The One Thing Holding Your Restaurant Back in 2021

Sam. Hey and good morning. Welcome to Thrive Online Restaurant Summit. Boy, do we have a full, fun packed day lined up for you. I am joined this morning by my business partners in restaurant KPI Mastery, Pamela Lee and Darren Mansari. Good morning. How are you?

Doing really well. Good morning everybody.

Yeah, I'm telling you, if you're tuning in right now, you're probably seeing us on a couple channels, but this will be the only session you're actually going to be able to see on multiple channels because we are actually streaming the whole day. We got eight sessions, I got five other four other speakers lined up besides myself. And we have a full day packed for you. And what I can say is if you, if you're seeing this right now, you want to be able to, you want to jump on. And here's the cool thing about all this stuff we're doing today and it's all free. We really, we know that 2020 was a rough year for a lot of restaurants and we want to give back. So we have designed this whole day summit and it starts right now. And we're going all the way until 5:00'. Clock. And it's just going to be one session after another. It's, we got some really cool stuff lined up. I'm going to be kicking off this morning. And then we got Dusty Lee, who's a retired Naval Commander, former F18 fighter pilot. He's going to talk about leadership from the flight deck. Really great stuff. Darren's going to talk about. His specialty is about how to increase your profitability. And then we got, I'm going to talk a little bit about marketing. Pamela is going to talk about how to take that POS data that you, you're looking at, staring at like a zombie and how to turn that into gold. And then, then I have, this afternoon, I have another good friend of mine, Beau Bryant, the restaurant giant is going to join us and he's going to tell you how to really update your guest journey. So if you haven't already subscribed signed up for Thrive, and if you're watching us, you can actually, it's pretty easy to join us. All you gotta do is just go over to Facebook groups and I will put the, I will put in the chat right now, the link. So if you're watching, you can easily go and join us. And it's gonna be, it's gonna be an exciting day. We got tons of stuff on and we also want to give a real shout out right now to our, our partners that we work with. Of course, Heartland is a. And I know everyone thinks of Heartland as like a payment processing company, but did you know they also have a really bad POS system? And you saw a demo of it, didn't you, yesterday? How was it? I missed that. I was, like, busy getting ready for this thing.

It was great, actually. It had. Actually, I was thoroughly impressed. And if you tune into my session later, I'm going to mention a couple things that they do that. That are pretty great.

So.

Very impressive POS system.

Perfect. Perfect.

Yeah, I. I enjoyed it very much. I'm a toast user in my own restaurant, and I was doing this demo just to see what the Heartland POS system was all about. And I've already told them that we're gonna install this into our bakery and probably move it into our restaurant, replace toast with it. I was very impressed with everything it did.

Good news for Heartland, bad news for toast, right?

If you're a restaurant owner, you know, changing your POS system is not. Yes, I'm not looking forward to that. So if I'm considering taking that on, you know, it's worth it.

Definitely. No, that's a. That's a statement right there. That's a testimonial right there. If you're willing to consider changing your POS system, it's definitely something you want to take a look at. And like Pamela said, tune into her session. What time's your session at Pamela? 1 o'. Clock. Mountain time, which for wherever you are in the world, just kind of do the conversion. Mountain time is basically. If you're looking. I know, and I know we have people from all around the world joining in. If you're tuning in right now. In fact, if you can type into the chat or into the conversation where you're watching from so we can kind of get an idea. I know I had some people that were. Said they were joining us from. I got some. I know I got some people from the east Coast. I've got some people from the Boston area. I know there's some people from Florida. We got people in Texas. And I even know. I also know we have some. I have some people from Spain joining us today. Canada. And we also have people joining from actually Nigeria, which I was really excited about. Absolutely. Got. Oh, Alan White, one of our mastermind members from San Antonio. Chapel Hill, North Carolina. We got somebody from the Panhandle, Texas. Tim up in Colorado. Awesome. It's great to have everyone here, Vermont here. That's gotta be Shane. It could be. He's like the only guy I know who I could stand the winner of Vermont.

Well, there's a couple of the. Yeah, there's Vermont now. And, you know, we're in South Dakota. We're in the beautiful Black Hills of South Dakota.

Oh, we got Isle of Man between Ireland and England. That's really cool. Wow. We got people from all over, so. And the time zones are really crazy. And I know, like, over in Ireland, I mean, they're like seven hours ahead of us. So. Hey, we really appreciate you showing up either early or late, wherever you are in the world to be here for this. And our duty and our job and our responsibility is we're going to deliver for you. We're going to make sure that you have a full day full of exciting stuff to you can actually use and implement today into your restaurant.

