Points of Failure
Points of Failure is a podcast about what actually goes wrong, and the part people don't want to look at.
Most conversations about failure happen after it's been cleaned up, framed, and turned into a lesson. This one starts at the breakdown and works backward. Through guest interviews and solo episodes, we examine the patterns behind failure in work, relationships, identity, and decision-making, with a bias toward what people are avoiding rather than what they're processing.
If you're noticing a pattern you can't explain away anymore, you're probably in the right place.
Questions, topic ideas, or guest suggestions: failurepointspod@gmail.com
Points of Failure
S1E06 - The difficulty of pancakes
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On this episode, we talk to Chef Erin Rowe. She is the author of "An Ozark Culinary History," and the Founder of Ozark Culinary Tours, guiding people around the best food scenes of Northwest Arkansas' downtowns. We discuss globetrotting, employing yourself, and the difficulty of pancakes.
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Coming up on points of failure.
SPEAKER_02And there's no looking back, and you can't turn around, but you're better for doing it. There, I remember whenever I was applying to the Peace Corps, I had to fill out very extensive paperwork and an application to even be considered. And it's a hot I mean, a lot of people want to be in the Peace Corps, right? It's very hard to get into.
SPEAKER_01I am here today with Aaron Rowe, uh, a good friend of mine. We've known each other for a couple of years now, I believe. I think so. Yeah. Uh Facebook says you've done a lot. So let's uh let's start there. Give me uh give me a quick intro. What do you do? What are you doing now, where you come from, and then uh we'll work backward.
SPEAKER_02Okay, great. I'm an Arkansas native from Northwest Arkansas, Asylum Springs. I've done a lot of things, I've lived in a lot of places, but ultimately what I do now it falls all under the umbrella of food. So I do food writing. I wrote a book about our food history in the Ozarks called an Ozark Culinary History, and then from there launched a food tour company called Ozark Culinary Tours. We do walking food tours of our downtown areas in northwest Arkansas. I also do restaurant consulting, business consulting, catering, cooking classes, and book talks. And then anything else that might fall under that kind of realm of food, you know, I enjoy writing for magazines. I'm a food editor for a couple of the local magazines, and even back in Colorado, I write for a newspaper out that way. And then I just, yeah, try to have adventures in between all of those things.
SPEAKER_01And do you have time for adventures in between all those things? That's uh that's quite a bit unless you're doing all at once there.
SPEAKER_02Luckily, uh my boss, she lets me off whenever. I mean, she's the hardest boss I've ever worked for, but she does give me time off, and it's important to have a good work-life balance to really enjoy, you know, what you do, you have to take a break from it sometimes. But I I love both of the things I do. I love the adventures that I do in between the working and paid gigs that I have. So yeah, I have time. I probably should sleep more, but I feel that pain as well.
SPEAKER_01I don't sleep near enough. I think I sleep less now than I ever have. Yeah, which is odd. But um, yeah, so all right. So, author, you wrote a book about the food history of Arkansas specifically.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, of the Ozarks. So basically Northwest Arkansas, anywhere the Ozark Mountain uplift is, so it would be the northwest corner. And just specifically Arkansas, my publisher really didn't want me to cover Missouri and Oklahoma. However, the Ozarks do expand into those states as well.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so what is a food history of the Ozarks?
SPEAKER_02So a food history of the Ozarks would be like talking about the food ways and how they've changed. So when you look at early pioneers to present day, you're looking at people, what they food what they farmed, what they found, foraged, etc., and how they made their food waste. Because I I believe that food, well, human beings, we need food. And without um the food waste that have developed, uh, civilization cannot survive. And so it shocks about basically the way that our people have come to be and the cultural influences that we've had on what we what we eat.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So, like uh, like what people like to call southern home cooking, that kind of thing. That's uh sort of the background there.
SPEAKER_02There's some of that, and there's a lot of fish and game because whenever people first settled here, there was, I mean, still is quite the hunting ground, quite the fishing supply. I mean, Arkansas can serve up so many great things on the plate. You don't really have to grow your own food as much here.
SPEAKER_01Fair enough, which is probably good. Arkansas oil is not fun to dig in. Exactly. So, all right, and then and you are a trained chef, right?
SPEAKER_02I am a trained chef, yes. And I've done I'm a trained private chef. So a lot of chefs come off the line, having worked in the restaurant industry for many, many years. For me, I went to culinary school in Maui, came back here, launched the book, and then started doing private cooking classes right away. And from there, I've done a lot of private dinners. So basically, I make my own schedule, I'm my own boss, and hopefully, you know, have a few less burns and cuts on my arms from cooking on the line and just the restaurant industry. But it's still tough being a private chef because you have to self-promote and you have to create your own business.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So I've never heard that distinction between private chef and I guess public chef, and that's the difference of just learning as you go and actually being educated.
SPEAKER_02I think so. I mean, a lot of times you'll have public chefs that don't necessarily have any culinary school background, but if they have on-the-job experience, they can work in any restaurant. It's really just you're creating your own menus, you're not owned by a restaurant, you're basically on your own. So you're taking that risk upon yourself for doing catering and cooking classes and such, but it's very rewarding and you're not cooking the same food every day like you would on a normal restaurant line.
SPEAKER_01Nice. Okay. So what does um where is that taking you? You're uh you went to school in Maui, you said that must have been rough. Oh, yeah. Horrible place to go to school. Uh so where's that taking you? You've gone, you've done the private chef. So where do you take that with you in your business? Outside of, you know, you said you do your private cooking classes and the the food tours, but do you do anything on a broader scale, a larger scale?
SPEAKER_02Sure. I just did a wedding for 150 people uh a couple months ago and the rehearsal dinner the night before. The biggest gig I've taken on was cooking a family reunion for 600 people. Wow. And I was doing the lunch and the breakfast that morning back to back. So it was pretty intense. I am being flown out to Colorado soon to do a wedding gig. Very nice. So that's exciting to have, you know, your travel paid for as a chef. And I, you know, sometimes we'll compete in like cook-offs, that sort of thing. I I got to be, well, I am now the champion of the beef council cook-off for the state of Arkansas. Nice. Yeah, so that was a big deal. Getting to cook um head-to-head on a time-limited kind of situation with another chef who I highly, highly value and uh recognize as one of our more fantastic burger grilling chefs, that sort of thing. So it was a real honor to be a part of those sort of things. Uh, I think uh it's interesting how food has led to so many open doors.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So tell me about the cook-off. What uh you said burgers, is that what you guys competed in?
SPEAKER_02Well, it wasn't a it was a beef cook-off, so we could make whatever we wanted to out of the beef, and I competed against Nate Walls, and he owns secondhand smoke, which is almost like a s a nonprofit that feeds a lot of hungry people in northwest Arkansas through excellent grilling, smoking of meats, that sort of thing. That's kind of his jam. So it was a bit of a heated competition, and he really put up a fight and did a great job. I think I I didn't do burgers. I'm trying to remember what I made. Um, I think I did a Thai dish, actually, or something with the beef. Anyways, afterwards, I got to meet the Texas Women's Cattle Women's Association and they promptly booked some food tours with me. So I've got those coming up this month. That'll be fun.
SPEAKER_03Very good.
SPEAKER_02So it's interesting how one food opportunity leads to another, but ultimately it was my first cook-off in a competition style.
SPEAKER_01I think that would uh that'd be a lot of fun, although I I don't fancy myself a chef in the slightest. So all right. Well, so let's um it well, tell me about anything else. What you said you're doing the culinary tours, so let's talk about those real quick. How those work?
SPEAKER_02They're really great. They're really fun. They're my main baby, my my big the business that I love the most. And so I founded that a couple years ago in 2019, and we do walking food tours of our downtown areas. They last about two and a half hours. I'll talk about all the arts, history, culture of the area intermingled with four food stops, including an adult beverage along the way. The nice thing is you never have to pull out your wallet or wait at a hostess stand or deal with, you know, what to order in a group setting. You know, so many times people do date nights and it's, I don't know, what do you want to do? I don't know, what do you want to do? And so I take away all of those decision-making problems and I make it happen for you. So when we sit down in a restaurant, the food magically arrives like Disney, and in 30 minutes we move to another place. And by the end of it, you will understand not only the town and the culture and the history, but you will have had four food stops in two and a half hours and got to hang out with a chef. And sometimes we'll hang out with other chefs that will come out. They'll step out of the kitchen, have an all-exclusive access like conversation with us about their food and why they do what they do, try off menu items. It's nothing that you could get as a normal diner, and that's the kind of experience I want to give my guests.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's pretty cool. That's uh I it's nice that things like that are around in the area because there's not a whole lot going on in Northwest Arkansas, or at least there didn't used to be. And now there's, you know, these things popping up. So it's nice to see that I should probably jump on one of those one of these times.
