202: Stress? What Stress? Chef Maria Campbell
Chef Life Radio
S2 – E2: Stress – What Stress? Chef Maria Campbell
Show notes
Maria Campbell is a chef and co-founder of Cooks Who Care, a Philly-based organization that supports the well-being of people working in all facets of the food & beverage industry. Driven by a desire to create change in the food industry, Maria and her husband, Chef Scott Campbell, started Cooks Who Care as a way to bring people together.
In this episode, Maria describes what keeps her going and why she’s so committed to helping her peers in the food business get ahead. You can help too. Learn what you can do to help Cooks Who Care spread its message and expand the reach of its community.
Timestamps:
0.00 - Introducing the Burnt Chef Project
01.01 - Welcome to Chef Life Radio
04:21 - Introducing chef Mary Campbell
05:28 - Chef Life Radio bumper
06:46 - Interview with Maria Campbell
10:19 - Corona madness
13:26 - You’re going down! The power of the internet
16:34 - Cooks Who Care
22:29 - Hiring industry veterans
24:03 - The new kitchen culture
31:23 - Does love play any part in our new kitchen culture?
34:30 - Takeaways from the conversation with Maria Campbell
35:54 - Chef Life Radio outro
Free PDF Download: The New Kitchen Culture: bit.ly/cookswhocare
https://www.cookswhocareinspire.com/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9wr7qH6UwyhQy2pI-Tn7Qg
https://www.instagram.com/cookswhocare/
Link to Member Site: www.chefliferadiocrew.com
Link to the mailing list: https://www.chefliferadio.com/signup
Maria Campbell, MBA is a Chef-by-trade is an
established educator and a mentor who uses her determination and positivity to
influence all who she works with. Through her role as a Partner and
Productivity Specialist with One Degree Coaching, she provides guided
leadership mastery to businesses of all types, helping them to reach their full
potentials and achieve success. As the Founder and Executive Director of Cooks
Who Care - a collective formed to serve as the Well-Being Concierge for the
Food Industry - she drives much-needed change in the industry she loves,
encouraging others to support the health of underpaid and underserved workers
who run our country's kitchens and serve our meals.
Mentioned in this episode:
The Reluctant Book Marketer Podcast
Jody J. Sperling writes fiction. He's spent twenty years dreaming of the phone call from FSG, accepting his novel for publication, but after landing a literary agent in 2019 and failing to woo publishers, Jody's dream wilted. While he never quit writing and reading, by the end of 2021, he'd so completely lost track of his purpose that he'd amassed a portfolio of rental houses and was toying with starting a short-term rental business. Then he had a vision of all the people who, like him, had pursued their dream of publishing only to find themselves disillusioned and defeated. That's the day he decided to found THE RELUCTANT BOOK MARKETER, a podcast to help writers with their marketing mindset.
Adam Lamb:
Hi, this is Adam hosted chef life radio.
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Before we get to the show, I wanted to share some important information with you.
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According to the burn chef project, 84% of professionals in the culinary field
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report that they have suffered some type of emotional struggle during their career.
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46% said they didn't feel comfortable speaking to their colleagues,
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employers, or family about it.
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If you're currently dealing with some type of mental or emotional
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challenge, don't suffer in silence.
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One minute longer.
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Use this free service 24.
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In the U S and Canada by texting the word home, H O M E to 7 41 7 4
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1 or in the UK text the word burnt.
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Chef B U R N T C H E F to 8 5 2 5 8.
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And a volunteer will call you back within five minutes with a list of
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resources that you can use to get help.
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It's okay.
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To not be okay.
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Hey chef, how effectively are you handling the stress of your new working reality?
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To say that those of us in the craft are experiencing massive change
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right now would be an understatement.
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Now don't kick my ass for being captain obvious for a minute, but I think that
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we can all agree that it doesn't matter whether you're fully employed right
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now, waiting for a break in the action to rejoin the team or are engaged in
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re-imagining what you want in your life.
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Moving.
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We're all stressed in a way that feels almost overwhelming, whether you're
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stressing about how you'll cover the line today, or will your vendor show up
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at all, or how much education you need for that new position, whether you'll be
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able to afford to keep a roof over your head and food in the fridge this month,
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or how are you going to make it through the shift with the resources you have?
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The communal stress is impacting us in ways we're only beginning to understand.
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Yeah, it's a product of our mind.
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But our mind can't tell the difference between something that's actually
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happening right now, or something imagined that may or may not happen.
