Grant King - Personal Chef, Grant King Cookin

Since he was a kid, Grant King has had an unwavering love for the kitchen. The inspiration he received from his mother laid the foundation of his cooking skills. Combining that with knowledge acquired from some of his favorite chefs has led him to develop his own style of cooking and entertaining.

Troy Schlicker: Good afternoon, Austin. Hope everyone is having a great day. In the fall, fall weather, which again is a guy from the Midwest, I'm always kind this isn't really fall weather, this is still middle of summer weather. But it's nice that it's, maybe going to get some days that aren't quite a hundred degrees here in, in the next couple days.

Today I am thankful to be joined with Grant King. How's it going?

Grant King: Hey, what's going on? It is going pretty well today. I can't complain. Like you said, the weather is okay. It's there.

Troy Schlicker: It cool? The biggest difference is that it's, still maybe going to get a hundred a day, but it actually like, Cools down a little bit.

Like it's not 95 at nine o'clock in the morning. It's okay, it's like mildly comfortable in the morning or late in the evening

Grant King: kind of thing. Yeah, I was seeing that next week. It's supposed to be, I want to say a couple of days over a hundred, and I'm just, I'll tell you what, I'm from Texas.

I'm so ready for it to be winter again. I don't care if there. A snowpocalypse, I'm ready for it.

Troy Schlicker: Yes. That is the one thing about this time of year is like people are like after four or five months of it, you're like, Okay, I'm ready for it to be done. As much as I prefer the heat over the cold. Four or five months of 90, a hundred-degree weather, you're Yeah, I'm ready to be good.

Grant King: I'm ready to be good. Yeah. Oh, a hundred percent,

Troy Schlicker: definitely. Grants actually a chef and a renowned social media influencer who does a lot of cooking. Videos and stuff and so on. The chance to get a chance to talk to him about his passions and how he got started. Especially cuz a lot of times we don't realize that some of these people that we're seeing on social media are actually right here in our backyard here in Austin.

Grant King: Yeah, totally. It's wild actually. Whenever I think about, who is actually literally right around us in the city, it, there's people here that you would just not expect. There are celebrities everywhere. There are people like yourself, very successful business owners just walking all around us and most of 'em here in Austin are wearing shorts and a t-shirt.

You would never even.

Troy Schlicker: Yeah, it is the Austin vibe definitely has the the kind of Silicon Valley vibe, engineer vibe of where you just wear what you want to and stuff, which is cool versus the East Coast or Midwest vibe, or it would be more dressed up and stuff.

And so yeah, you can go to a place like a really nice restaurant like Jeffries and not everyone sitting there and dress shirt and slacks and stuff. I think having, again, as we kind. Fall back to the temperatures. I think that has an impact on it too. It's pretty hard to want to, wear too much dress clothes when you're going to have to get out of the car and immediately start sweating in that way too.

Grant King: It's tough when you want to though, because it is the case, you're going to be sweating. Yes. It's just, it's interesting. We're such a casual city here, and it. The people are all around you. I'll tell you that I used to Katie four, obviously the mutual acquaintances that we have.

Whenever she recruited me into our old company where we were selling custom suits, my top clients, the most successful guys that I worked with all wore shorts and t-shirts. They did not dress up. Sometimes whenever I'd walk into their office, they almost looked down at me because I was dressed up here in Austin, Texas.

It was like a reverse, whereas if you were in New York, you see somebody walking in shorts and t-shirt and you're like, oh, that guy's struggling to make it here in Austin though. Somebody's wearing a suit and you're like, oh, that guy's, really trying.

Troy Schlicker: Yeah, trying almost trying too hard.

Like what's, what's going to a job interview or something.

Grant King: Like that. What's he hot? Yeah, exactly.

Troy Schlicker: So, you're a chef. You again, are on a lot of different social media platforms, kind of Giving out, doling out recipes, different ideas and stuff that way. What kind of, what initially is your kind of origin story about maybe coming to Austin?

