100 Chickens Later, What Now?

100 Chickens Later, What Now?

Yesterday hit me with a storm of emotions and self-criticism I couldn’t outrun, and the only thing that ever seems to help is pouring all my thoughts and feelings onto paper. I’m trying to be more vulnerable, so just sharing the stream-of-consciousness journal entry I wrote:

I write this to you from DeSalvio Park in SoHo with my black coffee and a sandwich from Parisi Bakery, having wrapped up my grocery store rotisserie chicken review series. I’m a little lost. I feel like a ship without a rudder, an eagle with no wings, or an NBA Hall of Famer who has recently hung them up. With all my structure being gone, what do I do now?

When I start doing other types of food reviews,are the fans still gonna love me? Will they abandon me? Was it the chicken they liked, or was it me they liked?

I’d love to sit here and say I’m full of confidence and 100% conviction in what comes next, but the harsh reality is I’m not. Not at all. I LOVE making videos so much that I am scared to death at the real possibility that I have peaked. Maybe it’s all downhill from here... and I have to be okay with that.

I never say this out loud, not even to my closest friends, but I have this huge, lofty dream of being able to travel the world while highlighting all different types of food, culture, and experiences. It genuinely excites me. Traveling, soaking up some culture, and seeing how other people live is the most alive I have ever felt. It’s the only time I’ve felt a chill through my bones with that unshakeable feeling of, “This is why I am on this earth. This is why God created me.” I see it so clearly, but what is the next step to getting there? I genuinely have no idea right now.

I’ve found immense comfort in the commencement speech Steve Jobs gave at Stanford in 2005, where his main point is that you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. Trusting your gut and following your heart in the present moment is the only thing you can really control, and you have to believe the dots will somehow connect in the future.

I’m working on a few things, hopefully dot connectors. The main one being a longer-form Youtube show that I am exhilarated about, but I know how hard it is to get some motion on there. There are no guarantees that will work out. There are no guarantees anything will work out. It is the most likely scenario that I will have to work this 9-5, selling software that I do not care about at all for the rest of my life.

If I were saying this to my amazing Mom, she’d say “Tumbo, what would you tell yourself if you were talking to a friend in this exact situation?”

I’d say something along the lines of: “First off, success is in the effort. You’ve given every bit of energy you have this year. You should be proud of yourself even if you got no followers from any of this.

Second, you’ve created something from scratch that people like and care about. It’s beautiful. A year ago, you were just going wherever the wind took you. This year, you grabbed life by the horns and made it your own. Graveyards are filled with people who said ‘I’ll start tomorrow.’

Third, what were you going to do? Keep eating and reviewing grocery store rotisserie chickens until you’ve hit every grocery store in the world? Then you’d be in the same place that you are right now, just in a deeper hole.”

I stopped at 100 different grocery store birds, and to be honest, it felt right. From the outside looking in, maybe it looks wrong to walk away and give up a good thing while it’s going so well, but I don’t want to be the grocery store chicken guy forever. I have bigger dreams than that, and I just know in my heart it’s time to move on.

I understand how wild and unserious this must look reading this from an outside perspective, but writing things down, getting thoughts out of my head and onto paper, is therapeutic. After writing all this and reading it back, even I realize how silly and absurd it sounds. But it was very real to me in the moment I wrote it.

Maybe I shouldn’t have posted this and should’ve kept this one in the journal. Maybe I should keep the cool, tough-guy, nonchalant mask on, and maybe after this I will.

But if nothing else, it will be funny to come across this 5 years from now and laugh at myself. Hopefully some dots have connected by then, but if not, that’s okay. All that matters to me is that I try my damn best. Success is in the effort.