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Speaker 1: The big catch with a creative business is that the

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Speaker 1: more successful you get, the more it can feel like

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Speaker 1: a chore instead of a passion. But what if there

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Speaker 1: was one thing you could do to ensure the passion stays.

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Speaker 1: Ben Shuri is head chef and owner of multi award

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Speaker 1: winning Melbourne restaurant Attica, a restaurant that has been featured

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Speaker 1: several times on the world's Top fifty Restaurant list. With

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Speaker 1: all of this success and all these projects, Ben has

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Speaker 1: definitely found demands on his time, and yet he still

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Speaker 1: manages to keep that joy and passion with his creative work.

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Speaker 1: But how exactly does he do this? Welcome to How

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Speaker 1: I Work, a show about habits, rituals, and strategies for

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Speaker 1: optimizing your day. I'm your host, doctor Amantha Imber. On

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Speaker 1: today's quick Win episode, we go back to an interview

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Speaker 1: from the past and I pick out a quick win

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Speaker 1: that you can apply today. In my chat with Ben,

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Speaker 1: he reveals his simple process for ensuring the passion stays

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Speaker 1: in his creative endeavors.

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Speaker 2: I think for me it's essential, and I think this

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Speaker 2: is for any person that's had a small amount of

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Speaker 2: success in any kind of business or any walk of life,

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Speaker 2: an evocation is to keep continuing to return to that

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Speaker 2: original love and almost sort of in a way that

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Speaker 2: you know, the more successful you become, the more distracted

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Speaker 2: you can get. And we all know this, and the

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Speaker 2: more things that are demanding our attention but are actually

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Speaker 2: dragging us away from the thing that we did that

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Speaker 2: brought us the success in the first place. So for me,

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Speaker 2: it's about returning to cooking constantly and cookings what has

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Speaker 2: made me successful. And of course the demands on my

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Speaker 2: time are so many now, from poc casts like this,

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Speaker 2: to requirements of staff, to running a company with forty employees,

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Speaker 2: to all of the other things that I do in

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Speaker 2: my life, have a family. I need to keep returning

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Speaker 2: to cooking. So it's about finding new ways to return

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Speaker 2: to cooking and not just staying in the format, which

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Speaker 2: was I turned up at the restaurant at nine am.

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Speaker 2: By ten am, I'm cooking now. Sometimes I can't cook

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Speaker 2: at ten am. Sometimes it's not till twelve. Sometimes it

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Speaker 2: doesn't allow enough time to see an idea through in

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Speaker 2: the rest of the day till five when the service

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Speaker 2: starts in the restaurant. So sometimes I need to work

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Speaker 2: on the idea at home, or the idea starts off

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Speaker 2: in the home kitchen as an idea for a dinner party,

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Speaker 2: and then it eventually makes its way onto the outer communia.

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Speaker 2: So in the last three years that's sort of how

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Speaker 2: I've evolved that process. But I've realized fundamentally that thing

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Speaker 2: that brings me the most joy in the thing that

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Speaker 2: I need to protect is cooking and my ability to

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Speaker 2: do it. And of course I'm going to come back

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Speaker 2: to that idea of the more successful will you become

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Speaker 2: the hard redded is to do the thing that made

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Speaker 2: you successful. So I always remind myself of that and

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Speaker 2: I think it makes me feel really good as well

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Speaker 2: to be able to go.

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Speaker 1: You know what.

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Speaker 2: I know, there's one hundred emails there, there's an Instagram

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Speaker 2: post you've got to do, there's a meeting, somebody needs

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Speaker 2: your help, and external of the restaurant. But I do

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Speaker 2: need to cook today and I need to make that

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Speaker 2: time and get organized to do it. Another thing that

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Speaker 2: helps me hugely is having a lot of interests and

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Speaker 2: different interests than your occupation or what your passion is,

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Speaker 2: because it opens you up to a different world. And

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Speaker 2: so whether it's travel or listening to music for me,

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Speaker 2: or skateboarding or art or whatever it might be. It

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Speaker 2: doesn't matter, really, it's just about having a different sort

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Speaker 2: of experience with a different group of people.