Again, I know a lot of people Yeah. Aren't locals here when it comes to Austin, but kind of what was your origin story about how you got into that line of work and how you got here to Austin, Texas?

Grant King: Oh, God. Okay. I'll try and be quick about it. I'll give you. Breakdown. I'm originally from Houston, so I didn't stray too far.

I came up here in 2014. I was following a girl like always, and that didn't work out, but it led me to the great city of Austin. I ended up going to community college here for one year before I went down to Texas State in San Marco, right? Got in there, went to Texas State. At the time, I was planning to be a pharmacist.

Actually, I was a pharmacist technician all through college. That was my goal, my dream. It's funny, I say this now and I joke about it. I saw the movie Wolf of Wall Street, right? and I was. I'm going into business school, nevermind pharmacy. I'm going to be a business major. And I look back at it now and I'm like, oh my gosh, I can't believe I idolized that movie of all movies, right?

So, I get down there, I go into business school for marketing. I end up joining a sales program and just get really heavily involved with all that. That kind of stuff, and from there I met I met the company that I ended up going to work for out of college, which is where I sold custom suits.

So I went into essentially hard sales, just, direct sales for about three years, is how long I did that. Ended up, realizing that just, wasn't right for me, wasn't the right market for that specific job line. I ended up leaving there 2020. In January? Ju no, 2019. I, no, it was 2020.

I apologize. Just before Covid hit, it was like two months before Covid hit. So, my goal actually I didn't have a job lined up, but I needed out, so I, I told myself I'm going to get my real estate license and go into real estate and so that was my goal. I ended up leaving there. I actually was like driving Uber, driving Lyft for a couple of months in between while I was studying for that license.

And I ended up, covid ended up happening, right? So, all the testing facilities, all the Pearson testing facilities closed down. So, I was left in this weird limbo place. I had no job lined up. I couldn't take my test for however long, ended up being about three more months before I was able to actually take my test and go into real estate.

In the meantime, I had a buddy, we ended up, he was already doing glassblowing, he had a glassblowing company. And we got together and we actually ended up starting a woodworking company together in that time frame. And I ended up actually doing that full time until I really got my my real estate career going.

I even did that into real estate until I could finally, it's a hundred percent commission in that world. Until I was really bringing in. Enough money residually for it to make sense. I ended up getting out of that at a, after about eight months I ended up, dabbled in a few things, right?

And at the same time, I was also, I was doing a part-time gig with a company here in Austin where we would essentially bring the east coast oyster experience to your private party. I was shucking oysters at private parties essentially. And not something I had ever planned to do. One of my old clients from my old suit selling days, he reached out to me and said, hey man, I got to, I got something I think you might be interested in.

We're starting this company. If you want to be part of a startup, you could be one of our first guys. I was like, all right, that sounds good.

Troy Schlicker: From there your Wolf of Wall Street brain was like, Ooh, part of a startup. Like

Grant King: I can entrepreneurial, right? Yeah. I. I could even go back, I'll tell you this, I'll go back as far as, even in intermediate school, right?

Seventh grade, I remember I was like I saw an opportunity, right? These kids in school would if you asked them for a piece of bubble gum, they would say, Yeah, 10 cents. And everybody's Oh, 10 cents. I'll buy a piece of gum for 10 cents. Cause if you pull that pack out, otherwise it's gone, right?

So, I was like, Ooh, these kids need packs of gum. I had my mom drive me over to Costco and we would buy gum in bulk. I'd buy. 50 packs like every couple of days or however much I could afford. I'd go to school and I'd sell the packs for a dollar a pack to these kids who would then flip 'em for, 10 cents apiece.

. And that actually I never stopped selling either bubble gum or, energy drinks or whatever. It was like all through middle school and high school. It was just something I. Did sunglasses, bracelets, like whatever the trend was, I was always selling it. It was always there, whenever this, you know, startup hit me, I was like, Yeah, it sounds good.

