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Hey, its number one best-selling author and keynote speaker Erik Qualman
A lot of you know me as Equalman! Thank you for joining us for today's 7 Super Tips
The show designed to unlock and unleash your inner superpower. Today we are going
to get 7 Super Tips from the late and great Anthony Bourdain. That's right
he ate right here on the streets of Austin, Texas and today he's going to
give us 7 Super Tips
But I mean if you're talking about failure
You know I accepted failure as a chef because I was at various times a
bad chef or even a bad person. These days if I fail it's because I
tried to do something and did not succeed or I just was not able to do
what I hope to do or wanted to do or maybe I tried to do something because
clearly in retrospect didn't work but I would much rather that I would much
rather fail gloriously than not venture not try.
You know I moved from 44 year old fry cook basically
to whatever the hell it is I do now pretty much
overnight on the basis of a memoir where I pretty much fest up to everything so
there's really... I'm an open book. I don't have and I've never had a reputation to
lose which is a huge advantage I mean it's an enormously liberating thing
when everybody knows all the nasty s*** about you already, nobody heard you. You're
free to say what you want and have an opinion it's like oh yeah we used to be
a junkie yeah what else I've done many bad things in my life many awful awful
things that I'm not proud of but but uh you know I'm not pretending to be I
think it's a matter of age as well you know I joke about you know not giving up
being a very good business model for me but it's true
the absolute certainty that no one was ever gonna care about or buy or read
Kitchen Confidential was what allowed me to write it I didn't have to think about
what people expected I didn't care and as a result I was able to write this
book quickly and without a lot without tormenting myself and that seemed to
work out and I learned from that experience and I tried very hard to
whether meeting with a group of television executives or telling a story
I I don't think about the fans I don't think about what audiences expect and
I'm not afraid of what will they think of me or what if I what if what if they
don't like it and I'm not on television anymore
and I found that works I mean if you don't value your own life that's taking
it to an extreme people tend to respect or be afraid of that person you know the
person in a bar fight who clearly has no concern for their own personal health or
welfare is a dangerous person and particularly in television what people
the television industry the entertainment industry in general the
thing that everybody the great unifying factor of television is that everyone
who is on television is desperate to stay on television no matter what you
know anyone who's ever been on Top Chef you know it's like what happens when
it's over you know so when you're the rare person walks into a room with some
television executive really don't care
We it did last week. We want to present a moving target. We don't want ever for the
network to be able to say I think I figured out what the hell it it is that
you guys are doing let's do more of that because by the time they figure that out
we will have moved on to something else so we said a lot of time sitting around
having a few cocktails thinking what is the most fucked up thing we can do and I
don't know which one of you guys said let's do a food show all in black and
white yeah that's how good we are we can make food porn in black and white and
when we started talking about then we started talking about early neo-realist
Italian films that you know 1 percent of our audience might have seen and we went
out and did just about the stupidest thing you could do on you know and in a
travel and food we made it all black and white show live we never like we live
and they said no way they said that was it is our it is for me it's my money
when Robbinsville my proudest moment because it was just so stupid and and it
looks so beautiful and a work you guys did and that the indie editing and the
the music everything everybody everything worked exactly better than we
could have imagined it all came together that said the first Tuscany show that
everybody hates that wasn't that that was a fun show to make it was a fine
yeah okay what about worse
When I wrote Kitchen Confidential that no one was gonna read it. It was both the... It was a
very liberating thing because I'd never had to think I didn't have the burden of
trying to imagine what people would expect or what they might like or
dislike or what the market wanted I didn't think of it I wasn't thinking
about any of those things I had enough because of this little article I had an
opportunity to tell a story and I wanted it to be entertaining and legit for
people in my industry in the New York area but this was this far as I thought
it was gonna go and even after TV people started offering these shows I very much
thought I'd better keep my day job this can't possibly work out in TV who who
gets to have fun on TV yeah you know who gets to make a living writing I mean
I've been in the rest a long time the restaurant business is
of course filled with people who think that someday they're gonna make a living
writing or acting or in entertainment somehow and I knew this was delusional
behavior you know from 30 years of seeing it up close so look it was a big
everything changed I really think the only thing you can credit me for is that
I didn't fuck it all up and once I got my break I didn't I was 44 at the time
which is probably good because I would have really made a mess of it if it had
happened to me earlier you know I recognized that it was late in life I
caught a big break here let's not you know let's not do make the
usual mistakes
Uninhibited creative freedom is
something that I've been incredibly fortunate to have for the better part of
my entire television career unlike anyone else I know of in television I've
been free to do whatever I want to make the shows I want anywhere I want with
whom I want and in any style I want so I at first I don't know any other way and
by now I won't have it any other way life is good why settle for Less and by
the same token when you're given that much freedom and you're you you have
essentially no interference they're nothing but support behind you what you
don't want to do is get lazy and bored and sloppy to me I'd much rather not
make TV at all or make even unsuccessful TV that make competent television you
know it's very easy to make a conventional
travel or food show at this point it's it's like shooting corn it's the same
shot sequence and the same sort of limited terminology you know how all of
their little pieces work where you have to start and where you have to end I
detest competent workmen like storytelling and I'm always very you
know the times that we we do that I'm very unhappy with that I'd rather fail
I like making things. I'm a guy who should have a project. I mean
when I was a chef I was clearly somebody who liked multitasking but I
think I like making things whether it's a TV show, a story, a plate of food...
I don't really even need to have it afterwards. The process... I think
being a chef, cooking conditions you to the tiny technical satisfactions of
properly executing a single plate having a kind of a private moment when that
plate sits there momentarily in the in the window before it goes out it in the
dining room to be ruined where you look at it and you know you did is you that
you did this particular thing well it's a very private moment I think that's
been useful in being learning to like something so temporary so fleeting I
think that's been a useful in in being happy in television and and in writing I
you know I I like the process of the editing process the pre-production
process that the nuts and bolts that again the technical satisfaction of
putting these pieces and elements together in conjunction with other
people and having a one tiny golden moment where you you say "That's pretty good"
Be open to experience. Be willing to try new things. Don't have a rigid plan.
Accept random acts of hospitality without judgment or fear. Don't be afraid
to wander. Don't be afraid to eat a bad meal. You know if you don't risk the bad
meal you'll never get the magical one but the most important thing you know, be
humble, be gratefu,l be aware of the fact that you were probably the stupidest
person in the room as far as you were the least prepared at least equipped
person to know who's really in charge of what's really going on thank you for
Thank you for joining us for today's 7 Super Tips with the late and great Anthony Bourdain.
My hope is that his tips help unlock and unleash that super power that's within all of us.
And ensure you get the next episode, hit that subscribe button below.
And until next time remember it's not what we take from the world it's what we leave behind.
Hey it's number one best-selling author mmm...
Isn't it bromantic... Hey it's the one best-selling author and keynote speaker
Erik Qualman... Oh we did it again.