Absolutely.

So if you're like, Darren, grab some tea. If you're like, Pam, grab some coffee. If you're like me, I just grab my juice. Whatever your beverage of choice is. I highly. I highly discourage day drinking right now. But, you know, grab a piece of paper and grab a pen. Grab and make sure that you start taking notes. And I'm going to jump into our first session. I'm going to have. Pamela and Darren are going to be. They're going to be here, but they're going to be off stage and where I'm going to talk about the number one thing holding your restaurant back. So here's the thing. You have a lot of things that hold your restaurant back. And over the years, I've worked with restaurants, and it's going on. I've been in the restaurant industry. I've been in the industry for over 40 years, and I've been working with restaurants one on one as a restaurant coach for the last 12 years. And I've actually worked with over 2,000 restaurants. I know it blows my mind when I think about it, but here's the thing. I find that there's. There's one thing that holds your restaurant back. And, And. And I'm going to tell you right now, it's not what you think it is. That's a little cliffhanger, right? Look, I'm gonna give you a little cliffhanger, but first thing I want to do is I want to go over the house rules. And these are the house rules pretty much for the whole day. House rules are this. Number one, I want you to have some fun. If you have a question or you have, you know, something you want to comment on, please put it in the chat. The other speakers will be monitoring the Chat. And if I don't get to your question right, then we'll get to. We usually try to have a little bit of Q and A at the end of each session so you can ask some questions. And number two, take notes. Please, please, please. Research has shown if you write things down in your own handwriting, you're actually like 75% more likely to remember it. So actually be engaged. If you hear something you like, write it down. You know, take lots of notes. I know when I'm on a call with Darren and Pam and a lot of the other speakers you're going to talk to today and like even Bo. Bo Bryant, when I'm talking to them, I'm constantly taking notes because you know why? I'm always wanting to be better. I always want to learn. I always want to improve. They always say that knowledge is power. It's not. It's application of knowledge is power. And then every once in a while, you're going to hear me say this. And if you've seen me do presentations before, this is kind of my signature thing. I'll say. I'll say hashtag wtsd, which stands for write this down. It's like the little gold nuggets. So as we go, I might say hashtag WTSD or hashtag write this down. But I'm going to be dropping some different, different. I was, you know, I always call them like knowledge bombs or truth bombs along the way. So let's jump in now. If you've never heard me speak before, I am Donald Burns. I'm known as the restaurant coach. For the last four decades, I basically have worked in this industry as a restaurant owner, an executive chef with Wolfgang Puck consultant, and then like I mentioned earlier, last 12 years as a coach to over 2000 independent restaurants. And I don't say that to impress you, but I want to impress upon you that when you work in the industry as long as I have, and you have as many gray hairs as I do, you tend to see patterns. Okay? There's patterns to success and there's patterns to failure. What I do as a coach is I help restaurants break free from where they are now to get the restaurant and the life that they know really deep down that it can become. Now, I believe truly 100%, that the quality of questions we ask ourselves determine the results that we get. And if you want better results, you have to ask yourself better questions. So I'm going to ask a couple of questions right now to the group and. And please feel free to type into the Chat your answers. This is an interactive workshop. This whole day is an interactive thing. You will get out of it what you put into it. So why are you here? What is the one thing that why is you're here? Why are you here today? You know, what are you. What are you struggling with? And I could even take that a little deeper and I could ask you this question. What do you want to improve? Type in the chat. What do you want to improve? What do you want to. What do you want to take away from today? What is at least one or two things you want to take away? Because if you don't know what you want, you probably end up settling for anything. Okay, if you get clarity, and Darren will say this all the time, clarity is power. Clarity is power. If you don't know what you want, you know, you just show up to this thing not knowing what you're trying to get out of it. You're just going to walk away with a bunch of random notes that aren't going to do anything for you. So Stephanie made a comment in the thing she wants culture Alan put in store. Culture Brian put in there. Quality of life. There's lots of different reasons why people show up for stuff. And here's the thing I've learned over the years, and I know Darren and Pam have learned this also. What we kind of think people want and what they want are usually sometimes a little different. And so the best way to ask people what they want is just ask them a question. Hey, what do you want? How do you want to learn? How do you want to improve? Alex made a great comment. I want to move from working, working for someone to have my own restaurant. That's a great goal. Now, here's the other part of that coin. I want to ask you this question and be honest with yourself, please. It's all about being honest with yourself. What's stopping you? What's stopping you from getting it? What's stopping you from getting the restaurant or getting the life you want? What is stopping you right now? What stopping you from getting what you want? Let's see what if anybody puts in.