SPEAKER_02Love to have you on tour, Steve.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we'll uh we'll uh see if we can. I know uh groups have come along and so we'll uh try to put a group together and do that. I think that'll be fun. Thank you. Um, okay, so any uh what else? You said you're doing some of the business consulting and you're writing. So let's let's let's dig into those a little bit and just share what you're doing and we'll keep going.
SPEAKER_02Sure. So I've done some business consulting with some different restaurants in town, and I can basically just step in like a nicer version of Gordon Ramsay and help a business fix whatever the problem is. It's not always the same problem, right? They may need to do a redo a menu design, like I did at Savoy Tea Company, and created an all-brunch brunch menu with tea pairings and things like that that they will continue to open with future franchises. So that's like a bigger project, and that's a few months. But then sometimes I'll just go in and add a to-go menu to like wooden spoon in gentry or add burritos at airship coffee so that they have something to serve people in addition to their wonderful coffee. My latest project that I worked on was with Odd Soul, which is a bar and restaurant in downtown Springdale. They've quadrupled their business at least by now. I mean, pre-COVID, it was like, how do we figure out to serve more pizzas? They expanded the kitchen, nixed the pool table, added some different drink menu items and delivery. And after that, people know about Odd Soul. Some of it's just marketing, right? Or or staffing. Figuring out the solutions to the problems per restaurant on a case-by-case basis to make them more successful. This time during COVID has been so hard on the restaurant industry. It's my focus to use whatever skills I have to make other people successful, which is why I do the food tours and it's why I restaurant consult.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So I'll just use that as a springboard real quick and we'll we'll veer off a bit. So when you're redesigning those menus, you start from clearly these people are calling you because they feel like, hey, this isn't really working for us and that sort of thing. So what do you think the failure is on those those menus? I mean, what do you think they're missing when you come in and and you where do you start?
SPEAKER_02I think sometimes people, when they're wanting to redesign a menu, they may be doing a menu that's so similar to everyone else. A lot of times you need to have a twist. Even if you have some classic things on, let's say, for example, a pizza restaurant, right? That was odd soul. And okay, we have we we do pizza. Great, and you do wonderful um work with your ingredients using San Marzano tomatoes and yeast and dough from Italy and that sort of thing. So they're very authentic uh pizzas that you can't really find anywhere else. But what are your toppings? Like, what are some other things that you offer? Taking things that are a classic and not making it like everyone else. You need to have a signature item that brings people in. And if you don't have a signature item, then why wouldn't they go somewhere else if they haven't heard of you? So that's what I look at first when I look at a menu redesign. I look at the breakdown of how many items. I also look at is this menu too big? Is it hard for the average diner to make a decision on what to order because it's daunting and it's 12 pages long? We need to trim it down. Because a lot of times with restaurants too, their food costs have a lot to do with what their menu items are. So if you have menu items that only um utilize one ingredient on that one menu item, you're not using it anywhere else. It's unless it's a very popular menu item, it is almost like a black hole for um food shrinkage and loss. And you need to include, you know, you need to create food items that utilize more than one ingredient on multiple items. Otherwise, you just have sort of a loser on your menu that um if people don't order it, you're throwing food away. And so I look at food cost and waste and that sort of thing too. With menus, I'm also going, I'm also looking at how fun it is, how fun is it and how legible is it to read this menu. Do I want to order from this place? Is it um a good time? I think that uh was it damn good pies did a really great job with their menu design. They have really fun menus that you enjoy reading. I it's it's part of the experience. Um, there are some restaurant menus that are not um not something that maybe people in Northwest Arkansas would order. You also have to look at your demographic. You cannot convince people to order a different type of food that they've never had. You've got to kind of ease people in.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02So I think having a few classic ingredients, a few classic menu items as well as some things with twists for the adventurous eaters is a good way to do that. Onyx Coffee Lab does that really well. They have a classic side of their coffee menu and then an adventurous side. And I think that's a really big deal for people that are coming in from the outside as well as people that are from around here that maybe haven't had more than a latte.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you mentioned the uh too big menu. I Cheesecake Factory always comes to mind. Their menu is a novel, and it's I mean, yeah, it's horrible. I mean, I go in there and yeah, I spend 20 minutes just trying to find the right section. Yeah, it's it's an insane. So I agree with you there 100%. Um I think my personal opinion, um, just coming from the restaurant side of things, um, the business side of it, is that I think so many bars, restaurants aren't understanding that what they're selling is not the food, the product is actually the experience. Um and yeah, I think that they don't realize that, you know, I mean, why am I gonna come into your bar and and spend my money when I can go buy a fifth of the same thing I like to drink somewhere else for, you know, half as much? Um, so it's yeah, there's you're selling a reason for people to be in your place. I think that's key.
SPEAKER_02I think that's really key. You're right. And that's something that I deal with sometimes when I deal with staffing issues. I talk about, okay, we've got the menu redesigned, but the next step is are people having a good experience when they walk in? And is there a sort of theme to your restaurant or bar? It cannot be bland or generic. We have so much competition now in Northwest Arkansas in the bar and restaurant industry, even after, even during COVID. I mean, we've had so many restaurants pop up. It's a little bit of a culinary mecca here right now.
SPEAKER_03For sure.
SPEAKER_02And so people can go somewhere else for a burger. They have many options. So what makes your what makes your $15 burger more special than the rest? And also, do people feel comfortable here when they walk in? Do they feel like you know their name? Do they feel welcome?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Where did your trajectory, if you will, begin? Um, and let's start, you know, sort of hitting the what you feel is your failures, your business failures. Um, if there's personal failures you want to talk about, we can do that. Um, any of those things. Okay. Let's uh start back at the beginning. What what got you going toward where you are?
SPEAKER_02Sure. So after college, which I did complete, so did not fail that. Um, you know, I I really had felt that it would be necessary for me to continue to help people. I just didn't want to go all the way in, you know, graduate school or get a psych degree um or a doctorate in it. I wouldn't say that that was a failure at all because I think I was assessing what would be best for my personality and would I take clients' problems home with me if I was ever a counselor or something like that. But I remember joining the Peace Corps, and I would say that was a triumph, but also there were some failure aspects of that. Having to leave the Peace Corps before my tenure was up was something that I a decision I had to make. I wasn't technically very safe there as a woman. And so leaving the Peace Corps was a hard thing to let go of because it was the plan for my life, at least for the next two and a half years, that I would figure out what I wanted to do, what was the trajectory that I wanted to take with my life, how would I continue to help people? And I had to quickly pivot. Um I broke my hand, I fell in a waterfall where we washed our clothes, but ultimately I left because of safety issues for my health as well. And that was a reopening of my eyes to the idealism that I had brought with me from college. You know, I went to Hendrix College in Conway and great liberal arts school, loved it. But really, I, you know, you leave there thinking, I can do anything, I can save the world, right? But really, when you get into things like the Peace Corps, which that is sort of the idea of the Peace Corps in a generic, like, you know, broadband stereotype, you're out there to save or to help part of the world that maybe could use a little extra help, a little hand. That's a third world country. And the idea of the Peace Corps is that you go over there and you create the solutions that they need that that are sustainable, sort of a teach a man to fish concept versus giving him the fish, right?
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02Um, which is a great thing. Uh it can even change the stereotype that Americans typically have when they go to third world countries, right? We're not just going over there and handing you things. We want, we want to create the solution or help you find the solution within your own, um, within your own set of resources. But I didn't get to finish that because I had to leave. And that was a that was probably my first, like what I would say my first almost like a failing feeling. Now I've done something with that, and I think that's what failure does is it gives you the opportunity, it makes or breaks you, right? It gives you the opportunity to right that wrong or redeem it. And I think I've done that, but I remember for the longest time it was kind of a crash to come back to America, having not completed my Peace Corps time, knowing that I didn't create all the solutions I had hoped for for these people in Dominica and Eastern Caribbean where I was located, and then figuring out what to do next, right? So I remember jumping on a cruise ship with a friend just to kind of rethink everything. I went on a family vacation and I fell in love with the art world, and that was my next foray or adventure into how will I travel the world and help people. And I ended up moving to Maui, and that's how I got out there selling fine art for a gallery and paid off all my student loans. So I took something that was a failure, so to speak, like having to leave the Peace Corps, which was the right decision because I don't know if I would still be alive here today if I had stayed, um, and then turning that into something else. And that changed my career path completely.
