I Want You to Reach Your True, Delicious Potential

Heapinghelpings

Welcome to Café SUCCESS! We’re excited to have you here because we’ve been planning the menu of our food-themed issue for years.

That probably has something to do with the fact that our office is stocked not only with chocoholics, but also carb addicts, cheese junkies and barbecue degenerates. We like it all. Still, the June 2016 issue is about way more than cooking and eating, even with celebrity foodie Guy Fieri on the cover.

Related: Guy Fieri Shares What Feeds His Appetite for Life

The food issue we conceptualized long ago was always thought of as an example of what SUCCESS could be for the reader from month to month, rather than a topic we felt the need to cover. The idea isn’t to tell you about food. If you want to read about food or look at glossy photos of fajitas, you’ll pick up a different magazine. We know that.

Instead our goal is to teach and celebrate the timeless principles that will make and keep you successful in every aspect of your life, using food to illustrate just how connected these methods and values are to everything you do.

 

We take pride in offering our best efforts because the deep-down feeling it brings is the greatest nourishment of all.

 

Just as May’s theme of “calm” and April’s of “home” were only jumping-off points for the larger issue arcs, food is simply the inspiration behind what we’re talking about this month. In fact, the issue is actually about goal setting and achievement, self-confidence, adding value to the people around you, chasing your passions, nurturing your inner peace, living a complete life, and other worthy subjects. We knew long ago that if we ever created a food issue, we should view it more as a nourishment issue. Just as you nourish yourself with healthy, soulful meals, SUCCESS aims to nourish your personal growth at work or in your business, in your relationships with your friends and family, and in those quiet moments you have to yourself. Food is only the prism through which we’re viewing this self-empowerment.

Take Fieri, for instance: He fascinates me not because of his supersized persona or his Food Network day job touring some of the country’s most mouthwatering eateries, but because of the incredible sense of self he possesses. Frankly, Fieri has been a punching bag for some of the crueler voices in food commentary—writers and fellow hosts. And he’s not afraid to admit that the crass attacks bother him at times. But he doesn’t let anything change who he is, how he feels about his life, the work he does or the way he treats people. Fieri is true to himself. He’s authentic. The Fieri on television is not a character. And because he nourishes his passions for spending time with his family, serving others through food and charitable work, and connecting deeply with people, he is deeply content.

All of us who work to create something—from chefs to magazine editors, entrepreneurs and beyond—can identify with that. We all have a vision of what can be, and ideas that are meant to delight, inspire and improve the people who give us or our products a chance. We take pride in offering our best efforts because the deep-down feeling it brings is the greatest nourishment of all.

I hope you find this issue of SUCCESS to be our best effort. And even more important, I hope it leads you to reach your true, delicious potential.

Related: 33 Ways to Feed Your Soul

 

This article originally appeared in the June 2016 issue of SUCCESS magazine.

 

+ posts

Josh Ellis is the former editor in chief for SUCCESS magazine. Before joining SUCCESS in 2012, he was an accomplished digital and print sportswriter, working for the Dallas Cowboys Star magazine, the team’s gameday program, and DallasCowboys.com. Originally from Longview, Texas, he began writing for his hometown newspaper at 16.

← Do You Live to Work or Work to Live?6 Inspiring Commencement Speeches →

Leave a Comment