Bonus Episode 13 | Commanding the Kitchen: Chef Robert Irvine's Recipe for Success - Mick Unplugged
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Are you ready to change your habits, sculpt your destiny, and light up your path to greatness? Welcome to the epicenter of transformation. This is Mic Unplugged. We'll help you identify your because, so you can create a routine that's not just productive, but powerful.

You'll embrace the art of evolution, adapt strategies to stay ahead of the game, and take a step toward the extraordinary. So let's unleash your potential. Now, here's Mick. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged, where we delve into the stories of remarkable individuals who transformed the ordinary into the extraordinary. And today is a bucket list for me. We have the honor of hosting a true legend, not just a chef,

He's a force of nature, a relentless advocate for fitness, and a true leader. With a heart as big as his culinary expertise, he's touched countless lives through his mission-driven work and unwavering dedication. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Chef Robert Irvine. Chef, how are you doing today? What's up? I love the shirt. I'm representing. I love it. I am representing. I have...

The book which we're going to talk about, I got this two weeks ago. It's changed my life as a business leader. I just want and need you to understand that. For those that think Chef is just a chef, this book has changed my life. I've been posting about it all day on social. This book, if you're a leader, is a must-have. And I mean that.

So Chef, on Mic Unplugged, I like talking to individuals about something that's deeper than their why. And I like to call it your because, right? Like I think that your because is what drives you and what fuels you. Your why to me is very superficial. If I were to ask Chef Robert Irvine,

today what's your because what's that thing that keeps you going and driving and that thing that keeps you at the top of your game because there are people out there that need my help and that's a true statement for me i'm in a blessed position although i've had to work to get there and fight the good fight as they say like everybody else but now i have a platform

I want to continue to use my platform for the betterment of other people that are less fortunate. Whether you've been in military, whether you have a restaurant, whether you're just down and out of luck, I feel that I've been given a blessing to be able to pick you up no matter what walk of life, what revenue stream you have.

or don't have, whether you live on the street, whether you live on a tent, whether you live in a mansion, whether you're a Fortune 500 CEO, anybody really. And I think that's what drives me every day to get out of bed. Money does not drive me. It never has. It never will. It's about how do we make a difference in people's lives that are lost? And I use this as a great statement because I just had yesterday a 30-year veteran of the airport call me because he's lost.

service above self, doesn't know where to go. And I find that happening a lot to service members, firefighters, police officers, all those that have been in service that when they retire, have lost that sense of purpose. - That's so deep. And you talk about all walks of life. You connect really well with people. One of the things that I love about watching you obviously on TV and then researching you and getting to know you over the last several years and now reading your books,

is that you are one of the most relatable people I've ever met. Meaning you can give someone tough love, but then you're going to pat them on the back and encourage them to get through it. Like why and how do you do that? I come from a very tough upbringing. You know, we've lived without a house, right? So I've been there. I've lived without food. I've lived without clothing as a young man when I grew up. Then I joined the military.

Then I was the youngest at this and the youngest at that. So to me, there has to be, even in the shows, and you said it quite eloquently there, I'm me. I had some tough teachers. My father was one of them. Not a very...

I don't know, loving, yes, but not outwardly showing that, more of a tough character. My mother, the opposite, you know, loving to death. We didn't have much. So growing up for me was an adventure. That's an understatement, you know. The early years of TV for me were very different because I was very like in TV, 48 hours, fix it, don't listen, either failing, but I can read a P&L and I can see why you're failing at a service in a nanosecond.

But what I've learned over the years is after self-reflection is listen more. So if you notice the shows the last, I don't know, five, six years, it's a completely different switch for me to listen to people

compute what they're telling me, and then go back with the answers. P&L is still the same, and the service is still the same, and the people are still the same. But if I can understand them a little bit more, it helps me to solve their problems. And early on, I wasn't all about that. I was about luck.

I know how to fix it. Be quiet. Just let me do my job and you learn. So I think it's self-reflection of me in my business life, in my personal life, in my TV life, which by the way, are all the same because they intertwine so much. And I think it's that reflection of, you know, when you become a TV personality, I won't say star because I hate that word. I hate celebrity, a personality. People look up to you.

