Building a Profitable Personal Chef Business: Tips and Tricks from Chris Spear
One chef dares to leap into the personal chef business in a world of rising costs and changing culinary landscapes. But when faced with fierce competition and the need to adapt, will he be able to find success?
Stay tuned as Chef Chris Spear navigates the challenges and opportunities of his culinary career, leaving us wondering:
Will he rise to the occasion or be left simmering in the heat of the kitchen?
In this episode, you will be able to:
- Lay bare novel career possibilities for chefs looking to escape the throes of burnout.
- Learn the auxiliary benefits of a chef’s role within a retirement community.
- Recognize the challenges and effective stratagems when leaping from traditional cooking roles to personal chefs.
- Understand how distinguishing your distinct niche in the personal chef industry can skyrocket your reputation.
- Absorb the immense significance of adept marketing and customer procurement in fueling a thriving personal chef business.
My special guest is Chef Chris Spear.
Chris Spear, an executive chef turned thriving personal chef. His journey began as the head of a massive retirement community kitchen in Maryland, serving 750 residents in four distinct dining venues before transitioning into his own bespoke catering business.
Chris's ability to adapt his skill set to meet the demands of his bustling career allowed him to transition from a traditional kitchen to a personalized food experience for private clients. Despite the initial obstacles of dealing with marketing, customer acquisition, and commodity pricing, Chris's innovative approach toward menu planning and customer service has allowed him to establish a highly successful personal chef business.
The key moments in this episode are:
(00:00:00) - Introduction
(00:00:38) - Transitioning from Restaurants
(00:04:42) - Becoming a Personal Chef
(00:07:25) - Challenges of Catering Business
(00:08:39) - Market Fit and Perception
(00:08:39) - Marketing and Positioning
(00:13:33) - Rising Costs and Pricing
(00:16:25) - Balancing Multiple Responsibilities
(00:18:35) - Analyzing Workflow and Making Concessions
(00:20:08) - Building a Community
(00:24:44) - Recognizing the Value of Your Audience
(00:25:40) - The Thousand Raving Fans Theory
(00:26:12) - Being an Early Adopter
(00:27:24) - Starting a Pivot
(00:29:00) - Setting Boundaries and Prioritizing Self-Care
(00:37:07) - Building a Community
(00:38:19) - Challenges of Growing a Community
(00:39:13) - Shifting Perspectives
(00:40:17) - Long-Form Content and Context
(00:42:25) - Closing Remarks
Links Mentioned in the show:
Chris Spear is the chef and owner of Perfect Little Bites, an in-home personal chef business based in Frederick, Maryland. You might also know him as the host of the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast and the man behind the culinary networking organization of the same name. Chris graduated from Johnson & Wales University with a B.S. in culinary arts and has worked in the food service industry for almost 30 years.
Help Support the show by becoming a sustaining member of the Chef Life Radio Crew:
Support for The Hospitality Industry:
Connect with me:
This show is sponsored by:
If you're interested in sponsoring this show, email me at adam@chefliferadio.com
Tomas Stephenson at Podlike co-produced this episode.
If you'd like your podcast to sound as good as mine, click this link to get 15% off regular production costs.
The titles, show notes, social media, and blog content powered by Capsho
This is a production of Realignment Media
Adam Lamb:
so we wanna welcome to the show Chris Beers.
Adam Lamb:
Good morning, chef.
Adam Lamb:
Good morning.
Adam Lamb:
Thanks for having me.
Adam Lamb:
Oh, it's my honor to have you we've been kind of dancing around one another on the
Adam Lamb:
podcast charts for quite some time and I'm really excited to be able to speak
Adam Lamb:
to you today primarily about this idea of, well, lemme back up a little bit.
Adam Lamb:
So it seems to me that there's a an undercurrent that's occurring
Adam Lamb:
right now in the culinary industry where there's a lot of chefs.
Adam Lamb:
Tenured very well to do very well credentialed chefs who are just
Adam Lamb:
completely fucking burnt out, man.
Adam Lamb:
Absolutely.
Adam Lamb:
They're, they're leaving the industry.
Adam Lamb:
If only to.
Adam Lamb:
Well, I shouldn't say leaving the industry.
Adam Lamb:
It seems like they're leaving Main Street, like they're sick and tired
Adam Lamb:
of the grind of running a restaurant, and they're opting to do something
Adam Lamb:
that maybe fits a little bit more within their lifestyle, such as
Adam Lamb:
catering companies and stuff like that.
Adam Lamb:
So I really love to highlight chefs who've taken a different route
Adam Lamb:
and still stayed true to there.
Adam Lamb:
To their chef roots.
Adam Lamb:
So why don't you kind of gimme a background on where you've been
Adam Lamb:
your career as a chef, and why you decided to transition into podcasting.
Chris Spear:
Well, I talk about how I've never ever worked in a
Chris Spear:
restaurant, even though I've been in the food world for 31 years now.
Chris Spear:
I worked at Burger King when I was a little younger.
Chris Spear:
I did a little time at Boston Market.
Chris Spear:
I don't really think those count, but yeah, I mean, I've always in
Chris Spear:
been interested in food and cooking.
Chris Spear:
I've said I was a little fat kid growing up.
Chris Spear:
I loved being in the kitchen, being around my mom, cooking, or when we
Chris Spear:
went to see my great-grandmother.
Chris Spear:
I went to culinary school.
Chris Spear:
I was at Johnson of Wales.
Chris Spear:
I got my bachelor's in culinary and you know, I graduated in 1998.
Chris Spear:
So at that time when you graduated culinary school, especially with
Chris Spear:
a bachelor's, I think, you know, the expectation was you were gonna
Chris Spear:
go into a restaurant, maybe a resort, something of that nature.
Chris Spear:
Hopefully start at like a sous chef level or so.
Chris Spear:
But the reality is it was expensive.
Chris Spear:
I came out my student loan repayment was $404 a month for 10 years.
Chris Spear:
That's what I had left after already paying into it.
Chris Spear:
My parents were not able to help and I was getting offered jobs in the ballpark
Chris Spear:
of, you know, like $7 an hour or so with no benefits at restaurants and stuff.
Chris Spear:
That was really tough.
Chris Spear:
And then there was a retirement community in my area and they were doing a job fair
Chris Spear:
and they were looking for kitchen help.
Chris Spear:
And the offer was, you know, kind of lead line, cook thing, 11 plus an hour
Chris Spear:
every other weekend off no nights, you know, full benefits, retirement.
Chris Spear:
And I was like, what?
Chris Spear:
You know, it wasn't even something that was really spelled out in culinary school.
Chris Spear:
You didn't think that that was something.
Chris Spear:
And that started me on a career path and soon I was able to move up to sous-chef
Chris Spear:
there and then I moved cross country to Seattle, got out there, looked at
Chris Spear:
some places, had some great interviews.
Chris Spear:
I thought I would maybe be the sassier at the Space Needle.
Chris Spear:
That seemed good.
Chris Spear:
But you know, the pay was like $32,000 a year, something like that.
Chris Spear:
And again, found a retirement community and they hired me.
Chris Spear:
So that kind of set me on this path.
Chris Spear:
And then, you know, it's taken me all over the country.
Chris Spear:
I've worked at places like ikea.
Chris Spear:
I've done I was a catering director in a hospital.
Chris Spear:
But.
Chris Spear:
I was in Pennsylvania.
Chris Spear:
Now we're talking about 20 years ago.
Chris Spear:
I worked for a catering company a little bit, and they only did big
Chris Spear:
events, mostly corporate events.
Chris Spear:
But every once in a while a husband would call and say, Hey, would you come
Chris Spear:
and do a dinner for two at my house?
Chris Spear:
Just, you know, me and my wife.
Chris Spear:
It doesn't make sense.
Chris Spear:
If you're a big catering company, it's not worth it.
Chris Spear:
But after getting so many of these, the owner said, Hey
Chris Spear:
Chris, would you wanna do this?
Chris Spear:
You can keep all the money.
Chris Spear:
Use our kitchen.
Chris Spear:
I think it'll be good, you know, maybe lead generation for us.
Chris Spear:
And I started doing that, which again, you know, this was probably like 2005.
Chris Spear:
Nobody was really doing that kind of stuff.
Chris Spear:
And I said to my wife, is it crazy?
Chris Spear:
Could I, like, I don't know what I'd call it, but like, could you
Chris Spear:
be a caterer cooking for like maybe two to 20 people and have like no
Chris Spear:
overhead or very low overhead, right.
Chris Spear:
Not have to have staff.
Chris Spear:
And I just had that in the back of my mind.
Chris Spear:
And then we moved down here to Maryland where I'm now took another job as an
Chris Spear:
executive chef at a retirement community.
Chris Spear:
But I wanted to figure out my exit strategy and I was
Chris Spear:
like, I'm in a great location.
Chris Spear:
I'm in the metro DC area.
Chris Spear:
I'm like, I'm gonna start looking at this like personal chef thing.
Chris Spear:
And the great thing about that is you can do it on the side while
Chris Spear:
you're working a job and, you know, working the job I was at, I had.
Chris Spear:
Every other weekend off.
Chris Spear:
Actually, when I was hired, I only had to work one weekend a month.
Chris Spear:
So I just started picking up gigs, you know, one a month, two a month,
Chris Spear:
just to see if it was viable.
Chris Spear:
And then after doing it for about five years on the side, left
Chris Spear:
my job and took it full-time.
Chris Spear:
And now coming up this November, it'll be seven years of me working
Chris Spear:
full-time as a personal chef doing dinner parties in people's homes.
Chris Spear:
And
Adam Lamb:
Just as an aside to our listeners and they've probably heard
Adam Lamb:
me say this before but if you've been brought up or trained, shamed and
Adam Lamb:
conditioned to believe that your only success is gonna come through your
Adam Lamb:
personal perseverance and the realization of your personal vision of cuisine
Adam Lamb:
on Main Street in a restaurant then you need to take a step back because.
Adam Lamb:
Inevitably that is going to require you giving up quite a bit
Adam Lamb:
your, of your personal life, of your personal relationships if
Adam Lamb:
you're married and have children.
Adam Lamb:
As I was coming up those decisions often come at a heavy price, and yet
Adam Lamb:
there are industries out there that celebrate the fact that we have not
Adam Lamb:
only professional lives and personal lives, healthcare being one of them.
Adam Lamb:
And currently there is an arms race amongst retirement communities.
Adam Lamb:
And they're hiring away some of the best hotel chefs in the world to
Adam Lamb:
run these communities because after all, food is a huge focus with that.
Adam Lamb:
And Chris, did you perceive that energetically working in a retirement
Adam Lamb:
communi was a little bit different than like working in a regular restaurant?
Chris Spear:
Yeah, a little bit.
Chris Spear:
I mean, it depends on where you work.
Chris Spear:
So the last place I was at, I was there for 10 years and we had 750
Chris Spear:
residents and we had like four distinct dining venues on campus.
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
So it was crazy.
Chris Spear:
It was more like being a hotel chef where you're doing, you know, like
Chris Spear:
you maybe have a restaurant, but also doing banquet and catering.
Chris Spear:
But then times two, so, you know, I'm trying to manage two cafes
Chris Spear:
that are open breakfast, lunch, and lunch and dinner, but also two
Chris Spear:
dining rooms that were high volume.
Chris Spear:
Served.
Chris Spear:
So it actually was, I'd put it kind of on par where I was at with kind of
Chris Spear:
like a, a hotel slash catering kitchen.
Chris Spear:
But, you know, I didn't see why we couldn't be doing the best stuff there.
Chris Spear:
Yes, there are nursing homes, but we're talking about people who are retiring
Chris Spear:
at like 65, who are, you know, taking world cruises and going to Vietnam.
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
And are interested in global cuisine.
Chris Spear:
So I built a program and it took a good few years to get on its
Chris Spear:
feet, but I mean, we had a vac machine, we had a circulator there.
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
I had a whole butchering kit, including bone sauce, and we were, you know,
Chris Spear:
breaking down heritage breed pigs, cooking pigs head doing head to tail dinners.
Chris Spear:
I built a cocktail program there.
Chris Spear:
We were making vinegars like in the back.
Chris Spear:
I had like a cage of ferments that we were doing.
Chris Spear:
You can do interesting stuff, right?
Chris Spear:
You know, it, it depends on your GM and.
Chris Spear:
You know, kind of the, obviously the customers, but I felt if I could
Chris Spear:
build a program that people would want to come to, then it will just
Chris Spear:
progressively get better, right?
Chris Spear:
Because I wanted to get some young people in and say, yes, not only do
Chris Spear:
we have the benefits of better pay, better benefits, but you are going to
Chris Spear:
be able to learn stuff here that you could, you know, that's on par with
Chris Spear:
some of the best restaurants out there.
Chris Spear:
And I think I did that.
Adam Lamb:
And, and what kind of changes did you have to make?
Adam Lamb:
Psychologically or emotionally, once you shifted from that 10 year of 10 years to
Adam Lamb:
now I'm going to start running down some catering business and you know, there's
Adam Lamb:
certain business cycles within the year.
Adam Lamb:
Sometimes it's either feast or famine.
Adam Lamb:
So how did you manage that change?
Adam Lamb:
I think the
Chris Spear:
big thing is the marketing and how to, and customer acquisition,
Chris Spear:
which is the scariest thing.
Chris Spear:
I'm even going through it right now.
Chris Spear:
You know, seven years in this past month and a half was lean and you're like you
Chris Spear:
know, I need to get a little scrappy.
Chris Spear:
I maybe need to do some gorilla marketing, like hit the streets a little more.
Chris Spear:
'cause you can get complacent, you know, like you right, the customers are
Chris Spear:
coming in and I was at a point where I was turning down customers because I
Chris Spear:
was so busy, and then all of a sudden it drops off and you're like, oh, wow.
Chris Spear:
I've had two months where like, I don't have business.
Chris Spear:
Like, do I need to go back and get a real job?
Chris Spear:
Or what do I do to figure this out?
Chris Spear:
Like, you always have to be.
Chris Spear:
Ahead of it.
Chris Spear:
And I think that's one of the things too, is you can't rest at all.
Chris Spear:
There's no, you know, with a restaurant, you're on a street, so even if you have
Chris Spear:
slow times, like people are going to walk past you, they're gonna see that you
Chris Spear:
have a restaurant and hopefully stop in.
Chris Spear:
I don't have a business like that.
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
And figuring out market fit.
Chris Spear:
You know, I'm not a caterer, I'm not doing a 200 person wedding.
Chris Spear:
I don't go to like, you know, catering, expos and stuff like
Chris Spear:
that, but I'm also not a restaurant.
Chris Spear:
So trying to explain what it is I do to people.
Chris Spear:
You know, I, I have lots of friends or, or acquaintances and they say,
Chris Spear:
yeah, someday, you know, when I win the lottery I'll hire you.
Chris Spear:
And I think there's still the perception of that.
Chris Spear:
It's like, you know, my dinner.
Chris Spear:
Started a hundred dollars ahead, it's, it's what's on par with
Chris Spear:
going to a nice restaurant.
