11.2023 Edition

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Editor: Justin Khanna​

Hey Reader,

Full disclaimer: I’m a massive fan of David’s work and I’d be lying if I said what he does at Write of Passage doesn’t influence what I’m trying to build at Repertoire. But I landed on our 3 values right around the end of 2022, and he managed to tweet this right in the middle of our series on values, so I’m giving credit to someone who reinforces why I’ve been bullish on this. I suppose you can call our values a slogan 😉

In case you're a new subscriber, you've caught me right in the middle of a series on your business's values - we're discussing why they're important, how to get clear on them, and what it means for decision making in your business.

Our last value, completing the trio of F’s (alongside Focus and Fix): Fun

This begins with your favorite story of learning that you’ve ever experienced. Anytime you've entered flow, lost track of time, or done something like training finger patterns or chord progressions on guitar until your fingers started bleeding.

Another way to phrase that experience is through the dictionary definition of fun: “amusing, entertaining, or enjoyable”.

If we’re all about education, we could try to monitor “attention-retention” or “force” our products on people through fear or pressure…or we could just make it fun 🤷‍♂️

This means calling ourselves out on our own bullshit, too. I was so close to creating a “knife skills” series on the channel back in the day - doing the stereotypical “here’s how to cut a carrot in an oblique” instructional video. No shade on those videos, after all, that’s how I learned 😅

But instead, I thought: how could this be more fun? That’s where the Reps series came from on my channel, and the response on it from you folks has been amazing (even though when you compare it to a traditional “knife skills” video, it’s admittedly a bit weird and off-the wall 🤓)

Instead of having our courses be “videos behind a paywall”, we ask ourselves: how can we add community, challenges, interaction, and engaging activities to these lessons?

The second reason why I landed on Fun owes credit to another writer I respect a lot: Simon Sinek. He wasn’t the one to coin the terms “Finite Games” and “Infinite Games”, but he wrote a best selling book about it.

For those that aren’t aware, Infinite Games (vs Finite ones) are characterized by:

• Known and unknown players (vs only known ones, think: 2 basketball teams)
• Variable rules (vs set rules, think: chess)
• The simple objective of prolonging the game (vs the objective being to win or defeat someone)

…and I don’t know about you, but I bucket the word “game” and the word “fun” together in a lot of cases.

How can we have fun in operating? How can we make sure we can continue to “play” this game of being in business? To me, this means being relationship focused, avoiding decisions that might result in multiplying by zero, and actively prioritizing practices that help avoid burnout.

When hiring, this also comes in handy. I remember feeling so stifled in high-pressure kitchens because it requires a lot of seriousness and focus. Don’t get me wrong, I geek out about those moments and have fond memories of moments of pushing past where I thought my limits were. But I also sit here and smile in remembering funny jokes I’d share with my co-workers and station partners when we were genuinely having fun.

Those are the types of people I like to work with, and it’s a clear green flag for me if someone knows how to have fun. I define this as having a sense of humor that’s clever or witty, not demeaning or predatory. The type of person who can take a joke themselves, who doesn’t take themselves too seriously.

Having these types of team members means that we can infuse that Fun into our marketing. We’re an internet-company first, and the internet is powered by humor. This means memes on IG, Easter eggs in our content, and running jokes with you folks.

Now that you know all 3 values, I’ll share why I think it’s a pretty useful set for us, and what might happen in the several 2-legged stool scenarios I laid out in a previous newsletter:

• With just Focus and Fun, we might be able to grow really fast. We might put out some great content and have a blast doing it. However, if none of our work was practical or genuinely helped anyone, I believe monetization would be largely out of our hands and over-reliant on sponsors or mass-appeal products like merch. It’s not to say I disagree with that route, it’s just not how Repertoire will do things. I can see us becoming more "media company" than "education company".
• With just Fun and Fix, I don’t think it’d grow beyond me. I get so much fulfillment from helping you folks 1:1 - there’s nothing more fun to me than tackling a problem together, strategizing a plan, and then seeing you folks crush it when we begin coaching together. But with no Focus, I wouldn’t be able to structure the lessons into courses, build a brand around hospitality education, or hire a team to help support. I'd be more "coach" than "entrepreneur".
• With just Focus and Fix, we’d look like every other hospitality education institution. We’d take ourselves too seriously. We’d be competing with the big guys, and it’s actively shooting ourselves in the foot to go down that path. It also might result in a lot of short-term behavior, scaling too fast, or even optimizing for the wrong things. I also acknoweldge that this means we might not grow as quickly as a traditional startup. Not to mention the fact that since we’re thinking about Fun in our projects, we’ll differentiate just by nature of how we teach.

With that, I thank you folks for reading! This series has been a huge joy to write, and I hope it’s at least given you some ideas to chew on.

When I ask a lot of you “what’s your goal, what do you wanna do someday?”, a lot of you express interest in some form of “starting your own thing”. This might be a cocktail bar, a bakery, a catering company, or a tasting menu counter restaurant.

Hopefully this kind of transparency will encourage you to learn by writing, spend more time thinking and stress-testing your ideas/beliefs, and ultimately get clear with yourself on what you want. We’ll be going back to our regularly scheduled monologues next week 🙌

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​From chef to owner - a thread by Nick Huber

A friend of mine was an excellent chef turned failed restauranteur.

A story (and a lesson):

He loved cooking. Was excellent at it. Had friends over often and really enjoyed cooking for them. He would get told by everyone who tasted his food “You should open a restaurant.”

Eventually he did. Took out some loans. Quit his 9-5. Opened a restaurant.

He ran it for about 3 years. Worked 60 hours a week. No vacations. No more cooking for friends. Every Thursday through Sunday night. The last one to leave at 1am.

The only time he saw his friends they were in his restaurant and he’d stop by between stressful situations to say hi.

He gave up a few weeks ago. Broke. In debt actually. And broken as a human.

Reading the google reviews for the business it is a little sad… No raving fans like in those dinner parties in his home. Just customers complaining about cold food or slow service or undercooked steak.

It turns out running a profitable restaurant has very little to do with your ability to cook.

Running a profitable and successful business of any kind in any sector consists mostly of doing the same things: Recruiting, hiring, training, managing, selling and solving problems.

He wasn’t a manager. He didn’t enjoy confrontation. He wasn’t a people person. He spent very little time owning a restaurant actually cooking. Almost none of it actually.

The lesson:

Don’t start a business for selfish reasons. It isn’t about you. It isn’t about doing what you want or love to do.

If any business becomes successful the owner will quickly graduate from doing that fun thing… And they’ll find themselves recruiting, hiring, training, managing, selling and solving problems.

Might as well start something that gives you the best odds of making great money while doing those not-fun things.

Our Take: Nick has a few “controversial” takes on Twitter, but this one hits with a truth hammer. Listeners of the pod might be getting sick of my rant on how chefs reach a certain point in their career where they need to either:

- Put the cookbooks down, step away from the stove and begin to develop entrepreneurship and business skills

OR

-Put their hand up for help and partner with someone who does possess those skills so that the business can thrive

To be clear: we're not suggesting that chefs should not own businesses - but we need to be real here.

Just think: if the next generation knows to expect this kind of transition, they can build it into their career plan.

They can pursue opportunities that foster this learning earlier in their journey.

They can ask better questions and pay attention to more that’s going on around them. It’ll lead to less stories like this one, less financial hardship, less emotional struggle, better managed expectations, higher quality teams, and ultimately better businesses in the long run!

The more I discuss this, the more convinced I become that this is a hill I’m willing to die on…

​The number of women in the workforce tops pre-pandemic levels for first time ​

105,000 of the 311,000 jobs added in February were in the leisure and hospitality sector, where women hold the majority of positions.

