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'The Chew' Co-Host Carla Hall Gets Candid About How She Found Her Passion

"The Chew" Co-Host Carla Hall lights the Empire State building for the Food Bank of New York City in honor of the 11th Annual Go Orange To End Hunger Campaign at The Empire State Building, Sept. 28, 2016, in New York City.
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January 24, 2017, 8:15 PM

 -- Carla Hall, co-host of "The Chew" and restaurateur, opened up on ABC News' top business podcast, “No Limits with Rebecca Jarvis,” about finding her passion for cooking and pursuing the career of her dreams.

"I didn't want to be 40 and hate my job," she said. "And at that moment I was hating my job."

Years before joining the cast of “The Chew,” the celebrity chef made a life-changing decision to quit her steady job as an accountant and relocate to Paris.

“When I look back, people are like, ‘Weren't you scared to go to a foreign country and you didn't know the language and you didn't know anyone?’ I had one telephone number when I went. All I knew was I was afraid of failure and I didn't want that job,” Hall said.

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She later moved back to the U.S., where she attended culinary school at L’Academie de Cuisine in Maryland and then worked as a sous chef in Washington D.C. Eventually, she became a competitor on Bravo’s “Top Chef” and “Top Chef: All Stars.”

“I just went on as a personal challenge. ... I don't think they expected me to really go through the whole thing,” Hall said of “Top Chef.” “I was this little caterer from Washington, D.C., and I was 42 years old. But the thing is, I was this person who had been in London, in Paris, and I made things happen.”

These days, you can watch Hall on ABC’s Emmy Award-winning show “The Chew,” which she co-hosts alongside Mario Batali, Michael Symon, Clinton Kelly and Daphne Oz. While Hall may make the job look easy, she admits she didn’t always feel comfortable on the set.

“The first season of 'The Chew,' I thought I was going to get fired,” Hall said. “For two seasons it was really hard. I would go home and I would cry because it was so hard and I'm like, 'I can't do this.' And I remember a friend telling me, 'This is just a lesson. Your prayer every day should be authenticity.' And I got it. I'm like, 'OK.'”

To hear more of Hall’s story, listen to the full interview on “No Limits with Rebecca Jarvis”.

You can listen to "No Limits with Rebecca Jarvis" by subscribing on iTunes, Google Play Music, Stitcher or on ABCNewsPodcasts.com