Reginald D: Welcome to Rev Talk with Reginald D.

I'm your host, Reginald D.

On today's episode we have Robert Irvine.

Today's guest is someone you may have seen on tv.

He's a world class chef and a television personality.

Roger is famous for Dinner Impossible and Restaurant Impossible on Food Network.

Robert is also an entrepreneur and fitness guru,

but his impact reaches far beyond the kitchen.

Robert is a long time supporter of our military,

a veteran himself,

and a driving force behind the Robert Irvine foundation,

which serves veterans,

first responders and their families through food, wellness and community support.

He's also the author of multiple cookbooks and the leadership book Overcoming Impossible,

which is focused on resilience,

teamwork and overcoming impossible odds.

Welcome to the show, Roberto.

Robert Irvine: Well, Reginald, or can I call you Reggie now? Because now we're friends. Now after the opening I can't follow that. So thank you for having me.

Reginald D: Okay. You can call me Reggie. I'm all good with that.

So Rabba, can you tell us a little bit about about where you grew up and what your childhood was like?

Robert Irvine: So I grew up in a little place you may call England on the south coast. Well, I actually in the mid north is where I grew up originally,

Manchester, in a kind of very working class family.

My mother was a bartender, my father worked various jobs. After coming out of the military,

we moved to a place called Salisbury, Wiltshire, which as the crow flies probably two, 300 miles.

And my life as a young man really started there because my father met somebody in a pub, which we're very famous for in England by the way, who was an old chief petty officer in the navy who asked me to join the sea cadets.

And I did,

loved it. Went away all my life a young age until the age of 15 when I joined Her Majesty's Royal Navy,

meaning I took the test. I couldn't actually join till I was just before 16 years old, but I signed the papers at 15 and a half years old. My mother had to co sign because I was still a child, quote unquote.

And I joined the Navy at a very early age and I fell in love. You know, food for me was.

Or school for me I should say was interesting because I hated school except history,

woodwork, sports and home economics.

The rest throw away.

Reginald D: Yeah, find me.

Robert Irvine: I wasn't good at it. I didn't enjoy it. I loved the sportsmanship, I loved the creating things like ADA woodwork and the metalwork and the food. But I was not a good English.

Even to this day when I'm on social media, people know it's Me, because it's, you know,

direct lines with no punctuation or full stops or anything in it. And they know it's me.

And I make no bones about,

you know,

there's a lot of what I call police officers online, right? And they know you don't spell correctly, you don't do this correctly. I'm like, well, shoot me for it, you know, I mean,

sorry I can't be perfect everything, right?

Reginald D: It is what it is, right? Yeah.

Robert Irvine: But at least, you know, it's me and not some computer or something doing something.

Reginald D: Exactly.

So, Robert, let's go back to this. You grew up in a working class household in England where money was tight, very tight. That season shape your discipline,

hunger and mindset. You know, how did that make you long before success even showed up?

Robert Irvine: Well, I can tell you this. You talk about poor. You know,

my father was almost an alcoholic, as some would say he was, but I would say almost.

My mother and father divorced young.

They separated,

and my father would live in his car outside of my grandmother's house.

And then eventually my grandmother threw us out and we had nowhere to go.

I was homeless. We lived under a bridge for a while.

So I know what poor is. I know what cold is. I know what Hungary is. We then got a council house, which is kind of like government housing,

basically.

And my mother is 83 years old,

and she still lives in that same household that we've lived there for 52 years. And she still pays rent every week for that house,

as much as I've tried to buy that house, and my brother and sisters. So growing up, it was very, very tough. But we didn't have.

And I relish this, and I tell this story all the time.

We didn't have bikes. We had secondhand clothes from Oxfam or what you call Goodwill here.

We didn't have that much to eat. We didn't have the bikes, and we didn't. We didn't have all those foo foo stuff, right? And I'm not crying wolf either, by the way.

It taught me a great lesson. And that lesson was this. You gotta work for everything you get, and you gotta protect everything you have, right? And that doesn't mean things.

I mean people.

So I grew up at a young age. And by the way, my father and mother divorced when I was six years old.

They never left each other, and he died at 72, asking my mother every Sunday to remarry him. And she never did, by the way. She never got any death benefits, no insurance, no nothing.

When he passed away,

so it's kind of a romantic love story, I suppose you would say, but an interesting growing up. My brother was in the army. My father was in the army. My sister ran Glasgow airport for a while.

My other sister married a soldier, emigrated to Australia.

He's now a senior, enlisted in the Australian army and they still live there.

So what did I learn from that?

Protection of great things and people,

work hard ethic,

thinking about other people and where things come from and how much things cost and not wasting. There's so many lessons in there,

but one was being thankful for a food, B, a grill, you know, to keep warm.

C, a roof over your head and a loving family. You can never say we didn't have a loving family. We always did.

Did we have everything that other families had? No.

No where close.

So I think that give all of us, not just me, but My brother is 18 months older than me. My two sisters that are 18 months between us, there's 18 months literally between every one of us.

It give us a hard work ethic, A,

you know, no woe is me. Just get it done and do what you need to do. And oh, by the way, there's no free rides. You're not going to play, you're going to work.

We were stocking shelves at 11 years old and trying to make money.

Reginald D: So yeah, we have a lot of company because I grew up in a single parent home with just my mom and my little sister.

My mom worked three jobs, man. And we still sometimes couldn't make ends meet. Sometimes the lights went off, it wasn't a storm outside. When it went off,

it was like we could pay the bill. So I know what you experienced. I had to get a job at 13 years old.

Robert Irvine: Yep.

Reginald D: And still go school and still do this and try to help out with bills.

And I think that's what drove me to who I am today and how I look at life. Like you said, you either gonna cry for me or you're gonna do something about it.

Robert Irvine: Yeah. You know, I think the interesting part, I was not good at school. You know, I would drink my dad's beer, I would look like I would go to school, wave my mother on a bus to go to work.

And I would double back with friends, drink my dad's beer. And one day she called the house. I answered the phone demiser up. I straight down the recruitment office.

And I loved the discipline of the military. I used to go away with C cadets every weekend to warships and bases and marine bases. And I fell in love with the uniform, the Service above self aspect of it, which I didn't really understand at that point.

But I loved the whole shebang of a uniform marching, you know, being something bigger than yourself.

And I fell in love with that. So when I joined the military, I was not a good team player.

I was an individual because I'd been taught to be an individual and take care of, you know, yourself as we all are. Well, I think most of us are. And my boss, who was a Navy chief, came to me one day and my uniforms were perfect, my boots were my bed.

