A short YouTube monologue by Donald Burns recounting a coaching call and his own early-career chef ego. Burns shares his coach’s maxim “you can’t bank your ego,” urging chefs and restaurant leaders to suspend ego, prioritize guests’ happiness, and practice hospitality from the heart.
I was on a coaching call earlier with someone out in California, too, and we're talking about the chef, their chef, having an ego. And she says, I used to be a chef. How did you deal with this? Yeah, I was a typical chef when I had my first restaurant and I had the big ego, and I was lucky. I got a business coach. And he's the one who actually really got me in alignment. And he basically told me something I'll never forget. He says, donald, you can't bank your ego. You can't put it in a bank account and tell you if you keep cooking for your ego, you'll eventually go bankrupt. And that was like, yeah, you're right. I just. I can't put my ego in the bank account. I gotta make people happy. And that. Sometimes you gotta suspend your ego and you gotta do. Gotta do what the guest wants. It's more about. You gotta make. Goes back to that hospitality aspect. Are you really, really embracing the essence of hospitality from the heart or from the head?
If your restaurant only works because you work 80 hours a week, it doesn't work.
