Inspire Confidence in Others with Compassion: A Life Lesson from the Kitchen | Big Think

When you are in a position of leadership in a kitchen, or even if you are not, being patient is something that is very important. If you are a beginner in the kitchen and you have to learn craftsmanship, you have to be patient, because you’re not born with knife skills. You’re not born knowing how to roast a chicken or cook carrots. It’s something that you want to learn, and it’s going to be very repetitive, and you cannot get frustrated. You have to be very patient.

If you are in a position of leadership in a kitchen, you have to be very patient as well, because you are basically teaching the team to accomplish your vision. And if you are not patient, they are going to be potentially scared of you, and therefore someone who’s shaking like that will not be doing a better job than someone who’s confident. Then maybe if you may create frustration in them, you may create many negative thoughts in your team. So patience in the kitchen is something that is very important, of course.

When I was young, my mother remarried, and my stepfather Hugo— in the book, his name is Hugo because his real name is something else. But Hugo is very mean to me as a young kid and he bullies me when my mother is not around. The way he does it is obviously very vicious, and when I come back home from my day in school, he’s testing me and he’s trying to make me angry and to make me fight with him. And, of course, he’s an adult, and he’s much stronger than I am.

And then I was trying to keep my cool, and I was trying to not ignore him but to rationalize a little bit. Maybe he was jealous. Maybe something was wrong. And suddenly I would explode and I would scream at him, or I would break things that he likes, or we would fight. And as soon as I would do that, I was the loser, and he was the winner because that’s what he wanted. He wanted to basically destabilize the young kid that I was.

Many times, I had the pleasure to win the fights, but fighting is already losing. So what I learned about responding to people who try to bully is that as soon as you respond, they got you. They got what they wanted. You’re the bad person. I believe that violence will attract violence, and a compassionate approach will have more chances to get in return some compassionate answer.

And if you are talking about world leaders—although I believe the world is very complicated and it’s not my expertise, I’m a chef— I think that using wisdom will definitely be much better than enticing violence. By responding with armies and worse to terrorist attacks creates a system of no end in violence. So I am a strong believer of nonviolence, and I think it’s good that I am in a kitchen and not at the White House...