Dining With Distinguished People: The Art of the Meal

As the adage goes, “you are what you eat.” A similar application can be made for whom you meet and dine with in your culinary retreat. Daily we break bread with friends and family and say, “The culture is moving in an insidious and divisive way.” We find ourselves posturing and noshing with those we’d just as soon polish off in squashing and forgetting about those things that meant something that day. We forget the things that we used to do when we ate with family in a unique way. We used to have prayer before we’d place a morsel in our mouths.

We eat on the run, in the car, at our desks or just in passing. But if you wonder about your companions, you should check your social schedule and examine where they are now. If you’re planning to get ahead and be spiritually grounded, then think about whom you eat with and what you choose to do.

I happened to be in Dallas, Texas, you see. I was heading out to meet a friend who had someone I should lunch with and engage in meaningful discussion. They were serving filet mignon, which really didn’t mean that much to me, seeing as how I say we should feed ourselves every day and play some particular music in our heads that makes you listen. Recite the classics and listen to the music, not what’s playing, but what you recall in your head. Think about how predominantly the melodies are in our lives and our world. Build upon stanza after stanza until it crescendos and falls.

No, they didn’t have music. This was business and billions were in play. This was a very special and wonderful day. Today I had lunch with Ralph Babb, the CEO of Comerica, Inc., you see. It was a time for us to meet and talk about what was to be. He’s delivered so many speeches on money and finance; it’s made him somebody famous too.

Yes, this was a wonderful meal. And I also happened to meet someone else I’ve always wanted to know. Tom Peters, the co-author of In Search of EXCELLENCE and at least 16 to 20 other books. He had his new book, The Little Big Things: 163 Ways to Pursue EXCELLENCE

Tom Peters, company founder and co-author of best-seller In Search of Excellence with Steed Media CEO, Munson Steed

on the table and he talked about those things I should do, like saying “thank you.” He expounded on how important it is to get out and take your client to lunch and get from behind your desk and make the best of each moment. Excellence is more than anything a matter of creating a “wow” factor for everything. And that’s how the interactions were going and innovation was part of the day.

I had lunch with Tom Peters and Ralph Babb, both of whom had plenty to say. Yet we filled more than just our stomachs; we nourished our minds. And what it did it all mean? I took away from that table that day the things that could change for me right now. I greeted the chairman first with “It’s nice to meet you,” and “let’s stay in touch, somehow.”

For those who aren’t often invited to lunch, know that you’ll miss out on long plates some day. Some experience acute growing pains while inching up the ladder each day. They don’t mind bringing along those in the community who are doing something worthwhile. I encourage you to do business with those that do business in your community.

So I take my hat off to those who invited me to eat at their plate — Irv Ashford and the Comerica team who continue to fight the good fight every step of the way. 

But even if I didn’t have anything left to offer from my rolling out table they would have invited me to lunch with the kings and lunch with the titans who are always mindful of moving ahead. They fed my belly, and they fed my head.

So here it is we find our way and determine to feed ourselves rather than gorge on junk food every day. Make sure that you feed and nourish yourself. Make sure that you provide amply and in abundance for others so that you may grow and plant your seed in fertile ground to sow.

Make sure that you try new foods, new tastes and dishes. Explore the unfamiliar and satisfy your wishes. The process will bring about for you a wonderful life along with life changing experiences too. Knowledge is cultivated when you are around people that expand your perspectives and ways of thinking you see. Most people accept the thinking of others without adequate reflection and personal inspection.

Associate with those who don’t mind that you’re working and focused on getting ahead. Forgo those friendships and spending time with those lying in wait and setting traps instead for you to eat in a dancing establishment or some other dive. Identify those who aren’t mining for fool’s gold. Avoid the pangs of intellectual malnutrition, and feeding on unhealthy morsels of lies and misery.

So instead I’ll have to continue to nourish my mind, which most don’t understand until it’s their time. They want to keep their heads bobbing and ignore their appetites for sugar-coated apathy and the like. Full of nonsense, full of spectacle and full of language that means nothing at the end of the day. Nothing more than to keep you broke or in trouble, anyway.

But whatever you do, make sure you eat with people that can open a door and those that do business with us. As we move along and sing these songs we might want to change our tunes you see. We might want to make it a requirement to feed our heads as well as our stomachs and rejuvenate our thinking to always include something new. With what we put inside our bodies, will require more than just food for thought. It’s a practice a habit that we must be taught. We need more than the trappings and all the sides you see, for without degrees where would you be? You wouldn’t have been in that room, that much is certain. Without running businesses you wouldn’t have been able to express what you do, and conceive what you could be accustomed to.

Food for thought and food for tomorrow means learning to fish for more than a meal a day. It means catch the fish, then clean and sell it too.

Peace.

Munson Steed