Create a Culture That Attracts Talent

Hey, restaurant Coach Nation. So happy to see you here on a Sunday afternoon like Sunday in the Park. Well, this is going to be the very first. I'm going to start doing this more consistently. And we're going to pick. Actually, I kind of. I asked a bunch of people what day was kind of best for them, and the overwhelming consensus was that Sunday was a great time to get together and do maybe a little bit of live trainings and maybe some Q and A. You never know what I'm going to do. I'm kind of like a maverick like that. But today, what I want to talk about is I know everyone's struggling with hiring, hiring, hiring, hiring. How do I hire people? How do I get more people to my restaurant? How do I attract better quality talent? So what I want to talk about today is in this little session, I call it Create a Culture that Attracts Talent. So let me jump right in, and if we've never met before, first time you're hearing me, my name is Donald Burns. I'm known as the Restaurant coach. And for the last four decades, I've worked as not only a restaurant owner, an executive chef, Wolfgang Pocket, consultant, and for the last 11 years, as a coach to over 2,100 independent restaurants. And I don't say that to impress you, but to impress upon you that when you work in industry as long as I have, you tend to see patterns. There are patterns to success and there are patterns to failure. My job is to show you the good patterns and help you avoid the bad patterns. So I want to start off with a little story. So there was. There was a church that was looking for a new preacher. And since it's Sunday, I thought this would be a great story to kick off on a Sunday. So the church was looking for a new preacher, and they finally, after some interviews, interviews, they settled in on this rather elderly gentleman, and they thought, oh, I think he has a good personality. He's going to be perfect for us. So first Sunday, the pastor's very first sermon at his new church. He walks into the pulpit, he opens up his Bible, kind of cruises through it real quick. And then he kind of says, oh, you know, this one's. This. This is the one. This is the one that you need to hear. And so he goes through the sermon. Everyone loved it. They thought it was fantastic. And the people in the church congregation didn't think much about it, so they left. They come back the next Sunday. The new preacher again walks up to his Bible, opens up the ego. This is the one you need to hear. And he starts doing the sermon. Now, some people in the congregation know it's like, hey, wait a minute. Isn't this the sermon he just gave us last week? And they thought it might be a little strange, but, you know, they didn't really pay any attention to it. So they just kind of, like, listened, you know, and then just went about their day. And then the third Sunday, they came back, and the pastor, you know, the preacher walked up to the pulpit, opened up the book out and opened up the Bible, and he started giving another sermon. And it was the same sermon that he just given two weeks ago. So he's done the same sermon now three weeks in a row. So a couple people in a member of congregation, like, you know, what's going on? You know, is he, like, losing it? You know, this is the third time he's given the same sermon. And so they go, all right, well, maybe next week. Maybe he's just nervous about, you know, the new place, new congregation. Maybe he just needs to get settled in. So they wait. They kind of like, you know, they're a little. They're getting kind of concerned, but they let it kind of blow it off. Then the fourth Sunday, the preacher walks up to the pulpit, he starts doing the same sermon again. And so after service, a couple of the people that were really concerned, a couple of people in the congregation walked up to him and actually walked to his office, and they knocked on the door. And the preacher says, what can I do for you? He says, well, and one of the guys who was kind of leading the congregation, the little group goes, preacher, we're kind of concerned. You've done the same sermon now exactly four Sundays in a row. And then do you have any other sermons? The preacher, sitting there behind his desk, kind of leans back, he folds his arms, he says, I do have other sermons, but you haven't listened and started applying the first one. So I'm going to keep saying the same sermons until you start taking action. So with that being said, if you've never heard me speak before or if you had hear me speak before, you're going to see a lot of things I say are the same things. And the reason being is that I still see restaurants out there not applying the lessons, not taking the notes, not taking the stuff I preach from either my books and, you know, your restaurant sucks, or your restaurant still sucks, or my new book coming out pretty soon is, your restaurant culture sucks. You're not taking the lessons and applying them. So I'm going to keep saying the same Sermon until you start taking action. Fair enough. Now, where you are in kind of your success journey, and I would say there's a path to restaurant success. It always starts off in the bottom and in what I call is the valley of mediocrity. And here's the thing. Most restaurants live there. And I say, basically, if you live in a valley of mediocrity, basically your restaurant sucks. But you want to go. There's different levels, and there's bad, there's good, there's great, and there's outstanding. A few restaurants out in their market, and these are all the ones that either contact me or they sign up for groups like this, like, you know, the. The Restaurant Coach Nation, they sign up for some other programs, and they start slowly moving up the valley into the summit. Now, getting to the summit is not. It's not easy. I'm just going to be fair with you. It's not easy at all. But it can be done. A lot of restaurants have made it, and you can make it, too, if again, you take the sermon and apply the lessons every single day. So right now, this is the Restaurant Coach Nation, and it's a free. It's a free Facebook group. Everyone's welcome to join. Only thing I ask is, you ask, answer a couple questions. I try to keep out people that are, you know, maybe