When We Lose the Recipe

I’ve learned there’s a strange pressure that shows up once something starts working.

The pressure to improve it.
To modernize it.
To move past the early ingredients.

Some change is always necessary.
Growth requires some adjustment.

But over time, I’ve watched leaders stop trusting the recipe that nourished them
and start listening to voices that have never cooked in their kitchen.

The advice sounds confident.
The language feels advanced.
The recommendations look refined.

But they don’t know the measurements.
They don’t know the timing.
They don’t know what can’t be substituted.

Distance grows.
From the work.
From the discipline.
From the small, repeatable decisions that once made progress steady.

So the recipe gets adjusted.
Then diluted.
Then replaced.

And after a while, no one even remembers what it was supposed to taste like.

I’ve seen this in organizations.
I’ve seen it in families.
I’ve seen it in my own life.

What once required patience starts to feel outdated.
What once required consistency starts to feel unnecessary.

So we assume the next step forward requires a new formula.

Sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes wisdom looks like guarding the recipe.
Knowing which ingredients can change
and which ones cannot.

Because growth that forgets how it was made
eventually forgets why it mattered.

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