Chris Spear:
But it's not like you need to be a millionaire to have me come cook for you.
Chris Spear:
Sure.
Chris Spear:
I mean, I could easily drop a hundred dollars at any restaurant.
Chris Spear:
So for me, the big shift was like, one, I do everything.
Chris Spear:
I have no one not, you know, I have an accountant do my
Chris Spear:
taxes at the end of the year.
Chris Spear:
But besides that, I don't have helpers, I don't have marketing, I
Chris Spear:
don't have anyone doing social media.
Chris Spear:
I don't have anyone ever helping me like cook, like get it going.
Chris Spear:
So, right.
Chris Spear:
Being a one man show, being comfortable with that, learning what
Chris Spear:
your weaknesses are and learning how to improve in those areas.
Adam Lamb:
And One of the benefits of my job is I get to talk to a lot of
Adam Lamb:
chefs from all different markets and and all different market segments.
Adam Lamb:
And one of the things that, that seemed to pop out at me quite a bit
Adam Lamb:
was this idea of the folks who decided to take a, a similar tact like you
Adam Lamb:
create their own personal catering business whether that's small or large.
Adam Lamb:
Resoundingly, one of the things that they said that they were just sick and
Adam Lamb:
fucking tired of was customers who didn't understand what went into it and, and
Adam Lamb:
thereby would beat them down in price.
Adam Lamb:
And they felt like because of everything that they put into it, like that
Adam Lamb:
should be the last conversation that we're having, right, right now is when
Adam Lamb:
you're trying to beat me down in price.
Adam Lamb:
And if you actually knew what I could present, there wouldn't be a conversation.
Adam Lamb:
And is that something that that you've run up
Chris Spear:
against?
Chris Spear:
A hundred percent.
Chris Spear:
I, I don't think people understand.
Chris Spear:
I say, you know, let's say I'm doing a dinner tonight and
Chris Spear:
it's six people, eight people.
Chris Spear:
It could take three days to do, like I do custom menus.
Chris Spear:
So we have the time invested on the computer end where it's the back and
Chris Spear:
forth of like, what do you like to eat?
Chris Spear:
Here's my menu.
Chris Spear:
We, you know, figure that out.
Chris Spear:
And then I've gotta shop for the ingredients.
Chris Spear:
I've gotta, you know, prep some ahead of time.
Chris Spear:
So I might be renting and going to a commercial kitchen
Chris Spear:
there to do some prep work.
Chris Spear:
I get to your house.
Chris Spear:
Travel, I mean, I'm traveling in the DC area, it could take
Chris Spear:
two hours to get to your home.
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
Get there.
Chris Spear:
I get there 90 minutes before dinner, et cetera.
Chris Spear:
You know, I'm, I'm there.
Chris Spear:
It's, it's like a full day commitment.
Chris Spear:
Then I gotta come home and wash all this stuff and I might not
Chris Spear:
feel like doing it at midnight.
Chris Spear:
So now it creeps into the next day.
Chris Spear:
So it's, it's a lot.
Chris Spear:
And I've had a number of requests just the past month or so where
Chris Spear:
people, you know, I ask on my questionnaire what your budget is.
Chris Spear:
$35.
Chris Spear:
What do you like to eat?
Chris Spear:
Mm, crab steak like, and I said to someone, and I try, you know, I try
Chris Spear:
to educate without being snarky, but I said to someone the other day,
Chris Spear:
like, I just took, I, I just went out to dinner with my family this week.
Chris Spear:
My son's cheese steak was 1695, and that's without tax and tip.
Chris Spear:
Like 30, $35 is your budget for a four course dinner that I'm doing in your
Chris Spear:
home, and you want high-end ingredients.
Chris Spear:
Like I don't what planet are these people on?
Adam Lamb:
Right.
Adam Lamb:
And so how do you, like you said, you, you don't wanna necessarily educate
Adam Lamb:
them or beat them over the head, but at what point do you just say, this
Adam Lamb:
is not, this is not worth my time.
Adam Lamb:
I,
Chris Spear:
I totally just let them know.
Chris Spear:
I say if they come in with that, I say, just so you know, my dinner started at
Chris Spear:
a minimum of a hundred dollars ahead.
Chris Spear:
It looks like that's not in your budget.
Chris Spear:
If you decide that you still wanna do this, let me know and I'll put
Chris Spear:
together a custom menu for you.
Chris Spear:
I would rather I.
Chris Spear:
Give you something extra.
Chris Spear:
Like if I feel like it's a stretch, maybe you're gonna get like a, a
Chris Spear:
free amuse or something like that.
Chris Spear:
But I'm not going to negotiate down.
Chris Spear:
I would rather add value on top of that, which is why my marketing has always been
Chris Spear:
positioning myself towards the high end.
Chris Spear:
There's always people, you know, I say I.
Chris Spear:
The Super Bowl sells out every year.
Chris Spear:
Every single seat in in there is full.
Chris Spear:
There's people who pay it.
Chris Spear:
There's people who are going to see the Rolling Stones at
Chris Spear:
$5,000 ahead for the front row.
Chris Spear:
That's my target market.
Chris Spear:
If it has to be as much as I wanna be for the people, what I do price
Chris Spear:
wise, it, it doesn't make sense.
Chris Spear:
I can't be the Applebee's, like, it's just not gonna work out.
Chris Spear:
Right.
Adam Lamb:
And that positioning is, is so critical because from my
Adam Lamb:
understanding, You know, even in down markets Hermes coach, you know, upscale
Adam Lamb:
luxury brands continue to do well because there are those folks who continue
Adam Lamb:
to do well and want quality product.
Adam Lamb:
And I just read something the other day, whereas a lot of companies.
Adam Lamb:
So during, during the pandemic and the, and the, and the lockdown and
Adam Lamb:
then the breakdown of the supply chain, it was normal for us to turn around
Adam Lamb:
and say, chicken wings are what now?
Adam Lamb:
What, what are they this week?
Adam Lamb:
And yet now that prices, commodity prices are dropping.
Adam Lamb:
And if anybody is not looking at at weekly and monthly commodity pricing or
Adam Lamb:
futures, they definitely should do that.
Adam Lamb:
It's a great way to pre-plan a menu when you're perceptively a
Adam Lamb:
season away or a quarter away.
Adam Lamb:
None of these companies seem to wanna bring down their pricing, right?
Adam Lamb:
Yeah.
Adam Lamb:
Now they're like, okay, we're gonna get ours back.
Adam Lamb:
And the power of the purse is such that, you know, the only real choice that we
Adam Lamb:
have is either to buy it or not buy it.
Adam Lamb:
So how are you dealing with rising
Chris Spear:
costs?
Chris Spear:
Yeah, so I've had to look at, I don't want to cut the quality of
Chris Spear:
the ingredients I'm putting in.
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
But it means doing more with less with some things.
Chris Spear:
Like I used to use a lot of crab, especially 'cause I'm here in
Chris Spear:
Maryland, the crab is coming off the menu except for center of the plate,
Chris Spear:
unless you want that to be an upsell.
Chris Spear:
Like I used to have starters where there would be a crab salad on a crostini.
Chris Spear:
Now it's the exact same thing, but it's a shrimp salad and people love it.
Chris Spear:
'cause I can get shrimp, even really good wild gulf shrimp.
Chris Spear:
And then I just cook them, chop them up and make it, you know, it's like
Chris Spear:
a mayonnaise, fennel kind of thing.
Chris Spear:
I can still give a high quality thing, nice presentation, but taking some of
Chris Spear:
those ingredients out, looking at the cuts of beef, you know, and not getting into,
Chris Spear:
first of all, I never love selling filet, which is what people always say they want.