Here.

I want to help my franchisees be successful through 2021. Stay focused on what works. Great comment, Stephanie, but what's stopping you? Hey, what's stopping you from getting the culture you want? What's stopping you from getting the culture you want? What's stopping you from getting a quality you want? Alex says, I don't feel like I know where to start. That's. That's honesty. And we appreciate you being honest, if nothing else, Please. This is a forum where you can be honest and open. Because when you're honest and open, we can help you. And Darren would tell you this. Whatever you put down as what's stopping you, you're just saying it's a. It's a resource. And it's never, never, never, never a lack of resources. It's resourcefulness. Resourcefulness is the ultimate resource. I'm gonna show you a picture here and ask me if you ever feel like this. If you own a restaurant right now, do you ever feel like you're chained to your restaurant? Do you ever feel like you're kind of stuck? If you feel like you're stuck right now, just type in the chat a quick. Just a real quick yes or no. Do you feel like you're stuck? Yes or no? Because I'm going to tell you why people are stuck today. The number one reason why people are stuck, and it's basically this number one people, number one reason restaurants get stuck is they. They basically, they got comfortable. They got comfortable. And actually, and this is all those little harsh reality truth bombs, you as the leader, got comfortable. Now, before you get upset with that too much, allow me to explain. See, if you look around the Internet right now, you're gonna see everyone's looking for the shortcut. Everyone's looking for the shortcut. Everyone wants. You know, I want success in five easy steps. I want abs in seven minutes. It's really crazy how people want the shortcut all the time. 80% of people in the world want the rewards without the work. And I'm going to ask you this one too. Have you ever heard anyone in your restaurant, maybe someone who worked for you ever say, man, I bust my ass around here? Here's the other truth. Other part of that thing is, have you ever said it yourself? Have you ever said, I bust my ass? I can tell you that I surround myself with high achievers. And, you know, Darren and Darren and Pamela are probably two of the hardest workers I've ever worked with. And I've never heard them once, not once ever say they bust their ass. Because you know why? We always know we could do more and give more. And that's the secret. See, when you declare to you, to the universe, I hate to tell you this, but the universe is basically like a telephone receiver, okay? It's like an answering service. When you declare it out to universe that I bust my ass, basically you're just declaring that you want the reward. And when you declare you want the reward, here's the problem with all that. It doesn't happen. You don't just ask for it and you get it. Life doesn't work like that. There's a thing called lag time. And you have to see that success is a, it's not a do this, get that process. It's more of a consistent action towards improvement process that will give you the rewards. Here's a great example. You know, look at an athlete training for the Olympics. If they just go out and do the same training routine over and over and over without pushing themselves to become better, you know, they're going to basically plateau and they're never going to reach the, they're never going to peak out where they can actually win something. They're just going to basically, you know, I ran a two minute, you know, I ran a five minute, you know, whatever, and you know, that's good. And they just keep running the same thing. They never try to improve themselves. They're never going to get better. I'm kind of fortunate. My father, now this isn't a picture of my dad, by the way, but my father was really kind of a ball buster of a chef. But the one thing he did teach me was to become better each day. And what I would do is I would time myself during prep to see how I could improve on my times. If it took me 20 minutes one day to slice a box of mushrooms one day, then I would try to improve it the next day and be a little bit faster. And then when I got faster, then I started working on improving my precision. And I still do that to this day. I'm always trying to become a little bit better than I was yesterday. And that's the secret. All right? Hashtag, write this down. It's always you versus you. It's always you versus you. You know, many people stop putting in the effort because they declared to the universe that they bust their ass and now they want the reward. And like I said, it doesn't work like that. The universe does not give out rewards when you want them. The rewards come when you're dedicated to the process of daily self improvement. And that's known from the Japanese term called kaizen, which stands for constant never ending improvement. And Darren and Pamela, we talk about, in our mastermind groups, we talk about it, I think, every day. Every day we talk about kaizen, kaizen, kaizen, Kaizen. Constant never ending improvement. Here's another huge. Write this shit down. Hashtag, write this down. Don't rush the process. Trust the process. You need to trust the process. The process works. If you work the process. The problem is you try something, you don't get the results you want right away, as fast as you want, and then you basically kind of give in. Let me give you an example. Let's say you, you decide that, you know, I decide I'm going to start going to the gym. So today is my first day of the gym. I'm all excited. I get up in the morning, I put my gym shoes on, get my, my gym clothes on, I head to the gym. Woohoo, I'm ready. I go work out. I work out really hard. I do some cardio, I do some weights. I, I come home, I look in the mirror, what do I see? Nothing. No change at all. Nothing. So I go back the next day, I go back tomorrow and I work out really hard again. And then I go home and look in the mirror and what do I see? Nothing. No change. And then I go to a third day, I go a fourth day, I go a fifth day, no noticeable change. Would you quit? Here's the thing. Many people would and many people do. I always say I hate the first of the year because the first of the year is like all the New Year's resolutions and everyone joins the gym and the gym is packed from January 1 to January 14. The gym is packed every day. There's new people there. But what happens after January 14th starts? People start dropping off, people start, you know, not coming back. And then I'm telling you, by the end of January it's back to normal. I think that was, Darren said, always hold your vision. Always hold your vision. And here's the thing I want you to do. If you commit to the idea that working out each day is good, and if you push yourself just a little bit more, you're going to start to see results. When? Now. See, that's the tricky part. It depends on how you integrate other areas that create a healthy lifestyle, like your diet, your workouts, your sleep. The same thing happens in restaurants. You put in just one day, you go, you show up to work and you're a great leader one day and you think that's it. And then you don't get the results you