I'd been with them for about eight or nine months and I got thrown into a random party one day. I went over and shut this party for a girl who's now a close friend, actually. She's in real. I ended up shucking this party for her and we stayed in contact. She ended up calling me a few weeks later and saying, hey, I want you back at the party.

I was like, Cool, we'll do another party. And she ended up calling me again. Another like month later and said, hey, I got a birthday party coming up. I'd like you if you're interested to be a personal chef at my birthday. Is that something that you could do? I see that you do, cooking online and that it was about 2020 Christmas time where I was like, you know what?

I'm going to start making cooking videos. I have a passion for cooking. I'm going to start just like throwing something up. I started that on YouTube and she saw that. She ended up saying, Hey I'd love for you to come over, and if you can just, do my birthday party.

And I said, Yeah, I'll figure it out for sure. I saw an opportunity and we ended up executing that one. I had one friend with me on that one and ever since, I've just, it's getting that one under your belt and then you can say it, hey, like I do personal chef stuff, I do private cooking classes, whatever it is.

So yeah. How, that's really how I got into where I'm at.

Troy Schlicker: Where did your passion for cooking come from?

Grant King: I was I was a big kid. My favorite show to watch whenever I was a kid was actually, the Food Network, whatever's on Food Network, whether it be, Rachel Ray, Bobby Flay, Amarillo Laga.

That was what I was always watching. And I like to eat, so when I saw them cooking, it inspired me to go in the kitchen and my mom would always. I'd go in there and say, hey, let me help out, let me cook with you. And I think, the passion really came into play. It was always there.

I've always enjoyed cooking. It's always been an outlet. It wasn't until college whenever I had to really provide my, for myself, And I was on a, I was a broke kid on a budget, so I had to get creative, if I wanted to make a can of tuna to taste different, I had to figure, out 50 different recipes for that can of tuna.

You know what I mean? I would say, very young childhood, especially with my mom and just food network. And then just really experimenting over the years is where it started to really come out.

Troy Schlicker: Interesting. Do you have a style or kind of favorite genre of cooking that you enjoy doing?

More than others

Grant King: I've really started enjoying cooking Asian cuisine, Korean Japanese. Just like those types of flavors. I would say just make a lot of sense to me. And I didn't really pick that up until probably, about a year and a half, two years ago.

I would say that's my forte. But I can cook just about anything I would. Yeah, then

Troy Schlicker: we make some sense. I don't know. You're probably younger than I am, so like I remember again, growing up, it didn't feel like there, it didn't feel like there was as much cultural diversity in our food.

I grew up in a small town, so that didn't help either. In Houston, there was probably more cultural diversity than in a small town that there would be, but it was less about, one day you're going to go to a Japanese restaurant, the next day you're going to go to Italian restaurant.

The next day you're going to do text meds and stuff like that. So it wasn't, that, that. Variety in the types of foods and stuff they usually ate. It's probably not super surprising that growing up with your mom, it wasn't quite as diverse cooking education.

Grant King: And I'll tell you this, we grew up in Houston in the suburbs of Houston.

I would say, every third meal I ate had some kind of, Tex influence. And her mom was, southern born. We were always eating Cajun food and, Mexican food. I feel like that was really what we ate. I had that background. And then my dad actually, so my parents divorced, my dad got remarried to a Columbian woman, and I ended up picking up a lot of that Columbian culinary influence as well which is very different from, Mexican and Spanish.

Types of food. From a young age I was able to incorporate that, which I thought was just really cool. And then, over the years, just different, things really influenced my style of cooking.

Troy Schlicker: Yeah. No, it's interesting, again, even as diverse as Houston or Austin Yeah.

Be in, in their food. Like it's still pales in comparison to the true diversity of different foods and stuff out there. And there's a lot of people, myself included, who, while I like different types of foods, like it's still, I'm still okay with the Americanized version of a lot of those types of foods versus.

Versus sometimes like the true, authentic, It doesn't have to be totally traditional.