I mean, I was squared away at a young age.

And he said to me, I'm gonna throw you out the Navy because you're not helping the others. And I'm like, dude, I'm 16 years old and they're 26 and 29.

You're throwing me out because my bed's made and they're not. And he really explained to me,

what does teamwork mean?

And I was like,

well, I'm not doing it. So anyway, long story short, at 2 o' clock in the morning, after that talking to,

I turned the lights on,

put everybody out of their beds, on the floor, and they all went crazy. I'm like, now I'm gonna teach you. I won't tell you what I said, but you're gonna, you know, grow up.

I don't care whether you're an I believe college, I don't care if you're gonna be an officer. You're in here with me and there's 12 of us and we have to live, eat and breathe like one.

Showed them how to depress the uniform, clean the boots, make the beds,

march, run, obstacle course, I mean, you name it. Reggie was a 16 year old taking on the world of 11 other people to be better than everybody else.

And that's how I am today.

Reginald D: Hey, that's what it's about. That's what it's about.

Robert Irvine: Yeah. Some people don't like that though.

Reginald D: No, really, they don't. So, Robert, you shared story about your mother's sacrifices, like buying you weights when money was scarce.

Robert Irvine: Yeah.

Reginald D: What did that teach you about belief and being supported before you were known?

Robert Irvine: Well, here's the funny thing. Let me kind of step back just slightly.

You know, when my mother and father got back together again and never remarried, but we lived together in a rented home.

I would go to church on a Tuesday and a Saturday and a Sunday. And my parents were never big faith based people. And they still are. Not today, by the way.

I still am very faith based and driven So I grew up in, you know, going to cornfields and all that kind of stuff with other kids through the church.

And I tried to get my parents involved and it never was going to happen. It still hasn't happened. And she's 83 years old now, so that's never going to happen.

But I think for me,

the discipline of the military, the church piece,

believing in something bigger and there is a plan and, you know, it's so funny, I laugh all the time.

Oh, yeah, we know what we're gonna do tomorrow. No, we don't know what we're gonna do. We think we know what we're gonna do tomorrow,

but it's already predetermined, predestined. People can argue with that. The cows come home. You know,

I read the Bible, I read history a lot. I love the history piece.

But we repeat history over and over and over again.

We never learn from mistakes. And that's what I'm trying to do with my life, is use my platform to change the things that have been wrong for many years. And by the way, we can sit here and drink a beer or a cup of coffee for 24 years and still not touch half of the points,

right? But I believe in that. And I believe that's what shaped the way I run my companies.

The way we deal with our associates, our employees,

the way I lead,

the way they lead me,

because they do.

I don't think leadership is a one way street at all. And I think the military taught me that a long time ago.

I was a young sailor telling older people with big ranks what to do. And I'm still doing it.

But I think the military and face and I'm not a big guy that I give thanks to God for everything that we do.

It doesn't mean I go to church every week.

It doesn't mean, you know,

I'll go in a corner and pray or I'll sit in a sauna and pray or I do the things that I do for me. I don't need anybody else to be there.

And people know what I do. They know who I am. So I think that comes from childhood. I think that comes from military and from my youth pastor.

Reginald D: Yeah. So your father didn't initially support you when he came to cooking as a career. Do you think your drive came more from the passion or from needing to prove you were worthy to do it?

Robert Irvine: So my father felt that when I joined the Navy, first of all, that was a slap in the face for him because my brother and him were in the Army.

I'd been a secretary. I loved the ocean. I loved what I was doing. Fell in love with the Navy. I took the test, the test,

it was 5. 5. English. 5 being the lowest one, being the highest mass. 5 being the lowest one, Being the highest. I got 5. 5.

They said, you're gonna be a cook. I went elated because I loved cooking because I started a home economics class with 30 girls and me,

I thought, oh, good, I get a girlfriend. I made a quiche Lorraine. I didn't get a girlfriend. And here I am, I'm joined the Navy as a cook,

which he thought I was crazy. I fell in love with it and I'm still madly in love with it.

My father, on the other hand, disowned me pretty much for about two years.

Wouldn't talk to me. I went up to my basic training, and you have to understand,

from the age of 11 years old, I'd been traveling around the world on my own.

You know, school sent me on a cruise line in Malta, around the Mediterranean for four weeks.

School to work, learning. You know, I've been traveling independently for a long time. So just under my 16th birthday, going to my first duty station, I was like,

yeah, this is gonna be easy, right?

This is what you do, right?

And I found it easy. The hard part for me,

and I'm still conquering it, by the way, the hard part for me is me working hard and somebody else taking the credit for it.

And I still fight with that a lot, even though I'm now a great team player. You know, we have a lot of employees and whatnot. I don't fight about their wins because they are their wins.

But when somebody takes credit for something they didn't do, and I know somebody else did it,

I call them out. They don't like it.

And that's a lot of what I do. And that's why people don't like Robert Irvine sometimes. Because if you did it, Reggie, then you get the kudos and the team that worked with you to get that done, nobody should be taking your kudos away from you when you did all the work.

That's that protection thing.

And I'm like that in my world, life, I'm like that when I'm with senior leaders,

military, with Fortune 500 companies,

with CEOs of major, major billion dollar companies, of which, you know, we're part of a lot.

But I think it all goes back to childhood.

You know, people say bad behavior starts with single parent. Well, no, that's wrong. It doesn't. Sorry I disagree with that. And I hear that all the time. And I'm the one that stands out.

I'm like, well, look,

I came from that. So, you know. Yeah, my mom and dad were divorced and they got back together again. But my father was not loving that I became a cook.

Because in England that's servitude, right?

You're serving somebody. And it was only when I got a job working for Flag of Support Portsmouth, which is a two star admiral taking care of his family.

And one day he asked my mother would she like to come to a garden party. Well, you know, we're the poor people. You know, we're the people that don't come to garden parties.

You know, we. We're not them people.

And I was horrified. You know, I thought my mom would do really well, but I didn't invite my dad. And then my dad actually shows up,

who was in the verge. And I said this earlier on, you know, I love to drink. And I'm like, oh God, this is my future. This is my admiral. This is, you know, my demise.

And it rained. I never forget it. Like it was yesterday it rained. We used to grow all our vegetables. Cause he was an old soul.

Used to smoke a pipe like Popeye.

The Admiral and I would grow potatoes and broccoli and green beans and we would pick the garden and I would cook for him and his wife.

And then he showed up and I'm like, oh my God, I'm being kicked out of the Navy because my dad is going to do something really stupid.

And they got like a house on fire.

And he changed. He became called to be a cook.

