Welcome and thanks for joinin’ us for Episode 2 of Kosmo Unfiltered! In the last episode we covered my childhood burns, how I got into barbecue, quit partying, and how my daughter told everybody I sold dope...

That pretty much brings you up to speed!

Today, we're gonna talk about the worst job I’ve ever had, how I got started by peddling free barbeque products, and what it was like to win the World Steak Championship. 
 

The Worst Job I Ever Had

I’ve had a ton of weird jobs, but by far the worst job I ever had was when I went on Harvest. If I were in prison and they said, “We’ll let you out early if you go on Harvest.” I’d stay in prison.

Beyond that, the next worst job I ever had was running the barbecue food truck. People don’t realize how hard running a food truck really is - but it sucks. It’s hot, you’re dealing with expensive meat, you’ll show up at an office with just a handful of people there so you’re haulin this thing everywhere…

It’s just a REALLY tough gig. 

But I’m glad I did it. It built caracter and it really led to one of the major wins of my life - the World Championship. 
 

My First Steak Competition 

I kind of stumbled into competing for steak by accident. There was a steak competition in Chakota, Oklahoma that I didn’t plan on going to. I was headed to a competition in Henrietta but when I got there they told me I couldn’t cook because they were full. 

So I went 40 miles down the road to Chakota’s steak competition. When we got there though, nobody was there. Literally nobody. So I asked somebody, “Hey man, are we in the right place?” and they said, “Yeah, but the competition doesn’t start until tomorrow morning.”

So me and Country John sat in that parking lot drinking all night until at about 8am when all of the sudden everybody rolled in and in 30 minutes it was a full on steak competition. 

That was the first steak competition we ever did and we got the shit kicked out of us. But it was a lot of fun because everybody there helped us out and once I figured out you can show up the same day, cook, and go home the same day - I fell in love with steak competitions. 

After that, Country John and I started goin’ all over competing. 
 

The World Championship

Now, back then there were two ways to qualify for the world cook-off. 

The first way was you had to win first place or a golden ticket and if first place already had it, then it would pass down to the next person and so on. The second way to qualify was if you had the top 20 points then you got an automatic buy into the world.

At the time, I was out competing all over and I landed in the top 20 so I got invited to the World Steak Cook-off at Billy Bob's in Fort Worth. 

It was one of the coolest experiences of my life. I met people from all over the world, had a lotta fun cookin’ and drinkin’ and just hanging out. 

Fast forward to the awards and when they called my number for first place… I sat there stunned. They had to call it three times before I got up and started walking to the front, but when I did…

The whole room exploded! It was amazing!

I don’t remember a whole lot after that, but I won the whole damn thing. Ten grand and a World Championship under my belt. 
 

I Was Ready To Help - Enter YouTube

I started my YouTube channel because I didn’t want to ever be too busy to help other people just gettin’ started. That happened to me when I was new to the business and I wanted to break the cycle. 

I’m a firm believer in giving back and teaching others what you know - even though I didn’t know everything. 

There are a lot of great cooks on YouTube, I just wanted to put my spin on it. And just like anything, I’ve had some great successes with YouTube and I’ve had the shit kicked out of me on YouTube, but it all came from a place of wanting to help people. 

One of the things that I've learned over the years is it's always better to give than to receive. I try to meet people where they're at with whatever need they have. 

So I’ve got some homework for you. 

What does helping people look like for you? 
Thanks for being here and remember if you would, please share this with a friend. I would deeply appreciate it. 

And come back for the next episode because it's going to be a good one all about freedom, baby. Welcome to America.