Bobby Flay Says Sports Taught Him ‘How to Lose’ on Competition Shows (Exclusive)

Years on fields, courts and tracks prepared Bobby Flay for Food Network stardom.

The celebrity chef — who hosts and competes in cooking shows like Bobby’s Triple Threat, Iron Chef and Beat Bobby Flay — says his fiery, competitive nature is ingrained in him.

“When I was younger, I was always very competitive in athletics, baseball, basketball, I ran track, cross country, et cetera,” Flay tells PEOPLE.

He adds that fitness “became part of my adult life. And so when I’m on these cooking shows, which I consider part of my athletics now — there’s a clock, there’s a competitor, there’s a competition, there’s running around — it’s basically the next version of a sporting event for me.”

The morals and emotional side of sporting also apply to his culinary competitions, like the 600+ Beat Bobby Flay episodes he has done. The hit show sees two chefs face off to earn the chance to cook against Flay with their own speciality dish. A blind taste test from three judges decides a winner.

“I think that competing in sports, like healthy sporting activities, as a young kid teaches you how to be gracious and how to lose because it’s going to happen,” says Flay. “I just feel like when I lose, it’s totally fine. And I shake the person’s hand who beat me fair and square, and we go on to the next. I mean, learning how to lose is an important part of life.”

The New York native wrote about his active childhood in his 18th cookbook, Chapter One, which was released on Oct. 29. In the introduction, Flay wrote that his academic struggles as a child were countered by his athletic success. “I had game — just not with my textbooks,” he wrote.

After leaving high school during his sophomore year, Flay’s school “chapter was finally over. And that’s when Chapter One really began.” Shortly after, he got a bussing job at a restaurant in New York City and his culinary career grew from there. Flay joined the Food Network in 1996 with his first series Grillin’ & Chillin’.

The book focuses on groundbreaking moments of his “cooking life” and highlights 100 recipes, most of which stem from his restaurants but some could be familiar to Food Network viewers.

“I only took a few things from the TV shows because I wanted this to be a very my life and career up to this point as a chef and a cook, and so the restaurants are the most important thing to me in this particular case,” he says.

He specifically only included recipes from shows that have “stuck with” him. “I just felt like those dishes became part of my repertoire in a much bigger way than just like, ‘Oh, I have to cook this now today because somebody’s challenged me to it.’ Every once in a while a dish will strike me differently and I’ll want to do more research and give it more than just a once over just because I had to cook it in 45 minutes,” says Flay.

Chapter One is unlike Flay’s previous cookbooks. “This is definitely the most important book for me that I’ve done. I’ve never done a book with this kind of approach, this very coffee table-esque style of book.” he says. “This isn’t the at-home cookbook. I wanted this to be a collector’s item.”

Chapter One, published by Clarkson Potter, is available now wherever books are sold.