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Last Updated: September 2, 2024

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180: Chef Jimmy Francis' Culinary Flight - A Journey from Air Force Pilot to Private Chef

Also available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/lS2sKKf-UGM

Take a moment to reflect on a past major life transition. How have you navigated the shift from one major life chapter to another, and what lessons have you learned? For Chef Jimmy Francis, he reflects on the parallels between his military service and his current career, such as the importance of preparation and organization.

After retiring from the US Air Force in 2014, little did he know that his deployments to various countries would influence his cooking style and new career as a chef. He shares his journey from starting a meal delivery company with his sister, to his passion for cooking directly for clients, leading him to start his own business, Flights by Jimmy. Overall, Chef Jimmy's shift from military life to culinary arts highlights how military retirees can find a sense of purpose post-service.

Resources Mentioned:

• https://flightsbyjimmy.com/
• https://www.instagram.com/flightsbyjimmy
• https://www.facebook.com/flightsbyjimmy

Read our Monday, Nov. 4th, 2024 newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/649405ef0b0b/holdingdownthefort

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In the Fall of 2023, Jen Amos was sought after by InDependent to co-host the 8th annual InDependent Wellness Summit™. In August 2022, Jen Amos' work on the podcast was recognized by Disney Institute and she was hand-selected as the only non-Disney employee to moderate the first Military Spouse Employment panel for the Veterans Institute Summit. March 2022, former co-host Jenny Lynne has voted the 2022 Naval Station Norfolk Armed Forces Insurance Military Spouse of the Year. November 2020, Jen Amos was awarded “Media Professional of the Year” at The Rosie Network Entrepreneur Awards! The show continued to collect award nominations in the following years. In September 2021, the show made the Final Slate in the 16th Annual People's Choice Podcast Awards for the Government & Organizations category. In November 2021, the show was an Award Finalist for the 5th Annual National Veteran & Military Spouse Entrepreneur Awards. December 2021, the show was a Golden Crane Podcast Awards Nominee. September 2022, the show was a Finalist for the 13th Annual Plutus Awards presented by Capital Group for “Best Military Personal Finance Content.”

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Jen Amos 0:00

Jimmy Francis 0:12

Oh, thank you very much, Jen. I'm excited to be here and can't wait to share my story.

Jen Amos 0:16

Jimmy Francis 0:33

Yep, that's right. Well, coming up on 10 years, I've had a lot of different changes since I retired. And it was kind of hard to retire actually, to leave all that behind. But eventually, after about three years, I was able to, like I've said before, put that in a little box, you know, the bow and put that up on a shelf, and emotionally move on from that I'll never forget my service and all the men and women that I work with and the places I went. But yeah, I've definitely moved on to the next chapter.

Jen Amos 0:59

Yeah, I think that's wonderful. And you know, one of the major themes of our show here, I'll hold down the fort is thinking outside the box. And what you did was you pretty much put your service your 20 year service in a box, so that you could mentally, you know, I would say open a new box, right? Open a new box of possibilities.

Jimmy Francis 1:16

Yes, yeah, that's definitely for sure. And I was a Air Force pilot. So I definitely was not on the ground in a hostile environment very much. And so I like to say that I was a lot more stable than I could have been when I retired. And I haven't had a lot of emotional problems from it from service, traumatic stress or things like that. But I imagine that a lot of people do and I'm very grateful for not having Yeah,

Jen Amos 1:43

absolutely. My husband was actually a West Point grad and combat army officer. And during his service similar to you, he never really experienced what he would consider traumatic. And so in a weird way, he has like a sense of guilt around that. I don't even think you can call it survivor's guilt. But it's just like, this sense of guilt of like, Oh, I did not, you know, experience what some of my soldiers went through, so to speak. And so I think it's great for you to, you know, acknowledge that and like and be grateful, because, of course, there's not as many people or I mean, I think nowadays, you can, you know, kind of go through the military life with like a like, where it feels like a standard job, so to speak. But to recognize that you didn't necessarily have to go through anything necessarily traumatic, I think is a good thing to be self aware about and grateful for.