• Overall, women's labor force participation — that is, the percentage of women working or looking for work — is at 57.2%, almost back to the February 2020 number, 57.9%.

• Men's labor force participation rate is much higher than women's, at 68%, but still down more than a point from pre-pandemic levels.

Our Take: This chart “rhymes” with a lot of other pandemic charts - a sharp drop off followed by a steady climb back up. We’re obviously encouraged to see higher labor participation, but how can you use this information? Digging a bit deeper into the report, our industry is gaining an average of 91,000 positions per month, but is still 410,000 jobs away from truly being caught up with pre-pandemic levels.

This unemotional look at the numbers gives us another data point to in hiring challenges that many of you have experienced - if the candidates are there, why not position your business as the one that they want to work with?!

This means taking lessons from previous podcast guests like Rachael Nemeth (clear and focused training, a skill path, providing growth opportunities) and an upcoming episode with Suzanne Vizethann (management support, emotional intelligence in leading, operational principles that makes your team feel setup for success). These lessons often fall in the “simple, not easy” camp, but they might be a better use of your time than pouring over other details that you might “think” candidates want.

​Little Spoons Have Become an Obsession. But Are We Just Eating Wrong?​

But maybe big spoons are so uncomfortable because we’re using them all wrong. In 1885’s Etiquette: What to Do and How to Do It, author Lady Constance Howard notes that spoons are basically only used for eating soup, soft fruit, and dessert, and that “etiquette ordains” one should use a fork instead of a spoon whenever possible. Then, cereal and dessert may be eaten by dipping the spoon toward you, but with soup “he must dip his spoon away from him — turning the outer rim of the bowl down as he does so — fill the bowl not more than three-quarters full and sip it, without noise, out of the side, not the end, of the bowl.” Currently, the Emily Post Institute still instructs adults to eat soup by sipping from the side of the spoon.

Spoon preferences have changed, or become more pronounced, because the kinds of foods most people eat have become more varied. It is not uncommon for your average American to consume fried rice, spaghetti, and enchiladas all in the same week. Our utensil use has had to change to ensure it’s appropriate to what we’re eating.

Our Take: Spoon nerd here 🥄🙋‍♂️ it’s an S-tier utensil for so many reasons, both in cooking and eating. If you’re wanting to go down a rabbit hole this weekend of some utensil history, this article has a few fun sources.

What stood out though, was the etiquette-focused and mindful practice of slowing down when eating. For those of us that have scarfed down our only meal of the day in the 3.5 minutes before service, it’s all too common to have that mode transfer across to our days off or shared meals with loved ones.

If slowing down is challenging, try changing the utensil and give yourself the kind of tool that sets you up for success (and more enjoyment 😋)

ICYMI 🙌

📱 Did you know: for those of you that are short on time but still love the podcast, we share short vertical clips on Instagram and YouTube​

🚀 Just launched on our private hospitality professional community: Knowledge Base 🧠 a catalogue of most frequently asked hospitality-related questions from our monthly Hotseat sessions. They're 5-15 minute deep dives on topics like: job searching, resumé building, first-time manager advice, staging, sharpening the saw, and more! Join today, and if you're already a member, peep the newly built out "🧠 Knowledge Base space"!

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This Week, We Learned… 🧠

• 5 Essential Tips to Prevent Rust on Your Kitchen Knife | Town Cutler
• Are Smart Ovens Legit?
• Oreo’s Product Release Strategy
• 7 Must-Try Dishes at the New Super Mario Brothers Restaurant Inside Universal Studios Hollywood

Comment from you folks:

To Peep 👀

• What would kitchens look like if chefs designed tools for themselves? Gestura - Order 8 or more products and get 25% off using code INDUSTRY 
• Williams Sonoma has an exclusive limited time discount with $150 off on Breville Barista Express Espresso Machine
• JB Prince Sitram Pots & Pans’ 25% off Sale! Use code SITRAMSLICE at checkout!

Quote I'm Pondering 💭

Thanks for reading, as always,

👊Justin​

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