The Best Business Advice I Got Came from Someone Outside My Industry

It’s 1:15 am, and I just couldn’t stop thinking about this one conversation from almost 3 years ago. Ever seen Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen? That level of heat, that level of chaos, except I wasn’t a contestant and I definitely didn’t own the kitchen. I was just an idiot who wandered into the wrong place at the wrong time.

The Night I Got Schooled

See, my friend Lee owns this tiny restaurant tucked in a corner somewhere. Maybe thirty seats if everyone breathes in. The kitchen is even smaller, like it were designed for people who don’t actually exist in the real world.

I’d gone there for dinner one evening. We were sitting there eating when Lee got pulled away toward the back for something. A few minutes later, I saw this small commotion at a nearby table. Some customers was trying to get someone’s attention, looking around, clearly needing help. Nobody from the staff was around.

And my brain immediately went to: damn, we’re about to lose a customer here. So naturally, I did what any friend would have done. I went to find Lee. In the kitchen. During peak dinner rush.

The moment I stepped through those doors, the head chef spotted me. His face told me everything I needed to know. I was in the way. Very much in the way.

He then shouted! Ugoke! Imasugu! (動け！今すぐ) And I didn’t need to speak Japanese to understand the message. His face, his tone, his entire energy said it all. I just moved.

But still, I couldn’t stop watching. Thirty orders flooding in. Four burners all firing. Two hands moving so fast my eyes couldn’t even track them properly. Steam everywhere. Someone yelling “BEHIND!” every few seconds. It looked like absolute chaos, the kind that makes your heart rate spike just watching it.

Except nobody was panicking. Not even a little. It was wild and beautiful and somehow completely under control.

After dinner, Lee came back to the table looking embarrassed. Turns out, one of the waiters had already told him about the shouting incident. He kept apologizing, saying the chef shouldn’t have yelled at me like that, that he’d make him apologize.

But honestly? I wasn’t offended. I was fascinated. So I told Lee, “Don’t worry about the apology. Can I just talk to him for a minute? I want to ask him something.”

Lee looked at me like I’d lost my mind, but agreed. He brought the chef over to our table after service had calmed down. The chef was still in his kitchen whites, probably wondering why this random guy wanted to talk to him after getting yelled at.

I asked him the question that had been bouncing around in my head since I’d watched him work: “How do you manage all that madness without completely losing your mind?”

He laughed at me and said, “I don’t manage the chaos. I design the chaos.”

Later that night, I Google translated what he’d shouted at me earlier. Turns out it was exactly what his face had already communicated: “Move. Now.”

The Lesson That Rewired My Brain

The chef explained it to me like I was five years old, which honestly, I needed. Every station in that kitchen is set up so the most-used items are within arm’s reach. The menu is built around ingredients that overlap. And before service starts, his team preps everything so when rush hits, nobody’s scrambling.​

“Chaos looks random from the outside,” he said. “But in my kitchen, it’s choreographed down to the second. We know exactly where the stress is going to come from because we designed it that way.”​

I drove home that night with this weird knot in my chest, the kind you get when someone just explained something incredibly obvious that you somehow missed. The next morning, I walked into my office and really looked around. We were scrambling constantly. Same fires every week. Same emergency meetings are solving nothing. We weren’t designing anything; we were just surviving and calling it strategy.​

That chef never gave me a business card. Probably doesn’t even remember I exist. But I think about that conversation twice a week, especially when things feel out of control.

Why Your Industry Holds You Back

Your industry is keeping you stuck. Mine too. We read the same reports, attend the same conferences where someone says “synergy” without irony, and hire from the same companies while recycling ideas in different packaging.​

Then someone from a different world looks at your problem and says, “We solved that years ago. Why are you still doing it the hard way?”

Tesla brought software updates to cars. Toyota studied grocery stores and invented just-in-time manufacturing. IKEA partnered with agriculture experts. Companies that borrow from other industries see market share jump 20%. That’s the difference between leading and following.​

Why This Matters

Your industry is an echo chamber. Breakthroughs come from people like that chef who choreographs chaos. The dog trainer who spots patterns. The teacher who figured out gamification before tech people claimed they invented it.​

Richard Branson said the best businesses fix terrible customer experiences. I’d add: the best solutions come from people never stuck in your industry’s bad habits.​

These days, I’m seeking conversations with people outside my work because the breakthrough idea won’t come from industry reports or LinkedIn gurus. It’ll come from someone who looks at my problem with fresh eyes and says, “Wait, you’re still doing it that way?”​

Regards,
Rupesh