Jimmy Francis 2:28

Yes, definitely very, very grateful for that. I did go to some humanitarian assistance missions, like in the Philippines, Hurricane Yolanda was there while we were deployed, and we responded to that. And that was probably the closest thing that I've come to having some traumatic stress that I experienced. But otherwise, I'm just very proud of my service and very proud of all the men and women that I work with.

Jen Amos 2:51

Yeah, absolutely. So I know in part of your service to me, because you were traveling a lot, you dealt with a lot of foreign advisors, and you were exposed to, I would say, a lot of foreign cuisine. And I know that kind of led to where you're at today. So tell us about, you know, part of that experience that led to where you're at today as a chef. Well,

Jimmy Francis 3:13

at the very beginning that I grew up with my mom, and she was a great cook, learn from her mom. And so I kind of got the passion for cooking with her growing up in high school. And then with the Air Force Academy didn't cook at all then. And then finally, when I graduated and Kaylee Tennant, I got to start cooking again and had a great time doing that. Basically, through my whole career. I didn't get married until the later part of my career, but definitely cooked for myself and friends. And then when I started playing as a foreign advisor, we would actually live with foreign forces for anywhere from a month up to six months at a time, and we would eat their food, we would immersed in their culture, we tried to create as good a relationship as he could with them. So they would trust us and we could influence their way of fighting as an ally in whether it was in Poland, learning about like cabbage rolls and glop key or going to Mauritania and learning how to cook goat. And then in the Philippines, a lot of great food there, of course, and I actually experienced one of the hardest things in cooking that I did that I have in the Philippines. And that was, we were with the Hawaiian National Guard, they were providing ground security. And they came to me as a I think it was a major at the time. And they said, Hey, sir, as the ranking officer, you get to slaughter the pig for a pig roast. Oh my god. Yeah. And I'd never done that before. The most thing I had killed was maybe a salmon. Yeah. Oh, my goodness, or a duck? Yes. So they handed me this big, I don't know is long in the foot long blade, and they were holding the pig down and and they're just like, okay, just put the blade right there. And I'll never forget that experience for sure. But one of my mantras is is if you're willing to eat the food and you enjoy eating the food, kind of have to be willing to harvest the food. So whether it's you know, hitting a salmon over the had with the stick before you play it. Or a duck or a pig? Yeah. I mean, I'm not really a hunter anymore. But if I had to, I feel like I should do that. Yeah, absolutely.

Jen Amos 5:11

I'm just like, I'm trying to like not laugh out loud right now in hearing your story about the pig because I come from a family of farmers in the Philippines. And I remember decade plus ago, we had like a family reunion. And we went to my mom's land. And you know, they have pigs there. And they decided for dinner, they were going to serve pig, or they're going to serve Lectron, which is like a roasted pig and they put an apple in the mouth and everything. So I'm sure I'm sure you're probably familiar of it at this point. But I saw like Jimmy, I saw the whole process. I was like a teenager. Okay, I saw the whole process of how they like slaughtered the pig. Okay, and it started with Oh, my gosh, I don't even know if I want to get back into it. But basically, it started with a metal bats. Oh, wow. Okay, it was it was brutal. I watched everything from them getting it like unconscious to you know, gutting it, everything. I'm not gonna get into full details here. But it was just so so interesting how you share that story, because that brings me back to my teenage years. And I've never slaughtered anything, you know, but like you said, it gets you to really appreciate, like, what you're eating and even growing up when my family we were like, stationed in San Diego for a couple years. And my dad and my mom were so used to like growing up a chicken. So we would have chickens in the backyard. And I would watch him cut the chicken's head off. And, and you know, the whole the whole truth of like headless chickens like running around like headless chickens is so true, like the chickens are still alive. It's the craziest thing. So anyway, I just You just get me to reminisce on you know, those stories, like in my upbringing. But I know for you, Jimmy, that part of why you enjoy cooking is learning from other people who cook well, especially with different, you know, different cuisines from different cultures and learning the stories behind that. Is that correct? Yeah,