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It's then that the brain starts to react in very old ways, producing a powerful
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cocktail of neurotransmitters, hormones, and proteins, and to stimulate the body.
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It selectively turns on or turns off genes in order to deal with
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what it perceives as a crisis.
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And then guess what we really are fucked mentally, emotionally, and chemical.
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Now our bodies can handle it for a few minutes, maybe an hour.
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But what happens if it goes on much longer than that?
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Don't think this is true.
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If you're driving right now, ignore this exercise, please.
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But if you're walking or sitting, pause for a moment and close your eyes,
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imagine that you're setting up your station and everything is almost set.
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Everything's going along smooth and groovy.
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Plenty of MES and plus all in its place.
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And then you notice that you're missing something.
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Fuck you think to yourself, you pivot off your station, head down the line.
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When over your shoulder, you hear
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What happened to your heart rate?
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Did your face flush a little, maybe get a little burn around the cheeks
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or ears as you realize that you just got caught with your apron down, how
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would you feel if that burn lasted the full shift a week, maybe months?
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What if it got under your skin to the point where you felt like it
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was a never ending part of you, what would you do to mitigate the pain?
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Who could you ask?
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Could you even bring yourself to tell someone that you were in over your.
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During the COVID doc down, I managed a team of about a hundred dining associates,
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and I spent most of that time getting together in small groups with the crew
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about what was going on, how we could handle it, the challenges that we are
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going through, how to interact with each other, it was a lot to handle.
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And I thought I was doing good, but what I didn't account for was the
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emotional toll it was taking on me.
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It wasn't till I was almost.
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But I realized that I needed to get out of the situation if only for several days, so
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I could get my head and my heart together.
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So I could be more present for my team.
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I found out the hard way that it was impossible to give from an empty.
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And it's tough because we also, we don't know how to ask for help either.
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So like when we are lonely and we're in those moments, like, you
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know, I even struggle with that.
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I'm like, Hey, I've been working a lot.
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I reached out to a couple people I knew and being like, all I'm doing is
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working and I just needed to message you.
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Like, can you help me break the beat?
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Because I I'm just filling this void.
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You know, with work and or something.
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And, but sometimes if we don't make that step and we just cycle the thoughts and
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the negativity and the uncertainty that causes so much stress, you know, it's
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hard to be like, who can I reach out to?
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That's definitely a Campbell of one degree leadership coaching and the founder of
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Philadelphia's cooks who care in this episode, we're going to speak to her about
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how she got through the COVID lockdown.
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And the step she took organizationally to pivot out to
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those in need in her community.
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Stay tuned after the break to find out how you can refill your cup consistently
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so that the stress of reopening reorganizing or re-imagining your
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operation won't burn you or your team out
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This is chef life radio assisting culinary professionals to become their best.
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Personally and professionally, I'm your host, Adam Lamb.
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And over my 30 year career, as a chef and hospitality professional,
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I've had some amazing experiences.
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I have also made some monumental mistakes, but if my mess is my
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message, then know that no matter where you find yourself right now,
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you too can become the best version of yourself, regardless of the story.
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In each episode, you'll hear stories from chefs, living this reality, enjoying their
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careers and lives like never before also be talking to leaders in the fields of
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intelligence, equitable relationships, health, and mental wellness to pass along
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to you, the skills, tips, and tricks that will support you in your quest
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of becoming the best that you can be.
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We chef.
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Back to the conversation
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and chef Maria Campbell joins us on the show.
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Are you doing sister long time?
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No.
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See, I'm so good.
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It's so good to see you and hear you.
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It's great to see you too.
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And a very auspicious since we're doing this at mental
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health awareness month, right.
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A hundred percent.
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And so tell me what's been going on.
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How was your COVID?
maria campbell:
Oh my God.
maria campbell:
COVID sucked.
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And it was terrible.
maria campbell:
Um, but just like everybody else anxious, worried, terrified, uh, I mean, geez,
maria campbell:
the whole gamut of emotions, uh, but definitely a time for reflection.
maria campbell:
And it was like a roller coaster of emotions.
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Maria Campbell worked for 15 years alongside her.
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By that time she had seen enough of divorce, opioid use drinking norms,
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suicide, and elicit affairs.to know that something had to be done the
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life as she saw, it was unsustainable.
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Quote, why would others want to join us?
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Why does it have to be this way inspired by the question, Brianna set out to
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make a difference in her community of Philadelphia, with nothing more
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than a desire to see things change.