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Speaker 1: I love that. I don't know if you've heard the

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Speaker 1: theory around I shape versus T shaped people. It used

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Speaker 1: to be talking about quite a lot in innovation circles,

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Speaker 1: where you've got your I shape people that are experts,

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Speaker 1: have deep expertise in one particular area, and then you've

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Speaker 1: got your T shape people that have that xpertise that

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Speaker 1: but then they've also got the top of the tea

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Speaker 1: where they've got that breadth of like different interests outside

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Speaker 1: of that main interest. And when I was and you know,

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Speaker 1: the research would suggest that T shaped people are quite

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Speaker 1: a bit more creative than I shape people, which kind

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Speaker 1: of makes sense. And when I was reading Uses for

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Speaker 1: Obsession and just learning about all these different areas that

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Speaker 1: you've gone so deep in, it's like, no won day

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Speaker 1: you're so incredibly creative. I do want to ask about

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Speaker 1: music because that's clearly a passion, and I love that

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Speaker 1: you actually created Spotify and playlists that go with the book.

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Speaker 1: That's awesome. How does music help with your creativity and

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Speaker 1: what I mean by that, Like, you know, I've spoken

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Speaker 1: to various creative people around how they'll use music to

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Speaker 1: get in a certain mood for whatever it is they're

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Speaker 1: trying to create. How does it help, I guess, boost

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Speaker 1: your creativity when it comes to cooking.

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Speaker 2: Music's kind of everything, you know, it's a soundtrack for

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Speaker 2: my life, and I'll soundtrack my life and almost every

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Speaker 2: moment always to music in the kitchen as well. It's

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Speaker 2: a way that traditionally chefs have sort of lifted their

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Speaker 2: energy at the end of the day, right before service.

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Speaker 2: I write about that experience. It's almost like a sporting

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Speaker 2: team in the locker room before going out into the pitch.

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Speaker 2: The last hour before the restaurant opens. We amplify ourselves

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Speaker 2: as we set up frantically for the first guest arriving

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Speaker 2: at six o'clock with music, sometimes quite intense music, very

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Speaker 2: loud music. It's something that happens with or without me,

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Speaker 2: you know, in fact, mostly without me. You know, I'm

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Speaker 2: mostly an observer to the kitchen using this as a

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Speaker 2: mechanism to get themselves in the right headspace. So at Ataka,

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Speaker 2: there's you know, a joke that it has the most

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Speaker 2: stereos of any restaurant in the world. This is pretty

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Speaker 2: much a stereo in every room, so every person in

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Speaker 2: the organization can be listening to music if they want to.

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Speaker 2: You know, I just can't imagine creating without it, really,

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Speaker 2: you know, I think it's such a useful tool, and

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Speaker 2: I always feel so indebted to artists. Another sort of

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Speaker 2: very cool kind of fact in restaurants is that, especially

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Speaker 2: creative restaurants, it attracts a lot of musicians, and so

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Speaker 2: we get to serve and cook for musicians and sometimes

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Speaker 2: become friends with them, especially touring musicians, and that's such

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Speaker 2: a beautiful thing. I would say that sometimes it creates

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Speaker 2: fair bit of nervousness with the playlist in terms of

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Speaker 2: will they like it, And in fact, sometimes you know,

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Speaker 2: famous musicians come and their music might be on the playlist,

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Speaker 2: and I almost feel bad about that because I don't

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Speaker 2: want to make them feel uncomfortable. But it's the greatest pleasure,

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Speaker 2: you know. I think it's such a gift music.

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Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this quick Win episode with Ben.

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Speaker 1: If you would like to listen to the full interview,

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Speaker 1: you can find a link to that in the show notes.

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Speaker 1: If you like today's show, make sure you get follow

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Speaker 1: on your podcast app to be alerted when new episodes drop.

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Speaker 1: How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of

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Speaker 1: the warrangery people, part of the Cooler Nation