Overcoming Impossible.
“For anyone who ever looked up at the stars in the night sky, thought of the thing they wanted most, and whispered “Someday…”
Chef Robert Irvine (Food Network Star Restaurant: Impossible) shares his hindsight to give you foresight in his latest book ‘Overcoming Impossible’ .
People all over the world always ask this world class chef, entrepreneur, and passionate supporter of our nation’s military, the same two questions.
They want to know how he made it. And …They want his advice on how they can make it too!
Chef Irvine’s story is not impossible to tell, but as he says in his book.
His entire back story is not entirely relevant right now as times have changed a lot since he launched his career. He went from cooking in a ship’s galley in the British Royal Navy to working in a big fancy restaurant, to his TV stardom in shows like ‘Dinner: Impossible ‘and ‘Restaurant: Impossible’ and then parlayed it all into a family of brands and companies.
Truth is, he admits, he’s been kicked around a lot. And his path has taught him a lot about things like evergreen obstacles, the types of people you’ll meet along the way, the ones you need to surround yourself with and the ones to avoid. He learned about the cyclical nature of marketplaces, how to manage egos, how to pitch & sell, and most importantly…how to deal with failure! And he felt compelled to share what he learned with you in his latest book Overcoming Impossible.
There’s no better teacher than failure, he said.
Enjoy Chef Robert Irvine in this podcast conversation of our live chat on The Debbie Nigro Show or if you’d rather read the transcript it’s posted below.
His new book ‘Overcoming Impossible’ is available on Amazon.
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TRANSCRIPT Of The Podcast
0:00:00
It’s time for the Debbie Nigro Show with Debbie Nigro, who says she’s still a babe, or at least she thinks she still is. That’s right, attitude is everything, and Debbie’s delusionally young. No one sees the glass of Cabernet half full like Debbie. She’s fresh air with a magnetic flair. Some day has arrived, and as far as she’s concerned, it’s time to roll.
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0:00:25
Hey, I am here to share today and you guys hopefully will enjoy listening.
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0:00:28
Hi everybody. I’m Debbie Nigro. I am very very excited about my next guest coming up.
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0:00:32
He’s got a new book out called overcoming impossible, which is what
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0:00:36
most of us do every day. We try to do he’s done it and he’s got some really good advice. You’ve probably seen him more than once on the Food Network. He’s the star, Chef Robert Irvine. And he shares his hindsight to give you foresight about things that people keep asking him about. The people always ask him the same question. They want to know how he made it and they want his advice on how they can make it too. And just before I bring him on, I want to just quote what I saw on the top of his book. A quote was there and it made me smile. It said, For anyone who ever looked up at the stars in the night sky, thought of the thing they always wanted most and whispered, Someday, what do I always say? Someday has arrived. Hello, Robert Irvine. Chef, welcome to my show.
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0:01:34
Oh, thank you.
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0:01:35
Listen, the glass is never half full or half empty with you.
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0:01:40
It’s so fun that you said yes to come back on the show. I was very honored to have you the first time around when I included you in the story about what an incredible Wall Street company is doing called Robert Ryan to give back to veterans with a percentage of their profit to my friend Brian Rathjen introduced me to you because he donates to your passionate cause which is veterans and I know that’s what you live for. So thank you for coming back, but I really love this book, Overcoming Impossible. I really think you’ve got something to say. And those who don’t know Robert’s background, he basically says, don’t worry about that. That’s old news. You know, the world has changed. Yeah, I was a chef in the British Royal Navy. Yeah, I worked at fancy restaurants. Yes, I’m a TV star. Yes, I parlayed the whole thing into a whole bunch of brands and companies, but honestly, what taught me the most was, failing and I have some things I want to share. So I just, I’m so happy you are here and talking about this. Thank you.
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0:02:36
You’re welcome and thanks for having me back and you’re right, Ryan and Robert’s great supporters of my foundation, Robert Irvine Foundation. So they are great men. Yeah, the book was really, because I was getting 2,000 emails and opportunities to fix restaurants a week, failing restaurants, and we can only do one. You know, Food Network would pick five, then eventually pick one, and I would go and do it. But in my real world, I also work with big companies that have the same issues as small mom-and-pop businesses, just on a larger scale. So I wrote the book, it took me a year, and Matt Tuthill is my co-writer who writes my magazine, these are my full-time staff. But it’s really about the four things that make you successful that I failed at, and I write down a lot of failures, or L’s as I call them, and W’s, but the first thing is empathetic leadership. You know, what does that actually mean? Know your people. Does one of your people’s mom have cancer or is their son autistic? What are they going through on a daily basis before they come to work?
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0:03:51
It’s so important because you need the people to appreciate that you appreciate them and they’ll work so much harder for you.
