Chef Life Radio leaves the studio and enters the classroom at AB Tech In Ashveille NC for a conversation with culinary students about leadership, burnout, boundaries, and success.

The discussion focuses less on technique and more on how culinary school shapes identity, discipline, and the way students see their future in the industry. The conversation stresses the demands of the program and the need for organization, preparation, and persistence.

The students are mentored by program director Chef Cathryn Horton abd warned hat the work can be overwhelming, but by taking on less and doing it well is better than trying to do too much and quitting. The discussion also touches on the importance of sleep, time management, and being honest about how work, family, and school affect daily life.

One student, Allie Marie Councel shares that she is a mother, works, and is studying culinary arts after years in event and wedding coordination. She explains that cooking became important to her through family life and that she wants to learn the craft well so she can teach others. Her comments lead into a wider conversation about why people enter the industry and how personal goals can change over time.

Chef Stephen Hertz joins the discussion and speaks about how his own idea of success changed. He says he once believed success meant running an independent restaurant, but later began to value teaching, family time, and a broader definition of achievement. He also talks about the transition from kitchen work to teaching, the challenge of paperwork and grading, and the need to understand leadership as part of the chef’s role.

The conversation closes with questions about being jaded, staying present, and avoiding the habit of always looking ahead to the next job. The main message is that chefs should define their own success, stay connected to the people around them, and remember that hospitality is about relationship, not just food.

Welcome back to the show chef today we're

taking chef life radio out of the studio and into

the classroom specifically into the culinary program at

ab tech now if you've been around chef life radio live you know ab tech is one

of our sponsors and it's not in the logo on a flyer kind of way they're actually

doing the work investing in culinary education shaping the next generation of

chefs right here in ashville so when they invited me to sit down with their

students not to demo food,

not to run a technique lab, but to talk about leadership,

burnout, boundaries, and redefining success, I jumped at the chance.

Because what happens in culinary school doesn't just shape knife skills, it shapes identity.

In this conversation, we talked about what failure really means,

how to define success before the industry defines it for you,

why boundaries aren't weakness, and why hospitality might be one of the last

sacred gathering places left in our culture.

If you're a student, this is for you. If you're 10 years in and questioning

everything thing, this is for you too.

Chef Life Radio goes to school. Let's step into the room and listen as Chef

Catherine grounds her students.

Better. My culinary background was hugely helpful because then I was able to,

that front of the house, back of the house, swinging door, if you don't have

respect and understanding for what each other does, it makes life a whole lot harder, right?

So wherever you end up with this in your careers, it may not be where you think

that you were starting out, but as they used to say, fire the missile and adjust. All right. Yes.

Okay. I think that's a wonderful question because it's a very difficult thing.

And because our program is so incredibly demanding, I would rather have you

go more slowly and do it well and feel good about it than try to jam it all

in in these five semesters and then just get brutalized and say, I can't do it.

In the very first day of your fall semester, I think, I hope you remember that

I said, there's going to be a day where you say, I can't do this. It's too hard. I quit.

You can't quit. You have to go home that night.

Forget it. Just forget it for one night and then wake up the next morning and

say, you know what, I can go back. I can do it. All right.

But to that point, I would so much rather have you take fewer classes and be

able to continue and get what you need out of this than be completely overwhelmed

over and, you know, over, over the course of time.

The other thing is I put 30 calendars out on the front. I hope they're all gone.

You can't rely on Moodle or your phone to tell you when something is due.

We have so many moving parts in this that if you're not organized,

and how many of you are procrastinators? Be honest. Come on. Come on. I know.

It seems to be the way that things work is that kitchen people are procrastinators

and they pull it out at the last second and they do their victory.

They do a victory dance. That is not the way to do it. You got to have preparation.

So write your due dates down.

Think ahead. Work ahead. A week ahead. Two weeks ahead.

Be thinking about what's coming up, all right? But to your point, it is hard.

And if you've got a family and you've got children and you've got full-time

work and you've got full-time school, sleep tends to be the last thing that

you get. And that is really hard.

And I don't have the magic answer to it. other than that, if you find yourself

streaming Netflix for 12 hours because you didn't want to do homework,

think about how you do spend your time.

And I've watched, Bailey is a perfect example. I believe Chef Hertz,

too. You both worked full-time and went to school full-time.

