Latest / Chef's PSA Podcast / The Proper Thieves Podcast Reveal: Exclusive Chef Interview Ep. 87

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The Proper Thieves Podcast Reveal: Exclusive Chef Interview Ep. 87 · Chef's PSA Podcast

0:00
Hello Chefs, This is Chefs PSA Podcast.
0:02
I'm your host Andre Nettera. On today's episode is a special
0:05
one. It's going to be a little bit
0:06
different. This is me being interviewed on
0:09
the proper Thieves Podcast. Stay tuned.
0:24
Now before we get started, if you want to support the show,
0:26
make sure you subscribe. If you're watching on YouTube,
0:29
hit the Like button on Spotify. Make sure you leave five stars.
0:32
Hit the subscribe button. And by the way, nothing less
0:35
than five stars. Anything less than five stars is
0:37
not good for you. Make sure you go to chefspsa.com
0:40
where you get all the books, all the merch.
0:42
Go get to the Culinary Leadership Fundamentals book
0:44
line Cook Survival Manual. I just finished a new one.
0:47
It's free ebook, The 50 Most Important Chef's PSA's.
0:50
It's also available on audio. Make sure you go get that.
0:54
Today's episode is a little bit different.
0:56
I did an interview a couple weeks back with some friends on
0:59
the Proper Thieves podcast. We covered a lot of subjects on
1:03
that episode, everything ranging from the culinary world to
1:06
leadership to business marketing.
1:09
We talk philosophy, we talk MMA fighting.
1:12
You get to learn a little bit more about me and so I wanted to
1:14
break up this episode a little bit by giving you the 1st 30
1:18
minutes of that interview. If you want to see and listen to
1:21
the complete interview, I'm going to link them in the show
1:24
Notes. You could watch it on YouTube or
1:25
you can listen on Spotify. Make sure you go like and
1:28
subscribe their channel as well. Proper Thieves podcast.
1:31
Good friends of mine, Andrew and Corbin.
1:33
I expect big things from their podcast soon, so.
1:36
Without further ado, let's get into it.
1:38
For many years I had access. Some, you know, some of my
1:40
friends are the best chefs in the world or the country.
1:42
And it's easy for me to pick up the phone with a three Michelin
1:46
star chef or a chef in Europe that I'm good friends with, or
1:50
people that have worked under me and just shoot the shit and have
1:53
those mentors and have those relationships.
1:56
And I didn't realize how much of A bubble I'm in because most
1:59
chefs don't have access to mentorship and guidance.
2:02
And So what I did with Chef's PSA is I wanted to be the mentor
2:07
unofficially and give people the information and knowledge and
2:11
and let them see the wizard behind the curtain and and bring
2:13
them into the room of the things that are discussed that they
2:15
might not even be aware or discussed and coach them through
2:18
their career. So my mission is to help cooks
2:20
become chefs, and to help chefs become great chefs.
2:24
I love that, Yeah. Yeah, it's a different angle
2:26
than just cooking. Here's this recipe.
2:28
Here is how to make this it's it's a different audience you
2:31
have. So if you remember during COVID,
2:33
you guys aren't chefs. You weren't like, consuming all
2:35
the chefs social media. But during COVID, every chef was
2:39
doing like a cooking demo. Let me show you how to see your
2:41
steak. Let me show you how to make a
2:42
salmon. And I realized that if I wanted
2:45
to help people, some of the best chefs in the world or were
2:49
teaching you how to cook steaks and fish and everything else is
2:52
No one's teaching you how to run your kitchen.
2:53
No one's teaching you the leadership fundamentals.
2:55
No one's teaching you how to deal with difficult situations,
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how to overcome adversity when times are tough.
3:00
No one's teaching you that. So I could teach you that,
3:02
because sure, I could also teach you how to cook a steak or a
3:05
fish or whatever. But why would you watch me
3:08
versus Gordon Ramsay when we're both, when we.
3:10
I'm not going to show you anything different than he's
3:12
showing you. So it's no one's showing you how
3:13
to how to be a chef. So I'm going to give you those
3:16
skills that you need to be a chef and run your kitchen and be
3:18
successful and market yourself and all these other things that
3:21
don't get discussed. You've heard that joke like when
3:23
you were in high school. Sure.
3:26
Thank you for teaching me the Pythagorean theorem.
3:28
Now, how do taxes work? None of that stuff matters when
3:32
you get into the real world. So that's what happens in the
3:34
chef world is you know so much about cooking, but then you're
3:37
put in the position of head chef.
3:39
And I don't know how to lead. I don't know how to manage food
3:40
cost. I don't know how to hire people.
3:42
I don't know. I don't have, I don't know how
3:43
to build a strategy or marketing plan.
3:45
It was like, that's where I come in, because I'm going to teach
3:46
you those things that they didn't teach you behind the line
3:49
when you were cooking. It's like taking a fighter and
3:51
like managing or making him professional, even though he's
3:54
got the talent. There's a whole world behind the
3:56
backside of promoting yourself and getting into organizations
3:59
and working your way up and stuff like that.
4:01
I know we wanted to talk about this.
4:02
Can we kind of talk about how it's so similar like the
4:04
hierarchy from fighting to how it works in the kitchen?
4:08
Yeah, so I let let me say this first of all, because of people
4:12
like what do you what the fuck do you know about fighting?
4:15
Are we allowed to cuss? On maybe I should say How I Met
4:18
Andre. I met Andre when I was 16 years
4:19
old. This was 23 years ago, almost 24
4:22
now and I walked into my first kickboxing gym and I want to do
4:27
kickboxing and they're like we have Muay Thai and MMA.
4:30
And I was like, I guess that's close enough.
4:31
So I have passively walked into Muay Thai.
4:34
Andre was a student there and he was like there was the teacher,
4:36
Mike and then Andre was like the best student and then everyone
4:40
else And so but Andre was just a cool dude and we trained and we
4:45
you know he's only muscle chef and then he had found out he's
4:47
like the Super high level chef you know, blew me away.
