Growth = Messy beginnings -> small adjustments -> long waits -> repeated effort
Last night, after an exceptionally productive Sunday, I decided it would be a great idea to bake enough sourdough to carry us through the next couple weeks. Maybe not the best timing, but our upcoming schedule is insane and our future deserves carbs.
If you've ever made sourdough, you know the rhythm. Mix the dough -> wait -> do your slap-and-folds -> wait again -> repeat ever 20-30 minutes like some sort of flour-covered Groundhog Day.
Somewhere around fold number three, it hit me. Sourdough is basically a masterclass in how growth happens.
I'm talking the messy, sticky, fall apart in your hands version of growth.
When you start a loaf of sourdough, the dough looks like complete chaos. It's shaggy, disconnected, and it feels a little insulting after all the effort you've put in up to that point. Every time I stare at the bowl of flakey nonsense, I worry I did something wrong.
Sound familiar?
Starting a business feels the same way. So does launching a new project, changing careers, building something from scratch, and a million other things that are also completely worth the effort.
At first, it's nothing more than a pile of pieces you HOPE eventually become something cohesive. The secret ingredients are patience and consistency. I have consistency down...it's one of my superpowers. However, patience is not one of my virtues.
Every 25 minutes I come back, stretch, fold, work the dough...and nothing dramatic happens. Then...little by little, it all starts coming together. The dough tightens and smooths out...becoming more pliable with every turn.
The lesson here is progress doesn't arrive with fireworks. Instead, it shows up quietly, over time, between the intervals.
You do the work, give the process time to do its work, then come back and do it all again...and again...and again.
Eventually you step back and realize the dough has transformed into this smooth, elastic, cooperative ball that actually resembles something that will soon be delicious.
It didn't happen all at once. It happened because of repetition.
Know what? That is the same unsexy formula behind most real growth. Business growth, career pivots, skill-building, even the slightly obsessive hobby of baking sourdough bread...all require repetition.
Consistency compounds. Every cycle gives you a better starting point than the last.
Then...just when everything feels perfectly dialed in - the dough is finally perfect -> the fermentation is happening -> the loaf shapes like a dream -> you bake it -> and it's delicious...and then you start all over again with the next batch. 😐
Growth = Messy beginnings -> small adjustments -> long waits -> repeated effort
If you stick to the process, you'll end up with something truly amazing and totally worth it.
Also...bread. Let's be honest, bread makes all the hard things in life far more bearable.
