July 7, 2022 • 11 mins
1 101
[00:00:00] Time check it's 30 minutes for service and it's time
for your line check. Welcome back to the show.
Agency
(noun) The capacity of an individual to actively and independently choose and to affect change; free will or self-determination.
https://sociologydictionary.org/agency/
[00:00:50] Checking your station & your head
[00:01:28] Stand Up Meeting - Taking to the crew about 'Agency'
[00:03:03] Acknowledgment
[00:03:29] Laura Brenkus
[00:05:54] Calling you on your shit
[00:07:05] You made a choice
[00:08:05] Deep Breath
[00:08:36] Chef Life Radio Creed
Realignment Media
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Time check it's 30 minutes for serviceand it's time for your line check.
Welcome back to the show.
And in this episode, I'm gonna talk to youabout agency and why it's so critical to
your professional and personal success.
I'm your host, chef Adam Lamb, andI'm dedicated to helping you build
the skills to overcome any obstacle inyour culinary career and to face those
(00:24):
challenges with confidence and resilience.
But right now, I need to review youstation, you know, inspect what I
expect or as ed Manassian the meanestfront of the house manager ever to
work in Chicago would tell me lamb,plan your work and work your plan.
All right.
So lemme check it out.
How's your me and plus coming.
(00:47):
Where's your backup?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Let me smell that fish.
72 hours out of the water andyou can still smell the salt.
That's lovely.
Great.
Got enough proteins for the shift.
Have you tasted your sauces?
No, there's a spoon.
No, you tell me what they need.
(01:09):
Nice garnish prep.
Okay.
Now let me check your head.
You good?
You don't tell 'em frosty.
How's your heart?
Yeah, open or closed?
Open.
Good.
Remember angry cooks.
Make shitty food, right?
Right.
Now let's get everybody together fora few minutes before service starts.
(01:32):
I wanna discuss animportant topic with you.
May I?
Why?
Thank you.
I wanna talk to you about agency.
The dictionary describes it asa noun and it's the capacity of
an individual to actively andindependently choose and to affect
change free will or self-determination.
(01:52):
Another way of saying that is agencyis a means of exerting power or
influence instrumentally, like inactual fact, changing the circumstances.
Listen, I don't know anybody who hasn'tat some point or another during the last
two and a half years felt overwhelmedor helpless as the whole world shut down
because of COVID and then reopen just asabruptly as if the pandemic never happened
(02:17):
or the virus has miraculously disappeared.
Even more people, friends, family,relatives, coworkers gotten sick and died.
And most of us had not even hada chance to grieve those losses
because for the most part, couldn'tsee 'em in the hospital nor
could we attend their funeral.
If they had one at all, for those ofus working, you know, we're struggling
(02:41):
just to keep our noses above the water.
And for those who are out ofthe industry for the time being.
They're just trying to figure out howto get bread on the table or afford
how to fill up their tank of gas.
I just want to take this momentto acknowledge and look at me.
Look.
No, look at me.
I wanna acknowledge and honor,don't look at the ground, dude.
(03:03):
I'm talking to you.
Look me in the eye.
It's important that you hear me.
I just want to acknowledgeand honor what you all have.
So courageously pushed through.
Although I admit that sometimesmight not feel like courage at all.
I get that everything that's going oncan make you feel helpless, frustrated,
(03:24):
hopeless, like what the hell to dowhen there's so much coming at you.
So let me illustrate the point for you.
You're not the onlyone who feels this way.
There have been times in my careerwhen I've felt betrayed by my passion
taken advantage of victimized.
I remember specifically one particulartime when I went down to the general
manager's office, the great Laura Brus.
(03:46):
Who sat there in her officechair while I paced back and
forth bitching about my staff.
My sous chefs, the customers Iwent on and on and on and on.
And she sat there during my entirerant with a bemused, look on her,
face, a smile, curled up at the endof her mouth as I just pasted back and
(04:07):
forth and just let her have it abouthow bullshit I thought everything was.