Grant King: Yeah. What is, what's you’re to, what's your favorite kind of food

Troy Schlicker: to eat? It very I mean I love Italian, but I don't eat it very often. I'm not, I actually don't think there's a ton of great Italian restaurants in Austin, quite frankly.

Yeah. I'm someone who likes to be pretty healthy, I tend eat a lot of, chicken, vegetables those kinds of things.

Grant King: So lots of Quinoa?

Troy Schlicker: Not so much in the quinoa, brown rice, gotcha. Sweet potatoes. There's lot, there's a lot of different ways you can change stuff up. I'm actually am fortunate for someone who wants eat help. And I think, I feel like a lot of people that I know who are into health of fitness, like I, I'm able to eat a similar diet and it doesn't bother me the way that some people do. And for some people, if you had to eat the same thing, if you had to eat the same thing during the same week, it would be like, no, I can't do this.

It's got to be different and stuff. And yeah. And so, whether that's a product of not having a. Food taste or whether it's just a product of being okay with it in that regard. I don't necessarily know, but yeah, so just so it just depends, but it's interesting to go to different places.

It's also interesting to go, Another thing is someone who's more into like health and fitness Cooking what you get at a restaurant versus what you can cook from home and obviously what you can get at a restaurant tastes so much better, but there's also a lot of things in there that aren't necessary.

And like I remember going one of the first times I got to Mexico, having actual Mexican. Tacos and those kind of things like the, It was, the flavors were different. Even the health components felt different than going to a Mexican restaurant. Yeah. In the United States where it's throwing a lot of extra butter and having all the cash fries and all this kind of stuff.

Yeah. The cheese in Mexico was amazing, but I'm sure it would, the shelf life of it probably wouldn't have been as good as it is here, but it's if you just. Sooner and it's going to, then it tastes better, It's healthier for you and it's, Yeah, not for sure. And all those kinds of things.

Grant King: Yeah. I would say you're totally on track with that, especially having, being into fitness eating out is actually very tough when you're trying to maintain a diet and.

Back in 2019, I actually, I went through a very, fitness intensive change in my life. I decided I'm going to get in shape, and diet. I tried keto and you can't eat anywhere if you're doing keto. Very few places you can eat, but you're going to spend so much money just trying to get the right food.

And like you said, cooking at home is so important and I'll tell you what I do, idolize the fact that you can just eat, the basic stuff. Chicken and veggies and rice regularly. I really wish I could do that cuz I would be in much better shape.

Troy Schlicker: No again, I say like most things in life, we either see it as like most people tend to see the thing that they do well and they, oh, I really wish I, oh, I wish I could, taste the flavors or cook the way you do.

And it's like the people that can cook that, oh, I wish I could, I wish I enjoyed just some of the basics in it wouldn't take, an hour out of my life to, to cook every single meal and stuff that way. It's interesting to me how sometimes we take for granted.

That we do well in life and are always looking to other people, oh, if I could only cook like they could, or something like that. And that same person is Oh, if I could enjoy some of the basics more regularly, that would be cool as well.

Grant King: Totally. And I'll even say this, I think when we do things well, we automatically assume that others do as well.

To a certain extent and I forget that a lot of people don't know how to cook. I really do. And I'll say this, imposter syndrome, I'm sure you know all about this being in the world of sales, and it creeps in, when you don't even realize it. And when I first got the opportunity to become a personal chef, for instance, To me, I was like, Why do you need me to, why do you need me to come and cook for you?

I don't understand. You, y'all probably know how to do that, right? You can probably cook really well. Why don't you just cook it up for your friends? And I forget that not everybody you know knows how to sell a house. Not everybody knows, mortgage banking and, just knowing how to cook.

Things like that, yeah. It's interesting when you talk, especially the diet side of it, that's a whole nother layer to it. So yeah, kudos to you for your efforts and all that.

Troy Schlicker: I appreciate it. Yeah. I noticed that in your background there, you got a couple of different guitars and stuff.

I'm assuming you know how to play them or are they just cool wall decorations?