4:49
You're at the some hotel, Yeah. At the time Fairmont No that.
4:54
Was the last one. So when we met.
4:56
So I think I'm just a few years older than Andrew, but he was
5:01
16, I think maybe at the time beating everyone up, just
5:05
beating everyone up. And I'm like this 16 year old
5:07
kids running through all the guys at the gym.
5:09
And I was like, and we could probably talk about this
5:11
different tangent, but I like to train with people that are good.
5:14
Just as a chef, you want to cook with people that are good
5:16
because you learn more when someone's good versus when
5:18
they're not good. And I'm assuming the same thing
5:20
applies in the gym. So it's like Andrew was good.
5:22
I wanted to train with him because if I could beat up
5:24
everyone in the gym, but I can't beat him up, then I should train
5:26
with him more. So I'm sorry, I didn't mean to
5:30
cut. You off, he.
5:31
It wasn't quite that lopsided. I I had.
5:33
Potential, but when you were younger now, different.
5:36
Andre showed me a lot of my moves early on, yeah.
5:38
And he he was constantly catching me like he he was, he's
5:41
pretty smart dude. And I could tell that the way
5:43
his brain worked was very analytical and very methodical
5:46
and stuff like that. And but that same mindset
5:49
applies so much to the culinary world, the cooking.
5:52
Yeah, for me, I had spent a lot of years in gyms and we're
5:56
talking about a fighting. Early on when I used to train at
5:59
the same gym with Andrew, it was called Trainers Elite in Dallas
6:02
and a lot of good fighters came through through there at the
6:04
time. A lot of guys that were in
6:05
PRIDE, Ken Shamrock did a training there for one of his
6:09
Pride fights. Guy Mezger would go through
6:10
their Pete's Pratt. A lot of guys that were in Pride
6:12
in UFC would go through that gym, so we had access to
6:15
watching them. See, back in the day when we did
6:16
MMA, it was like the only way you could actually watch the
6:19
sport was to go to Blockbuster and hope they had a cassette
6:23
left. Because it was like the dark era
6:25
where the band, and it was like on its last leg and Dana White
6:28
hadn't come and bought it yet. So like, anybody that was into
6:30
fighting, it was like a fringe sport.
6:33
It was like surfing or rock climbing.
6:35
It might. You know what I mean?
6:36
It's wasn't nearly as mainstream as it is now.
6:38
Yeah, it was like an outcast thing for like bouncers.
6:42
And it was, it wasn't what it is now.
6:44
And at the time, there was only a couple of gyms that had a lot
6:47
of pro fighters. Anybody in the Dallas scene 23
6:49
years ago has heard of trainer's elite, knows the lion's den, all
6:51
these names. Yeah, I think there was like,
6:53
maybe it was like Lion's Den Trainer's elite fighter house,
6:57
maybe Fighter's house. And then molars.
6:59
It was like, those are the only gyms you would have gone to back
7:01
then. Yeah.
7:02
And anyway, So what does this have to do with anything?
7:03
My first passion was not cooking.
7:06
It was fighting. That's what I want to be in.
7:07
Cooking was what paid the bills so I could train at the gym.
7:10
And because I was so into that gym culture when I was younger.
7:15
The same thing crosses over into the culinary world.
7:18
Your coach is your chef. The sous chefs in the kitchen
7:21
are like your pro fighters. Your line cooks in the kitchen
7:24
are like everyone else that's just training and wants to
7:27
become pro. So they're the ones on the come
7:29
up. But there's a certain level of
7:30
respect in that hierarchy. Your coach tells you what to do.
7:33
Yes, coach. Chef tells you what to do.
7:34
Yes, chef, right. You give shit down because the
7:38
pro guy can talk shit to the amateur guy and he's going to
7:40
take it because if he doesn't there's repercussions and
7:43
sparring. The same thing applies in the
7:45
kitchen. You wouldn't talk crap to your
7:47
sous chef because they're going to smoke you on the line.
7:49
They could out hustle you. They cook faster than you.
7:51
The same sort of gym mentality was really easy to translate
7:56
into the kitchen. So that's why I think because I
7:58
understood that and I would, I would sit back and I'd watch the
8:01
pro fighters that were really good and and I'd respect them
8:04
and I'd see how they would interact and how I would
8:06
interact with them and that those same interactions were the
8:08
same ones that I would have with the chefs and the sous chefs
8:11
coming up. So when you're in a gym and if
8:14
you're very respectful to people and you, Andrew could correct me
8:18
if I'm wrong, but you go up to someone like, hey, you want to
8:20
spar hard because no, I don't know you, I don't want to spar
8:23
hard. The same thing applies in the
8:24
kitchen. You don't know shit and you're
8:25
going to go up to a chef and be like, can I get my dish on the
8:28
menu? But it's the same sort of levels
8:30
of respect that you have in the gym also apply in the kitchen.
8:33
So because I understood that social dynamic, it helped me be
8:36
successful in the culinary social dynamic.
8:39
Yeah. It helped you rise up super fast
8:41
too, didn't it? Yeah, it did.
8:42
And I'm very competitive. So whether it's cooking or in
8:48
the gym or whatever, I just, I I have this, I want to be the
8:51
best. I'm very self analytical.
8:53
So I'll sit there and say what did I do wrong in the kitchen
8:55
today? What, what can I do better?
8:56
And I'll sit there and analyze and I'll say yes to
8:58
opportunities when they're presented.
9:00
By the time I stepped away from cooking, I I think I was 44
9:03
years old. So 27 year career because I
9:06
started very young and I had under my belt 9 executive chef
9:11
jobs from everything from being a partner in a restaurant,
9:14
multiple awards, a member of the World Master Chef Society, James
9:18
Beard Foundation board member of Texas Food and Wine.