There's something in the air. Change. I don't know,

it was just weird to see one minute the despise and don't talk to me because you should be like your brother in the army,

not cook, serving people. And here I am serving somebody and now it's okay.

It was a real mind game for me.

Reginald D: Right. I guess it's all about who you were serving, right?

Robert Irvine: Yeah. But I went on to work on the Royal Yard and I went on to do all these things with, I mean, presidents. And my father was alive, obviously.

Here I cooked for five presidents.

My mother got to be with the presidents, most of them and my father.

And they couldn't believe that food could take you from where it grew to where we are now.

And the whole journey is not always smooth. Right. There's a journey, as I said, that we don't pick. Somebody else picks it, bless them. And I say this all the time,

Reggie, I think God gives you as much as you can handle and gets you ready for the next thing. And I say that all the time. And people look at me.

Oh, you said God. I'm like, yeah, I said God.

But these things that happen are meant to test you to see if you can handle whatever's next in my belief, anyway.

Reginald D: Yeah, and that's absolutely right. That's the way I believe.

You know, he doesn't take you to the next step. He gives you one level.

You know, this is what I'm giving you. If you handle that well, then he opened up doors to the next level. To the next level, to the next level. Now, if you can't handle the first level, you're going to stay there.

Robert Irvine: God, we're like brothers from another mother, believe me.

I teach young.

I do a lot of military stuff, obviously, but I teach young soldiers, sailors, airmen, guardians,

the same thing. Like, do your time, learn as much as you can and listen,

stop talking. Don't go out and buy that 500 inch TV when you get your first paycheck and da, da, da, da, da. You know, they're going to do it anyway.

But nobody listens to that advice. It's weird to me. And I said, well, if you want to be successful, you may want to listen.

Reginald D: Right, exactly. So ra now, let's go to this. You are currently involved in a new project,

a military project, revamping army food.

What problem did you immediately recognize that needed to be fixed?

Robert Irvine: Well, this is not first and foremost, this is taking me 15 years.

So I've been in the country. I came in 1996,

end of 96,

worked with Donald Trump at casinos and cruise ships and all these other things. So I designed cruise ships, developed cruise ships,

open hotels, closed, restaurants open, all those kind of things that put me in where I am today.

When I first started going on the USO trips, I would see the food and I was like disgusted that we're asking,

and we're talking 15 years ago, right? 15, 16 years ago, we're asking these young men and women, which were,

you know, 16 years ago,

young men and women to do things, and we're feeding them garbage. And I started on this journey and every four years we would change leadership. You know, the Secretary of Defense would change the Chandler Joint Chiefs, the Chief of the army, every four years.

So just when I think I'm getting somewhere,

start all over again.

But I never gave up, and I've never given up. And it's been my life goal to change and Transform is the better word. Change and transform all the branch feeding meaning Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard and guardians.

So I started.

I found out that there was some people like minded, like me, like the chief of the Army, Randy George,

Chris Mohan from Army Materials, Commander Michelle Donahue again, three stars, four stars, you know, whatever, whatever. And I needed their backup because look at me, I make extra living, right?

I'm going to go in there and tell you how to run your army and buy your food and whatever.

And we actually got legislative change December 24th of last year on a very big change for the military. And we're in the middle right now.

So we've designed menus, we've looked at the way the dining cities look, the way the tables, the chairs, everything is like a triple A athletes collegiate style feeding. It's unbelievable, the first one.

So I opened a test site a year and a half ago at Fort Jackson, which got a lot of press,

New York Times, cbs,

because I told them that we could do it differently and have a different outcome. Well,

you know, big armies, big army and government and you know how that goes.

But I kept persisting. We changed. We got five big bases we're in the middle of opening right now. Fort Jackson opened first,

Fort Hood opens in Texas on the 18th of February, I believe.

And then on the 24th or 26th we opened Fort Lee in Virginia, which is the Army School of Excellence, which all the branches learned how to cook for admirals and generals and so on and so on.

We'll open five in the next four months and then at the end of March we'll announce the next 20.

And we're moving very rapidly and I'm hoping that the army and the Air Force follows the legislative change that we managed to get for the Army. And I will tell you, I am just a piece of that.

You know, there are thousands of lawyers and legislators and army officers and cooks. And the problem we have,

we don't have enough people.

Nobody wants to cook anymore. So how do we feed our servicemen and women and our first responders and school kids? And that's the next thing I'm So along with feeding and modernizing the military,

we're looking at the SNAP benefits.

I'm in the middle of it right now where I believe that with a company called R4 that we can save the government 100 billion for 100 million spend and give four times the SNAP benefits of real food, not junk,

not sodas and Doritos and Cheetos and all that really good food that you can cook at home, but four times the benefits instead of 300, 1200.

And we can utilize the waste of food that we have in this country, which is,

if I told you numbers, you would freak out and utilize it better and distribute it better. Using AI to tell us where is that food needed the most and where do we need to put that and how do you access it through your phone, but without giving.

You don't mean this against Coke or Pepsi or the. But all those things that,

you know, come on, if you want to live a healthy life, let's get you real chicken,

let's get you real vegetables, let's get you real instead of all this processed garbage, you know. So my next segment to that is. So we've got feeding in a military at bases, the SNAP benefits at home, or this military smart feeding program, which is SNAP for the military, but it's SNAP on the outside as well.

And then looking at how do we feed in school kids, because,

you know, I think RFK has the right idea.

But it's not one thing. It's not just taking red dye number six out.

It's the way we produce food, the way we grow food, the way we distribute food, the way we educate people from low income families that, you know, look, if you're from Alabama, you're from Kentucky, you're from England, you're from Somalia, I don't care where you're from,

you still gotta eat. So how do we take that food,

show you what to do with it in your native tradition?

Reginald D: Right?

Robert Irvine: Because culture is a huge part of food success.

You know, people think of England, fish and chips and St. Kidney pie. Well, there's actually more to it than that, but that's what I grew up on.

But there's better food. So that whole process of military modernization and again, a small piece of that, there are, you know, Randy, George and these people I've mentioned, the chief of the army sec, army dangerous school, they're really into now.

It's not just the planes and trains and drones and it's the people.

And we have made so much headway thanks to Secretary Driscoll and some other folks, RFK and whatever.

And I feel that if we give kids better school food,

I've seen it. There's a school I'm a part of in Wilmington, North Carolina.

It's a private school for underprivileged kids. There's 400 girls, 400 boys. And they get taught things like how to cook, how to sew, how to kn. Knit, how to don, how to take care of yourself, how to run financials, but also everything else you get taught at school.