marketers and things like that, you know, trying to solicit the group. I want to keep it more towards restaurant owners, operators, you know, staff and, you know, leaders, whatever you want to call them, anybody works in the restaurant industry. I want to keep the Restaurant Coach Nation open for that. So here's my challenge to you. If you know somebody who might be a good person to join the Restaurant Coach Nation, please send out the link to the Restaurant Coach Nation. We're trying to build up, you know, the Facebook page. We already have over 1100 people in the group. But of course, the more the merrier. Again, I challenge people to send out links, share the link about the Restaurant Coach Nation if you're looking for more stuff, of course, I do have more advanced programs. I have the Restaurant Coach Na, Restaurant Coach University, which is the next level up. Then I have my mastermind group. And then, of course, at the top of the summit, my signature flagship hybrid coaching model is called the Restaurant Accelerator. Now, my very first book, I have this quote, and I think it's an amazing quote. And if you actually listen and take this quote in, it will change your life. The truth will set you free, but first, it will piss you off. So I'M always going to ask you right now and you can put it in the chat if you like. Are you ready to get pissed off a little bit? Are you ready to get upset a little bit? My job as your coach is to kind of challenge you, push you a little bit so you're not comfortable. The comfort zone is the most dangerous place to be. When you're in your comfort zone, you don't take new action. When you don't take new action, you kind of just kind of coast. And if you're coasting in today's market, you're basically standing still, or worse, you're sliding backwards. So I'm going to ask you, are you ready to kind of get a little bit upset about where your restaurant is and where you want to be put in the chat if you want to. Now take a look at this picture. I show this a lot of my sessions, especially when I do public speaking. And luckily, thank, you know, thank the Almighty that we are starting to open up speaking again. It's been a long year with COVID My first appearance back on stage will be this, actually this June 28th and 29th at the nightclub Bar show in Las Vegas. I'm doing a couple sessions, in fact, I'm doing on the 28th, I'm doing actually a three hour workshop called the Recipe to Restaurant Success. It's going to be an intense workshop, really deep dive into what really is the recipe for restaurant success for long term restaurants. So look at this picture and I'm going to ask you and please put in the chat. I'd like people to participate if you can. When you look at this picture, which one are you? Are you the bear? Are you the salmon? Which one are you? Are you the bear or are you the salmon? What do you guess? 95% of restaurants say they are. Put in the chat. Put it in the comments. What do you think most people say? Of course most people say they're the bear and but here's the cold hard truth. Remember I said the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. Most people think they're the bear. The truth is that most restaurants are the salmon. And of course no one wants to be the salmon. But 80% of restaurants are the salmon in their market. So a little bit of honesty time. Where do you want to be? And here's the thing, is your restaurant right now, be honest, Is your restaurant 100% where you want to be? And if it's not 100% where you want to be, here's what here's the other question I want you to ask yourself. If your restaurant is not 100% the way you want to be, ask yourself this question. Ask yourself why. Because here's the other thing I want you to know, and this is a cold, hard truth. If you're not 100% where you want your restaurant and your life to be, you have to admit it sucks a little bit. The only way to get the restaurant you want is to accept it, to own it. And then what you have to do is you have to take action every day to close the gap from where you are to where you want to be. Now, today, I'm going to share with you for the first time since actually last Friday, how to get the restaurant you want and how to get the restaurant that you know, deep down it can become. But first, let me tell you a little bit. A little bit. Let me give you a little background on some stuff first. Now, after 40 years in the restaurant industry, I truly believe that all business problems are people problems in disguise. And when people reach out to me, and I get inquiries every week, sometimes hundreds of inquiries, you know, please, fix my restaurant, fix my restaurant. Fix my restaurant, fix my restaurant. Here's the thing. I don't fix restaurants. What I do is I fix the thinking that causes the problems. And then once you fix that, I'm telling you right now, the problems tend to fix themselves. So what I actually really do is I. And this is something I've really kind of been committed to is I really study restaurant success. All my time in this industry has really been about learning. I learned what to do, and most importantly, I learned. I learned what not to do. Luck is not a factor in restaurants, and it's not a factor in restaurant success. And I'm telling you, I work with over 400 restaurants a year, and I can tell you that that pattern is pretty easy to spot out. In fact, there's basically four classifications of restaurants. Four classifications of restaurants. And I'm going to say I'm going to break it down, make it pretty easy for you. It's a lot like. Remember the bell curve in school. It's a lot like the bell curve in school. Right on the left, you have the bad, then you have the good, the great, and the outstanding. If I was going to break it down into a grade levels, a bad would be an F, you know, or a D. The C level students are the good. And then 15% are bees. That's the great category. And only 5% of any market, any restaurant market. Now, if you're at that low end of the curve. Those restaurants are usually just bad. And like I said, they usually just don't last long. They usually are losing money or maybe breaking even. And here's my thing, I tell people a lot, if your goal is just to break even, you need better goal