Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / If I Could Turn Back the Clock: Key Advice for Young Chefs from My Culinary Journey Ep. 52

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If I Could Turn Back the Clock: Key Advice for Young Chefs from My Culinary Journey Ep. 52 · Chef's PSA Podcast

• 0:00
  Hello chefs. This is Chef PS a podcast.
• 0:02
  I'm your host on during that era.
• 0:03
  On today's episode we're going to get into advice that I wish I
• 0:06
  knew when I was a new cook starting out in this industry.
• 0:08
  Stay tuned. So before we begin let me give
• 0:23
  you just a brief update. I'm recording this on a Saturday
• 0:27
  on Monday of this week, I'll be in Dallas cooking at Jose
• 0:31
  restaurant. There's a few tickets still
• 0:33
  available. It's part of Texas, Food & Wine,
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  Alliance wine and dine series. It's going to be Chef.
• 0:38
  Anastacia Canon has from Jose restaurant, in Dallas, Philip
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  Speer from comedor. In Austin, Texas, Rick Lopez
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  from LA condesa and Austin, Texas, obviously myself.
• 0:50
  From chefs PSA don't have a restaurant.
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  I'm retired, but it's a good opportunity for me to get out
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  and cook with some friends. Sometimes I do miss cooking, if
• 0:59
  you happen to be in Dallas, it's a great dinner.
• 1:02
  It supports Texas, Food & Wine, Alliance and I haven't cooked in
• 1:06
  a while in this style. So I'm on the hot Seafood
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  course, which in this case is an octopus dish.
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  So tell you all about the dish that I'm making.
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  Now keep in mind, this is a Mexican food inspired dinner,
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  but the parameters are a little loose.
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  And of course, you know, the chefs are going to put their own
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  interpretation on some of the food.
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  So in my case, I'm doing a grilled Just the tentacle.
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  Which in this case we cook in the steamer and I lay the
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  tentacles out straight and the reason I laid them out straight
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  is so that when they cook the tentacle will remain straight
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  versus getting curly. Sometimes when you poach
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  octopus, it curls up, I want the tentacle straight.
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  So cook it in the steamer and the way that they lay, as they
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  lay against each other. So that way there's no
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  opportunity for them to curl. Anyway, it's a good little trick
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  that I'm sharing with people. If you're having trouble,
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  keeping your octopus tentacle straight.
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  That's how you do it. After that, I'm going to throw
• 2:03
  it on the grill. I'm going to brush it with a
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  glaze that I made with Tamarind. Some chili.
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  Some garlic, a little Mexican sugar called piloncillo, which
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  is like, it's like a cane sugar. That's compressed.
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  Almost think of it like palm sugar in Thai cooking.
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  I'm serving that with some fresh pea.
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  Bees that are going to be lightly dressed with an avocado
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  avocado Leaf oil, and a pee pee pee on.
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  So pipian is like I guess you could almost call it like a
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  green moly, it's made with pumpkin seeds.
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  In this case I'm also putting the addition of peas in it
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  because I want a little bit more green but anyway, that's the
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  dish. So it's a grilled octopus
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  tentacle with a pee pee pee on made with real pee anyway.
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  I don't talk about food often enough but that's of course I
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  haven't cooked in a long time so hopefully, the dish comes out
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  good. Being modest, it's going to be
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  good. Anyway, so someone messaged me
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  the other day and asked me if I did book in Spanish which I
• 3:01
  don't have the books in Spanish. But it got me thinking I'm going
• 3:04
  to translate these books in Spanish.
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  So I said well I might as well do it.
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  So, I'm in the process of translating the books.
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  I thought it would be rather easy.
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  Instead of how hard could it be to translate a book?
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  It is time consuming. So right now I'm in the process
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  of translating the first book in this case, culinary leadership
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  fundamentals, I'm working on that into a Spanish translation
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  that will probably take me about another week or two to complete,
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  but then after that, I'll start doing the remaining books, it
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  will most likely go in this order.
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  Culinary leadership fundamentals.
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  Then the line cook survival manual.
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  Then, bad. Sooo good chef, and we'll see
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  how that goes. And then maybe I'll do the last
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  two, but Yes, culinary leadership fundamentals.
