If you live an incredible moment of happiness, that happiness is much much more deep and big if you share it with others - Chef Massimo Bottura
Ok, so I'm a bit of a foodie. And maybe a closet artist dressed up suit. I started my food life in my Greek father's retail and food businesses. From the age of 12 I would make for great slave labour, behind the till, waiting tables, working in kitchens and baking bread. I would later find myself doing a degree in hotel management, going to culinary school and the Cape Wine Academy, completing a 2 year management trainee-ship with the largest hotel chain in the country, and thinking like a chef (read: ego-centric). Thanks to my mum, dad and Greek grandmother, I understood food from the heart.
Despite my love for food and the pleasure of connecting with others over meals, I decided to get back into marketing (my major) after growing increasingly weary of the banqueting shifts, often doing nights and sleeping during the day. I missed birthdays and family get-togethers and had to say goodbye to my life as Captain of the South African underwater hockey team. I simply couldn't commit to a 'normal' life. And to make matters worse, my mates from University were all earning twice as much as me and working nine to fives with all sorts of perks.
In the words of Marcel Proust, “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.” I would later come to see that my life back then was 'The Feast' and not 'The Famine'. I met Nelson Mandela, FW De Klerk, and so many incredible people. I was even on the team that served the New Zealand Rugby squad at the 1995 World Cup Rugby. And no, I can assure you they were not 'poisoned'. We served them humble pie and whipped their arrogant asses. South Africa made history that year in a moment that galvanised a rainbow nation.
There have been many roles and over the years I moved into brand, insight, strategy and consulting roles in retail (most of which in food and beverage industries) and banking and most recently founded several start-ups, some of which were successful, some of which were not. However, food has always been a passion - my creative outlet - often to counter the excel spreadsheets and mind-numbing data monkey Nielsen Nitro days or to mitigate the stress of managing the sales pipeline or paying our staff in high risk leaky bucket gig economies.
Privileged to have been through such a wonderful learning curve, I would often dream of a better life. The life of a chef. Creating. Inspiring. Making magic. Working under enormous pressure, often with instant feedback. This suited me. The immediacy of it all made for instant progress and growth. I loved seeing the pleasure of a meal well made on someone's face.
Over the last 10 years I've dabbled in professional kitchens. I last worked in a few restaurants in Amsterdam - part-time - whilst consulting to Albert Heijn the retailer, back in 2012. I was writing a book and it made for great fodder. You won't believe what happens in kitchens in the red light district. I also wanted to learn the language as my Dutch was rusty (I speak fluent Afrikaans although this leaves many gaps in the professional services workplace) and so I thought a hot feisty kitchen is a great place to learn about food and swearing under pressure.
I'm still in touch with my chef mates from the late nineties. Some have gone on to judge Masterchef shows on telly (they're celebs now) and others have gone on to cook in some of the finest places on earth. I've been fortunate enough to have eaten in some of these places thanks to consulting gigs and a career in finance pre-2008 and 'austerity' cuts. The most recent Chefs Table on Netflix inspired my creative juices to write about those experiences. Not so much about the Dutch Head Chef who would come into work tripping on something, unable to cook a steak, but more about the lessons learnt. The transferrable insights, and mostly, the 'fire-in-your belly' passion and grit that comes from obsessing as a competitive chef and founder in one of the greatest games on earth.
I recently binge-watched all 3 series of Chefs Table over a wet, grim few wintery weekends in London. I took away some delicious nuggets of insights which struck a cord with the consultant, marketeer, founder, agitator, dreamer, grafter, artist, and son-of-a-baker in me.
My top take-outs from the Chefs Table:
In episode 1, Massimo Botturo speaks of growth and learning. Living within the tension. Embracing the discomfort. Always grateful to play right at the edge. Risking and failing over and over again. This for me is a theme that somehow resonated throughout the entire series. The theme that good things happen when you embrace tension; the uncertainty and discomfort, often involving heightened appetites for risk and failure which spike flow and creativity. Failing forward and failing fast, as long as learning takes place. This ultimately leads to growth and innovation. I've come to know this a one of life's gifts. They don't feel like gifts when you're digging your way out of the pit.
There's an incredible story of the Japanese chef (Taiko Sushi in Los Angeles) who's breakthrough moment came from painful customer feedback. Often the kindest act of all is for someone to give it to you straight. His rise to fame came from his customer experience, modelled on an obsessive customer empathy that stems from being close to those with whom you serve, and whom you serve, daily. ‘’You are my customer’’he says, as he anticipates what they want each and every day. Knowing exactly what their needs are and delighting on these each and every day.
Nancy Silverton nails it when she talks of her WHY; making each loaf of bread by hand and how that changed when she became an overnight success requiring her to scale using industrial kitchens in Van Nuys. The joy of making it by herself, touching and feeling the bread created a sense of connection and authenticity that got lost in the machines and at scale. This seemed very pertinent for me as we enter 'the exponential'.
The New Zealand Chef at Attica, Episode 6 talks about creating a culture of testing/ prototyping (D. School style) by making Tuesday's testing days in order to allow the team to experiment and dream and apply and innovate constantly. Growth, learning and innovation is built into the process. It is not an adjunct.
The Berliner, a slightly scary if 'mad' obsessive perfectionist with a hard-core autocratic style, that's the image that made him famous at least - who offers us brutally honest communication in the moment. Above all he believes in this as the ultimate act of kindness. He certainly created a strong personal brand.
The Buddhist monk taught us the power of love and compassion, mindfulness and disconnecting from the very things that trick us into doing stuff that we don’t really want to be doing. Constantly adapting and evolving using one's 'third-eye' or intuition. A subject so close to my heart I'll save it for another article on its own.
The story of Francis Mallman etched in my mind the importance of cultivating and maintaining the growth vs fixed mindset (Dweck) in which we remain open, let go, reframe, pivot and get back up after each fall. And how the alternative to doing this is not worth even thinking about.
Bringing it all together, these guys were driven by a relentless vision, a focus, an obsessive quest to win centred around their 'true north alignment' that enabled them to constantly pivot from discomfort, tension and 'stuckness' to greatness. Adopting a mindset of curiosity, listening, learning, openness. Working towards a purpose. This created flow and enormous energy.
Curiosity isn’t necessarily this romantic ideal state where we go around discovering and 'deep-diving' doing 'creative' blue sky fluffy things all day; it’s that too but also it is often a brutal process of survival and a willingness to do what it takes to win, often against the greater odds.
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