breaking. It's not a good goal right now at a good level. This is where the bulk of the kind of market falls into things. And restaurants in a good category, I hate to say they're basically average. And average is a failing formula. Now, about 15% of those good restaurants can push through to that great category. But when you get to the grade level, it's still intense competition and it's still kind of dog eat dog. So why do you want to stop at great? The best level to be at is you want to occupy that very rare space where the A students hang out at. And that's what I classify as outstanding. Your goal is to aim for outstanding. You want to try to stand out so far ahead that you don't have competition because you basically dominate the market. Sadly though, in today's economy and with the restaurants over, especially the last 10 years, good is the new standard. It's the sad thing about settling for good. You know, everyone expects to find good food, good service, and I always say being good sucks. Why would you ever want to be average? You know, even if you're at that great level, you're considered just kind of evolutionary. It's not that you really stand out, become outstanding, that you become revolutionary. And that's the goal. So how do we break free? How do we break free from average? How do we break free from just being okay? There's two things. Number one is you need to stop lying to yourself about how good or great you think you are. And the second thing we need to do is we need a little wisdom from an Italian economist. Now, Vilfredo Pareto was a man that recognized a very unusual pattern in his garden. 80% of the peas in his garden, you know, the stuff that was produced actually was only actually made by only 20% of the pea pods. So it kind of made him wonder that does this strange imbalance just happen in his garden or could it be applied underwear? He started doing some research and he found that this kind of formula didn't just rely to his peapods. He uncovered that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by just 20% of the population. And then thus the Pareto principle was born. It's also known as the 8020 rule or 8020 principle. And it states roughly that 80% of your results come from only 20% of your activities. Now, restaurants use this equation all the time. However, I'll say hashtag, write this shit down. They don't have the ratio right. Write this down if you can. Restaurants that are outstanding understand that 20% of their success is systems and strategy. 80% is mindset or attitude. Remember, I said all people, all business problems are people problems. 80% is mindset. 8% is related to people. Only 20% is systems and strategy. Like I mentioned before, most people have the equation backwards. Unfortunately, many restaurants think that, you know, a new system, a new software, a new checklist is going to magically fix all the things wrong with their restaurant. Those things are external tools. You know, when I wrote my book, my first book, my book was written to help restaurants kind of get refocused on what real solutions they need to do and apply to make it to the outstanding level. You want to stop looking at external tools and start looking at the internal power that you've always had. It starts off with kind of a metaphor, and I say, check your map. If you've ever looked at a map, you need kind of located like, you know, the cross streets and realize, okay, I am here. Then I have some good news and I have some bad news for you. Okay? The bad news is your restaurant is exactly where you think it should be. That's where you are right now. Your restaurant is a reflection of you. The good news is, is that when you change your mindset, you will change your restaurant and you change your life. I'm gonna give you a really interesting story, and this actually is actually from my first book. So I'm gonna take you back in time to 1986. Yes. I'm old, by the way. Now, I was a member of US Air Force Pararescue teams and we were up in. I was stationed in England and we were up in the rugged mountains of Wales on a kind of a navigation kind of exercise. If you've never been to Wales, I'm going to tell you, it looks like something out of Game of Thrones. It's like Beauty and the Beast. The mountains are. They are breathtaking. But the weather can turn really quick and could turn on you fast. Like the written the red. The wind and the rain can just. It could be beautiful. And also the wind and the rain comes in and it's like total. Like you can't even see anything. The weather comes in so fast that many mountaineers, they kind of get blindsided and caught Kind of with their pants down. And they become victims to the elements. So whales knows this, so they have. They place these little shelters strategically up in the mountains to provide safe refuge if you're ever caught in a bad weather. I was out with my team. I was actually leading the team. I was on. I was navigating, I was nav. And it was just starting to get dark. The weather started coming in really, really bad. The wind, the rain. And I was. I was out front and I was trying to get us to one of those little low mountain cabins. And I was real certain of my course. I knew, okay, I'm on this thing I'm on. I'm on the right trajectory, I'm on the right path. I'm on the right course now. I was tired, I was wet, I was hungry, but I knew. I knew I was headed in the right direction. The rain became so heavy that it really became hard to see the surroundings. And then, of course, it started getting darker and darker and darker. Now, one of my teammates right behind me, one of my best friends on my pararescue team, his name's Byron. Byron persisted that I need to stop and check the map. And he said, wait, you know, wait, man, hey, stop. Check the map. I'm like, no, no, no, it's right up here. It's right up here. And then, you know, we kept going, kept going. And Byron kept pushing me and said, hey, man, dude, stop. Check the map. Like, no, no, it's right up here. Right up here. And finally he grabbed me, spun me around, grabbed me really hard, shook me and said, stop being such a stubborn ass and check the map. Now, I don't know about you, but when someone who you've known for years grabs you and shakes you violently, it's