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  For those of you that have been asking, I will translate that to
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  Spanish in the next few weeks. The remaining audiobook to get
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  done bad, sooo good, Chef, it's done.
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  It's just not out. It's in the approval phase.
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  So audible drags their feet to approve books.
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  But anyway, the books been done since June 10th and here we are
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  today is June 24th in the book still not approved.
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  So anyway, any day now it Out then, all the books will have
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  audio books as companions for those of you that like to read
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  with your ears versus your eyes. Sometimes I'm one of those
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  people to anyway, let's get into it.
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  So what I really want to talk about in this episode was advice
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  that I would give to myself or advice that I would give to a
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  young Chef if they were just starting out in the industry.
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  Now, the reason I think this episode is important is because
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  we have a high turnover in this industry and a lot of people get
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  stuck and they hit a wall and they sometimes they hit a wall
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  to earlier in their career and they they want to move up but
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  they don't know where to look and they don't know who to turn
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  to and I think we often often are afraid of making decisions.
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  Because it's been so long since we've made the right decision.
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  So we are in this Perpetual sort of fear of making a bad decision
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  because we think well my time has passed.
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  So there's no sense in making a good decision.
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  Now, it's kind of like, You know, the old expression, when's
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  the best time to plant a tree, and they'll say ten years ago,
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  when's the second-best time today, right?
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  Whether we're talking planting trees or sometimes, it's
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  breaking up with a partner or maybe it's in making an
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  investment or start a new diet. Whatever the case may be,
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  sometimes we have a very short time preference but we need to
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  have a longer time preference and so What would the person in
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  10 years from now? Tell you like, hey, it's not too
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  late to start that diet because you're going to suffer for it 10
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  years from now, or it's not too late to make that work decision
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  because you're going to be affected by it 10 years into the
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  future. So even though this is advice
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  for a new cook, sometimes it might not be advice for new
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  cook. It might be advice for a cook
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  that's been in the business for quite some time and just maybe
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  needs to hear this right about now because it's never too late
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  to make a good decision. You're under no obligation.
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  Obligation to be the person you were five minutes ago.
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  Now, that's that's an interesting expression and I
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  like it. And I actually, I wrote that in
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  the most recent book and part of the closing, you're under no
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  obligation to be the person you were five minutes ago.
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  And what that means is that sometimes you need to allow
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  yourself, the ability to change your mind, but let's get into
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  the advice. What would be the first thing?
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  I would tell someone if I could go back and tell this to a new
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  Chef out. By the way, this is the same
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  advice. I would give myself because a
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  lot of the things that I'm going to tell you, today are things
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  that held me back and so maybe, maybe there's a little bit of
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  therapy to anyway, The first thing I would say is work in
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  great kitchens and surround yourself with people that are
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  better than you. I know when I was a young cook
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  and by the way, I did working good kitchens, I sought out the
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  best kitchens in the city where I was in, but I didn't seek out
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  the best kitchens in the world and I was living on my own.
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  And I had the ability to live anywhere because I was
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  supporting myself and I was basically a nomad when I had
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  just gotten out of culinary school, but I chose a little bit
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  of a safe route and safe places to live.
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  And so, I was living in secondary markets when I could
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  have been living in primary markets like LA or San Francisco
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  or New York and and realistically, what I would have
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  told myself is if you have the ability to live in those
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  markets, go live in those markets and work in the best
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  restaurants in those cities because it's easy to get in
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  those restaurants when you're young, then it is as time goes
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  on. So I'll give you an example.
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  It would probably be easier. For a 19 year old cook to get
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  into a three-michelin-star restaurant than it would be for
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  a 29 year old Kook to start out in a three-michelin-star
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  restaurant. And that usually has to do with
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  they, in a lot of high-end restaurants.
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  They want to start you early because you don't really have
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  any bad habits and they're able to shape you early on in your
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  career and introduce good. Habits, your skill set early on.
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  As opposed to, you may have had again.
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  Using the 29 year old cook, you may have had nine years of bad
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  habits already built in. and it might be tougher to break them
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  later on, so, If you have the opportunity work in the best
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  kitchens that you can possibly work in, whether that's a
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  primary Market, whether that's a secondary Market, whether that's
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  in your town, maybe you're in culinary school right now.
