Pursue Your Passions & Learning to Cook with Confidence in The Second Half of Life
Hot Takes From My Conversation With Laney Schwartz
Hi, good peeps! We are having an honest and open conversation about learning how to build a passion into a business and create more confidence in the kitchen. I had a chat a while back with Laney Schwartz. She gave us advice & motivation, and broke down the steps we need to take to get started and pursue our passions in the second half of life.
Laney Schwartz is the founder, creator, and recipe developer behind the food blog: Life is but a Dish. She creates everyday meals for everyday people and is on a mission to help busy home cooks gain confidence in the kitchen, create simple and delicious meals, and cook without being tied to a recipe. She loves a kitchen dance party! Laney lives in Los Angeles, California with her two daughters and husband.
Take out those golden sh*t shovels and get ready to dig deep as we go into detail about finding our confidence in the kitchen, following our purpose, and turning our passion into a business!
Back To The Basics
When learning something new in the kitchen, Laney says it's all about the fundamental basic skills that most people weren’t taught as a child. Then you become an adult and it can feel overwhelming and scary. So, Laney focuses on teaching her clients the basics rather than diving headfirst into a recipe.
Is Laney’s course right for you?
Laney focuses on how to make dishes taste better. She teaches what you can add to a recipe to improve the flavor. She also teaches the basics like cutting an onion for example. She breaks it down from how to hold the knife to the placement of your fingers. So, if you are looking to improve on skills that will uplevel your cooking in the long run…check it out!
Foundational weeks. During the first two weeks, you will be setting yourself up for success. The course starts out with a kitchen audit where you find out what you don’t have and what you actually need in your kitchen. She also covers the difference between pots and pans, shopping for them, and how to use what you already have on hand.
Walk into your kitchen feeling like a bada#%. After learning the basics you will dive into cooking. For the next six weeks, you will be following a theme. You will experience how to cook chicken, vegetables, salads, pasta, fish, red meat, and soup. We will cover all of the basics and you will start feeling like a chef in no time.
Building Your Passion Into a Business
Laney found her passion in the second half of her life. She discovered she was passionate about cooking and teaching others. However, she is not going to lie…starting a business is hard…really hard. You are going to have to get your hands dirty and figure out some tough sh*t. Your journey can go awry when you aren’t willing to put in the work and do the yucky stuff. So…what can we do?
Your Support System = Success
You don’t need to have everybody on board. It’s about having one or two key people be on your team. Having people that support you and believe in you can make all the difference. They can help you set up a timeline for yourself, understand the financial aspects, and just be there for support.
When things get tough…how do you not just say fu*k it, I’m done? Laney suggests collaborating with other people who are on the same journey. They will understand the ups and downs of your business. Look at these people not as competition, but as your teammates.
Finding Your Intuition in Your Self-Recreation Journey
Truly understanding who you are and what you are passionate about is what will keep you going and thriving. Knowing deep in your bones that this is what you are meant to do. Being resilient enough to take the no’s, rejections, detours, and get back up again is what is going to make you successful.
How to Be Successful On Your Own Journey
Find what motivates you. Find what will spark your energy and keep you going even on the toughest of days.
Just start. Stay in your own lane, pick a few people who inspire you, and keep your head down. We are so used to instant gratification that if something isn’t a success in six months we give up. Just start and keep taking steps forward. It is okay if you don’t have everything figured out.
Be consistent. Start where you’re at, do what you can, but be consistent. Pick a schedule that makes sense for you. It doesn’t have to be the same as everyone else. Get your audience used to expecting when to hear from you, show up, and build that trust with them. Even if this means posting once a week, every other week, or even just once a month. Do what is manageable for you and stick to it.
Build a relationship with your audience. It’s all about relationship building. View your audience as human beings rather than just a bunch of numbers. Answer messages, go into detail, and answer in-depth questions. Remember that everybody wants to be seen…it’s natural human instinct. If people are taking time out of their day to follow you and engage with you, give them the time of day and respond.
It’s okay to take a step back. Learn to understand yourself and recognize when you need a break. Know when you need some space to just take a beat. Treat your audience like you would any other relationship and explain that you are having a day, you are fine, but you just need a day to yourself.
When starting something new, it is important to realize that it’s a marathon…not a sprint. It’s exciting to start something new, but when things start to get hard it’s easy to quit. You have to be willing to start from scratch and suck at it. You will make mistakes. You will learn from those mistakes and keep going. None of us truly know what we are doing. You may look at someone and think they know everything…but they don’t. We are all learning every day. You have to unfollow and mute the people that make you feel insecure about where you’re at. Laney said it best, “If you know in your heart that what you have to offer is gold and is valuable, you can make a difference.”
This episode was jam-packed with a ton of actionable items you can start with today! Get on Laney’s waitlist for her course, Cook with Confidence if you are wanting to step up your game in the kitchen. Or maybe Laney has inspired you to go after your passions and start a business in the second half of life. Whatever it may be…if you find your people, be consistent, build relationships, and know when to take a step back…you will be on your way to success in midlife.
FINDING LANEY: