Delivering Perspective

Wagyu beef, instant noodles, and a puzzle that's plagued me for years.

I was having a conversation with a friend the other day and he helped me resolve a puzzle that had been plaguing me for years (Professor, this one is for you).

Back in school, we occasionally had guest speakers in some of our classes.

My most recent memory of one was from university, but if I’m being honest, I can’t remember who they were and what they talked about. I only remember the class they came to. My 4th year Integrated Marketing Communications class.

Since graduating many years ago, I’ve had the honour of being a guest speaker in a few classes. Including Integrated Marketing Communications.

I recall being so excited to be a speaker. I felt as though I had gained some perspective since my days as a student and I was eager to share that. Especially to students in their last year of school (4th year). That was a particularly anxiety-ridden time for me, and I wanted so badly to share the type of thing that would have helped an older version of me to feel less anxious.

I was given a few different opportunities to speak, and each time, the perspective that I so wished to pass on, didn’t really make it across the channel. How do I know? Well, in the way that you just know things when you’ve done them.

Like the guest speakers I don’t remember as a student, I added my own face to the list.

The puzzle I was left with for years, was this: Can perspective truly be delivered by a giver or is it something that has to be earned by the receiver?

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Andy Hearnden is one of my favourite chefs. His YouTube channel Andy Cooks, is something I’m watching on a daily basis these days.

Andy has over 20 years of professional cooking experience. Sometimes, he cooks with ingredients and techniques that are far beyond my reach. For example, he uses wagyu beef a lot.

I’ve never eaten wagyu beef, nor am I in a position to frequently afford wagyu beef to cook with at home. Andy has probably eaten a lot of wagyu beef, and so he knows how good it is. Naturally, that’s why he uses it and talks about it. He has a perspective that I simply don’t have, yet.

The thing about perspective, is that once you have it, you see everything with it. It becomes easy to talk about. It gives you a new language. It’s easy to forget what life was like when you didn’t have it.

Unlike the wagyu beef videos, the videos of Andy’s that I love most, are the ones where he applies 20+ years of experience to something that costs less than $1.

Like instant noodles.

Here’s his 10-minute video on how to take simple instant noodles to a whole different level — well, five different levels actually, including a wagyu beef option.

Instant noodles are something I can understand. I speak the language of instant noodles because I buy them and cook with them all the time.

When Andy makes a 10-minute video on how to up your instant noodle game, he is delivering perspective in the right vehicle for me. Instant noodles are my vehicle. Wagyu beef is not.

All those guest speakers and I, we were wagyu-beefing it. I wonder if we should’ve been instant-noodling it instead.

That’s the puzzle my friend helped me solve.

He said that the onus for delivering perspective, is completely on the giver, not the receiver.

As the giver, you have to find the right vehicle for delivery.