112 - Get your passion back

Hey, so thank you so very much for coming. I'm so excited to be talking about this week's topic, which is your first job, excitement, why you had it, and what it is that you can have to keep moving forward. And I'm so excited to talk about this. My name is Nick Brown. I'm the founder of cooking physics. And I really want help professional chefs be happy and successful by building a culture of growth, development and learning in their lives and be that inspirational leader.

And in order to do that, we really need to kind of peel back all of the layers of what it is, and why we decided to become executive chefs why we decided to start cooking, and really kind of peel that back. So that we can then understand the process, understand what have happened, and to inspire others, by sharing our experiences, and to help them have the experiences that we had, as we were growing.

Now, let's think about your first job. You know, when you think about your first job, you really start to think like, dude, that first job, the chef was amazing, everything went great. I mean, everything was really exciting and challenging. And you had a lot of fun. You know, hopefully your your first job had a great crew of people that you've got to work with, you learned so much during that time.

But then, over time, things just kind of started to become stale, they started to stagnate. You know, the day to day routines kind of happened. And you know, imagine kind of, if you really think about it, think about like your school, like you start in grade school, you start in kindergarten, and you have a blast, and then you get into middle school and middle school is horrible. It's depressing, it's not fun anymore. And then you get into high school, and things start to really kind of have fun again. And then if you went to college, you know, college was all about having fun, about learning about becoming the best that you possibly can.

And so thinking about what made your first job so exciting? Well, the first thing is, is the challenges that you had, every single day was a new challenge. Every single day was something new, you were able to create this vision of what you wanted to have. What kind of Chef Are you going to be? Where are you going to be working? What kind of restaurant or catering? Or are you going to be working on a cruise ship and travel world? All of those kinds of things. You're able to create your vision. And you'll see these celebrity chefs and like, Hey, I'm going to be TV chef or something like that. It's building that and the very first couple of years. You're excited about that, because you see all of these possibilities.

Your hopes and your dreams are just huge astronomical. And they seem very real and very possible. You've got this great support system around you. You got great, you know, co workers and chefs that are that are helping you out and everything is just exciting. You have no expectations of what each day is going to bring. Because every day is new. You get to create each day, you get to learn you get to have, and build new relationships with your coworker. You know, the amount of people that you get to see is just huge.

And the other thing about the first little part of working is that you don't know what you can't do. Because everything that people are asking you to do, you're seeing them do it. So you assume that you can do it as well. You don't see others struggling, you see them succeeding, because they're trying to show you what you're doing. So you haven't learned your own limitations, everything is possible.

The next part that is so wonderful about your first, years, is the amount of things that you're learning. Every single day you show up to work, you're learning something new. If you do culinary school, every single day, you're learning a new process. If you're doing on the job, every single day is a little bit different. And things happen all the time. And you're getting exposed to new situations and new challenges. And you're learning and you accept everything at face value. The chef says make it this way you make it that way. That's the way it's done

It's like a child, you just want to learn everything, you absorb everything. The chef is giving you food, try this try that you're tasting things, you're building your palate, your mind is getting blown on all of the amazing things I can remember one, my first job, the chef made this drink. Okay, it was we came in the next day. And here was this martini glass with a clear liquid in it. He's like, try this. Tell me what it is. Tell me what it is. And all of the other chefs were like trying and they couldn't figure out what it was. They were like, like, kind of, but it's not, you know, because the picture in their minds was not what was there. It was like a crystal clear tomato juice. I mean, crystal clear, like you can see right through it, there was a little bit of pink to it, but you can see right through it. And that just blew everybody's minds. Okay. That kind of thing. I've heard an experience where one chef, they needed to make lobster bisque. And they didn't have any lobster left. And the chef's somehow managed to recreate all of the nuances of the flavors of lobster into a dish without actually having lobster.

The ability to learn and try new things and build that palette is is huge. You're what they teach you just helps expand your knowledge and because you're new. They allow you to fail, they give you the opportunity to fail, in fact, they expect you to fail. And they allow you to learn from those failures so that you can become better and you can grow all of your questions. And all the chef's say there's no stupid questions is when you're a brand new person, there really is no stupid questions. Everything is new. And they just chalk it up. Oh, he's a new guy. So yeah, go ahead and tell him what it is. He doesn't know if it's its first day or its first week or, Oh, he's never had to deal with this. Okay. So questions are expected, they're encouraged, and everybody's willing to help you out.

The last thing about that first job is it begins to set the tone and the foundation for your career. It starts to build your expectations of what is possible. It establishes the routines, it teaches you the processes that you need to do to be able to be successful. It gives you the procedures that you need, the recipes, and all of the many other things like that, okay. And finally, it gives you the food safety and the sanitation aspects of it to keep you safe to be able to let you know that you are going to be an amazing chef. So all of those times all of those things are really what was all part of that first little bit.

But what happens after that, as you get older as you start to have more experience as you move from one place to the next. You you start doing the same thing over and over and everything just seems you know the same It's, yeah, there's different things happen. But it's all pretty much the same you where you go to work, you do prep, you do the service, you go clean up, you go home, the excitement and the feelings of new and great things just kind of diminish, you don't really see anything.

You start to become afraid of failure, you start having a larger expectation of yourself. And you begin to become afraid of looking dumb. So you stop asking questions. So you stopped stretching yourself, because you don't want things to fail, you don't want people to think you don't know anything.

