So much more salt than you thought

I kind of thought that the direction you go is determined by the sails, but no — it’s the rudder. (Image by Daniel Büscher)

One of my main takeaways from Netflix’s Salt Fat Acid Heat, based on the book of the same name by Samin Nosrat, is that when you dump salt into your pasta water, your pasta tastes great.

Indeed, pretty much everything needs to be salted more than I thought, at every stage of preparation. Salt makes meat more tender, strengthens dough, and enhances flavor.

It was a counterintuitive insight. I’ve experienced firsthand how easy it is to ruin a dish with excessive salt, so it would never have occurred to me to use more — and to purchase different kinds of salt for different purposes.

That’s just another example of how professionals approach simple tasks differently. Sometimes, their techniques are out of reach, but many of them are not.

I’ll offer an example from the world of entrepreneurship. It might seem to the inexperienced business owner that what it takes to succeed in business is dedication and focus in the face of tremendous obstacles.

We have powerful cultural messages that tell us never to give up.

We’ve heard that we have to have a strong “why” to power us through the difficult times.

Maybe we’ve seen posts on social media in which a business owner is celebrating their business as their “baby” and expressing their devotion to it.

Ironically, however, the most successful entrepreneurs I know -- those who create, buy, and sell multiple businesses -- operate without emotional attachment to any particular business.

They make decisions based on numbers and effectiveness. If a product is not finding its market, it gets cut. If a service is not yielding thrilled customers, it goes away.

And if the business entity itself is literally more hassle than it is worth, it will be sold or closed.

The experienced entrepreneur knows better than to go deeply into debt to buy a business she can’t afford, no matter how perfect it seems. Even if she desperately wants to make it happen, she will pay attention to the numbers, not the desire. There’s always another opportunity. There’s always another deal.

The experienced entrepreneur sees the distinction between a passionate interest, a compelling mission, and a viable business. It’s possible for these three to exist in one entity, but it’s important to recognize when you have only one or two out of the three so that you can make choices accordingly.

I’m not advocating for a cold, heartless approach to business that takes advantage of customers and employees, just as Samin Nosrat isn’t suggesting that we eat distastefully salty or unhealthy food. No, we should start with quality ingredients. Anything you create ought to be grounded in your values. From there, you do what it takes to yield the results you’re ultimately looking for, even if the best practices for doing it may be different from what you had been led to expect.

Many of us seem to have the impression that we need to hitch our wagon to one star and labor tirelessly until we make our vision a reality. But there are so many stars and so many wagons. We don’t have to judge our results based on our degree of commitment to one idea. That’s not the measure of success of a business —and would I hope that briny pasta water is not the measure of the success of a meal.

If Samin Nosrat were guiding me in the kitchen, I would use as much salt as I could stand. She would undoubtedly tell me to use even more, just as I used to tell my music students, “Even slower. Even slower,” when they thought that they were playing as slowly as they could.

This is often the nature of expert advice. It triggers disbelief and resistance. It feels wrong. It feels like it’s sending us away from the results we’re looking for. But as a matter of fact, it may be the most reliable path.

You can do it however you want, in cooking, music, or business. But consider the idea you may need so much more salt than you thought. The way you’ve been doing it may not be the way that works best. Weird, but true. And if the way you’ve been doing it hasn’t tasted so great, maybe this is welcome news.