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  Find the best restaurant in the city where you go to school and
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  try and work there. It's going to give you a
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  significant advantage in your career to start out in those
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  kitchens. Now I will say that they are
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  harder a lot of times but when you're introduced to it early on
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  in your career that's the frame of reference of what you Have as
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  kitchen. So it's easy to go from a very
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  high-end difficult, kitchen to go to an easy kitchen seem like,
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  well, this is, this is a cakewalk versus the other way
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  around. If you start out in a very easy
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  kitchen, and then you go to a very serious kitchen, you're
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  going to be like, oh shit. This is hard.
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  It's a lot harder than I thought.
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  And so, I would say, start out in as high level of a kitchen as
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  you could get into. Because if you keep thinking to
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  yourself, I'll do it when I get better or I need to get more
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  skills or I'm not ready. Trust me when you get there,
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  you're not going to be ready. So, you might as well go.
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  Now, the sooner you get in there, the sooner, you will
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  prepare yourself. So it's like the idea of
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  learning how to swim. Like, you can't say, well, the
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  water's too cold, or when my legs get stronger or maybe when
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  I'm a little bit taller, I'll get in the water, like know, the
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  best way to learn how to swim is.
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  Just jump in the water and start swimming, of course with safety.
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  But you get the point. Next thing I would say is find a
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  mentor early on in your career. Find someone that you trust and
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  ideally in a position that you aspire to have.
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  I've been very fortunate in my career that I've had great
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  mentors, not just in culinary. And by the way, someone asked me
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  this year at the day so I should probably expand upon it.
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  Even if you can't get a mentor that's a chef, you should still
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  have a mentor someone that's wise and successful and has
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  experienced life. And I'm not talking about
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  someone that's just a year older than you were two years older
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  than you. You would like them to be
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  ideally at an age where you're not going to be buddies, but
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  you're going to be able to respect that mentor-mentee
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  relationship. So almost like a parent and when
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  you have a mentor and if you have a good one, Listen to them,
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  take their advice, they most likely see things from a
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  different angle. They've been through things,
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  they have a lot of life experience and different
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  perspectives a mentor can guide you.
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  A mentor can open doors for you. And as we talked about a little
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  bit earlier, if you're working in a great kitchen and you
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  happen to find a mentor in that great kitchen.
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  Maybe it's the chef, which would be the ideal situation.
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  It's kind of like the chef Illuminati, right?
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  If you have a good Mentor in a really high-end restaurant, most
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  likely. They've also worked in high-end
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  restaurants that they have Friends that are in other
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  high-end restaurants and when the time comes, they're able to
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  just pick up the phone and say, hey I have someone for you and
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  all these doors start opening for you.
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  So having a good Mentor will open a lot of doors for you now,
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  the next one kind of ties in with people opening doors for
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  you is that as don't burn Bridges.
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  When you first start out your circle of influence might be the
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  people that you worked with it in culinary school or your first
• 11:10
  job. And that might be like, 20
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  people. That's all you know, that our
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  chefs now if You could imagine that every year your meeting
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  about 20 or 30 people in your first year, your network is
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  rather small. 30 people first year of cooking.
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  Well, let's expand that over the course of time.
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  If you've been cooking for 10 years, that might be 300 people
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  that, you know, 300 people that know you who mentioned your name
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  to other people. So your reputation becomes
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  exponential. So you might not think that what
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  you're doing is affecting your career and your reputation.
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  It is, so it's very important to not burn Bridges, don't lie on
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  your resume. Don't think that people don't
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  call each other. I've had people call me up and
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  say, did this person work for you as a sous chef?
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  And it blew my mind because I'm thinking, why would they lie on
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  their resume? They didn't work for me as a
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  sous chef, and they assumed that this person didn't know me where
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  they were applying or I've had employees go apply somewhere and
• 12:08
  the chef calls me up, because we're friends and say, hey, just
• 12:10
  so, you know, one of your employees is trying to work
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  here. I'm telling you this happens
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  more than people. People realize you could burn
• 12:17
  your reputation very easily. And so we talked about this Chef
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  Illuminati, understand that when you work in a great place, if
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  they have a lot of connections, then you could potentially be
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  hurting yourself with all their connections.