SPEAKER_01Um yeah, I understand the uh that sense of um at least wanting to have completed it, you know, whether or not, you know, especially in this, maybe it makes it, I suppose for me it might make it less of a failure feeling because I was forced, you know, in your situation, like you said, you had to do that. Um, but at the same time it still, it still hangs back there, you know. Like everyone would complete that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, exactly. And nobody made me leave. There were a lot of Peace Corps volunteers that you could tell it had similar circumstances or felt unsafe as women and were just sticking it out.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_02So it still was my decision. It's just that, you know, I was there as an HIV and AIDS volunteer to, I mean, teach people how the disease spread. That was my focus for what my assignment was. And um, so if something had happened to me, then I I really didn't want to risk getting that disease. And that was the peril that most women faced in the Caribbean. Women are not typically in in that particular um country of Dominica, not really treated with respect. And a lot of things happen to women that go unsaid. And uh, that was just a little bit too much of a risk factor for me to take. And so yeah, no one made me leave, but I had to make that hard call after, you know, interviewing and training and getting all the shots. Oh my gosh, walking test lab right here. I can't even give blood because of all the things that they shot me up with before I went to the Peace Corps just to make sure that I would be protected from all kinds of viruses. It's the tropics, you know.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_02Anything can happen.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no doubt. It's uh wow. Um, yeah, you know, and to that point it makes me think of, and I don't want to put too fine a point on it or get super political, but I do feel like, and apparently it's the world over, um, not just in this great nation of America, but uh it feels like from an outside perspective, because I'm not a woman, but what I see, it appears that things a lot of times do tend to be a little bit more difficult for for females just because of the situations of um you've got uh crimes and violence and things like that. But then even um the glass ceiling, I think, does still exist. We won't talk about it, but it's there. I mean, it's there. Um so I mean, share with us your your your perspective on that. How do you feel? Do you feel that struggle was there for you, that that made it more difficult, or do you just feel like you had normal challenges?
SPEAKER_02I don't I don't know that I had really normal challenges because I put myself in positions where I'm pushing myself further than maybe your average average, you know, nine to five person would work for a regular job, right? And so I I'm not afraid to talk about the glass ceiling. It's totally there and it's still there. And I'm I'm not a feminist at all. I really prefer, you know, traditional gender roles and such. But in the work, in the work environment, when I worked for other people, before I decided, okay, I'm gonna pull the trigger, I'm gonna become an entrepreneur. I've known this in the back of my mind that I've wanted to do this for so long, just been a little bit afraid. Um, which, you know, for good reason, right? I mean, if I'm supporting myself, et cetera, I want to make sure that I'm gonna make it. I I'm I'm not a fan of failure, to be honest. And I don't, I, you know, I don't, I don't want to fail. I don't want to be living paycheck to paycheck or, you know, living in a trailer or whatever, which has never been the case for me. I am quite the planner and I always have a lot of eggs in different baskets to um earn money. You know, I'm this COVID thing didn't really catch me unawares, you know, if that makes sense. I was able to pivot really quickly. But um I remember working for other people so many times I I had great work environments and places and with great causes to work behind. But depending upon who I was working for, I felt like I had a ceiling that I wasn't able to overcome only because there were limitations put on me, not necessarily because I was a woman, but maybe because that was beyond the job description. And um I've always been kind of a go-getter and I pushed myself really hard. And I felt like my wings were clipped so many times in different, different jobs I've had over, you know, over the years since I've been working, which has been, gosh, I don't know, 20 years at least. And so that was ultimately the decision that I had to make uh that I was willing to take the risk of failure and falling flat on my face and open my own businesses rather than continuing to see myself not achieving my potential.
SPEAKER_01Sure.
SPEAKER_02Which that just kills me more.
SPEAKER_01You know, I I think that's a big thing is that well, I know for my life, um, fear has been a huge piece of what's the that fear of failure. I've always been very risk averse. Um, and you know, it's I think that is something that holds a lot of us back, a lot of people back. Um, it's held me back for a long time. And even even starting this podcast, you know, for me, I was just like, okay, I'm gonna get like three people that are gonna even care about this, you know? And maybe they won't even care. Like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. I clicked play once. Um, so you know, and there was a bit of a risk because I I talked about doing something like this for a long time, um, but never did pull the trigger because I was like, ah, it's gonna suck. So failure, yeah. I mean, it it the the the thought of falling flat, like you said, and just falling apart, I think that's what holds people back. Um, and the sort of weird irony there is that the greater risk is not taking the risk. Um just because you just, you know, you don't know what you could have had. So yeah, I I think that failure is uh that's why I started the podcast about failure. I think it's such an intriguing thing and I think it's more useful than than success uh in terms of you know learning things and growing moving forward.
SPEAKER_02So that makes sense.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Um okay, so let's get psychological uh if we can for a moment here, because I have my I have my armchair degree. My friend and first guest Jeremiah will be quite incensed that I called myself a psychologist.
SPEAKER_02And I only have a bachelor's in it, so it's big deal.
SPEAKER_01I I I only have a life degree in it, and it doesn't earn me much because I'm probably more foolish than I'd like to admit. Um so follow and we'll go back, we'll do the we'll do the child thing, you know, go back to touch on that. Do you feel like anything in your childhood coming up, your upbringing, um, where you grew up, how you grew up, all that stuff? Um, do you feel like any of that had any sort of impact on your directions, where you started, or even where you where you switched?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I definitely do. I am a business owner and I remember going into college. I originally had thought I would be a business major, and I was talked out of it by a chemistry professor that I interviewed with at Hendrix, which I thought was funny. Ultimately, though, I ended up getting a psych degree and still being a business owner. So here we are. But I remember growing up, I think what's really kept me from being being an entrepreneur till, in my opinion, later in my life than I had planned is that I watched growing up my dad, who was an entrepreneur of sorts, you know, have a few things that didn't work out. And that really left me a little bit more gun shy than than usual. One of my most poignant memories is when we auctioned off the um the golf course growing up. And it was my dad's dream, you know, and uh it just didn't work out. It was a the wrong place, wrong time kind of thing. But, you know, when I was a kid, I was what, 15? You know, it's my first job working at my dad's pro shop. But I remember at some point we had, you know, my dad had to make the decision to work for someone else again, give up the business. And I remember the auctioneer auctioning off everything, you know, everything that we had in the golf shop, all the golf clubs, the carts that we owned, you know, the concession points of things and selling it for a song. And it broke my heart. And I, you know, I I could barely even look over at my dad because I just knew he probably was tearing up and trying to hold it together. You know, we all have things that we try and maybe they don't work out. But for us, it was our family livelihood, you know? And so watching, you know, sort of a business fail in front of my face made me very cautious about my natural propensity to be a business owner. And I fought it for a while because I thought, well, what if it, what if I, you know, end up having to have a business and auction it off? But I think through the process of watching the failure, I learned all the things that had gone wrong to create that situation. And some of those were out of his control and some of them were in his control. And as a kid, I remember watching a few things, like I took a mental note. Okay, I don't want to have a business with overhead. My dad had so much overhead with the pro shop, and that's one of the things that killed him, and that's what got auctioned off at the end. You know, when you invest so much in overhead and then you're not selling it, then you've got a lot of your money tied up.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02And so I the business I have purposely has no overhead for that reason. I've had a few business or banks try to give me loans, and I'm like, I really don't need a loan. I don't owe any money on my business. I don't have any debt at all. I've I've been, you know, scarred, but in a positive way by the mistakes that I saw made growing up, that I'm very anti-borrowing money or having debt and that sort of thing. So I immediately paid off my student loans from college right away. I have no bet debt with my business and I run a very tight ship and I have no overhead whatsoever besides my, well, I don't know if you would count it as overhead. I have like three t-shirts that I wear and a speaker box. Nice my website. That's it.