probably a good idea to listen to him. So I stopped. All right, hey, cool, let's pull the map out. And of course, I'm thinking I'm going to be right. So pull the map out, get the headlamps on, orientate the map, get our compasses out. And, you know, I'm looking at the map and I'm gonna tell you this. I was okay. I was a few degrees off course. I was a few degrees off course. Like, 90 degrees off course. Oops. Bad, bad. That's on me. That was my bad. I was about 90 degrees off course. So we were actually going in the wrong direction. So what we did is right then we. All right, so I got the new heading. Now we packed up the map. I put it back in my backpack I threw my backpack on over my shoulder and as I turn, I kick by accident. I just kind of hit this rock and I kicked this rock and I hear it's really quiet, you know, except for the rain. And I hear this rock go. And then I heard nothing. And so like, that's weird. So I turn my headlamp on and I turn and look and I was like, I was like probably three or four steps from walking straight off a thousand foot ravine. Byron, my friend Byron, he basically, he saved my life. And here's the lesson of it. He saved my life from my own stubbornness and my own inability to listen. Let me ask you, have you ever done that? You ever been so convicted, so sure of yourself, so adamant that you're going the right direction, that even when people are around you saying that, hey, listen, we should check that, we should check the map. No, no, no, I'm going in the right direction. Don't be like that, don't be that person. Now I use the word map a lot in my coaching and map to me is an, an acronym for massive action plan. So let's work on your map, especially for your culture. And how do you create a culture that attracts top talent? How do you create a culture that really, really wants, gets people to want to work with you? So where are you now? Where is your restaurant and your life right now? Now, anytime you do a massive action plan, a map, you have to. There's two things you have to know. You have to know, you have to know where you are and you have to know where you want to go. If I don't know where you exactly are, and this comes from being honest about where you really are. Be honest about really where you are. And then I got to know where you want to go. And that could be a 1 year, 3 year, 5 year plan, 10 year plan, whatever it is. But I need to know where you want to go. Because then what we do is we work from where you are to where you want to be. We basically close the grab and we make a massive action plan to get you there. Most restaurants don't have a realistic understanding of where they are currently. They're in denial, right? And some lack of vision of where they want to be. They basically just like, you know, just kind of open the doors and hope they get some business. It's kind of like wandering around in the woods without any direction or purpose. So let's fix that today. So how do you get an outstanding restaurant? I always say aim for outstanding. If you've ever Been to any of my sessions, my seminars, or you see me on stage a lot of times, I'll bring some books with me and I usually assign them. And my. Probably the number one thing I sign in my books is I usually. I'll write your name and then I use. I usually write aim for outstanding. Because I always want you to remember to aim for outstanding and hashtag write this down, especially if you're on the call, if you're listening to this training and you're. Especially in one of my coaching programs, hashtag, aim for outstanding. Always aim for outstanding. The first lesson I found is that and this. I've learned this a while ago. And it started back in the 90s when I had my first restaurant and my second restaurant. And the difference between the first restaurant and the second restaurant and the one thing I'll tell you right now that separates the good from the great from the outstanding is culture. Now, if we look back, remember they have four classifications at each level. Remember, there was the bad, there was the good, there was the great, and there was the outstanding. Bad Restaurants have a culture that I describe as kind of like the wild, wild west. There's lots of drama, there's chaos, and basically the staff runs the show. I usually tell a restaurant has a bad or toxic, especially a bad restaurant has a toxic culture. The manager is usually hiding in the office and he's afraid to come out. Now, the next level up is the good level. Now they start at this level, they start cultivating some culture, right? They start getting in some training, you start getting in some systems. However, here's the problem. At the good level, it's not consistent. Now at that great level, that B, you know, the B grade, you really start having a culture that is defined. It's a little bit more actually more crafted and sculptured. The shift there is they start moving more to strategy and learning. They go from a training culture to a learning culture. And then finally at that far right, at the outstanding level here, culture is just. It's basically centered around people. Centered around people, leadership and again, self improvement. When you reach that outstanding level, your brand becomes a beacon. It becomes a magnet that attracts people. Think of some of the most most powerful, epic brands, you know, out there that have. They're known for their culture and they don't have to be restaurants per se. Now, on the restaurant, and I can think of stuff like, you know, Danny Myers, you know his Union Square Hospitality group, you know Wolfgang Puck, those kind of branch Shake Shack, In N Out, Burger Chick Fil, A, those Restaurants and those kind of brands are known for their culture, and they attract people that want to work for them, they want to work with them. And even in the. In the. In the big. In the big retail space, Zappos is known for having an incredible culture. Did you know? This is a true fact. It's easier to get into Harvard. Thank you. Than to get a job at Zappos. That's how amazing their culture is. You can get into Harvard University easier than you can get a job at Zappos. That's what you want to aim for. You want to be known for being the place you want to be known. So how do