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  If people are making phone calls, so don't burn your
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  Bridge, be respectful. If you're going to quit, make
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  sure you give a proper notice. Whether that's a minimum of two
• 12:38
  weeks or longer month, whatever the case may be, make sure that
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  you're not Burning Bridges, as the expression goes, the same
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  people that you On the way up are sometimes going to be the
• 12:47
  same people that you see on the way down.
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  The next thing I would say to people is don't be afraid to
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  fail. I've worked places myself
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  included where I've been afraid to do something because I didn't
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  know how to do it when you first start out cooking.
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  One of the amazing things is that you don't know anything and
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  you're so excited because they're showing you all these
• 13:06
  new techniques and you go home and you try and practice at home
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  and it's so new and it's so fun. But eventually you get to a
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  certain point in your career where you're supposed to know a
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  certain amount. And that's really where it
• 13:17
  becomes difficult. Because now if you go and you
• 13:19
  demonstrate that you don't know how to do something, There's
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  that fear of what are people going to say.
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  If I don't know how to do it, are they going to laugh at me?
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  Maybe you're in a position of authority and they don't know an
• 13:30
  excuse me, you don't know how to do something.
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  So you're afraid that the rest of the team has got a laugh at
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  you. That's a very real fear that a
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  lot of people have. I know, I've had that fear
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  sometimes, I don't know how to do something.
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  And I'm kind of embarrassed to say, hey I don't know how to do
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  that because you feel like you're going to look foolish.
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  Now it gets worse, the higher up you get.
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  So if you can imagine that as a cook will then when you're a
• 13:49
  sous-chef in your an executive chef and so on when you don't
• 13:52
  know something, it could be a little bit frustrating.
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  But really no one cares. It's that whole Spotlight effect
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  that no, no one really cares, what?
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  You don't know. Yeah.
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  Maybe they're going to Snicker a little bit but who cares?
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  The biggest thing is that's holding you back and I had to
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  learn this lesson the hard way because I would be afraid to
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  learn new things because I was afraid of not knowing and then
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  eventually I had to get over it and something.
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  I used to say to myself and sometimes you'll see this in the
• 14:18
  caption on some of the chef's. PSA post is all right.
• 14:21
  On the other side of fear is greatness.
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  And I don't know if I invented that I'm probably doing that.
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  Probably heard it somewhere, read it somewhere, but it stayed
• 14:30
  with me and it stayed in my subconscious.
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  And whenever I was afraid to do something, whatever the case may
• 14:35
  be, I would always say to myself on the other side of fear his
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  greatness and never didn't work out in my favor.
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  Any time I tried to overcome something that I was afraid of
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  it was never as bad as I thought.
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  And the end result was always better.
• 14:48
  I used to get to the point where I would say things that I didn't
• 14:51
  know how to do as much as possible just so I could learn
• 14:54
  new stuff. And at first people would kind
• 14:56
  of sticker like oh Chef doesn't know how to do that.
• 14:58
  And I'd be like yeah I don't but trust me there's a lot that I do
• 15:01
  know how to do and whenever I would see something, I didn't
• 15:03
  know I would want to just learn it and absorb it.
• 15:08
  I'm still that way. Now, I'm learning so much with
• 15:10
  what I do is shops PSA and interacting with a lot of the
• 15:13
  chef's that comment or send mediums because sometimes they
• 15:16
  have a different perspective but then how I view things.
• 15:19
  And when and they challenged me on my on my Paradigm on how I
• 15:22
  see things it's good for me because I'm like they have a
• 15:24
  good point or doesn't make sense whatever I'm gonna ignore it but
• 15:28
  don't be afraid of not knowing and don't be afraid to fail.
• 15:31
  There's something called fear inoculation and that is
• 15:34
  introducing things that you're afraid of Gradually little by
• 15:38
  little by little and sometimes I would put myself in situations
• 15:42
  where I knew I would lose. And that might be, like, I would
• 15:46
  have a race with someone breaking down a chicken or let's
• 15:49
  see, who could fillet a salmon faster.
• 15:51
  And so, like, let's say, the record was like a minute and 30
• 15:54
  seconds, they could, they could fillet a salmon.
