Every week on How Success Happens, I speak to people who have a fierce hunger to do big things and make the world a better place. This week’s guest, Andrew Zimmern, embodies both of those pursuits. He’s an award-winning chef, producer and author, who many of us got to know while watching him eat rather interesting and sometimes horrifying cuisines on his show Bizarre Foods. (If you want to know what rotten shark meat tastes like, he can tell you.)
Zimmern is a Global Ambassador to the United Nations World Food Programme, and produced the three-part docuseries “Hope in the Water,” which explores blue food technologies and environmental innovations. And he has turned the learnings from those experiences into a new cookbook, The Blue Food Cookbook: Delicious Recipes for a Sustainable Future, which he wrote with sustainable seafood leader Barton Seaver.
We spoke about the book and how we can be more responsible eaters here on planet Earth. Zimmern shared some mouthwatering recipes that absolutely killed me because I skipped breakfast on the day we recorded.
Watch our entire conversation above or listen here. And check out tips from Zimmern to cook up your own batch of success.
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Redefining Success Beyond the Self
Zimmern shares, “Earlier in my career, everything was about me… now it is literally the exact opposite. It is about other people, about experiences, not things.” He discusses how success transformed from a pursuit of deals and fame to prioritizing happiness, contribution, and resilience in the face of life’s unpredictability.
Takeaway: Reflect regularly on your deeper purpose to stay grounded and redefine success in ways that sustain long-term fulfillment.
Embracing Change and Unpredictability
After the sudden cancellation of his hit show What’s Eating America due to the pandemic, Zimmern learned “you can get everything you want on a silver platter and 30 seconds later, it’s gone.” He advocates practicing “serenity” daily to meet life’s highs and lows without being overwhelmed.
Takeaway: Build emotional resilience by cultivating calm and acceptance amidst career and personal upheavals.
Sustainable Blue Foods Are Our Future
With a lifelong connection to the ocean, Zimmern highlights the rise of responsible aquaculture, noting that it is a “net-net positive for jobs, immigration issues, and feeding an increasingly hungry planet.” His Blue Food Cookbook offers 145 recipes paired with sustainability education for the home chef aiming to protect ocean life and eat responsibly.
Takeaway: Support sustainable seafood through informed choices and embrace cooking techniques that make blue foods accessible and enjoyable.
Stick With the Classics
He is wary of “influencer” cookbooks, preferring classics written by the likes of Julia Child and Giuliano Bugialli. “ I’m flooded with cookbooks written by people who don’t know how to cook that seriously. They’re TV talent or social media talent,” he says. “Publishers don’t have the money to market or sell books. They’re counting on authors’ fans to buy the books. It’s a broken system, and we have people writing books based on fad, and that’s just not my thing.”
Takeaway: Be wary of advice from experts who aren’t actually experts.
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Zimmern Fast Facts
- Andrew Zimmern is a four-time James Beard Award winner and the creator and host of the TV show “Bizarre Foods,” which aired for 15 years and took him to more than 170 countries.
- Zimmern’s parents influenced his love for the ocean — his mother wrote books about shells, and his father was a fisherman.
- Zimmern is a fierce advocate for mental health and recovery. His own battles with addiction and alcoholism left him homeless for a year, and he rebuilt his life starting as a dishwasher.
About How Success Happens
Each episode of How Success Happens shares the inspiring, entertaining and unexpected journeys that influential leaders in business, the arts and sports traveled on their way to becoming household names. It’s a reminder that behind every big-time career, there is a person who persisted in the face of self-doubt, failure and anything else that got thrown their way.
Every week on How Success Happens, I speak to people who have a fierce hunger to do big things and make the world a better place. This week’s guest, Andrew Zimmern, embodies both of those pursuits. He’s an award-winning chef, producer and author, who many of us got to know while watching him eat rather interesting and sometimes horrifying cuisines on his show Bizarre Foods. (If you want to know what rotten shark meat tastes like, he can tell you.)
Zimmern is a Global Ambassador to the United Nations World Food Programme, and produced the three-part docuseries “Hope in the Water,” which explores blue food technologies and environmental innovations. And he has turned the learnings from those experiences into a new cookbook, The Blue Food Cookbook: Delicious Recipes for a Sustainable Future, which he wrote with sustainable seafood leader Barton Seaver.
We spoke about the book and how we can be more responsible eaters here on planet Earth. Zimmern shared some mouthwatering recipes that absolutely killed me because I skipped breakfast on the day we recorded.
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