Grant King: So, whenever I was in high school no, I was 12 years old. I got my first drum set. I actually. I bought my first drum set with my own money. It was like the proudest day of my life. I had been saving up. I bought this drum set, best investment I ever made.

I'm not even kidding. Been playing that since I was about 12. Been playing guitar since I was about 15. My dream was always to be a rockstar back in high school that I told people, I was like, I'm going to be a rock star. I'm going to be Travis Barker. Just wait. And it's funny too, people ask how I got into music.

Whenever I was not the best kid. I was I loved entertainment. I loved just getting a rise out of people. I loved, the reactions that people would give me. And so, I was always trying to crack jokes. I was always, school was not something I cared about. So I was grounded. I was grounded between the age of, I want to say about 14 and a half until I was like 17, until I got my grades together.

I'm not even kidding. There was. A two-year stretch where I was just straight grounded cuz my grades were low and my brother gave me a guitar. He said, hey, here's a guitar, why don't you keep yourself busy? He said, Sweet. Cause at the time, drums was on the back burner and that was probably like the second-best thing that fell into my lap in high school specifically, was the fact that I got grounded actually taught me.

I taught myself how to play guitar and now it's one of my biggest passions. Nice.

Troy Schlicker: Do you ever a chance to, do you just play for yourself then, or do you get a chance to play professionally or at, at places?

Grant King: So nowadays it's really just for myself. And during Covid I started producing music as well.

So that was it. Initially it was for myself, and then I was like, Ooh, I can start selling, like my music, it's, I can start selling beets and, rhythms and stuff like that. And then I realized, eh, I don't really care to do. Back in the day though, I did play in a few bands. I played in my church band as my first band.

I played in a hardcore band. I played in kind of like a John Mayor slash Black Keys type of band. I would say I would go back; I would play in a band if I had more time. I just don't have time for it.

Troy Schlicker: You can at least produce the music for the background music for your YouTube videos, right?

Like you could produce your intro and outro for your, for your videos.

Grant King: So, I did that actually, that was whenever I started on YouTube. One of, I, I started on YouTube with the idea that everything I'm doing now is going to be part of my brand later. So, me, from day one, I was plugging affiliate links.

I was only using my own music on YouTube just for all the copyright reasons. So I was, all my music was in the background. Yeah, exactly. I don't do that on TikTok and Instagram just because the way that those platforms work. They want you to use their music. No, but YouTube specifically,

Troy Schlicker: That's so cool.

Yeah. What, and so I'm with TikTok, the platform that really blew up your brand that way just with the exposure and I'm assuming the format worked out really well for you as well.

Grant King: So interestingly, I, and again, back to one of these things that, anybody in sales knows this.

Anybody that is successful knows. it takes time for things to happen, right? So, I really do believe that anybody could go on social media and, really gain, if they want to be a rock star, if they want to be a, a comedian, if they want to be a chef, whatever it is. I believe that anybody can do that if they just stick with it long enough and continue to grow.

In their craft. So, at first it wasn't easy, actually, I was posting stuff all the time and I'd get, a couple hundred views, couple hundred there 10 views there, for a long time. Actually, I didn't I was posting content overall for about a year and a half before I even had, that was about a year before I had my first thousand followers, and then it was about a year and a half.

Before I even hit, 10,000 followers. So, it was a long, it was a long period of, just posting and not really seeing any results. But TikTok definitely is the platform that allows you to have the most organic growth Sure. Of all of them.

Troy Schlicker: Yeah. What do you think, what was, what helped you continue?

Through that process, right? Because for a lot of people, if it was, if it was going to take, if it took a year for that, for only a thousand followers, which again yeah, is not insignificant, but in today's world of social media feels insignificant. They would've given up three months into that, let alone, nine months into that.

What was, what kind of helped keep you motivated to stay the course and keep going that direction? Especially cuz they say you, you have a. A lot of different interests, so it's not as if you couldn't have pivoted to something else, during that timeframe as well.

Grant King: It's funny that you say that.