And lastly, is that's not the way that you were taught. And it worked for a new chef, and he's got to do a different way of doing something that's not the right way of doing it. The right way is how you got taught the first time, right. And so you stop learning new things, you hold on to the old, the old ways of doing things. And you just do what you're told, you begin to lose that passion.

And you become discouraged because you're not where you wanted to be. When you're growing up, when you're in the first couple of years, you thought you'd be a chef by now. You thought you'd be the executive chef. You thought you'd have your own restaurant, but you don't. So you lose that enthusiasm. And you lose that hopes and the dreams. And you start to become discouraged.

So how can you get that back? How can you take your current job, where you are right now? At this moment, and make it feel like it's your first job again? How can you get that excitement back? How can you get that passion, that enthusiasm?

There are three core things that you need to do to be able to get that back.

The first begin to challenge yourself again.
Remember, when you were first starting out, everything was a challenge. Everything was difficult, you had to work for it. You had to fail, and to screw up. So that you could learn how to do it better. Need to start having that back. Being willing to mess up. Because you're challenging yourself. You need to build that excitement of your day of I'm going to do this, I'm going to work on this. Need to revisit that vision, your hopes and your dreams that you had. When you were first starting out. We'll have to adjust them a little bit based on reality. Okay. Now that you know more of what needs to happen, you now know how far it really is. That goal really is. But don't lose that vision. Don't lose that hope. Because having that hope is what's going to help you move through this difficult part of your life.

Need to create mission for yourself to be able to achieve. Create that goal. Start challenging yourself. Believe in yourself. Because you've already overcome so many challenges and so many obstacles. Remember what you've done and challenge yourself. Believe in yourself because you can do it. If you don't get in your own way you can do it. Be willing to fail gloriously. Be willing to just put yourself out there push your boundaries to the point where you fall flat on your face. And then get back up. Figure out what wrong went wrong. You've now crossed over that boundary. Okay, you've already passed over it. You didn't get very far but you already crossed it because you fell flat on your face. You fell forward, get back up. You're now further along than you've ever been before. And move and get going again and challenge yourself. Set your sights on the next on the next goal. Okay.

Next thing is be intentional in your learning. with fresh eyes or your job. see things in a new light begin to get that, that brand new mindset, again, where everything is new, you've never seen it done that way before. Start asking questions. Go back to tasting everything. Why does it taste this way? What happened? You know, taste things throughout the entire process again, I can tell you there's there was a time where I stopped tasting everything. And the flavor profiles and the nuances that kind of got left to the wayside. My food wasn't that creative anymore. Because I stopped learning, I stop trying things.

You need to taste things again. Try everything, try it. When it's raw, try it when it's halfway try, it's when it's three quarters away, cut, try and after you add different spices and herbs and or do different processes after you grill it. Okay? Try different things. And try the food tasted again. You need to read and watch videos. I mean, there's hundreds and hundreds of videos on YouTube right now, that'll teach you different techniques and tricks, start watching those. Challenge yourself. Be intentional in your learning.

Say I want to learn this. And then start looking for videos that will teach you how to do that. Start reading cookbooks that will teach you how to do that. Start talking with other chefs. If it's something else that's a little bit bigger, if there's any online courses that you've got, that you can sign up for and learn to start doing that. Really be intentional of what you want to do. I start asking those stupid questions, and being comfortable with your ignorance.

It doesn't matter what everybody else thinks. "He should know that," but you don't. You don't because you haven't had that experience that they've had. Everybody's experiences have been different. Everybody has learned different things over their lives. Too many should. Too many cooks. Think that the sous chef or the chef should know everything. And yet, they don't know everything. And they're, they're afraid of becoming that sous chef. Because if they do, then people are going to think that they don't know they don't know anything.

So be intentional with your learning. Be willing to show your ignorance be willing to fail, be willing to push yourself. Look at everything fresh. And get back that mindset of excitement that you had.

The last thing is, see each day is new, and rediscover that wonder. Start creating new routines. Try doing this differently. test out new ways of doing something. Start building some new relationships. Go outside of your previous co workers, or your current co workers start to get to know people that are in the industry. Get to know people that are outside of the industry, build those relationships, and start to have fun again, with those around you. And look at each day. And think to yourself is this the only way of doing things. Start to adjust and pivot and move things around.

The world has changed and the world is going to continue to change foodservice is changing every single day, every single year, the last three years have seen huge shifts in how we do things to be able to maintain profitability. So every single time and the you have, take that opportunity and start thinking to yourself, how can I do differently? What can I do new? Start talking to all of your new friends new relationships that you've got, hey, how you do this? How do you do that? And start to meld things into a new way of doing things.

That is how that you can build and start having that excitement again. Because as you're challenging yourself as you're pushing yourself to the limits as you're going to fail. And as you're changing the ways that you're doing things, building new relationships, getting new friendships, and just being amazed at the world around you. You'll begin to have those feelings of excitement and passion again. You'll be able to start experimenting again because you love to just try. You don't care about failing, you don't care if it turns out or not. You tried it out. You learned in the process because you're tasting everything, you're doing new things. So that is how you can get as excitement of that first job back into your life. Thank you so very much for being part of this. Again, next, I'm going to be talking about the I'm going to be talking about the qualities of the what it takes to be an inspirational chef. So I hope to see you next week and Same time, same place, Thursdays at one o'clock and I will see you there