Last night I had the pleasure of attending a talk by a famous chef, Jose Andres (of miniBAR, Jaleo, Zaytinya, etc.), as part of his book tour for “We Fed an Island: The True Story of Rebuilding Puerto Rico, One Meal at a Time.” Superlatives be damned, this guy is a genius in many ways…super intense, passionate, and committed. He spoke from the perspective of a historian, physicist, chef, immigrant, citizen, humanitarian, and straight up hustler. I wanted to share with you a powerful takeaway from his speech.
Control the fire.
Controlling the fire is the very thing at the heart of cooking. This is what cooks and chefs do. The use of and the control of fire (heat) is the definition of cooking. But as Jose put it, this concepts applies to everyone and everything we do.
Think about your passion, think about your work. Your passion is your fire and your ability to control and apply your passion is what gets work done. You need both if you want achieve your goals and objectives. Sometimes it might feel like you really need to dig deep to find even an ember, while other times the raging bonfire might threaten to engulf you. Finding the balance, the control, is the secret.
Jose said that he does not have a profession.
I think what he meant is that he is himself first and not defined by a job or a job title. Implicit to this is that he brings his fire with him wherever he goes and figures out how best to apply it to get things done. Think about this. You are not your job, you are you. Bring your fire with you wherever you go and help change the world.
If you get a chance to see Jose Andres speak, I would highly encourage you to check him out. Here is a link to some of his past events.
Click here if you are interested in pre-ordering his book, which will be released on September 11, 2018.
Lastly, check out his NGO. They prepared over 3 million meals in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria!
Written by: Austin Meyermann, Founder and President of Hunter Crown, LLC
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