And I know we were before this chatting a little bit about Gary Vaynerchuk, And just a short clip that I saw mentioned one time that if you don't know what you want, if you don't know what you want to do, if you don't know what you're passionate about, try something new every four to six months until you figure it.

And so Covid for kind of, take a step away from the question for a second. Covid, I think I, I did about 10 different positions just trying to figure out what I wanted, cuz I was gun ho for a long time that I was going to be a professional suit selling guy for the rest of my life. Whenever that ended, I was like, what am I going to do?

What do I really like? And I pondered that and I've reflected and realized that food is something I really do enjoy. And the idea, for instance, being on Master Chef or something like that had always just made me, excited. I was like, oh, that's, that right there would be so cool.

I would say, fast forward to whenever I was about a year in. I always actually, from day one, whenever I started, I had the vision. Top already. It was there, And I just knew that if I did X, Y, z, if I executed on more of the tasks, to get to the goal that I would eventually get there.

Also too, I'll say that, I reached out to a lot of other social media people really early on, especially once I got into the, YouTube and TikTok side of things. I reached out to a bunch of guys. Just I saw on there and realized, hey this guy really knows what he's doing, or this girl really knows what she's doing.

Let me reach out and see if they would gimme a little advice. I was reaching out saying, hey, what I had no clue. I don't have a background in content creation or videography or audio or anything like that. Sure. I'll reach out and say, hey, I really like what you're doing. What kind of audio and camera equipment are you?

Because your content is great and for some reason, they, they were all like, hey, thank you so much. Yeah, this guy's real. This is what I'm doing.  I did, I, I gained a handful of, closer, I would say even now today, kind of like mentors from a very young age that I had to gain their respect.

Not age, early on in my social media career I had to gain their respect. They were slow to give me, their attention. But over time though, they really gave me support and reminded me that, hey, just keep what you're doing. Keep doing what you're doing. Like you have a personality here.

If you just keep doing what you're doing, man, like you will get there. How I, preach it now. Like I really do believe that. So that really helped out my mindset.

Troy Schlicker: Yeah, it gave you the perspective that you don't. When you're going through it the first time that yes, it feels like progress isn't being made, but it really is like you're getting better at the videos you're getting.

Yeah. Better at the production you're getting that, vault of documentation and stuff or of videos that eventually, when that. Tipping point happens is makes all the difference in the world because totally every, everyone, even, people who have millions of followers at some point started with no followers.

And yes, again, the occasional person, like when Tom Brady finally got on, I can't remember if it was like Instagram or whatever. Yeah. Great for the first time that he did it, he, I'm sure he got a million followers really quick, but he had also spent all the time getting really good at the other stuff that he had done to allow him to have that kind of thing.

And yet a lot of us like to think that we should be able to get on there, get on a platform, and just immediately start to see success right away.

Grant King: And it's funny that you say that too, because most people do look at, for instance, Tom Brady, and they're like, oh, Tom Brady, got on TikTok and, went from a zero to a million in a week, right?

It didn't take him a week to go zero to a million. It took him 42 years exactly. His life. It took him his whole life to get to the point where he can do that, yeah, exactly.

Troy Schlicker: Yeah, it's just, it's an interesting perspective that I think a lot of people. Don't necessarily take when it comes to the challenges the success that other people have, right?

Like it's, most people like to excuse the success that other people have. Unfortunately, instead of realizing that almost all success comes with a lot of hard work and a lot of time and effort, blood, sweat, and tears kind of thing. So

Grant King: Totally. And I think with, everything, but like with social media, it's so prominent these days and you really only see.

Best of the best videos, right? that's all that you see because that's all that the platform supports, right? . And that's what people compare themselves to. So when they're posting videos, for the first time and it's not very great and it's not getting, 50,000 views off the bat, cuz that's all they see, it's very discouraging.

And I think it's really important for, anybody and that wants to go into something like this to remember that we all start from a different place, and so for me one of the very, things that, one of the things that really, inspired me was hearing these people's stories was hearing, I would ask them like, Hey what was your upbringing in social media?