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She and her husband started a grassroots organization called cooks who care
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dedicated to creating a support structure and safety net for people
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in the industry, doing everything from food drives to wellness events, all
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meant to shift the current reality of what it means to live with.
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In the grind, you and your husband are both very, very busy.
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You have a, an executive and business coaching business.
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Correct.
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And, uh,
maria campbell:
I run it with ed Doherty, who, I mean, geez.
maria campbell:
We had a lot of hospitality clients.
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So at first.
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You know, we were hanging on just trying to keep everything together.
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How can we help?
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How can we support you?
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And not really seeing an end in sight.
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We're like, oh, this will just be a couple months.
maria campbell:
You know, we can get through this to being like, wow, there is no end in sight.
maria campbell:
I don't know when this is going to end too.
maria campbell:
We lost probably about two thirds of our clients, uh, just because
maria campbell:
of, of the hospitality space.
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And we weren't surprised.
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You know, to say the least, but the need was so great in our area
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for support, because we just didn't want to see all these businesses
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fail during this tumultuous time.
maria campbell:
So is that when you found yourself kind of like going into high gear with cooks.
maria campbell:
Oh a hundred percent.
maria campbell:
Um, it w you know, we were like, oh, we're going to be a membership group,
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and we're going to do this pre COVID.
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And then when COVID hit, it's like, no one can meet.
maria campbell:
We can't see anyone.
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Uh, I don't know if I'm going to get COVID.
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Uh, and I was super anxious about that too, but the.
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Cooks who care decided to be?
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What can we do?
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Let's try to pull as many resources as possible.
maria campbell:
I'll tell you the first couple of weeks in it exhausted me.
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I had to figure out like, okay, I can't watch the news.
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I need to decompress a little bit.
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And we're only a couple people, myself, Scott, my husband, who's a co-founder.
maria campbell:
I had a one team writer and some volunteers that were like, let me help.
maria campbell:
I want to help.
maria campbell:
I'm not working right now.
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How can I support you?
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There were groups that were releasing information daily and
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I'm like, we're not that group.
maria campbell:
We can't do that.
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So, but we can start a Google doc and we can pull together pieces
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that people can add themselves.
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And if we're a conduit, Let's do that.
maria campbell:
It was kind of like a resource pipeline.
maria campbell:
Yes.
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Yeah.
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I remember that you had reached out to me during that time as well.
maria campbell:
And I spent the last two years at a retirement community.
maria campbell:
So you can imagine that scene when COVID hit.
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And our last day of operation, regular operation was March 16th
maria campbell:
and we had to pivot on a dime and go to like complete lockdown.
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And so not only do you have your crew that.
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Freaking out, but then you've got 600 other residents who, you know, a
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couple of months later they're like crawling the walls because they've been
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locked in these rooms and can't go out.
maria campbell:
So it was, uh, it was quite a time for sure.
maria campbell:
I just, I couldn't imagine even that, like, we were locked down in our house,
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but I had people and you know, I have a pet, you know, and like, I just
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thought, gosh, that's so isolating.
maria campbell:
And to be older, I just have empathy.
maria campbell:
Yeah.
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I didn't realize how impactful the loneliness is.
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Especially for folks who have memory care issues, you know, folks with
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Alzheimer's they rapidly decline in the space of like no stimulation.
maria campbell:
So it was pretty intense, but I just want to make sure you and
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your family made it through fine.
maria campbell:
You guys didn't get sick.
maria campbell:
Yeah.
maria campbell:
Yeah, we were very fortunate and we just got our second vaccines.
maria campbell:
So like a lot of anxiety just shed just from that.
maria campbell:
Did you have any doubt about taking the vaccine?
maria campbell:
Nah, I'm like shoot it up because it was like, But I want peace of
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mind, you know, fortunately as is, I know some of my friends, like, I
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don't want to have more children.
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I don't have other concerns that could, you know, put like, oh, I'm not so sure.
maria campbell:
I'm like, how can I sign up?
maria campbell:
Like, please, like, let's do this right.
maria campbell:
You want to protect what you have, right.
maria campbell:
And so business fell away, almost nothing.
maria campbell:
Now you're basically in a ministering to a whole population of folks in Philly who
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lost their jobs, or maybe they're working marginally and everything dries up.
maria campbell:
And I know that the government came through pretty quickly and, you know, made
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sure that people had money in their hands.
maria campbell:
But I think for a lot of us in this industry, it's like, you know, we
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enjoy doing, like being an action and when there's no action to be found.
maria campbell:
You know, I can only speak for myself, but you know, those are
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usually the toughest times, right?