Chris Spear:
Yeah, that's, that's one of those like, you know, catering ish things, right?
Chris Spear:
Which is the most expensive cut of meat.
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
And it's like, how do we get away from that?
Chris Spear:
And I think, you know, like I've, I'm big on a short rib and short
Chris Spear:
ribs are not inexpensive anymore.
Chris Spear:
I've seen them go from about 8 99 a pound to 11, 12 99 a pound
Chris Spear:
just in the past year and a half.
Chris Spear:
But it's still much less than ribeye strip steaks, things of that nature.
Chris Spear:
How can I still give you a really nice cut of meat with a good presentation?
Chris Spear:
So again, not really.
Chris Spear:
Having to change my menu pricing that much, but just kind of looking at
Chris Spear:
what I'm doing and can I do more or
Adam Lamb:
less.
Adam Lamb:
Right.
Adam Lamb:
Yeah, that's a fantastic way to look at it.
Adam Lamb:
Now, it seems to me, or perhaps to anybody who's not necessarily as well
Adam Lamb:
versed about the, the ins and outs of running your own catering business.
Adam Lamb:
It seems to me that, gosh, man, that's a lot, dude.
Adam Lamb:
I mean, you're marketing yourself.
Adam Lamb:
You're positioning yourself.
Adam Lamb:
You're you know, you're taking care of sales.
Adam Lamb:
You are booking by yourself.
Adam Lamb:
You're sourcing product.
Adam Lamb:
You're prepping it.
Adam Lamb:
You are arriving 90 minutes before You have no help to do that.
Adam Lamb:
Is it too much?
Chris Spear:
Yes.
Chris Spear:
No, you know, like you, you figure, you figure things out.
Chris Spear:
So like for my booking process alone, is there anything that could be streamlined?
Chris Spear:
So like, I have a questionnaire for my customers.
Chris Spear:
And I used to have people email me and say they're interested.
Chris Spear:
Then I would have to email them this document and back and forth.
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
And now it's a page on my website.
Chris Spear:
And when you get to the About Me page where my contact info is, it says, if
Chris Spear:
you're interested in having a dinner, this is the first place to start.
Chris Spear:
Click here.
Chris Spear:
And people fill out the information online.
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
And then I get that questionnaire before I even have to talk to them.
Chris Spear:
Just things like that.
Chris Spear:
Is there some way you can use automation to do that?
Chris Spear:
Right.
Chris Spear:
Having template responses.
Chris Spear:
I mean, yes, you want to come off as personal, but I have all these template
Chris Spear:
emails for like, yes, I'm interested.
Chris Spear:
No, I'm not.
Chris Spear:
And I can just go through really quickly a follow up.
Chris Spear:
Thank you kind of thing.
Chris Spear:
I used to follow up with thank yous on, I.
Chris Spear:
To try and get reviews after dinner and saying, Hey, you know, that was great.
Chris Spear:
Can you click here?
Chris Spear:
Now I come to someone's house and I have this a thank you card, but I also
Chris Spear:
have a nice sheet of paper with a QR code and say, Hey, I really appreciate
Chris Spear:
you being, you know, having me here.
Chris Spear:
I would love a review if you're interested.
Chris Spear:
Here's a sheet with my info.
Chris Spear:
There's a QR code.
Chris Spear:
If you just scan that, it goes right to my website and you can leave a review.
Chris Spear:
You know, take one more email out of the mix.
Chris Spear:
Like anything like that you can do.
Chris Spear:
To speed up your flow.
Chris Spear:
I, I switched to using Instacart for a lot of my groceries and I was really
Chris Spear:
skeptical at first because it was like, you know, what's the quality?
Chris Spear:
Who's the people, you know, picking this?
Chris Spear:
But if you're at a restaurant, it's the same thing with Cisco, right?
Chris Spear:
Like you order, right?
Chris Spear:
Or your produce company, you order a case of corn, it comes
Chris Spear:
in, it looks like garbage.
Chris Spear:
That sucks, but, You know, you get a credit, you send it back
Chris Spear:
and you're gonna have to get more.
Chris Spear:
When the pandemic started, one, I wasn't going into grocery stores.
Chris Spear:
Or as I wanted to go as little as possible.
Chris Spear:
And I just said, you know, that's a cost of doing business and if it's gonna cost
Chris Spear:
me 3% more to save, you know, two to three hours a day, that's what I'm gonna do.
Chris Spear:
Sure.
Chris Spear:
And I think you just have to make those concessions.
Chris Spear:
I think a lot of us are hardheaded.
Chris Spear:
You know, it's, it's like these people are like, oh, I go to every farm
Chris Spear:
and like, okay, that sounds great, but I'm not driving to like eight
Chris Spear:
different farms to get all my stuff.
Chris Spear:
Like, I, I'll go to the farmer's market and try and do one-stop
Chris Spear:
shopping for that kind of stuff.
Chris Spear:
But the reality is I still need to buy, I.
Chris Spear:
Heinz ketchup and things like that at the grocery store.
Chris Spear:
And so I usually go in and pick my proteins.
Chris Spear:
Like I'll do an order and they'll come out to my car with all my box groceries.
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
And then maybe I'll park and go in and pick my salmon or whatever, my short ribs.
Chris Spear:
But anything you can do, you know, like running a kitchen, you look at workflows,
Chris Spear:
you watch your employees, how many times are they going to a walk-in for something?
Chris Spear:
Well, that means that thing should actually be in a low boy or something.
Chris Spear:
Right.
Chris Spear:
So ruthlessly analyzing your flow, and I think solopreneurs
Chris Spear:
like me don't always do that.
Chris Spear:
So it was just thinking about like, what am I doing over and over again?
Chris Spear:
What is a waste of my time?
Chris Spear:
What do I have to, if anything, pay for to fix?
Chris Spear:
But yeah, I mean, there are days where you're like, man, I'm still
Chris Spear:
making less than I was making seven years ago when I left a job.
Chris Spear:
Should I just throw in the towel and go back to working somewhere?
Chris Spear:
But the reality is the.
Chris Spear:
The work life balance is so much better.
Chris Spear:
The stress, I mean, I was having physical stress that was associated with, or
Chris Spear:
physical ailments that was attributed to stress of the job I was at and you
Chris Spear:
know, where I was on like medicines and having panic attacks at work.
Chris Spear:
Like I don't have that anymore.
Chris Spear:
I have stressful days, but to me I wouldn't trade, you know, any of that.
Chris Spear:
So I'd rather just be at home and hustle, trying to get more
Chris Spear:
business than to go back into one of those pressure cooker kitchens.
Adam Lamb:
Congratulations, man.
Adam Lamb:
And then to com co complicate things even further.
Adam Lamb:
You decide, oh, I'm gonna do a podcast.
Chris Spear:
Sure.
Chris Spear:
So I didn't jump right to that.
Chris Spear:
So the interesting thing is, when you start a successful business, I.
Chris Spear:
Once you get some success, everyone wants to know the secret, right?
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
So everyone wants to buy you a coffee or a beer.
Chris Spear:
Hey man, I would, I'm, I want to get outta my restaurant.
Chris Spear:
How do I start personal chef business?
Chris Spear:
Let's go out for coffee and you know, I like people.
Chris Spear:
And we do that.
Chris Spear:
And after a while I was like, this is not a good use of my time.
Chris Spear:
We have the internet.
Chris Spear:
Why don't we build a community online?
Chris Spear:
From, but I've always loved it.
Chris Spear:
The idea of people, you know, when I worked in a retirement community,
Chris Spear:
I was a chef, not in a restaurant.
Chris Spear:
And it extends to food truckers and cottage bakers and all
Chris Spear:
kinds of things like that.
