128 - The Rush vs. The Grind

Welcome, welcome. I am so excited that you are here, we are going to be talking about the rush versus the grind. Now, my name is Nick Brown. I'm the founder of cooking physics. And I am excited that you are here I am loving every single minute of this, this is one thing that is definitely in my heart. And it is very important to me. So what exactly is the rush? What exactly is the grind? And how do you get excited for the brush without it becoming the grind? Because this is a very important thing. It's very dear, near and dear to my heart. This is all about talking about burnout, this is talking about exhaustion, this is talking about the passion for your work for the place of your employment, for the job for the industry. And you will go through this rush versus grind all through your entire career. So it is very important that we understand how to manage these, these two opposing feelings of working in the restaurant industry. We are high performers, we rock it, we kill it every single day, we work long hours, we work in heat in hot kitchens, we work under massive amounts of stress. And if we do not manage all of this kind of stuff, we will be burnt out. But this is all about how to manage this. So for me, I love the rush. I absolutely love the feeling of dinner service when things are poppin when things are going good. The rush is all about that busy time of your day, where it's just you the ticket machine, and you're just racing against time to get that stuff out. Now, I love it. Okay. And I know there are lots of chefs out there that absolutely hate it. And for them, that rush is actually just a freakin grind. And it beats them into the ground. So why do I love it? And other people don't? I do I love it. And I treat the rush as something I look forward to every single day. And if I don't get it, I'm like, man, it's an OK day, even if everything else went well. But if but if I get it, and it's Russian, and it's going fast, and everything is working and popping up like it should. And that feels so good. That sense of accomplishment, that sense of intensity of working, of having that focus, and that that feeling of satisfaction, both for the customer as well as for the front of the house and the back of the house. Man, if you can enjoy that rush. Then this is the episode for you. Okay, what exactly is the grind, then the brush is all this cool stuff. What is the grind, The grind is that feeling of just never ending, grinding, that never ending, pushing and pulling and kicking into the ground. The one that feeling that you're always behind that you're never able to catch up, you're always in the weeds, and everything is just falling apart around you. The chef is yelling at you, everything is just getting on top of you and just pushing you down into the ground. And the the frickin restaurant train is going and you are on a rope hanging on behind just been dragged hitting all of those railroad ties and everything like that and just getting ground into the ground. Okay, that is what the grind is. And it's a very big difference. When you think about it. The grind is all about that sustained stress. It's all about that negative impact. It's that burnout. It's that fatigue, that dissatisfaction with your job, with the staff, with whatever it is, okay. And it's the physical stress that happens in the kitchen. It's the mental stress of just beating yourself up other people beating yourself beating you up. It's those issues that happen in your work in your life. And all that kind of stuff just pushing down and that pressure that's What The grind is? That's what the grind is. So how do we manage that? Okay? If you're in that survival mode, if you're in that grind, and you're just getting beat up, and you're just sitting there going, I don't know if this is for me. I want you to think about this. Okay? The difference between the rush, and the grind is all about one simple concept. Okay? So I pulled out a nice, trusty thing. And I'm going to be talking about all of five of these concepts today. And the first one that I told you about that one is, it's all about the mindset. It's all about the mindset. Okay? Your mindset, the way that you're seeing yourself in every single time of the day, is going to have the biggest impact of whether you're feeling the grind, or whether you're feeling that rush. That adrenaline that cortisone, that feeling of satisfaction, and an absolute joy and passion goes running through your veins at work. That's your mindset. What do I mean by that? How are you showing up to work? Okay, are you showing up to work excited for what's going to happen? And I'm going to talk about how to build this mindset up and that building that mindset, that's number two, that's number three. That's number four. Number five, that's what all these other things. So first, the biggest thing is that mindset, getting in the right mindset. First thing you need to do is you need to make sure that you know what you're capable of. You need to remember all of your past successes, you need to think about where you were two 510 years ago, and realize, dude, I have, I have advanced so much. I've gotten so far. Like when I was barely first starting, it would take me an hour to cut up a six pan of onions. And now it takes me 10 minutes, five minutes. Okay. So realizing that and starting to realize how much you have succeeded, how much you've progressed, getting that mindset into your head, and then starting to come to work, knowing you will crush it. But do you feel that you really have that confidence, if you're in that grind? I can tell you all this stuff, you can start thinking about it. But it's really difficult for you to sit there and go like, I'm gonna crush it. Can't believe how much I have to do. It's everything like that, right? You're sitting there, it's like, I don't care how many times you say you're gonna crush it, you don't feel it. So, in order to change your mindset, first, you do need to tell yourself, I'm gonna crush it today. I'm gonna kill it. Okay, but the next thing you need to do, the most important thing is number two, that's going to help you with the best with everything right there. Number two, your prep your missin plus, what are you ready? Are you ready for the day? If you're not ready for the day? I don't care how much you sit there and I'm gonna bomb. I'm going to kill it. I'm gonna crush you on