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You're dancing with the devil on the play on Moonlight, because
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there's nothing else going on.
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Right.
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Exactly.
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And it's tough because we also, we don't know how to ask for help either.
maria campbell:
So like when we are lonely and we're in those moments, like, you
maria campbell:
know, I even struggle with that.
maria campbell:
I'm like, Hey, I've been working a lot.
maria campbell:
I reached out to a couple of people I knew and being like, all I'm doing is
maria campbell:
working and I just needed to message you.
maria campbell:
Like, can you help me break the beat?
maria campbell:
Because I I'm just filling this void.
maria campbell:
You know, with work and or something, but sometimes if we don't make that
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step and we just cycle the thoughts and the negativity and the uncertainty that
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causes so much stress, you know, it's hard to be like, who can I reach out to?
maria campbell:
You know, I really got to give it to.
maria campbell:
Professionals who stuck it out through so much negativity and pressure, you know,
maria campbell:
even now there are guys standing onlines, you know, being overwhelmed with customers
maria campbell:
because the perception of the general public is, is that the economy is open.
maria campbell:
Everything should work.
maria campbell:
And so I think you're the right person ask, like, how do we convince folks that
maria campbell:
we're trustworthy again, this last year?
maria campbell:
Gosh, we need to rally everyone together.
maria campbell:
You are a part of it.
maria campbell:
And the singular thing I finally figured out it literally took me three
maria campbell:
months after listening to everybody for a couple of months was transparent.
maria campbell:
So I was inspired by the fact that social media, right.
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Hate it, love it, whatever anybody thinks about it, it has
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its use and it does have power.
maria campbell:
And what some people were doing was if I was pissed off at my location
maria campbell:
and I was mad about everything that was going on and Hey, I'm not
maria campbell:
saying everybody's doing it right.
maria campbell:
And probably the people who are getting called out, it was just a.
maria campbell:
Right.
maria campbell:
But what was happening was they would make a page that negatively talked
maria campbell:
about that facility and they threw arrows and hatchets and shot at, I
maria campbell:
mean, it was like, take any weapon.
maria campbell:
You can throw it at this target and we're putting it up there
maria campbell:
and we're making a page on, on Instagram and you're going down.
maria campbell:
Right now the, the thing is when I saw that, I said, why does that work?
maria campbell:
I feel that if people were really upset about something,
maria campbell:
I think it's gotta be valid.
maria campbell:
And then if there's that many people saying the same thing, like you wouldn't
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go that far out of your way, honestly, like, yeah, you can hate on people
maria campbell:
and say a comment, but when you like, quote a story, that's like, You know,
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heartbreaking when I hear it, when I was reading some of these statements,
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I'm like, you wouldn't, I don't even think you could make that story up.
maria campbell:
I couldn't make that story up on a piece of paper.
maria campbell:
I couldn't.
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So, but the thing that made that successful, as far
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as, yeah, that's negative.
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I'm thinking, how can we use this positive?
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How can we use social media and do this and positively enforce this?
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And it was transparency.
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So we're going to do is we're going to share our platform and we're
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going to let people submit three things they're going to be working
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on, or maybe they already know.
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That's positive and they work hard because what annoyed me about all of
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these negative spins and all this stuff, it's like, what about the positive ones?
maria campbell:
Plenty of places doing awesome things and busting their ass to
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like, make their place amazing.
maria campbell:
And so guess what we're doing?
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We're we're lumping everyone in to go.
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Well, those bad apples are mixed in with the good apples.
maria campbell:
Now we're all bad apples because the industry is terrible.
maria campbell:
We're not having another voice.
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So what we're going to do is we're going to let people submit three things.
maria campbell:
Any of the nine problems, which Jeff Maria is speaking about is a campaign
maria campbell:
that her company has produced called the new kitchen culture, cooks, who
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care promise campaign, and in it, they discuss nine problem patterns and how.
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Those problems are one, create a safe harassment, free workplace.
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Number two, work life harmony.
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Number three, seek support surrounding finances.
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Number four, educate consumers.
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Number five, focus on mental health.
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Number six, give access to healthcare.
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Number seven, provide a fair wage.
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Number eight, develop wellness programs and number nine
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inclusion black lives matter.
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They not only state the problem, but they also state some solutions.
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We'll have a.
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And the show notes, share it with us.
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It's up on our website right now, crooks who care.org they could submit
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and say, I care about diversity.