You were both on the team, and they managed to do it and do it really well.

It can be done. I promise you it can be done, but it is not easy,

and I'm the first one to say it isn't easy. And you do get very little sleep.

I often walk around and go, did you sleep? Did you sleep? You do need to sleep.

Your body says enough and you hit a wall.

That is true. We didn't have time last year to do some further education.

They do a lot of that. All right.

Absolutely. So, so we are at 20 after.

Who did you have in mind for who was going to come up and speak to us?

Well, I think that any one of these students would be an excellent student to

come up and talk about balance and centering and what they want to do.

Or how about like not being centered? Or how about being not being centered?

Anybody, anybody want to be brave?

Come on. Anybody?

Allie Marie, you have... I know you didn't, but I think that you would be a

good candidate because you have a family. You have goals for this.

Would you like to come up and speak? You don't have to be up here forever.

You want to come up just for a minute? You can say no. Yes, this is still a democracy.

This is all by consent. This is. Right? Absolutely.

However, however, your discomfort is not necessarily a reflection of,

you know, how valuable the opportunity could be.

As a matter of fact, that's probably telling you you should definitely lean

in if you're uncomfortable.

That's your body telling you, hmm, why not? All right, there you go.

Thank you, Seth. Can't believe we were actually rolling.

What's your name? Allie Marie. Hey, Allie. All right. So, Seth was alluding

to the fact that you've got a busy life.

Exceptionally busy. You want to tell me about it? Yeah, so I am a mom.

I have two kids, two daughters, like you. What are their names?

Athalia Eden and Annalena Rejoice. Oh, that tells me. everything about you. Yes. So they're unique.

And I do work, granted, being in school, I've had to work a lot less.

Right now, I'm doing the program that has just a certificate,

but I added in some extra classes because... Because why? Because that's what you do. Yeah.

Are you an overachiever by nature? Ask my classmates. Perfectionist?

Yes. Me too. That's why. I can't help it. So let me ask you, why did you,

What were you, what were you working at before? Like, what were you doing?

Well, that's the thing. So my background, am I looking at you or out here?

I don't know. You can look anywhere you want.

Am I like being. I mean, I'm actually talking to you, but that's okay.

Oh, that's true. I don't know.

Okay. So my background is actually in event coordination.

I've been doing that since I was 15. And so it's been a long time.

It's been about 16 years, 15 years, I'm terrible at math.

But so and wedding coordination. But I realized that over the past 10 years,

my husband actually used to cook all the meals.

I'd come home from school and every day and be like, what are we having breakfast, lunch and dinner?

And when he started working, I had to learn to cook and I had to do it with the little baby.

And once I started doing it and I started getting my hands in the food,

then I started to fall in love.

And so I've been doing this job with events and then I

kind of hit me in the face last year and I said I I

think I want to go cook like it's on my bucket list and that

feels fun I could just do a cooking class but

I ended up going and applying I

actually talked to chef Horton she inspired me as somebody who came later in

her life and did this and so so I I said okay and we've um I I mean I have to

get to school My two kids have to get to school and my husband travels about half the year.

So cool. So why did you want to complicate your life going to culinary school?

Because I really wanted to learn how to hone the craft.

I knew I had front of house experience, but I really wanted to learn how,

how do I, well, my goal is to teach.

I love teaching. So I like, I love talking to people.

I mean, I didn't want to come up here because I, I just. You take the show over.

Yes, but I mean, but I just also.

But I also, like, I do love, I like talking to people.

If anybody has worked with me

so far, I will probably ask you a lot of questions because I like people.

So I want to teach people how to cook. I think that's one of the things that we...

It's not really, it wasn't clear to me until midway through my career is that

at heart, we're just basically storytellers, right? And even the plate tell the story.

So the reason I ask why is because, you know, sometimes that can be rolling

and sometimes I can come back and bite you in the butt. Like, what was I thinking?

So when do you take care of yourself? I'm really trying to figure that part

out. That part's been really, really hard for me. I mean, it is for all of us.

Anybody who's in the industry knows that there's never a good reason to go and

take care of yourself because you're taking care of others.

So by the job's nature, which for some of our personalities,

feeds it very well, like those of us who are doormats and love to put others in front of us.

But that's a dangerous place to be because most folks would just let you keep giving.