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  Not not debone it, but just fillet it.
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  Now, it's a okay, I could beat that time and maybe I got it
• 16:02
  down to a minute and then someone else would come in and
• 16:03
  beat my time and get it down to 45 seconds or whatever.
• 16:06
  The fastest I've ever seen. Anyone do it, not pin bone but
• 16:09
  head off end to end 13. Seconds was pretty fast anyway.
• 16:13
  This guy was good with fish. We digress.
• 16:16
  Shout out to Paul pedal. If you're listening he was the
• 16:20
  13 second salmon. Now anyway he's from
• 16:22
  Newfoundland said he would grow up with fish so that's why he
• 16:26
  was so good. Point being, is that sometimes
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  you have to introduce yourself to things that you're afraid of,
• 16:31
  and maybe you might even lose because that will gather get you
• 16:34
  over the fear of failure. I don't talk about this often,
• 16:38
  but in my previous life, I used to do a lot of fighting mixed
• 16:42
  martial, arts Muay, Thai kickboxing, stuff like that, and
• 16:46
  I was decently pretty good like I, you know, amateur level not
• 16:50
  pro, but I was pretty good. I had off, I had an offer at one
• 16:54
  point to turn pro, but I didn't take it.
• 16:55
  I ended up going to shut her up. Anyway, long story short is one
• 16:59
  of the things that held me back when I was in my MMA days in
• 17:02
  training was I was like the best one in the gym.
• 17:07
  But the only reason I was the best.
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  One of the gym is because I refused to spar with people that
• 17:11
  were better than me because I didn't want to lose.
• 17:13
  So I only like to be in the hammer but did not like being
• 17:15
  the nail. So, on the days that the guys
• 17:17
  that were better than me would show up, I would be like, I
• 17:19
  would have, I would avoid them in sparring or maybe.
• 17:22
  I wouldn't show up those days because I didn't want to get
• 17:23
  beat because I felt like everything was a competition.
• 17:27
  Even training was a competition. Now, when ended up going wrong
• 17:31
  with that, is that my growth and development in the fight kind of
• 17:37
  hit a wall? Like I was not improving, and I
• 17:39
  noticed that people that I was better, then started to catch up
• 17:41
  to me and everyone started to get to my level which kind of
• 17:45
  made me nervous because like, I'm not improving and everyone
• 17:47
  else is getting better around me and the reason they were getting
• 17:49
  better is because they weren't afraid of getting beat up.
• 17:51
  They would just go in there. They didn't have an ego, they
• 17:53
  didn't care about losing, but I did, I really cared about losing
• 17:56
  even in the gym. I didn't want to lose.
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  So one day, I came up with this idea that I needed to get over
• 18:02
  the fear of losing. So, what I did was, I went to
• 18:05
  the gym. And it was a sparring day and
• 18:09
  for those of you that know what I'm talking about, you'll get
• 18:11
  this. But if you don't, like, when
• 18:13
  you're sparring in MMA, could be like, punches and kicks, or it
• 18:16
  could be groundwork with submissions.
• 18:19
  That day I went in and I was like, I'm going to get beat by
• 18:22
  everybody. I need everyone that I'm going
• 18:24
  to spar with to beat me. So I went in and out of live
• 18:26
  fast bar with like 10 guys that day, every single one.
• 18:30
  Tapped me. Some of them really taught me
• 18:33
  and some of them I let tap me. But I just wanted to get over
• 18:36
  the feeling of losing and I lost to everyone that day some on
• 18:40
  purpose, some not on purpose, but I made sure that I lost
• 18:42
  everyone. And you know what?
• 18:45
  No one cared, it didn't matter. But it allowed me to get over
• 18:49
  that fear and then I was able to get better.
• 18:52
  So I took that same principle and I applied it to the kitchen.
• 18:56
  I was no longer afraid of not knowing and I was no longer
• 18:59
  afraid of losing. Which allowed me to continue to
• 19:02
  learn in the kitchen. So as I said, on the other side
• 19:06
  of fear is greatness and that's kind of That's kind of a life
• 19:10
  lesson, but it definitely applies to the kitchen.