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I have been paying a fair wage since before the pandemic.
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I, I promise and I commit that I'm already doing these things, or I
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already offer health insurance, and we want to know who they are and go.
maria campbell:
We'll share it.
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So I just want to share from, from your webpage, you know,
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you're inviting everybody to take action and three specific ways.
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And number one is to be open, share your plans, your decision making process,
maria campbell:
and your willingness to embrace a new ideas that doesn't necessarily mean.
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You let the inmates run the asylum, the stakeholders still get to make the
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decision, but you get to be transparent about what's actually going on.
maria campbell:
Correct.
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It was guess what?
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Cause if you're not doing it right, somebody on social media is going
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to tell you you're not different.
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So I said, I don't want to be the police.
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You know, like you could tell me what it is you're doing, but I do want to
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offer an opportunity for positivity to have its place in the air.
maria campbell:
Especially in our culture for sure.
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Uh, number two is lead from where you are create a starting
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point for positive growth.
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And this really speaks to me because, you know, I don't think it matters a
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Whit, what it says on your jacket, you know, true leaders, you know, are in
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there doing it every day and nobody needs to tell them that they're a leader.
maria campbell:
And certainly, you know, it's all energetic.
maria campbell:
So, I mean, you somebody's gravitating in the room because.
maria campbell:
They're the ones that you pull to, and that's the person
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that you want to be next to.
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So bleeding.
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Doesn't necessarily mean that you have to wear a Toke, it could be
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doing anything that you're doing.
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Right.
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And it's for us, it's not about finger-pointing, it's
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about uplifting, right?
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It's good.
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If you, if you care about it too, and you want to make a commitment to doing
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it in a new way, even if it wasn't a way you did, that's what we want.
maria campbell:
Right.
maria campbell:
Or nothing's going to change, you know, I think it's important.
maria campbell:
And lastly, it's do the right thing by sharing your actions or encouraging
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others to do the same, like.
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Like what, and where are we sharing?
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So you're going to share from the nine problems that we've identified that
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are across the board, the industry, whether you're taking care of wellness
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and wellbeing, which is what this is about today, you're committing towards.
maria campbell:
And I've met lots of folks.
maria campbell:
And I find it interesting that I hear nothing about these
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folks, like on any platform I'm like, oh, so we just met today.
maria campbell:
That's great.
maria campbell:
No one knows about you.
maria campbell:
You're like, this is amazing what you're doing and you're proactively doing it.
maria campbell:
Yeah.
maria campbell:
We've always thought about this as like a corporate company culture.
maria campbell:
And because we have that influence, we've always done this and we don't do
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brunch because everyone hates it or, you know, and our team gets burnout.
maria campbell:
If we just keep maxing them out.
maria campbell:
Does it matter to me about my Sunday, you know?
maria campbell:
And I'm like, wow.
maria campbell:
Um, I, I've always heard great things about you and people say great
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things, but how can we help amplify?
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That is what, what I wanted to be able to do.
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Using them as test cases.
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I mean, we calling them out for doing well.
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Yeah.
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And we're saying, Hey, let's lead by example.
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You're a good example.
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Great.
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A river twice.
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This is a good example.
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And wherever it's going to be all over the world, I've, I've talked
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to the world travel association.
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Like we knew leading by example, we need, we need to pull from inspiration
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from places we didn't even knew existed.
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I want to be inspired by you and.
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And I want to be inspired by someone in Spain, then I want to go, oh,
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I don't want the media to tell me who, who I should be praising.
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I want to find out for myself.
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And it's funny you say that because in my experience, those who are doing the
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right thing, where they're at are usually doing it pretty humbly and they're not.
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Thing about it and you know, nobody's coming and interviewing them.
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I mean, there are a couple of people who get to break through, but generally
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speaking, there's so many people out there just, you know, doing
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the right thing because that's the way they think it should be done.
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And, you know, I say Jose and, and good on all of you because
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all of us have had the experience.
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Having a vision and an idea of like what it could be and then having
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that crushed, but it needs the boot.
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So, right.
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I'm so happy that you decided to, or that you agreed to be on the show
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again, even though it's been many years and I'm so excited to revitalize this
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particular show, because I think it's a good time to start talking about.
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You know, chefs and culinarians who have been out of work, you know, for the last
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year, maybe it's a great time to reassess.
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I firmly believe that all of us have skillsets that, you know, while
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they're applicable to what we're doing, they also have value in the,
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in the, in the wider marketplace.
