If you skipped the movie “Chef” because someone told you it’s a Latino foodie movie, you were misled.
It’s a movie about being an entrepreneur, about becoming an entrepreneur (specifically about how some of us can get forced into entrepreneurship), how some of us get helped along the way, the mistakes we make, the people we need (and the people we don’t), the hard work, the changes we have to make … and about harnessing the power of social media.
The story revolves around a Los Angeles Chef who gets fired and winds up in Miami running a food truck after striking back disastrously on Twitter. He drives the truck back to LA with stops in New Orleans, Austin, etc. Thanks to his young son’s mastery of Twitter and Twitter’s Vine, the truck’s appearance is met by huge foodie crowds in every new city it visits on the way to LA.
It helps that the food is terrific.
The side of the truck displays a large painted logo: El Jefe. That means “The Chef,” of course, but more often it means “The Boss” and that’s really what happens to our hero cook. He evolves from being a Chef for someone else (a stodgy same-old, same-old jerk, of course) to being his own boss.
As a movie, Chef is a delight
It’s heartwarming, it’s fun, it’s about family, it’s about Ups and Downs, about love and friendship and the fun of road trips. And it actually is a about food, great food. If this was a movie review, I’d tell you all about it.
As an inspiration for entrepreneurs …
… Chef is almost a movie training manual.
It covers crisis management, personalities, hiring/firing, creativity, over-delivery on promises, work, and more work.
And the sheer joy of doing it all for yourself.
Being on your own (even in an old reworked food truck) can be more glamorous than being a big star in Los Angeles. We all know about that but we sometimes forget it.
- Feeling connected to family, friends and customers is a big plus for us. And social media gives us the opportunity to expand those connections, our businesses’ connections to hundreds and thousands of people we don’t even know. Yet.
- We want a sense of purpose about our career direction. Sometimes when I talk to friends who are still working in corporations, they tell me they’re nervous about their fates resting in their bosses’ hands. This can be a huge problem for creative people. A copywriter explained it this way: “We have to appeal to the boss who is not in the target audience. This is extremely silly.” The solution, of course, is to test, but corporate poohbahs are terrified of being proven wrong. Oddly enough, if you don’t get proven wrong every now and then, you’re not trying new things and pretty soon you’ll be on the road to being wrong all the time.
- Every day we strive for more passion, humanity and just fun in our work. When I bring my little dog (Daisy Mae) to the office, my whole day is brighter. So is everyone else’s. If this wasn’t my company, I doubt I could bring her with me. And, for the same reason, I doubt we could test half of the ideas we do nowadays.
- Most entrepreneurs are happy. There is something about being happy that attracts people. You see that all the time and the people behind the movie Chef do a great job if showing it.
- Entrepreneurs are almost always optimistic. Good times or bad, we always know that something wonderful and amazing is going to happen in our companies even if it’s just a small wonderful and amazing something.
If you get a chance to see “Chef”, please do and then drop me a line about your take on it. I love hearing from you. Thanks for reading this.