You know, we're human. We make mistakes. And anybody who doesn't believe in that, then they're just stupid. You know, we make mistakes. That's just life. And for me to be able to put my life experience into everything I do, all my, you know, 13 companies, my TV shows, my 7,500 people that I employ, I now understand that's what that book was all about. You know, how to lead and build great teams. And that's through experience and my failures.

One of the things and I'm just going to go to the book, Overcoming Impossible, because this isn't fluff. It is literally changing my life, starting with chapter one, where essentially you told me to stop micromanaging. And what's crazy is I feel like most leaders today will tell you, oh, I don't micromanage.

But the reality is, if you were to ask their staff, if you were to ask their leadership, micromanage is what they do most of the time, right? Like, I will tell you, I probably micromanaged and I use past tense because I changed through P&L statements every day, looking at EBITDA margins, looking at income coming in. And then I realized after reading your book,

That's not leadership. Starting chapter one, stop micromanaging. It's interesting. Let's talk about the book. And the reason I wrote this book is because, look, I think 28,000 restaurants, all be told. 350 on Restaurant Impossible. 93% success after the last three years after COVID. But hundreds and hundreds of restaurants call us every week. You know, thousands, 2,000 to help them. And I can only do one organization.

a week, right? So I wrote this book not only for restaurateurs and hospitality, but also Fortune 500 company leaders and families, right? Because the crossover is very intimate. And there's four things that I write in that book. And you talk about chapter one. Well, you know, we talk about empathetic leadership. What does that actually mean?

It means that I know that, for example, you have an autistic son or daughter or a grandmother that fell down or a wife that's got heart disease or whatever those things are. I have to understand why you come into work every day and you're not the best you can be.

And my job as a leader is to alleviate those pressures some way, shape or form to make you feel good that A, I'm taking an interest in taking care of you and your family, because that's why we do this at the end of the day. And if you know that maybe I pay some medical bills, maybe I give you time off and still pay you, maybe I, whatever that case may be,

You're going to give me 100% loyalty and 100% work, and I'm going to be 100% invested in you and your problems and your family regardless. That's number one. Then comes into leadership is trust.

Number three is ego, mine as a leader and yours as a person that works with me. You're not an employee to me, you're a partner to me. And I think that's the difference. And number four is authenticity. You can't be like a yo-yo up and down, nice one day and then not nice next day. And I think if you incorporate all four of those principles, look, in 15 years, I've lost three people because I decided to lose them.

them because they weren't a good fit for our organization. They didn't do their job and

There's one thing I will not stand for is somebody bad-mouthing somebody else and standing on them to get to the next level. That will never happen because I'm a military guy. We've got your front, your left, your right, good or bad or indifferent. We've got to take care of each other. And that's why our team has been so strong for 16 years is because of those principles. And it's funny, we talk about micromanaging. Let's go back to that piece. I don't tell my guys when to take off, when to work.

I have a strict rule that if I get a call from somebody high up in the military chain, chairman of joint chiefs or whatever, you get the call 10 minutes later. No matter what time of day, no matter where we are, which side of the coast or which side of the world, you have to pick up in that 10 minutes because somebody else's life depends on that.

I don't tell my chefs or my people when to go on vacation. You want five, six weeks vacation, go ahead. Just make sure that your work is covered. And that's really important. We have a program where the guys, and I've got a chef right now in Switzerland. We're as busy as heck coming up with D-Day. We'll talk about that later. But I don't believe in micromanaging. As a leader, here's my goal. Here are the tools. Here are my expectations. Run, and I'm going to follow up.

That's it. It's as simple as that. Wholeheartedly. And I love the four items you just gave because I actually have five and I have them written down here because, again, I've been taking diligent notes and I'm going to keep saying this about this book. This is a must have for all leaders. So I had written down stop micromanaging and then I have a dash. Trust your team to handle things independently.