So I know it can be done.

I know we can feed him properly. There's gardens in these schools. Like Michelle Obama.

I remember doing a show with her about making a garden in a school in Washington D.C. and these kids didn't know what a tomato, a potato was.

How bad is that? In a country that we live in,

we're not a third world country.

We gotta do better. And I just want to be a small piece of that being better because I think I've got answers.

I've just got to meet a few people up with the answers because they got to listen.

And it's not about money. Because when you say money,

I can save money by doing the right thing.

How about that? That's kind of an oxymoron, isn't it?

Reginald D: Right?

Robert Irvine: But if you let me show you and I've proven that it works,

let me help you. Let me do it. And that's what I'm doing right now with the military and this administration,

part of this administration on school feeding. Because I think it's a huge opportunity. You know, when you have children that have not been fed because the parents can't afford food and they go to school and they fall asleep because they're hungry and that, you know, they're not getting the things they need,

it's our responsibility to make sure that happens.

And I take that personally and very responsibly.

Reginald D: Yeah, exactly.

You know, and Robert, I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we on the same page here.

You know, I think better food would impact morale,

mental health and performance for individuals, service members, you know,

first responders and just regular people.

Robert Irvine: Everything you just said there, amplify that by 10 and put it,

all those things you said and then put it in the school system and it's educating the families. We shouldn't be just feeding the kids at school.

We should be looking at how do we feed them when they go home and how do we take care of them when they go home as well?

Because it's a vicious cycle. One thing I find about the military is this.

We can do all the training we want. We have the best military in the world and we really do. We have the best non commissioned officers that make decisions on the spur of the moment.

Right. And we've had that since World War I, you know, way before then.

But if we feed them well there,

make sure they're taken care of at home,

and then put that to the civilian side of the equation,

our society,

we wouldn't have so much disparity,

Right? We would have. Look,

and I've seen it myself, I graduated, I'm going off a bit, but there's a reason I'm going off here. We graduated 250 kids in Puerto Rico from 16 to 18 years old.

A National Guard program that they run, it's cost $7 million. They put them into school for 22 weeks. It's like a military academy. They come out, but they get their high school diploma and they get an opportunity to be hired by somebody in the first responder military.

That area within the first year of graduation.

Right. I've been to those kids, families, houses. I know why people,

and I don't agree with it. I know why they sell drugs. I do.

Because some people have to do that to survive.

It's not their fault. Some choose it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not everybody in the same basket. But I've seen where people have to live where they're taking an extension cord from the main line,

essentially a cord you buy at Home Depot from a main electric line to put into the house to get electricity.

So I can empathize to a point that I think we as a country,

not just the government, because they come and go, right, they should all be doing it. But as a country,

we have to stand up and be better with each other to push for these things.

Because people push for a couple of months, then they give up.

And that's the problem. No, you can't give up. It took me 14 years to get to this point with the military.

I'm never giving up. I'm never giving up on school kids because that's the future.

The business of this country, the running of this country by the kids, not us. We're getting old now,

right?

These kids coming through the next generation. When we talk about AI,

look at all those people that went to school for computers that,

you know, 20, 30 years in the computer business and now AI is already taking over. What's going to happen to them?

We're going to reskill the labor now and make it better. And I think that's the love of what I get every morning when I wake up.

I get to do something good every day.

Reginald D: Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's a good place to be, right?

Robert Irvine: Hey, I sleep well at night. I wake up happy in the morning and I go to bed happy at night and I'm blessed.

Reginald D: So.

So that's it.

So, Robert, I'm going to Take you somewhere real quick.

So my wife and I used to watch you relentlessly on Restaurant Impossible.

Now, viewers ought to describe your approach on Restaurant Apostle as being tough or tough love.

Now looking back now, how much of that intensity came from helping others versus the pressure you were carrying yourself?

Robert Irvine: That's an amazing question.

That's a really interesting question because I think there's a lot to unpack there. I think proving oneself.

I wrote Restaurant Impossible. I wrote Dinner Impossible.

It was real. Both of them. Shows as real as you see. The raw emotion, the crying, the.

I mean, the stories we can't even tell you. The suicide of a young kid,

the rape of one of the restaurateur's wives,

things that happened while I was there that I unpacked while talking.

And you notice the first six seasons were about 22 minutes long.

And people started to watch it and say, well, that's not long enough. So we went to a 44 minute show,

340 or 50. Don't hold me to the number because I can't remember it off top of my head, but somewhere around that number and everyone was so different and so unique.

And what I chose to do is what I did in the military. Don't tell me a thing about the people.

I want them to tell me and I want to figure it out. And if you watch the first six seasons of Restaurant Impossible, I'm very. No, nonsense. I don't want to hear you failed.

Just listen to what I'm telling you and you will succeed.

And I've watched myself not recently, but over the years.

And you'll notice after season six, I actually change.

I changed from this hard nosed, punch you in the face,

not literally, but kind of informational guy with no feeling because it's just a restaurant.

I changed from this,

I don't know, James Cagney kind of guy into just listening. I really started to listen. And when I listened, I found I got more information than me just pounding them, right?

Just listen, let them tell. What was the original idea behind this? Why did you want to do it? Da da da, da da.

But what it actually did was psychological.

They started to trust me and not fear me because I was going to make them look bad in tv.

It couldn't make him look any worse because there was rats in the. I mean, it was bad in reality.

But I found after those six seasons, then I started to go a little lighter.

I was getting more of the story,

which actually became better television because now I'm getting to understand that the daughter couldn't go to nursing school because he had no money and she had to be the servant in the restaurant and da da, da.

And by the way, these are all things that you'll never know. But I paid for those policies and I paid for those replays and outside of sodebing, I paid for houses that were going to be taken away.

And,

and that's not why I'm telling you this. It's because I became a better listener and I found that listening actually works. The more you listen, the more you find out, the more you can actually help.

And that was slow coming for me because I was in the military, just like get it done.

And I run my business the same way now I'm like, okay, tell me why you think this?

What's the problem? What's the solution? Why do you think that's the solution?

And do you think it's going to work? And I'll say my piece and I'll say, okay, if you believe that,

I'll stand by you go and do it.

So that was a big change for me. Restaurant puzzle was an amazing thing. My daughter,

there's one episode that is a young man, 300 pound autistic,

one of only like I think 300 had a rare genetic disease, is gonna die two years in.

We're about to give the restaurant back and the husband and wife are there and she's sobbing and I'm like, why is she sobbing? This is a great restaurant. I would want this restaurant.

I mean it was beautiful and they were being evicted. She gave me the envelope and said, we're being evicted and this is the only home that our son LJ has ever known and he's going to die.