we cultivate our culture? It's pretty easy. Basically, three steps, okay? Three critical elements to cultivating your culture. And again, you gotta have an action plan with each one. So we're talking about selection, nurturing and protection. I'm gonna break down each one for you. First one is called selection. And I'll say it again, hashtag, write this down. Culture is the secret sauce. Culture is the secret sauce that separates the good from the outstanding. Culture is also something that has to be very organic. And I want you to think of culture as something that's organic and it's also alive. Now, in the restaurant industry, a lot of times we have sourdough, right? Sourdough starters. Think of cultures like a sourdough starter. If you don't feed it every day, it's going to die. Here's the other thing. What you feed it depends on what it grows into. If you're coming to work and feeding it drama, you got a culture of drama. If you come to work and you always seem like you're just running around like a chicken with your head cut off, and you just don't seem to be on top of your time management. You always seem like you're panicked. I'm telling you, your culture reflects you. And it all starts with selection. Sean Walsheff's on the call. Sean. If you guys have not followed Sean Walshelf Cali barbecue, I'm telling you, this man is amazing. He is. You want to talk about someone who creates a great culture, follow Sean. He is a great example of what happens when you have a great culture and you really, really take the time to nurture your culture every single day and grow it, you can have something like he has. So selection. Now, if you looked at any well landscaped garden, you know, you might think, wow, it's beautiful. But also, look at this thing. And I want you to think about, you know, there's a lot of planning, there's a lot of care, there's a lot of maintenance that goes into maintaining a really cultivated garden like this. Okay, now, just like that kind of immaculate looking garden you see in the picture here, you need to understand the planning and work. And it comes to creating a similar culture, and it goes back to this selection. Who you allow to be in your team is everything. Hashtag, write this shit down. Who you allow to be in your team is everything. And then take a big pencil or a pen and underline everything, like scratch it 25 times, just like that. Big garden. I just can't pick plants and flowers for a garden without thinking how they're going to grow together. Because some plants have different growth cycles, some plants require more attention, some flourish in the heat, some prefer milder climates. The same can be said for the people on your team. Some personalities get along well with other people. And some people like to be left alone. Some people need more attention than others. Some people want to grow and develop and become better. Some people are really happy with just how they are. They're very content with being who they are. The thing is just like that, remember that big and I just showed you that picture of that huge cultivated garden. You have to understand that you need a variety of people with a variety of skills, with a variety of personalities to compose a high performance team. So if selection is probably one of the most important elements to the foundation of culture, we'll talk about those three. What do you think is the biggest mistake most restaurants make? If you want to type it in the comments, what do you think is the biggest mistake most restaurants make? There's a couple of them, actually, but I'm going to be generous here. I'm going to say there's one main one, and the main one is this. You're hiring people for skills only. You're not taking into account personality. Or write this down, how that personality is going to mix with the other personalities on your team. It's just like I want to say, I want to, I want to. I have a restaurant, I'm a chef, I want to go for a Michelin star. I just can't go in the kitchen, just grant a bunch of random ingredients, throw them in a bowl, and expect a Michelin star to appear. You got to understand that ingredients are to recipes, what personality is to you. You have to be very, very careful about what you mix together. So hashtag, write this one down and Joshua's here another. If you want to see another great example of great culture, Joshua Is here from the Red Door Grill in Kansas City. The Red Door Grill, another, I mean, a primo example of what a great culture is. The owner Gary and his team are very, very, very, very people oriented. They actually, they put the people first. And when you put people first, I'm telling you, it changes. It changes cultures. When you change cultures, it changes everything, changes the whole trajectory of your restaurant. So you always want to hire for personality and train for skill. Now Danny Myers, you know, at Union Square, he uses a ratio, he calls it the5149.51% about how he hires is based on personality. You should always, always have personality. Weigh in more than raw talent. Hire for personality, train for skill. Step number two. Remember nurturing that well, landscape, garden, it's not going to last very long without proper nutrients and care. It would be a total waste of your time, energy and money to work so hard only to let a garden just kind of whittle away because lack of, you know, lack of attention to it. The same goes for the culture in your restaurant. You might have the best intentions. However, without consistency in your attention, your actions, which is your behavior and the positive energy, you feed your culture on a day to day basis, not weekly day to day basis. If you don't do these things, you're going to see all that hard work, all that stuff just going to basically start rotting away. So what are the things that cultivate outstanding culture? What are the seeds that you can plant today that's going to allow you to reap the bounty of a harvest later? I'm going to tell you right now. Here's the secret. Everyone gather close. I don't want to say this out loud. If you want to know the secret to culture, type in the comments. I do, I do. I know these kind of like it sounds like a marriage vow, but I want you to type in the comments. I do. I