Business Is a Recipe, Not a Formula

I love cooking.

Cooking is equal parts creativity, science, strategy, SOPs, and a little ingenuity.

Sound familiar?

Anyone can follow a recipe.

But those variables are what make the recipe yours.

And even when two people follow the same exact recipe, the outcome can still be completely different.

Maybe your oven runs hot.

Maybe you’re allergic to an ingredient and have to replace it.

Maybe you’re like me and triple the amount of garlic because the recipe is clearly wrong.

And how the hell do you measure a pinch of salt anyway?

What does it even mean to “season to taste”?

Same recipe.

Different outcomes.

That’s business.

We all have access to the same guides, frameworks, and “best practices.”

Same tools.

Same playbooks.

Same advice floating around the internet.

But the results? Wildly different.

So I’ve been thinking about this question a lot lately:

What are the ingredients of my business?

What am I following closely?

What am I tweaking?

What am I intentionally ignoring?

Am I actually happy with the final product I’m serving…

…or am I just recreating a carbon copy of someone else’s recipe because I followed too many “must-have software” lists and “top 10 growth hacks”?

Recipes are helpful. Guidelines matter.

But real chefs don’t just follow instructions.

They taste.

They adjust.

They trust experience.

They make it their own.

Maybe business should work the same way.