want, or the team did not magically transform overnight. And then guess what, you just go back to your old ways. That's copping out. And I'm going to say this again because I think it's really important. I did not repeat the slide on accident. This is on purpose. Don't rush the process. Trust the process. If you Work the process. The process works. It's so important. So today, what I'm going to talk about is, I'm going to talk about what I call the standard degration effect. It's a little concept that I see from these. All these years in the restaurant industry. And here's how it goes. When you started your restaurant, think back when you first opened your restaurant, or you first even started working in a restaurant, man, you were. You were unstoppable. You were hungry. You were hungry for success. You wanted it. You took something that was an idea and you basically brought to life. I mean, that's amazing. You had these big dreams, these big goals, these high standards. Your restaurant was going to be different, right? You were going to make a difference. You were going to be on top of. You were going to be the best. And then what happened? You know what happened? It's like Mike Tyson showed up. Okay? Life hits you, hits you hard. And then what happens? You're kind of reeling from it. You're a little dizzy. You're getting the standing, you know, standing count. And all of a sudden, boom, life hit you again. And how does life hit restaurants? The team pushes back. They don't want to do something. They don't like to do something. They're not following the checklist. Your family and friends start to question you. You really need to open up four other restaurants. Why don't you just be happy with what you have? Why you always work so much? Why are you always pushing yourself? The market slows down. It's hard to find good people to work. You get a couple bad line, a bad reviews online. Maybe the pandemic shut your restaurant down for a long period of time. And so here's what happens. You started out with your standards way up here, and then with every hit that life dealt you, you lowered your standards just a little bit. And the problem is, is that you didn't really notice. Or maybe you did notice and you kind of just kind of ignored it and maybe even thought it wasn't that big of a deal. And then what happens is you start using what I call softeners, verbal softeners. Like, you know, it's not that bad. Yeah, it is that bad. Okay. Or you say things, you know, well, I've tried everything. Or this is another one I love. I just need to pick my battles. That's a good one. You know, or you know what? I'll start next week. I'll start next Monday. Because God forbid you ever start anything on a Tuesday or a Wednesday or a Thursday, but I mean, everyone has to start on Monday. I love it when everyone's like, when are you going to start this? I'm going to cost out my menu. When are you going to do it? Next week? When would now be a good time? Verbal softeners are robbing you of your personal power. And then what you do is, again, your standards just start dropping a little bit, a little bit more each and every time. And then what happens is this. You don't follow through on your own expectations for yourself, and it causes a gap in your identity. And Pamela's kind of our resident psychologist, and she can tell you, identity is everything. How you see yourself really dictates your behavior, because you have to act in congruency with your identity. If you see yourself as a winner, you act like a winner. If you see yourself as a loser, you act like a loser. I'm just telling you this. I mean, I don't mean to be mean about it. I'm just telling you this is what happens, okay, when you have a disc, kind of a. What they call a kind of gap in your identity. Psychologists call it cognitive dissonance. And that means your actions are not in alignment with the identity of who you think you are and who you say you are. And the problem with this is it slowly starts the degration of your standards, and that causes a ripple effect in your restaurant and all throughout your brand because you need to adapt to your new kind of identity that you establish for yourself. And then in the end, what you do is, is you end up settling for a restaurant that's far, far from where you started or where you actually ever wanted it to be. Hashtag, write this down. Words have power. Words can inspire you. Or words can do damage. Words can build you up, or they can actually tear you apart. And here's the thing I want you to think about, and I kind of want you to maybe do an exercise this next week, if you can. This is a really powerful exercise. I want you to be careful. The words that you say, not only to others, but here's where the real power comes in. What are the words you say to yourself? What are the things you tell yourself? What are the voices in your little in your head saying, okay, I can't do this. I'm not good enough? What are the things your voices tell yourself? Because what happens is you start rationalizing with yourself, and you give yourself mental outs, you know, and it all starts with this thing called should. You know, I know I should market more, but I'm just too Busy, you know, I know I should cost out my menu, but you know, it's just, it's just, it's a lot of stuff and I just don't have a program for it and it's just too much. You know, I should, I should actively recruit better talent, but you know, there's just no good people out there anyway, so it's just a waste of time. You know, I should take better care of myself. But you know, I'm working so many hours at the restaurant, I just don't have time to take care of myself. I don't have time to go to the gym and work out. Boy, it must be nice to be able to work out every morning, Donald. But I, you know, I'm just, I'm just swamped. I have to be here. I have to be here all day because I have to do everything or. I love this one. You know, I know I should get rid of that negative, that negative energy. Vampire just sucking the life out of my, out of me and my restaurant and it stirs up the drama. But you know what? I can't because I'd just be short staffed. I'll tell you right now, every time someone tells me that they're short, the restaurants could be short staffed. Here's my common response. I always say, hire taller staff. I'm gonna be short staffed. Okay, that's simple. Hire taller staff. That's just an excuse. Here's what happens when you start using those softeners and those verbal out and those mental outs like that, especially to yourself. That's how the degration starts and you start looking the other way. And it's known in management theory as silent approval, is by not saying something, you actually said it was okay to do it. And then what happens is you start taking for granted all the things that were working. And now your mind shift has shifted and now you're starting to focus on all the things that aren't working. Here's the problem with that. What you focus on amplifies. If I look for the good, I see more good. If I look for the bad, I see more bad. I'm going to bring Darren on and Pam real quick. Darren, you own a restaurant. You and your wife Nancy own a restaurant. You can probably attest to this when you don't say something.

