Dad Knows Best: Rule #82
August 16, 2011
Rule #82: No one’s going to give you their rice bowl.
Once upon a time, I had aspirations of becoming a chef. No, not the pretentious stuffy kind (not with your dad’s credentials anyway), but one where people would visit me simply because my food was pretty frick’n awesome. And because I once believed that everyone in this world would be willing to teach me how to fish as opposed to giving me one , I asked a fellow restauranteur about her stock recipe. It seemed innocuous enough at the time, only because I thought to myself: “Hey, it’s just soup…right?”
Not really.
Apparently, it was that very stock that served as the basis for all of their other menu items. Even more intriguing, she said she didn’t even know the recipe. In fact, the cooks that she hired knew the recipe by heart, but never bothered to share it with the owners. Why? As she put it: “If they gave you their rice bowl, what are they going to eat out of?”
Makes sense.
If the cooks revealed all their secret recipes to the owners, they’d soon find themselves competing with illegal immigrants working for pennies on the dollar. That’s certainly no way to protect one’s livelihood, especially if stock-making is the one thing they knew how to do. It was either that, or my restauranteur friend was just being polite in her way of saying: “You’re insane if you think I’m going to give you the recipe!” Quite simply, if her workers weren’t going to give up their rice bowl, what could possibly compel my friend to give up hers?
Your eventual calling in life will be defined by your natural born ability, or sculpted skillfully with hard work and perseverance, or both. With the latter, you can achieve anything in this world that your heart desires, but it is with the former that will determine how quickly you’ll get there. Charity is an antiquated ideal that serves nothing more than a crutch for the lazy and extraordinarily hopeless (of which you are neither). When that day comes and you finally realize your true calling, don’t ever let anyone exploit it. Work hard to perfect it, and protect your hard earned wisdom with your life. The age-old adage of teaching a man to fish is does not consider the mind of your typical Chinese businessman: know that if you teach a Chinese businessman how to fish, not only will he empty out your lake with 10 of his cousins, but he’ll sell that same fish for 50% below market value. Ergo, you won’t be selling/eating fish for a while.
So if anyone asks you for a fish, you sell it to him. And if you’re feeling charitable and well-fed, give it to him. But by-God, don’t you dare teach him how to do it, especially not for free!
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