want to know what the secret to culture is. Donald, Donald, tell me what the secret to culture is. What is the secret to culture? What is the secret to culture? Everyone gathered around close. This is a secret awareness shared between us. Okay? The secret of culture is this. It's you. That's probably pretty easy to figure out, right? That's probably not a big secret, really. I know it's not a big secret. The secret of culture is you. And here's the thing you always want to remember. Hashtag, write this shit down. Culture flows down, not up. Culture flows down. It doesn't flow up in your organization. Culture starts with you. It flows down to Your team, and then that flows down to the guests. So when I go to a restaurant, first thing I always do is I talk to the owner about culture. And then I go out in the dining room, and I want to sit down in the dining room. I actually want to experience how much of that culture they just told me about for the last 30 minutes. How much is really getting, you know, is really flowing down to the guest experience. And I can tell you from a lot of experience working with a lot of restaurants, usually the culture that the owner tells me about is not the culture I see out on the floor, not in the dining room. It's usually totally different. And culture kind of gets and think of culture almost like a pipe. Now, if I was going to say just imagine, like, if I had a pipe here and the pipe was going, like, straight up and down. At the top of the pipe is the source of culture, which is you, the owner, leader, whatever you want to call them. Those are the people at the top of the pipe, are the culture. They actually are the source of culture. Now just imagine as a pipe had water dripping down, and just imagine if I start putting in blocks in there, like little levels, and some of the levels were only maybe 25% across. Some levels were 75% across. Maybe some levels are like 95 or 99% across. If I put a level in the pipe at 99%, it's going to start blocking the flow of culture. Right? And that's usually what's happening in most restaurants, is that you have the best intentions at the top, and you really want to create this dynamic, really, really organic, beautiful thing. And what happens then as it starts flowing down, it starts getting clogged by certain people on your team. And I hate to tell you this, 90% of the time, when I look at where culture is kind of getting held up at, it's usually at the top of the pipe. It's usually at the upper. It's usually up in the leadership level. The upper management level is usually where it's getting stuck at. So a lot of times what I tell myself or I tell people is that I'm kind of like a culture plumber. My job is to come in and apply a lot of Drano and get those kind of blocks cleared out. Because once you clear the blocks out, culture flows freely and it flows down. Then you finally start getting that experience that you really want. Hashtag, write this down. Restaurants become better when the people in them become better people. And again, it starts with you. It starts with you as the Owner, the chef, or the leader of your organization. In your garden of culture, you are the water, you're the sunshine, and you're the nutrients that feed it. Remember that in your garden of culture, you're everything. You are the water, you are the sunshine, you are the nutrients. This next quote is one of my favorites from a Chinese philosopher named Lao Tzu. Knowing others is wisdom. Knowing yourself is mastery. It all starts with understanding yourself and actually going to some of those dark places inside yourself you've probably ignored. That's what coaching really is about. Like I said, a lot of people think, you know, hey, fix my restaurant. I don't fix restaurants. I fix the thinking that causes the problems. All business problems are people problems. Coaching works on the people problems. So a lot of times, you got to take a deep look inside at some of those dark places that you don't want to face, but you got to face them if you want to get better. Remember, restaurants become better when the people become better people. And that starts with you. You becoming a better person, a better leader. It'll have a huge impact on your restaurant. So how do we do that? You gotta know your core values. If you don't know what you stand for and why you stand for it, you're gonna get. You're gonna find it very, very hard to find a team to buy into your culture. Hashtag, write this down. All restaurants have a culture, either by design or default. All restaurants have a culture, either by design or default. Which one do you have? If you're not taking an active hand in cultivating your culture, I hate to tell you this. You have a culture by default. Now, if you're very meticulous about, you know, the water, the sunshine, the nutrients, you feed every day, and did I mention every day. You feed your culture every day, then you have a culture by design. Core values are seeds. They're the seeds of culture. And the culture you get largely depends on the values, the core values you plant as seeds. So here's a question for you. I always love these little insightful questions. Who are you? Who are you really? Have you ever sat down and really written out, I mean, really written out, clear and concise core values for yourself and for your restaurant? A lot of restaurants have kind of like some idea of core values, and they might even have a fancy poster on the wall that they got off some Internet thing. But do those core values relate to you? Are those core values that you can live by? Core values that are just on a wall? They're just words that aren't lived are just a bunch of bullshit. It's a bunch of crap. Core values have to be lived, and they have to be lived by you, the leader. If your team does not see you living and being an example of the core values that you preach about, they're gonna. What do you think's gonna happen? They're gonna look at you as. You're just a hypocrite. I'll tell you right now, no one wants to follow a hypocrite. Nobody wants to follow a hypocrite. No one wants to work for a hypocrite. I hear it all the time, especially lately. There's no good people out there. It's a bunch of bs. There are great people out there that