14. Be a Chef, Not a Baker

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Welcome to 2022 My fraaaaand, can you even believe it? It’s a new year. I love January, myself, I love the new year. I love the new feelings, the new goals, the clean slate, the fresh ideas, renewed sense of purpose and just possibility so much I love all of it. So before we get into today’s episode and talk all about those things I’m going and also in this episode, let me just tell you, I am going to make you want to book a whirlwind tour of Tuscany immediately. So that’s coming up, look forward to it. But first, I want to remind you to subscribe and rate the podcast if you haven’t already. It helps others to find the show. And anything that we can do these days to increase visibility in the big algorithm nonsense that we find ourselves part of these days. It’s very helpful. So while you’re at it, if you’re so inclined, a good old fashioned person will share with a friend or two that would also like what we’re doing over here, that would go a long way, I would appreciate it so much. So subscribe, and rate the podcast, send it out if you have the desire, I would love it too much. All right. And back to me. Back to our important storytime today. I do have a little storytelling to do today from way back so long ago, in 2006, when I was just a wee last. Okay, I was 23 years old. I really wasn’t that young. But that seems like it was at least 10 lifetimes ago at this point. So it feels like I was just very young. I didn’t know a lot of things. And I love that I love this pivotal scene in my life that I learned while on a trip. You know how sometimes you just have those moments that stand out in time and you remember them forever. Because for some reason, it just was crazy important. This is one of those moments for me. And I think what I learned in this particular scenario, in my young adulthood is going to be helpful for you in terms of your business, too. So let me set the scene and tell you how crazy this sounds. So when I was 23, I visited Tuscany region of Italy that’s very beautiful and known for the wonderful food that’s cooked there. And they learned how to be a great cook in just seven days. Seven days. She’s crazy. I know it seems very far fetched, but it’s the truth. Now we’re gonna circle back to this impossibly short timeframe in a minute, but when I was 23, here’s what happened. I went on a two week trip to Italy with my mom and one of my best friends. And we spent seven of those glorious days at a beautiful, beautiful cooking school in Tuscany. It was set amidst I mean, just imagine this, it was literally oldest the hills olive orchard on this historic estate. In an old restored carriage house, there was wine and there were vineyards and these all have trees and the olive presses for the olive oil. It

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was absolutely beautiful. It’s just stunning in every way. So we spent seven days at this place this estate had been turned into a cooking school. So you stayed there and had the most amazing accommodations and then every day, learned how to cook. So this is what happened. I went there. I spent seven days I came out like this magically much better cook. Alright, I know it sounds like the setting of a romantic movie guide of was actually the place that we were at was absolutely magical. So when we got there Upon arriving at said cooking school, my cooking skills I just have to tell you amounted to seriously I was fresh out of college easy Mac in the microwave and the occasional homemade taco. That was it. Even though I come from a very long line of exceptional cooks food is amazing in my family, everyone’s a great cook, we always have the most bomb food seriously. So I’m like a picky eater in terms of food quality and having really amazing food but I was not picky about my own cooking. Let’s just say that. For some reason I was willing to sacrifice all quality when it came to making food myself at this point in my life. So never interested me honestly to learn how to become a great cook until this week in Tuscany. So in case you’re wondering, I’m going to give you a snapshot on how a seven day Tuscan cooking school paradise Adventure Works. And I say this as if nothing could have possibly changed in the last 15 years and I’m an expert. But at least in my experience, this is what it was like. Upon awaking in your beautiful private room of this restored and immaculate and like beautiful floral arrangements everywhere in this renovated carriage house on the working olive orchard like I said, which was just filled with happy workers doing their Italian routines. Beautiful seriously picturesque but upon waking you go downstairs and are greeted with a massive breakfast spread all of the things for breakfast, eat up because you are in Italy and food is not optional like at this stage of the game. It’s not as if you’re going to have a light breakfast you just go for it. Now after breakfast was cooking time. So here’s how it was kind of structured. The owner of the school was a really eccentric like quintessential Italian Mamma Mia is kind of how I am going to describe her. She was kind of out there and she was sassy but she was just like an Italian In mama, she hands out aprons and knives, and she explains why we’re going to be cooking the foods that we’re going to be cooking this week. And how mastering this one dish each day is going to teach us everything we need to know to cook pretty much everything else in the future. She does a really good sales pitch for how it’s going to be simple. And that’s exactly what it was. We learned some really basic skills and nice some knife skills. For