People will tell you to be a wolf, to have a cold and calculating mind. Be a tiger, always aggressive and majestic. Be a lion, maintain your status as an apex predator.

You know what the common trait is? All of those animals are fucking awful to be around.

The animal you should emulate is a chicken! Let me explain. Chickens take all the table scraps and bullshit people give them and process it. You know what comes out the other end of that process? A fucking delicious egg.

Eggs are amazing because you can cook them roughly 12,000 different ways. Hell, you can drink 6 of them raw and win a fight. Oh yeah, and don't forget they can also just become another chicken.

Let's look at an example. Say you're in a meeting. Now, this meeting has 9 people in attendance. That's roughly 10 more people than appropriate, seeing as it could have just been an email.

OK, so some decision by committee shit happens and now you've got about 45 ideas written down. Great. Would you rather eat the trash outside of an ice cream parlor at the end of an August day than use any of them? For sure. So where does that leave you? Chicken City. (not a real place as far as I know, but a man can dream.)

Take all those gross fucking table scrap ideas they gave you and gobble that shit up! Be grateful you got that sloppy pile of ideas. Keep in mind. you don't have to smile. Chickens don't smile. But eat it all and be grateful.

Now here's where you take all that shit and start building your egg. Begin your process. Take a walk. Get some coffee. Sleep. Whatever, just digest all of it. Your mind is like a chicken's egg gut - pouch? Canister? Whatever. You're like a chicken. Now use your awesome chicken skills to add metaphorical calcium and other shell stuff, that'll keep everything together.

Here's the thing. Eggs don't look like potato peel and carrot stumps. But that's what those fragile little fuckers are made of. When you show the scrap givers your new egg, take the time to walk them through it. "Hey, Patricia, remember when you told me to make it more like that awful commercial your dumb kid loves? Yeah I used that fucking gross scrap to make this awesome part."

How to be grateful

Look, I get it. Being grateful is tough when you're getting some shitty thing handed to you and you're expected to gobble that shit up.

With that in mind here are a few ways to handle yourself like a true chicken.

  • "That's something I would never have thought of!"

  • "Interesting. I'll work with that and bring it back to you!"

  • "Hope you've got an empty carton, cause I've got about a dozen grade A's coming at you."

  • "Yup. Great. Egg-worthy."

  • "OH SHIT! A HAWK! Oh, no just a cloud. Anyway. Yeah I've got this."

But what if no one gives me any scraps?

Don't worry, you just have to use your chicken like instincts. It's like this. Free-range eggs are the shit. But they cost more. That's math. So if no one is giving you idea scraps and egg ingredients seem hard to come by just quietly say "Fuck it." in your best chicken voice.

Go see what you can kick up. Peck around the big grass idea fields. Peck every little morsel until you find a fat-ass little grub or worm or some tasty shit like that. EAT IT. Make it into an egg. You're your own master, get inspired, borrow from other industries. Just get that nutrition.

Now here's the real trick. Bring that sweet little free-range egg to the people who usually give you scraps.

"Holy shit! What's this? An egg!?" They'll say. "But we didn't even give you any scraps! How in the fuck did you make an egg?! FROM THE FUCKING FIELDS??!!"

Yup. From the fucking fields. Let them help you cook the egg and then let them serve it up to their boss. Who cares? You both know it's your egg.

You'll look like the smartest chicken in the dang coop, and you know what? Next time there are some scraps coming into the yard, you'll be first in line and getting the best scraps in the bucket.

FUCK WOLVES.

FUCK TIGERS.

FUCK LIONS.

BE A CHICKEN.

Tell your friends about your egg making ways.