SPEAKER_01I think that's, you know, from what I've seen too, is I've watched um my dad, you know, with his with his landscape design business that he's, you know, actually years ago, he had a whole full-fledged landscaping company. Um, and of course, you know, I was a kid, then I I don't know, you know, what went wrong with all of that and why that was sold out. But, you know, at some point he had to liquidate that. And he just took um that to his house and did it out of his house is for landscape designs. And I actually worked with him for years on that. Yeah, that's it's interesting to me um to see how for year all the years and the time that he's put into that, and that's not ever been never really took off. I think a big my personal opinion on that, um, not being a business consultant is that I think that my dad just did not value himself and his work enough. Um, he, you know, would back off on he'd charge X amount and people would say, oh, that seemed like a lot. And you, oh, okay, okay, cut price, you know. So it just that's I think a big thing, maybe not understanding his own value and knowing that, hey, you know, you you put out good designs, you should be charging for these. People should be paying for this. And I think that's a big key, is that, you know, maybe not understanding where that value is and you know, not understanding the things that you don't actually need to have in your business, like overhead. It's uh, I think that'd be a it's good. I would love to say I don't have overhead necessarily. Um, I do have equipment, but you know, that's a one-time purchase usually, so that's not bad. Um, that piece of I think understanding maybe people fail there because they don't know who they are and they don't really know what they're bringing. So maybe that's a good piece of, you know, where you understand what you're good at and what you like to do and how that drove you to food in Maui. Um, you know, that piece, I mean, who doesn't love food, right? So yeah, maybe there's that passage, the passion is there and you're able to sense that value in yourself and know what that is.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think it's a learning process because, you know, I remember I think you're right about businesses, especially when you're charging people for your time, right? Which is a lot of what I do. I have to put a price on it, I have to put a value on it. I remember when I first started, you know, when I got back from Maui, I I was a little bit gun shy about maybe teaching cooking classes. I didn't feel like I had the credentials that other chefs do that have been cooking on the line for 10 years. And um, I had to realize my value as I went along, but I remember the first few catering gigs and cooking classes I taught, I way undercharged for what I did. True. Because I didn't realize that my time had a had an extreme value. I paid out of pocket for culinary school probably more than anyone else at my school besides one other out-of-state kid. I mean, you know, in Hawaii, it's expensive. It's not just expensive to go to school, it's expensive to live there, have the lifestyle, even for a year. I was able to blitz through culinary school in one year versus two because I was advanced, but I still had to pay out-of-state tuition. And that really added up, of course. And I remember coming back going, well, you know, I really should be paying for my education with every time I, you know, teach a cooking class or a restaurant consult or whatever, because I paid money, good money, for the expertise I have, and that has a value. And I think realizing your value as a person is a learning experience over time. When other people start to put a value on it, and you can look at other people doing similar fields, you can kind of figure out, okay, this is what I should be charging. Now, not everybody's gonna buy into it, like your dad's landscaping business or my dad's golf business. Not everybody's gonna pay 30 bucks for green's fees to go play golf, and not everybody's gonna pay hundreds of dollars to have their house or their their yard relandscaped. But those that do know the worth and the value, you can't get everybody. And I think that's a part of a that's part of the lesson I had to learn with cooking. And I'm still learning. There are business, there are clients that I still have to turn down who think I may be too expensive to teach their kids how to bake. But I cannot do it for less than $100. I just can't. Sure. Because that's not a good value for my time. And yes, maybe the ingredients themselves don't cost that much, but that, but the time does. And so you have to find the right clients, the right people that believe in you and your business. And if you do a job well, as they say, you never have to work a day in your life. If you do it well, those that recognize good quality will find you.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_02And I'm starting to see that now, but it's taken two years, at least with my culinary tours business, for people to start picking it up on Google. There are still people that don't want to pay $65 per person a tour. Sure. And for them, there's something else that they can do for that price for a lesser price. I just can't go lower than that.
SPEAKER_01I think you said that well, is that there there is value in your time. And I think that's probably a big, like for me, you know, when I tried to do a photography business um a few years back. And uh I think, I mean, deep down, I think really, I didn't want to be a photographer as a career. I think I just enjoyed it at something I found that I was good at. But I didn't really, I don't think I really wanted to put in what it took to make that a business. But the big thing for me was, man, you know, I think in my head, okay, I go to this place to take a, you know, get photos done. And this is they charge a sitting fee, and then they charge this, and then you get a package. And if you want more, you pay extra. And I thought, man, that's just that's so much. So I just came up with a price for my time. You know, it takes a this much time to do a decent photo shoot, and then it takes this much time to edit all those photos. And so I, you know, did that and I had to think, you know, it was difficult to put a price on my time, like you said, just because man, if I charge somebody, you know, a hundred bucks an hour, are they gonna like, oh my gosh, I'm I could go here to JCPenney and I can get family photos for 80 bucks. Um, yeah, you can. You can do that. Exactly. So, you know, another thing that comes to mind is um, so I'm a I like tattoos, I'm I'm big into tattoos, and my the guy that does all my work, he charges quite a bit of money. He's very expensive. Um, and he has people, he's telling me the last time I saw him that he had somebody come in and want this big piece done. And he's actually since this happened, has decided that he will not do big pieces like this, like big full sleeves and things like that for anybody that's uh I don't, I think he just does teenagers. He won't do that with teenagers anymore because this kid came in, uh, probably 17 years old, I think is what he said. Um, and her mom, you know, is like, yeah, yeah, I'll sign off on it. Um, and got partway into it, but didn't have the money to finish. But then they were really upset because, you know, like, oh, it's this, you know, he just and he told him it's like, this is expensive and it's my time, you know, and everything else, and you know, the ink and the equipment, everything. So yeah, people don't get it. They, you know, when he does large pieces like that, he's he gets big deposits because it's expensive. And I think people don't understand. They they think, oh, that doesn't make any sense. Why would I pay that much for that? And and yeah, you gotta you're asking a professional to do something. I mean, attorneys get 200 bucks an hour or whatever it is, and therapists get X amount, you know, it it's there's a reason for it. And I think it's hard to process that sometimes. Even for me, I think I mean, I'm gonna have an attorney, I'm like, oh geez, man, you know, but he's got a lot of student loans, probably still probably does, exactly.
SPEAKER_02And all the accreditations and everything, you know, and at the end of the day, he has to be competitive with other attorneys. So you have to look at kind of the market. At the end of the day, if you haven't spent the money or the time to get the expertise, you have to pay for it, right? I feel that way every time I get my car service. But I'm so thankful that those guys will work on my car. I can't go anywhere from point A to point B without them. And I certainly am happy, I'm more than happy to pay the $65 an hour or more that mechanics make now because they have an expertise that I don't have and may never have. I mean, I would say car mechanics would be a kryptonite situation for me, you know. And uh yeah, I think at the end of the day, yeah, you have to put a value on your time because if you don't, somebody else will.
SPEAKER_03For sure.
SPEAKER_02And, you know, there are there are always going to be people out there that are willing to pay for good quality work and you just have to find them.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely. Speaking of uh mechanics, I mean, hell, I don't even like change my own oil. Um, of course I now I can't, but well, I guess I could, but anyway, I mean Holly has uh, she has a we've got an extra vehicle or older truck, and I've changed it on that, I think, twice. And nice. I'm just like, you know what? I don't, it doesn't make me feel like less of a man. I'm gonna pay 50 bucks to have somebody else do it. I just don't want to do it.
SPEAKER_02I totally get it. The inconvenience factor, right?
SPEAKER_01And the mess and everything.
SPEAKER_02The mess, yeah. Where do you dump the oil when you're done?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So there's a lot of things you pay for whenever you're paying for a service that go unnoticed. I mean, when you when you go to a restaurant, right, you you're you're tipping the waiter or the waitress and you're paying the restaurant more for the same amount, say the same food that you could possibly make at home for half the cost. But you're also paying for the cooks and all the people behind the scenes that you never see that are washing your dishes for you, or the rental for the space that you're sitting in, the table you're sitting in, there's a rent to be paid for that restaurant. So there's just so many things that we easily take for granted. And if we understood more about what goes behind the scenes for every person, we could maybe appreciate more and be willing to compensate them fairly.