the most part, we practice them on morning, we learned how to wash produce, we learned how to pick the most ripe in season ingredients and produce all of that. And I just have to tell you, we followed the most elementary basic recipes I’d ever seen in all of my not very wide. Not very deep, I should say, experience in cooking. These were the easiest recipes ever. They were so simple. They were very basic. And then we ate what we had created these masterpieces that we have cooked, we ate for lunch. And we felt very proud of ourselves. And we ood an odd over what we had produced without even knowing what the heck we were doing. Because you didn’t have to be a great cook to make great food in this environment. Seriously, we cooked the most delicious dishes. They were so simple. And they were so delicious. One of the women in the class that I’m thinking there were like 10 people in this class, right? And so you didn’t know anyone else that wasn’t in your group until you spent the week with them, obviously, and got to know them quite well. So one of the women in the class who was there with her two sisters, they were doing a sister’s get away in and you could tell this trip had not been her idea she was there to be with her sisters. But this was for sure not the destination that she had picked. She said it was the first time she had ever tasted mustard that wasn’t French’s she didn’t even know that there was anything else I died. So the reason they tell you that is because believe me it was not necessary to be a culinary expert to be in this room and be creating great food. Alright, so after eating our own cooking for lunch, which was so fun, we then had the rest of the afternoon to explore the Tuscan countryside and go to Pisa and go to the coast and the markets. It’s just an amazing area with lots to do. So we got to do all of the touristy things all afternoon. There was also a beautiful pool on this property. There’s all sorts of things to do. But we were left to our own adventures for the afternoon. And while we did that, the staff of the school was busy preparing a four to five course dinner with wine paired for each course, that we would then come back to and enjoy four hours. This is another thing about Italian meals. They’re very long. And it was as amazing as it sounds.

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It’s so fun. I just I’m reliving this trip as I tell it to you and remembering it. This was so fun. Alright, but let’s get back to the actual cooking part. Because that’s where this pivotal moment came from. And what I remember most when I think back on this week that I learned to cook delicious food the week that I became a cook and my family benefits from Now was this week. So here’s the thing, there are some very basic foundational principles I found during this week that guide the menu and the methods that we were there to learn. I thought it was going to be complicated, but it wasn’t like I’ve said many times, super simple. You can see this is not very subtle. You can see how this is going to apply to your business as well. Like I said, subtlety is not my gift. So during our morning sessions when we were cooking, we didn’t use any advanced techniques whatsoever. We learned the most basic and simple skills and concepts and use the best ingredients and made amazing food. That’s it. That week I learned that authentic Italian cooking is top notch because of the ingredients that are used. You never ever says my mamma mia cooking school leader says you would never cook with ingredients that aren’t in season. And exceptionally fresh, ever. hard as a rock light pink tomatoes that I see in our northern grocery stores in January, I’m looking at you, you cannot be consumed, you do not pass the test. I also learned that there are really basic knife skills that you can learn in 30 minutes like I did, that will get you 80% of the way to mastery and cutting pretty much anything in the kitchen for the rest of your life. It is not that complicated. If you know a few basic strategies, and some tricks of the trade, no big deal. There were a few other basics that we learned as well. But I won’t bore you with those. There was one particular moment during the week that I have to tell you about which is the whole purpose of this episode that sticks out the most, even 15 years later. Now here’s what was happening. We were crisping up some prosciutto in a saute pan and I put a lid on the pan. Remember, the extent of my cooking knowledge and experience was boxed macaroni and cheese and like some tacos, I mean, okay, it’s like probably whip up a spaghetti but it’s not like I had a depth of knowledge here. In case you’re not a cook. Let me bring you up to speed that putting a lid on something is going to create the opposite of crispy. I was crisping up prosciutto that was my goal and I put a lid on which will steam whatever’s in there and we’ll definitely create the opposite of crispy for sure. So they’re cooking one on one. You’re welcome. If you didn’t know that you’re welcome. The instructor that was working with us quickly notice my error on this and pointed it out no big deal. She said take the lid off moved on. Except it was such a big deal to me. Because until that moment, I had lived 23 years with no idea that there was a reason that you might put a lid on a pot, or not put a lid on a pot. I seriously didn’t even know that this was something to learn. I just thought that lids went on top. The end, like the pot has a lid, you put the lid on the top. That’s what you do. End of story. It was just that there wasn’t even something that I was questioning. And when I think back on this now I can see so clearly that I just didn’t know what I didn’t know. Didn’t even know to question that. litter, no lid, I didn’t know that this was even up for debate. You just keep things with their matching parts. And of course, you put the lid on the pot or on the ban until I was in a room and I was surrounded by much more successful cooks that were way more experienced and wise and I was actually paying attention to them. I didn’t even question what I thought I already knew. Until then, until I was in that room, I didn’t even question it. I will stick a pin in that for now and come back to it. But on that trip, like I said, I learned knife skills, I learned how to choose ingredients I learned how to wash and to prepare those fresh ingredients. I learned how to cut up meat, I

