I just finished watching Netflix’s series Chef’s Table. It was a fascinating show where each episode dives into the lives of personalities of different famous chefs from around the world.
With each chef you watch their progression and struggle into becoming known and respected in their field. As different chefs began to come into this realization, it tends to manifest itself in different ways. For instance you have a chef like Dan Barber where they spend a small amount of time showing you his ‘anger problem’ where he essentially belittles his staff and goes off the handle. Or Francis Mallmann who showed no hesitation that he doesn’t like to make time for people as he’s got more important things on his plate. He only spends ten days a month with his own child. It’s better that way he states.
But then there was Niki Nakayama who with her success seemed to go in an opposite direction in terms of her ego. She became more determined to find her place in the industry and in the world, but this gave her a sensitivity to the people around her.
As humans go from childhood to adulthood, why do some of them grow into maniacal tyrants who nobody wants to be around and others turn into kind, soft people. It seems that all these chefs started with an insecurity (like many children do) of wondering what their role is and meeting obstacle after obstacle, but some of their insecurities grew into an arrogance and and some of them grew into humility.
How do we ensure that our insecurities make us more humble?