9:21
I I used to joke around and say I'm the I'm like the the best B
9:25
list chef. I'm like the B list guy.
9:28
I have this this class called How to Lead Like an Executive
9:31
Chef. It's not a master class, but
9:33
it's it's kind of like a master. It's just not a master.
9:35
I have a book independently published.
9:38
You know, it's like I did everything that your favorite
9:40
chef did, just not as good as your favorite chef.
9:46
But at that level, though, the actual skill of cooking is
9:49
splitting hairs. The number one contender versus
9:51
the champ or the one contender versus 2?
9:54
Yeah, so I would say like this. Not everyone makes it to the
9:58
UFC, right? There's all these other
10:01
organizations. But when you get into the UFC,
10:03
it's OK, You made it to the UFC, You're in the top, top percent.
10:07
And then not everyone is going to be ranked in the top ten.
10:10
And then not everyone's going to get a title shot and not
10:12
everyone's ever going to be the champion.
10:14
So like, your three Michelin star chefs are like UFC
10:17
champions. Like not everyone will get that.
10:20
Not everyone's going to get that three Michelin stars, but a lot
10:23
of people will get James Beard Awards and Food and Wine awards
10:25
and all these other awards. That is like, hey, I'm in the
10:27
UFC, I'm top of the food chain. I'm just not tippy top right?
10:31
Real quick for our listeners, Anybody that doesn't know
10:33
anything about cooking, can you explain what Michelin Star is?
10:36
Yeah, so the Michelin Guide was basically the tire company,
10:40
right? The the tire company's
10:42
determining who are the best chefs.
10:44
And it's ranking of 1-2 and three stars.
10:47
One stars. Excellent.
10:48
Just getting one Michelin stars. Holy shit, very impressive. 2
10:52
stars is you're basically a three star chef and you need
10:55
more time and three star chef is like the apex.
10:59
You can't go higher than three stars.
11:01
And a lot of chefs might be willing to cut off of a pinky to
11:04
get three stars right. It's it's the apex of being a
11:08
chef. But not every place has
11:10
Michelin. For example, in the United
11:12
States, the Michelin Guide is in New York, Chicago, Miami,
11:16
Atlanta. I want to say they just went to
11:18
Denver, but they're not. In Texas, not You could be an
11:22
excellent chef. You might not have a Michelin
11:24
star restaurant because you're not in a city that Michelin
11:27
rates. That's a whole other
11:28
conversation. Yeah.
11:29
It's like sanctioning bodies almost, Yeah.
11:31
Yeah. Does Austin have any Michelin?
11:32
Restaurants, No. So there's no Michelin Guide in
11:34
Texas. Period.
11:35
Oh, so I do. OK.
11:36
Sorry. None.
11:37
None. But the conversation has been on
11:40
the table. Yeah.
11:41
And I have intimate knowledge to that conversation that I can't
11:44
share. OK.
11:46
But I I've heard egos are bruised.
11:48
Yeah. It's very political behind the
11:49
scenes from what I've heard that.
11:51
Makes. Yeah, I believe it.
11:52
Now there's a whole world though of Michelin * but also like
11:55
celebrity chef and they're not always synonymous.
11:57
Is that right? Or who would get more respect of
12:00
world renowned Gordon Ramsay type guy or a three star chef?
12:04
Chef, it's going to depend who you're trying to get respect
12:06
from. So if you are, and I'm just
12:10
making this up, but if you're like, enamored in your goal in
12:13
culinary school is I want to be the next Gordon Ramsay, and you
12:16
look at someone who has three Michelin stars, you're like, no
12:20
way. Gordon Ramsay's the man.
12:22
I want to. I want that where someone else
12:24
would be like Gordon Ramsay's not the man.
12:25
I don't want to be on TVI want to earn it in the restaurant,
12:28
which, by the way, Gordon Ramsay is a very successful chef.
12:30
He also has three Michelin stars in his restaurant in London.
12:33
Yeah. So he's aside from the TV
12:35
personality, he's a phenomenal chef.
12:36
So I don't want to sit here and discredit him, but just use that
12:39
as the example. Some people don't want to be
12:41
like Gordon Ramsay because of the stars.
12:43
They want to be like him because he is a star.
12:45
Other people want to be like Thomas Keller because of the
12:48
stars that he's earned. It's more it's like you have
12:50
this, which way, chef? Left or right?
12:53
Which way do you want to go? Do you want to pursue the the
12:55
stardom, or do you want to pursue accolades given to
12:58
bestowed upon you by the media, or the Michelin Guide, or the
13:03
World's Fifty Best, or whatever the case may be?
13:06
So I was going to say there's a lot of In the Kitchen world that
13:10
mimics firefighting. A lot.
13:11
I've noticed. I think fighting mimics a lot of
13:13
the art in the craft and there is some sort of the brotherhood
13:16
aspect of it. But the firefighting world is
13:18
very rank based and structured and like chef means chief and
13:23
French. Is that right?
13:24
Yeah. So it's similar.
13:25
There's a chief and below him he might have two or three
13:27
captains, and each of those captains are responsible for two
13:30
or three lieutenants. And each one of those
13:32
lieutenants each has a three man crew underneath him.
13:35
And so the span of command span the span of control chain of
13:39
command I'm. Going to cut this piece off
13:41
because that that's going to be the one that does that.
13:43
Yeah, so a lot of your short form content I really like
13:45
because it'll be like to the new guy starting out, you're
13:48
essentially a white belt. When the chef comes up to you
13:50
and says your potatoes are peeled wrong, don't give him any
13:54
reason. Like I peeled in this way
13:55
because I I read that the OR the chef doesn't care about what you
13:59
thought. It's wrong and just do it my,
14:01
you know kind of thing. And you had firefighting a lot
14:04
really going to come over. Hey you threw that bundle wrong.
