Today’s guest is Maxine Scharf, the culinary creator and recipe developer behind Maxi’s Kitchen. She shares her Five Rules for Turning Your Passion Into Your Career, and what goes into making the leap, staying consistent, and creating work people genuinely want to bring into their homes. We talk about the moment her career pivoted, what it actually takes to build momentum online, and how a passion project turns into a real business. We also get into her first cookbook, Maxie’s Kitchen: Easy Go-To Recipes to Make Again and Again, out March 3rd, 2026.

There’s a point in every creative life where the idea stops feeling hypothetical and starts feeling like a dare. Betting on yourself sounds romantic until you’re the one doing the betting. It’s uncomfortable, uncertain, sometimes terrifying. But when the passion is real, the bigger risk is often standing still. Belief is the spark, dedication is the structure, consistency is the engine, hard work is the daily proof. That combination doesn’t guarantee success, but it gives you something better, a real shot.

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Transcript

Five Rules for the Good Life

Introduction

Hello, and welcome to Five Rules for the Good Life. I’m your host, Darin Bresnitz. Today, I sit down with culinary creator, recipe developer, and the creative force behind Maxie’s Kitchen, Maxine Scharf. She’s here to share her five rules for turning your passion into your career. She talks about the importance of just getting started, how consistency is key, and that the bigger your dream, the better you can get. It’s a great conversation for anyone who’s looking to kickstart their own creative project or grow their followers. She also shares some of the stories and inspiration behind her first cookbook, Maxie’s Kitchen, easy go-to recipes to make again and again, which comes out March 3rd, 2026. So let’s get into the rules.

Opening Conversation

Meeting Maxine

Maxine, it is so nice to meet you. Congratulations on your first book coming out early March, 2026.

Thank you so much, Darin. Excited to be here. Thanks so much for having me on.

Oh my God. My absolute pleasure.

Career Turning Point

The Layoff & The Leap

Three years ago, back in 2022, you were laid off, something that a lot of people are dealing with now, and started diving into culinary creation full-time. What gave you that confidence to get in the kitchen and then to also share what you were doing?

So I had actually been sharing content online for a couple of years when I had gotten laid off. I had built a modest following. I had always said that my goal eventually, like my dream was to be able to focus on maxi’s kitchen full-time but I was always too afraid to take the plunge and like quit my corporate job to do it. Of course when I got laid off obviously I was really upset that day it was like a gut punch crying completely shocked been there.

But then the afternoon of that day, I started to get this little internal pull or feeling of, hey, maybe this is my chance to chase my dream and focus on the cooking stuff full time. I told my husband, almost feeling embarrassed when I told him that that was what I was thinking. And he was really supportive.

The next day I woke up and I filmed three recipes and basically just started running as fast as I can chasing that dream. I’ve been doing it ever since.

From Passion to Profession

Realizing It Became a Career

From that day after, we’ll call that day one if you’d like.

Yeah.

Was there a moment when you realized that this passion of yours had become your profession?

It started when I was able to focus all of my time on cooking and creating content and sharing videos. My account started to gain momentum pretty quickly and I started seeing videos start to go viral and I felt like I had a lot of momentum that kept me going.

About two months into focusing on Maxi’s Kitchen full time, I started having managers reach out. If you’re not familiar with managers in the content creator space, they basically help you pitch you to brands, help with the monetization and some of the high level strategy of your business.

Of course.

It was a couple months in when I met a manager who I absolutely loved and had just this immediate feeling of, oh, I need to work with this person. And I feel like it was signing with her that made me realize, okay, wow, I think I’m actually doing this full time because now she’s going to help me build a business around the cooking stuff.

That’s so amazing to have that turning point work out for you. I don’t want to say relatively quickly because it’s years in the making overnight, as I’ve always found.

That’s such a good way to put it.

The Cookbook

Shaping the First Book

What’s so exciting is that you’ve been able to build this organically, you focus it on full time, and now you have your first cookbook coming out in March of 2026, Maxi’s Kitchen, easy go-to recipes to make again and again. With so much content, so many recipes to pull from, how did you whittle it down? What is the story you want to tell with your first book?

When thinking about the concept for my first cookbook, right, there’s so many different ways you could go with it or different areas you could focus.

Absolutely.

When thinking about the people who actually cook my recipes and the people who I’m serving, a lot of my audience, they’re busy, they really just need to get dinner on the table for their family. They’re not professional chefs.

The biggest problem is people don’t actually have their go to recipes.

Yes.

When you have your go-to recipes, and that’s the three to five recipes that you have in your arsenal that your family loves, that you feel really confident making, when you have those down, then cooking starts to become really fun and relaxing and enjoyable because you know what’s in your toolbox.

Really, the goal of this book is to help people find the recipes that are gonna be a part of their rotation that they can master and feel really comfortable with, just things to make again and again.

The Five Rules

Rule Number One — Just Start

It’s so incredible that you’ve been able to take it from a hobby into how you run your life, which is why I’m so excited for you to share your five rules for turning your passion into your career. And the first rule in many ways was kickstarted for you with you being laid off from your job, but is really something that people should keep in mind when they want to get rolling in their own project or passion. What’s your first rule?

My first rule is just start. It doesn’t need to be perfect. While the being laid off was such a catalyst towards working on Maxi’s Kitchen full time.

Yeah.

I actually had shared my first video three or four years before that.

Incredible.