Chris Spear:
But I thought, let's build a Facebook group and we can
Chris Spear:
share best resources there.
Chris Spear:
So I don't have to tell you, someone can come and say, what's the first
Chris Spear:
step to starting a food truck?
Chris Spear:
And you can have, you know, potentially five, 10 people answer that question.
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
For me, a big component of that was gig sharing.
Chris Spear:
I was getting a lot of job leads off of Thumbtack, which is expensive.
Chris Spear:
But then I found myself you know, I'd have a party on Friday and someone would
Chris Spear:
wanna hire me, and I was already booked.
Chris Spear:
It's like, man, I've got all these other friends who are now doing this.
Chris Spear:
How can I share the lead?
Chris Spear:
So again, it was a place where I could just post up to a community
Chris Spear:
and say, Hey, I've got a hot lead.
Chris Spear:
These people want a book.
Chris Spear:
This is a thousand dollars gig.
Chris Spear:
Who wants it?
Chris Spear:
And I thought it was gonna be, Literally like eight people I knew here locally.
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
I posted about on my private Facebook, but I'm friends with someone who's a
Chris Spear:
writer at the Washington City Paper, and she DMed me that day and said,
Chris Spear:
Ooh, can I talk to you tomorrow?
Chris Spear:
Because I would love for this to be an article in the DC City paper on Friday.
Chris Spear:
So we're talking, I mean, the logo was like under the
Chris Spear:
website's, under construction.
Chris Spear:
It's, you know, a non-existent logo.
Chris Spear:
And the article runs, and I had like 200 people join the community
Chris Spear:
that weekend when I didn't even know what it was because I was
Chris Spear:
expecting it was four people I knew.
Chris Spear:
I.
Chris Spear:
So we did that for like two years, which was great.
Chris Spear:
And part of Chefs Without Restaurants is getting help when you need it.
Chris Spear:
So, you know, I had a parties, they're creeping now into 10 15,
Chris Spear:
and I would go in the Facebook group and say, who wants to work with me?
Chris Spear:
I'll pay you 200 bucks for four hours.
Chris Spear:
You know, it's a dinner in DC And I started having friends help and
Chris Spear:
one night a friend helped me and we were driving back from DC and
Chris Spear:
he said, why isn't this a podcast?
Chris Spear:
And the response was like, Because I'm not a podcaster, like I'm not in media.
Chris Spear:
I do some blogging.
Chris Spear:
I'm a self identified introvert and he said, well, I'll help you with it.
Chris Spear:
We could do this together.
Chris Spear:
It was my buddy Andrew, he has a food truck called Piz Lama here in Frederick.
Chris Spear:
And we started talking about that.
Chris Spear:
So we started the.
Chris Spear:
This podcast in November, 2019.
Chris Spear:
And Andrew was really the lead.
Chris Spear:
I was more the tech guy.
Chris Spear:
I was the I, I bought all the stuff too.
Chris Spear:
So it's, you know, I took care of all the post-processing and everything.
Chris Spear:
I would interject some questions.
Chris Spear:
I would give him some questions ahead of time, but he was only with me until
Chris Spear:
Covid, because, you know, so we went from November, 2019 to March, 2020.
Chris Spear:
Covid happened and he said, you know, business is down.
Chris Spear:
I've gotta lay some people off from my truck.
Chris Spear:
I think I'm gonna do everything myself.
Chris Spear:
I don't have time for this podcast.
Chris Spear:
We were actually doing it all in person at the time.
Chris Spear:
There was a local brewery that was hosting us, we were not
Chris Spear:
comfortable doing in person.
Chris Spear:
So I said, you know what I think I'm gonna take this thing, you know,
Chris Spear:
and, and run with it, because then my business kind of dipped for a while.
Chris Spear:
I said, I'm gonna have way more time than I know what to do with.
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
I kind of like this.
Chris Spear:
And then for me it was like, Oh, now it's remote.
Chris Spear:
I can talk to people all over the world.
Chris Spear:
It's not just a DC area thing.
Chris Spear:
You know, I had never been on Zoom yet.
Chris Spear:
Nobody was zooming, you know, quite at the beginning of March, 2020.
Chris Spear:
And once that started to be a viable thing, I said, I'm gonna,
Chris Spear:
I'm gonna figure this out.
Chris Spear:
I'm gonna get a setup at home and just start doing it.
Chris Spear:
And Andrew never came back.
Chris Spear:
I mean, he's been a guest on the show a couple times and I
Chris Spear:
love him, but I'm actually happy that it worked out this way and.
Chris Spear:
I just released episode 200 last week.
Chris Spear:
And I've just been going strong.
Chris Spear:
But I love the podcasting.
Chris Spear:
I love that it's both tactical.
Chris Spear:
You can come and listen to episodes on customer acquisition, how to price your
Chris Spear:
menu, how to start a food truck, but then you also have really interesting, I.
Chris Spear:
Interviews with people who don't have anything.
Chris Spear:
They're not gonna necessarily teach you anything, but they're gonna
Chris Spear:
talk about being an immigrant coming into this country and what that was
Chris Spear:
like, or you know, struggles that they've had with mental health.
Chris Spear:
So it's kind of a two shows in one, depending on who the guest is that week.
Chris Spear:
And I'm gonna keep doing the podcast as
Adam Lamb:
well.
Adam Lamb:
Congratulations on episode 200.
Chris Spear:
It's big.
Chris Spear:
You know, I, I try not to put too much stock in numbers and metrics and stuff.
Chris Spear:
You can get, you can get bogged down with that, but you do like to
Chris Spear:
celebrate those wins and say, wow.
Chris Spear:
You know, that's a lot when you look at the downloads and you're like, and
Chris Spear:
creeping up on 150,000 downloads and you know, for some people that's not a lot
Chris Spear:
'cause they're up in the, the big numbers.
Chris Spear:
But I think you have to stop and reflect and say that's a lot of
Chris Spear:
people who've listened to something.
Chris Spear:
You've talked, I, I was listening to a podcast the other day.
Chris Spear:
I don't know if it was Gary V or Alex Hormoz or someone who said, you know,
Chris Spear:
it's like followers on Instagram.
Chris Spear:
If you have 400 you feel kind of bad 'cause you're like, That's
Chris Spear:
not a lot of people, like everyone has these big audiences, he said.
Chris Spear:
But if you were doing a live talk and 400 people came to show up Yeah.
Chris Spear:
And.
Chris Spear:
Just to hear what you had to say, you'd be like, wow, this place is packed.
Chris Spear:
I crammed 400 people in this room mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
To hear me talk.
Chris Spear:
And I think we're so trained to see these big followings and, and viral things
Chris Spear:
and not really give ourselves credit for That's, that's a lot of people who
Chris Spear:
are interested in what you're sharing.
Chris Spear:
Yeah.
Chris Spear:
And there's
Adam Lamb:
also the theory of the thousand raving fans, right?
Adam Lamb:
Mm-hmm.
Adam Lamb:
Love, like what do you, what do you actually need audience-wise,
Adam Lamb:
size in order to become.
Adam Lamb:
Take care of your costs and then maybe start making a little bit of money.
Adam Lamb:
You know, podcasting is not free, although the bar of entry
Adam Lamb:
has, has dropped dramatically.
Adam Lamb:
I remember in 2014 when I started Chef Life Radio, I had to teach
Adam Lamb:
myself WordPress and Blur Berry.
Adam Lamb:
I mean, there was very little support and now it's such that, you know, with
Adam Lamb:
something like Anchor you know, Jensen Cummings started Started his podcast
Adam Lamb:
with his cell phone during the pandemic parked outside of the gym with his, you
Adam Lamb:
know, smelly towels hanging up over the
Chris Spear:
winters.
