This splits opinion, but is a great analogy, and i don’t even eat them but i hear a ton of gripes on the subject.
It’s about restaurants and why many (if not most) serve frozen chips. They say it’s easier and cheaper than making them in the restaurant, and people “seem to like them”, even if they are often nutritionally deficient and being “partially” cooked, then heated up and doesn’t make them the best alternative for your health.
Some even more upmarket ones settle for this route.
I counter with “If you were trying to spoil your girlfriend/wife with a special meal, and she happened to go down the shop and get a bag of frozen chips, wouldn’t that be a lack of effort? Wouldn’t she be offended?”
So when you go to a restaurant, you expect a bit better? It’s a question they can’t really answer.
The restaurant counters “Well it’s more convenient and it’s “cost-effective”! The conversation often ends like this, more or less i get shouted down and i know not to push it further.
Using these examples, there is no “art” in cooking anymore for some business owners, there is a lack of ambition and to me sets a clear difference between them and the more successful restaurants who have been around for much longer, who still consider what they do as very much artistic, and are desperate to create great tasting and fresher food.
As a gym, i desperately didn’t want become a gym who’s main aim was to sign you up to a 12 month contract, show you around once, and hope you never show up again. I knew this was/is wrong. This wasn’t art, and would explain why many of them don’t last in the fitness business.
The art of training is treating everyone as an individual, dealing with their limitations, recognising their weaknesses, and nurturing them until they become the strong force they were always meant to become.
Using art as a description is right because the thrill of developing something out of nothing is the biggest adrenalin shot you will ever get, and for the person you train who becomes great once they realise they can achieve great things and develops self-belief, perhaps for the first time in years.
Whatever you do, creating “art” is within all of us and we must keep putting it out every day for as long as can to keep our passion alive.
This strategy creates a much better experience for those using it, helps your work create a much better impact, and stops us settling for the “easy way out”, which often make us lose our creativeness, purpose and excitement for what we do.