Jimmy Francis 6:59

absolutely. I experienced that this summer, which is nice, because I'm not deploying anymore. I'm not living with foreign forces and eating their food. I have to spend the money now to travel, which definitely is not as often but my family and I were very fortunate to go to Spain this summer. And we met up with some friends that live there. And I learned to cook pay from the grandfather, the family, and I've cooked by hand before many times just strictly from a cookbook. And he did it way different than I had learned in the cookbook. So it was really nice to cook it his way, I would think more traditional. And that's now how I cook it also, neither of us spoke the other's language very well. So we were translating with our iPhones back and forth. And it worked great, actually.

Jen Amos 7:44

That's awesome. I think nowadays Google Translate works really well. And I think there's apps now where you can, you know, speak in a different language, and then it'll interpret it. So it's just amazing how technology has come a long way. And, you know, really is able to make the world a little smaller. But I know that with food, it's more about, like showing the process rather than talking about it, right? Yep.

Jimmy Francis 8:06

Yep, for sure. And he had done some prep before I arrived. So he explained that part of the course. And yeah, no, it was a really cool experience. And one of the funny things that happened was he added an orange powder to the pyin. And he said that was strictly for coloring. And after the fact, I learned that, if you couldn't afford saffron can be quite expensive, you'd have a little bit of saffron, and then a lot of this orange coloring. So I thought that was essential. And I actually bought some and Spain brought it home. And as as I'm cooking with it, I just kind of casually glance at the back at the ingredients. And it sure enough, it has some of those dyes in it that are necessarily condoned. And so I strictly try to use saffron now. Yeah, and avoid avoid the dyes for sure. As much as I can. But the saffron will make it taste much better. You just gotta spend a little bit yeah,

Jen Amos 8:56

I think that is the benefit of cooking your own food right is like you you know exactly what's being put in your food, versus maybe just getting something from the store again, getting like that rotisserie at Costco, whatever. Like it's like, you know exactly what's in your, in your food. And in the last handful of years, I just get like local produce delivered to my house, but even then, I still feel like when I do want to get let's say like, even just chocolate milk almonds, I have to like read the ingredients and there's there's only so much I understand, like there's so many like I've heard before a good rule of thumb with ingredients is if you can't pronounce it, it's probably a bad ingredient. That's what I was told right? Yeah, so I'm curious if like I mean, I know you don't I know that you do account nutrition into making food but I'm curious if that's like something you also pay attention to is like the quality of the ingredients you use. Probably

Jimmy Francis 9:45

the where the food is from as the most important to me. Being in San Diego. There's a great produce vendor in old town called Specialty Produce, and you can almost get any thing all year round there, they source from Baja in the South West states of the US, which to me is fairly local. But then also their seasonal produce is just incredible. So I'll usually talk, you know, when I have a big event, I'll talk to their produce manager or their organic manager, they also have a farmers market manager, which is even more niche and more expensive. And that, oh, what's really good right now, either these tomatoes, you know, in the summertime or strawberries, they have truffles a certain time of the year, I think that's in the late spring is when troubles come out. So it's definitely a seasonal thing with produce. And then with seafood, it can be also the same, there's a tuna season, there's a lobster season locally here in the fall in San Diego. And when you go to your local markets, definitely ask them where their food is from, like, it could be farmed shrimp, or farmed fish that's brought in from overseas. And you can kind of smell definitely smell the difference between that and then a local harvested condition. And so I don't use I very rarely anymore get food or fish from overseas, that you get paid for it. But hopefully the client will help pay for it too.