I'm good. I'm receiving it all. Like, so one of the words that gets thrown around

a lot in other industries, but not ours is boundaries, right?

Like healthy boundaries.

What are you talking about? We're elbow to elbow with people trying to cut through the line.

They have their body parts touching body parts. And, you know,

if we stop to say sorry for every time we make a boo-boo, then we'd spend all day saying sorry.

So there's a certain implicit agreement that sometimes we come to like, okay, sorry.

And sometimes it's important to make that an explicit agreement.

Like have a safe environment, safe boundaries, and make sure that.

I love a good joke. Don't get me wrong. But there is just some talk,

even when back in the day, when everybody thought they were pirates and on a

pirate ship, I'd like cringe at that shit, right?

And what I'm coming to understand is that we made a choice and that choice was

in the context of what we were doing before.

And that choice may no longer serve us. That doesn't necessarily mean that we

still have to honor that choice.

We can actually call that out and then make a new choice, make a new agreement.

But most of us walk around with all these assumptions about,

Oh, your husband understands.

And like season, everybody just goes into season thinking, I have family,

be all right. So you know what it's about. But did anybody actually sit down and talk about it?

Like come to some consensus about, you know, I'm going to work really,

really hard this week. So I just need to let you know that.

And is there any way I could still show up to you as like being present and loving?

And she'd say, bring me a cup of tea in the morning. But at least we had that conversation.

So, and after three back surgeries, I also know that the one,

one of the biggest factors in our success is our health and our strength.

So strength training, please. Did you do any meditation, yoga,

anything like that? I have definitely started exercising.

It hit me about middle of the semester and I was like, I do enjoy exercise.

And so I go to the gym and I actually usually leave class.

And if you've ever seen me walk out, I like go to the bathroom,

change, and I hit the gym before I have to pick my kids up from school because

if I can do something that I can release a lot of the stress,

it's actually helped a lot. Yeah.

It becomes, it's almost like the energy becomes a physical thing in your body, right?

That's why somatic exercises, soma being of the body is so powerful because

it gets released in a way that, you know, comes out your fingertips or however

the functionality goes, but they can be incredibly powerful and often really

emotional experiences.

But, you know, I think that we, I certainly took my body for granted.

You know, I used to throw my body around like a bull in a.

Matter of fact, I was at a concert once and I was trying to make my way to the

bathroom. I turn around, there's three people behind me. Like,

what are you doing? Like, no, dude, keep going. You're doing great.

What's your biggest fear? In this industry?

Failing. Really? Yeah. What would that mean for you? Like, how would you interpret that?

I kind of did on my final. I felt like my final exam was like one of the worst

dishes I ever put up. And I couldn't let it go for like a week.

So for me, it was just like things were not, they didn't taste right.

It wasn't, I burned this or I, cause I stressed and I rushed at the last minute.

And so to me, that was failing.

So in that week when you were kicking your ass, what were you missing?

Like what was going on around you that you could have been present to instead

of like, well, it was, it was the first week of my break.

So it was the first week. I mean, my family, Christmas, all that.

Like I was just constantly ruminating. I worked at a big resort,

been around forever, and the pastry department's in the basement.

And we hired a woman, an extern, because she was fascinated with baking,

you know, baking, pastry.

And she wanted to be a pastry chef. Okay, great. The first job she got out of

the gate, you're going to come in at 2 o'clock in the morning,

you're going to make the famous cinnamon bacon donuts.

I don't know. I mean, people went nuts for them.

And after about three nights, I came back in through about four o'clock in the

morning. I'm like, hey, how's it going? She's like, yeah, I don't think this is for me.

And I'm like, what are you talking about? Like, she had spent money on culinary

school. This is her first externship.

And she's like, I thought it was going to be this, but it's actually that.

And she said, so I think I'm going to go do something different.

And I said, you know what? I think that's probably the best thing you could do because-

You can do it now or you can do it 10 years. But to have that reality kind of

interface was, and it's not like we did it to punish her. It was just,

that was the rotation through shop.

And if I could say anything, you know, failures are our interpretation. Personal.

I mean, I could have looked at today as a failure because I didn't do this,

didn't it. But here we are, we're still rolling with it. And see,

when you just sit and imagine where it's personal, right? Yeah.

So what if it wasn't? What if it was just a thing that happened that we don't

attach any emotion around?