• 19:12
  Once you get over your fear of not knowing because look, trust
• 19:15
  me, there's no Chef out there, that knows everything.
• 19:18
  And every Chef out there has had that doubt in their mind, but
• 19:22
  remember how fun it is to be new and a learner and adding new
• 19:27
  skills to your repertoire. So don't be afraid of not.
• 19:29
  Knowing it's, it's not affecting anyone else.
• 19:33
  But you, and the benefits of going in with a beginner's mind
• 19:36
  set. Are so much greater than the
• 19:39
  consequences of losing. Next thing I'll say is you have
• 19:43
  to get off 0, meaning that you have to make decisions.
• 19:46
  As we said earlier, just get jumping in the water.
• 19:48
  You have to take action. The person who takes action and
• 19:52
  takes charge of their own career is going to be exponentially
• 19:55
  more successful than the person who is afraid to take action.
• 19:59
  And we've all seen this in the kitchen.
• 20:01
  You've seen this in life. Why does that person get
• 20:03
  promoted in this person doesn't? Or you'll be in a kitchen for a
• 20:07
  long time and this person doesn't get promoted and then
• 20:10
  they quit and then you hear about them.
• 20:12
  Like two years later, there are sous-chef somewhere else or
• 20:15
  they're an executive chef somewhere else and they moved up
• 20:17
  the ladder simply by leaving. They weren't afraid to take the
• 20:22
  risk and they understood like I have to take action in my own
• 20:25
  career or I need to make sure I go to the chef and let them know
• 20:29
  that I am interested in the job. And I am interested in moving up
• 20:33
  waiting around and waiting for someone to tap you on the
• 20:35
  shoulder and say the job is yours.
• 20:38
  We've all been waiting for you. Here's a parade, it doesn't work
• 20:41
  that way. You are in the driver's seat and
• 20:43
  no one is going to come and save you.
• 20:45
  Nobody no one's going to rescue you.
• 20:47
  Not even your Mentor. Your Mentor is going to guide
• 20:49
  you but they're not going to rescue.
• 20:50
  You, if you want something to happen in your career, you need
• 20:54
  to be the one taking action. You have to get off 0.
• 20:57
  As I said, the person who acts has every single advantage over
• 21:02
  the person who does not act next.
• 21:05
  I would tell myself to step up when the opportunity presents
• 21:07
  itself, sometimes were reluctant to suggest a dish.
• 21:12
  When they're saying, all right, chefs, come up with a dishes for
• 21:14
  specials and you're afraid because you don't want people to
• 21:16
  judge your food or the shuffle say.
• 21:20
  Who wants to go with me to an event?
• 21:21
  Or who's willing to pick up the extra shift, whatever the case
• 21:24
  may be, if you are able to step up you should Step Up Don't
• 21:30
  always look at it in what's in it for me because sometimes
• 21:34
  what's in it for you? You can't see immediately
• 21:37
  sometimes that benefit of stepping up is the Goodwill that
• 21:40
  you are building with the person that's asking you to step up.
• 21:45
  And I'll give you an example of what I mean.
• 21:47
  Whenever I would ask someone who wants to go with me here and
• 21:50
  unfortunately, I can't afford to pay you but I just need a pair
• 21:53
  of hands. A lot of people would say, no, I
• 21:55
  don't want to go because I'm not getting paid and that's
• 21:57
  understandable, but every now and again, someone say y'all go,
• 22:00
  I just want to get the experience.
• 22:02
  And then, you know what, that person becomes your Protege, you
• 22:05
  get to talk to them, you start to Mentor them.
• 22:08
  That might be your end to get them to become your Mentor.
• 22:10
  That might be your end to know that you want to move into a
• 22:13
  sous chef position. That might be the one-on-one
• 22:16
  time that you need to improve your skills because you may be
• 22:19
  able to talk to them and say, hey, I'm really interested in
• 22:22
  learning this that and the other, can you teach me
• 22:25
  sometimes stepping up opens up doors and creates opportunity?