Right. Right. Yeah. And I think that what I've come to find just eating local seasonal food is that it just tastes better. For the holiday season. The the CSA program that we order from took two weeks off, you know, to just get ready for the new year. And so it was kind of like, it was kind of the first time in the year I was like, Okay, I'm gonna go to the grocery store, and just, you know, get my veggies there. And again, it just doesn't taste the same in my opinion, like, I got a cauliflower and it just tastes it doesn't taste like anything. And I even got asparagus. And you know, unless I overseas in it, it doesn't taste like anything, at least in my opinion. Maybe Maybe I just have a different palette now. Just eating local and seasonal. But I really liked how you ask the questions. You know, you're you're intentionally asking like, where's this from? We're how was it raised? Because, you know, I imagine that makes all the difference in the quality of food that you select. It

absolutely does in like I said nothing more obvious than when it comes to seafood. I feel a little I'm not sure the word pretentious, maybe, or high maintenance. When I asked the butcher or the fishmonger, hey, where is this from? Where, you know, how was it raised? Was it happy? its whole life? You know,

I was gonna ask you if it felt like you're pretentious asking those questions.

Oh, yeah, for sure. But it's really worth it to know kind of where your food comes from? How far did it have to travel? Are they tomatoes that came, you know, from Texas, and so they're more fibrous and more designed for travel than for flavor. Right? So you want to get local tomatoes in the summer, pretty much that are going to be a lot softer, a lot more fragile. But the flavor is going to be amazing. Yeah, yeah, I could talk a lot about food and where you get it and the health benefits and why that's important in sometimes my clients don't care about any of that. You just want to save money, I guess on the evening insert all do my best to educate. Yeah, in that department. Yeah,

yeah, absolutely. I think maybe they don't ask is because they trust you. You know, they probably trust like that you do all the research ahead of time. Right,

right. Yep. No, absolutely. And some clients really do care, you know. So I'm glad that I have. I'm learning the background. Yeah. And learning.

How do you? Yeah, absolutely. I want to go back not really 10 years ago, but like, let's say three years into post military life, and you were finding yourself and you weren't exactly sure what you're going to do. And then you know, in realizing that you have this one, sorry, not realizing what you wanted to do. I know that you and your wife wanted to start a family. It made a lot of sense to be with the kids. But you also wanted to have, you know, a sense of purpose, creative outlet, and flying wasn't going to be that thing for you. So hence you and your sister were able to start wholesome kitchen SD, is that correct? Yeah,

we created that back in 2016. We're both raising our young kids are well, my spouse was traveling quite a bit in her husband, his teacher. But then as our kids got a little bit older, we realized we had some time, and then you get back more fully into the job market. So we started a wholesome kitchen, San Diego, which is an organic meal delivery company, we'd cook twice a week in a commercial kitchen, and you have to pay rent in a commercial kitchen, of course. And then the next morning, we have drivers that would deliver the food and we did that for about two years. And I think in the end my sister's passion was being a doula so helping with childbirth for clients. And then mine was more cooking in front of and with clients because it was kind of a it was almost like a leftover food delivery like the food was cold at that point and refrigerated all night. And then we delivered it the next day. So it wasn't quite the front facing client interaction that I was looking for with my cooking so we shut that down after a couple years and then a few years later I started slice by Jimmy YEAH, two years later.

I'm curious to know what it was like starting a business with your sister because I you know, I work with my has been, and it's taken us a number of years to, you know, get along, or at least like know how to be a team. But I imagine like with siblings, that it might be a different if not similar experience, like trying to run a business together. So

I'm actually really close to my sister, I have four of them. My sister, Leah, Leah is, I'm the second child and my sister weighs third. And she lives here in San Diego, with her husband and her daughter, Stella. And I think she actually proposed the idea to me, and we thought about it and you know, talked about how it work and what the schedule would be like, and how we could support our families also. And then we decided to do it. And obviously working with her was pretty good. She had a part time job as a doula. And obviously I had part time requirements with my family. And we're able to share a lot of things, I was kind of the lead chef, that she was more marketing. So sharing those duties worked out pretty well as net, it's one of my wheat. My, somebody that I'm weak at, I guess, is maybe we could talk about that later is the marketing side of things. But the cooking I got covered. So she was a prep cook in the kitchen, we had two or three other people in there working with us as prep cooks. And then she took care of the marketing, it all went really relatively smoothly until about two years. And she started to say, hey, you know, I'm not making enough it'd be a lot better if I just went full time doula and, and then so that at that point, we decided to shut her down. It was funny, just a quick story, we went to see a mentor downtown, a business mentor at the score network. And we were talking about all our, about our business and what we were doing and how and how we were doing it. And you know, the elevator speech, all of that. And he basically asked us this much older business gentleman, he said, Okay, so which one of you is in charge of the company? And we both looked at each other? And we didn't have a solid answer is like that is your number one problem is being Oh, my cool business partners and being siblings, it can be difficult. So who said so one of you needs to take charge? And Leah kind of looked at me and was and she said basically, why don't want to do it? And I said, in me, I was thinking Well, I do want to do it? Because I don't want to, you know, I would like to have influence, you know, of course. So that even worked out to between us. I ended up creating the LLC and all the business paperwork, had my name on it. And so that that even worked out between us. So it went really pretty well.