Like, don't get me wrong. I've been fired three times from jobs and it crushed me.

Crushed me because my internal guidance system was completely dependent on my external.

Yeah. Like the things I was doing, my busyness, all that kind of stuff.

When it came back to me, it was like, oh, that's, that's great. Fantastic.

But as soon as I was no longer wanted, oh boy. Yeah.

So anyway, thank you so much for joining. Absolutely. I appreciate that.

You're a brown of hand? Brown of hand? Yeah. Chef. I want to welcome.

No stranger to y'all, but Chef Stephen Hurts. What's up y'all?

I got a chance to spend some time with Chef Hurts last year and,

and could really understand why you guys are very privileged to have him,

whether you believe that or not, but I mean, and I think our vibe is completely

different, like the way you show up versus the way I show up,

and yet it seems to be complimentary.

And you were in the game, you were in the mix, and at some point you said,

well, I think I want to be an instructor.

Well, actually, Chef Horton made that happen. Man. She reached out to me and

was like, I need an adjunct.

You want to come fill in for a class? And yeah, I never thought I'd be a teacher,

but that definitely changed my perspective.

Changed your life too. I mean, you've got a completely different life than what you did before.

And I'm going to speak to this one second because I, when I was coming up,

I thought my success was, you know, an independent restaurant on the street,

you know, putting out blazing cuisine and anything less than that was failure.

I came up, me and the crew that I ran with came up after the Mango gang in Miami,

Florida. that was Alan Susser, Norman Van Aken, those guys really kind of blew up the Floridian scene.

And so we were kind of the next tier moving up.

So we were ready to make our mark. And.

I was working at an Italian restaurant and we're prepping and the sous chef

says to me, you know, over a big boiling pot of water with a fork as he's stirring

it, says, yeah, I think I'm gonna put my notice in.

I'm like, what, dude, you've been here five years. I had only been there like

six months. So I was really leaning heavily on this guy.

And he says, yeah, I'm going to go. I'm going to go to health care. What?

Like, I'm going to go work in a hospital. Hospital. Have you seen the food there?

And I said, why would you do that? And he said, I get off at seven.

My kids are like seven to nine. I'd like to be home, have dinner with them at this point.

They might not want to have dinner with me the rest of their lives,

but right now I think it's important to them and it's certainly important to me.

And that's when I started to

suspect that there might be a different definition of success as a chef.

And the successful chef, Diem, is defined by the fact that they create a definition

of success that is wholly theirs, because if you're running someone else's game

or chasing someone else's dream, you'll lose out on your own.

Just be present to that because we're surrounded by that in our media.

Everybody's trying to tell us who we should be, what's going on.

And it can happen so quickly. You go to a job, you get to another job,

then another job. And now you're the ex-executive chef. Someone hands a set of keys.

Okay, lead the team. And I'm like, what? Yesterday I was cutting fish,

man. Now I got to do inventory? Like, there are things that you will not be prepared for.

There are things that this establishment, this institution will not have enough

time. They know where the gap is, but there's just not enough time in the curriculum to do that.

That's why I do what I do. because I recognized that leadership is more powerful than skill.

And I had to understand that until I was willing to lead myself,

I could never lead anybody else.

So how was the transition when you like went from the street to teaching?

Well, I grew up with teachers. My mother was a teacher.

My grandmother was a teacher. So I always approached being a chef as you're

a teacher in the kitchen.

You know, you're going to teach your staff. So once I got the opportunity to

come and actually teach here, uh.

Was pretty smooth you know something that i felt

like i'd almost kind of just my life

had prepared me for it you have the uh did you have the experience

of like almost like a ghost limb like you'd been spent so much time like in

the grind yeah so it's like and you think to yourself like am i being busy enough

right like am i doing enough no i mean there was the biggest adjustment was

kind of the paperwork the grading the rotations the culinary side teaching that

you know, that just came naturally.

It's something that, you know, I'd done for 20 something years by that point

in the kitchen, getting that adjustment into the full, you know, higher ed system.

Um, that was the real challenge for me was kind of breaking away from I'm a

chef in a restaurant teaching something to I'm a chef in a kitchen teaching something.

Two very different things that you can and can't do from a kitchen into a educational environment.

I'm curious, is there anything that you miss about that?