SPEAKER_01For sure. My I agree 100%. Yeah, that I think that's the biggest thing that people, like you said, you you nailed it, people just don't understand what really goes in behind the scenes of things. You know, it's even if you, oh yeah, I used to be a server, yeah, okay. You know, it's uh being a server, running a restaurant, being a chef, all those things that, you know, the the people that don't want to pay the money to have you come teach their kid to cook. Well, you know, I mean, there's a lot that goes into that that they don't understand. That's you know, like you said, mostly I guess it would be your time, like you said. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02And I think I think you're right, like Steve, and I think that's why your podcast is so valuable that people will hopefully be, you know, illuminated to the under, you know, sort of the underbelly, uh the positives and negatives of what it is for each person and what they do, whether they, you know, obviously you're probably interviewing people that do think that you you think do things well, but finding out the backstory so people can understand better what's going into everything they purchase or experience in their everyday life that's outside of their common scope.
SPEAKER_01And so I'm gonna r go back to um you talked about going to the Peace Corps, and of course, I think one of the from in my personal opinion, one of the greatest failures that anybody has in their life is never leaving home and always being in their bubble.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um, if you born raised in Arkansas and never left Arkansas, you know, it's just or wherever you're from, I think that's just I think it's detrimental to to any kind of development and understanding. So how do you feel your travels uh with with uh the Peace Corps and going to Maui and all that? I mean, I realize that's US, but still, you know, it's traveling, it's getting out of, I'm sure Maui is different from Arkansas. I mean not just the climate, you know. So um, you know, so yeah, I mean, how how do you feel like those things, you know, affected you? And then um maybe how do you imagine your life might have gone if you'd never left Conway or whatever?
SPEAKER_02That's good, yeah. So I'm wearing a shirt right now that your viewers can't or your listeners can't see, but it says free your mind. And I really do believe in in that a lot. And it's not like a reggae phrase or anything rastafarian, it's just a common concept that you need to open up your mind to possibilities and new ideas. Now, sometimes for some people, leaving their county is a big deal for them, right? Yesterday I went skydiving, I literally did. It's on my list. It was so fun over in uh Springfield. And you know, at the end of the day, you're you step out onto the edge of the wing of the plane and then you just kind of go. And there's no looking back, and you can't turn around, but you're better for doing it. There, I remember whenever I was applying to the Peace Corps, I had to fill out very extensive paperwork and an application to even be considered. And it's a hot, I mean, a lot of people want to be in the Peace Corps, right? It's very hard to get into. But the quote I put at the top was one by some unknown writer, and it was, I'm not the same having seen the moonshine on the other side of the world. And I feel that way. Now, for me, the other side of the world literally means the other side of the world. Because for me, I, you know, growing up, I always wanted to be Indiana Jones and travel and have adventures. And that's so there's nothing that's out of my scope. But for some folks, yeah, like leaving Benton County or going to another state would be a huge step. And I applaud any of those steps. You don't have to travel the world to have your mind opened or to see new things or to be a better person in terms of growth and development, like you're talking about. But your mind does grow by being exposed to other cultures and experiences and foods and music and all of these things outside of your scope. Once in a while, you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone. And that bubble may be small and it may be huge, like mine, where it takes a lot to push me out of my bubble. Skydiving, that did it, you know, or living in Greece for a while as a travel agent in the basement of a smoky travel agency. That pushed me out of my bubble, you know? But everybody has a different limitation or boundary on what that bubble is. But I encourage people to push that because only through pushing that can we grow. If you think about a little kid learning to walk, you know, you have to crawl before you learn to walk. But if kids don't aren't encouraged to push themselves out of their comfort zone, they may be impaired the rest of their life. And I think that's a physical limitation. But when I look at emotional and mental limitations, psychological limitations, those come into play when we put boundaries on ourselves or we allow other people to put personal boundaries on ourselves. I think each person must know themselves well and take the time to do that now versus later. And now can be, I mean, if you're listening and you're 65, now is now, right?
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_02Your your first, the best time to do it was maybe in your set when you were 17. The second best time is now. The second best time is always now because we, as long as you're breathing air, you can still change. You can still improve, you can still make yourself better, but it takes pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. I when I think about, I mean, this is an age-old little cliche, but the definition of insanity is doing the things we've always done the same way we've always done them. And so when I look at people that continually just all they want to do is go home and watch TV and never explore and never take a weekend off or never go somewhere or try something new and they always order the same items at the restaurant. I understand why they do that. We all have the desire to be comfortable in our own skin and you know, um, can teach an old dog new tricks, but and all of those kind of things. But I I feel bad for those people because they're missing out on all the experiences that they may enjoy. And what's the worst thing that's like that can happen?
SPEAKER_03We fail. Right.
SPEAKER_02Right?
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02How bad can failure really be? If we're still alive and we're still able to enjoy this life, then whatever failures we have have kind of shaped who we are. My favorite trees, like this table we're sitting in front of, are all burled and knotted. And and the reason they have the burls and knots is because they had to make a new way to grow. If we don't find new ways to grow, we just don't leave very interesting lives. And at the end of your life, you may realize you only had one.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Make the best of it.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. I mean, we do only live once, and if you do it right, once is really all we need anyway. So true. But you know, um, you you mentioned uh the TV, and I uh uh a while back, I I don't recall where I if I read this or heard this, um, possibly in a different podcast, but I don't remember the exact story how it goes. But at some point there was a conversation with an executive with the company uh uh that makes Lamborghinis. Um, and uh I don't know if he was the CEO or if he was a business VP or what he was, but he was up there and somebody, maybe as a marketing professional, um, given the story, somebody had asked him, Hey, you know, you guys don't ever, you don't, you know, everybody advertises on TV, whatnot. You guys are on TV. And uh the response was, yeah, the people that buy Lamborghinis don't watch TV.
SPEAKER_02Fair.
SPEAKER_01When I heard that, I thought, gosh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Because if you can afford a half million dollar car, you probably didn't sit around watching TV all day long. Yeah. Unless you're a trust fund baby or something like that, and you just got traploads of money and you know, you don't know what to do with yourself, so you just sit around watching TV. I don't know. But I just that that kind of that stuck out in my mind um just because yeah, I mean, I think that's a it's a brilliant statement in the sense that, you know, it's uh they don't waste their time with things that take away from the productivity. Um, and and probably those people just keep making money, who knows?
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And sometimes even that productivity may not always be fueled into a career, it can be fueled into making yourself better, right? So, you know, using your free time, you know, obviously you can't work all the time, but using your free time to improve your life.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02And I think unless you're a TV producer doing research, TV really doesn't necessarily help anyone. Sure. You know, I I can watch like BBC Earth, maybe, and learn a few things, but at the end of the day, you our our time here on Earth is so short.
SPEAKER_03Oh, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And we really don't know. And I mean, I don't know if I'll be alive tomorrow. I didn't know if I would be alive for this podcast. I mean, I was jumping out of a plane yesterday going, well, I guess if I go splat on the concrete, I've lived a good life.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it'll be a short episode. So yeah, and I I will say in defense of those that do watch TV, I have my shows. I won't pretend like I know. Sure, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02I mean, I think it's one thing to be it to be a recreation thing, but for it to be a regular routine and habit that shows you, I mean, look at the amount of time, whatever that habit may be, whether it's TV or something else, if you're letting something suck away your time in your life that isn't benefiting you, you don't need it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think that's uh, you know, there's a lot of things that I've and I don't know if it's my old age or uh just, you know, uh being tired of the time that I have wasted on a lot of different things in my life, I've come to the place where I'm I'm beginning to look at everything I do and try to assess it. Um my therapist, he's I love the guy because he's he's very direct, he's very to the point. Uh, and one of his one of the things he likes to say that is has he seemed to repeat to me a lot, which probably means I'm just a slow learner. But um, he always say, What do you want? What are you doing? And how's it working for you?
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01Uh, and so I began to realize that, okay, so here's what I want, and you know, here's what I'm doing. And, you know, back to the point of the photographer thing. Um, I don't know if you're familiar with Mark Manson, uh, absolutely one of my favorite authors, hands on. He's got great stuff. Nice. Um, one of the things that he says is that the problem that we have as people is that we think we want something, but we don't really want it when you look at it. Like he said when he was a teenager, he wanted to be a rock star. But what he wanted was everything that was cool that came with being a rock star, the shows and the groupies and the whatever else that comes with it. The girls. Sure. Right. And the fame and the fortune, all those things. But he didn't want to put in the time. So then you look at people who are, you know, Michael Jordan or rock stars or whatever, the athletes and the musicians and the celebrities, these are the people that were willing to do what it took to get there, you know. Um, and that's the thing, I think that's how you differentiate. Like, I didn't really want to be a photographer, clearly, because I wanted to do the pictures and I wanted to produce the cool content, but you and I didn't mind the effort that went into it. I just, it was the business side of things that I wasn't interested in really working on and pushing because I just enjoyed the thing. So it's, you know, like my friend Brian says, the things that we do that don't pay us are just hobbies.