And she let me run outta steamuntil I had nothing left.
And I plopped down in the chair.
As I sat there making love to my pain.
She just looked at me and said, but Adam,don't, you see the God in what you do?
And I said, God, like, whatthe fuck do you mean God?
And she said, Adam, because of whatyou do, you provide an opportunity
(04:30):
for families, friends, people whohaven't seen one another in a long
time, come around a table to sharesome food, but more importantly share
what's been going on in their lives.
Right now you go to the bankand uh, you go to the ATM.
There's no person, there you go tothe gas station, you feed the pump.
There's no person there in our world oflimiting and diminishing human contact.
(04:56):
You provide an opportunityfor people to come together
and be in relationship ified.
I sat there and I went, God, sanctity,like I'm doing something that's honorable.
And I walked out thinking,well, maybe I am.
It's not always theway that I think it is.
It's the story that I'm telling myselfafter a while that story becomes a
(05:19):
truth, but it doesn't make it true.
Now I could have been avictim of that situation.
I could have let it take my powerand my energy and my playfulness.
And close down my heart until therewas nothing left, but a stone.
But I realized pretty quicklythat the path to leadership goes
through the pain, not around it.
(05:42):
And the first step was to accept myown bullshit and to realize that just
because I thought it didn't make it true.
But once you embraceagency, your capacity for.
You understand that at all timesyou have the capacity to choose
actively and independently to eitheraffect change in your lives or not.
(06:02):
Your personal power comes from thetruth that you have at all times,
free will and self determination.
Now, listen, I'm out on smoke doc.
You know, I'm on the back dock.
I hear conversations over my shoulder.
I get things are shitty,but bitching about it is not
gonna make things any better.
Once you activate andfully own your agency.
(06:23):
Then you become a sovereign humanbeing with dominion over your body,
mind and heart, no one or no thingwill ever be able to victimize you
ever again, without your expressedconsent, you had a choice this morning.
When you woke up, you could stayat home, smoke a bowl, watch
a Netflix, or come to work.
(06:47):
You may have convinced yourself thatyou had no choice, but to come to work
because of familial responsibilities.
Or other circumstances, but I need youto realize that this is just a story one.
You may have been telling yourselfso often that you've come to believe
it's the truth, but it's not.
You chose to come to work today becausedeep within you, you wanted to affect
(07:09):
some type of change for yourself, for yourcustomers, for your peers and your family.
Right now, you can choose to do thevery best or do just enough to get by.
Either way.
I want you to realizethat it's your choice.
I came here today because I deeplywant to affect a change in you for you
(07:33):
for no other reason than I see you.
And I believe in you, I trust you to doyour very best, because I know when I
do my best, regardless of the outcome,I feel pretty good about myself.
And I know you wanna feel goodabout yourself, your decisions and
your efforts towards those ends.
Now just a bunch of words, right?
(07:56):
Until you actually take him intoyour heart and realize that at any
particular time and place, it's theway you feel about what's going on.
That matters.
Not what's going on everyone right now.
Just take a deep breath.
What's your eyes.
(08:17):
Hang your body loose.
Shake it out a little bit.
Let all of this end, you arethe author of your own story.
How the chapter of todayends it's up to you.
Once you own and act on your agency,you are no longer the victim and you are
one step closer to becoming the leader.
Others want to follow.
(08:38):
Thank you for letting metake some of your time.
I know you guys are busy.
We got a big night.
Lots of rezos everybody's tuned up, butI want you guys to be tall and frosty
loose and enjoy yourself tonight.
Now, before we split up,let's do like we always do.
And repeat after me, we believe thatworking in a kitchen should be demanding.
(08:59):
It doesn't have to be demeaning.
It should be hard.
Doesn't have to be harsh.
We believe in more solidarity, less.
Suck it up.
Sunshine.
More compassion and less cutthroat island.
We believe in more partnership and lessput up or shut up more community and less.
Fuck you.
(09:21):
Pay it forward.
Have a great shift.
