Chef Franco Lania Talks: About What Inspires Him, Writing, And Changing His Life!

Chef Franco Lania, working on his book at the NYC Library

During the past several months, I have had many phone conversations with Chef Franco Lania while working on his chef’s memoir. Working with Franco has been easy, and anyone who knows him gets that he’s  not shy, and basically wears his heart on his sleeve. I came to know and understand his essence and philosophy by helping him organize his thoughts and history as we wrote his story. As his writing coach, I wanted to understand how he came to the realization that he needed help writing his memoir. Our conversation that day grew so long and I could tell he had a lot to say so I asked him to write about. Here is part of what he shared with me during one of our illuminating conversations, and later in writing…..

From the desk of Chef Franco Lania:

One thing that all artists tend to struggle with is the balance between the love of creating their passion and the ability to sell and market it. For many, this is where it all goes wrong. For the sake of argument let’s just say that the sooner you learn this balance and the sooner you can learn to ease up on the artistic submersion and begin to delve into the business side with the same passion as you have for the creation side, the sooner you’ll be taken seriously and begin to make money.

Personally, I suffered a long time from an imbalance between art and business. Like so many artists before me. I was way too involved in the making of things, experimenting, and searching for food knowledge and flavors to enhance my techniques and artistry. It took me many years before I realized that I needed to take my head out of the sand so to speak, and get more involved with the bigger picture of cooking and being a chef.

TVFN-was just becoming a big craze in the US and the Iron Chef shows were just coming out. Emeril was a big hit and Bobby Flay was doing Grillin’ and Chillin.’ I watched these shows over and over again, and said to myself, “I can do this, I can do a show.” I’ve been watching cooking shows since I was a little boy. I watched the era of cooking shows long before there was TVFN, like the Galloping Gourmet, Julia Childs, Jacques Pepin, and Martin Yan, to name a few. When TVFN came on, it tugged on my old dream—to be a TV cooking show host. That was something I had dreamed about since childhood while watching those pioneers of the original TV cooking shows. I felt if those guys on TVFN can do it, so can I!

I took my head out of the sand and decided from then on that all my jobs, travel, and passion towards cooking have to place me in a position or enhance my knowledge so I can write a culinary story and move on to cookbook writing utilizing all my experiences as a professional chef. My plan was to write and get a cooking slot on TVFN. I was not going to stop until I accomplished it.

I read a book once called ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ and it changed my outlook on life. What I remember the most from this book was that the key to making money and becoming wealthy is not to get stuck on the making of your product, but to become more involved on the selling, marketing, packaging, and enhancing of your product.

To say it simply, don’t get too stuck on how to make a widget, but become more involved with the business end of selling widgets. Reading this blew me back in my chair because for years I was suffering from that exact dilemma. I began to take inventory on myself. What did I have that I could sell like a widget and become rich? What did I have different from those other Chefs out there doing TV, writing books, and owning fancy restaurants? After spending countless years living an artist’s life completely driven by food and travel, what could I have that is marketable and different from the rest?

What I came to realize was that my ‘widget,’ my very special product was quite simply—ME. With no guidance or help of any kind from anyone other than some school programs and teachers, I single-handedly placed myself into a life that was amazingly blessed. The blessings appeared in so many ways and were a result of my sheer determination to follow a dream fueled by my passion. I had no avenue to express it like those other TV chefs. My platform was going to be writing and I was going to re-invent myself in that way.

The platform of ME was a noble idea but I had no idea how I could use it to become rich. I knew that I had enough education, experience, and knowledge to write cookbooks and do cooking shows. This was a long-time dream of mine along with the actual cooking and traveling. But it was now time to stop dreaming about it and having the belief that TV Chef land was a type of elitist boys and girls club. I needed to start making some noise, knock on some doors and kick the roof off my culinary career and place myself where I belong because no one is going to do it if I don’t.

I knew in my heart that I most definitely belonged in the Boys club of TV-chefs and Authors. This is where I found my thoughts going after reading ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad.’ I was going to have to back off of the fascination of widget making so to speak, and get more focused on the ‘Big’ picture and re-invent myself. The problem was how?

How does one stop an obsession that has nearly run their life for nearly two decades? The answer came to me surprisingly, quick and simple. Stop cooking! And start writing! Write your ass off in every way and on all things pertaining to my book ideas. Don’t wait any more. Don’t wait for more knowledge, another adventure, or one more chef accomplishment. The time is now and the knowledge I possess is more than enough to enter the big arena of culinary stardom with confidence and class.

I had collected enough recipes and cooking secrets, and traveled so much so that it had worn my soul thin. It was time to stay still and write. I began to believe that all the pieces of the puzzle and knowledge I possessed could be organized and re-packaged into a very saleable product.

The only problem was the pieces of this puzzle had been scattered in various cities in and out of the US over the past twenty years, and the memories and knowledge needed to be collected and corralled if I was to even begin. Things would have been much easier if I had been aware of this plan all the way through the journey! But of course the moment of clarity and triumph comes only with the realization of the obstacle. And my blessing—disguised as an obstacle, was the task of trying to organize twenty years of living like a gypsy and make some sense out of it.

Your focus and your desire to truly want to attack your re-invention are of primary importance. Without laser-focus it won’t happen. A burning desire, the likes of which you’ve never known before must come over you. When it does, you’ll be well on your way to collecting your thoughts and ideas to make money!

God works in mysterious ways, and I believe this applies to everybody! For me, every time I was dealt a hand, whether win, lose or draw, somehow by some stroke of luck, an opportunity popped up. Even the losing hands came up with something for me to grab on to in a positive way and move on to higher ground. Even the smallest glimmer of hope can be just enough when you’re down to grab on to and get yourself up and moving again.

An unfortunate set of circumstances in a business relationship I had in a restaurant in Little Italy in NYC led me to move on to Oceania Cruise Line as an Italian Chef. Not only was this a lesson in making a positive out of a negative, but being at sea gave me the focus and determination to begin to organize all the scattered pieces of the puzzle that I wanted to write about. Living in a solo cabin at sea was a blessing and I spent countless hours at night after the day was done on the beginning process of my writings. There is little to do at sea with free time—either you sleep, eat, or drink in the crew bar— those are your basic choices.

I opted to use the time in a positive way by writing and organizing my ass off in my cabin most nights, working on this personal project of re-inventing myself, and coming up with a marketable plan. After five months at sea I completed my chef contract, and left my ship with a significantly new outlook on life, my re-invention plan, and what I was now going to do with my life moving forward. I was ready to write my first book, get a writing coach, and start an all out assault on cooking TV show auditions. I was now organized, clear, certain, determined, and more than ready for these new challenges.

This is where Laura Denktash comes into play. Laura is a writing coach and a powerful motivator and organizer. Meeting and working with her is what enabled me to methodically put together the pieces of the scattered puzzle I was attempting to make sense of. Laura and her coaching skills helped me to keep from getting over whelmed from this extremely daunting task. And step by step it all started to come together in a much more vivid and fantastic way than I ever anticipated!

Author’s Note: At this writing, we are presently finalizing the first book—Chef Franco’s memoir, which is well-anticipated and already drawing a lot of excitement. We’re also working on a series of recipe/cooking inspiration books to follow that have sparked interest and are already in various stages of development!

Tags: bobby flay, Chef Franco Lania, emeril, featured, food network, franco lania, galloping gourmet, grillin and chillin, iron chef, italian chef, jacques pepin, julia childs, laura denktash, little italy, martin yan, nyc, oceania cruise line, rich dad poor dad, tvfn, writing coach

Category: Marketing, Writing & Publishing