111 - Staying Energized in a 10+ hour Shift

Hey, welcome, everybody. So glad that you could be here. My name is Nick Brown. I'm the founder of Quicken physics LLC. And this is my Thursday teachings. I do this every single Thursday live at this time, one o'clock PM, mountain time. So if you're interested, if you like what you're seeing, and this is on the replay, definitely come and check it out. While I am live on any of my social media channels. So thank you so very much for coming here. So what is cooking physics? And why did I call it that name? You know, I started really, under one of my biggest things was, I always wanted to know why things happen and how things happen. When a, as I was a chef, I would delve deep into, you know, what would happen if I'm cooking meat a certain way. And I would pay attention really closely to how things happen and why they happened. And that not only translated into just the cooking, but it also translated into the organization of the business, which is cooking. It translated into, you know, the profession, how do chefs become the great chefs that they are. And today, I'm going to be talking a lot about how to stay energized, during a multi hour shift, 10 plus hour shift, you know, those times where you just got to work a double, and you're just working really hard. And it's really difficult for you to have the energy at the end of the night, you're just burnt out, you're tired, you're exhausted, you don't want to deal with anything else. That happened to me so many times. And this training today is all about the steps that I have learned that I have gained, and really clarified in what you can do to be able to have the energy at the end of the shift so that you can go out and have fun with your friends, even after working 1213 hours. So that's really what this training is today is all about. So let's get into it. All right, let's see here. Okay. So the first part about this whole thing is, if you're exhausted after a 10 hour shift, I have the steps I really want you to find out or to discover these steps, I want to teach you these steps, so that you have the energy that you need. You know, burnout really is it is real. It's, it can come in many forms. You know, it can just be tired at the end of your shift. reaching the end of your limits. It's, you know, the simple things like getting upset and angry over simple things that really do not have much to do with you, you know. So it's a way it's another time another thing of burnout is if you're like, it's very difficult for you to calm down enough to be able to sleep at the end of your day. Okay. So like I said before, my purpose is to really help professional chefs be happy and successful as they build a culture of growth of development and learning in their lives and become inspirational leaders. That's what I'm trying to do. And in the process, I'm building this community of chefs where collaboration is encouraged where the growth and success of others is celebrated. I really want to respect for the person to be as much as chefs respect their food And I really want that chefs will be commended for their leadership, as much as for their menus. So many chefs are, are, are lifted up on a pedestal because of their menus because of the food that they produce. But what is missing is the fact that how did they get that there, it's through their leadership. It's not just their palate, but also their leadership, because the greatest chefs also have amazing teams behind them. And that's how they're able to do it. So that's what I want to do, I want to start celebrating shots because of their leadership skills, just as much as they do for their menus. So let's get into these steps. The first step is that you need to prepare yourself mentally. And what do I mean by that, I mean, actually, think to yourself, you know, I need, it's going to be a difficult day, it's, you know, you're going to be working a 10 plus hour shift 1214 16 hours, it's going to be a rough day, whatever you do, expect it know that it's going to be difficult, know that it's going to be long know that it's going to be hard, you're going to be dealing with a lot of issues during that time. But if you go into the date, ready to face the challenges, as challenges and as you are, then things will go better. It's not about feeling the dread of frickin 16 hour shift, I got to work a double today, you know, I gotta go in at seven o'clock in the morning. And I'm not gonna get off until midnight, you know, it's, yeah, that's gonna be a really long shift. But if you're going into that dreading it, you're not going to have fun, you're going to be completely exhausted at the end of the shift, you really won't have the energy that you need to be able to fall asleep, you won't be able to, you know, shed all of that stress to be able to fall asleep. So you could go back and work the next day. So the first thing is, is prepare yourself mentally. Get ready, get right up here, take it as you're gonna crush it. Take it is, you're amazing. And you've done this plenty of times before. You need to trust yourself. Because we work in kitchens, we deal with this kind of situations all the time. Not all unfortunately, and hopefully, you're not working these long shifts every single day. If you are, you need to start trying to figure out how to reduce the amount of times that you have to do these shifts, it's inevitable that they're going to happen. But if you're doing it every single day, you got to start figuring out how to change up the systems, the processes so that you don't have to do this every single day. But you need to realize at the same time that you've done it before. You've crushed it many times you can and you're able to do it over and over and over again. This is one of the things we love about kitchens is all of the excitement and the adrenaline rush of service, the solving problems and coming out on top and succeeding and then going out and hearing the praise from the customers. If you're able to actually go out into the dining room and have people congratulate you, it's amazing. It's a lot of fun. It's well worth it. That's why we are working in kitchens so the next step is getting this all set up so that plan you know, one of the things you can do is look at how many reservations you've got if you're working in a restaurant, or if you're working in banquets. You know exactly how much stuff that needs to happen. If you're working on an off site catering gig. No, you know, figure out how long it's going to take you to get there. Know your timeframes, and each each step that needs to happen on the way to the off site catering place. Okay? Having that plan of attack. This fortunately is not a thing thing that most chefs have to do or have to struggle with. Because that's what we do every single day we get in, we have a plan of attack, we attack it and we go home. The third thing is apt to separate your day. This is one of the things that really just blew my mind, there's two main things that blew my mind, that really transformed how I handled a multi shift day and old all day kind of thing. The first thing is separating out your day, you've got your prep time, you've got your service time, got your closing time, separate out those times. If you're going to be working multi, you know, this is a multi shift thing. And you say you've got, you're going to be dealing with two or three meals for that day, you've got your breakfast, you've got your lunch, and you got your dinner. So be able to separate each one of those out. Now, how do you separate it? What am I mean by separate out your day. So the first thing is you group the tasks, okay, this is breakfast, boom. During breakfast, you keep the similar things together was breakfast, the majority of the time you show up, you get everything ready, you're not prepping because you don't have enough time to prep. You've already already you show up, you get things ready, you've got service, once you're done with service, then you do a minor cleanup. And then you start prepping for the next day. For lunch or dinner service in a restaurant. It's kind of flip flop where you show up, you do your prep, then you do your service, and then you do the cleanup and get ready for the next day. Then, in between each one of these sections of your day, take a one to five minute break. That's all it takes. Just take a quick little break, go to the bathroom, go to the walk in, get outside, just get away. Get out of the environment that you're in, so that it separates out the different sections of your day. And the last thing is, when you're out there, release, release what you know, you're done with that service, you're done with that section. Done. Okay, refresh yourself, kind of build yourself up, start breathing, get some, you know, review, start to review some of the new sections, what you're going to be doing in that thing, create that new focus, and then restart. Basically, by doing this, you're restarting your day, you're starting fresh. And you can start again with the same amount of energy at that moment that you had at the beginning of the day. If you release all the pressure, start refreshing yourself building up your energy, and then restart go crush it. That is one of the biggest things that you can do to maintain this energy. It's not a continuous thing. Because I mean, even if you think about it, you're, you're awake for 1618 hours a day, right? And if you're not working, okay, you're going out, you're having some fun, everything like that, at the end of the evening, you're going out and having fun, at the end of the evening with your friends, your buddies. You know, sometimes you're even doing that after service, you've got the energy. But while you're working that super long shift, if you're thinking that shift as a entire 12 hour shift, it's going to drag you down. But by breaking that up, separating out each one of your days, releasing refresh and restarting again. Yeah, it's just like, going from one place to next. I know chefs, who have two or three jobs who work double shifts every single day. I mean, they've got one job over here, and then they go to another job over here. And then they've got a third job that works two days. So the one you know, in the mornings when they're off on there and two days in the evening with an offer there. They can make it through a 16 hour shift. They can make it through an 18 hour day. What's the difference? They have that break. So start creating that separation of your day. And you'll start seeing that you have the energy to be able to continue on. Definitely eat and drink. Okay. As chefs, if we are working on the line, hopefully you are tasting everything as it's going out. That's going to be kind of your maintenance kind of food, but me Make sure that while you're taking these breaks, take some time, get a quick drink, grab something a little bit more substantial in these breaks, you really need to continue to refuel yourself give you the energy, the calories that you need to be able to pump that blood to be able to send that oxygen to your brain, to your body to your muscles, to really keep you going. If you don't have this, if you're constantly just grind, grind, grind and you're not eating, you're not drinking, you will burn out at the end of the shift, you will be so tired. So eat drink. I know this is a little silly. But hey, it's very important. Use your brakes for those quick drinks. Okay? When taking longer breaks, I say take the food outside, go somewhere where people are not working. And then the last thing is take a long break. I can't tell you how many days I work an entire 10 hour shift before without taking a single break. Just grind grind, grind, grind, grind the entire time pushing myself to the limit, not taking the time to stop. Because there's always something to do. And there is there's always something to do. You need to figure out that your health, you are a priority, you as a person are the number one important thing because you are the motor, you are the engine that keeps everything running. You need to be able to stop, you need to be able to refuel, I don't care what kind of engine you've got. They have to stop, they have to cool down they have that time to be able to decompress. If you have a car that's running, you know, constantly over and over and over. One analogy that I got from one of my courses that I was taking was the analogy of a race car. Okay, Formula One race car. Those machines are precision machines, they can go a very, very, very long time. But in order for them to be on their best and most efficient, they have to make those pitstops they have to make those picks up so that you can refuel, it gets a new tires, they do any adjustments that need to happen, those pitstops are very long. Okay, I'm not saying take an hour break in between each section in your day. But make sure that you've got one long session where you get out. That's basically kind of like you're switching jobs. Okay, 15 minutes at the minimum, half hour to an hour if you can make it happen. So if you want more information about this, if you want to continue watching all of my trainings that I've got, connect with me on social media, I will be here every single Thursday. We'll be doing this all the time. And we'll be teaching I'll be teaching you about multiple different concepts. I've got some really good ones coming up about leadership, about the differences between culinary College, culinary school and on the job training, and all those kinds of things, how to become a better you how to become that inspirational leader in your kitchen. So you can find me, my handle is at cooking physics, it's on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and YouTube. That same you will handle is on each one of them. Or you can email me at info at cooking physics.com. So I just like to say thank you so very much for joining me for this training. I hope that you got a lot out of this training. Put these put these steps into your day. The first one is start. Separate out your day. Nothing else. Take those one to five minute breaks in between each section of your day. Get away from the kitchen. I say release. Release the stress. We re energize yourself, refocus and just get out there and go okay, right now and I've got a huge amount of resources that I filled in this week that things were in my head, find out or other professionals, the same thing the different resources. So, go in there, cooking physics.com/guide To get my free resource guide that all of the influences that I've received over the years. So thank you so very much. You know, I'm really glad that you're here. And I hope that I see you again next week, same time Thursday at one o'clock Mountain Time. And I I just I don't know how how I could do this without you guys. So thank you so very, very much.