the best show filter. Yeah, yeah. Even if you start to feel it, you're like, Okay, I'm gonna get in there, and I'm gonna do it. And then you show up to work. And there's 100,000 things on your prep list. And service starts and you've only gotten through half of it, and you just get demolished. You get destroyed, you're in the weeds the entire time. I don't care how many times you say you're the best chef. If you do not have your prep ready, if you do not have your mason plus ready, you're setting yourself up for failure. And I'm going to tell you right now the the the person that is most responsible for that. And that comes number three. Number three is responsibility. Whose responsibility is it? Whose responsibility is it for you to be pret? Is it the sous chefs job? To make sure that you know what, what you need? Is it the executive chefs job? Is it the manager's job? Is it the prep cooks job to make sure you're ready? Now, dude, it's your job. Those other people around you. It's not their responsibility to make sure you are ready. If you're not ready, it's not their fault. It's nobody's fault but your own and you need to take that responsibility 100% And realize the The only way that it's going to get done is if I take full responsibility for that. Are you willing to take that responsibility? Are you willing to take that responsibility to get you out of that grind, and into the feeling of the rush? That feeling of excitement, that feeling of joy, that feeling of passion, really crashing into it, and just nailing it every single day, day in, day out? It's your responsibility. But you say, well, there's so many other people around me that, ah, sous chef needs to communicate with me, Chef needs to tell me what's going on the prep plus the prep guy, I gave him a list and everything like that, yeah, that's number four. Right here. Support. What kind of support do you have around you? Yes, they need to help you out. They need to help you out. They need to give you the support that you need to be able to accomplish your responsibility. That is true. But it's not their responsibility that you are ready. If you're not getting the support from the people around you, then you need to do two things. You need to ask for it. needed, let them know what you are expecting of them. Both people are higher than you, as well as the people lower than you that support in order for them to give you the support that you feel like you need. You need to get your butt out of the chair of self pity, of of woe is me, of it's not my job to get your butt out of that chair, and start talking to people. start letting them know what you are expecting of them. Start holding them accountable for that. start lifting them up helping them by going to them and asking the questions, going to them and verifying that this stuff is getting done. Making sure that they have the tools that they need to be able to provide the support that you need. You need to take responsibility 100% for that. I'm not saying go and freakin yell at the sous chef or yell at the prep cook because he didn't do what you told him to do. No. We respect each other in this kitchen. We honor each other, we understand just like you have a bad day, they will have bad days as well. Just like you need help. They need help too. So So support them as well. Not just have them give you the support, and you just do your own thing. No, you send the support to them. Make sure that the prep lists are clear on the amounts. Make sure that they understand exactly what you're expecting. And understand that when you give them a prep plus a frickin mile long, because you got crushed last night that they're not going to get through everything. So you better figure out what you're going to do to make sure that you are ready for service that night. Do you have the prep ready before service starts. If you do, great, then you figured it out your your responsibility to have your prep ready and to make sure that the support that you have is there. That is the first three prospects to be able to understand how to change your mindset. If you get ready, if you've got your prep ready, if you sit there and you say to yourself, it is my responsibility 100% that I need to make sure that I'm ready. Okay. And then you sit there you say do I have the support? am I offering the support then you will start to crush it every single day. You will begin to sit there and you will be like I am ready. You will show up to work and you will know that you are ready for that day. Your mindset is ready. You're sitting there saying to yourself, I'm going to crush it and you believe it because you know you are ready. You've got the prep. You know you're ready because you have taken the responsibility upon yourself to make sure that those things are ready and that you are making sure that you have the support and you are giving the support to the people around you to make that sort risk to success. And the final thing, the final thing that's going to help prevent you from being in the grind and help elevate you to feeling the adrenaline rush. As this last one the release, what do I mean by that? I've talked about this several times, in, in many of my other other teachings, other classes. And that is that release, that release or the stress, that release of that section of your day, that release of that, that time blocking, okay? is stressful being in that rush. It is amazing. But at the same time, it creates stress, it's a good kind of stress that helps elevate you to perform at your best, but it's still stress. And if you sit there and you carry that stress, and you don't release that stress at the end, that stress will slowly begin to creep up and become more and more and more to the point where it will begin to feel like the grind again. You need to be able to release that. You know, the best way to release it. When you have a good service and you've got that huge adrenaline loss, you can celebrate man, give each other high fives pat each other on the back, congratulate each other. You were in the weeds at some point. And your companion, your co worker, the sous chef, the Executive Chef, they did something that helped you pull yourself out of the weeds. They came in, maybe they came in. And like, Dude, I've got these three things, you take care of those seven things. And he takes care of those three dishes. And that just allows you to catapult back on and