For me, it's just the rush of the service. I've gone back and,

you know, helped out some friends

and restaurants and country clubs to do some wine dinners and stuff.

And they're like, do you miss it? And it's like, yeah, but no.

Right. Thanks. The day-to-day, but every now and then going back into it, it's fun.

You know, I'm reminded of seasonality in food. Like I was working at a retirement

community where everybody wanted raspberries in December, right?

And when they're like, I don't know, 25 bucks a pint. And I'm like,

what's going on? And it took me, because they sent out a menu every week and

they all loved seeing the menu before.

So I started a little newsletter on the back where I started telling them what food costs.

I'm like, listen, you can have raspberries in December or you could have high

quality proteins, your choice.

And that started to shift the needle a little bit. Again, it's kind of like

not assuming and being willing to engage.

What do you do for your own self-care? Home projects.

My wife comes to me busy. Okay. The definition of self-care is anything you

do for yourself that doesn't have to do with anybody else. You know,

don't have a lot of time. I know.

I know. Time is the thing. It is the challenge. Yeah.

Yeah. No, the past couple of years, last year, the big goal for us at home was

getting my wife's mother's house sold.

Right. And we had, you know. That was a big time. We'd be going there on the weekend.

So yeah, free time was kind of non-existent. And that got pushed off because

of Hurricane Helene. Yep. Yep. Oh yeah. That made it a whole nother can of worms.

Is there, so like to kick off the clogs and the apron and take the jacket off.

If you had one thing that you wanted to share with these folks as they really

start engaging their career, what would it be?

Don't lose focus on your goals, really. You know what you want to get out of this industry.

Don't let a job lock you in. Realize that if you're feeling trapped, do something about it.

I ended up in a position where I stayed at a place way too long,

many more years than I should have.

And I had people from the outside saying, you know, obviously you don't like

it. Why don't you find something different?

But to me, it was, I had to pay the bills. I had to pay the mortgage and it

was a small town. So there wasn't a lot of other options locally.

I'm pretty clear that for some of you, like this conversation is like,

yeah, all right, that's cool.

But there'll come a point, trust me as I say this, man, there'll come a point

in your career where you go like, wait a second, who said that? Shit.

Right? And it's not, listen, and I think I speak for Chef Hertz.

We're not trying to save you from any failure or any of that crap because we

get that stretching yourself is a good thing because once you stretch,

you can never go back to the same person that you were.

So making mistakes, trying out for jobs that you might think you don't have

enough skill for is good.

So go do that thing. I'm just saying, make sure that you're not putting yourself

at the bottom of your own totem pole.

Because while you're young and strong, that works until it does.

And the reality is, I'd still love to be grinding.

I walk into a kitchen and I still get goosebumps, man. I want to jump on Expo

and start, you know, parking orders out.

And it's just, it's not a habit. It's just, I love it so much,

you know. and by extension, I love you guys because you're part of this eternity.

And I'm not trying to tell you like the old man what to do. Oh,

my mother. That's not what I'm saying.

However, it would be foolish.

To reject wisdom that is presented to you that might serve you later on just saying yeah yeah

and always allow yourself to be vulnerable in a

kitchen it's one of those things when we were coming up

in the kitchen you weren't allowed to be you weren't allowed to show

your weakness you had to be strong you had to you know put your head down keep

your knife moving yes chef um and i think with the pandemic things changed you

know the we we got a shift in perspective in kitchens and it kind of all of

a sudden became okay to be you know that vulnerable um mine cook,

which I think in culinary school this is your real big opportunity uh because

you know you're getting critiqued every class you're getting feedback you're

learning the skills and you know when I came into teaching one of the things

I did notice was people that have been in the industry weren't allowing themselves to be that way.

The green, you know, younger people, they were ready to come in.

They're used to critiques, you know?

Right, right. That's what I was talking earlier about this idea of like,

you come to it with love, so your heart's already open because of the craft,

but the business makes you shut down just to survive it.

Again, speaking for Chef Hearts Tonight, we want the same things that you wanted, right?

We wanted the same things. We want to be treated with respect.

We wanted to be communicated. We wanted to, you know, be a stick. Like we wanted all that.

It's no different. So when there's a chef going, oh, you know,

these kids, they don't want to work on Saturday. That's bullshit too.

