “digging his serenity well deeper.”
Financial stability, strong relationships, and physical health all matter. But none of them directly solves your uncertainty and stress.
What I call the Serenity Well habit – cultivating internal well-being and calm – is your best buttress against chaos. Here are three practices that can help:
Daily discomfort – Train yourself to handle chaos by introducing small stressors, or eustress. Cold exposure, fasting, intense workouts, public speaking — lean into discomfort.
Reset rituals – Build a system that keeps you grounded. This could be meditation, journaling, a morning routine, or a hot bath before bed.
Contingency planning – How do you want to respond when you're overwhelmed? Decide in advance how you want to handle stress: a breathing exercise, a workout, stepping away.
The world isn’t going to get calmer. It is time to start digging your serenity well.
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3 things I’ve loved this week
Quote: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.” -Mike Tyson
I just discovered the rest of this quote, which I think is telling: “Then, like a rat, they stop in fear and freeze.”
I like Hormozi’s philosophy that business is a series of hurdles that get progressively more difficult. That’s been my experience: when I level up in my business, the next challenge is more difficult than the last.
As a society, we don’t know what to do with grief. We don’t have many rituals around grief and the generic “Let me know if I can do anything to support” is worse than useless.
I recently started reading It’s ok that you’re not ok, which is written by a psycho-therapist who experienced her own loss and then made a study of grief. This is the book I’m going to start gifting to anyone who’s grieving or wants to support someone who is.
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Share Snafu - If you're enjoying Snafu, it would mean the world to me if you would share it with one person who you think would like it. What friend, co-worker, or family member comes to mind? Forward this along!
Books by Robin - I've published two books - so far! If you’re interested in learning to do a handstand, check out How to Do a Handstand. If you’re building a company or want to improve your company’s culture, read Responsive: What It Takes to Create a Thriving Organization.
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Until next week,
Robin