Where did you post a video and immediately get 50,000 followers or did you have to grind for a year and a half before you got there? And I heard, all sorts of stories. I heard, I'd, I had one guy I know who's very big now. He posted a video like his second week and it got 130 million views.

and gained a hundred thousand followers overnight. So for him, the trajectory was totally different from somebody like me who's been in it for now, almost two years. And I'm just sitting at about 90,000, it's just important to remember that we all start from a different place.

Different skill set, different knowledge, different, not everybody even has the ability to make a video. Yeah. Or even a video a week. Some people you know are, just trying to get by. So for them to be able to afford the equipment alone, so we all got to start from somewhere.

Just start, starting is the biggest thing,

Troy Schlicker: And hat's why, part of why it's super important that you enjoy the process of it versus just enjoying the end results. Who I want to be, social media famous or how, whatever make earning this much money. If that's the only reason you're doing it, you're not likely to stick with it through the challenging times of

Grant King: For sure.

And you're, I would say it's actually very unlikely that you're even going to be happy when you attain that anyways, right? Yeah.

Troy Schlicker: Because then you’ve got to, you still got to keep it up. You don't suddenly hit this one thing and then you just don't do anything anymore. If that, if your goal is to be a social media content creator, then you're going to have to continue to make social media content.

Grant King: Yeah, oh, I hit a million followers now what? Oh man, it doesn't feel nearly as cool as I thought it would. And now what do I do? I guess I got to set another big goal and another one, so really enjoying every, every aspect of the process is so important, like you said.

Troy Schlicker: So obviously you're still doing videos on social media. Do you do still the personal chef side of things as well?

Grant King: And I'll tell you this, I actually, so I have a full-time job. I work at Google. That's what I do 40 hours a week, right? I do relationship management. I took my knowledge of real estate and now I'm on more of the relationship management side of real estate for Google Fiber specifically.

And then I, my goal is to create two videos a week right now in a very specific style that I've been doing, which each video requires about eight hours of time from start to finish. And then I do personal chef stuff. It just depends. I'm very, I covet my time, so I only take on events that I know are going to be, just worth my time.

So, I'm doing in the next two months, for instance, I'm doing I have one personal chef event lined up the second. Of October. And then in November I'm actually going to be cooking at the Austin Mac and Cheese Festival. Nice. Yeah, so that was something I got the offer to do that and I was like, that.

That'll be worth my time. I can do that one for sure. So yes, I do to an extent.

Troy Schlicker: Nice. That's cool. But no, it's nice to be able to, again, having the full-time job allows you, obviously one, it restricts how much time you have, but it also allows you to be a little bit more. Particular on the types of jobs that you want to take cuz you're not having to scrap and cloth or rent and all those kind of things through just, totally just the cooking side of things. So

Grant King: I have a one of my mentors actually in in what I'm doing, he's another content creator and he's. Got a really significant following. I just recently actually was reaching out, saying, I was like, hey, I need your advice.

I really want to turn this into a full-time gig, so what can I do to, get out of my nine to five and really just start to do this full-time? And he gave me some interesting advice. He said, you know what, you’re actually very fortunate that you don't have to do this full time yet, because people that do, have to rely on their, content for income.

That's where they start to sell out. That's where they start to take on deals, brand deals that don't actually really fit,

Troy Schlicker: Align with their mission and with their goals and with their character and stuff

Grant King: Totally, a hundred percent, start doing things that you know, you wouldn't usually be doing.

That really changed my perspective, back to wow, you know what, You're right. I am fortunate that I have a full-time income to where I can build this thing out slowly and properly. Yeah.

Troy Schlicker: Very cool. Yeah. So, for people who want to, follow you to get some great cooking ideas or, potentially have a need for a personal chef, what are some of the best ways to follow along or to get in touch with you?

