Meet Gabi Odebode

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gabi Odebode. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gabi below.

Hi Gabi, thank you so much for opening up with us about some important, but sometimes personal topics. One that really matters to us is overcoming Imposter Syndrome because we’ve seen how so many people are held back in life because of this and so we’d really appreciate hearing about how you overcame Imposter Syndrome.
Some people became Chef through going to culinary school whereas there are people like me who are self-taught. I took the non-traditional path to become a chef. As a self-taught Chef being around CIA trained chef can be intimidating and also can make you feel inferior or have an imposter syndrome. Earlier on regardless of how much success I have achieved through my business Afromeals and the connection I have made there were still a part of me that experienced imposter syndrome. Mostly because I came from working as a clinical researcher to becoming a chef. So sometimes the feeling of “are you good enough?” lingers around your mind which use to leads to feeling imposter syndrome. At times feeling like I don’t deserve the success or recognition I have gained over the years as a chef.

I overcame imposter syndrome by coming to the realization that I got to where I am as a chef with a growing and successful business through hard work. I realize that though I didn’t go to culinary school, I put in several hours of learning my craft, several hours of training and receiving mentorship and tutoring from those who did attend culinary school. In doing so I have learned and gain so much experience for me not to have imposter syndrome. My business and its success and growth show that I am qualified therefore I should not feel that I am not. Becoming a Chef was not handed to me, but I worked hard to get the notoriety, recognition and success.

In short I overcame imposter syndrome by realizing that I worked for it and it was not handed to me.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I am Chef Gabi Odebode a scientist turned Chef and a foodpreneur. I was born and raised in West Africa Ghana, I ate and learned from amazing cooks such as my grandma, mother, and aunts. At the age of 9 I immigrated to the United States where I lived in Maryland. In high school, I registered for a food and nutrition class, where I watched several cooking shows by a woman named Rachael Ray. This is when something clicked for me. I started to cook more often at home and experimented with spices and herbs and learn to cook other meals aside from my cultural cuisines. Later I registered for an international cuisine class.

I climbed the educational ladder and graduated with a master’s degree in biology. During my master’s program, I started my side hustle where I catered food, created products, and taught people in my community to cook certain West African foods. This side hustle became my main hustle (Afromeals) when I moved to Ohio. In Ohio, I learned, and was mentored by CIA trained chefs.

I released my first recipe book and started teaching at different cooking schools in the Cincinnati-Dayton area. my goal was to educate people about African (West African) cuisine. After a few months, I opened my own cooking school (Afromeals Cooking School) in downtown Cincinnati where I teach and has taught many people about African cuisine. Along with teaching, I also share my cultural food with people by developing recipes for FoodNetwork.com.

Currently, I am known as one of the pioneers in the Cincinnati/Dayton area in Ohio introducing people to African cuisine and culture. This is how I coined my business tagline “Experience the Culture”. I’ve been featured in Cincinnati Magazine and t.v news stations and other local, national, and international publications.

If you are looking for a cultural experience go to Afromeals.com and sign up for a class, see our catering menu option to order food or purchase our African and Caribbean spice blends.

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Three most important qualities that has been most impactful in my journey is my optimism, persistence and learning to be malleable. Being optimistic helped me to see the glass half full than half empty. This helped me to have hope for my business at a stage where I didn’t see any progress of growth even though I have put in a lot of effort. Optimism helped me to be persistent, I didn’t give up even though I didn’t see much, I just kept working hoping that some day I would see the light at the tunnel which is what eventually happened for our business “Afromeals”. Lastly being malleable, being able to bend and change to figure out how to grow my business helped a lot. This required me to listen to other people’s ideas and implement them and not be stuck on my own ideas.

Any one who is in the early stage of their journey, I would recommend for them to keep persisting, be hopeful, optimistic that though you might not see the needle move immediately with each effort (small or big), eventually you would see the needle move towards success and growth. Also learning to relearn and not being too focused on just your idea. Taking time to weight things with others and learning to implement other people’s suggestion would go a long way. Team work really makes the dream work.

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
When I feel overwhelmed, I take a step back. I take a few hours or days off to cool down and figure out why I am feeling overwhelmed. Most times I speak with my co-founder to figure out why I am overwhelmed. Once we figure out the cause we come up with strategies to solve that problem that makes me feel overwhelm. For instance if I feel like I have so many things on my plate to do. So many tasks I can’t handle, I start to prioritize which one needs to me done immediately and also look for ways I can bring people in to help handle some tasks.

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Image Credits
Abanyie film studios

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