So I called the producer, it's on the show. I called the producer just instinctively, it wasn't for television. I said, listen, I know you're not here, I need ten grand.

Just say yes and don't ask me why.

And he said, why? I said, I told you, don't ask me why.

He said, yes. I said, good. I wrote a check, my own check for $20,000. We had it sent to their mortgage company so they weren't evicted. LJ did die. Two years later,

they sold the restaurant.

I'm still in touch with the family.

He's on every live show that I do around the globe with our military. The clip of that show is in there and I'll tell you why.

Wasn't for the $20,000, it saved the light. They got rid of the restaurant.

That's a win for me to get out of debt.

Reginald D: Right.

Robert Irvine: It was the fact that my daughter was 16 years old and she was there for the first time ever at one of these things.

And LJ comes in in a wheelchair. He's 300 pound. And I'd taken a cover,

a door basically off a side station where they put knives and forks and glassware.

And just before opening, I said, oh,

to Tom, my builder, find me a picture with the colors that we put up and put a picture up there.

So we went outside, found a picture, put it up, we opened the door.

Well, little did I know when LJ came in after this whole scenario with the envelope and the money, and he jumped out of the chair and bowled me over on the floor.

I mean, I'm pretty stocky. I'm pretty big.

This guy kicked me on the floor.

And basically this picture was something that he had painted at the Make a Wish foundation years and years prior.

And it was his picture, and he was so proud of it. And that's why I keep the whole segment, because that was life. It's the first time I think anybody ever cried on Food Network.

I sobbed like a little baby,

and my daughter sobbed. And I said, oh, family's worth more than all this. You know,

that's true. And that's why I keep it in there, to remind myself.

Everything we do every day is affecting people, and we don't even know it's affecting people.

Reginald D: Wow.

Robert Irvine: And it's a TV show,

but it's some to tune in for the decor with Tanya, and some because I'm arguing with Harm, more Tanya, some because of money, some because of the food, some because of the look.

But that show,

we have not filmed Restaurant Bottom in three years.

It's still running. It's still the highest watched show on Food Network, you know,

on Paramount plus and whatever. They wanted me to bring it back last year in Canada, and I said no, because I want to do it with my people. If we're going to do it, we're going to do it here in the US and hopefully it'll come back one day.

I hope, you know, things come round and round because I felt it really changed lives. I can tell you,

you know, people that were a million dollars in debt that are now running, still alive today,

running that restaurant. 3.4 million after a million dollars in debt. Cerritos, California, New Hampshire, for all the ones that closed,

I've got the same amount that's still open, and that's a win for me. It's not television. It's changing lives and fortunes. Of people. That's why the foundation has a entrepreneurship piece to it.

We have food trucks. You know, we teach people how to do business.

Because I feel that, you know, all that is right, you give a man a fish, you'll eat a meal. You teach a man to fish, he lived forever kind of thing, right?

So I believe in that. I. And maybe I'm old fashioned, I don't know, but I do believe in it.

Reginald D: Yeah. And you right on point. You right on point with it.

So let's talk about this. You've led teams, restaurants, and organizations.

What's the biggest leadership mistake you had to unlearn?

Robert Irvine: Thinking you're right all the time.

I think, look, when you're successful and you have a blueprint for success,

it's very hard for somebody to step in. And you have to remember what we've just talked about. I was young and in charge of big things at a young age and took no nonsense.

So when somebody comes in that's, you know, 20 or 30 years older than you and says, oh, that's. Why are you doing that? I'm like, because I know it works.

And obviously you don't because it's not worked for you.

So I'm showing you something different.

I think it's. Again, I go back to that listening piece sometimes.

I've been described as mean,

right? And I'm okay. And I answer that a lot.

Why are you so mean? And I said, well, okay, let me put you in a position. I've got two days to change. 30 years of habit and you've lost a million dollars.

And I need you to make money. Day two. You open because it's real. It's 48 hours and then you're open.

There is no BS like all this other TV stuff that you see. That's been after restaurant, baseball and you know the ones I'm talking about,

I take it personally. I spend 48 hours up while they're building and doing and I'm ripping walls out. I'm teaching them how to run a business. Are they tired? Are they fed up?

Yeah, I don't care. And I think for me,

I do care. That's the wrong statement.

I don't care that you're tired because I really want to get over to you. But for me,

the biggest thing I've learned is,

yes, I have a blueprint for success. I've got 19 of those companies that have been successful because of that blueprint.

But not everybody runs on the same capacity as I do,

right? And I forget that sometimes I'M like, if I get something,

I'm an ankle biter. If I get something and I need to fight it and I need to get it done, I'm around your ankles till you, you don't get rid of me until I've got it done.

And I sometimes forget everybody's wired like that.

And that's the biggest thing I've had to slow down and really focus on who do I put in a position to run companies,

whatever they are, drones, humanoids,

self voting platform, all the things that we do,

and food and whatever, whatever.

Who's in charge and are they the right person to motivate a team to get things done while they're not there?

And I think that's the hardest thing to learn,

is that leadership is not you doing everything. Leadership is you directing,

holding people accountable, but letting them have enough rope to go and do what they need to do. And then if they're getting slightly off track, you can kind of, you know, gently bring them back and ask the questions, why are you doing it that way?

And that's hard for me because I know how I would do it and it's,

it's proven. But you know how your mother says you gotta let them make the mistakes so they can learn.

That's the hardest part for me as a leader to do because I don't want to see them fail.

But failure is part of success.

And I failed many times and I've got back up and dusted myself off. But some people don't do that. And that worries me when that happens, because I'm the one that's got to pick them up and make them feel good about themselves without babying them is maybe that's not the right word.

But telling them the truth, why did you fail? This is why you failed.

And that's always hard for anybody, you know, to hear.

Reginald D: Yeah. And you gotta always have hard conversations. You know, the team that's under me, they always say, man, you're always five steps ahead of us. Well,

I'm kind of different because when you go home,

you go on with your life. When I go home, I'm still pondering, pondering and pondering, and then I come up the next day and yeah, I'm five steps ahead of you.

But I think the biggest thing about having a successful team is, you know, servanthood is one of the biggest things of leadership.

So I think when you build a great team, it's all about putting the right people in the right places.

Robert Irvine: Yep.

And I would go one step further.

It's not nurturing those people. My job, our job, I should say as leaders,

is to prepare somebody to take your job,

you know, and nurturing that talent that may think differently than you.

And we're in so many different, diverse things.