It took me a year to actually muster up the courage to share that first video.

Sure. Sure.

I used to share on just my personal instagram story clips of my mom and i cooking together and i noticed that a lot of my friends just loved that content and they were always responding to my story and i started having a feeling oh people are interested in this but then for a year i sat on the idea of putting content out there and starting a blog. At first i was thinking oh i want it to be me and my mom i want it to be more youtube style where we’re talking to camera.

But the problem was I lived in New York at the time and she was still in California. So that wasn’t happening.

There was one low key weekend, wasn’t doing too much. I was just cooking for me and my husband. I was making meatballs in an Italian sauce. And I was like, you know, why don’t I just see if I could film something on my phone and just see if I could put a video together.

If you look back at the beginning of the road for me, the video that I put out was, I don’t want to say horrible compared to the way they look now, but it was just very raw.

Totally fine though.

Yeah, it wasn’t perfect at all. I didn’t have any tripods. I was just holding the phone with my hand. But you have to start somewhere in order to get better.

Rule Number Two — Consistency is Key

Once you get started, your second rule, it’s the piece of advice that I give to everyone who asks about starting a podcast or doing something creatively and putting it out into the world. To me, it’s my number one rule, but I can understand that getting started has to happen for this one to click into place. What is your rule number two?

My rule number two is consistency is key.

Yes. Yes.

This applies to so many things in life in general to be successful, especially when looking at building a career in social media. As a content creator, consistency is important.

I once saw Adam Mosseri, who is the head of Instagram. He said, the right number of posts is whatever you can stay consistent with.

Agree.

So if that’s one post a month, do one post a month. If that’s two per week, do two per week. He was basically saying it’s better to pick something that you can be consistent with versus posting five times in one week and then going silent for the rest of the month.

That always really stuck with me. And I do think finding a manageable cadence that you can stick to is really important.

Finding that cadence also gives a certain amount of reliability with the community that you’re engaging with because they know when to expect it, they know what to expect, it becomes part of their routine.

For sure.

Rule Number Three — Engage With Your Community

This allows you to enact your rule number three. The rule number three is engage with your community and connect with others in your field.

I would comment and like and just really engage with cooking creators or food accounts. I would actually even reach out to aggregator accounts that would post other people’s recipe videos.

Every time you like or comment on another person’s post, you’re making somewhat of a connection with them. And then you’re also leaving footprints back to your own account, which is really helpful.

In terms of connecting with others in your field, that was critical for me when I got laid off. I made a point to set up calls with every single person I knew who was doing something similar to what I was hoping to do.

Just getting all of those different perspectives was really helpful in helping me get my footing when I was first starting out doing it full time.

Rule Number Four — Follow the Inspiration

Once you get the ball rolling, you get content going. Sometimes you start going down a path that wasn’t the original intent. Sometimes that’s good and you discover new things. But as you build a community, they are going to expect a certain type of content from you. Staying focused is a big part of your rule number four.

My rule number four is to follow the inspiration. Sometimes your brain can become very wired to producing content or recipes that you know resonate and that you know perform well with your audience. Of course that is important and that still is something that i think about core to my business.

Something that I’ve learned to tap into more is actually just following my intuition, following the inspiration with the recipes that I create.

There was a book that my friend got me for my birthday called The Creative Act by Rick Rubin.

I don’t know if you’re familiar with it.

Of course.

That actually really helped shift my mindset. He talks a lot about how all creative ideas come from a source, kind of a spiritual approach. He says, when you get a pull by a creative idea, that means that it’s that idea’s time to come into the universe.

I love that so much.

So I really try to trust that as much as possible.

It was so fun working on the cookbook because every single recipe in the book came from a day of inspired thought. And there was never a point where I felt like I had to force creativity.

I was able to have fun with it and really just follow the inspiration.

Rule Number Five — Dream Big & Have a Long-Term Vision

Having that inspiration and the confidence to share your ideas with the world when they’re ready is so important. Your fifth and final rule takes all of your daily work, that long road of determination, and puts it together for a successful career. What’s your rule number five?

My fifth rule is dream big and have a long-term vision.

I’m a big believer in manifestation, the fact that you need to see and believe something in your own mind before it becomes a reality on the outside or in the real world.

Actually, a couple months after I got laid off and started working on Maxi’s Kitchen full time, I created a vision board.

Yes.

On that vision board, it had hitting a million followers on Instagram. It had writing a cookbook. It had hitting 100K on YouTube.

All of those have actually come true already. And then there’s a few other things on there that I hope will come true.

That was really helpful. I put it up in my closet. Every time when I was getting dressed, I would see it.

You’ve really got to believe it in order to achieve it.

Where to Find Maxie’s Kitchen

Maxine, it seems like you have achieved it. If anybody wants to order the book, check along with content created directly from the book, where can they go? How can they get involved?

My Instagram is at maxiskitchen, M-A-X-I-S kitchen. That’s the best place to follow for all the updates, but I’m also on TikTok and YouTube with the same username.

And then maxiskitchen.com is where you can find more of my recipes and newsletter.

For the cookbook specifically, check out mkcookbook.com.

Closing

Incredible. Well, I’m looking forward to holding my very own copy. Good luck on the tour. Good luck with everything. And congrats on achieving your vision.

Thank you so much, Darin. It was so fun to come on the pod. I appreciate it. Hoping to meet you in person at sometime soon.

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