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learned how to choose meat, I learned some other really basic things that set me up to become a great cook. And now I get to reap all of the benefits of that. And because I could see the results right away, and I could enjoy the fruits of my labor, each meal at lunchtime was very, very rewarding to be able to eat that right away. When I went in those basics, and I could see the results right away. I wanted to learn more. I was getting really quick feedback. It was good. It was like dopamine hit after dopamine head, give me more I’m doing so good. Look at me go. And suddenly, I had a desire to cook that I had not had until that point, I was winning. And I was like I want to keep winning. This is really good. This is worthwhile. Now I didn’t need to learn everything in one week, that’s not even possible. I just needed to learn the basics. So I could practice and get to the more advanced techniques eventually, when I wanted to cook more advanced things. But I didn’t need to worry about that right away, I just needed to learn the basics. And my food was turning out really good. Again, not subtle, right, you could see how this applies to your business. Turns out that the basics produce some of the best food I ever ate, I didn’t need to be complicating it or trying to make it fancy. It’s exactly the same with your business, you can see where I’m going here. Number one, use the highest quality ingredients to start with. Just like in cooking now and your business. The way that you can see the parallel here is it means what you put in your brain, how you spend your time, who you surround yourself with the thoughts that you think the beliefs that you adopt about what’s possible for you, and what’s possible for your clients, and what’s possible for your business. All of these things are the highest quality ingredients for your business. Are you spending your time in free Facebook groups with other practitioners who are spinning in confusion, and overwhelm and making excuses for why they aren’t successful in their business yet and whining about their hard clients and being very, very needy? Is that what you’re doing? Because that’s the equivalent of eating easy Mac from the microwave? That’s, that’s what I was doing up until that point? Or are you intentionally putting yourself in a room full of practitioners who are having success, and who are sharing their experiences, the wins, and the learning experiences and the who are sharing their processes and are sharing inspirational tips that are showing you what’s possible is that who you’re surrounding yourself with, obviously, those are the highest quality ingredients. Another thing that I learned and I think we can take away from this experience and apply it to business is that keeping things simple is priority number one in your business, that means not trying to attempt complicated advanced sales funnels, for example, until you’ve mastered the basics of just having conversations with real humans on the planet who want your help. Telling them that you can help them listening to their problems, offering the solution and then getting paid to actually give that solution. Getting paid to help people get the results they want. Those are the basics. Just having conversations with humans who are already looking for the help and telling them I know how to help you. Here’s what I can do. When you can do that. Just the basics over and over again, so simple, then you can move on to more advanced online sales strategies later. That’s not where we start. Just like I wasn’t starting with any super advanced cooking any recipes here that were taking skills I didn’t have no, I was just loving my life that things can be simple and my food tasted so good. Like that. Really, I could just not complicate this at all and have amazing food and I’m a good cook. What? Same with your business. Keep it simple. get results, help people make money. Worry about that advanced stuff later. All right, another way this shows up in your business. One of the basics I learned that we can apply is to taste your food as you go. So you can adjust your seasoning. You know how this is going to work out right? in your business, that means evaluate everything you do, instead of starting over from scratch all the time, I preach about assessing your outcomes and evaluating using a very specific three step evaluation technique that I teach. I am like preaching this all the time, because I’ve seen in my own business, and I see in my students a lot, that what our brains want to do is just throw everything away. If we don’t get the results that we wanted the first time, our brains just say, okay, nothing is working. Let’s start over from scratch. Because that feels so much safer, then iterating and tweaking and critically thinking about what parts did work, what can we double down on? What can we eliminate for next time and being really scientific about it, our brains don’t like to do that, unless we train them. So taste your food as you go. So you can adjust your seasoning, that means evaluating everything that you do, add a little pinch of this here, stir a little bit more, and maybe add another pinch of this over here as you go. Instead of just saying this tastes awful, and throwing the whole batch of whatever it is away, so to speak, keeping this in food terms, all that to say in your business, you’re cooking, not baking,

