Being Grateful for a Terrible Year

This time last year was a pretty good one for me. Professionally, my business was going along at a steady clip. I was working with a number of innovative clients and managing challenging and interesting projects. Personally, my husband and I were creating a new chapter in our lives with a move back to Vancouver from North Van. My husband was happy to be close to his childhood stomping grounds and we were both feeling fortunate to be close to the beauty of the ocean. His business was flourishing. Our families were healthy and content. And we were looking out at the new year – 2020 - with excitement and optimism. It was in that spirit I was having a lot of ‘end of the year’ chats with friends and colleagues. And I distinctly remember speaking with one colleague about how we felt about 2020. It was going to be a ‘big’ year, we said – that we needed to be ready. We felt it. And, yes, as it turned out, 2020 turned out to be a very big year indeed.

In this season of reflection there is so much to consider in the year that was. The first feelings that come up for me first are a deep sadness. I feel sadness for my colleagues in the industry, and, frankly, for myself and my family, about what we lost in those first few months. A loss of the sense of certainty on what was to come; on an everyday level in our businesses and in our lives at home. Many of us didn’t know where our next pay check was coming from. Business owners faced, and continue to face, immense financial pressures and the risk to their own livelihoods. Entire employee teams collapsed. Projects and purchases were delayed and cancelled. The ripple effect left many of us scathed. And, of course, this uncertainty sat on a wider level. Where will this leave us economically, politically and socially as a nation and globally? Is it a false hope to believe in a vaccine arriving soon enough to save us? How will our government manage this? Can we trust the system or each other? The word grief was spoken often in those early days. The word fit so perfectly then and it still fits so perfectly now.  

And then, upon further reflection, what comes to mind are of all of the remarkable things that were accomplished in our industry. I witnessed my colleagues and clients completely transform how they did business, virtually overnight. The creation of meal kits, cocktail kits, first-time nighttime dining for a day-time restaurant, new ways to book meals to go, amazing ingredients ordered easily and delivered quickly, the utilization of entirely new digital platforms, new ways of leveraging social media and other channels, and knowing, that behind the scenes, very small teams were accomplishing a remarkable amount of work. Work that was keeping their businesses alive. And then doing this not just once, but twice, and three or four times in order to adapt to various different regulations and health orders. I have been and still am in awe of and inspired by the fortitude, imagination, team work and sheer determination required to implement these changes. As a result, my admiration for entrepreneurs has only grown and my drive to work with small business owners has only intensified. I am grateful to influenced by the ingenuity of my peers and this has spurred me on to grow Feast even more in 2021.

2020 has also made me grateful to our local leaders who have been successful in managing the pandemic where other governments have missed the mark at a minimum and totally failed at worst. Regardless of the difficulties some of us may have experienced in accessing various different programs at different times, I am grateful for our government stepping up to the plate with financial aid. There are only a few individuals and businesses I know of who haven’t taken advantage of these programs. I am also grateful that our community has come together, both from within and outside of our industry, to support each other with time, technology, advocacy, dollars and moral support. I’m also grateful for the simple realization that it seems that we care enough about each other to keep each other healthy; the most basic and powerful gesture a citizen can make. And, in light of the calamity of the elections in the U.S., I am also grateful for our democracy and our rule of law in Canada. I see that democracy is not a given or a guarantee and I recognize that I actually have a responsibility to protect it. This has motivated me for the first time to participate in supporting democracy in my community and I am committing to moving that forward in 2021.

I am also aware that many of us have changed careers as a result of either being let go from pre-pandemic posts or have decided to leave as the pressure of the crisis laid bare aspects of our lives that needed changing.  When faced with reverting to basic needs, as we did in the early days of the pandemic, our most important values became clear. What choices did we make when we were faced with the vividness of what is real and important? It is a tangibly remarkable thing to be amidst so many humans churning and changing course at once. With a passion in helping grow and develop teams, I am absorbed by considering where this will take us. What new things we will all demand, seek and need in our new workplaces is something compelling to consider in 2021. 

In the last several months we have endured an amount of change and uncertainty that we may not have experienced even in the same number of years. It wouldn’t be too much to say that it felt like chaos. And yet when I have time to reflect on the year that was, and consider the year that is coming, my ultimate feeling is of hope and renewal. Of opportunity for all of us. On how much we have all learned and continue to learn as a result of the chaos of 2020. The fight is not over in this industry to say the least; but hope is around the corner. For 2021 my goals are to participate in our recovery fully, to help more; I want to understand more deeply the needs of the industry and use that to shape how I continue to build Feast; and I am committed to being a participating citizen in my community and promoting democracy and fair play. These ambitions of mine give me hope for my future and I hope many of us feel the same.

So, in a year where it’s difficult to know how to appropriately share festive wishes for the season, I do hope for all my colleagues, friends and those I’ve yet to meet, ample restorative time over the holidays and to share my sincere hope and optimism for the future. I know 2021 is going to be a good year.

I can just feel it.

Gillian Gonzalez-Risso is the Founder of Feast Culinary Consulting and can be reached at gillian@feastconsulting.ca