Ina Garten
American cookbook author, television host and founder of Barefoot Contessa
Ina Garten (American cookbook author, television host and founder of Barefoot Contessa) has appeared as a guest on 1 episode in TMT. Topics they speak about most include Career change and reinvention, Barefoot Contessa, Cookbook writing.
In their words
Positions and remarks grouped by topic, each with the exact quote and where it was said.
Career change and reinvention
Garten argues people must practice exercising their power by asking for what they want even if refused.
“I think you have to just learn to exercise your power and just say, this is what I want”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 47:33
Garten describes the year after selling the store as the hardest and scariest transition of her life.
“And that was the hardest year of my life. That was the scariest transition I've ever made”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 34:27
Garten argues that one's 20s should be used for experimenting with different paths.
“Our 20s are for experimenting. Try everything. And you're going to learn something from each experience”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 31:52
Garten endorses a saying she attributes to J.P. Morgan that one need not see the whole path before starting.
“Go as far as you can see, and when you get there, you'll be able to see farther”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 19:31
Garten says the scariest things she has done turned out to be the making of her life.
“find that the really scary things I've done have been the making of my life. And so it's really worth doing”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 3:46
Barefoot Contessa
Garten says she sold the store to her chef and manager on her accountant's suggestion, financing the sale herself.
“And she said, why don't you sell it to the employees? And so we figured out a way to sell it to the chef and the manager”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 34:06
Garten concluded from experiments that customers wanted simple food at home rather than fancy dishes.
“people have elegant taste, but they don't want fancy food at home. They want to go out for something fancy”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 27:11
Garten says wearing a gold necklace changed how customers treated her, showing one can change interactions by changing oneself.
“I thought it was so interesting to non-verbally change my relationship with the customers. We could change the conversation by changing ourselves”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 25:50
Garten recalls that after a first day with $87 in sales, her husband calculated the store would not succeed.
“Jeffrey had a calculator and he multiplied 87 times the number of days in the summer. And he said, I don't think you're going to make it here”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 18:02
Cookbook writing
Garten advises cooking simple dishes because simplicity makes people cook and gather more often.
“make something really simple. Because the simpler it is, the more you're going to do it”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 53:49
Garten says her first cookbook's mantra was simple reliable recipes, gorgeous photos and grocery-store ingredients.
“really simple recipes that I know will work every time, gorgeous photographs, and ingredients you can get in the grocery store”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 36:45
Entrepreneurship
Garten advises anyone wanting to open a specialty food store to work in a bakery first.
“first work in the bakery before you decide to open a specialty food store”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 51:55
Garten argues that business is a science experiment and assuming the answer in advance leads to error.
“If you decide in advance that you think you know what the answer is, you're wrong”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 27:04
Marriage and long-term partnership
Garten says she and her husband reconciled after realizing their assumed marital obligations were not true.
“And I felt like I was responsible for dinner because we were married. And we realized none of those were true”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 45:59
Garten says hard conversations must be started despite not knowing the response, which reveals the other person's flexibility.
“So you have to start the conversation even though you have no idea what the response is”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 43:01
Aging
Garten says it is never too late to start over and age should be disregarded.
“I mean, it's never too late. Just forget your age. Just think about what you want to do”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 32:42
Be Ready When the Luck Happens
Garten says writing her memoir showed her that her earlier side pursuits had prepared her for the store more than she realized.
“I thought I knew nothing. But in fact, I knew more than I gave myself credit for”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 12:48
Finding one's passion
Garten recounts her husband's advice that doing what is fun leads to being good at it.
“do what you think is fun. If it's fun, you'll be really good at it”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 6:00
Office of Management and Budget
Garten says she left OMB partly because she believed a woman would never be chosen to head the agency.
“They are never going to choose a girl to be the head of OMB. So what am I doing here?”
The Mel Robbins Podcast: Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your Life (Oct 15, 2026) · Listen from 6:00
Appearances
Reinvent Yourself At Any Age: Ina Garten Shares the Secret to Transforming Your LifeThe Mel Robbins Podcast · Oct 15, 2026 · 57 min
Ina Garten tells Mel Robbins how she left a White House budget job to buy Barefoot Contessa, and shares lessons on reinvention, risk and marriage.
Often appears with
- Mel Robbins · 1 shared episode