Yeah, that's great to hear. It sounds like it was just like two puzzle pieces that connected perfectly like you two had your strengths. And where one person had blind spots, the other person was able to fill it in. And it was really just a matter of circumstances like, you know, your sister wanted to make more income. So she felt like it made sense to become a doula. But it sounds to me that that was just like a great experience for you to like, dip your feet into entrepreneurship. From what I recall, I think you also got involved with the rosary network, and they were able to help you with the process of reading that

I did their service to CEO program, which is kind of like Boots to Business. It was maybe a four month program, actually might have been aways several months, and you would meet a couple times a month and down at their offices in their classrooms. And they would have a major topic every month to talk about whether it was your business plan is more marketing, or the money side of things or business development? Yes, it is very helpful.

And then Awesome. That's really great to hear. You know, the only reason why this conversation exists is because the Rosie network recommended you as a guest for our show. So I just want to give a quick shout out to the Rose network for that. And, you know, also my husband was one of the early cohort members when they started, I think in when they started the program back in, I don't know 2016 or 2017. So it's just really cool to see throughout the years, you know how the nonprofit continues to serve military connected entrepreneurs and getting their feet off the ground, even if it's just like those initial steps to lead them to somewhere because I also know that getting help from score is also really helpful. I know that they provide a ton of you know, business resources.

Yeah, no, I appreciate both of those organizations. And I still, you know, Rosie still reaches out to me today for various things, whether it's, you know, if I need help with mentorship or further business development, or they have an opportunity for me, so I'm I'm very grateful to everyone over many.

Yeah. Well, I want to talk a little more about mindset with you. Because in the military lifestyle, it's often considered like the culture of like, following orders. And I know that like you have been, you know, removed from the military for, you know, a decade now. And I'm curious, like, in addition to what we talked about early on, where you put kind of your Air Force hat, and memories and experiences in a box and put it on a shelf. I'm curious if there's anything else that you felt like you went through, like your experiences to make that mental shift from the military life to the civilian life

so In Air Force Special Operations, someone above my paygrade, so to speak, would choose the mission like where we were going, because they are an ally of the US, okay, they would probably have a good idea of what kind of influence they wanted us to have, you know, on their aviation and on their ground support on their medical abilities. But then our team or our experience, we influenced our leadership as to you know, what the right way to go was. So yeah, there's definitely no orders, they will decide where we're going. But then we would build the plan, we would build a mission, how we're going to do it, how many people are going, how long? And we did tons of research, how safe is it there? What are the threats? What are the what are the chances of us being able to provide a long standing capability at this country, so we definitely were the experts in that realm as a Combat Aviation advisor. And so I kind of learned, you know, maybe I didn't necessarily decide where we were going or what the mission was. But I definitely knew how to build that plan. So that directly transfers in culture kind of decides in the US what people like to eat, and where you live, traditionally. But then I will kind of build based off of that are those inputs, what the the meal plan is going to be? What are the business plan, like we had these great checklists that we would use as aviation advisors just to get out the door, and they were like, they would start 12 months out, and then six months, checklists, and then a one month checklist, and then all the way down to that day checklist to get out the door to make sure you didn't forget anything, and you got all the steps done. So I even built that when I started this business I had, maybe it was Rosie's help, but like a six month plan, you know, what permits do I have to get how much money do I need to get those permits, what's going to be my budget, and then a two month plan, and then one month, and finally you get the permits? And now you're ready to open? So you gotta create a contract with the commercial kitchen that starts first of the month. So yeah, a lot of that stuff that I did the military absolutely transferred to what I'm doing now, as far as like the structure of it goes. Yeah,