• 22:29
  So don't always be afraid to step up because you don't see
• 22:32
  the immediate incentive. Because sometimes that
• 22:35
  incentive, is that Rapport that you're building with that
• 22:38
  person, it's the favor for a favor kind of attitude, you're
• 22:41
  going to take care of them. Now, they're going to take care
• 22:43
  of you later. And I know situations where
• 22:46
  someone will step up and go to an event with them and then
• 22:48
  like, they do something really stupid and that should get them
• 22:51
  fired. But they're like, I'm not going
• 22:52
  to fire them. They're good person right there.
• 22:54
  Good guy, whatever. They help me out over here.
• 22:56
  Like you'd be surprised how far that Goodwill goes.
• 23:01
  Now, let's reverse that and think about this, just for a
• 23:03
  moment. Let's say you don't step up and
• 23:05
  you they've consistently asked you.
• 23:07
  Hey, can you help me? You're like, no, I can't.
• 23:08
  No, I can't. No, I can't.
• 23:10
  Well then when the time comes, the person who has stepped up,
• 23:13
  has every single advantage over you.
• 23:15
  And then maybe when you're in a situation where it's like you
• 23:18
  made a simple mistake, you might be held feet to the fire a
• 23:22
  little bit more than the person who does step up.
• 23:25
  So keep that in mind, the Goodwill that you're building
• 23:27
  when you're asked to step up goes a long way, so don't be
• 23:30
  afraid to step up. Up.
• 23:31
  That's something that you could learn early on in your career,
• 23:35
  the person who can step up and does has a significant advantage
• 23:38
  over the person who says, no next thing, get good habits
• 23:42
  early, on in your career, when you, when you work in really
• 23:45
  good kitchens, usually everyone has really good habits, so it's
• 23:48
  good. But if you get into bad habits
• 23:50
  early on in your career, it's gonna be very hard to break them
• 23:53
  later on in your career. So you want to make sure that
• 23:55
  you have as many good habits as you can.
• 23:57
  And that might mean, like perfect brunoise skills, trying
• 24:00
  to I see onion just perfect. The way you set up your station
• 24:03
  Immaculate. Your knives are always sharp.
• 24:06
  You don't wipe your hands on your aprons.
• 24:07
  You fold your towels. You don't kick doors with your
• 24:10
  feet that kind of stuff, like, picking up those good habits,
• 24:13
  early on will help you significantly in your career.
• 24:17
  I used to run a pretty serious kitchen and I, you know, I've
• 24:20
  talked about this before another podcast.
• 24:22
  Sometimes I'd be called Chef picky, but I was very meticulous
• 24:25
  on every single standard that I had in the kitchen from how you
• 24:28
  fold your towels, to how you would greet people.
• 24:33
  And after a little bit of time, people that had worked with me
• 24:35
  in that kitchen and they'd go somewhere else, a lot of times
• 24:38
  they'd come back and be like, I can't seen so many people with
• 24:41
  bad. Habits is hard for me to work on
• 24:44
  top of that. They would also get complimented
• 24:46
  when they go into other kitchens.
• 24:47
  They'd be like, wow, you work really well.
• 24:50
  So like I said, good habits go a long way, and they will be the
• 24:54
  foundation for your career moving forward.
• 24:56
  So try and get as many good habits as you can.
• 25:00
  And honestly, you're not dumb, you're in a kitchen.
• 25:03
  You know what your bad habits are?
• 25:04
  You might not want to admit, you know, what your bad habits are?
• 25:06
  But trust me, you know, what your bad habits are.
• 25:08
  So you got to be a little bit self-critical sometimes.
• 25:10
  So you can identify opportunities where you can
• 25:12
  improve the last thing. I'll say it's kind of twofold
• 25:15
  one, you will get better with time when you first start out
• 25:19
  cooking. You think?
• 25:21
  I don't know how to do this, and I don't know how to do that, and
• 25:24
  I'm not fast on the line. And I don't know how to braise
• 25:28
  whatever the case may be. Whatever you think is holding
• 25:30
  you back, you think you're never going to improve, but trust me,
• 25:33
  you will get better. You will be able to organize
• 25:36
  tickets in your mind. Your knife skills will get
• 25:39
  faster. Your food will get tastier, you
• 25:42
  will become more organized. No one gets there overnight and
• 25:46
  cooking professionally as a process of a gradual
• 25:49
  improvement, over time. It's impossible to do something
• 25:53
  for 8 hours a day or longer and not.
