Hello, everyone. You're lifting Two Chefs.
Piss a podcast. I'm your host on true that Tara.
On today's episode, we're going to discuss mentoring.
Stay tuned. So, what have I been up to
before we get into mentoring? Let me give you a brief update.
What you may notice, if you might be listening to this, but
you also may be watching it. I'm in the market skill, studio
downtown Dallas. You can see the skyline behind
me, possibly drove up to Dallas. Had a lot of fun.
I was recording and cooking Series yesterday and I was with
with cooking with Tim Maitland for Market skill and we were
doing. What would you make it home?
So if you're going to watch this, I know you chefs are doing
the sale. It's not perfect, it's not a
restaurant setting. We rented out of ghosts, Kitchen
went in there, did a little cooking demo on how you would
cook at home. So before everyone says you
didn't do this like you would in a kitchen.
I understand that it's cooking how you would cook at home for
people at home. So no judgment because I know
how chefs are anyway. We had to cancel live-fire.
Unfortunately, we made the call whether or not Emily's, but I
was really looking forward to is going to be my first ever
podcast where I have guessed. Normal is a solo podcast but I
thought for this one off, let's have some guests on had a great
lineup, unfortunately had to cancel and we talked about This
already on the last episode, but hopefully soon, we'll have
guest. Maybe we're moving in that
direction, chest pass a podcast, eventually, taking over the
world. Anyway, we digress.
Let's move on to Mentor. I started writing another book
but I got a little bit of writer's block, so I'm taking a
break, I'm calling it bad sous chef, it was going down One
path. Will most likely I'm going to
take it a different direction. So it might be a conversation is
kind of what I'm thinking, a conversation between a chef and
a sous, chef, and maybe like a little Fictional conversation.
So we'll see where that goes. I am working on that.
The next thing I'm working on and I'll put this out.
Hopefully, the next couple of days.
I'm making a culinary dictionary of like kitchen jargon words
that we use in the kitchen. I noticed that a lot of people
message me occasionally and ask me, what?
Certain words are that. I that I put in the caption on a
chef's PSA. Postal.
The said, what is 86 made? And I'm realizing this is a lot
of information with a called The Curse of knowledge.
A lot of information that I take for granted, a lot of chefs take
for granted is that we Know what these terms mean.
But when you're a new cook in the industry that you might not
know what they mean and you might be too afraid to ask so I
thought about creating a short little compendium glossary of
terms dictionary for cooks and chefs.
That might be new to the industry and might not know the
jargon. Maybe you're coming from a
different country and you don't know or maybe you're just new to
the business. So I'm going to put that up.
Give it away for free. I don't want anything for it.
I, this is something to benefit cooks and chefs are out there.
You can print it. You post in your kitchen, you
give it to new hires. Do what you will with it.
Let's talk about mentoring. I will say this.
I think every Chef needs a mentor and if you don't have a
mentor, I think you need to get one.
It's like having a cheat code in the business.
A mentor should be someone in a position that you aspire to have
getting a mentor early on in your career will be a game
changer. So I've been very fortunate in
the fact that I've had a lot of great mentors throughout my
career. My very first culinary school
instructor who also happens to be.
Culinary school director. Now we've remained in contact
since that day. So 27 years ago, I'm in his
class. He was my first chef and I was
his first student so we've remained in contact.
He was a great mentor for me and he's helped me along the way.
Still to this day, still to this day, he helps me as well.
I've had many chefs along the way, one of the my great chefs.
That mentored me. His name was Patrick Mitchell.
He's part of The Epicure will MasterChef Society, but he's
mentored me a lot and I owe a lot of who I am.
I am to him the teaching that he taught me, he inspired me to go
into culinary competitions. A lot of rough lessons working
with him a lot of good lessons but someone that I admire a lot
but I've also had other mentors in industry and and business
that have helped me along the way.
And I've been fortunate that. I've I feel like I kind of got
lucky right? I do have some incredible
mentors and I'm a product of their knowledge and I'm hoping
one of my biggest things is I'm hoping to pass on a lot of the
things that were taught. From my mentors from me to you.