SPEAKER_03That's right.
SPEAKER_01And, you know, and that that's the reality, is I realized that I didn't clear clearly I didn't want that that badly. Uh, and so, you know, putting that together, I realize if if I really want something and I say that's what I want, what am I doing about that? So, you know, you said, you know, free your mind. And I agree with that a hundred percent. I think that one of the biggest problems we have, especially, I mean, just as humans, I want to say in America, but one of the things we have is that we don't open our minds up to things and we get, and it's a human thing. Our brains, we just we're we're we get stuck in places. We're all susceptible to these uh, you know, cognitive biases that we are just convinced of something and we can't change our minds. And I I think that's um I think pushing yourself to get out of your comfort zone is a big one. I wish people would travel. I wish people, even like you said, a county to county, state to state, whatever it is, uh, because I mean it's different in New York than it is in Arkansas, and it's different in Florida than it is in, you know, Arizona, whatever. So move around and get out of that bubble, that comfort zone. Uh, but understanding what you actually want and what it takes to get there. Because if what you want doesn't align with what you're doing, you have a misalignment and it's you got to sit down and re-evaluate. Is that something you actually want? Because what you're doing isn't getting you there. So either you don't really want it or you just don't understand what to do. And so you gotta make that switch. And I think to the failure's point, that falls back on people not knowing what their values are. Because I always say not knowing who you are, but I think if you don't know what you value and what's important to you, that's where you end up.
SPEAKER_02I think you're right. And also like looking at what you value and like what you said, looking at the positives and the negatives and being realistic about it. You can't just look, you know, obviously you can't just look at something from a bird's eye view. You actually need to dig in and take the time to do the research. I think the difference between success and failure, a lot of times, at least in the business world, can be intentionality. And intentionality falls in line with um doing the research it takes to figure out how a business can be successful, how a career can be successful. And I think that can extrapolate to personal relationships and the way that you live your life and what you do with your free time. All of those things take intentionality, knowing that you have one life and looking at, okay, how does this benefit me? How does it not? Is it worth it? And making that almost like cost-benefit analysis, right? And I think people don't take the time to do that. It's important that we're not lazy with our own lives. Because if we do, then our lives will be over and we won't, I don't think we'll be improved or the better for it. I think it's it's great to take a break once in a while and relax. But at the end of the day, you have to to almost um, you have to almost take control of your own life and figure out what you want and that what you're willing to go through to get it. And I think looking at other people that are doing something similar is a good uh platform to start the learning process. You know, surround yourself with people that are good influences, people that are doing things that you admire. And maybe they're not doing the same career or they're not having the same relationship that you do, but they're people that you look up to. I think surrounding yourself with positive people that, you know, seem to embody the qualities that you want to achieve, that's a that's a great first step.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_02Right. I mean, I'm sure that Michael Jordan didn't become a great basketball player taking lessons from Joe Schmo down the block.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_02I'm sure he's like trying to spend as much time as he can working on his game and being around other people that that can shoot and dribble well.
SPEAKER_01Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02Maybe knowing the qualities that you bring to life. I remember, you know, I was sort of like a little clueless right after college. What do I want to do with my life? I know what I enjoy, but what would I actually be good at? And taking personality tests was really helpful for me. That gave me sort of job ideas and job descriptions and then using those as jumping off points. And I've since, you know, looked back at that old personality sheet for an ENFJ like myself. I don't know if you've done the Myers Briggs, but I've pretty much done a lot of those jobs. Yeah. And that makes sense. It's something I naturally gravitate towards. So I think it's good to push yourself, but you should also work within your strengths when it comes to career choices.
SPEAKER_01For sure. And I, you know, it's um, I think values, of course, can I think they can adjust over time. You know, you know, you might value something one day and you know, or in a year later you might kind of adjust on that. But I I think knowing who you are is is a really is huge. And you said uh you got to take control of your life and digging down and knowing, you know, what you want and where you're going, um taking control of that. I think that's key because I think that I don't like the term find your purpose that people like to say, you know, oh well, do this, but you know, read this, but whatever. What do you think your purpose is? I don't think that purpose is something that's just you know out there in the universe waiting for us to open open the right door. I I think from for me, I think we define our purposes, you know, we define that and what we want to do with ourselves. And that may change, you know, for example, yourself even. I don't know that your purpose in in general has changed, perhaps, but you've done some different things. They all seem to be kind of being the same world, but you've done different things with, you know, being a chef and then you doing the food tours and then doing the consulting and writing a book, different things in the same world. So your purpose may not have changed, I guess, in in in the sense of it. But I think that you, you know, I think you found that. You you created that for yourself when you whatever it was that drove you from Peace Corps to Maui to do the uh art selling and all that pushed you into chef school. Um so whatever it was that you found in that point, somewhere along the way, you realized, hey, here's something, and you created that that purpose for yourself and pushed yourself into that. So I think that's big uh for me anyway, my opinion there. Uh exactly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I totally agree. I think finding your purpose is huge for me. My faith has been a big part of finding my purpose. Like I feel like, you know, God's opened a lot of doors to what I do, you know. And I feel like that's been a big part of it. But also just trying to figure out how can I be the best at what I naturally maybe am already kind of good at. And also using all of these different paths, like you mentioned, Steve, that how can I kind of meld those into one thing that's very unique to me that specifically deals with my skill set and all my background and experiences. And that's a very risky move to make, right? To go, well, I'm just gonna create a career for myself. Since I can't find one that just fits me perfectly, I'm just gonna make my own. But I think that's a really good way to be. And if people more people can do that, I always loved, you know, those choose your own adventure books growing up. And and I remember even some friends in college would choose their own, would create their own major. And by the time I finished college, I'm like, dang it, I should have done that. That would have been great. Because I would combine all the theater classes that I took in abundance with the psychology and then some of the weird, unusual, uh, almost like liberal arts interests that I had as well. I think at the end of the day, we all are uniquely designed. And like you said, the purpose may not be floating out there, but I think intrinsically in all of us, we have natural skill set and also propensities that can lead us towards ultimately achieving a purpose that already kind of exists in all of us. We just have to find it. But part of finding what we want to do is self-discovery.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And self-discovery is something that many people are not willing to undertake because it's scary, because it's unknown. I mean, if you don't have the ability to leave your, you know, the job that maybe you hate or travel because you've got a lot of kids and you can't, you know, bounce over to the next county even to go on a little weekend getaway. You can always take 15 minutes while you're driving the car to work or sitting alone after the kids go to bed to self-discover and push yourself out of your own internal comfort zone and bubble. Sure. And that's a good place to start. I think people, once they start to, you know, reduce themselves to kind of like, okay, let's get to know me for the first time. Let's think about what I really love and start to make a list of things I've always wanted to do in life or what I've always wanted out of life. And, you know, no holds barred, nobody's judging you, nobody's telling you this is the right or wrong answer. That might be the first step for a lot of folks to start pushing themselves out of their bubble. Start inside and work outside.
SPEAKER_01I think you're absolutely right. Self-discovery is a is a critical piece. Um, I know for myself it's not been, I don't know if I want to say it's not been fun because sometimes it is fun to learn something. I mean, I love learning new things.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_01I don't love learning the places where I suck. Sure.
SPEAKER_03So I get that.
SPEAKER_01Um but uh yeah, I mean, you know, again, uh going back to to Mark Manson again, that that discovery of understanding who you are and your values, and then I like the way he says rather than say I want to be better today than I was yesterday, he says, I want to suck a little bit less. Because I feel like, or you know, and I agree with him, I guess his the way he put this, um, is that when we say I want to be better, the implication is that there was something wrong with what we did before. And there may not have been. I mean, you could improve on it perhaps, right? Maybe it is better than it was per se, but I feel like it's nicer anyway. It's a little more positive spin, if you will, to say I want to suck a little bit less. You know, I want to be because I mean we do want to be better, right? But um, that self-discovery thing is is big. Uh, I spent, I think, the majority of my life figuring out what I'm doing wrong. I don't know if I found the right way yet, but I'm getting there maybe. Maybe I'm close.