Grant King: Yeah. Instagram is probably the best way. I have a website. If you want to book me, you can go to my website. I sell my products on there as well. I have a seasoning and I have, some merch that you can get. It, honestly, I respond to every one of my social, my Instagram direct messages.

So, if you want to reach out to me there, that's where if you have just questions regarding, anything at all. Honestly, if you're just curious about how to get into social media, if you want to, talk about having me out for a party, I would say Instagram or email my email is on my social platform.

Troy Schlicker: This podcast is going to live indefinitely. So, when in five years when you're at a million followers and someone hears this podcast and it says, oh, I still answer all my DMs, just you.

Grant King: Yeah. Definitely my email too. GK cookin just type in GK cookin and you'll find me. Find me.

Yeah.

Troy Schlicker: That's awesome. Exactly. I really appreciate taking the time to Yeah. To do the podcast. It's been really interesting to hear your story and hear different, the different things you got going on. It's again, the, scrolling through. Scroll through social media and looking at all the amazing recipes and being like, ah, I really should do that.

And I'm like, I don't have any of that in my house. Then that makes it easier to, to not, if, if I had all the stuff sitting around, I'd be like, Oh, I got to do that. But yeah, the the motivation to get to the grocery store or to have the delivery service finally get the ingredients here, and then you're like, Why'd I order this stuff again?

Okay. Yeah.

Grant King: You're like, Oh yeah, that guy. I'll tell you this, I know that my stuff is hard to recreate my content. I'm more on the entertainment side than I am the, educational side these days. So I totally get that. If you order all this stuff and you're like, How am I going to do this?

That doesn't even make sense. But no, it's fun for

Troy Schlicker: you, right? Again, right? It's not that there's, there definitely. The cooking stuff that is, Hey, here's what you could have for supper tonight, kind of stuff. Yeah. But it's also fun to see see different things. I, because I can't remember it right off the top of my head.

We'll have to wait till we probably get off here. But there's a baker that I've seen on TikTok who just creates the absolute most ridiculous over the top creations. And there's literally one another chef who all he does is

Grant King: You talking about the chocolate guy?

Troy Schlicker: Yeah. Yeah. This other guy who all he does is basically rates other videos that he gets tagged in.

Yeah. So I didn't know if he puts out his own content and stuff, but now all he does is he get tagged in that guy stuff. So it's hillarious.

Grant King: I know exactly who you're talking to him. And I actually had, we had a little back and forth a, he's, he wears a chef coat and he is always in a kitchen, right?

Yeah. He and I commented on one of his posts and he was, He responded. He was like, Dude, what do you, It was funny actually. We like went back and forth for a minute. He ended up reaching out afterwards and was like hey man, just wanted let you know, like I wasn't trying to be a, I wasn't trying to be a jerk.

Troy Schlicker: I just had to keep up the persona, you know what I mean? It's funny, the stuff thathe has though is just absolutely crazy.

Grant King: Yeah. The chocolate guy, you can't recreate that stuff. So I totally get it, And but to what you're saying, I really appreciate you having me on. It's been fun just chatting it up and my goal was to inspire people, so I hope that, somebody on here, even just one person heard something that was inspiring to them.

Troy Schlicker: And to stick with it, right? Whether that thing be cooking or whatever passion is for you, like just, stick with it and enjoy it. And again the journey is hopefully as fun as the end goals.

Grant King: Yeah. And I know we need to get jumping, but, one of the last things I'll say is passion is so important to me.

It's just, it's one of the reasons why I think I can you. Be a, it keeps me alive, if I didn't, pursue my passions, I don't know what I would be doing. And I, I push everybody to, find something they're passionate about. If you're not passionate about something, try multiple things.

Go and take a basket weaving class, go and, try some, singing lessons or whatever until you find something that you're really interested in, because it'll change you as a person for sure. And, stick with.

Troy Schlicker: Awesome. Again, appreciate you joining the podcast today and of course, thank you, the continued success in your cooking ventures.

Grant King: Hey, I appreciate it, Troy. Thanks

Troy Schlicker: a lot, everyone. Have a great day.