I'll see you on the other side.
And that's it for this episode of cheflife radios line check podcast, join
us every week where we go over topicsdesigned to assist you to become the
leader that you always wanted to follow.
(09:45):
The show was written, produced directedby me, Adam lamp at the dish pit
studios in Asheville, North Carolina.
And it's a productionof realignment media.
Time check it's 30 minutes for serviceand it's time for your line check.
Welcome back to the show.
And in this episode, I'm gonna talk to youabout agency and why it's so critical to
your professional and personal success.
I'm your host, chef Adam Lamb, andI'm dedicated to helping you build
the skills to overcome any obstacle inyour culinary career and to face those
(00:24):
challenges with confidence and resilience.
But right now, I need to review youstation, you know, inspect what I
expect or as ed Manassian the meanestfront of the house manager ever to
work in Chicago would tell me lamb,plan your work and work your plan.
All right.
So lemme check it out.
How's your me and plus coming.
(00:47):
Where's your backup?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Let me smell that fish.
72 hours out of the water andyou can still smell the salt.
That's lovely.
Great.
Got enough proteins for the shift.
Have you tasted your sauces?
No, there's a spoon.
No, you tell me what they need.
(01:09):
Nice garnish prep.
Okay.
Now let me check your head.
You good?
You don't tell 'em frosty.
How's your heart?
Yeah, open or closed?
Open.
Good.
Remember angry cooks.
Make shitty food, right?
Right.
Now let's get everybody together fora few minutes before service starts.
(01:32):
I wanna discuss animportant topic with you.
May I?
Why?
Thank you.
I wanna talk to you about agency.
The dictionary describes it asa noun and it's the capacity of
an individual to actively andindependently choose and to affect
change free will or self-determination.
(01:52):
Another way of saying that is agencyis a means of exerting power or
influence instrumentally, like inactual fact, changing the circumstances.
Listen, I don't know anybody who hasn'tat some point or another during the last
two and a half years felt overwhelmedor helpless as the whole world shut down
because of COVID and then reopen just asabruptly as if the pandemic never happened
(02:17):
or the virus has miraculously disappeared.
Even more people, friends, family,relatives, coworkers gotten sick and died.
And most of us had not even hada chance to grieve those losses
because for the most part, couldn'tsee 'em in the hospital nor
could we attend their funeral.
If they had one at all, for those ofus working, you know, we're struggling
(02:41):
just to keep our noses above the water.
And for those who are out ofthe industry for the time being.
They're just trying to figure out howto get bread on the table or afford
how to fill up their tank of gas.
I just want to take this momentto acknowledge and look at me.
Look.
No, look at me.
I wanna acknowledge and honor,don't look at the ground, dude.
(03:03):
I'm talking to you.
Look me in the eye.
It's important that you hear me.
I just want to acknowledgeand honor what you all have.
So courageously pushed through.
Although I admit that sometimesmight not feel like courage at all.
I get that everything that's going oncan make you feel helpless, frustrated,
(03:24):
hopeless, like what the hell to dowhen there's so much coming at you.
So let me illustrate the point for you.
You're not the onlyone who feels this way.
There have been times in my careerwhen I've felt betrayed by my passion
taken advantage of victimized.
I remember specifically one particulartime when I went down to the general
manager's office, the great Laura Brus.
(03:46):
Who sat there in her officechair while I paced back and
forth bitching about my staff.
My sous chefs, the customers Iwent on and on and on and on.
And she sat there during my entirerant with a bemused, look on her,
face, a smile, curled up at the endof her mouth as I just pasted back and
(04:07):
forth and just let her have it abouthow bullshit I thought everything was.
And she let me run outta steamuntil I had nothing left.
And I plopped down in the chair.
As I sat there making love to my pain.
She just looked at me and said, but Adam,don't, you see the God in what you do?
And I said, God, like, whatthe fuck do you mean God?