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0:03:59
Absolutely, and you’ll get it. But not many people do get it, which is unfortunate. But it’s a big part of success. So that’s the first part of the book. And then I go into egos and how egos get in the way. And I can tell you from a standpoint of my own, when I started, I thought I was the best chef, the best this, the best this. And in fact, I was nothing close to the best.
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0:04:24
That’s okay, I’m delusional too, it’s alright.
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0:04:28
Yeah, but we all are at some point, and that got in the way of me. It took me to get married, and then my wife to kick me about a little bit, and realize that it’s not about me, it’s about other people. And losing the egos of not only yourself, but also the people that work with you. One of the things that I talk about, and I talk about a lot, especially in the military space, is we hire people that are smarter than us. Why do we do that? Well, because they can lead us and teach us. You know, if I’m an A personality, I want a double A alongside me. And those that are insecure, A’s hire B’s because they don’t want to be made look a fool of or they don’t want to listen or, that’s a big mistake. I see it in big companies.
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0:05:14
You know, you really, one of the loudest things you said was ego. I’m an entrepreneur and I’ve been through a lot of rounds of good, bad and ugly. I love that you are talking a little bit about how you got kicked around because people always assume if somebody has made it that somehow they missed that whole phase of getting kicked around, but you did. You talk about the ego getting in the way of success for many people. I’ve seen it a million times, especially with entrepreneurs who are so passionate about what they think they know that they don’t want to give it up or listen to anybody else. What advice do you have to people who work with, let’s say, egomaniacs? How do you break through to somebody whose ego is too big?
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0:05:54
There’s one word, listen. I was one of those people, so I can attest to getting kicked around and beaten up and thrown out and spat out on many occasions and the companies that I started and failed. I think you have to listen to the people around you. I’m not saying take everything to heart because some people want you to fail. But listen and at least be open-minded enough to listen to a different scenario or objective to what you have or thought process. I think that’s the biggest thing and it’s really interesting when you do fail a couple of times and it’s okay to fail. You just can’t fail at the same thing twice.
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0:06:38
Ah, gotcha. You know, I noticed that you took this time in your life to write a book, a whole year, to talk to aspiring entrepreneurs, would-be restauranteurs, you know, all kinds of business people and people who are stuck somewhere in the corporate world that they don’t want to be, and a lot of those come up and tell you they want something else, they want something more, and they don’t just want more money. So what do you say to them?
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0:07:00
I say you have to follow your passion. I have a lot of friends who are doctors, that are scientists, that are intel guys, that are just fed up. It’s not about money, it’s about finding a job. And I say job because I don’t have a job, I have a passion, but finding something that you are passionate about, that you, you love getting up for every day and going to do it. Right. And I think that we all need money, regardless of whatever, whatever, what’s enough money and wants enough happiness, right? Because there’s not money.
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0:07:38
The happiest people I’ve ever seen along the way have the least, I swear to you. It’s simplicity and I think money complicates things, but we need it to do for ourselves and for people we love, right? I was getting a kick out of reading your lifestyle. Obviously, you’ve got a million things going on, so you stopped to write a book, but you never really are in one place. You’re always in hotel rooms and I’m so excited about that.
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0:08:01
I want to live in a hotel. Do you like that life? Well I travel 345 days a year. Wow. 150 of them just with the military. I just come back from Scotland with a thousand, literally two days ago. I didn’t even come home. I came from Scotland with a thousand coalition wounded marching 54 miles across the Scottish Highlands for brother and sisterhood, you know, injured and ill, wounded from not only 150 from the States, but from all our coalition partners. And I have to tell you something, yes. Everybody should do it regardless of the mileage. Every couple of miles, you know, we have the Ukrainians, we have the Poles, we have the Germans, we have all of been in Afghanistan, Iraq, and wars and all those kind of things. And just to listen to the similarities, stories, and life hardships, and stop every two miles, dry a leg off, put it back on. I gotta tell you, it’s life-altering. So I came back from there, went straight to a hospital, funnily enough, in Virginia, then to Orlando, and I actually came home late last night and I’ll leave again in the morning. I like the lifestyle. I like to be on the go. My life purpose has changed. It’s not about me, whereas I told you that ego was all about me with the car and the house and early on in my career. That went about 10 years ago and I really threw myself into helping others, not only on Restaurant Impossible and kids with cancer and military and all those kind of things. So my life mission has kind of changed.
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0:09:44
Okay, I have to stop you. Most of that. You said you don’t have any more time and our segment is up. I could talk to you all day for the whole hour, but I’m going to let you go because I know you’re tired. This was more than I could, I’d hoped you would just get up and be on my show. So everybody who is paying attention, please check out Chef Robert Irvine’s new book, Overcoming Impossible. So everybody who is paying attention, please check out Chef Robert Irvine’s new book, Overcoming Impossible. He’s very, very inspirational and worth your time.