yeah. Yeah, forgive me. I feel like I should have couched that question differently. I should have said, you know, how did you translate, as you said, because that being in in an advisor role, it makes a lot of sense that you had to do all that research. And what we talked about offline about, one of the things that excites you most about being a chef is the process of the meal prepping and all that, is that correct? Yeah, no, absolutely

true. I really enjoy. When my theater of operations, the kitchen is sparkling, clean, just cleaned, sanitized. And all I have is a cookbook, or one sheet of paper that has the recipe on it. And then from there, it's go time and I prepare the meal in the same, you know, was in the military, you wanted everything to be very well organized, you want to your team on the same page, you want to have all the equipment ready to go, whether that was an aircraft being checked out by maintenance, and giving a thumbs up or just a vehicle convoy and having all the cars start. Yeah, so yeah, from the there's all the prep. And once all the prep is done, then it's time to cook the food. And that's really my favorite part when everything's well prepped.

Yeah, I hear the love and passion you have for that process. And it actually gets me to think about the dynamic you had with your sister where she was more of the marketer. So now flights by Jimmy what that what does that experience like for you to market yourself?

Honestly, Jen, that that it's hard. Like, if I can find a reason not to pick up my phone, I generally do that. So it's, you know, now within 10 passion, I have to pick up my phone and go to Instagram and you know, put pictures in there and talk about those pictures, you're talking about me that's hard, and then put links in there or tag people that I've worked with for that dinner, whether it seems specially produce or my wine supplier or things like that, then my wife knows how important it is. In fact, every other person in the world, including me knows outboard and marketing on social media is so they're constantly motivated me to do that. And give me kudos if I do one and any critiques also, which isn't always the hardest for me from your family. That's a skill for sure. But yeah, the marketing is hard. And I'm kind of inconsistent with it. But there was was an organization that worked with Rosie that helped me with that last year, they made a video for me that I was able to post that was really nice with music and edits and all thing. Mostly my business has grown from word of mouth. But I think that there's always room to like spread that reach and usually social media or marketing is how you do that. But yeah, word of mouth is kind of my main success point for marketing and and that's all kind of based where I live and then it kind of goes out from there. I've also done a few dinners that were auctioned at a fundraising event. So I just did one with the clients went to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society gala and they bid on my dinner. My kids elementary school have an oven Every year where the auction off on my dinners and then Radies children's, I did one for them also. So that also expands my reach, I probably have to figure out the math on that if all the time and energy and food costs that I put into those auctions, if I'm going to residual from that, but also, it's the donation that's important to me also to those organizations. Yeah,

yeah, absolutely. I mean, there is so many things to take into consideration for being a business owner. I mean, one thing, you're the talent, you know, you're the expert in what you do. And in addition to that, you have to market yourself. And I definitely understand that I think that for some of us, especially for creatives, it's just easier to kind of be in our little corner or in your case, your kitchen and, you know, do the whole thing, enjoy the enjoy the artistry of making food. And then it's another thing to have to put it out there and talk about it. And, you know, it's hard to talk about something that, in my opinion, like you spend a lot of time like alone time, in a sense, like you're spending all this time making this food, to articulate it, I feel like it's just a whole different skill set, I think, to talk about that experience, because it's, it's a very, you know, important, you know, passionate thing that you do, in my kind of making sense there.

