Yes, Chef: The Hidden Sandler Lesson in The Bear
Sofia Rodriguez
Imagine my surprise. The last place I expected to encounter core Sandler principles was The Bear – the addictive, bingeable FX comedy-drama series about an emotionally troubled chef trying to turn his family’s sandwich shop into a Michelin-star restaurant.
Yet that’s what happened. I got a Sandler reinforcement session I never expected from the “Yes, chef” guy. One particular line he delivered in this show jumped out at me instantly as the most concise, compelling summary I’d ever heard of what we at Sandler call I/R Theory, or Identity/Role Theory.
A few words of explanation are in order here before we move on. First, you don’t have to have seen even a single episode of this series for what I’m about to share to make sense. Second, if you’re planning to watch The Bear, or you have not yet made it through all the show’s episodes, you can relax, because I’m not going to give away any big spoilers. And finally, you should know that won’t be sharing the scene in question with you verbatim, because, frankly, the language is a little rough for a publication like this. Let’s just say that this scene’s big takeaway line can be rephrased (almost) as effectively and memorably when we put it like this: Stuff happens.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s the setting for the exchange that jumped out at me: two chefs (yes, that’s what they call themselves, even though this is a sandwich joint) are on break outside the restaurant. The more experienced chef, Carmy, is talking to the newcomer, Marcus, about a mistake Marcus just made that overloaded the restaurant’s fusebox and caused the electricity to go out. Carmy’s not being aggressive or overbearing; he’s being appropriately direct about what happened and he’s helping Marcus think about what he could have done differently. Basically, Carmy’s being a good coach.
We can tell Marcus appreciates this approach, because he accepts the coaching. He explains why he made the choices he did, he expresses authentic regret at having caused a problem, and, finally, he makes a promise that, deep down, he must know he can’t keep. But Marcus wants to look good in front of the boss … and maybe, just maybe, Marcus has bought into a less-than-useful narrative somewhere along the line, a narrative in which he sees himself as the issue whenever there’s a problem. So he makes this promise to Carmy. He promises not to make any more mistakes.
At which point we hear Carmy’s response, which is, as I’ve said, something I have to rephrase to make it appropriate for a business article:
“Sure you will. You’ll make mistakes. But not because you’re you. Because stuff happens.”
Wow. That’s all of I/R theory, right there, in two seconds.
“I” stands for our identity, meaning our self-concept, our sense of self-worth. “R” stands for the various roles we play: chef, son, baseball fan, salesperson, whatever. We will play countless roles over the course of a lifetime, some of which we will perform well in, and some of which we won’t. And here’s the thing: Other people may rate our performance in those roles as great, or lousy, or somewhere in between. And we may rate our own performance within a role as great, or lousy or somewhere in between. But who we are is not up for discussion.
Who we are is not determined by what we do. If we convince ourselves otherwise, into thinking that a mistake happens because of who we are as opposed to because of what we do, we’re needlessly limiting ourselves. And we’re also limiting our ability to grow, learn, and contribute.
Sandler teaches us that we can only perform as well in our roles as we see ourselves conceptually. Our concept of identity always affects how we perform in our roles…but we never want to allow our role performance to affect our sense of identity. Our ongoing challenge as human beings is to see ourselves as we really are: as 10 on a scale of 10.
We all have the potential to be something amazing, to make a dramatic positive difference in someone’s life, to make a life-changing impact. We’re all here to be something great, to contribute something great. And the world doesn’t get anything from us playing small. Yet we suffer, because we’ve been conditioned to believe that we’re not 10 on a scale of 10. That we’re a six. Or even a two. We’ve bought into the fiction that we ourselves are the problem when a problem shows up in life. And that’s not true. It’s a story we tell ourselves, a movie we choose to play on the wall of our minds.
If we’re not careful, we can get addicted to that kind of movie. If we’re not careful, we can get addicted to looking for evidence that we really are two on a scale of ten. If we’re not careful, we can get lost replayig familiar movies, narratives, and experiences that keep us feeling small, keep us navigating well-worn paths, keep us well inside our comfort zone … and conceal who we truly are and what we’re truly capable of.
Yes: we will make mistakes if we make a habit of changing our patterns of awareness and behavior, if we keep searching out new perspectives, if we stop complaining so much, if we take more chances, if we fail more often, if we learn more lessons about ourselves and the world we live in. Mistakes are definitely going to show up if we do those things. But not because we’re who we are. They’ll show up because stuff happens while we’re learning how best to perform within a given role. And, at the same time, learning more about ourselves.
I think oftentimes, as human beings, we’re trying to change what we see on the screen, instead of trying to change the film that gets loaded into the projector. We’re letting what we’ve chosen to project onto the screen of our minds tell us who we are. And it’s telling us that we’re not enough. But we are.
Ten on a scale of ten is who we really are, even on a day when … stuff happens. We are always that engaged, aware, creative, inspired, ten-out-of-ten person. We’ve always been that person. We just made choices that led to us not noticing that that person is who we really are. But we can make different choices at any moment, including this one.
Here’s the big lesson that Sandler has taught me, and that The Bear has now reinforced for me. If we are brave enough to set aside the narratives that don’t support us, brave enough to open ourselves up to our own true potential, brave enough to fail, brave enough to embrace who we really are and what we are really capable of learning and contributing, brave enough to commit ourselves, over and over again, to a life of growth … we may just surprise ourselves and others.