SPEAKER_02I think even like even being on the track in general, I mean, just being on the path is huge because so many people are afraid to even set fit. But how do you, well, how do you eat an elephant or how do you travel or how do you do anything? It begins um what every journey, Lau Suzu said, every journey begins with a single step. Um, and so you have to be willing to take the step. Yesterday I took a step out of the airplane. Now here's the thing like once I took the step, I was like, okay, I know that the guy that I'm tandem jumping with is gonna, he's told me he's already gotta, he's gotta push me over. So I knew that I wasn't taking the jump, but I was taking the step. And all I require is one step. And I'm the same thing has happened with my faith. I feel like so many times I'm just asked to take one step of trust and obedience into the unknown. And that's scary. I mean, when I think about that journey, I think about crossing this river with kind of, you know, rapids and one rock rises up, sort of like out of labyrinth, if you've seen that old David Bowie movie. You know, so like whenever she has to take a trust step, right, to cross the murky swamp and that sort of thing, just one rock rises and she has to walk to that one step and wait for the next one to come. But she knows that it will, or else she wouldn't have taken the first step.
SPEAKER_03Sure.
SPEAKER_02Same thing with Indiana Jones and uh, what is it, the Raiders of the Lost Ark, or no, The Last Crusade. You know, he has to go find his dad, who's Sean Connery in a cave somewhere, and he's going to have to take that step over the edge of the cliff. When he steps through, there's a whole invisible path that kind of unveils itself. And so those kind of things are part of this self-discovery or pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone. It is not going to be an easy journey, but it's totally worth it.
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. I don't think the uh I don't think the destination is really the key. I think the the journey is the key. Uh because once you it's like a goals, you know, once you accomplish a goal, then it's just like, okay, so what's next? You know, you make another goal. So really the goals aren't the key. The the it's the process of getting to where you can accomplish that goal. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02So and and also, like you said, I mean, the the theme of your podcast is failure. And I think knowing our failures and ways that we have hangups or ways that we've gone wrong in the past can teach us how to do something differently this time. We have to learn from our mistakes, and they are great lessons and they are great teachers. And I'm very grateful for every failure or mistake that I've made because it's helped me to become a better person. I know it's very cliche to say, but I really have learned from it. You know, the the folks that won't get out of the bubble are they're probably still sitting in some failures that they just think they can't overcome. But the prison doors are wide open and we're the only ones that are locking up our shackles. I think that's something that we have to realize that we have to be willing to trust that our failures and our past mistakes don't define us, but they help us to become the person we're meant to be if we're they're used correctly.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, absolutely. You, you know, we I I like that you just said that, but it's a big thing to me is that I I don't think that we should ever define ourselves uh by the past mistakes, especially, you know, a lot of a lot of people really judge themselves harshly based on the worst thing they've ever done. Like, oh, I'm this worr horrible person. But you know what? We're all people, and I would wager that everybody's got something tucked away that they don't ever want to talk about.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. We all do, yeah. I've got I've got my own, you know, skeletons. And at the end of the day, like I, you know, I've come full circle from those things, and I'm really grateful. And uh yeah, I wouldn't be the person I am without those. And you know, even other people's, you know, mistakes can sometimes become our own because we do live in community, we do live in a society where we take on things. So we witness things that are hard in life. But let's hope that like the things that that make an impression upon us make this kind of delible impression that's that's beautiful. My favorite pen that I use is a handmade burled wood. Um, it's like I think it's a burled maple. My friend Tim sent it to me from Colorado. He's part of my cigar club. I'm a part of, and he said, I make one of these for everybody in the club. And I made yours out of burled maple because this tree did not grow straight, but it triumphed through all of the changes and the burls come from all of the hard knocks that it had to take to get to where it's at. But it became the most beautiful wood, and it's now one of the sturdiest, you know, stronger because of those burls. And I think that for me, that may be the same thing with any failures or mistakes, that I'm stronger. Those are places, those scar tissue places, they heal, but they are quite sometimes the stronger parts on our body.
SPEAKER_01And I think that that's the the the place that I know for myself for a very long time. I, you know, we like to say, oh, I'm just stuck in a rut. You hear that a lot. And I'm not stuck. What has happened is that you have um you've used patterns to get yourself somewhere and they've worked, and now those patterns don't work, uh, but you keep using them, you know, and that's the, you know, I I don't know where I read that somewhere, but I think that it's really, really good because excuses are easy. I mean, right? Oh, you know, it's I'm I'm stuck here because, you know, oh, my my job sucks and I can't get out of this job, or you know, whatever it is. I I just can't seem to break this cycle of, you know, my credit cards are maxed out and I'm only making minimum payments or whatever these things are. Everything is everybody or everything else's fault. Sure. And I think once we can begin to take responsibility for everything, and I think that's the hardest part because and down to the to the worst things that happen to people, even in relationships, is that we have to be able to step back and that really bitter pill is I have a responsibility in everything in this relationship. So, you know, she left me. Why did she leave me? You know, was I doing what I should have done? You know, whatever those things are. Obviously, I I don't want to have to get too deep into caveats. There are some things in relationships that just you can't blame yourself for, right? But sure. Um, but I think it's important to know what our responsibilities are. And we all have a responsibility in our own lives. And that's the key is that failures are going to happen. But did you fail because you took a risk and you tried? Are you making that effort to do things in your life? Or is your life a failure simply because you refuse to change and you're just stuck where you are? Because that I think is the only thing that's really a failure.
SPEAKER_02Because I mean, I would agree with that actually. Yeah, like to being stuck in a pattern, right? Different people are born into unfortunate bad patterns that that are generations old that they can't help that they were born into, but they can choose to make a make a different choice, right? And I think so many times people will do what they've seen their parents do or what is kind of feels comfortable and normal for their society or their town. You know, you have to be willing to be sometimes a little bit of a black sheep occasionally, once you get to the outward, outward effect of change, um, to do something different because people are not gonna always approve. I think um having somewhere else to go for your approval and your value besides others is helpful. Um, for me, that's like my faith and also just my own internal like composition. Like I know who I am, but I've taken the time to get to know me. And um, so that's helpful for me to go ahead and say, you know what? It doesn't matter if um people might look and go, well, this looks unusual. Why is she doing that? Well, they'll understand later once you know time has passed. You know, years from now, they'll be like, oh, I get it now. You know, because being ahead of your time, you're always going to encounter opposition, right? Every great inventor would tell you that anybody that's invented a new musical style wasn't loved at first when Bob Dylan went electric at the Newport Folk Festival. It wasn't a popular decision. And now look at what we have. We have rock and roll, we have electrified guitars. I mean, we're sitting here surrounded by guitars actually at the meteor gallery. So, I mean, you know, that that one decision has impacted so many other people's decisions, right? And so the same thing would occur with, you know, Addison inventing the light bulb or someone daring to, you know, try to find a way to um create a, I don't know, online platform called Facebook that has since blown up. And, you know, these kind of things would not maybe have been met with approval right away, but because people want to do what's familiar. I think when somebody steps out there and wants to do something unfamiliar that may or may not be in their comfort zone or in their wheelhouse, people are not going to always approve. But at the end of the day, do we do things for others to get approval or do we seek our approval from somewhere else? If we know that each of us are pre- are like designed to to have a unique contribution to this world, why are we not doing that already?
SPEAKER_01You know, I love I love internet memes, and one of my favorite ones to your point there was uh it said that one thing I've learned from video games is that once you start encountering enemies, you must be on the right path. And that's exactly once the opposition's there, you know, and I and I think, yeah, you're gonna have the naysayers. I wanna, you know, I wanna do this thing. Oh yeah, that's not gonna work, that's not gonna work, whatever. And I think that's you know, you know, that pushes people down a lot, but that's usually you mentioned validation there, I mean wanting people to, you know, to approve of everything. And I I think that's big is that if we're constantly seeking validation, we're never gonna get anywhere. And I think that's a big mistake. I know for myself that I've made uh in my life is that a lot of things I did, I didn't just man up and do it. Not man ups the right way. I'm sorry I'm talking to a woman here.
SPEAKER_02Oh, it doesn't bother me. I'm not a feminist.