And she said, Adam, because of whatyou do, you provide an opportunity
(04:30):
for families, friends, people whohaven't seen one another in a long
time, come around a table to sharesome food, but more importantly share
what's been going on in their lives.
Right now you go to the bankand uh, you go to the ATM.
There's no person, there you go tothe gas station, you feed the pump.
There's no person there in our world oflimiting and diminishing human contact.
(04:56):
You provide an opportunityfor people to come together
and be in relationship ified.
I sat there and I went, God, sanctity,like I'm doing something that's honorable.
And I walked out thinking,well, maybe I am.
It's not always theway that I think it is.
It's the story that I'm telling myselfafter a while that story becomes a
(05:19):
truth, but it doesn't make it true.
Now I could have been avictim of that situation.
I could have let it take my powerand my energy and my playfulness.
And close down my heart until therewas nothing left, but a stone.
But I realized pretty quicklythat the path to leadership goes
through the pain, not around it.
(05:42):
And the first step was to accept myown bullshit and to realize that just
because I thought it didn't make it true.
But once you embraceagency, your capacity for.
You understand that at all timesyou have the capacity to choose
actively and independently to eitheraffect change in your lives or not.
(06:02):
Your personal power comes from thetruth that you have at all times,
free will and self determination.
Now, listen, I'm out on smoke doc.
You know, I'm on the back dock.
I hear conversations over my shoulder.
I get things are shitty,but bitching about it is not
gonna make things any better.
Once you activate andfully own your agency.
(06:23):
Then you become a sovereign humanbeing with dominion over your body,
mind and heart, no one or no thingwill ever be able to victimize you
ever again, without your expressedconsent, you had a choice this morning.
When you woke up, you could stayat home, smoke a bowl, watch
a Netflix, or come to work.
(06:47):
You may have convinced yourself thatyou had no choice, but to come to work
because of familial responsibilities.
Or other circumstances, but I need youto realize that this is just a story one.
You may have been telling yourselfso often that you've come to believe
it's the truth, but it's not.
You chose to come to work today becausedeep within you, you wanted to affect
(07:09):
some type of change for yourself, for yourcustomers, for your peers and your family.
Right now, you can choose to do thevery best or do just enough to get by.
Either way.
I want you to realizethat it's your choice.
I came here today because I deeplywant to affect a change in you for you
(07:33):
for no other reason than I see you.
And I believe in you, I trust you to doyour very best, because I know when I
do my best, regardless of the outcome,I feel pretty good about myself.
And I know you wanna feel goodabout yourself, your decisions and
your efforts towards those ends.
Now just a bunch of words, right?
(07:56):
Until you actually take him intoyour heart and realize that at any
particular time and place, it's theway you feel about what's going on.
That matters.
Not what's going on everyone right now.
Just take a deep breath.
What's your eyes.
(08:17):
Hang your body loose.
Shake it out a little bit.
Let all of this end, you arethe author of your own story.
How the chapter of todayends it's up to you.
Once you own and act on your agency,you are no longer the victim and you are
one step closer to becoming the leader.
Others want to follow.
(08:38):
Thank you for letting metake some of your time.
I know you guys are busy.
We got a big night.
Lots of rezos everybody's tuned up, butI want you guys to be tall and frosty
loose and enjoy yourself tonight.
Now, before we split up,let's do like we always do.
And repeat after me, we believe thatworking in a kitchen should be demanding.
(08:59):
It doesn't have to be demeaning.
It should be hard.
Doesn't have to be harsh.
We believe in more solidarity, less.
Suck it up.
Sunshine.
More compassion and less cutthroat island.
We believe in more partnership and lessput up or shut up more community and less.
Fuck you.
(09:21):
Pay it forward.
Have a great shift.
I'll see you on the other side.
And that's it for this episode of cheflife radios line check podcast, join
us every week where we go over topicsdesigned to assist you to become the
leader that you always wanted to follow.
(09:45):
The show was written, produced directedby me, Adam lamp at the dish pit
studios in Asheville, North Carolina.
And it's a productionof realignment media.
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