Chris Spear:
Crazy.
Chris Spear:
And kudos to you.
Chris Spear:
I mean, you've been, you're early adopter, really
Adam Lamb:
Early adopter.
Adam Lamb:
Early adopter.
Adam Lamb:
And I jokingly say to my wife, I've consistently about seven and
Adam Lamb:
a half minutes ahead of my time.
Adam Lamb:
Yeah.
Adam Lamb:
My entire, I was writing prolifically online in 2016 and 2017 about
Adam Lamb:
About best practices for food bowl and, and a few other magazines.
Adam Lamb:
We are chefs online rags, and I look back at some of that stuff and
Adam Lamb:
it's just as relevant today as it as it's ever been because I think I.
Adam Lamb:
We are cons, we consistently do not learn the lessons there.
Chris Spear:
No.
Chris Spear:
It's a shame that we're still talking about the same stuff a decade later.
Chris Spear:
Right?
Chris Spear:
I know.
Chris Spear:
I
Adam Lamb:
mean, everybody wants to talk about labor and oh my God, where,
Adam Lamb:
where are all the people who wanna work?
Adam Lamb:
You know, I remember echoing the same thing in the nineties and two thousands,
Adam Lamb:
you know, so this idea that a lot of these problems are new is, is ridiculous and.
Adam Lamb:
A lot of the solutions have been out there for a long, long time.
Adam Lamb:
So there's a listener out there who's just ragged out man.
Adam Lamb:
And there's a lot of 'em.
Adam Lamb:
How would you suggest they start their pivot and it, and it could be to
Adam Lamb:
anything, but I mean, they know that what.
Adam Lamb:
What they've, what they've done up until now is not given them the
Adam Lamb:
results that they're looking for.
Adam Lamb:
And that might be spending more time with the family, making more money
Adam Lamb:
having some autonomy some transparency.
Adam Lamb:
How does someone go about like taking I.
Adam Lamb:
Sitting down and taking a look at their life and saying,
Adam Lamb:
something's gotta change, man.
Adam Lamb:
And how the hell do I change it?
Chris Spear:
Yeah.
Chris Spear:
Well, I'd say if you're looking to do something different, see if you
Chris Spear:
can start it on the side first.
Chris Spear:
You know, like with my business, being a personal chef is a very easy side gig.
Chris Spear:
A lot of people have Lucratively done it for a number of years.
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
Because the way it operates is like, I actually don't have to register with the
Chris Spear:
Department of Health or anything like that because I'm cooking in people's homes.
Chris Spear:
You know, I, I'd say best things is like have your surf safe
Chris Spear:
and have liability insurance.
Chris Spear:
But other than that, like tomorrow you could go cook at your next door
Chris Spear:
neighbor's house, find out your friends and family who are having, I.
Chris Spear:
Celebrations, a anniversary dinner and just go do it and
Chris Spear:
see if you even like that.
Chris Spear:
And then kind of, you know, plan your escape.
Chris Spear:
If you wanna be a graphic designer, start doing that at night on your weekends.
Chris Spear:
Like, don't wait until you are fed up.
Chris Spear:
'cause I think we've all been there, we've had a job.
Chris Spear:
Like if we're not looking into our business, you have a job, you're
Chris Spear:
super frustrated, then you're like at the point where you need to quit.
Chris Spear:
But like your resume isn't updated, you haven't done any networking, you haven't
Chris Spear:
even looked what's out there, and then it's just like a recipe for disaster.
Chris Spear:
I think even when things are good, I should be thinking about both in life
Chris Spear:
and business, like what's my plan?
Chris Spear:
What's my one year plan, what's my five year plan?
Chris Spear:
What do I need to do?
Chris Spear:
Where, where do I wanna be with my friends and family?
Chris Spear:
For me, it was like also getting the stress under control again,
Chris Spear:
like I was not, it was just like, It was not a good situation.
Chris Spear:
I was in as much as I enjoyed my job for a lot of things, there were
Chris Spear:
a lot of things that were not good.
Chris Spear:
It was kind of a toxic workplace, and I was kind of in a tough spot because
Chris Spear:
I was like a, a middle manager, and people say, well, you're executive
Chris Spear:
chef, you were the middle manager.
Chris Spear:
It's like, yes, because I had a GM and I had a district manager, and we were
Chris Spear:
an account where I had a client and you know, so I was like five rungs down.
Chris Spear:
So I wasn't necessarily always in the inner circle.
Chris Spear:
But then I also have, you know, subordinates, chef to cuisine,
Chris Spear:
sous chefs, line cooks, et cetera, who don't necessarily.
Chris Spear:
Always trust me because I'm the guy who has to enforce some of
Chris Spear:
the pol, the policies above.
Chris Spear:
Sure.
Chris Spear:
And that's a tough spot to be in, and I empathize for anyone
Chris Spear:
who's kind of in that position.
Chris Spear:
But for me it was just setting boundaries.
Chris Spear:
It was like deciding that there were toxic people at work and every day at lunch,
Chris Spear:
I hated sitting around them and just eating my lunch outside, you know, for me.
Chris Spear:
And, and people are like, well, that's so weird and antisocial.
Chris Spear:
I said, well, I can sit here and listen to you talk.
Chris Spear:
Nonsense and make racist comments and, and whatever.
Chris Spear:
Or I can just sit outside in the woods.
Chris Spear:
'cause we were on like a kind of in like farmland.
Chris Spear:
It's like I, I would just rather every day do that.
Chris Spear:
Doing guided meditation in my car before I went in every day, right?
Chris Spear:
Just for 10 minutes I've got the calm app and just sit in my car and
Chris Spear:
close my eyes and listen to it and just kind of like center myself and.
Chris Spear:
I know that's not for everyone, but you know, doing that kind
Chris Spear:
of stuff really changed my life.
Chris Spear:
And then finding activities outside of work I think is super important.
Chris Spear:
I talk to people about this all the time.
Chris Spear:
So many of us culinarians love it and they live it, you know, hashtag
Chris Spear:
chef life, whatever, hashtag true cooks and then they have nothing.
Chris Spear:
And you saw so much of that with the pandemic when people were
Chris Spear:
then out of work and it was like they didn't know what to do.
Chris Spear:
I have so many loves in life and so many things that I enjoy doing and making
Chris Spear:
sure I carve out the time for that.
Chris Spear:
And I think you have to set boundaries.
Chris Spear:
These places, if you're an employee somewhere, they don't own you.
Chris Spear:
And I think a lot of times you feel like you're being owned by them.
Chris Spear:
And I'll say, you know, I was working a ton of hours and before I had
Chris Spear:
kids it wasn't great for my wife, but I was like super accommodating.
Chris Spear:
You know, Saturday they'd call me, it's like, oh, someone
Chris Spear:
called out, you're this chef.
Chris Spear:
You have to be here.
Chris Spear:
And you're like, yep.
Chris Spear:
Then my mom died.
Chris Spear:
Actually both my parents died in a year and they lived in Massachusetts.
Chris Spear:
I spent a lot of the time traveling to, you know, see my mom on her
Chris Spear:
deathbed and take care of their stuff.
Chris Spear:
I regretted the time that I didn't spend more time that I felt like I couldn't be
Chris Spear:
up there as long as I was so, Then I come back and I caught some shit for it, for
Chris Spear:
being away so long for my job, whatever.
Chris Spear:
So then a couple years later, I have kids.
Chris Spear:
I, I have twins.
Chris Spear:
And I, I made a promise to myself and my wife that it was not gonna
Chris Spear:
be the same with my parents.
Chris Spear:
I was not gonna miss my children growing up.