SPEAKER_01Um, but you know, I mean, to just do it because, you know, for so long I was always just afraid, you know, and I was always looking for, oh, hey, you know, I talk to my friends. What does this sound like a good idea?
SPEAKER_00And like, oh yeah, yeah, whatever.
SPEAKER_01And I I think at some point I realized looking back, I don't think a lot of people took me very seriously just because I had all these great ideas, I thought, but never executed anything. You know, even this podcast and, you know, talking about writing a book and stuff and all these things I've had, but I don't know, whatever. I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do this, and I never do it, never pull the trigger, never execute. You know, it was a big thing for me to get people to approve of what I was doing. And I finally come to the point in my life where I don't actually give a shit if you like what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_02Right, exactly.
SPEAKER_01As long as I'm not doing something I, you know, is illegal or illegal.
SPEAKER_02Illegal or hurting someone, you know, right.
SPEAKER_01But if I'm it's my life and I don't need anybody's approval for what I'm doing, it's my I'm the one that's gonna face the consequences. I'm the one that's got is gonna reap the rewards. So I'm the one that's gonna choose what I do. Uh and I think that's a is a big thing, is you know, is just just pushing forward in that and just saying, hey, I'm gonna do this. Uh and yeah, people are gonna say no. I mean, uh, for all the people, for the two or three people that click play on this podcast, there's probably 40 that go, this thing sucks. You know, I'll have to listen to it.
SPEAKER_02So maybe it's not meant for them, right? And maybe your life is not meant for anyone but you in a in a sense, right? Exactly. So at the end of the day, if you have, I believe, Steve, if you have these ideas and you keep having them, they're given to you because you're supposed to do them. True.
SPEAKER_03Right?
SPEAKER_02Now maybe you have to do the research and figure out the ins and outs and it's it executable, et cetera, et cetera. But at the end of the day, you're given unique ideas set out. Maybe no one else will ever be given. So if you don't do them, they don't exist.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, just do it. I mean, that's the you know, it the thing that actually motivated me to finally set this thing up and do it was I read something that said, you know, your first poem's gonna suck, write it anyway. Your first song will suck, write it anyway. And and I thought, you know, that's true, you know. This first one's probably, I mean, I don't know, the first one's actually pretty good, I think.
SPEAKER_02But you're doing pretty great, you know. And I'm a chef and I still can't make pancakes to save my life. Somehow that's a weird thing, but someone always says, your first pancake is gonna be a flop. That's uh something we say in the in the food world. Well, most of my pancakes are a flop. But I can make eggs, Benedict, or, you know, chicken cordon bleu or a souffle, just a basic pancake that anybody can make. That's a struggle for me. So everybody has something, or you always are going to have that one first pancake, one first, you know, like you said, one one first failure, but you learn from those mistakes. Yeah, we can't we can't live our lives in fear, otherwise, we're not really living life.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah. If you if you fear you fear death, you fear life, right? So it's interesting that you can't make pancakes. I can't make it a pomlet. I think I'm impatient. I'm ready to flip, and then it's oh, it's a scramble now. So, all right, well, I want to respect your time. What's your biggest thing that you feel like has um your biggest failure, your whatever, some something like that. You know, do you feel that it's held you back someplace that you just really fell apart?
SPEAKER_02I mean, you know, going through, you know, you always want to be um, at least for me, I always wanted to, you know, be successful at everything I put my mind to. And I think there were times whenever I was at home between. Adventures wondering, like, how am I going to make um how am I going to find my way in life? I seem to be pre-programmed. This is a little bit about what we were talking about, like coming back between adventures. There were a couple times that I had to, you know, stay at my mom's house again. And I love my mom, but it felt like I was going backwards, right? Like in my life. Why am I going backwards between adventures? Things fell through, they didn't work out. Ultimately, I've ended up using those adventures, you know, to um to weave together a beautiful tapestry that wouldn't have existed with all the colors and all the grains and fibers of my failures into um a great career. And so that's been really nice. And I think it, you know, it was hard. I mean, I I have, you know, I without going too much into detail, I mean, I have gone through um a divorce. I don't think that I necessarily like failed at the marriage. I think there were some things that were out of con out of my control in that realm. But, you know, you want all of your relationships to go well, but I am still friends with, you know, um the person from my past. And I'm grateful for that and how that's come about. And, you know, sometimes, you know, people can be put together that maybe aren't the best match, and you find that out later. And so, and it's just like that with a career or whatever you do, you may find like little bumps in the road, things that can't be remedied that, you know, no matter how hard you try, they just don't maybe work out. And that's always, that's always a heartbreaker. But, you know, and I've had my heart broken a few times in that, in that, in that respect, without like going into too much detail on that. I just, but I think that I have learned so much. And I I don't think I've lived life um afraid in that respect, in relationships, for example, or in my career. I've kept going despite the bumps, and I'm glad about that. Some of the best places that I've ever traveled have been off the beaten path. They've been down a dirt road that I didn't know where it would end, and I end up at a great waterfall or a river that I didn't see on the map. And I feel like with relationship hiccups or divorce, you know, because probably a lot of your listeners have gone through that or or or just are going through hard personal times, right? Um, maybe even addictions, things like that. Those kind of things, taking a different path off the beaten path, take going off the beaten path in those realms with those things that you feel like are failures, you may find that it leads you to a really beautiful place on the other side. I feel like, you know, at least with my faith that God has taken like beauty from the ashes of my life. And there have been some things that have been, you know, a crash, right? But out of the ashes, you know, the phoenix can grow or or something beautiful grow. You know, you almost need all the nutrients from a burn down or from a crash to give um a plant or new growth what it needs to survive. And I feel like, you know, out of these hardships and trials, like that God can make something so beautiful and new out of me. And I think he's continuing to show me that. And I'm really grateful. So I'd say the combination of just figuring out in life how to deal with failures and how to bounce back and how to deal with, you know, losing someone you care about and bouncing back from that and coming back better. Not, you know, not perfect. Sure. Never perfect, because that is just life. Yeah. But but trying to see the beauty in the upset, see the beauty in the sadness or the chaos or the hardship. I think that's a difference in perspective. That's something we we have, that's where we start internally. We change our mind first. Sure. And then we just start working with what we've got, you know, pulling ourselves out of these situations. And I'm really grateful for all the other, you know, you can't always just say it's because of me, right? I can never really gratefully say that I am the reason that I've come through things. It's all the wonderful friends and family I've had in my life and my faith. You know, having those outside forces that believe in you enough when you don't believe in yourself. That's huge.
SPEAKER_01Oh, absolutely. I I would agree with you there. I think that, you know, having people around is key, having the, you know, those people that are friends, family, you know, the ones that love us for who we are. Because I I I know who my friends are because they're the ones that know me and they're still there. So, you know, like Polly is fantastic, and you know, we've been together going on two years, I think now, almost a year, a little over a year and a half. Um yeah, I lose track of time sometimes. You know, it's weird because you feel like you've been forever, and then it's like it's not really been that long. So she's I don't know if I should commend her or just be like thankful that she has the patience to stick around because she knows me. Um, but you know, it's good to have those people for sure. So all right. Well, let's uh I appreciate your time. Let um where can people find you? Let's let's plug you before we get off of here.
SPEAKER_02Okay, thanks. And so I'm on Facebook and on Instagram under Ozark Culinary Tours as well as Aaron Rowe or Chef Aaron Rowe. Um, there's a few of us, but if you look up the chef page, you can get a good picture for me. And then I'm also on the online, you know, on the web at www.ozarcculinary tours.com. And yeah, I'd be happy to uh talk with you about any of your business, restaurant, consulting needs, as well as any tours or private chef work you might want.
SPEAKER_01Awesome. All right. Well, thank you, Erin, for your time. I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02Thanks, Steve. It's great to be here.
SPEAKER_00I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, I'd love for you to share it with anyone you think might also enjoy it. And if you like the show, please consider supporting it. It's the support of listeners like you that keeps us going. If you'd like to help, there's a link in the show notes. I'd like to thank all of our guests who've taken time out to have these conversations and share their insights on failures of personal and professional. If you want to follow the show, you can find us on Facebook and Instagram at failure point, and on Twitter at Failure Point. Please like and share, and remember to read and review the show on whichever you can. Again, thank you for listening. And we'll see you next time on the video.
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