Now, if you're a cook just starting out I think you need to
think about this is that the mentor that you're looking for,
might not necessarily be the person that you're working with
next to on the line. And sometimes that's the easy
answer because you'll look at them and say, well, they know
more than me, they have maybe one or two years more experience
than me. They should be my mentor and I
would steer away from that. A lot of times when you're
selecting a mentor, the person that you should be looking at is
the person that's in the position that you aspire to
have. So if you're looking at the line
cook next to you, that has to Much more experience than you
say. I want them to Mentor me.
They might only have they can only take you to the point where
they are at. So a mentor should be someone
that has the experience to get you to where they are.
And they can give you a step-by-step plan and guide you
when difficulty arises to get to the position that they're in.
So, for example, your Mentor is an executive chef, they can tell
you how to become an executive chef, the line.
Cook next, you can only tell you how to get there above that,
it's just Theory. They could, they think they
might know how to get there, but they haven't proven it the
person that's The net is the person that you want to become
your Mentor, ideally, right. So I think you need to have a
mentor and so a lot of people ask me, well, how do I get a
mentor as difficult as it sounds?
It's not that difficult at all. You just ask and a lot of chefs
are more than willing to give their time because a lot of
chefs, they've achieved a certain amount of status and
Prestige and they've had a great career and a lot of times they
just want to give back. That's that's something that I
do right now. I want to give back to people
that want to learn more About the business side of the whole,
the whole idea of this podcast in the chef's.
PSA socials is so I can give back.
So I could educate people on how to become chefs, the shortcut,
the cheat code, that they might need back to mentoring.
So ask someone to be your Mentor, someone that's in a
position that you aspire to have and set up weekly meetings or
bi-weekly meetings, our monthly meetings and have have questions
for them. So when I schedule Mentor
meetings, with people that I mentor and I Mentor a lot of
people still to this day, part of my job is To Mentor people.
I have a mentoring business as well, but when I Mentor people
the first day, I said, so if we have an hour block, as they come
prepared with three questions, right?
So, part of being a good mentee is to have good questions to
ask, and I don't mean, like, what's your favorite color?
Like, you don't necessarily need to know what their personal
interests are. I think there's a there should
be an introduction period there, but when you're having your
Mentor mentee meetings, it should be things that you're
struggling with that. You might need answers to now.
Now they should also help you map out long-term goals and
short-term goals. The other thing that I ask
people to do what I have mentor-mentee meetings with me
is first of all, you need to schedule the appointment.
I'm not going to chase you this benefits.
You part of being responsible is you need to be the person that
schedules it. So you need to be the
responsible person that schedules the meeting because it
benefits. You, it's in your best interest
to show the initiative that you want to take this, right?
So that's also something that's very important.
And then, when I have mentor-mentee meetings, I always
assigned them with some sort of uncomfortable homework that I
want them to do and that could be all sorts of random shit that
I tell my mentee sometimes, sometimes they think I'm crazy.
It's like go punch. Someone in the face.
Figuratively not literally just so they could address any issues
that they may have. With confidence a good Mentor
will find your weaknesses and learn how to extract the
confidence that you need to overcome those weaknesses.
And that's really what you need in a mentor because someone
needs to believe in you and be able to see the things that you
are see what's possibly holding you back and help you get over
those humps. But not do it for you.
It's kind of like they have to teach you how to think they have
to teach you how to think strategically and how to
overcome difficulty, but they don't necessarily have to drag
you to the finish line. That's your job.
So that's the way a mentor-mentee relationship
should go. Now, I'll tell you a story with,
with one of my mentors. And this is something that
something that stuck with me, throughout my career, that I
didn't understand. And this is where the mentors
come in Luke. I'm sure two stories with you.
The first one when I was a young naive, hungry, cook, and didn't
know much in my mentor said to me if I gave you a strawberry
and you To do in a cucumber grew.