14:06
I was trying to go around the the stairs and I don't care.
14:10
You did, you know and and it's just the subtlety of ingraining
14:14
yourself in these brotherhoods and working your way up.
14:17
There's like a rank structure. There's a way to be at the
14:20
military guys really understand this well because it's not just
14:23
a unit or a kitchen. It's like a whole world of
14:26
spaces and whatnot. And not all chefs are right and
14:29
what they do, by the way, that's cut up if you guys want to have
14:31
more. Not fork.
14:32
There's for you if you want. To thank you, Not not all chefs
14:35
are correct. And and from the standpoint of
14:39
do it my way, because you're in my restaurant, which is the
14:42
correct way to do it. If you're in someone's
14:44
restaurant, the right way to do it is the way the chef wants you
14:46
to do it. Doesn't matter, right?
14:47
He's paying you, School's not paying you.
14:49
Your last job's not paying you. What your opinion isn't paying
14:51
you, I'm paying you. Do it that way.
14:53
But the problem with that is that sometimes the chef is wrong
14:55
but you can't say anything. And sometimes that leads to
14:58
dysfunction in the kitchen because the people who are
15:01
working under, you know better and they know, hey, that's a
15:04
hack move. Or we could do it so much better
15:06
and it's easier and that leads to frustration with a lot of
15:09
cooks. One one thing that I say in my
15:11
chef's PSA is it's better to be the worst cook in the best
15:17
kitchen than the best cook in the worst kitchen.
15:19
So if you want to be around, if, if you want to be great,
15:21
surround yourself around greatness.
15:23
If you want to be a good chef. Work around good chefs.
15:25
If you want to run a certain type of you want to be a three
15:28
Michelin star chef, go work in a three Michelin star restaurant.
15:31
Because you'll never learn that at the BBQ spot right?
15:33
Two different skills. You want to be the best barbecue
15:35
chef? Go work at Franklin's.
15:37
You'll learn how to make BBQ at Franklin's.
15:39
But you're not going to learn different skills for different
15:42
kitchens. But the but to Andrews point is
15:46
that it's a fine line because sometimes the culinary industry
15:50
gets this bad reputation of the hierarchy is bad because of
15:54
chefs like that tell you that's my way or the highway.
15:56
But their way is not necessarily the best way there is.
15:59
There are better ways and sometimes the cooks coming up,
16:01
the the the newer cooks in the kitchen, they have access to
16:04
social media, they have access to podcast, they have access to
16:06
YouTube. So they know a more efficient
16:07
way. But the chef, who is not tech
16:10
savvy and, you know, doesn't look at his phone, has a flip
16:12
phone. Yeah, that's not how I want it
16:15
done. I want it done this way that
16:16
I've been doing it for the last 25 years or 30 years or
16:18
whatever. You'll see that in firefighting
16:19
a lot. You'll see officers that don't
16:21
have a lot of respect to their crew and it creates tension and
16:24
it could be a personality conflict, it could be a skill
16:27
issue, but for the most part, a good leader always has to lead
16:29
by example, always has to leave from the front, and especially
16:32
in this kind of world, you can't hide incompetence or lack of
16:36
skill, not at that level. So how would that situation work
16:39
though? If that was the case where a
16:40
chef was doing it one way but people below him have access to
16:44
social media but don't can't really bring it up to him, how
16:50
does that work? You said it creates a bunch of
16:51
issues in the kitchen, but how does that end up working itself
16:54
out? Do they just accept the fact
16:56
that the hire chef does it wrong, or does it get to a point
16:59
where they kind of butt heads and then one of them levels up?
17:02
Every situation is going to be. I say it's not a cookbook
17:05
answer, you can't follow the recipe and everything works
17:06
every single time. So what works in this kitchen
17:08
with this person? It might not be the exact same
17:10
thing that works in that kitchen with a different chef.
17:13
Egos get involved. The most difficult thing to
17:15
navigate is people, personalities and things like
17:18
that. So what I always say is you
17:20
don't have to like the person that you're working for to work
17:23
for them. I've worked for plenty of people
17:24
that I don't like, but you have to respect them because if you
17:27
don't respect them and you also don't like them, there's no
17:29
point in you being there. You shouldn't work for someone
17:31
that you don't respect. You might like them, but don't
17:33
respect them. Then why are you there?
17:34
We could be friends outside, but if I don't respect you, then I
17:36
don't want to work here. And I think if you're in one of
17:40
those situations where the chef is telling you this is the way
17:43
it is, if you respect that person, you might know that
17:47
maybe they know something. I don't know.
17:48
Maybe they understand that the way that they want it works for
17:52
this restaurant, for this particular goal, for the amount
17:54
of staff that we have, for the amount of customers that we
17:55
serve, They may know something that you don't know.
17:57
So you have to humble yourself and say maybe they're right.
17:59
And I just don't see the bigger picture right now.
18:02
But if you don't respect them, then you're not even going to be
18:04
willing to listen to them because you're going to think,
18:06
what's the expression, don't dismiss the wisdom with the whys
18:09
because they might tell you the sky is blue, but that guy's an
18:13
asshole, so it doesn't matter that he says the sky is blue.
18:14
It's not. So if you could, if there's a
18:16
baseline of respect, you could work through some of those
18:19
issues. But if there's no respect, then
18:22
there's no point in you being in that kitchen because you'll
18:25
never see eye to eye. They'll like I said, they'll say
18:28
the sky is blue and you'll say it's not Establishing that
18:31
baseline of respect. Everything else becomes easier
18:33
if that's there. If that's not there, find a new
18:35
job. Gotcha.
18:36
Yeah. And this is a pretty serious
18:38
industry. Like at the top end you can make
18:39
a really good income. Yeah.
18:41
Like these executive chefs are making quarter million plus.
18:45
Yeah, I would say when you get into those big doctor pay Vegas
18:47
jobs and that's as an employee, right.
