I remember years ago reading a passage in a book about Thomas Keller in which the author marvels at the pervasive sense of calm in Keller’s famous restaurant, the French Laundry. How could such incredible food, the author wondered, prepared at such exacting standards, be produced in such a calm environment? The irony is, of course, that the calm environment was the reason for the productivity, as it revealed total mastery of the task at hand. I strive for that same sense of calm mastery, and I occasionally even achieve it.
