Michael Mina is an award-winning restaurateur and celebrity chef, and author of several cookbooks. His restaurant management company, Mina Group, operates over 40 restaurants around the world.

What we discuss in this episode:

• Chef Mina was born in Cairo, Egypt and due to religious beliefs and a heavy-handed government, his family immigrated to Washington state in 1970.
• As a child, Chef Mina recognized that his dominant traits have stuck with him into adulthood which has helped shape who he is today.
• Michael recalls the relationship with his older brother, who exhibited a tremendous amount of awareness of what was going on around him. Today, Chef Mina can see how that influence in his life has helped him group the Mina Group to be as successful as it is today.
• Opening multiple restaurants as a chef are much different than being an entrepreneur who opens a restaurant. The media is historically more critical of a chef-restaurateur because they can only be in one restaurant at a time. Chef Mina is competitive and was up to the challenge and the risk has paid off.
• Part of growth is failing and learning. Too many people want to just leap to the top tier of success instead of taking the necessary learning steps that provide the strength and fortitude to remain at the top.
• Most of the time, celebrity chefs absorb all of the credit for what makes them successful. A key difference with Chef Mina is that he'd rather have the people who complete the work get the credit. Being a traditional celebrity chef is not part of his vision — it was to focus on the restaurants.
• The most gratifying part of his success today is found in the partnerships.
• For those that want to open their own restaurant, you must be honest with yourself. You have to be willing to look at yourself each day and find ways to improve.
• One of the biggest traps, when you look at restaurants, is they are always underfinanced. Traditionally, restaurants are under-financed by having the right team of people to open the restaurant successfully.
• People matter.
• Listen to the full episode to get even more great insights that make Michael Mina uncommon.

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Thank you, Chef Michael Mina!

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