Life lessons from “The Great British Baking Show”

Many of us love “The Great British Baking Show.” But it’s also full of lessons for a moral education:

1. It is not enough to want to be the best. Preparation, creativity, and execution make all the difference.
2. How you recover from setbacks determines your ultimate success.
3. Those who do not learn from experience won’t last very long.
4. You may be a star this week, but next week you’ll be starting from the same place as everybody else.
5. Anyone can create something great. The hard part is to create it on a deadline.
6. Your time on the stage is almost certainly shorter than you think it is.
7. Don’t wallow in your failure; exult in the experience you had while attempting to succeed.
8. Competing well is about being the best among respected competitors, not undermining those competitors.
9. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If it looks great but doesn’t taste great, you’ve failed the most important test.
10. The person next to you is struggling, too; give them a hand if you can.
11. If you can’t figure out what to do next, try adding more butter or spices.
12. Be nimble; what worked in practice may not work the same way when it matters.
13. Don’t just assume the oven is on; it only takes a moment to check and be sure.
14. It’s a bad idea to put your self-esteem in the hands of a sarcastic and judgmental asshole.
15. Too much ambition leads to a fall. Too little does too. Reach just beyond your grasp.
16. There are always gaps in the instructions. Don’t whine; fill them with your own experience and imagination.
17. Keep bandages nearby. If you hurt yourself, stick one on and keep going.
18. Lean into your talents. Because they’re not quite the same as anybody else’s, the results will be unique.
19. Diversity — in age, race, gender, and temperament — generates the most creative and varied set of approaches to any problem.
20. Regardless of what you eventually create — and whether it was what you hoped it would be — the crew will still eat it in the end.

And finally . . .

There sure are a lot of ways to speak “English” . . .