When I started Adventure through Food in September of 2023, I knew I wanted to allow the business to breathe for a full year. I’ve now been a self-employed business owner/private chef for almost fifteen months and needless to say, a lot has shifted. Most recently, a clarity around my offerings is emerging that’s both generative and unnerving.

The clarity started with this summer. August and September were the busiest two months of work I’ve had; I worked back-to-back retreats, many private dining experiences, and continued cheffing for clients on a weekly basis. It was too much. I said “yes” to everything and while that was supportive through a financial lens, I was starting to feel burned out.

When working with burnout, I start with the basics: do I enjoy what I’m doing? In this case, the answer is a resounding yes. (I love cheffing. I love creating deeply nourishing meals that honor the seasons.) The next layer is tracking where I am experiencing overwhelm and where I am experiencing generativity; between retreats, private dining experiences, and weekly cheffing, my offerings are varied, and a private dining experience has a different quality than retreat cheffing.

As I’ve been combing my experience with curiosity, a clarity around my offerings is emerging: I feel most at home working with clients who have an appreciation for seasonal, local, and organic ingredients; I am well placed working with clients who are curious about holistic health and the relationship between what we eat and how we feel. (To be clear, there is no right and wrong — each person has a unique relationship with food & each person’s relationship with food is theirs to honor. How I eat works for my body but doesn’t need to be what works for anyone else’s body.)

As a private chef, my offerings are an extension of what feels most alive in my heart and the relationship between our bodies and the great earth body beats steadily in mine, and I feel deeply energized when I work with people who are open to exploring the relationship between self & earth.

The unnerving thing about clarity is when we unapologetically start to move from that place. For me, that means I’ve started to turn down work for 2025 that doesn’t feel like a full-bodied YES… which means I’m losing business that would be lucrative. Which also decreases the potential for burnout. Which also means the business I’m saying yes to will feed me (lol… private chef puns) on a level that’s deeply nourishing and generative.

In both life and business, I believe that we are fed by the yeses and nos. How we piece the yeses and nos together on our plate is up to us. It’s a delicate balance of meeting soul needs, financial needs, and trusting that the world longs for our deepest offerings.

Let this be a gentle reminder that the world longs for your deepest offerings for it’s what will feed you and those around you. Xo.