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So if you're really having a hard time and you don't want to go in there and
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do that to your body or to your mental state, Don't Winston Churchill once
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said a change is almost as good as rest.
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And according to the burnt chef project of those professionals who left the
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industry in the last 16 months, 31% plan on returning within the next six months.
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So sometimes the antidote for burnout is dropping the clutch changing.
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And doing something different for awhile.
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I've taken three leave of absences in my career.
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And each time when I came back to the industry, I was more focused
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re-energized and really, really passionate about what I was doing.
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There's a blog post by compete magazine that talks about transferring your
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restaurant skills outside of the industry.
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And at the bottom of the article, they've make a point of saying that they pride
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themselves on hiring industry veterans.
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The reason being.
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We're already schooled on working well under pressure conflict resolution for
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team players, we're able to multitask.
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We have strong customer service skills, great ability to communicate with others.
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I was once offered an opportunity to work in the online education space for
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my project management skills and in the end product as a product, as a product.
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It's how we assemble all the pieces together on a daily basis.
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And aggregate our assets and leverage it out to a plate of
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chicken or an online program.
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All the same attributes apply.
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So consider what you do on a given day.
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You probably have a lot of other skills that you're not even absolutely clear
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about that are marketable to other.
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The new kitchen culture is what we're saying.
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Like we can reset to where we can be proud that this is us, right.
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I, I remember when you came up here in Philadelphia and we were doing a
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break on through event at a restaurant and you were one of our featured
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speakers and you stepped up and just grabbed everyone's attention.
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It was like, I've watched all the men in the room like raised their heads.
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Like who's talking like with complete, like, whoa, why
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you needed to listen to this.
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And you, you have such a humble way of sharing your first, your story.
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You put it out there.
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It doesn't matter how often, how little you put yourself out there.
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And.
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I love that about you and how you engage in your own unique way.
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I'm so happy.
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You're starting this up.
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Thank you.
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Thank you so very much, you know, I don't feel very old.
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You know, there are mornings when I wake up, when I feel, you know,
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probably my age, but generally speaking, when I tell people how old I am,
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they're like, get the fuck outta here.
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But, uh, but I got to say that I am starting to embrace this aspect of
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elderhood elderhood in community.
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There is a, a guy in Canada who, uh, has written a book, uh, several books and
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he, he says he was in the death trade.
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So he was in hospice for a long time.
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And so he's got this, uh, idea about, you know, it's wonderful to
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have to aggregate resources for.
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Behind a gate because they deserve that type of care in their elder years.
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But there's, but that we're missing something because they're not
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necessarily out in the community engaged with, you know, everyone else.
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And I, and I want to say that, um, one of the beautiful things I noticed about
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you is that, uh, neither of our ages mattered, you know, it was a, it was
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a rousing conversation from the start.
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So as I start to build this podcast back up, I've joined a bunch of chef groups
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again, and I was like, Like somebody slapped me in the side of a face with
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a wet fish, because probably for the last 10, 12, 14 days scrolling through
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the feed, there's at least one picture of, you know, a chef doing his thing.
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And the, and the caption underneath says, ah, we lost another one too early.
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Can I get a herd or a wee chef?
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And so this is still happening.
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So in some way, I'm not saying I failed, cause I'm not going to gonna carry it.
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But, um, Yeah, we got to get much better at this.
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So, so how do we, yeah, I think there are some really great organizations.
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I know that we're referring to kind of like either whether it's the crisis
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line or I've got your back, which I love makes the, like the lineup a conversation
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to be like, how are you doing really?
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Let's take a temperature and you can see many of them rare.
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Mamma crispy, you know, whatever it is like helping people have a
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dialogue about difficult conversations.
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I think we have a lot to learn with that.
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I know that I'm not nine to five in, Canada's doing a lot
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of work right now and just got a huge grant to record the impact.
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And it does include the U S of like, how are we doing.
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And I I've really urged people to go, you know what?
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I've heard so many stories.
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We have to start telling people.
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We have to, to show that like, record this, we have to have this conversation.
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We have to have people fill out that survey.
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We have to have people speak up.
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And, and then to make a difference because you know what, hang,
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hang the new, uh, flyer.
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That's not the OSHA.
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And like what I have to be tipped, you know, today or whatever, the minimum
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wage, you know, stuff that you gotta like hang up, like it should be like,
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yeah, it should be like, you know, here's how you prevent a suicide.
