Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / The Race to the Top: Exploring the Pitfalls of Fast Success Ep. 83

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The Race to the Top: Exploring the Pitfalls of Fast Success Ep. 83 · Chef's PSA Podcast

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  Hello Chefs, This is Chefs PSA Podcast.
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  I'm your host, Andrea Ettera. On today's episode, we're gonna
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  talk about the importance of slow success.
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  Stay tuned. This episode of Chef's PSA is
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  So what are you waiting for? Go to
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  jrmanufacturing.com/offsets. Now before we get started, if
• 1:12
  you want to support the show, make sure you hit the subscribe
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  button. Hit the like button.
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  If you're listening on Spotify or Apple, make sure you leave
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  five stars. It goes a long way.
• 1:22
  Go to chefspsa.com where you get all the books, all the merch,
• 1:26
  Happy Cook hat, the one that I'm wearing right here, This chef's
• 1:29
  PSAT shirt. You can show your support.
• 1:32
  I've written and published 5 books that are available on
• 1:35
  Audio, Paperback and E-book, Culinary Leadership,
• 1:38
  Fundamentals, Kitchen, Art of War, Line Cook, Survival Manual,
• 1:42
  How Not to Be The Biggest Idiot in the Kitchen, and Bad Sue,
• 1:45
  Good Chef. They're all intended for
• 1:47
  different levels of chefs, everything from entry level
• 1:50
  brand new Cook right out of culinary school or thinking
• 1:52
  about getting into the industry to The Advanced Strategist Chef.
• 1:57
  I have a few ebooks as I have a few free ebooks as well,
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  including my most recent one, The 50 Most Important Chefs.
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  PS as you could go get that it's for free and if you're an open
• 2:08
  AI user, I have Food Cost Oracle that I recently designed to help
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  you manage your own food cost. So tools for chefs, cooks,
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  helping you all get better. So a friend of mine recently
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  sent me Adm that struck A chord and it was a inspirational
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  quote, kind of kind of like the Chef's PSA quotes.
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  And it was slow. Success builds character.
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  Fast success creates ego. Shout out to my friend Ranger
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  Clark, who said that to me, a great chef in Seattle.
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  But when he send that to me, I was like, that one hurts.
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  And he said, I know. And in today's world, being a
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  chef, it's a race to the top. Everyone wants to be the chef.
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  Now, where's the shortcut? How many steps can we skip?
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  What's the shortest path to climb the mountain?
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  Looking at the skills that you need, which ones do we not need?
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  Which ones can we skip? And can we figure out the rest
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  when we're already in position? I'll tell you a quick story.
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  I was the final graduation speaker for the Cordon Blue
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  Schools, and I gave the final commencement speech for the very
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  last graduating class in Dallas. I want to say it was like 2017.
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  And I wrote this really good speech.
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  By the way, I I am a public speaker.
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  For those of you that don't know, I do a lot of public
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  speaking, a lot of leadership seminars for companies and
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  things like that. So I could probably talk about
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  that on another episode, but I was delivering this graduation
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  speech. And, you know, before you give a
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  graduation speech, they introduce you and they list off
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  your accolades and they read a short bio about you.
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  And so I get up on stage. They list my bio.
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  I'm giving. The speech was a very
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  inspirational speech. And I think it really resonated
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  with the people that were in the crowd.
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  So afterwards, all the students come up and they pick up their
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  diploma and they shake hands with the director of the school
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  and myself. And we thank them and they go
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  across stage and it's like, thank you so much,
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  congratulations. And they keep the line moving.
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  If you've graduated from culinary school, you know
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  exactly what I'm talking about. Anyway, after the speech, one of
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  the students that was graduating came up to me and he asked me if
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  he could have a copy of the speech that I wrote he wanted.
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  He said, I really enjoyed your speech.
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  Can I have a copy of the speech? I said absolutely.
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  And I gave it to him. And then he said to me, I want
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  to be in your shoes. That's my goal.
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  And after talking to him for a little bit, you know, I was
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  like, well, that's a good goal to have.
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  And we talked a little bit. But I realized through the
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  conversation that he didn't want to be in my shoes 23 years
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  later, which was about how many years I had been in the industry
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  at that time. He wanted to be in my shoes
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  right then and there. He wanted to skip all the
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  necessary steps and jump right to the top.
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  He wanted to be the commencement speaker at the school.
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  And it blew my mind because I started thinking about my
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  journey and I also started thinking about the journey of
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  many of the cooks and chefs that are working right now.
