“If you love doing it, you’ll be very good at it.”
At a time when we could all use a little inspiration, we’re looking back at Katie’s 2012 book, The Best Advice I Ever Got. In it, she examines her own experiences from the front lines of the worlds of politics, entertainment, sports, philanthropy, the arts, and business — and collects the ingenious, hard-won insights of countless leaders and visionaries. They tell us how to take risks, follow our passions, cope with criticism, and commit to something greater than ourselves. You’ll find thoughts from everyone from financial guru Suze Orman to George Lopez to Christina Applegate to Maya Angelou.
Couric also reflects on the sage advice that has guided her, from her early days as a desk assistant at ABC to her groundbreaking role as the CBS Evening News‘ first female anchor.
Bestselling cookbook author and television host Ina Garten has mastered the art of shifting career paths. She started out in policy, fully entrenched in the D.C. scene. But, following some insightful advice from her husband, Ina decided to intuitively follow her passion by purchasing a specialty food store. After two happy decades, she pivoted to writing, then television. Here, Ina discusses the power of passion and provides advice on cultivating career growth.
Ina Garten on Career Shifts
In 1978, I was working at the White House on nuclear-energy policy and thinking, There’s got to be more to life than this! When I wasn’t working, though, I was cooking for my friends, which is what I really love to do. I’d been married to my husband, Jeffrey, for about ten years and I had taught myself to cook by studying Craig Claiborne’s The New York Times Cookbook and Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. One day, I was in my office reading The New York Times and my eye caught the Business Opportunities section, which I’d never read before. And there it was — a specialty food store called Barefoot Contessa for sale in a place I’d never been, the Hamptons, on the East End of Long Island.
That night I went home and told Jeffrey that I really needed to do something besides writing nuclear-energy-policy papers. He said, “Think of what you’d like to do that would be fun. Don’t worry about making money—if you love doing it, you’ll be very good at it.” What amazing advice! I said, “Funny you should mention it—I just saw an ad for a specialty food store for sale.” My sweet husband said, “Let’s go look at it!” And so we drove up to Long Island, looked at the store, and my heart told me this was it. I made an offer on the spot, and the next day the owner called and said, “Thank you very much. I accept your offer.”
Yikes! I’d bought a food store!
In the next few months I was overwhelmed with excitement and fear—what made me think I could run a business? But Jeffrey’s advice—“If you love doing it, you’ll be very good at it”—kept me going. Often I worked twenty hours a day, but it never felt like work. I loved running the store, and over the next twenty
years I built it into a successful business.
Then I decided it was time to try something new. A friend told me that type-A people (I think she was talking about me!) think they can figure out what to do next while they’re doing something, but it never happens. She suggested that I stop working and spend the next year figuring it out. How scary is that? One day I was baking a thousand baguettes and running a store with forty employees, and the next day I had nothing to do. I have to admit, it was the hardest year of my life. But I know for sure that the next part of my career would never have happened without it. And this has been the happiest time of my life.
After I’d been struggling with one idea after another for most of the year, Jeffrey said, “Stay in the game. You love the food business—try something else in it.” Out of sheer desperation to have something to do, I wrote a cookbook proposal, thinking I could do that while I figured out what was next. I had always thought writing a cookbook would be a lonely venture in a room by myself. Instead, I found myself working with a team of wonderful people! I loved testing recipes and I loved working on the book with editors, photographers, food stylists, prop stylists, and book designers.
Which brings me to the final advice that I’ve learned along the way: You can’t figure out what you want to do from the sidelines. You need to jump into the pond and splash around to see what the water feels like. You might like that pond or it might lead to another pond, but you need to figure it out in the pond. After my second cookbook, Barefoot Contessa Parties!, was published, the Food Network asked me to do a television show. I was extremely reluctant, but I knew that the only way to see if it was right for me was to film a pilot. I needed to splash around in that pond. That was eight years ago, and it’s impossible to explain how much television has changed my life and my business. I love what I do every day, and I’ve had amazing advice along the way that has made all the difference.
Excerpt(s) from THE BEST ADVICE I EVER GOT: LESSONS FROM
EXTRAORDINARY LIVES by Katie Couric, copyright © 2011, 2012 by Katherine Couric. Used by permission of Random House, an imprint and division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved.