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You know, and like, how do we notice our team members aren't doing well and are
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we building a culture that allows the freedom for us to do that, to have in our
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lineup to be like, how are you doing your personal stuff actually belongs here.
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You know, because you're, you're here all the time and you can't
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check it at the door, right?
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Yeah.
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It's like the biggest lie we ever told ourselves.
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It's like, we leave our personal lives at the door and it doesn't affect us at work.
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And that's just like, that's not, that's not true.
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And so during COVID, it was like, you know, for those who, who
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stood tall and frosty and were in service to any other group, doesn't
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have to necessarily be seniors.
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But you know, the garbage man and the bus drivers, people who worked in the
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gas stations, you know, all these people.
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Suffer, because I think we're all walking around with some form of PTSD,
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you know, I, I, you know, I broke somewhere around February and, uh, and
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then I just had to leave and go down to Florida for a week and do a meditation
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retreat because, you know, not only was I being present for myself, but I
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wasn't being present for my managers.
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And it's like, and then when I came back, I'm like, okay, I get, I
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wasn't here with you, but I'm back.
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And I'm on.
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And then I just had to sit in the fire and just listen to them
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bitch and moan and complain.
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And, you know, because it was all coming from pain, you know, they
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felt like they had been abandoned.
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And I couldn't negate that by saying that their feelings didn't matter.
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And so it was a weird space for me to be in, but I felt really secure in that,
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you know, Just let it roll off, man.
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Just let it roll off.
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It's got nothing to do with you.
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It got nothing to do with you.
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So, so having the courage to have those difficult conversations means
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that you have to take yourself out of it and be present to someone else.
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Yeah.
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And so important that you recognized that.
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Right?
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Because I think that the biggest key are two things.
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One is awareness.
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If, if we lack awareness, we can't do anything.
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You know, we can't ask for help.
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We can't call the crisis line.
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If we can't notice ourselves, when we're not doing well, it's going to be hard.
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Right.
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And the other piece is what you did.
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You gave yourself permission.
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To do that.
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I think we don't, I just wrote an article about this when somebody
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asks me like, oh, Hey, like, can you give like top five mental breaks
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that people could take best served?
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Uh, podcast asked me to, I thought, okay, so I wrote down five things,
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but then I thought, you know, if I don't give myself permission,
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I'm not going to do any of these.
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I want to read any of it.
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I'll just be like, I don't deserve, or I'm too busy or I can't, you
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know, I could fill all the words in.
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Oh, yes, ma'am but I thought, you know, I need to say that first.
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And then if you just make a small.
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You know, if I took five, take five, you don't take all.
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I don't take breaks.
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Okay.
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Well, good for you, a mom saying if you gave your permission to take five,
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you know, everybody needs that, you know, it's actually, it's good for you.
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It's like eating an orange or an apple and you're just like, I got.
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Re refocus my energy.
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And even if it's doing nothing, you know, just looking up at the sky or just getting
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the air on ya, you know, like do that.
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And so do you think that love has any part in our new kitchen culture?
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A hundred percent.
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I love that question.
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Yeah, it does.
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Right.
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And I think that people who are open like yourself and it takes
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a certain kind of composure to be like, I'm putting myself out there
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and I'm going to hear your feedback.
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Whether I like, I like it or not, it might not be something I want to hear, but.
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If we're okay with hearing people's perspectives and we're okay to hear
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that, like, Hey, they're not having a great day and it's not your fault.
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It's like, we don't have to take the ownership of it.
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It could just be like, that sucks.
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Right.
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Being empathetic.
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That's it?
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Yeah.
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And.
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Alongside each other, right?
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Like we've gone through so many processes of grief that I feel we can
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be compassionate for people and not have to go through the same exact experience.
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We don't have to go through the same life experiences in order to connect.
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We just have to be able to sit alongside each other and go, I see you.
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Well, that is so powerful because it's so typically in work environments, people are
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sitting across from one another, right.
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Which can sometimes be confrontational.
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And one of the tricks I learned from a relationship coach that my wife
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and I were working with pre COVID was, you know, when there's stuff
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to talk about, you sit side by side.
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And I always wondered why when we were driving that kind of like, like you're
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in motion, moving forward, sitting side by side and all of a sudden
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there's nothing we can't talk about.
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And so that side-by-side thing I think is really powerful because you can
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feel like I can feel you sitting next to me in a way that's supportive.
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That's beautiful.
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I always get, the Scott always says to me, everywhere we go, some
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I'll talk to a random stranger and all of a sudden they're sharing
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their personal stuff with me.
