Be Ready When the Luck Happens

by Ina Garten

Jeffrey said it best: “I would like for you to be around so I could think with you,”

He said that it was bad faith to do something you know you’re not good at, and good faith to do the thing you’re best at doing.

Ideas came from everywhere—a recipe I’d seen in a magazine, a dinner we’d had at a restaurant, a new ingredient I’d just discovered, like sriracha. I love to base recipes on remembered flavors.

I believe that you don’t build a brand; you just do what’s true for you every day, and then one day, you realize that you have a brand.

Sometimes it’s important to control things, but sometimes the opposite is true—you have to be open and let the universe reveal itself. When I put something out in the world, I stay with it, watching how people react and use it. Then I make the product better or more “usable” and watch what happens.

The people I’ve known who are successful have faced enormous challenges, but they didn’t let the challenges stop them—they figured out some way over the wall or around the wall, or they just smashed the wall down.