I don't know,

you know,

how a humanoid was. I don't know how to put a drum together. I don't know how to,

you know, I have to go to people that are way smarter than me and sit there and listen.

And one of the things I found the most interesting through television is sitting with, you know, Michael Eisner, who used to run Disney, who has his own production facility and TV and owns a football club and all this kind of stuff.

I get the money.

It's just he's. I sat with him for two hours and he wanted to talk about my TV show and this. And I'm like, no, I want to understand you.

I want to understand why do you make these decisions and how did you make decisions and how did you come up with these things at Disney? Because that fascinates me because the more I can pick your brain,

and I have a brain trust of people, they're not in my companies.

They're in lots of different things that I meet probably, I would say every night for 10, 15 minutes on a zoom call like this,

and we just go back and forth on silly stuff. But it's not silly stuff. It's real stuff. And I walk away and I'm like, oh, my God.

You know,

I've got a great friend, Mick Hunt, who I met doing this, by the way,

who's become one of my closest friends,

helps me with the foundation. But,

you know, we back and forth each other on lots of things, not just in the current affairs and then, da, da, da, da. But it always plays back into,

all right,

what is our legacy? What have we done to change it today? And do we need to do something different with our companies or speaking or.

Where do you live?

Reginald D: I am not too far from the school in Wilmington, North Carolina.

Robert Irvine: Okay.

Reginald D: I'm in O'. Raleigh.

Robert Irvine: You've got to come March 11th. I'm going to send you an invite, okay. To Greenville, South Carolina.

Reginald D: That's my hometown.

Robert Irvine: Well, we have an event there. Mick and I have an event there on the 11th of September, 11th of March. I'm going to send you an invite.

You'll see what I mean about changing the world. It's about influencing people that want to change, just don't know how to change.

And it's really,

really cool. And I think you would Get a kick out of it. And you would have something to add to it just because of your life style and your life experience.

And, and I think that's where like minded people get to change the world.

Reginald D: Absolutely. Send it to me. Send it to me. I will do, absolutely.

So, Rob, I was talking about leadership. You have four leadership pillars that you mentioned in your leadership book, Overcoming Impossible.

Can you share those pillars?

Robert Irvine: Well, I think first and foremost it's empathetic leadership. Right. What does that mean?

It means that Miss Emily that works in one of my companies has an autistic son.

I have to know that she has an autistic son. She comes to work one day and she's not herself. And I say, hey, are you okay? What's going on?

And she said, oh, nothing, Robert. It's just I got some family stuff.

And I'm like, oh, is it, is it, I'm using names now. Is it framp?

Yes.

I said, what's going on? Tell me what's going on, Frank. She tells me, like, I'll tell you what,

go home.

When you're ready to come back to work, you tell me, you know, we're going to pay you, we're going to take care of you. You need anything from me,

you let me know because that's my job.

What did I do there?

Not only did I acknowledge,

number one, I know the names of all my employees, but number two, I know the family status. I know the families, I know their dependents, et cetera, et cetera.

It does one better.

I've just created the most loyal employee you will ever have.

Reginald D: Why?

Robert Irvine: I care for her. I care for her family.

I'm not taking any money, you're not taking time off. I'm going to pay you for the time that you're off. You're not getting any deductions,

and you come back when you're ready.

Now that has to have a degree of trust,

right? Because I have to know your family situation the same as you know my. So when I opened a restaurant in Vegas, I took my daughters out. They were young, my wife out.

I took the whole staff. I took four months to train them. I allowed the staff to ask any question of my wife, of me, of my people.

So when people ask him in the restaurant, what is he really like,

he's always sitting over there in the corner or this is his family, this is his daughter.

And that's empathy, that's understanding that we're not machines. And we can't just show up every day and be the best we can be.

Authenticity is another one.

You can't be up and down and angry and mad and sad and quiet.

You gotta be level.

And if either one of whichever you are, as long as you say the same all the time, at least people know what to expect.

I'm not saying you should be angry or sad or da, da, da, but I think authenticity. And if you look at what I do on TV and when I meet people in real life, they say, oh, you're the same.

You're intense, dude. You know, I'm not mean I'm intense. I am very intense, no matter who I meet with. Because if you give me a task, I want to succeed in that task.

So I think you've got authenticity,

you've got empathy.

There's a lot more I could go into, but they're my two biggest things of the pillars that we talk about. Lots of pillars, but there is four in the book.

But there's a lot more. But they're my two biggest things I follow the most.

We don't hire people in our company.

It's really interesting.

So many years ago, and why I tell you, and this is part of the pillars.

Trust is huge.

That's another pillar.

My wife said to me, you shouldn't hire these two people. And I said, oh, no, look, they've got senior job. I mean, big money jobs. And I said, I'm going to hire them.

And she said, you're making a mistake. And I said, well, I'll take that under advisement. Thank you.

And they lost me $3 million,

which at that time was a lot of money. It still is a lot of money. But they lost me $3 million. And it was my fault. And I blamed myself because I give them the ability without checking.

That was my fault. I took full responsibility there. I had to fire them. Then I had to go back to my wife, which is even worse, and say, you know what, babe?

You are absolutely right.

So when we're going to hire somebody,

I have a team of, a close team of about 18,

then senior leadership, about 60, and then a lot more from there.

So the first 16 people get to talk to you for an hour.

They make their decision.

Reginald D: Right.

Robert Irvine: The last person is my wife,

who has nothing to do with any of my businesses,

but her gut instinct is way better than I will ever be.

My two chefs that travel the globe, we're just about to go to Djibouti and Bahrain. We just come back from Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Rhoda, Spain, Naples, and Sigonel, Italy.

So we travel a lot with the military and bases,

and they are way better chefs than I will ever be. And I always say this.

Kudos. Where. Kudos to you. I don't do all the heavy lifting and they do all that.

But that's part of the process of leadership, is not being threatened by somebody that's better than you.

And I feel that, you know, we go into these an idea with CEOs of big companies, you know,

American Airlines, Walmart,

you know, all these companies. When I go in there, this is me.

I don't know famous people.

I went to a meeting, I didn't know Patti LaBelle. I didn't know George Clooney. I didn't know in Eastwood, because I didn't grow up like that, right?

Reginald D: I've not.

Robert Irvine: Didn't watch movies, we didn't have a tv.

So when I meet these people,

and this is a true statement, I went to Doug McMillan, who was. He's just retiring now,

the chairman of the CEO of Walmart, I should say. And I was going to do a Saturday meeting,

and I'd been traveling overnight, six hours.

I flew in,

I got time enough to shower, shave, cut myself shaving.

And I went there with my normal blue shirt and jeans on.

And this guy comes up to me and says, oh, thanks for getting up early in the morning. I hadn't been to bed. I've been from one live show, the other side of the country to do this.

And it was a meet and greet with 2000 employees.

And he said, thanks for coming. I said, well,

you're welcome, you know,

thanks for having me, you know.

And I said, what do you do? And he said, oh, I'm the CEO of Walmart. And everybody went,

you know, oh, my God, Robert doesn't know the CEO of Walmart. And I said, and I just, without missing a beat, I said, that's a great gig if you can get it, huh?

And he just burst out laughing.

Everybody else kind of relaxed and we've been friends ever since.

Because I'm not intimidated by,

or am I enamored by Movie stars or CEOs? They're no different to us. They just have a different perspective. And maybe they make more money, I don't know. But if you have a platform and you don't use it, then I don't want nothing to do with you because you have a platform and you can do some good with it.

Join the team, we'll do it together. But if you don't want to do it, I don't want nothing to do with you.

Reginald D: That's it. I just want people that's around me that we pulling from the same rope,

the status or whatever. We pulling from the same rope, the same direction. That's all that matters to me.

Robert Irvine: Man, I make eggs. They're expensive eggs. But then all that money goes somewhere not to me. So I like it.

Reginald D: Right. So, Robert, do you have any other new and exciting projects you're working on?

Robert Irvine: The feeding program for me right now is the big platform that we're working on with the military. Because I want to really change that. And the way we buy and the way we educate and way we with schools.

I am looking at a couple of TV projects nowhere near complete or anywhere to talk about, but it's to do with entrepreneurship and helping people.

I mean, I think everything in my life since those early days we talked about has been about.

And you've been in the same way, Right.

You grow up a certain way, you have a platform. You use a platform to help other people,

and in doing so,

it's like, I don't know.

It's fulfilling to me.

It's got nothing to do with money.

It's got something to do with. I go to bed at night knowing that I put those 250 kids.

Reginald D: Home.

Robert Irvine: Or fed or in Wilmington with food. We send the kids home with food and the uniforms. And by the way, that school is 96% success rate to colleges,

which is unbelievable.

Reginald D: Wow.

Robert Irvine: Unbelievable. So I think for me, that's the.

The why do I get up? Is the foundation.

So all my work that I do with the military is unpaid. I don't get paid for anything.

Is all through my foundation.

The foundation leases me to the military for $0.

And I try and change the world, and I don't think I'll ever stop trying to change the world.

So,

you know, if somebody comes up with the next project, which is school, feeding for me is another part, because I'm already in that feeding piece.

We're looking at some TV stuff, as I said, with some other folks,

which I'm kind of interested in, but we haven't got anywhere with it.

And just living life. And, you know, I'm six years old. What have I done? You know, if I was to die tomorrow, God forbid,

knock on wood,

what have I left this world?

What have I left it?

You know, did I leave it better than I came into it with? And there's the hell, yes answer there, right?

But I still think we've got so much work to do. And I look for people like yourself and people that have influence to get the brain trust together, say, okay, what are we going to do and where do we need to do it?

You know, what is the place that needs the most help and how can we do it that doesn't bastardize the intent.

That makes sense. You know, we're going to build 25,000 homes over here and you know, it's going to be run by, you know,

a Venezuelan drug lord. Then that's pointless.

Reginald D: Right.

Robert Irvine: You know, and I'm just making that up, by the way. But if I can build some homes and put families and get veterans off the street and get them health care and benefits and stuff that they deserve,

that everybody deserves, by the way,

then I'm going to fight for that and use that power and get people that are way smarter than me to do that. I just,

I know I'm not a do gooder for all causes, but I'm a do gooder for a lot of them.

Reginald D: Yeah, that's it. And think about it. I think me you have something to come in is that, you know, I just don't want to leave this place and leave it average.

Yeah, I want to leave it a little better.

Yeah.

Robert Irvine: Yeah. I got a grandson, Griffin, who's 7 weeks old and I want,

yeah, my first one. Thank you.

And he's cute.

Takes that to his grandpa.

Not really. But I want him to grow up in a world that's, you know,

this good. It's not all evil. And you see so much evil and so much hate and so much confusion. And it's all started with these phone things, you know, and the Internet and the, and the AI.

You don't even know what's real anymore.

So I just want to be a change agent for as much change as we can make. And neglect a group of like minded people?

Reginald D: Exactly. Exactly. So, Robert, this is what I have. I have what I call rapid fire questions.

Robert Irvine: You ain't fast enough for me, Reggie.

Reginald D: Come on now, let's try. Let's see.

Robert Irvine: All right, let's go, let's go.

Reginald D: All right, what is your favorite food?

Robert Irvine: Roast chicken, mashed potatoes.

Reginald D: All right, a serious question. Are pancakes ever allow a Robert Irvine world or is it a hard meal?

Robert Irvine: Very infrequently when I'm on the road doing show and I know I'm going to be going hard like two days straight. I'll eat pancakes. I've never eaten a waffle in my life before.

I don't like them.

I'm not a syrupy, sugary kind of guy. I've never had a soda in My life.

Reginald D: Wow.

Robert Irvine: Don't like it. I would rather sparkling water. But pancakes? Yeah, I'm okay with pancakes occasionally, but not really.

Reginald D: That's also where they say if you like pancakes.

Robert Irvine: I do. When I'm on the road.

Reginald D: Okay, gotcha.

Robert Irvine: If I'm, if I'm on the road, I'll go to. So it's funny, people say, oh, world class chef. I eat an ihop, right. Or Waffle House.

Because I can see the guy cooking it right there or the girl.

And yes, there's eggs and there's mess on the. But I can see it.

So I am okay with that. So all those haters that don't like it, get over it.

But yeah, I mean, you know,

my team, we work out at 5 in the morning.

We'll go for breakfast, IHOP or Waffle House. I get some pancakes or we share a pancake or whatever. But at home, I never, I'm very, very. My wife is very particular in what we eat.

I travel 345 days a year, so I'm not home a lot.

Reginald D: Wow.

Robert Irvine: But when I'm home, it's a salad. My wife makes balsamic dressing. She makes a salad. She, she pork chops, chicken,

you know, one of the above protein with a salad. And that's pretty much every day I'm home again.

I drink coffee once a day. The rest is black tea.

So I'm kind of. I'm a boring person.

Reginald D: We got a lot of coming, man. That's scary. So what's one truth that failure taught you?

Robert Irvine: One truth. I don't think there's ever been one truth.

I fail on numerous occasions. Not only in business, but in life.

I think failure.

