The Salt in the Dish
“I am just the salt in the dish.”
Given salt’s low position on the totem pole of food preparation, this is a statement of humility. It is a statement of humility downplaying our own importance in any process out of deference to the larger mission or some greater good. It can be loosely translated as, “It’s not about me” or less succinctly as, “It’s not about me. I am involved in the process, and I help the process to run more smoothly, more efficiently, or make it better in some other way. But, ultimately, the mission is more important than any of my individual desires.”
This statement is easy to preach, but hard to live by. No matter how much we know “it’s not about us,” it still somehow feels about us. We are the protagonists in the narratives of our lives. We are the center of our own world constructs, and no matter how hard we try, we end up relating everything we observe and do back to us.
As an example, I recently facilitated a workshop with the goal of helping participants understand their personality types in order to build trust, self-awareness, and compassion among the group. In preparing for the workshop, I tried to repeat the mantra, “I am just the salt in the dish.” (hat tip Rasanath and Hari Prasada for introducing me to the power of this phrase in 2016 and to the spiritual teachers who passed it down to them). I had conviction that the workshop would make a real difference in the lives of the people who would be attending, so it should have been all about them. But as I prepared, it didn’t feel about them. I felt such intense pressure to deliver the perfect workshop that the purity and value of the work became secondary. My preparation, therefore, was less about how I could best serve the needs of the participants, and more about how I could deliver a shiny performance. And it was stressful. Because whenever a thought crept into my mind about how I could possibly slip up or how I might forget to mention a certain concept in a pre-scripted way, I got hit with a wave of anxiety. Instead of keeping the big picture in mind and feeling excited and grateful for the opportunity to positively affect the lives of people that I care about, I worried about what everyone would think of me. I shamefully concede that it became “all about me.”
One of the tricky things about this is that there is some truth that our desire for validation can motivate us to work harder, which can translate into a better experience for others. By making the work about us first, and the mission second, we can effectively serve others and the mission. But effective is not optimal. To optimally serve others, the needs of others need to be the first priority. Returning to the workshop example, I tended to emphasize content that I felt most comfortable and confident delivering. I was able to effectively serve the participants, but in my heart, I know I did not optimally serve them because I shied away from some of the content that would have been more meaningful and impactful for them.
To put our need for validation above the mission is unlikely to be sustainable, nor does it produce consistent results. Whether we deliver effectively or not, we may not always get external validation and others may outshine us. When this happens, even if the mission is being served, our motivation may wane or it could hinder collaboration. In the long run, this leaves everyone worse off.
We may also lose sight of the original mission we were intending to serve in the first place. We may deliver a lesson (in the case of education), enact a policy (in the case of govt/public service), or make a contribution (in the case of business or philanthropy) that serves our own purpose and the mission’s purpose. However, if we put our own desires first, the mission’s purpose will be sacrificed in one way or another. This can be difficult to spot because the mission’s purpose is almost always one of our priorities, and we are highly incentivized to inflate its importance within our stack of priorities. We all want to believe the best about ourselves.
So what can we do about it?
As with all of our work at Upbuild, the first step is awareness. We need to catch ourselves in the act of putting our own desires first. A key distinction is that when we say “our” desires, what we really mean are “our ego’s” desires. This allows us to differentiate the desires of our egos (for validation, success, power, comfort, etc) from the needs of our true selves (which don’t include validation, success, power, comfort, etc). It’s not necessarily the case that these desires are bad, but they are just not our desires, which means that we don’t want to let them be the driving force for our actions. With a little humor and a little detachment, we can catch our egos trying to get their desires met, and then make different choices that are more aligned with the goals of the mission.
Another helpful step is to get crystal clear about what the mission is. Said another way, what is the deepest “why” for our involvement? On a team of people, there may be lots of different personal “whys”, and that’s okay, but as an organization, what is the “why” that surpasses all “whys?”
There are also two questions that we can ask ourselves: 1. “In what ways am I trying to be the main course here?” This question will give us clues as to where we need to re-evaluate our involvement. And 2. “If I was not involved in this mission at all, what would need to get done, and in what way would it need to get done?” That will give us clues as to how we should be involved.
This clarity is important because targets are a lot easier to hit when we know and explicitly declare what they are. There are always competing (conscious and unconscious) motivations, and if we can be clear about the most important motivation, day to day decisions about what to do and how to do it are easier to make. My experience is that having this clarity inspires me to act more like salt, and less like the main dish, which gives me access to who I am, and not who I am projecting. When we are trying to be main, we will never feel main enough. And when we are the salt, being of pure service nourishes us to complete satiation.
Finally, if you are like me and need a constant reminder, a yellow sticky note on your desk with the phrase, “I am just the salt in the dish,” can be a beautiful service to yourself and to everyone who experiences the ripple effects of the deep and genuine humility we are aiming for.