No, it's very, it's a very personal event. So then, like, there may be, there's something that I'm very proud of, well, now, if marketing, you have to capture that a picture of that dish or that meal, I went to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, auction winners dinner the other night, I put on the dinner for a family that bid on it and won it. And that dinner was probably one of my favorite dinners I've done. They were very personable, the dad was, was Navy retired, now he was into dontist. I think I'm successful. So we had a connection immediately when I got there. The wife was very friendly and enthusiastic about the dishes that I had and the pairings, and then their guests really loved the meal. And then at the end of the night, I got to meet their four working dogs. So they had four purebred dogs of different species, big dogs, and they all came in, they're friendly. And I'm a dog person. So it was just the whole night was was great. And so that joy is hard to capture. Yeah, in a picture. You don't know for sure. And so trying to do that you missed the mark, at least I do quite often.

Yeah, I think about just growing up and how I always felt like my mom treated my siblings, and I like a zoo animal. And like just taking candid photos of us. And so even for me personally, it's really hard to, like want to capture the moment, because I just think like, oh, it's not really the moment anymore, when you like try to capture it, you know, it's called in the moment for a reason, like unless you have, unless you have like a videographer or like a photographer like a professional photographer, like catching this, like you said, it's it's hard to catch. And I think that, you know, marketing in itself is an art to try to like transfer that level of enthusiasm into a photo or a video.

And I guess that's why we hire and pay people to do that.

Yeah, so shout out to the marketers. Yeah, podcasters like me. You're welcome, Jimmy No. So what I'm hearing is that for you marketing, it's one of the little more difficult things for you to do as a business owner. But either way, it sounds like you do it anyway, you know, like you, you kind of put on that extrovert hat on and put yourself out there and start, you know, like, focus on things that you're comfortable with, like locally. And, and also I think, Jimmy that, like your expertise speaks for itself. Because like you said, your number one way you gain interest is via word of mouth. And so I want to hear a little bit more about your expertise. I know that in addition to the process of cooking, like the phrase, the devil is in the details is really important to you. And one of the things that you take a lot of pride in is your knowledge in the parts of a recipe that's not often spoken about. Can you tell us about that? Yeah,

so if you follow a recipe, and I it's taken me a long time to learn this, like, when you follow the recipe, there's a ton of things that aren't in, in what that is, is basically just the chef or the cooks experience, right? So they don't talk about how to not burn the oil in the pan, or how to preheat a pan or how to cook or how to cut a certain piece of meat. So it's the most tender, or how hot things need to be when they're done being cooked. Like there's all these little things that a chef needs to know about. And it's taken me a lot of time to learn that. And to be honest, like I'm always learning, right? There's always more to learn. And there's always that little bit of depth that maybe you have when you're cooking something new or cooking something for a new client like I cooked for a new client yesterday, and they were very particular. Right and I was admittedly a little bit nervous about cooking for them. Um, everything turned out great. They were happy with the food as it usually does turn out well. So that went fine. I though it's interesting. When you talk about expertise, the two times that I really felt like oh, I do have expertise is when I applied. For some Hollywood cooking shows. The interview process for that, for those are pretty involved, like I applied for Dan Levy's the big, I think it's the big brunch is what it was called. And then I ended it for another one. Also in the packages, they send you to fill out these questions and send in little video clips for these questions. And then a long video of yourself talking, you know, I had so many good, I feel I had so many good answers for the questions. And then for the videos and talking about food and cooking. In my experience, I was like, wow, I do have some knowledge. And I do have a lot of experience. That was a couple years ago. And it really, you know, I didn't get accepted into those TV programs, but it really boosts my confidence on being able to talk about food and talk about international food, which is my favorite thing to cook foreign food. So it's it was really rewarding to go through the, through those processes and learn that. Yeah, I do have some experience. Yeah,