to be ahead of the tickets again. You make sure that you release that and you celebrate that and you tell them thank you and you appreciate what they have done for you. That is the best way to release that stress. If you're still in the grind, and it was a horrible service, and that the the stress was just overwhelming. The chef was yelling at you you're behind. You were short staffed, there was nobody around you that could give you that support that you needed. You need to release that stress as well. I've talked about this many, many times. How do you release that stress? Go outside. Go outside, close your eyes, close your eyes. Get outside, get into the fresh air. Most likely this is the end of your service. If you work in the evenings, there's no sun, but still get outside into that fresh air. Even as a frigid cold outside, it's gonna feel good. You know what I mean? Go outside, release. Take those deep breaths. Just release it just be like I'm done. I made it through. It was a crappy service. But I made it through I'm still alive. Everybody has pissed off. But we still made it through. All right, release that. Take those deep breaths and then start building yourself up. Okay, tomorrow is going to be better day. Can a rocket. Okay, got a lot of work to do. Start building yourself up, start bouncing all the balls of your feet. Okay. Start taking deep breaths that are quick. All right, bounce on 1000 feet, you know, I like to like I say I like to do those fist pumps in the air. Just kind of build up that energy, release the stress and then start building up that energy. And that is how you can effectively manage your grind and turn it into as a rush. The more and more you do this, the more and more that you actively intentionally get in there and work hard and work smart. Offering the support to those around you taking that responsibility upon yourself to make sure that that you are already doing everything that you can to get yourself ready and supporting the other people that also support you having that mindset You are going to crush it. Okay. And really just being ready for that service is going to help you immensely. And you will begin to enjoy and crave that rush. And when you don't see the servers for 510 minutes, like dude, I haven't seen a server in 10 freakin minutes, we've got seven servers online on on this on the front of house tonight, we haven't seen him in 10 minutes, what does that mean? You got a freaking rush coming baby, and you're gonna crush it, you've got your misapplies ready, you're mentally ready. And once that ticket machine starts, you know, it ain't gonna stop for two hours. So if you aren't ready, then it's not gonna go good. But you know, you're ready because you have done the work. Now, if you wants a little bit more information about how I'm talking about getting this prep list, getting these things, I have a boot camp for you. I've created this bootcamp prep plus boot camp Mason plus boot camp, I can't remember what I'm calling him right now. But it teaches you about how to prepare yourself and get yourself out of that grind and into the feeling of the rush every single day takes you step by step. One day after the next after the next, what is the step you need to take this first step, what's the next step that you need to take? What's the third step, the fourth step, the fifth step, and the final step, then you will be ready. It will only take you one week, to go from unprepared, to fully prepared every single day, being ready before you even show up for the next day. That's what this bootcamp gives you. So I will put it in the comments below. And I'm super excited to let you know these kinds of things. Another thing if you want support, if you want to continue to build that support, I am starting a group coaching program where I will go over many of the concepts I talked about Mason plus was one of them support was another one of them. Okay, getting that mindset ready, has another concept of this, where I will dive deep every single week and one of these concepts. The great thing about this group coaching is I'm going to dive deep for about 20 minutes. Then with being a group you're going to break up, we're going to break up into little individual groups of like two to three other chefs. And we're going to talk about what happened, what we talked about, you're going to set some goals, you're going to plan. And then when you come back, I'll do an individual or an individual coaching a one on one with one of you guys that are in that meeting. If you cannot make it to that, I will have the each and every single one of these recorded, and they will be on the community page. So you can log in and watch that. You can log in and rewatch one that you participated in that was like, gave you an aha moment. You will be able to communicate and network with other chefs that are like minded just like you that want success that want to accelerate their career. They want to have that passion throughout their entire career. You'll be able to communicate with them, you may end up meeting a new coworker, a new boss, a best friend in that group coaching. I'm offering it for only $47 a month. Every single week, just gonna read we're gonna hash one of my concepts every single week over and over and over. So if you miss a week, don't don't feel like you're left behind. We will get back to that meat we will get back to that again. So get on there. I challenge you turn that rush into an every single night feeling. Get rid of the grind. We don't need the grind in the kitchen. There's enough stress already. We don't need it in the kitchen. We can rise above that. We can have that feeling of the rush every single day. And when that happens. You will It will be amazing. Just Just think about that one time those few times where you just crushed it. Services went so smooth. Like seriously, we did that many people Yeah, you We're in the zone, you are prepared. You are in that rush. have that feeling every single day. I challenge you that next week, I'm going to be talking about the importance of and the difficulties of managing your family time, your personal time, your your outside of work time. And the word expectations because this industry has massive expectations upon us. I'm gonna teach you how to manage those expectations so that you can get the best of both worlds. I will see you next Thursday, one o'clock here. Take care