Robert Irvine - Overcoming Impossible: Learn to Lead, Build a Team, and Catapult Your Business to Success

2023 Robert Irvine

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ISBN 978-1-4002-3834-7 (eBook)

ISBN 978-1-4002-3833-0 (HC)

Epub Edition JANUARY 2023 9781400238347

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022944801

Printed in the United States of America

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For anyone who ever looked up at the stars in the night sky, thought of the thing they always wanted most, and whispered, Someday...

CONTENTS

OVERCOMING IMPOSSIBLE

What Ive learned, and what I can teach you

I live on the road.

I have a home near Tampa and its quite nice. Someday Im sure Ill spend a lot of time there.

For now, though, my life is lived on a plane, out of a suitcase, and in a new hotel room practically every night. Thats the path I chose. Something is always keeping me on the gofilming for one of my shows, visiting the troops at home and abroad, my live tour, oras is increasingly the casea business venture of some sort.

Im not complaining. I love living this way, and if it were up to me, Id probably do it forever. I find it incredibly stimulating to wake up in a different place almost every day, and nothing makes me feel more vital than meeting new people.

As time has gone on and Ive become known as much for my business acumen as my skills in the kitchen, the nature of my interactions with people has slanted in one direction: everyone wants to know what it takes to be successful.

Aspiring entrepreneurs, would-be restaurateurs, and practically every shade of businessperson in betweenpeople stuck somewhere on a corporate ladder they dont want to be oncome up to me and tell me they want something more. And they dont just want more money. Sure, thats part of it, but money isnt all of it or even most of it. Trust me, plenty of these people who feel so terribly trapped in their career make a handsome salary that would be the envy of just about anybody.

Part of the issue is that oftentimes their jobs dont take advantage of their full range of talents. Say they get hired to crunch numbers but management doesnt want to hear their analysis of those numbers or any creative solutions they might bring to the table. In many instances, the finished product they help produce simply doesnt hold any meaning for them. The unifying factor for all these folks is that none of them feel fulfilled by their work. Thats not a feeling any of us should brush aside, but so often thats just what we do.

No, I dont like my job, but it pays the bills, so who am I to complain?

Sure, Id love to change careers or open my own business, but it could get rough. Can I really put the kids through that?

Shouldnt I just be grateful that I have a stable job at all? I know a lot of people whod kill for what I have.

Ill bet youve said some version of all these things to yourself at some point.

You can couch these statements in the noble sentiment of maintaining perspective and self-awareness, but when you take that framing away, they look an awful lot like excuses, dont they? Dont get me wrong, theyre good excuseseven great ones. Shit, you practically have me convinced that something bigger isnt meant for you.

Except theres something about the way these statements are spoken that so often lacks authenticity. The speakers voice goes up an octave as they explain themselves, and if you read their body language, they usually look a little tightnatures way of prepping us to go on the defensive.

And why go on the defensive at the notion that the line of work youre in might be the wrong one?

Lots of reasons. For one thing, if you admit that youre in the wrong job, you then might have to admit youve wasted a lot of your time. For another, if you acknowledge that its time to move on, well, youve now got a ton of work ahead of you, dont you? And wont that disrupt your routine? The cozy little corner of the planet youve carved out for yourself? And even though your job sucks, your boss is cool enough and never gives you a hard time about PTO and occasionally working from home and all the rest?

Isnt that good enough?

I dont know. You tell me.

But be honest when you do, because if I had to guess, the fact that youre reading this at all means you want more out of your life and career.

If you were sitting in front of me, nows the point where youd probably ask me two questions. At least thats what everyone else does. Its always the same two questions, too. First, they want to know how I made it. Second, they want advice so they can make it, too.

To answer the first part: I could tell you the whole story of how I made ithow I took the leap from cooking on a ships galley in the British Royal Navy to working in a big fancy American restaurant. How I then made the bigger jump from kitchens to televisionto Dinner: Impossible, Restaurant: Impossible, and a bunch of others. How I then parlayed that into a family of brands and companies that will outlast my time on this Earth.

But I dont know if such a memoir would do you much good. Some of those details might be instructive, but if youre not already on a similar path to the one I was on, a lot of it might look too alien for you to be able to draw the right parallels between my story and yours.

Besides, the world has changed a lot since I launched my career. The way we do business, communicate with one another, and share information has been radically transformed by the internetto such a degree that the story of me launching my career in the late 1990s and early 2000s has little relevance to todays world.

But I can answer the second part because my path has taught me a lot. About the evergreen obstacles youre bound to face on your journey. About the types of people youll meetthe ones you need to surround yourself with and the ones you need to avoid. About the cyclical nature of marketplaces, how to manage egos, how to pitch and sell, and, most importantly, how to deal with failure. Because the truth is Ive been kicked around and taken quite a few lossesor, to borrow some sports terminology, taken a few Ls. But there is no better teacher than failure. From the ashes of those Ls, Ive built a career Im quite proud ofsomething thats bigger and more satisfying than I ever dreamed was possible.

While theres no way to the top without taking a few Ls of your own, its my hope that with this book in your hands, you wont have to take quite as many as I did. And when you do take an L, youll be armed with the tools you need to find the lesson in the experience, and youll emerge stronger and better prepared as a result. None of this is going to be easy. Things that are worth it never are.