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  The current trend in today's culinary world is to move up
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  pretty quick. Social media hastens that
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  incredibly fast. You could learn everything that
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  you need to know in your kitchen, and then in your off
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  time you could pick up new techniques.
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  You could follow certain chefs on Instagram.
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  There's a lot of resources, there's master class there, chef
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  steps. You could go down the rabbit
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  hole of YouTube cooking instructors, including chefs on
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  TikTok Instagram. And then you have people like me
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  on Chef's PSA who teach different things, not just the
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  culinary aspect, but the leadership aspect and the
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  managerial stuff. You have access to chefs now
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  like you never did before, so the information is coming at you
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  very quickly. So I think realistically, what
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  used to take someone 10 years to be a chef can now take you 5.
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  The information is there, the ability to learn is much
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  quicker, and if you're a didactic learner then you should
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  be able to get there much quicker than people who are not.
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  Then you have the external pressures of social media and
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  your peers. You see your friends moving up
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  quickly, people that you went to culinary school with or people
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  that you worked with in the past.
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  You see them climbing the ladder and of course you're comparing
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  yourself to them. You see all these chefs on
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  social media making beautiful food, getting lots of followers,
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  lots of views. People are lining up to go to
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  their restaurants and it's easy to get that feeling that you're
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  not moving fast enough with your career and you might have to
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  speed it up because everyone else is getting there faster
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  than you and you're comparing yourself to them.
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  Those external pressures start to get to you Pre social media.
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  The only people that you are usually competing with were the
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  people in your kitchen and maybe a few local restaurants.
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  The reach wasn't as great. You'd wait a year for a new
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  cookbook to come out to see new ideas.
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  It wasn't as fast. Things were much slower, you
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  spent more time in position and you got really comfortable with
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  what you were doing. But I could tell you this.
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  Everyone wants the title, but not everyone really wants the
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  job. The title sounds great.
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  Everyone wants to say they're the executive chef or the chef,
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  the cuisine or the sous chef. But doing the job is much
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  different than just having the title.
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  The title wears off once you're in the ship, when the pressure
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  kicks in, when you're expected to perform, when you realize no
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  one's coming to save you, when you realize that the buck stops
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  with you. And if you've moved up too
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  quickly and you find yourself in a position of leadership or sous
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  chef or overseeing a restaurant and you don't have the
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  experience to do so, you might be really hurting yourself in
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  the future. Because if you're not prepared
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  to do the job well and you have one failure after another, then
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  it could be a confidence killer. And it might take you longer to
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  get out of that rut than it would have been if you had taken
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  your time slowly. I have a Chef's PSA that I say
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  often. It's better to take your time
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  and become a good sous chef later than impatiently becoming
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  a bad one today. Master the fundamentals.
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  Learn how to cook. Work every station at length.
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  Deal with a lot of different problems.
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  Immerse yourself in the challenges that come with being
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  a cook and a chef. The more problems that you're
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  exposed to, the more experience that you have dealing with them
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  when they arise, because they always arise more than once.
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  You'll have a better understanding and a better idea
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  of how to deal with them when they happen again.
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  Technically, when we're talking about the cooking techniques,
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  you can't just do something once and think you've mastered it.
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  You can't make pasta one time and say I know how to make
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  pasta. Well, no, you've made it once.
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  You have to make it hundreds of times before you can make it
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  well. You have to butcher hundreds of
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  fish, thousands of fish. You have to have good services
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  and bad services. You have to crash the kitchen,
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  and you have to watch other people crash the kitchen so you
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  know where they went wrong and where you went wrong.
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  You have to talk about it. You have to learn from your
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  mistakes. You have to learn from the
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  mistakes of others. And this is where having a good
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  mentor comes in, because you may think you're ready because
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  you've worked your station for three months and you know how to
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  do the five recipes that are coming off your station.
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  So you go to your chef and you say, move me up, I'm ready.
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  And they might tell you no, you're not ready.
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  And because you don't like the answer, you may say I'm going to
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  quit and I'm going to go somewhere else because I think
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  I'm ready. If you have a good chef mentor
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  that you trust, listen to them. They may see some of your blind
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  spot. The reason that the brigade
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  system exists is so that you would get very competent at the
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  different levels in the kitchen and the different positions.
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  So you spend time as the saucier, as the chef departee as
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  the Demi chef, as the komi, as the sous chef, as the butcher.
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  And you worked your way through all those positions.
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  So when you became the sous chef for the chef de cuisine, you
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  were able to go and correct someone and teach them and
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  mentor them because that's what you needed when you're in those
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  positions. And sometimes when you move up
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  too quickly, at least what I've noticed from chefs that move up
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  too quickly, you might have the skills, but you don't have the
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  mentorship and leadership skills.
