Some Foodie Friday mornings, I go out for breakfast to a local joint that’s well-known for hot dogs. Hot dog joints are a thing here in North Carolina. Fortunately, not being of the hot dog as breakfast persuasion, they also serve great eggs. Try the fried baloney too. It’s a thick slice tossed into a deep fryer until the outside is nicely charred. It’s enough sodium to raise your pressure 50 points and enough flavor to make you happy for the rest of the day.
One thing I noticed on several occasions was a number of folks eating cheeseburgers for breakfast. Yes, they had fries too and it was well before Noon. Before 10, in fact. Was this a southern thing as well? Why did I find it so strange? The more I thought about it the more I realized that there was nothing odd about it at all and, in fact, it was a good business reminder too.
Think about it. First of all, not everyone’s day runs from 7am – 11pm. Some folks, particularly in farm country where I live, begin before dawn and stop work long before dusk. 9:30am is lunchtime! It’s a reminder that whether they’re farmers or shift workers who got off work at 8, we can’t impose our worldview on everyone. As business folks, we need to be open to their situation and not how we want the world to be.
I was having scrambled eggs with cheese and a side of baloney. Grits, no toast. Broken down, that’s cheese covered protein with a fried slab of meat and some cooked grain on the side. A little hot sauce and that’s breakfast. But if the fried slab of meat is ground beef and the cheese covers that protein, we’re on the same page. The grain here is bread, not grits and the sauce is ketchup, not hot sauce. Potatoes can be french fries or home fries – does it really matter? The basic formula of protein and dairy, starches and grains is the same. We can’t get so hung up on how the “formula” manifests itself. We can’t insist that it’s my way or the highway.
I’m not going to start eating cheeseburgers for breakfast any time soon. I am, however, not going to look askance at those who do. As it turns out, both in the business world and the world at large, a little understanding and an openness to finding common ground goes a lot farther than trying to turn everyone to your point of view, don’t you think?
Consult Keith 