I got that from you. Second thing, embrace failure, but more importantly, learn from the mistakes and use them as stepping stones. You talked about building trust and authenticity. I mean, I can't tell you how much that resonates with me and who I am as a human being, because I tell people no matter what with your team, you have to be you at all times.

Right, because that's what your team is going to see. And that's how trust is built. It's built through being authentic and nothing else. Then the fourth thing I have that you talked about is adapting technology. And then I thought the most incredible moment in your book was talking about hiring exceptional talent.

Always hiring people that are better than you, that are more capable than you and hire the talent versus hiring the position. And you didn't necessarily say those words per se, but that's what I took from that. And that was so amazing to me. And it totally has changed. I personally have stripped like job descriptions and it's like,

hire the talent. You know, a lot of leaders or so-called leaders are afraid to hire people that are smarter than them. I've got three chefs that are 10 times the chef I will ever be.

And I am not afraid of them taking the limelight. I'm not afraid to shine a light on them because they do the work. I'm talking about cooking for heads of state, you know, real heads of state around the world. And I know that if I get on a plane three days later and they've been prepping for a state dinner or whatever, I have no worries. I come in, I taste everything and it's going to be perfect.

So for me, I do that in all our positions. We have 13 companies from drones to clothing to nutritional products to food products and the list goes on. But I hire people that are in that industry, number one, that can teach me. I'm like a sponge. I love to learn new stuff. You talk about technology. We have self-ordering product. We have the change of the restaurant we're building. It opens in two weeks, a restaurant of the future with all technology.

Very little cooking, funnily enough, but it will hopefully do $3 million with two people. Say that again? You heard me right. $3 million with two people. So when that opens in a couple of weeks, that's a test. And then we'll roll out after that. There's going to be some tweaks as we go along because it's technology. I'm not a standstill human being that's happy with life.

Just because we're doing so many things. I want to be on the cutting edge of something and a leader in my industry, but also a leader just like, and it's so funny because I tweeted last night about Chris Como having a story on his show about a chip for the brain that connects neurons to disabled folks.

It was absolutely unbelievable. And I talk about technology and this young man who couldn't do anything because his body, he couldn't raise his arms or his legs or, you know, he's in a wheelchair. And all of a sudden now they put this chip in and the neurons that he thinks work on a computer. It's just fascinating to me when technology is used in the right way.

how it can save mankind. And those people that are, again, less fortunate, they've had it happen at birth or in accidents or whatever, and technology is changing their life to give them back their life. And I love that. So I'm always looking about what's next. And again, not for money. How do we use technology in the food industry, in the clothing industry, in the, you know, what is next?

That's awesome. So the title of the book, Overcoming Impossible. I know that that obviously reading the book, I know where a lot of this is coming from. But one of the questions I wanted to ask you, overcoming impossible, you personally have had to do that in your life in your career. What's like one particular tough moment that stands out for you that you had to overcome? But then more importantly, how did you overcome that moment?

I think, look, over the decades, like I'm 59 years old, almost. There's always been failures and things. You know, I had one in 2008 when somebody said, oh, you didn't do what you said you did, right? Your resume was fake. And basically that I was working with the royal family, which I did.

But you know, then days we never had any pictures, right? So only my service record would show you, but I can show you right there. That's me right in the middle there next to Prince of Diana, right? And that came to me last November on a website, right? Somebody, the official photographer sent me the pictures.

But Food Network suspended me. They did all those kinds of things. So they did their due diligence and then found out it was all true and whatever. But the ridicule, I was actually in the president of United States office when that story broke on CNN headline news, right? He's like, you know, what is this? So I've been there. I've been adversity. I overcome it. And you have to have faith and belief in who you are and what you stand for. And I don't think I've ever changed that.

Failure of a restaurant. I talk about that a lot in the book, failure of a company. Beyond your control, I used to sell meat to the military that was tossed in seasonings. And then Topps, the hamburger company who used to do it for me, went bankrupt because they had a recall of 90 million pounds of hamburgers. That wasn't my fault, but I had to deal with it.