want to work. The question you got to ask yourself is, why don't they want to work at your restaurant? Why don't they want to work with you when you can answer that question? It's going to take you to some dark places, okay? It's going to take you to some really dark places. But you need to have. You need to confront it. You need to talk about it. You need to face it. I know we just got out of COVID and, you know, and I use this reference a lot. And this is. This is a pre Covid analogy I used. But I always say we all wear masks at times. Here's the thing. You have a mask, and I'm not talking about the face mask that you wear for Covid. I'm talking about you have a mask for how you want the world to see you. You have a mask for what you show the world. And that mask you wear a lot of times, a lot of. It's like your core values. We pick words up or we pick core values up that really sound good, but we don't believe them because you know why? We. We think people can't see past the mask. But here's the thing. They can. And when you're authentic and real, people see that. And then they see that because it shines through from your heart, and then they also see it in your actions. The biggest thing I want you to take away from today, I want you, and I tell all my new clients, is take down the mask. People do a great job of wearing the mask in public. However, here's the thing. Those people closest to you, your spouse, your best friends, they know the real you. And believe it or not, your team knows the real you, too. And here's the cold, hard truth. If your restaurant sales are stagnant or declining, your guests Know the real you too. You're never going to have an outstanding restaurant wearing a mask. You have to be honest with yourself. That's step one. You got to be honest with yourself. I tell my clients all the time, you don't have to impress me, you just have to be honest with me. Trust is critical to coaching and also to building an outstanding brand. So let's do a little more self thought reflection here. There's three questions you need to ask yourself. And here's the thing, you got to be honest about them. Again, this is honesty is the best policy. Number one is what are you good at? What makes your heart sing. The next one is, you know, what are you marginal at? Now here's the thing. No one wants to admit that they're average. Okay? You know, and here's the thing, Most people are like, oh, it's okay for you. It's not okay for me to be average, okay? Remember when I'm asking these questions, these are for you, they're not for me. So be honest about them. And the last one really takes a lot of deep, deep self reflection and total brutal. Honestly, what do you suck at? We all have things we suck at. Yes, even I have things I suck at. Best thing to do is to admit it. Too many people either ignore or deny the things that they suck at. You can either embrace it and work around it, or you just can't stay in denial. Just remember that to take no action is an action. It's just not smart action. In fact, it's pretty stupid. Hashtag, write that shit down. Take no action is an action. It's just not smart action. Here's another one to write down. Hashtag, write this shit down. Your restaurant will never rise above your own level of development. Remember that secret to culture is you. Well, you're also what's holding back your restaurant. Your restaurant, again, was never going to rise above your own level of development. I'm not talking about just skill here. I'm talking about the mental breaks that you have on have been holding you back. The limiting beliefs you have, the confidence or lack of confidence you have, those are the things that are really holding you back. So what can you do today? What can you do today right now to become better? Here's one thing you can do. Hashtag, write this shit down. Raise your standards. Raise your standards. Standards are those little things that I kind of call them like non negotiables. I gotta make the joke that, you know, a standard's called a standard because it's a standard. It's not called a flexible option. A standard is the baseline for behavior that you kind of draw the line the sand on, and then you stand there. The other thing you want to do is you want to expect more from yourself than you do from others. Remember we talked about that Pareto principle 80, 20 principle? And I said, most people have a backwards. Here's another one. Most restaurant owners and leaders have backwards. They expect more from other people than they do from themselves. Flip that. Expect more from yourself than you do from others. You will see so much improvement. So what's holding you back? What's really holding you back? Remember I asked you at the beginning of this kind of training, I said, if your restaurant is not 100% the way you want it to be, why? How many people listening right now want to be outstanding? How many people want to go from wherever you are? And I'm going to say, if you're on this call, you're probably in the good or great category. How many people want to go from good to great to being outstanding? Why aren't there more restaurants at that 5% level? Restaurant success is not rocket science. It's people science. When you understand the people science, you can get to that 5%. So why aren't there more restaurants at the 5% level? I'm gonna tell you right now. It's called the F word, and I'm not talking about that F word. I know I got a lot of chefs on the call. No, Chef, not that F word. I'm talking about the other F word. Fear. Let's talk about fear. Let me tell you something I learned when I was in the military, when I was in the pararescue teams. Hashtag, write this down. Danger is real. Fear is a choice. And if you break down an acronym for fear. If we took the word fear, we broke it down to an acronym, this is what it would look like. Fear basically means false emotions appearing real Fear keeps most people immobilized and stuck, just basically stuck. Situations where they know deep down they should change. Fear of the unknown. I'm telling you right now, it's a false projection. Because most of the things that we fear that would happen, they never really quite happen, really as dramatically as we kind of imagine they would. Your mind can