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  So just because you know how to cook and you know how to create
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  food doesn't necessarily mean you're a good chef.
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  I was joking around with one of my friends the other day and I
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  introduced him and I said he's more of a really good cook, not
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  a really good chef. And we kind of had a chuckle
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  about it because even though he is a chef, sometimes he doesn't
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  like teaching people and and doing the mentorship stuff.
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  He just likes great in food. And that's OK.
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  But I think if you really want to become a successful chef, the
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  more that you're able to lead others and develop others and
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  build a team and not just sit and wish that good cooks are
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  going to come through your door, but when you have experience,
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  you know how to build cooks from the bottom up, as they say, grow
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  your own tomatoes. I have that saying, if you can't
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  find good cooks, take the ones that are already in your kitchen
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  and start there. Make them better.
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  And one of the thing I'll point out when it comes to moving up
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  too quickly is sometimes when you get a little bit of success,
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  you could start to believe everything that's written about
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  you or the amount of media attention that you're getting,
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  and you start to think that you truly do walk on water.
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  I promise you, it's very difficult to have that staying
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  power over time. There's not a lot of chefs that
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  are able to do it. I would challenge you to go back
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  and look at who the top 10 chefs in your city were for the last
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  15 years and see how many have been on for 15 years.
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  And I guarantee you there's probably not many.
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  You might have one or two in every city that have staying
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  power. The rest are just a revolving
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  door and it is really easy to believe it and get caught up in
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  the ego. But don't forget that it's short
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  lived. Enjoy it while it lasts.
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  Double down. Do everything you can to take
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  care of the media and the PR and to grow your brand when you're
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  hot. But don't get too puffed up
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  because success is a double edged sword That ego could get
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  the better of you and you start to rub people the wrong way and
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  you start to burn bridges. Sometimes that boomerang of
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  karma takes a long time to come back.
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  But it always does. Come back and you find yourself
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  having to repair relationships and build bridges with people
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  that you may have burned them with previously.
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  So here's some tips. If you're a new cook or you're a
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  new chef, find a mentor. Take your time.
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  Work all the stations. Don't be in such a rush to go
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  from 1 station to the next because you think you're not
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  learning. If someone's telling you you're
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  not ready, you may have a blind spot.
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  Listen to them. If you're the chef mentor, make
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  sure you're telling the cooks what their blind spots are.
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  Don't ignore their faults. Point them out.
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  Help them get better. Teach them.
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  If you want the people in your kitchen to get better, it's your
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  responsibility as the Chef Map out your career.
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  Like I said, it's better to be the worst cook in the best
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  kitchen than the best cook in the worst.
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  Find out who you want to work for.
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  Go work for them. Find out what kind of kitchen
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  you want to run and go work in those kitchens.
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  That's how you learn how to run those kitchens.
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  Immerse yourself in culinary knowledge and knowledge in
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  general inside the kitchen and outside.
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  Read everything. Watch everything.
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  Practice at home and when you're at work, push yourself to be the
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  a little bit better, 1% better than yesterday.
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  There's not one successful chef that has been on top for a long
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  time that didn't pay their dues and have their ups and downs.
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  And I shared that story at the beginning that the cook came up
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  to me and said they wanted to be in my shoes and they wanted to
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  be there then and they didn't want to do the hard work to get
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  there. They don't want to go through
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  the ups and downs that I went through.
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  They don't want to close restaurants.
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  They don't want to get bad reviews in the paper.
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  They don't want to work three months straight without a day
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  off like I did at one point, and have the trials and tribulations
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  that it takes to become a chef. They don't want to go through
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  all that. They just wanted the success.
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  And if you get the success without putting the work in,
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  you're in for a rude awakening. There's no something for nothing
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  in this world. You pay now or you pay later.
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  It's better to pay your dues up front.
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  It's like that old expression, one of the biggest curses you
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  could have as being the son of a king, especially a king
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  conqueror, because they went out and earned it and it was just
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  given to you. And when it's just given to you
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  and you haven't earned it, people see through it and they
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  resent you a little bit for it and you get tested.
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  So take your time. Be patient.
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  You're not competing with anyone else, you're just competing with
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  yourself. Make a solid plan.
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  Find a mentor. Get there faster.
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  If you want to support the show, go to chefspsa.com where you get
• 14:04
  all the books, all the merch. Make sure you leave five stars.
• 14:07
  Nothing less than five stars. We'll see you next week.
• 14:10
  Hit the porno music.