So I think there's a lot of tests and I use that as a great segue to what I'm going to say next. And it's, I think that whether you believe in God or not, that's up to you. That's your own personal thing. I think for me, God gives me a test to get me ready for the next thing, whatever that is.

is. And I don't know what that is. You know, he'll give you as much as you can handle. And some people don't like it when I say that, but it's the truth. I think you get what you can handle. And when you've overcome that, something better comes. And I truly believe that. That's what I believe in my heart. And if you follow me on social media, you see what I put out. I try and help everybody and give them hope because food to me is hope. I don't

i don't know i'm blessed at this this point in my career that i want to help other people overcome their adversities and you're doing that every day i promise you i promise you you're doing that every day i wake up every day trying to do that you know and that's what drives me not there's not much that drives me anymore except that right it's not money it's not fame

My wife and I, Gail, when we met 15, 16 years ago, one of the things we said were, look, no matter what happens, and she's a Hall of Fame wrestler, you know, famous in their own right. And I was on Food Network. Whatever happens, we've always got each other and we can cook hamburgers on the beach. You know, that's it. We lost everything we had that would be, you know, and I'm okay with that.

You have to grow up knowing, and as they grow up, not age wise, but grow up in maturity, knowing that this could all be gone tomorrow. And if you grow up like that, then it's okay. I love it. One of the other things I love about you-

I should hire you for me on publicist. We can, when I tell you, anybody loves you is good. When I tell you that I'm a huge fan and follower for those that are listening and you can't see, I have a Robert Irvine fit crunch bar, which from the moment that you introduced those have been my favorite. Yes. The shirt. I love it. But let me explain to you my affinity with peanut butter and jelly. And when I tasted this for the first time,

I immediately bought the whole box from Target. Like I bought all 30 because I said, I want these in my life. I have at least one of these a day and it's always peanut butter and jelly. And you know how when you have something over and over again, after a while, your taste buds get used to it and it's not this. This every day is the most amazing moment of my, my wife is around the corner. Babe, I promise you, I don't mean this. The most amazing moment of my day, Robert, is when I have this. Except waking up next door and seeing her smile, right? That's right.

- That's right. Aside from my wife, this is amazing. So again, you made a nutrition bar that actually tastes amazing and not just the peanut butter, but the cookie dough, like all of them. - I think what you have to understand is this, and I get into that story in a second. Number one, every product that we make

We own, we own the manufacturing, we own the distribution. The only thing I don't own is TV companies, okay? Everything else we own. 11 years ago almost now, we started Fit Crunch and I wanted to be different. So we baked the cookie on the bottom. It's the only baked six layer bar in the world. And we have the only machines that can make it, right? They're painted machines, $10.5 million each, believe me. But we used to make them by hand.

Used to be 18 lines, sorry, three lines of 18 people putting stuff on and coating with chocolate and then freezing and then refrigerating and then packaging by hand. We used to do 70,000 a day and now we do 300,000 a day.

95,000 retail locations. And again, it's like everything else, chef curated. It's like a liquor alcohol. I am part of the recipe development period. Nothing goes out without my okay. And I mean that every bar. So we just launched a new wafer peanut butter and a chocolate mint wafer. Very different to what you're eating there. Lighter, almost like if you've had a nutter butter kind of thing.

- Peanut butter wafers like that, and then the chocolate mint. We've got a vanilla and a strawberry one coming out soon. I want to stay on the cutting edge of product. We've got a peanut butter pretzel one I've just finished, right? So I'm in the R&D space on not only the bars, but also our liquor, our food that we sell all around the world. And the beautiful thing about being a chef is, you know, I have taste buds. And if I like it, you're gonna like it.

And that's how my mentality thinks. If I make, you know, we make our vodka and gin, the gin is made with 13 botanicals I use in the kitchen. We own the distillery. We give everything that we make, a big portion of what we sell for goes into our foundation. And we can talk about that later.

So when I create something, it's because there's a cause. For example, our strawberry strudel bar, the money goes to Susan G. Komen for cancer. So there's always something that I want to do for somebody. And if food can help that or nutrition or liquor or clothing, that's what I do. And the

The protein bar, if you'd have said to me 10 years later, we were doing X amount of millions, and I mean a big number in millions, I won't tell you what it is, but it's extensively big. We're the only bar manufacturer in the world that's owned by a single person. That's me. Everything else is owned by a conglomerate.