18:50
So chef employees, let's say because there's difference
18:52
between chef owner, chef, entrepreneur versus chef
18:54
employee. Someone's paying you.
18:56
They hired you. A chef employee on the very top
18:59
end could be making a quarter mil.
19:01
They're let's just they're the chef of the Venetian, maybe more
19:03
than that. I don't know.
19:04
I don't know what they make, but that's not out of the question.
19:06
I know a chef that makes $350,000 a year for the
19:09
restaurant that he runs and that's a very top end
19:11
restaurant. So that can happen or it could
19:14
be 60,000 or 50,000. So that range is, is pretty big.
19:19
One chef could be making as executive chef 50,000, another
19:22
chef might be making 350 and that's an extreme end on the
19:26
high side. Now that's chef, employee, chef
19:29
owner could be a millionaire, right.
19:30
You can have multiple restaurants.
19:31
You could be a brand, you can have an olive oil deal over here
19:34
and you could look like a NASCAR driver with all these
19:37
sponsorships. And so you at that point that
19:39
you could be worth millions. So I think chefs right now need
19:44
to understand that they are creating a brand and that brand.
19:48
So this example I would give, you're opening up a restaurant.
19:52
So we're in Austin, TX. You have prime real estate
19:54
downtown, smack dab downtown, and you want to open up a
19:58
restaurant and you're going to put $15 million into the real
20:01
estate in the build. And you need to hire an exec
20:04
chef. You have two candidates.
20:05
One, on paper, has a steady track record of being a good
20:09
executive chef. Like it was exec chef here, exec
20:12
chef there, exec chef here. Good, consistent guy.
20:15
The other candidate. Oh, but by the way, this
20:17
candidate with the track record has zero social media presence.
20:20
He's a ghost, does not exist. Can't find him anywhere.
20:23
Can't find him on Google, LinkedIn, Instagram, nothing.
20:26
The other chef might not be the best on paper, with experience,
20:30
but has 2,000,000 followers on Instagram and a million
20:34
followers on Twitter. Which one you hire?
20:35
The one with 2,000,000 followers, Because you're
20:37
putting $15 million into this restaurant and you need to.
20:41
You need to make sure your investment is good.
20:43
So you're going to hire the one with the social media presence.
20:46
And that's an extreme example, saying one person has the chops
20:50
with no social media and the other person doesn't have the
20:51
chops but all social media. You can build a brand off that
20:54
other person. And so my advice to chefs would
20:56
be is like, don't dismiss that. Because as we move more and more
21:00
towards your resume being digital, Instagram, LinkedIn,
21:04
whatever, if you're not curating that, you could be potentially
21:08
passing up money opportunities later on.
21:11
And I think it's important that chefs understand that.
21:14
Yeah, that's a huge part of what you do right now.
21:17
Kind of transition from chefing full time to social media full
21:22
time. What was that like?
21:23
And. So for the first few months when
21:26
I first retired, I was like, what the fuck am I going to do?
21:28
I'm just chilling. I was in the beach in Puerto
21:29
Rico smoking cigars, chilling, and I didn't know what I was
21:33
going to do. So on my personal Instagram
21:36
page, I would put up these Chef's PSAS as a joke between
21:39
chefs. I wanted to make fun of one of
21:42
my friends, so I'd put up the chef's PSA.
21:43
Hey, chef's PSA. Don't forget to season your
21:47
steak, or whatever the case may be.
21:48
But it was just a joke. It was intended to just poke fun
21:50
at people that I know. And one of my friends messaged
21:52
me, a chef here in Austin, by the name of Fermi Nunez.
21:55
He runs Suerte and Estate, two of the better restaurants in the
21:58
city. And so he DM D me and he's
22:00
turned this into a book. I'll buy it and I have extreme
22:04
OCD to to almost to a detriment, I said I'll do it Now for me
22:09
what I was the reason I bring up the OCD is if I say I'm going to
22:11
do it, I have to do it. I can't back out and if I've
22:15
committed to it, I will have to figure out how to publish a
22:17
book, which I've never published a book, but I thought how hard
22:19
it's going to be to publish a book.
22:21
So he wants it. So I got all my jokes, put them
22:24
in a book, send them to someone like can you help me publish
22:26
this? And then a few months later I
22:28
published my first book which was titled Chef's PSA How Not to
22:32
Be the Biggest Idiot in the Kitchen.
22:34
And it was basically like don't, don't call off on Valentine's
22:38
Day. We know you're faking it, shit
22:39
like that. It was intended to be like
22:40
tongue in cheek jokes, and I didn't think it was going to
22:43
catch. But it was just a way of me
22:45
giving advice to people that turned into five books, later
22:49
published audiobooks. And also I I think 5 or 6 free
22:54
ebooks that I give away and a podcast and social merchandise
22:59
and an AI app. And this joke that I put up on
23:04
my Instagram story has now turned into my business.
23:06
Yeah. That's so cool.
23:08
Yeah, it's incredible. I'm sorry, it seems like you're
23:10
taking the same mindset too. From the fight gym.
23:12
From the kitchen now on to this stage, Yeah.
23:15
So the idea of so here's like, if I had an advantage is
23:21
personal discipline. That is my superpower.
23:23
Discipline is my superpower. Because I know every day when I
23:26
wake up, whether I want to or not, I'm going to write.
23:30
I have to write every day. When I wake up, sometimes it
23:32
sucks. But I'm going to write every
23:33
day. I'm going to do this every day.
23:35
I'm going to do that every day. I'm going to post something
23:37
every day. I'm going to tweet every day.
23:38
And it's like the consistency. You look back and it's like, and
23:44
I can tell you what my method is because it might make a little
23:47
bit more sense. But I have a big poster board
23:49
with a bunch of sticky notes on it, and every time I accomplish
23:52
something, it goes up there. Or I have another poster board
23:55
with things that need to get accomplished and it goes from
23:56
this poster board to the other one.