He says your mind would not comprehend and things would
start to unravel. He says but then if you took
that cucumber and you planted it and a watermelon, grew your
whole idea of how the world Works would collapse, and it
would be chaos and you would go crazy.
I didn't understand what he meant.
I was like. This is this is some weird
Confucius, Canaan, Kung Fu nonsense.
I don't know what you mean. Just tell me what you need to
tell me, but I understood it later on.
It took me many. Any years probably took me 20
years to figure out what he meant.
And what he meant was is that sometimes life doesn't go your
way and you plant a strawberry, but you get a cucumber.
So meaning you've done everything the right way, but
something bad happens. You following all the recipes
your career is on a high. But yet your restaurant closes,
right? And you don't understand.
Well, if I did everything, right, why did I get this
different result? Why did I plant a strawberry?
But get a cucumber and then you say, okay, well, that doesn't
make sense. Then you plan to the cucumber
and you get a watermelon and out what that meant was.
Okay, so then my restaurant closes so it must have been a
one off. So I do it again and then I fail
again and then your whole world falls apart and he was advising
me for the difficulty that may come.
And it was an interesting way of him articulating it, but it was
one of those things that sometimes, the advice that your
Mentor will give you might not make sense in the moment, but it
will make sense, 10, 15, 20 years later and then you're
like, aha. Now I understand, but I'm also
prepared to Overcome the difficulty that was presented.
So that's one story. Another story I'll share with
you that a mentor gave to me was I was very humble and I was on a
career trajectory that was on a steep incline and everything was
going good in my career and they told me be humble, don't get too
puffed up because your ego will get the best of you.
I was like, what are you talking about?
I'm super humbled, I'm a kind person.
I don't have an ego. Life has a way of humbling you
because my ego did kick in and eventually everything that I had
built just collapsed no there was no one else to blame my
fault. I wish I could blame someone
else. It would have been easier if I
could blame someone else. But ultimately, the
responsibility falls on you see old example of the fish stinks
from the head which is not true fish.
Don't secret had, but the saying is true, the fish stinks from
the head. Is it from a self accountability
standpoint? There was no one else.
That was to blame for my failures other than me and my
mentor warned me and they saw the direction that I was going
in. Something that I didn't see
myself and I didn't listen. And so, I guess the point of all
of this is I go back now and I still talk to my mentors.
And I asked him for guidance. Now, in better student, I'll
tell you that but the mentor should hopefully guide you to
get there but they don't want to baby you and prevent you from
making mistakes some mistakes, you need experience in some, you
need to experience by watching some some mistakes unique
experience by watching someone else fail, but some failures you
need to do on your own and that would overall be.
My lesson today is you need a mentor that is going to guide
you and help you overcome failure.
But don't don't avoid failure, because failure is what's going
to strengthen you and carry you on to success.
Every failure is a step in the right direction and I wouldn't
even call it a failure. Might want to call it learning,
but whatever, we're talking semantics anyway.
If you're interested in learning more about mentoring, feel free
to reach out to me. You can DM me on Instagram, you
go to Chef PS, a.com, and learn more.
I do think that I'm not saying that you need me as your Mentor,
but you do need a mentor. So you need to find one whether
it's in culinary. Whether it's another Chef that
you admire, whether it is someone that is in a separate
business, but really understands business, or just life in
general, right? You need a coach, you need a
mentor. Like I said, it's like having a
cheat code, so make sure you get one.
That's it for today. If you want to support chefs
PSA, you know what to do, only 5 Stars, anything less than 5
Stars would make you a liar because this is a five-star
podcast and if you give less than 5 Stars, not only are you a
horrible person, but you're also a liar.
And I know you're not a liar or a hobo horrible person, so make
sure to leave five stars, go get the books, go to Chef cbsla.com,
we have everything there. Culinary leadership fundamentals
book. Video course, how not to be the
biggest idiot in the kitchen line.
Cook survival manual and kitchen art.
Of War. Go get the e-book book at the
audiobook and go. Get yourself a mentor.
See you next week, hit the porno music.