definitely make a hell of heaven and a heaven out of hell. Depends on what you need. Depends on what you believe. Here's the thing you have to know. Secret overcoming fear is this. Fear just wants to be recognized. You don't have to surrender or give in to fear. Just Recognize it for what it is. It's trying to protect you. So what I do is when I. When fear pops up, I just basically I have a little conversation with fear. And sometimes I do it out loud, sometimes in my head, sometimes I do it out loud. But I usually say, when fear pops up and I know fear is there, I can. I see you there. I see you there. I appreciate what you're doing. However, you need to sit down and shut up. I got this. So when fear pops its ugly little head, just acknowledge it and say, hey, you know what? I know what you're doing. I know you're here to protect me. I just need you to sit down and be quiet. I got this. And then that last thing we talked about for cultivating culture is protection. This is the last element and probably the most important. Now, a lesson I learned working with Wolfgang Puck was always protect the brand. Every decision in his companies, all his companies, is basically driven around this principle. You always protect the brand. And you do that by making sure you have not only selected the right people, you also put them in the right position that places their strengths. And you also need to develop what I call is oad. Oad. What does OAD stand for? Obsessive Attention to Detail. You want to be an oad? Obsessive, Obsessive Attention to Detail. Outstanding restaurants know that everything is about stacking the details to create an outstanding experience. You have to become obsessed with removing the mental breaks that you've placed on yourself. And we all have some mental breaks. A lot of those are limiting beliefs, outdated kind of programming we have in our head. And whether you work with me or not, I always recommend, you know, get a coach, get some of that stuff cleared out, get some of that old outdated software that was programmed in your head when you were a kid. Get that kind of removed and updated to some really good stuff. Some positive, kind of, basically a positive upgrade on your mind when you reach down and totally become honest about where you are now, where you want to be. And here's the big thing. What kind of person does it need to take to do to kind of reach that destination? Only then, and only, only then will your restaurant ever, ever become outstanding. My challenge for you today on this training is to step up, to become your best. When you know yourself, you know your strengths, and you can pinpoint where you are on the map that you are here. Then if you know your clear destination, you can chart a course of action to get it. But you need to do one last thing to step up to become Your best. Here's what you need to do. You need to make a commitment each day to do one thing that makes you a better person. Remember I said it before and I'm going to keep preaching the same sermon all the time. Restaurants become better when the people, when they become better people. That starts when you become a better person. What makes a restaurant outstanding, you probably know by now it's you. So if you want more training and coaching, there's a couple different options. I'm going to be showing up on the Restaurant Coach Nation here every Sunday, 3pm Mountain Standard Time, 2pm on the Pacific coast, which I'm in right now. But of course I also have a whole integrated coaching suite that you're more welcome to. You can email me anytime you like. If you have questions for me, you can always email me at donalderestaurantcoach.com I have the Restaurant Coach University which is like my, one of my kind of group training programs. I have Restaurant Mastermind which is a group just for restaurant owners only. And then of course I have my signature kind of hybrid coaching consulting program called the Restaurant Accelerator. And if you ever have questions again, you can either email me donaldrestaurantcoach.com you can go over and schedule a one on one call with me@therestaurantcoach.com just go in and hit I think it says, the button says book your success success session with me. So again I want to say thanks for showing today. We almost hit the hour mark. I'm so excited to be here with you on Sundays. It's a great place to show up. If you have questions again, write them in the chat. I'll check out the comments later. And if again, if you have a personal question for me, you know, just reach out to me. I have, I have no problems sitting out replying to people. So you can email me at donalderestaurantcoach.com remember I am here for you. If you haven't grabbed my new download too, please head over to my website. I have a great new download, four menu design hacks that actually increase sales 15 to 20%. It's a free download. You just go to my website and grab it at www.therestaurantcoach.com. great new download, getting tons of people really enjoying it. I'm getting tons of feedback saying oh, I never know about these four tricks. They're so easy to. I didn't know about this. I'm gonna start using these things. I actually have some clients that started using some of these new tricks for menu design and they're actually seeing results immediately. So grab that. If you can head over to my website, therestaurantcoach.com grab that download again. It's free. It's free stuff. I just want you to have a better restaurant. I want you to have a better life. I want you to stop living in fear and I want you to step up and get actually the restaurant and the life that you know deep down that you deserve. So I want to say again, thanks for showing today. Thank you for being here. Restaurant Coach Nation. If you have anybody in your restaurant group or, you know, works with you you think might benefit from being a member of the Restaurant Coach University, please share the link out there. I'm trying to grow this thing up to at least 10,000 people in the Restaurant Coach Nation. The more people we have, the more impact we have. And that's how we change our industry one restaurant at a time. So thank you for your time today. Thanks for being here. Hope you have a fantastic Sunday and we'll see you next week.