23:58
When I needed to write a book, the first book that I was like,
24:00
going to take serious, not the joke book, but the real book.
24:03
The second one I wrote titled Culinary Leadership
24:05
Fundamentals, which was like I said, the first one was a joke
24:08
book. The second was like, OK, let me
24:09
really teach you how to be chefs and manage food costs and all
24:11
that. And so the second book what I
24:12
did is I got all these sticky notes and I was like, we need a
24:15
chapter on food costs, we need a chapter on labor costs, we need
24:18
a marketing strategy. And I just put sticky notes all
24:20
over and I ended up with 30 sticky notes.
24:22
And everyday time to write, just take one sticky note.
24:25
That's all I'm going to write about.
24:26
That's smart. By the by 30 days, I wrote a 200
24:30
page book, but it didn't feel like a 200 page book because I
24:33
just had to write about that one thing that one day and then set
24:36
the timer done walk away. And so the consistency, when I
24:41
look back on everything that I've been able to do with this
24:45
chef's PSA has everything to do with the fact that I show up
24:49
every day. It's the same thing in the
24:50
kitchen. You show up every day,
24:52
consistently. Good days, bad days, doesn't
24:55
matter. You're going to show up anyway.
24:57
You got slapped in the face, doesn't matter.
24:59
You're still going to work. You got slapped in the face.
25:00
You're still going to the gym. You're still going to, you're
25:01
still going to spar. You're still going to, you're
25:03
still going to cook, you're still going to write.
25:05
Doesn't matter. So even when things are hard, I
25:07
like that Mike Tyson quotes. Like doing discipline is doing
25:10
the thing that you don't want to do, but doing it like you love
25:13
it. That has been my secret to
25:17
success, is the fact that I will do it every day because I have
25:19
that OCD that says I have to do it every day.
25:21
I can't turn it off unfortunately.
25:23
Yeah, yeah. Let's go ahead and spark these
25:25
cigars. Yeah, sorry, I was doing that
25:26
while. You were talking again?
25:27
These were a gift from Andre. Andre, what are these again?
25:29
Escobar cigars. You're familiar.
25:31
It's two of my favorite things. I know you guys like smoking
25:33
cigars. I like smoking cigars.
25:35
I also love hip hop, hip hop music, and Nas is one of my
25:38
favorite rappers. Yeah, so this is Nas's brand of
25:41
cigars. Really.
25:42
Yeah. That's cool.
25:43
I saw him live, actually, one time.
25:45
He was pretty good. Did you go to?
25:47
So there's the New York State of Mine, Nas and Wu Tang.
25:50
I think that was it. Actually.
25:51
He was with Wu Tang. Was it recently I went there
25:53
too? Not it was.
25:54
It was many years ago. I was in Dallas.
25:56
Oh yeah, it happened recently and here in Austin, maybe last
26:00
year I went, yeah, it was great. So I like Escobar cigars.
26:04
It's a tribute to two things that I love, hip hop cussing,
26:10
hip hop cussing and cigars. I like to say let's cuss and
26:13
discuss. I like that.
26:16
I was going to say you mentioned that you were super OCD and we
26:18
talked a little bit about it downstairs.
26:20
But you're a big morning routine guy, morning routine guy.
26:23
I know I am too. Do you just want to talk about
26:25
how something like that might have helped your come up or
26:29
could help somebody else's come up that isn't super disciplined
26:32
with themselves? Yeah.
26:33
So I'll give you a tip on that. I was given for building
26:39
willpower and then I'll get into what my routine is and I would
26:43
start out with this one little caveat.
26:46
The best thing about me is my warning routine, and it's the
26:48
thing that I love the most, but it's also the thing that I hate
26:51
the most because I can't turn it off.
26:53
That's the problem. I'll do all this stuff, but I
26:55
also I can't not do it. And when I don't do it, I feel
26:58
like something's off My my whole day is screwed up if I didn't do
27:01
this one thing. So the advice that a friend of
27:04
mine gave me who's very intelligent and someone that
27:06
mentors me, we were talking about willpower.
27:08
What he said to me was this idea of cognitive dissonance.
27:12
If you say you're going to go to the gym and you never go to the
27:15
gym, then your brain says, OK, but if he says he's going to go
27:17
to the gym, don't go. So it's so your actions and your
27:22
words are opposites. So your brain thinks do the
27:24
opposite of what he says, That's how we operate.
27:27
So he said, if you want to correct that, start small.
27:31
Say I'm going to brush my teeth and then brush your teeth.
27:33
I'm going to open the door, then open the door.
27:35
So then your body mind, connection starts to correct
27:37
itself. So you say you're going to do
27:38
it. You actually do it.
27:39
So your mind says, OK, let's do what we say we're going to do.
27:42
And you start small and you grow to bigger things.
27:44
Say, OK, today I'm just going to do 1 push up.
27:47
You do the one push up. You don't say something stupid.
27:49
Today I'm going to do 1000 when you know you're not.
27:51
And the key to that was, he said if you know you're not going to
27:55
do it, let's say we said today we're going to go to the gym and
27:58
then you know you're not going to go to the gym because you
28:01
just got lazy, he says. Then say I changed my mind, I'm
28:04
not going to go to the gym. That's the loophole.
28:06
So like you're now you're holding true to your word all
28:08
the time, right? So.
28:10
I'm going to start using that. That was the psychological trick
28:13
to build willpower and discipline.
28:15
Now, So what my morning routine looks like is wake up in the
28:18
morning. The first thing I do is I read
28:21
first thing. I'm reading a book.
28:23
OK, so I read a chapter. Boom.
28:25
Then I meditate. I do the yoga breath work for
28:28
about 30 minutes. That's next.
28:30
Then, after yoga breath work, I start checking my phone, respond
28:33
to some emails, DMS, whatever. Boom.
