In the many visits this year to Virginia to see my grandson, my son and daughter-in-law have gotten me hooked on a couple of TV shows. One is Chopped.
Chopped is a half hour cooking game show on the Food channel. Four professional chefs from across the country compete before three judges for a prize of $10,000. The competition involves three rounds of cooking from appetizer to entrée to dessert. For each dish, the chefs are given the same basket filled with three to five ingredients that would normally not be used together. In preparing the dish, each chef must use each of the ingredients in the basket.
After watching a recent episode filled with unusual ingredients and numerous mishaps, I realized what a great model from beginning to end the show is for creatives. Here’s why:
- A willingness to compete. As creatives, competing can be intimidating and sometimes demoralizing. BUT, competing can also teach strengths and weaknesses as well as resolve and commitment. Most of the chefs are committed to winning because the money will help grow a restaurant business, finish schooling or provide assistance to a family member.
- An ability to work and be creative with the unexpected. Part of the challenge of the show is that none of the chefs know what those three to five ingredients in the basket are going to be until just before it is time to start cooking. This means they have to be thinking creatively from the beginning. And because they are working on a 20-30 minute average deadline, they don’t have time to second guess themselves or to worry about tweaking every little thing to make it better or perfect.
- An ability to receive criticism. After each round, each chef’s prepared dish is critiqued by the judges who are highly successful chefs themselves. The contestants have to stand there, with a camera on them, while the judges praise and criticize their creative work, knowing that thousands of people will be witnessing it later.
- An ability to move past blocks. I’ve watched people on this show spill boiling water on themselves, have equipment fail, or be unable to use an important ingredient because another contestant used it up. Yet he or she kept moving forward to come up with new solutions and alternatives, and sometimes even the winning dish.
- Knowing how to build on failure. Sometimes, the creative combination of ingredients and presentation just doesn’t measure up. Sometimes, a bird is undercooked, an ice cream freezes too hard, or a basket ingredient isn’t highlighted enough in the dish. But, if the chef isn’t chopped in that round, he or she can’t linger on the failure. Instead, they build on it, knowing more of what the judges expect and how to do a better job of giving that to them.
- Gracefully accepting defeat and disappointment. When a chef is chopped, or eliminated from the next round, they are filmed walking out of the kitchens, down a hall before turning to go down a set of stairs. Some thank the judges, even shake their hands, before walking out. Others walk out stiff and angry, others walk with tears. Some walk stoically, acknowledging that they did their best. Guess who the judges and the viewers are likely to think the best of?
- A willingness to take a risk. Since the dishes that the contestants prepare are judged on presentation, taste and creativity, the winner of the competition is often the one who is most willing to take a risk, to be a little creative, a little more willing to do the unexpected.
Often, those who get chopped on the show are those who haven’t fully developed their foundational skills, or who are too confident or too timid, or who aren’t committed enough letting themselves be too easily defeated by the challenges.
If you don’t want to get chopped in your creative work, make sure to practice the above lessons, so you don’t have to hear those fateful words…
“Sorry, you’ve been chopped!”