• 25:56
  Move. So you have to realize that you
• 25:58
  will get better. So on those days that seemed
• 26:00
  very difficult and maybe it seems hopeless because you think
• 26:03
  I did this wrong right, that, that wrong and I can't cook a
• 26:05
  steak and I don't know. My steak temperatures
• 26:08
  understand, you will get better with practice everything will
• 26:11
  become easy. Now the second part to that this
• 26:14
  is going to be some tough advice.
• 26:16
  Is that you have to know when it's not for you. if you're
• 26:20
  going home every day and saying, I don't like this job because I
• 26:25
  can't cook a steak and my knife skills are crap and I don't know
• 26:30
  the recipes all that can be learned, right?
• 26:32
  Your knife skills will get better.
• 26:34
  You will learn how to cook a steak, you will be able to
• 26:36
  organize yourself better. But if you're going home and
• 26:40
  you're saying, I don't like standing on my feet all day 48
• 26:44
  hours, I don't like working in a high paced environment I don't
• 26:48
  like dealing with people. I don't like being told what to
• 26:52
  do. I don't like the heat of the
• 26:54
  kitchen, then the reality is that part doesn't change.
• 26:58
  You will get better at the skills but the environment
• 27:01
  usually doesn't change kitchens are still going to be hot.
• 27:03
  You still have to work standing on your feet, realistically it.
• 27:08
  It's not going to be less than 8 hours a day.
• 27:10
  People are going to call off. You are going to work with
• 27:14
  people that you don't like. And unless you're the chef, you
• 27:18
  are going to be told what to do. And you may be in that position
• 27:22
  of being told what to do for many years before you become the
• 27:25
  chef, that tells people what to do, but even keep in mind, the
• 27:28
  chef is usually still taking orders from somebody.
• 27:32
  Ownership etcetera. So if what you don't like about
• 27:35
  the industry is not things that are able to be changed in any
• 27:39
  restaurant out there or any kitchen out there.
• 27:42
  Then at a certain point you have to say maybe this industry isn't
• 27:45
  for me and this is a tough conversation and not a lot of
• 27:48
  people want to hear I might catch some crap for this but I
• 27:54
  think it's important that if you realize that you don't like the
• 27:56
  industry, don't stay with it because you think you have no
• 27:59
  other option, there's always other options and I've said this
• 28:02
  before, there's no job out there.
• 28:06
  That's worth sacrificing your physical health or your mental
• 28:09
  health for and if it's just not for you, it's just not for you
• 28:11
  and that's okay. It's better that you understand
• 28:14
  that early on because a lot of chefs will stay in the business
• 28:19
  for 15, 20 years and and and they realize that they have not
• 28:23
  liked it for 15 or 20 years. Some people love it.
• 28:26
  Some people don't just like everything in life sometimes,
• 28:29
  it's not for everybody. There's people that are DieHard
• 28:31
  cooks and DieHard chefs. I know, I used to be that way.
• 28:34
  I would say you will never see. Me do anything else other than
• 28:37
  being a chef? And here I am making memes and
• 28:41
  talking shit on a podcast. Anyway, that's the advice.
• 28:44
  I would have given to myself and that's the advice.
• 28:46
  I'd give to a young cook is it's going to be hard, there's going
• 28:50
  to be some days that suck my grandfather.
• 28:52
  Used to say this, No matter how bad things get bad luck, doesn't
• 28:58
  last 100 years and there's not an idiot who will put up with
• 29:01
  bad luck for 100 years either. So anyway, that's it for today.
• 29:06
  Thank you. All, if you want to support the
• 29:07
  show, I'm on YouTube now. So anytime you see my face just
• 29:11
  put a thumbs up or a like so anywhere you see my face like it
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  or leave five stars, whatever the case may be, you buy the
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  book, you leave five stars, you listen to the podcast, we need
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  five stars, you're on YouTube, you subscribe and you leave the
• 29:21
  thumbs up button. If you want to support the show,
• 29:26
  there's somewhere on Spotify where you could donate.
• 29:29
  I appreciate that. That helps That helps keep the
• 29:32
  show going. You go get the books.
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• 29:55
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• 29:57
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