On Sunday, April 10th, I had the opportunity to attend a private event hosted by Celebrity Chef Fabio Viviani at his Chicago Loop based steakhouse called Prime and Provisions. Fabio Viviani is a culinary prodigy and renowned entrepreneur that has been featured on TV shows such as Top Chef and other various Cooking Channel programs. Alongside his TV career, he owns a 60 million dollar restaurant empire with locations in Los Angeles and Chicago,  has many published books, owns a commercial real estate business, and founded an innovative software business — all at the age of 38.

Despite his massive success, Viviani came from very humble beginnings. While growing up in Florence, Italy, Viviani and his family lived off of food stamps and had no steady income. His mother was ill and could not work, and his father’s businesses were struggling to survive. This led Fabio to work from midnight to seven in the morning baking pies for a bakery, only to go to school at 8 in the morning and come home in the evening. He did this for years to support his family and make ends meet. After countless setbacks, losses, and failures, Fabio eventually moved to America where he was able to work and create opportunities, and ultimately become a huge success.

I spent some time personally speaking with Fabio and even got to listen to a speech he gave about his journey as an entrepreneur. I learned a lot of life changing things from him. Here are some of the major points he taught me that you can learn from as well.

1. Hard work will beat talent every single time.

Fabio Viviani was forced to go to work at a very young age to help support his struggling family. He explained that no matter what job he had, he always made sure to be the absolute best at it and exceed the expectations of his bosses and and the people around him. He admits that as a kid his talents were limited, but his mastery of various jobs in Italian restaurants led him to learn the art of cooking. He also perfected his craft by cooking alongside his family members to carry on the traditional dishes. His desire to work taught built the foundation for his ability to cook.

2. We all have 24 hours in a day. Spend every second wisely.

As we discussed his early years of working, he explained to me exactly how many hours he had to consistently put in before he got anywhere near where he is today. As a kid, he would work throughout the night and go to school during the day. On average, he slept around 4-5 hours a day and continued this trend for years. In fact,
Fabio used to work for free at times, to either pay someone back, gain more experience, or to open up another opportunity for himself. He also gave me a harsh, eye opening reality that he urged me to start following myself. He told me that, “If you’re working under 120 hours a week, what you’re doing is just a hobby. Might as well just forget about it. And if you think 40 hours a week is a lot, you’ll surely be done soon.” 120 working hours a week may seem crazy, but according to Fabio, it’s necessary to achieve massive success.

3. Formal education isn’t a necessity to become successful.

There’s no sugarcoating it – Viviani openly admits that he was awful in school and disliked it. He told me that growing up, he could never focus in a class and never had the ability to care about what was happening. Schools used to tell his parents he had attention disorders and tried many times to give him medication for it. He stated that “I don’t have an attention deficit disorder, I have an interest deficit disorder. I don’t give a [crap] about meaningless education.” Needless to say, he never pursued higher education and went straight to work. However, Viviani does not condemn formal education. He believes that for some people it is highly valuable and it is up to the individual to determine how they learn and progress best.

4. Failure is inevitable and you must learn from it.

In Italy, Viviani opened restaurants that generally did not last. He told me a story about how one of his restaurants was failing due to bad profits, but the food and service was excellent. A businessman came to Viviani and said, “you’re a great worker and I can see how devoted you are, but you have no clue to run a restaurant.
” This man later offered to pay off Viviani’s debts if he worked for him for free. Viviani took up the offer and they eventually became business partners that would soon establish his current restaurant empire. He took failure and used it to his advantage.

5. Anyone can do it.

After Fabio told me his story and gave me some tough-love advice, he said, “If I can do it, you most definitely can. There are no excuses to not do exactly what you want in life because if you put in enough time, learn from your mistakes and never give up, you’ll eventually make it.” He really put an emphasis on sacrificing the short term fun we like to have to make something of ourselves so that we can have a lifetime of happiness and success. There’s no secret to success, but from what I learned it’s all about work, effort, and consistency.