So I'll give you two sides. Business wise.

Understand what it costs and what the market will bear when you put a product in the market.

Because I failed at that a few times.

I've always had some amazing. In the book, we talk about L's and W's, losses and wins.

So you can have a thousand losses, but one win negates those thousand losses, right?

And then in life,

be careful who you and how you speak to people.

Because those people you meet when you are here,

when you next meet them, they're up there and they're the decision maker. And you don't understand that as a young kid,

but as you get older, you realize that those people are smarter than you and they become CEOs and presidents and this and that and the other. And you were the guy that was mean at that time and you said something that annoyed them or whatever.

You may have felt it at that point, but I've learned to pick my battles and win the wars.

Reginald D: Yes, that makes a lot of sense because you're talking about, be careful when you meet people.

Robert Irvine: Yeah.

Reginald D: The Bible says, man, how you entertain a stranger. That's a very.

Robert Irvine: It's so funny. I used years ago when people said, oh, and I get it. I travel the globe, literally, with the military, and I've met probably. And this an exaggeration, but a lot of the world.

I've met a lot of the world.

That's a big exaggeration. But a lot of people, and they say, I remember I took this picture of you when I was 6 years old or 3 years old, and they're now 30.

Right.

And I'm like, oh, was I nice to you?

That's my first question.

Because I never used to be that nice. I'd be like, very. Like, yeah.

That was nothing to do with tv. That was just my demeanor of that protection, not letting anybody near you. And I always say,

oh, was I nice? And I just finished the Food and Wine Festival up in Connecticut,

which I've been doing for 22, 23 years.

And I've seen kids grow up from that to that. And they've got their own kids now.

And I'm surprised. All these things are. And I make it a point to talk to everybody. Everybody.

Even if it's kind of help you put your bag up, good morning,

whatever it is.

Because you never know. And I'll tell you a quick story and I'll be quiet. But a young kid, Dominican Republic, came to me. I won't use his name. I'd been in a bar one night after work in Atlantic City.

He was sitting outside.

I had done very well. I'd got a BMW 7 Series and had a couple of drinks, was gonna go home, and the kid was sitting outside the bar.

And for whatever reason, and I know the reason by the way, I'll tell you that in a second.

I said,

what are you sitting there for? He's like, I've got no place to go.

I said, well, when did you have your last meal? He's like, oh, I haven't had a meal for wherever a couple of days.

I said, all right, get in the car.

I don't know why I did. I took him to a diner three miles from my house and I had breakfast with him. And that was till 3 o' clock in the morning.

Just talking from where he come from, his background.

I said, where are you staying tonight? He says, I've got nowhere to stay. I said, okay, I'm gonna.

There's a hotel here.

I'm gonna get your hotel for a week.

If you need a job, come and see me. Tomorrow is my business card. I was the chef at a casino,

but I paid for the hotel. I said, but you only get one week. That's it, you know? And if you trash it, you pay for it, and all that kind of stuff.

I didn't know the guy.

And I told my wife when I got home, I said, I just did this. She said, why? I could have killed you. I said,

nope.

I was just told to stop and torture this kid. Anyway,

long story short, I'm the executive chef in a hotel which does 784 million a year. Wow. I'd bring the kid in.

He's dishwashing, he's cleaning floors.

And every day he would come to me and he would bring me a recipe and say, hey, I think you should put this in this. You know, we had 13 restaurants.

Da, da da. I said, yeah, it's not ready for that.

Go back. You can use my computer as my books. You can. And he studied all the time, brought me things every day. Then he started cooking. So I made him an assistant book.

Then I made him a cook.

Then I made him a chef, a sous chef, then an executive chef. Now he's running the same casino I run as an executive chef with two kids, two cars, and a house.

Reginald D: Wow.

Robert Irvine: That, to me, is the epitome.

And I talked to him yesterday. That's why he's the epitome of giving people a chance.

And it could have gone the other way, right? He could have stabbed me, could have killed me, could have not. I don't think he would, but he could have gone the other way.

It could have been a different scene.

I remember when he first started making money. He got his little apartment, and he said to me, hey,

I need your help. I got a bus to the walls, and I got a paint in this. I said, yeah, come on, we'll do it after work.

So I did. I went. And he was so proud of this little apartment, 700 square feet. But it took me back to where I was,

and I did it gladly,

right?

And now he's one of my closest friends, and his kids are all grown up. And, you know, he's. He's in his mid-50s.

I just. You know, again, that was a God moment. That was a moment that was put in there to test me.

And I believe that.

And here we are. We laughed about it yesterday because I talk to him every week and I laugh about these things that happen in your life that you least expected.

I could have just got in the car,

drove home and be done with it. Right.

But it wasn't meant to be.

Reginald D: Exactly.

Robert Irvine: Stunning.

Reginald D: Exactly,

man. I got some of the stories I can tell you about stuff like that.

But now I got one more question on this rapid fire question. Yeah, go for it.

Now your wife is an ex professional wrestler.

Robert Irvine: Yes, she is.

Reginald D: When in a wrestling match, you or your wife.

Robert Irvine: Oh my God, she's brutal.

I, I, she is probably one of the toughest male or female as I've ever met in my life.

Smart, beautiful,

tough,

intelligent, all those, I mean there's so many acronyms I can use with her and words that she taught me. Patience, she's taught me so much.

But she would definitely win. I remember she once hit me in San Diego when I was going to watch her wrestle. I come out the shower and sitting on the bed and she came and they call it a clothesline or something and she hit me and I'm like,

what the hell was that? And she said I'm just showing my love for you. And I'm like, well don't love me anymore,

not her, you know, so yeah,

she's probably one of the best human beings on the planet.

Reginald D: Yeah, great, great. So lastly, Robert, where can people purchase your books, your products or follow your journey and support your foundation?

Robert Irvine: So the foundation they can go onto robert irvinefoundation.org One word on Twitter it's Obert Irvine on Instagram is Hepurvine and look, you can Google it, you can find me anywhere. The books are online, the cups are online,

you know, all the money, even the French bars that we have out there and the money goes to charities. So not hard to find I should say.

Reginald D: So there you go,

there you have it. Robert Irvine. Robert, man, thank you so much for everything you do.

I mean, man,

I don't know what to say. I mean just the world needs more people like you,

you know?

Robert Irvine: Well and I think as I said it's,

it's like minded people that do really well.

So I appreciate you and thanks for spending some time with me and I appreciate you.

Reginald D: Absolutely, absolutely.

Thank you for listening to Real Talk with Reginald D. If you enjoyed listening to Real Talk with Reginald D,

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