Welcome to Edition #95 of Gorick's newsletter, where Harvard career advisor and Wall Street Journal bestselling author Gorick Ng shares what they don't teach you in school about how to succeed in your career.
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→ Read time: 6 min
STORY
How Ina Garten went from government employee to culinary celebrity
Walk into the cookbook section of any bookstore and you’re bound to find books by someone named Ina Garten or “The Barefoot Contessa.”
But did you know that Garten was actually a U.S. government employee—and not a lifelong chef?
It’s the summer of 1971—and Garten and her husband had traveled to Paris.
After trying “the most delicious thing she had ever eaten”—a coq au vin (a French braised chicken dish)—Garten was convinced: She just had to learn to make it herself.
When she returned to Washington, DC, Garten “spent evenings poring over Julia Child’s cookbooks and testing out complicated recipes.” At the same time, she took a job as a nuclear energy budget analyst. So, while Garten worked in the White House on weekdays, she kept cooking and even began hosting dinner parties for friends on the weekends.
Before long, the contrast between her day job and her weekend pursuit became increasingly clear: Her government job was prestigious, sure, but the “slow pace” and “limited creative freedom” of the role “drove her crazy.”
Her weekend dinner parties? They were far “more creative and fun”—and gave her more energy than her day job ever could.
Soon enough, she started wondering: “Might [I] be happier working in the food business”?
Fast forward 7 years to 1978, and Garten stumbled upon a “For Sale” ad for a food store called Barefoot Contessa in Westhampton Beach, New York.
So, she bought the store for $20,000, resigned from her job, and relocated farther north to start her new career.
“This may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” she told her husband, Jeffrey.
Though Garten didn’t have any experience in food retail or the stress of sometimes working 22-hour days to keep the business running, Garten did have one thing: 7 years of experience organizing dinner parties.
Although Barefoot Contessa became “a hugely popular store celebrated both for its delicious food and its style,” by 1996, Garten soon realized: She “wasn't bringing any creativity to [her] work.”
So, Garten sold the store and decided to do “what her customers and friends had been begging her to do: write a cookbook.”
3 years later, in 1999, Garten published The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook. The book became an instant bestseller and sold over 100,000 copies within its first year.
3 books followed. Then, in 2002—31 years after she first fell in love with French cooking—The Food Network called.
Garten’s cooking show, Barefoot Contessa, premiered that same year. With her warm personality, effortless cooking style, and an audience of one million viewers per episode, she quickly became a household name.
Fast forward 2 decades, and Garten has now published 12 bestselling cookbooks and produced 18 seasons of Barefoot Contessa on the Food Network. “If you do as Ina does,” the late culinary celebrity Anthony Bourdain once shared, “chances are you are going to get a good product.”
So, the next time you stumble upon a Barefoot Contessa cookbook or show, remember: None of it would exist had Garten not followed her instincts.
UNSPOKEN RULE
Follow your instincts.
Many (and dare I say most) people feel unfulfilled in their careers. Why? Because they’re suppressing their instincts.
They keep doing what their parents or friends told them to do—and keep ignoring what they want to do.
They keep doing what they’ve always done—and keep ignoring opportunities to try something new.
They keep longing for a change—but can’t help but feel like it’s too late or too out of reach.
But what Ina Garten shows us is that, deep down, we all secretly know if we’re following our instincts—or suppressing our instincts. And, in Garten’s case, she decided to follow her instincts:
- She tasted a foreign dish—and had the instinct that maybe there was an interest she had yet to explore: cooking.
- She read a cookbook—and had the instinct that maybe there’s a skill she could hone: hosting dinner parties.
- She found a fledgling business—and had the instinct that maybe there’s a career she could try: food retail.
- She ran a business—and had the instinct that maybe there was still something missing: creativity.
- She wrote a cookbook—and had the instinct that maybe there were other forms of media she had yet to try: television.
Each step built on the last. And while she didn’t have the full picture at the start, she kept following what felt right, learning as she went about what gave her energy and what drained her energy.
The takeaway? You don’t have to have everything figured out today. But if you listen to that voice in your head that’s telling you, “Hey, this might be worth trying,” it’s only a matter of time before you discover what’s not only worth trying—but worth sticking with.
So, the next time you find yourself going, “Wow!” ask yourself:
- What about this excites me?
- What’s the smallest thing I can try to confirm if this just is a passing thing or if it’s really something I’m serious about?
It’s okay to change your mind, as we saw from our stories of Denzel Washington and Dune director Denis Villeneuve.
But you need to be efficient—and being efficient often means starting small, trying quickly, and, like Garten, investing yourself over years (and not merely months). Sound familiar? Check out my story on The Ten Year Rule featuring MrBeast and Joe Biden.
Follow your instincts!
—Gorick
PS: See you on Thursday for “Ask Gorick Anything.” If you’ve got a career question you want me to answer, fill out this form.
What’s an “unspoken rule”? They’re the things that separate those who get ahead from those who stumble—and don’t know why. You can learn more about these rules in the workplace in my Wall Street Journal bestselling book called—you guessed it—The Unspoken Rules.
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Sources:
- had traveled to Paris
- “spent evenings poring over Julia Child’s cookbooks and testing out complicated recipes.”
- “slow pace”
- “drove her crazy.”
- “more creative and fun”
- “Might [I] be happier working in the food business”
- she bought the store for $20,000
- “This may be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,”
- didn’t have any experience
- “a hugely popular store celebrated both for its delicious food and its style,”
- “wasn't bringing any creativity to [her] work.”
- “what her customers and friends had been begging her to do: write a cookbook.”
- sold over 100,000 copies
- 3 books followed
- one million viewers
- culinary celebrity Anthony Bourdain once shared
- Ina Garten has also contributed columns