There's three right now in the world in our category. So, you know, I want to be the best in business practice. I want to be the best in class, biggest by any way, shape or form. But we try to be, you know, we try to do the best we can do with the team that we have and we enjoy what we do. Otherwise you wouldn't do it. You know, we create products. There's a need in the marketplace. You know, we've got protein powder. We've got RTDs coming out next. There's a huge, I think we have 212 SKUs

total of food and liquor and all the other stuff. But again, that goes to the end user, which is the men and women that wear the cloth foundation and our first responders and their families to help take care of their issues. Is it food insecurity? Is it home? Is it wheelchairs? Is it post-traumatic stress?

Whatever it is, we fix it or we try to fix it. Is it psychedelic treatment in Mexico, right? For post-traumatic stress. We have a program there that really does help. You know, we're about to take 70 or 300, 70 World War II veterans back to Normandy with American Airlines on June the 3rd, do a dinner on the 4th. The USS Normandy will be there. The heads of state will be there on the 5th. We do a memorial to the 80th anniversary of these amazing giants that we stand on their shoulders that are left.

Then we fly to Scotland and do a 56 mile march with a thousand coalition wounded, you know, double amputees, triple amputees, burn victim, you know. Again, I don't know how to tell you, it's so humbling to be around people that have done so many extraordinary things in their life.

Vietnam veterans, World War II veterans, Afghanistan, Iraq, medallion recipients, firefighters that cut people out of cars and jump into buildings, police officers that protect us, EMTs, doctors, nurses, teachers, 911 operators.

You know, all these people, they get lost in the mix and I want to make sure we honor them. And, you know, through COVID, we were the first in the country, by the way, to make hand sanitizer. Not because I said so, because my distiller said, hey, we can do this. And it's so funny because I'd had to sign a big liability thing, but...

six 50-foot trucks of alcohol in a residential neighborhood. We give the sanitizer away in the tri-state area to National Guard, to doctors, to nurses, to police forces, firefighters, a Fit Crunch brand, which you love and I love, hospitals and National Guard bureaus and all those that were working, we took care of that. And I think that's why the brand is successful. We don't want nothing for it. I just want to make sure.

make sure that again, we're doing the right things. - Totally agree. One of the most amazing things of all the things that you are and what you represent is what you were just talking about, you and your philanthropy. And here's what's amazing to me and why you personally inspire me. Most of the things that you do, being the personality as you referenced earlier,

the personality that you are, you don't do it for that. I'm going to say this on behalf of you. There are a lot of people that are personalities that everywhere they go, there's a camera. Everywhere they go, there's an article written about it. Everything that they do, there is media. You don't give a damn about any of that. Everything that you do is from your heart and you do so much that most people don't even know. And that's why you amazed and inspired me.

I know there's a lot of that out there. Only recently we just started talking about the foundation because I was always nervous and I still am. People feel that if it's in the media that it's about promoting you. So for eight years, we didn't even talk about the foundation and the work it does.

It's only recently that I started doing it simply because, you know, the foundation program, we used to be a foundation that give money away to other foundations. Then we started, I wanted to start my own programs. So Breaking Bread for Heroes, where twice a week, somewhere around the world, Afghanistan, Iraq, Poland, Spain, Syria, Germany, Italy, we feed troops.

twice a week somewhere are reuniting the brave. We just put 750 1st Battalion and 5th Marines back together after 20 years of war and the Gold Star families and the snipers in San Diego. You heard what I just said about Normandy. We're doing a big dinner for my foundation with these amazing human beings in Normandy. We have a dog program. We have a wheelchair mobility device. It's not a wheelchair. It was designed by Dean Kamen.

the Segway guy that brings you up to eye height so that nobody's bending down and talking to you. It can go up and down stairs on its own. All those kind of things that we do, we want to be the best in class. We just started doing bowhead bikes for double amputees. You know, there are 1,500 double amputees in the war on terror in Afghanistan and Iraq. My goal is to make sure every one of them gets a bike, 20 mile an hour bike. It goes 45 degree angle. They can BMX.