28:36
Next thing I go into the kitchen.
28:37
I eat the same breakfast everyday.
28:39
Really doesn't change. It's fuel, almonds, some fruit
28:42
cup of coffee. It's on autopilot.
28:44
I know what I'm going to eat. It's reasonably healthy.
28:46
Stick to that. Then while I'm doing all that,
28:48
I'm listening to an audiobook. The audiobook's playing.
28:52
I read a book. So that's book #1.
28:53
Now I'm on book #2 on audio. Do that while I'm making my
28:57
breakfast or whatever, and then I'll jump on the computer, check
29:00
the blogs that I frequent to read the financial news,
29:02
whatever. And then I play Lumosity, which
29:05
is like brain puzzles and things like that.
29:07
I feel like that warms up my brain for the day.
29:09
So that's about 30 minutes of brain puzzles.
29:12
Then I go. While I'm doing that, I'm also
29:14
listening to the audiobook while I'm playing math games or
29:16
whatever. Now I go to the couch, I move
29:19
rooms, and I read book #3. So I read 5 pages of book #3.
29:24
So now the audiobook, the one that I first read on woke up
29:27
audiobooks #2, and then now I'm reading book #3.
29:30
After I'm done reading that, the five pages that I've committed
29:32
to put that away, I play Duolingo for about 15 minutes,
29:37
practice a new language. Then I play this other brain
29:39
game, which is math, reading, writing, etcetera.
29:43
It's called what is it called? Elevate.
29:45
So. I've used elevate.
29:47
So I use elevate. I play a couple of games on
29:48
elevate. OK so Duolingo, elevate 3 books,
29:52
breath work for 30 minutes, still not done.
29:55
Then it's time to play chess. So I play usually one game of
29:59
chess, blitz done. But sometimes one game could
30:02
turn into 30 games if I get distracted, right?
30:04
So just I lost. Keep going until you win and
30:06
then I keep losing. Keep going until you win.
30:08
So now I've played a few games of chess and then I start to
30:13
work. How long does this take you?
30:15
Three hours. Three hours, OK.
30:17
That's pretty. That's actually a lot for three
30:18
hours. Yeah, yeah.
30:19
So three hours and every day includes 3 different books.
30:22
So I average about a book a week, right?
30:25
So people say I read about 52 books a year, whether it's audio
30:28
or old school reading with your eyes.
30:31
You think there's a difference between the two?
30:32
Yeah, yeah, I do. Now that I listen to audio books
30:37
and I read also, I feel like I retain more of the audio books
30:40
than I do with the ones that I read.
30:41
Really. Really.
30:42
I think most people would assume it would be the other.
30:43
Way. Yeah, this is this.
30:45
Maybe this is just a me thing, but I keep track of everything
30:48
that I that I read. And what's funny is because so
30:53
let's just say I read 52 books a year or finish 52 books a year
30:57
over the course of time. Now we're in the hundreds and
31:00
I'll be like look, and I write them all down and then I'll go
31:03
back and be like I read that. I don't remember reading that.
31:05
I'm realizing that there may be a disadvantage to the quantity
31:10
thing. Maybe I need to read fewer books
31:12
and spend more time on them. So I'm noticing this now.
31:15
Instead of trying to read three books a day, maybe I should just
31:18
one. And when you're done with that
31:20
one, go to the next one. Because now I'm getting input
31:22
from three. I'm reading this book.
31:24
I'm reading, I'm reading The Art of War.
31:25
I'm listening to something by the magic of thinking big.
31:29
And then I'm I'm reading something else.
31:31
And it's like I got all these three books, but like, what's
31:33
being retained? So I'm.
31:36
I'm on the fence with that. So anyway, to your original
31:39
question, that's what the morning routine likes.
31:41
Looks like that was the willpower exercise to be able to
31:43
do it. But the problem is it takes
31:45
three hours. So when I was a chef, if I had
31:47
to be at work at 6:00 in the morning and I can't miss the
31:50
morning routine, that mean I had to wake up like at 2:30 in the
31:53
morning to get it done, which was a problem.
31:56
Yeah. So do you find that it's hard to
31:58
shut your brain off at night? Because obviously you're like a
32:00
very cerebral dude. You're trading your brain like
32:03
it's a bodybuilder. Almost, yeah.
32:05
You almost have to though. Your brain has a muscle.
32:07
If you don't use it, you lose it.
32:08
I have a very small, weak brain. I think in comparison, I don't
32:12
know anything. I say that a lot of times I do
32:13
play chess in the morning, and I find that when I'm sipping my
32:16
morning coffee or tea, it's a nice mental like warm up, you
32:19
know we need. Lighter.
32:22
Oh. Yeah, just sliding.
32:27
Though we got Corbin's Brother Kale off camera.
32:28
You joined us today? Yeah, I'll do chess in the
32:33
morning. I do find that it's a nice
32:34
mental exercise to get the brain pumping with without, but it's
32:38
still fun. Put the top.
32:39
There's a little cap on the top. It's on one.
32:43
It's gonna. Yeah.
32:47
Let me see. Yeah.
32:48
Thank you. So why do you read before you
32:50
meditate? Is there a reason for that?
32:53
No. I'm interested in this too, cuz
32:55
I found I I don't like reading in the morning before I meditate
33:03
because whenever I'm reading a book then I get the information
33:09
and then I start thinking about all these different scenarios
33:12
where I can apply it in different areas of my life.
33:14
And so when then I sit down to meditate to try to calm my brain
33:17
and not think about anything, I find it much more difficult to
33:20
just make it shut up so I can just breathe through it.
33:24
So I'm interested in this. I don't know why I think it.