Because they're jealous because they came up in an environment where that was not possible.

I swear, man, these places were like walking a prison yard, you know?

And they would gut you if you're like, for a minute.

And I'm not saying it was tough back then because it's a tough business.

I happen to think it should be hard. It just doesn't have to be harsh,

right? That's a Chef Life credo.

Chef Life radio credo. But I also get that,

Until you bring to your heart, until you bring your heart to what you do,

there's something that'll always be like, taste that, take a bite of that dish

and you're like, just missing something.

Yeah. Could be just a little salt, but that's just me. I like salt.

Or lemon juice. Thank you, Chef. Thank you. Appreciate it.

And come on, let's go. Very nice. Chef, how much time do we have?

Question and answer. Anybody want to have a question? Anybody want to make a

comment? Again, I talked a lot, but I'm really interested in your perspective.

Anybody? Come on, take a stab. Yes, sir.

Will this present generation, as they grow older, become jaded and bitter like us?

You know, it's interesting because we could talk about the industry or the business, right?

But we could also talk about ourselves, right? Will I become jaded and bitter?

I certainly did until I recognized that that was just a great excuse for not

opening my heart to what was actually happening and being present, right?

And I don't know if many of you guys have had this experience where you have

a job, you're working in this job, but you're constantly looking on LinkedIn

to see if a recruiter pinged you, right? Who did that, right?

Or you're looking at other jobs, like I'm going to this next job, that should be great.

I used to do the same thing. I remember specifically, like I say, what?

But I would constantly be spending a lot of time figuring out whether my resume

was correct, my LinkedIn profile was good, if anybody's trying to contact me.

And what I realized is that I spent so much time doing that that I was not present where I was. Right.

And so my wife gave me a piece of advice. She said, just be where you're at and have what you have.

Right. If you can do that, you'll always find things to appreciate.

And because you find things to appreciate, they'll become more things that you'll

find, that you'll see, appreciate.

And appreciation is a great game to get out of being jaded and bitter. Right.

200 slider buns, no problem. 50 gallons of conksate, no problem.

It's just a thing. I'm going to leave you this last story, which was I was really

pissed off in a GM's office.

And, you know, I hated my sous chef, hated my cooks, hated the people that came there.

And I told her, like, this business would be so easy if it wasn't for people.

She said, which ones? I said, all of them. I just want to be by myself. I just want to cook.

And she let me run out of gas. And then she said, Adam, don't you see the gun in what you do?

And I was like, God, this doesn't feel sacred at all. It's bullshit.

And she said, look at our society.

You go to the gas station, you pay at the pump. You don't meet anybody.

You go to the bank, you use the ATM, you don't see anybody.

Now it's even worse because, you know, we've got DoorDash and all that.

There's literally no excuse for us to come out of the house or be connected with anyone else.

She said uh what you do is

an excuse for people to come around a table who may

not have seen one another in a long time and be in relationship with

one like for real in real time and i sat with that for a second i'm like holy

shit and here i thought i was doing it for the love and the passion or me so

in a very real sense what you are doing what you are attempting to doing what

you will continue to do is be in service to your community through relationship.

The health of your community is often defined by the depth of connection.

So if you're in service to that, to relationship, providing people an opportunity

to, you know, be together and see one another, to touch, to feel the energy,

like that's sacred shit, man. Like that's humbling to me.

It's not just about the food on the plate. It's the environments,

everything that you put into it. But how many, I need to think about this a little bit.

Right now, it's a crazy time in this world. Crazy. And it's defined by separation.

Little bubbles. People talking about little bubbles.

And very few of them are actually stepping outside of that bubble to see what's

happening on the other side. And one of the only places that they'll do that is in your restaurant.

And when they can sit down and see the humanity in the other person, nobody can win that.

Right? Those who seek to separate us so that they can work one against the other.

I mean, it's the Machiavellian playbook. It's nothing new.

So I choose to do this today in service to my relationship with you,

to the relationship with Chef Horton, Chef Hertz.

You know, this rings on. You know, it rings into your family.

If you can be present to them, your crew.

These are powerful things. And you may not get it for a while,

which is cool, right? That's not my job.

My job is to present it and to say it is possible.

So jaded, bitter, broke up every possibility that that could happen, man.