kind of stuff. So in Colorado every year, there's 300 to get together. My aim is to get the 1,500 together and get them out in four wars to stop that suicide rate. So I have a mission here, right? I have a big mission. We're helping the military modernize their feeding platform across the joint force now, which has been my program for 15 years.

and we're finally getting it done. There's one thing you can say about me, I'm very persistent and I don't care who you are, I'm gonna bark at you until I get what I think is right for the people that we need to get it right for. Every day is an experience.

And a challenge because I challenge me and my team to do more than what we're doing now. And that's what excites me the most. You know, we're heading out tomorrow to the Bahamas for a fishing tournament with Michael Jordan, where our foundation is doing a dinner on Saturday. Hopefully raise funds for that for the foundation. So, you know, again, opportunities come. My team this week with the Nationals in D.C., they were in Cincinnati with disabled

American veterans teaching entrepreneurs how to start their own businesses and run their own businesses correctly. You know, we have a program called Let's Chow. It was developed by a lieutenant commander in the Navy. He's a JAG officer where we put veterans into food trucks. We train them how to run businesses and then we put them in brick and mortar when they actually figured it out.

You know, so there's a lot of great things on the horizon coming up in the next couple of years. And again, in the vein of doing something and we support so many other charities, you know, TAPS, Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, Gold Star Families, you know, Sinise, Fisher House, all those great charities that are doing different things. Our foundation is all about mental and physical health. I don't build houses, Gary does. You know, I take care of this and this.

That's it. I'll try to anyway. You do it well. So getting you out of here on this number one, I appreciate you being so gracious with your time. And again, this is a bucket list day and moment for me. Where can people follow you, donate, contribute? Where do you want people to know about Chef Robert Irvine and the foundation and organizations that you're a part of and helping?

I think they can go to roberturvinefoundation.org. But if you do, here's a warning. Make sure you have some tissues. There's some amazing heartfelt stories there. You can donate time. You can donate money. Be involved. You can see me on Twitter. And by the way, you'll know it's me because there's no punctuation. It's 143.

letters, characters straight. You'll get the message, but I get some Twitter, please, like, "Robert, you can't spell." Nope, I don't want to either. I'm not changing my life for you. So you can hate all you want. @RobertOrMine. Instagram is @ShepardOrMine. Facebook @ShepardOrMine.

You'll see what I'm doing. If you're on LinkedIn, you'll see on LinkedIn. Again, we do so much. You think it's kind of interesting. If you think what we do in a week is what most people do in a year. So yeah, they're all the places, but I really like to drive people to

the foundation website, roberturbeinfoundation.org. And if you want to talk to me, the only way you talk to me is on Twitter at Robert Urbein, because I'm the only guy that does that. The other guys do Facebook and Instagram and all that because I'm not that smart. I can't do Twitter or X or whatever they call it now, but...

There we go. Well, I will have all of your social links and a link to the foundation on the show notes, and I'm going to post everywhere. And if you are a listener follower of me and Mick Unplugged and any of my other brands, I'm challenging you to donate, to get involved, to help out. And he's correct. When you go to the website, be prepared to be moved. I'm going to leave it at that. Be prepared to be moved. Chef.

I appreciate you more than you know. Thank you for spending time with me today. It has made my year by

by spending time with you. So I appreciate you. - Where are you living? Where do you live? What state? - I'm in Greenville, South Carolina. - So next time in South Carolina, 'cause I have some military bases that I take care of, we'll get together, we'll have a cup of coffee or a beer or dinner or something. We'll break bread. - You got it. And for all the listeners, remember, your because is your superpower. Go unleash it. - Thanks for listening to "McUnplugged." We hope this episode helps you take the next step toward the extraordinary.

and launches a revolution in your life. Don't forget to rate and review the podcast and be sure to check us out on YouTube at Mick Unplugged. Remember, stay empowered, stay inspired, and stay unplugged.