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