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which is great news. For those of us who don’t really like the rules, and don’t bake very well. I consider myself a really good cook. But everybody in my life knows that I am a real crappy Baker. I like the method of a little pinch of this. So bad sub out an ingredient when you need to over here, adjust to taste over here. And that recipe is just kind of a suggestion, voila, here’s what we’re left with. I love that. It’s not an exact science, where either the bread is going to rise or won’t rise. I have a huge frustration with business strategy being taught like it’s pressed like it’s precise like that, like it’s baking like it has to go a certain you have to follow this formula and this recipe a certain way. Otherwise, it just won’t turn out, like the most all of your measurements and everything that you do is exact and you perform a certain way, you’re not going to get the results, the finished product is not going to rise, so to speak. I hate that it’s entirely false. And that’s exactly why I’m not that great of a baker. And I don’t even try for that exact reason. I don’t like following a recipe. So what I was thinking about telling this story today, and I was thinking about this rather pivotal moment. And what I wanted to say about it, I was really thinking about the lid on the pot revelation, because it was so profound to me like it just it really was such a moment where I just almost transformative. I mean, 15 years later, I’m telling you about it on a podcast, I put the lid on the pan, and the instructor was so sweet. But she just said, no, no, that’s not going to work. You want to get that crispy. And if you put the lid on, it’ll be steamy and mushy. Seriously, that was life changing. I mean, it was helpful, because of course, I had crispy prosciutto. And that was really good. And since then, it’s helped me cook lots of crispy things when I wanted them to be crispy and not mushy. And also understand when I want to steam something. And so obviously, I learned something that gives me the desired result in the kitchen. But more than that, it seriously was so enlightening because it was just this moment where I realized Holy shit, I didn’t even know what I didn’t know. I didn’t even know the fact that I’m remembering this right now. And even talking about it, you can see how much it impacted me. I didn’t know that the lid consideration was even a thing. Until that moment, I had zero clue that there was a time and a place for a lid and that it made a difference. So as a result, I started to get really curious about what other things I thought I knew, quote unquote, thought I knew that were keeping me from being a better cook it oh my gosh, if this lid thing is important, what else Don’t I know about? So I got really curious. And I tried a lot of things. And we came home from Italy and from the bubble of delicious wine and food that it was. And I started watching cooking shows. And I started trying to cook things and I cooked things that were awful and burnt and mushy when they were supposed to be crispy sometimes and watery when they weren’t supposed to be and not everything turned out. But I figured out why it happened so that they would turn on next time. Such a great metaphor for growing your profitable health and wellness business, my friend, especially for us foodies. I’ll never not be making food metaphors ever. I see this exact pattern show up for my clients all the time. And so for my students inside the profitable nutritionist program, they know that we talk about this a lot. In fact, this is why I love group coaching in particular is just amazing. But why I love groups and watching someone else get coached because so often, and my students do this all the time, we get the most massive transformations when we are not the person being directly coached. And we see someone else ask a question, or get coached on a struggle that they’re having or a thought that they’re believing that we haven’t even questioned up to that time and we have it ourselves but we didn’t even realize that that same thing is showing up for us and impacting our results. You might not even know to ask the question until all of a sudden you have this lightbulb moment like what that’s even a question. I didn’t even know that that was something that I should be questioning just like me with the lid. We don’t know what we don’t know. Right? So being willing to question everything that we know in life, probably very important lesson for all of us to learn, but especially when it comes to your business, and making money and working with clients, just all of that being willing to question everything being coachable and being really open to the fact that maybe we don’t know what we don’t know. It’s very, very important. Lots of areas. So cheers to having a wonderful week my friend and now I feel drawn to go search for cooking retreats in Italy, maybe you do too. I hope you enjoyed this little recap of a pivotal moment in my life and I will be back again next week with some more insights for you. Probably not a travel story, but maybe a little something even better. Have a wonderful week my friend