Chris Spear:
I was not gonna miss those things.
Chris Spear:
So I'm scheduled to work, you know, this week I'm off this weekend.
Chris Spear:
And then they say, we need you to come on the weekend.
Chris Spear:
I'm sorry, I can't do it.
Chris Spear:
I've got something, you know, like I'm already putting in 70 hours this week.
Chris Spear:
I just, I can't because I knew they weren't gonna fire me and they didn't
Chris Spear:
have the ground to stand on at that point.
Chris Spear:
It wasn't that I gave, gave up.
Chris Spear:
You know, there's a lot of talk about this, what the
Chris Spear:
quiet, quitting or whatever.
Chris Spear:
It wasn't like quiet, quitting if you've seen those articles this year.
Chris Spear:
But I do feel like you get to the point where you say, listen.
Chris Spear:
I'm here all the time.
Chris Spear:
When I'm here, it's go, but there's boundaries.
Chris Spear:
I am not gonna answer my phone from my boss every time that
Chris Spear:
I'm home and just doing that.
Chris Spear:
And it was what it was.
Chris Spear:
And then I said like, What's my exit plan?
Chris Spear:
I gotta get outta here.
Chris Spear:
So, I mean, I think you gotta take care of yourself.
Chris Spear:
Whatever, whatever.
Chris Spear:
It's, whether it's going to the gym, whether it's spending time
Chris Spear:
with your family, whether it's, you know, painting in your off time.
Chris Spear:
Just have something and it, and you can still love food, cook
Chris Spear:
at home, cook with your family, cook with your kids, you know?
Chris Spear:
But setting, I think setting boundaries.
Chris Spear:
I wish I'd set boundaries earlier on because we learned so much about,
Chris Spear:
like, this is the chef life, right?
Chris Spear:
Like right.
Chris Spear:
My dad even told me when I was going to culinary school, you realize
Chris Spear:
you're gonna work every night.
Chris Spear:
And every weekend and you're not gonna see people like, that's
Chris Spear:
what I was told at 18 years old.
Chris Spear:
And then you're, then it's expected.
Chris Spear:
I did not go to my grandfather's funeral because I was in culinary school and at
Chris Spear:
Johnson and Wales, every day you miss from labs, you lo lose seven point, no
Chris Spear:
seven or nine points off your grade.
Chris Spear:
So you're starting with a 91 or a 93 or something like that.
Chris Spear:
I was just like, I need to do well in school.
Chris Spear:
And I didn't go to my grandfather's funeral.
Chris Spear:
Like, how, how fucked up is that?
Chris Spear:
You know, like, but that was just how it was.
Chris Spear:
Like that's what everyone was like, it's like, oh, I'm not
Chris Spear:
gonna skip class for this thing.
Chris Spear:
And yeah.
Chris Spear:
So having regrets from an early age, I decided, you know, I hit 40 and I'm
Chris Spear:
like, we're not doing this for the
Adam Lamb:
rest of my life.
Adam Lamb:
You bring up a really, really interesting topic and one that I wish I was more
Adam Lamb:
aware of earlier in my career, and that's this idea of setting boundaries.
Adam Lamb:
You know, I was trained, shamed, and conditioned to, you know,
Adam Lamb:
suck it up sunshine and I.
Adam Lamb:
And embrace the grind because that's what it is.
Adam Lamb:
And so I realized that there was this lionization of overwork even amongst
Adam Lamb:
each other, like as a culture amongst chefs, you know, bragging to one another
Adam Lamb:
about, you know, how many hours I've done this week and now what, you know,
Adam Lamb:
the challenges that I've had to overcome as if it's necessary to sacrifice
Adam Lamb:
ourselves for our vision or our passion.
Adam Lamb:
And that's something that I broke against quite a bit.
Adam Lamb:
I also, We'll argue with anybody because there's this self-identification
Adam Lamb:
as chef as who I am versus what I happen to do for a living.
Adam Lamb:
You bring up some great points of missing some critically important
Adam Lamb:
milestones in your life that anybody in any other industry would've like yeah.
Adam Lamb:
Okay.
Adam Lamb:
Bereavement, leave 10 days.
Adam Lamb:
See you later, man.
Adam Lamb:
Take care of that.
Adam Lamb:
And so this idea of creating boundaries, and I think since the millennials
Adam Lamb:
started entering the, the workforce and the Gen Zs, you know, this has become
Adam Lamb:
more and more prominent and has pissed.
Adam Lamb:
A lot of old timers off because they're like, well, fuck, I didn't get that.
Adam Lamb:
Well, the point is, is that we all wanted that.
Adam Lamb:
And it's just like when I came up in the industry, I looked around, I'm like,
Adam Lamb:
there's no fucking way I'm gonna open up my mouth and, and, and look like an
Adam Lamb:
idiot because it just wasn't available.
Adam Lamb:
And now it's almost like through the grace of these young people coming
Adam Lamb:
up in the industry going like, it doesn't have to be this way.
Adam Lamb:
We're realizing like, you know what?
Adam Lamb:
You're absolutely right.
Adam Lamb:
It doesn't have to be that way.
Adam Lamb:
And how can I provide that opportunity for you as well as embracing it in myself.
Adam Lamb:
And so this whole idea of setting clear boundaries also has to work
Adam Lamb:
in concert with a realization that you have core values and that
Adam Lamb:
some of them are non-negotiable.
Adam Lamb:
And that's kind of the bulk of my work in assisting chefs, is to really
Adam Lamb:
embrace that as a way moving forward so that any choice that you make, If it's
Adam Lamb:
congruent with your core values, it's pretty, pretty much a gravy train, right?
Adam Lamb:
Because every day you're going to work and people are, are like-minded and they're
Adam Lamb:
kind of wrapped around the same ideals.
Adam Lamb:
And so I want to kind of round back to this conversation about community
Adam Lamb:
because I also realize that community the only reason that people will
Adam Lamb:
join a community is because they.
Adam Lamb:
Embrace those shared core values.
Adam Lamb:
And so if you can't articulate what the shared value is, then it's
Adam Lamb:
really hard for people to go like, yeah, I really believe in that man.
Adam Lamb:
You, you
Chris Spear:
hope, you hope, you know, and there's always gonna be a couple spoilers.
Chris Spear:
Yeah.
Chris Spear:
And you don't want everything to be an echo chamber.
Chris Spear:
I think we, you know, we've seen that a lot with political.
Chris Spear:
You know, landscape where everything's getting so polarized
Chris Spear:
and you're in one camp or another camp and there's no moderation.
Chris Spear:
But, you know, for me, the big thing is I talk about loneliness.
Chris Spear:
You know, I, I was, so, I'm in charge of this big kitchen.
Chris Spear:
I had 125 people directly reporting to me.
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
You have the rapport.
Chris Spear:
I had a lot of people I loved working with, and, you know, Hey man, taste this.
Chris Spear:
Like, what do you think?
Chris Spear:
And that flow, everyone knows that feeling of working on a line with someone and
Chris Spear:
you enjoy that, and then you quit and the next day you're like, Wow, this is quiet.
Chris Spear:
You know, my wife went to work, my kids go to school, and I'm here by myself,
Chris Spear:
and I'm just working on some menus.
Chris Spear:
And then you go to, you know, mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
The kitchen and you're, you know, making some food by yourself, listening
Chris Spear:
to music or podcasts, and it's like, I wanted to have a community.
Chris Spear:
Not just to, you know, be able to get gig leads from and learn stuff from, but just
Chris Spear:
'cause I missed hanging out with people.
Chris Spear:
I mean, how many times have you said like your best friends are the people you work
Chris Spear:
with because you spend so much time with them, especially in a kitchen environment.