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And he's like, do you know them?
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I'm like, no, I just met them.
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And I, I have no idea, but I'm open and not.
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To a make eye contact with people, which some people don't do, but there's
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something about just like being open.
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Like I firmly believe that I'm supposed to be in any place, any
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given place that I'm supposed to.
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And I don't know what's going to happen.
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And then when something does I'm I just let it be.
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And I'm like, okay, Hey, nice to meet you.
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Oh, you, your, your sister just passed away.
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I mean, I don't even know how these people, anybody tells
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me the most random thing.
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And then I take it.
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For a second.
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Like, I think there's, there's power in that, like just being alongside someone in
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their sadness or their, whatever you can, you can just be with somebody like that's.
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I think that's all, anybody really needs.
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Sometimes it's like, they don't need advice.
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They don't want to know how to change their problem.
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They just, they just want to be heard on the cooks, who care
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website towards the bottom of the.
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There's a really powerful paragraph that states we introduce new
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healthy habits to the food and beverage industry, which comprise of
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employees and independent employers in four categories, food fitness.
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And stress-relief or them, it all comes down to one word health or the lack of it.
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Speaking to chef Maria, I come away hopeful for our craft and fraternity
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because of professionals like her and her team of volunteers doing
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what they can, where they can as often as they can, or no other
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better reason than they see the need.
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I don't know about you, but my takeaways from the conversation.
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Number one it's okay to not be.
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Okay.
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Number two, be transparent.
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Always number three, give yourself permission to be ex mad, sad, whatever.
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It's when we cover the shit up, that the problem with start number
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four, take as long as you need in order to refocus your energy.
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Number five, be in service to someone else.
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And number six, finally let the.
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You can find out more about chef Maria Campbell at Facebook ducks.
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Forward slash cooks who care or cooks who care inspire.com.
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Please check out the show notes.
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We've got plenty of links to her website, some free PDFs to download.
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That's our show.
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Thanks for listening.
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time for a shameless plug.
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If you're looking for an answer to the questions you're asking, sign
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up for our monthly newsletter.
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At chef life, radio.com forward slash sign up or click on the link in the podcast
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player and get a free ebook, three ideas for less chef stress as our way of saying
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thanks for stepping into the circle.
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This episode is made possible by listeners like you, by sharing the show and
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spreading the news contributors include the chef life radio member crew, like
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maria campbell:
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Go to chef life, radio crew.com and step in cousin here at chef life radio.
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We believe that working in a kitchen should be demanding.
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It just shouldn't have to be demeaning.
maria campbell:
It should be hard.
maria campbell:
Just doesn't have to be.
maria campbell:
We believe that it's possible to have more solidarity and less suck it up.
maria campbell:
Sunshine, more compassion, less cutthroat island.
maria campbell:
We believe in more partnership and less put up or shut up more family and less.
maria campbell:
Fuck you.
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Stand tall and frosty brothers and sisters, but consider for.
maria campbell:
Where all the blood, sweat, and effort you put into what
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you do at the end of the day.
maria campbell:
Just some stuff on a plate.
maria campbell:
None of it really matters.
maria campbell:
It doesn't define you as a person or make you any more
maria campbell:
special or less than anyone else.
maria campbell:
It's just a dance that we're engaged in.
maria campbell:
So we might as well laugh and enjoy every bit of it or didn't,
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you know, that the purpose of your life should be, do enjoy it.
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I plugged it.
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Love it.
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I am humble.
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Lori at box?
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No, I don't live on now.
maria campbell:
Reach out to the show@facebook.com forward slash chef life.
maria campbell:
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And write a review.
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It really does help spread the news.
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Thanks for listening until the next episode.
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Be well and do good.
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This episode was produced by me, Adam Lamb edited and co-produced by Thomas
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Steffenson for food works media.
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It was recorded in a basement bunker studio in Bartow, North Carolina.
Chef Maria Campbell
Chef, Executive Coach & Community Organizer
Maria Campbell, MBA is a Chef-by-trade, an established educator and a mentor who uses her determination and positivity to influence all who she works with. Through her role as a Partner and Productivity Specialist with One Degree Coaching, she provides guided leadership mastery to businesses of all types, helping them to reach their full potentials and achieve success. As the Founder and Executive Director of Cooks Who Care - a collective formed to serve as the Well-Being Concierge for the Food Industry - she drives much-needed change in the industry she loves, encouraging others to support the health of underpaid and underserved workers who run our country's kitchens and serve our meals.