Every possibility especially with all you know

everybody pulling levers on the sides which is why you need to be present your

own sense of success and self where you're at have what you have because then

you can't get pulled away from anything you know going in early it's a pleasure

thank you things could be worse and i'm not saying that because that's kind of a throwaway line but.

Um every generation has that same thought right it's like every generation think

that they got music right or that they got dancing right or you know i can tell you when i grew up,

and i walked out of the house and tell my mother i'll see you later she never

worried if i was four hours.

In my life, there became cell phones, internet, da-da-da-da-da-da-da.

And now if my wife can't get ahold of me in 10 seconds on the phone, she panics.

Like there's a simmering current of anxiety throughout that type of energy,

which is really important to be grounded from it because it's so easy to be consumed by it, right?

It's a dopamine addiction, hit after hit after hit. Same thing as cocaine.

Like what you use is just a tool, but it all comes back down to being a junkie,

being a dopamine freak, being an adrenaline junkie. It's the same thing.

Going through bouncing, bouncing, bouncing, bouncing. And what happens is chemically,

the brain starts to close those receptors out because there's way too much dopamine available.

And then when you start weaning up, it feels all kind of gray and shitty.

Like, why is it? I got no zap.

Well, it's because your brain, it takes your brain a little bit of time in order

to reconfigure itself hormonally so that now the more receptors are opening

up and things aren't so gray anymore.

So getting rid of notifications on your phone, shutting your phone off so that

you can be present. Those are all powerful tools.

And again, they're just tools, but it's a thing, man, this dopamine thing.

I'm telling you, it is a thing.

And when you go without it, it becomes stark. Like, holy shit, I had no idea.

And it happens in the subtlest ways. So be present.

Anyone else? Anybody have a question? That was a good question, by the way.

Yes, sir. What's your best? Making it. So, and I say, you know,

there's never a good time.

There's never enough time in the day unless you value it.

So I've written several books and the only way I could do it was to get up at

four o'clock in the morning and sit at my computer for an hour and my only job,

I'm going to do 600 words. That's it.

600 words. Now, sometimes I wrote 2000, sometimes 400, but I carved that portion

of the day out precisely because the whole world is asleep. The phone's not

ringing. I'm not getting anything on email.

Like I could have that space to myself. And inspiration shows up in those moments of stillness.

Like you don't think you got your mojo? Go be still. You'll find it.

It'll find you. It's a great time to think about your core beliefs.

Like is my health really a priority to me? Later. Okay.

Just be clear. Right? Clarity is everything. Then you can do,

you know, put yourself all the energy into everything.

But it's probably easier to do a little bit consistently over time.

I call that 1% way where it's small, consistent steps over time.

It's a Japanese manufacturing principle called, anyway, because there's,

you know, doing grand declarations. Oh, I'm not going to eat straight.

I'm going to do X. That never works. It's always about small,

consistent steps over time.

So whatever that means to you, it could be walking for 10 minutes today,

maybe 15 minutes tomorrow, maybe 20 minutes later.

It's just a consistent effort because what happens is you're starting to train

your brain and your body that this is important to you. and you're making it part of your routine.

And it's easier to do now to establish that than it is to do it later.

Does that make sense? Do you have any follow-up on that? No?

I know there's some sharp minds in here, man. Come on. What's going on? No? All right.

Thank you, Chef. My pleasure. Thank you very much, everyone.

That conversation at AB Tech wasn't about technique. It was about trajectory.

What I respect about AB Tech and why we're proud to partner with them for Chef

Life Radio Live is that they're not just teaching culinary mechanics.

They're giving students space to wrestle with the hard questions early. What is success?

What are you willing to trade for it? How do you stay open in an industry which can close you down?

That's leadership education. And if we can have those conversations before someone

burns out, before someone hardens, before someone mistakes obligation for passion,

then we're doing something that matters.

Hospitality isn't just food on a plate. It's connection, it's presence,

it's service to community.

And the chefs who understand that early, they don't just survive the industry,

they reshape it. So to the students at AB Tech, thanks for leaning in.

To the instructors, thanks for creating space. And to anyone listening who feels

that tension between love and exhaustion, define your own success.

Lead yourself first. The rest follows. This is Chef Life Radio.

Stay tall, stay frosty, and lead from your heart.

That's a wrap for today's episode of Chef Life Radio. If this resonated with

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