Chris Spear:
Mm-hmm.
Chris Spear:
And then I had no one overnight, so it was building a community, which I.
Chris Spear:
You know, started online kind of, but like how can it trickle off into real world?
Chris Spear:
So for me, an important thing was like we had a meetup almost instantly.
Chris Spear:
As soon as the group launched, we found a place in DC and you know,
Chris Spear:
20 of us got together and it was great to meet up for the first time.
Chris Spear:
And I really love, I.
Chris Spear:
Doing kind of like collaborative popups, not because they're big
Chris Spear:
money makers or anything else.
Chris Spear:
Then I just miss cooking with people.
Chris Spear:
So, you know, I've done a handful of those where it's, you know, you rent an
Chris Spear:
Airbnb and sell tickets on Eventbrite and just cook, cook with someone you love.
Chris Spear:
And we, we always joke about like, oh wow.
Chris Spear:
I.
Chris Spear:
Lost a lot of money doing this dinner.
Chris Spear:
Hopefully, hopefully not too much.
Chris Spear:
But, you know, just because it, it's fun, but having people that you like
Chris Spear:
and, and share ideas with it's tough.
Chris Spear:
You know, I've got this Facebook community and I've had to go to, I have
Chris Spear:
to moderate everything before it posts.
Chris Spear:
I don't let everyone just post everything.
Chris Spear:
Sure, it takes a little more time, but things have gotten a little
Chris Spear:
outta control as a community grows, because that's the hard thing.
Chris Spear:
Again, I started super locally.
Chris Spear:
I knew almost everyone personally, or they were one degree removed, and now
Chris Spear:
I just have random people all over the world wanting to join a Facebook group.
Chris Spear:
And then they come in and they start spamming their business
Chris Spear:
or dropping weird comments.
Chris Spear:
But sometimes there are disagreements where I.
Chris Spear:
I'll let it go a little bit.
Chris Spear:
Let's see where this goes.
Chris Spear:
Like, sure.
Chris Spear:
That's not my feeling.
Chris Spear:
I don't wanna be the one dictating what everyone's allowed to see.
Chris Spear:
And that's where it gets into a gray area is like, okay, we have two members
Chris Spear:
who are at odds here, and then other people are jumping in to take sides,
Chris Spear:
and I'll let it see, and then at some point I might say, okay, that's your
Chris Spear:
one warning, and then I'll have to shut comments off on it, you know?
Chris Spear:
Right.
Chris Spear:
So, I mean, that, that's, but I think all in all, it's been a, a good community.
Adam Lamb:
I, I love that idea of allowing some space for contrarian.
Adam Lamb:
Conversation because I know that there are some Facebook groups for
Adam Lamb:
chefs that are incredibly polarized.
Adam Lamb:
Mm-hmm.
Adam Lamb:
And you know, you get in there and whether the overarching thing is just
Adam Lamb:
to talk shit about everybody else in the industry and post these fucked up
Adam Lamb:
memes you know, that's not part of.
Adam Lamb:
Any organization or community I want to be in because there's all kinds of reasons,
Adam Lamb:
man, to feel shitty about our situations.
Adam Lamb:
But ultimately, that's being a victim of our circumstance.
Adam Lamb:
And I know personally speaking, that nothing ever changed in
Adam Lamb:
my life until I shifted that one particular thought in that.
Adam Lamb:
What's happening in my life today is a, is a sum total of my thoughts, feelings, and
Adam Lamb:
actions over the last three or four days.
Adam Lamb:
And so if I want something different to show up tomorrow, then that means I
Adam Lamb:
actually have to change where I'm at right now, regardless of outside circumstance,
Adam Lamb:
you know, that reflects back this new reality that I want to bring into life.
Adam Lamb:
And anybody who's into meditation, Chris, I'm sure that you get this.
Adam Lamb:
Mm-hmm.
Adam Lamb:
That like in the moment is where everything changes for us moving forward.
Chris Spear:
And I think with the internet it's so easy to, to
Chris Spear:
make snap judgements, comments.
Chris Spear:
And I'll tell you, I remember one time there was a dish online and
Chris Spear:
it, it looked kind of ridiculous and it was going around.
Chris Spear:
I don't know, you know, I don't know that it was attributed to anyone
Chris Spear:
and it just didn't look great.
Chris Spear:
It was kind of like kitschy or whatever, and I commented something on it.
Chris Spear:
What I, and what I didn't realize was it was actually from a really good
Chris Spear:
friend of mine and he was part of a charity dinner and they were supposed to
Chris Spear:
create dishes inspired by works of art.
Chris Spear:
And all the money was going towards a really great charity and he had
Chris Spear:
donated his time and his product and I felt like a complete jerk because
Chris Spear:
I was one of the people, you know, it was just one of those things
Chris Spear:
that almost went around on Facebook.
Chris Spear:
'cause I mean like, have you guys seen this?
Chris Spear:
Right?
Chris Spear:
Like who eats this?
Chris Spear:
Crap.
Chris Spear:
Right.
Chris Spear:
And I had made some comment like, I wouldn't eat that if you paid me.
Chris Spear:
And then you're like, oh my God, I can't believe I know who did.
Chris Spear:
You know?
Chris Spear:
Like I didn't know the context because that's what we're so attuned to now.
Chris Spear:
Everything is stripped of context.
Chris Spear:
You and I are doing this conversation right now and someone watches it and I
Chris Spear:
say one thing and they just like, Screen record it, and then it's like a meme on
Chris Spear:
TikTok now, and it's taken outta context.
Chris Spear:
And you don't know.
Chris Spear:
We, we talked about this on my podcast with a guest a couple weeks ago where
Chris Spear:
he said, you know what I love about long form content is it's the receipts.
Chris Spear:
He said, you know, like if you get.
Chris Spear:
Canceled or whatever over something.
Chris Spear:
At least you have 200 episodes that people can go back to and listen and
Chris Spear:
just say like, no, this isn't, you know, it was taken out of context because I
Chris Spear:
think it's so easy for us to take all these things outta context these days.
Chris Spear:
So at least I think having like long form content, having, you know, a paper trail
Chris Spear:
or an audio trail of years and years of.
Chris Spear:
Your beliefs and how you are, you know, you can kind of at
Chris Spear:
least fall back on that if
Adam Lamb:
nothing else.
Adam Lamb:
That's a fascinating way to look at it.
Adam Lamb:
And I have to agree.
Adam Lamb:
Listen, Chris, it's clear that you and I could be talking about this all day.
Adam Lamb:
I wanna be respectful of your time and also the listeners' time.
Adam Lamb:
We've got some great stuff recorded.
Adam Lamb:
And I just wanna say thank you so much for making time
Chris Spear:
for us.
Chris Spear:
Thank you for having me.
Chris Spear:
Of course.
Chris Spear:
I, I've enjoyed talking to you.
Chris Spear:
I, I love following what you do and you have some great people on the show.
Chris Spear:
Thanks.
Adam Lamb:
Now for our regular listeners we're gonna segue
Adam Lamb:
into the on the Doc episode.
Adam Lamb:
And as you know If you are a subscriber to this show, that these episodes are
Adam Lamb:
specifically for our subscriber members.
Adam Lamb:
They get all the content, all the back catalog, everything.
Adam Lamb:
And if you'd like to know more about it, you can go to chef
Adam Lamb:
life radio.com/uh, slash support.
Adam Lamb:
And for our current members, I just wanna say thank you very
Adam Lamb:
much for supporting the show.
Adam Lamb:
It really makes a, a heck of a big deal to me and gives me an opportunity to
Adam Lamb:
have people like Chris on the show.