33:28
I've never put a whole lot of thought into why the reading
33:30
before the meditation. There's there's no logic behind
33:33
it. It's just that's the way the
33:34
morning routine. And because I'm a person of
33:36
routine, I started that way before I added the meditation
33:39
in. So meditation got added in after
33:41
that. And so I'm a room by room
33:43
person. So when I wake up, I'm in my
33:45
bedroom. The book is right there by my
33:46
night stand. I have to read that as soon as I
33:48
wake up. And then the the meditation
33:50
chair is a few feet away, the computer rooms, the next room,
33:54
the, you know, so my morning routine follows my path in the
33:58
morning. So it's not necessarily I wish I
34:02
had a. Good answer, but no, it's just
34:04
what works for you, OK? Do you have a night routine?
34:06
Do you have a similar closing down shop?
34:08
Kind of thing. And I won't add 1 because I know
34:10
how you do. Yeah.
34:11
Yeah, because I like I said, my favorite thing is my morning
34:14
routine. Because I know multiple
34:17
languages because of the Duolingo that I've been doing
34:19
for years, right? I could carry on a conversation
34:21
in other languages. I'm pretty good at chess because
34:25
I play chess every day. I have pretty good math scores
34:28
and all this other stuff. I'm a decent rider because I
34:30
ride every day. Like, all these things are
34:33
designed to make me a better version of me.
34:35
But on the flip side, if I add a PM routine, I know I'm like, I
34:40
need a unwind routine. That's what I really should do,
34:43
is focus on sleep, because what ends up happening?
34:45
I'm like most people end up looking at Twitter all night,
34:47
like I'm laying in bed scrolling, seeing what's
34:49
happening in the Twitter's a fucking dumpster fire, but I
34:52
love it. It's it's like a dumpster fire,
34:55
but you're like grilling s'mores over it, so you can't leave.
34:57
They got s'mores over the dumpster fire.
34:59
It's delicious. Twitter's interesting it.
35:02
Is, yeah. No, I I love what you said about
35:06
the sorry I'm backtracking a little bit.
35:09
I love what you said about the sticky notes.
35:11
So one of the whole reasons that I was interested in starting
35:14
this podcast was finding interesting guests and getting
35:17
information that I can apply to my own life.
35:19
And not not just me, but anybody that's listening to this.
35:24
I love what you said about the sticky notes.
35:26
Just to get things done, having all those things on the board,
35:31
all the things you need to do, basically your To Do List, you
35:34
write them down as and they come up in your everyday life, things
35:36
that you need to do. And then every morning just pick
35:38
one thing and do it one thing and do it.
35:40
I love that. When I was first starting my
35:42
business and I needed to know all these things like, OK, what
35:46
do I need to do? I need to start a, you know, a
35:48
website, I need an e-mail, I need AI, need an LLC, right?
35:52
And so I had a sticky note, like, I don't know how to get an
35:54
LLC, but on the thing, you'll figure it out.
35:56
Even if it takes you the whole day to figure out how to get an
35:57
LLC, you're going to get one. And then you need an EIN and you
36:00
need your your trademark and your DBA and all that.
36:03
If you don't know how to do any of it, if you are starting a
36:06
business right now and you don't know where to begin and you and
36:09
and then you do a Google search and you say what do I need to do
36:11
to start a business? OK, you need a an EINAADBALLC.
36:16
And you got a, you got a business bank account and a
36:18
website and shit. I'm all right.
36:21
I'm just going to keep being an employee, right?
36:23
It's just easier. The path of least resistance is
36:25
I'll just keep punching the clock.
36:26
That seems like a lot of work and I don't know where to begin,
36:28
but if you put all those on sticky notes and today you just
36:30
got to get that LLC, that's it. Yeah, all day to figure that
36:34
out. I'm sure you could figure out
36:35
how to do that one thing. And if you don't figure it out,
36:37
guess what stays tomorrow, You figure it out too.
36:40
And so all of a sudden all these things that may seem extremely
36:43
difficult to do now seem pretty easy.
36:46
And this was pre ChatGPT and now it's like you got the
36:51
motherboard pumping in your veins to make you smarter.
36:55
You go and ChatGPT and say today's project is getting an
36:58
LLC. How do I do that?
36:59
Here are the steps. Give me a website.
37:00
Here you go. Yeah, I think that's what
37:02
separates the winners from the losers, is the people that are
37:04
willing to dig down and go through the shit and figure it
37:08
out. And then there's the people that
37:10
see all that and they're like, that's too much.
37:13
Let's just stay safe. Let's stay easy.
37:15
That's what separates the two. It's so easy to fall into the
37:19
path of least resistance because it's fun, it's comfortable, the
37:23
bed is warm. Someone tells me what to do.
37:25
I don't got to think I could just go to work.
37:27
And when you have to stand on your own 2 feet, that's the
37:29
greatest superpower. It's like being able to pick and
37:32
choose. Like for me, the fact that I
37:33
have a three hour morning routine, but I could wake up
37:35
whenever I want and still I don't have to.
37:37
I don't have to be at work so early.
37:39
It's one of the more liberating feelings to have freedom right
37:43
and knowledge how to do things. My business right now, The
37:46
chef's PSA. All the skills that I learned
37:48
along the way, from marketing to social social media to starting
37:52
a brand. If it all collapsed, I still
37:54
have those skills. I can now try.
37:56
I'm going to get into cigar making just.
37:58
Making that up, I know where to begin.
38:00
If you've enjoyed that podcast and you want to listen to the
38:02
rest of it, I left in the show notes a link to watch it on
38:05
YouTube or listen to it on Spotify.
38:08
Make sure you go subscribe to the Proper Thieves Podcast.
38:10
I expect big things from them. The rest of the episode we talk
38:13
everything UFOs, creativity, philosophy.
38:17
We go down the rabbit hole. It gets fun.
38:19
Make sure you go to chefspsa.com and get all the books and all
38:21
the merch. Get the books that you're
38:23
missing, including the free ebooks.
38:25
They're free. Go get them.
38:26
We'll see you next week. Hit the porno music.