absolutely. It's it's experiences like that, as you say that help you realize how knowledgeable you really are. You know, very often I've been, you know, podcasting since 2019. And I don't think what I do is anything special. But then once people start asking me about my process, and I really get into it, they're like, Oh, well, you should create a course on that you should consult for that. And I'm like, I'm like, trust me. Like, if I cared to create a business model around consulting, I would but like, I'm more of a practitioner moreso than I am a teacher, right, you know, and I just enjoy the act of doing it more so than like, making itself become like a business opportunity, I guess. But also, thank you, you know, it's like, Thanks for recognizing that I guess I'm good at what I do. And I know what I'm doing and all the things so. So it takes like moments like that, you know, and in your case, it was filling out these applications to recognize, you know that you really are chef Jimmy, you're a professional chef, even if you haven't been on TV. Yes. Yes. Wonderful. Well, you know, the last thing I wanted to talk to you about Jimmy is, you know, one thing that really stood out to me in our offline conversation was just the level of support you have, you know, level support to be able to do flights by Jimmy. And I know, in this case, it's your wife. So can you talk a little bit about what it's been like to, you know, have her support, so that you can have this, you know, this flexibility of a business and while also still being able to, you know, be there for your kids,

you know, I became a private chef, partly because, oh, I can control the schedule, right. Now, that's something I can control. Well, as it turns out, my wife can almost control her schedule. She's in pharmaceuticals more than mine, like often I am cooking in the late afternoon into the emaan. And she completely manages our families, our kids hectic schedule, after school with activities sports, mostly. And she will even put her job on hold, you know, so I can go to an event or go cook for a client, things like that. So yeah, she, she's the one that enables my schedule, more so than the opposite of that. So without that support, I couldn't have the freedom, I wouldn't have the freedom to do what I'm doing. Also, she has, she's helped me a lot with the like, basically, we redid our kitchen. Okay, no. And so now, I have everything that I need in my at Home and Kitchen. And she bankrolled that, which is a big deal. So she, she supported me with that she is very wisest when it comes to business. So we talk a lot about what I do. She motivates me big time, she's much more on to social media than I am. So she helps me with that also gives me critiques, you know, good and bad. Mom, what I'm doing marketing, and all that it can be hard coming from your spouse, but I try to be patient and try to be accepting and open minded when it comes to all those inputs. But yeah, I definitely could not be doing what I'm doing without her being a major part of it.

Yeah, no, I think that's just beautiful to hear. And I think a good lesson for anyone who wants to get into business is recognizing what you already have. And in this case, it's a very loving support system, you know, from your family and from your wives specifically. And I just I just wanted to highlight that because I feel like when people think about getting into business for the first time, they want to be self made. They want to say I did it all I do this, but what I've come to find being self employed for 13 years is that like I will never be self made. I will always make it a point to credit like you know, the shoulders of giants I was able to stand on or working with my husband. So I just think that it's you know, it's a beautiful and loving thing for you to you know I've just give your wife a shout out. Absolutely.

My wife, Nora, thank you so much. I love you.

I didn't pay him to say that. No, I'm kidding. You're like, okay, cool. Now wife still loves me. No, I'm kidding. Awesome. Well, you know, Jimmy, I really enjoyed our conversation today, I want to make sure that you have shared everything you want to share to our listeners. So any final closing thoughts for us?

I just want people to know how proud I am of all our men and women overseas and anyone who signs up to be in the service. Yeah, I am just super happy to have been a part of that. And yeah, to be honest, I would recommend it to anyone, it completely changes your life and your outlook on life. Yeah, it will be one of the most important experiences of my life for as long as I live. Definitely. Yeah.

And once again, congratulations, 10 years of retirement at this point, just must be so wild to think that you had this, you know, I don't know if you take that box from the shelf every now and then open it up and reminisce. But I imagine it's just must be a very interesting, you know, time of reflection to recognize that your life is complete. 180 Although there are a lot of the skills that you transferred into what you do today, it's still a very much a complete 180 from your military life.

Yeah, we're near we're pretty close to Miramar, Marine Corps Air Station. And when their C 130s. fly overhead, and I'm outside with my kids, I'll be like, Hey, do you guys hear that? What is that? They're like, dads. It's a C 130. Often,

you're like, don't forget flights by Jimmy. Awesome. Well, Jimmy, I just I just want to thank you so much for your time. Thank you for being here today. And you know, to our listeners, we hope you got a lot out of this conversation. And with that, we'll chat with you in the next episode. Till next time.

Thank you so much, Jen. Have a great day.