What happens if you don't say something? And if you don't correct a behavior or something you're seeing, you're condoning it, then you're accepting it. And we don't want to do that because Your standards. You set your standards here, but you enforce them here. And you know, they're just little things. You know, it might be just a table not set correctly, or servers not pre busing tables correctly, or, you know, something in the kitchen is just sliding a little bit. But if you don't correct those behaviors every single time, trust me, it's going to get worse and worse and worse. It's never going to get better.

Never going to get better. Yeah.

Silent approval. Isn't that what you call it, Donald?

Yep. Silent approval. Pam, talk real quick about identity, about how identity is so important in psychology.

Well, I mean, you kind of said the most important thing. It's cognitive dissonance. It's essentially if you feel like this idea of who you thought you were and where you expected to be in your life doesn't match where you're at right now, for whatever reason, this is even as little as being dishonest. And it makes you feel a certain way because you're not being true to yourself and what you really believe. So it just kind of ruins people, to be honest with you. It just kind of puts this. I shouldn't go that far as to say it ruins people, but it puts this kind of negative energy in you that it just kind of affects every part of your day and every part of your life.

Exactly. Very true. And then what happens is, I hate to tell you this, but it, it moves you to this part that this is usually the start of the degration. And it's this right here, you say those dreaded words that signal the start of mediocrity. It's good. You know, I love it. Like, usually when I meet restaurant owners for the first time. How's your business? Oh, it's good. It's good, huh? So did you open a restaurant to be just good? Darren gets us all the time. He'll ask his team is something like they'll try out something and you know, how was it? How's the new steak? Oh, it's good. He's like, we aim for good. That's not what we aim for. Everything in the universe moves towards what's known as entropy. Nothing ever stays the same. And you have to constantly be vigilant to keep your standards high to where, not only where they must be, but you got to make sure you keep them there. You can't use that word should. The biggest, most powerful thing you can do in life is every time you say I should do something, change that word should into must. I must do it. Okay, Darren, put in the chat don't ever aim for average. That's true. Now, I have a. There's a really great story I don't know anybody's ever read. Danny Meyer Setting the Table. It's a fantastic book. Fantastic book. It's one of. One of the best books ever written. And here's the thing. Danny really kind of talks about his philosophies on business and success. And one of the most remarkable ideas from Setting the Table is this theory. And I kind of use it as a theory. I call it salt shaker theory. So one day, Danny, he's really frustrated. Anyone can relate. You're frustrated with how your team's performing. And his mentor, Pat Saida, he kind of sits him down and gives him some advice. And Pat says to him, he says, you, your staff and your guests are always moving your salt shaker off center. That's their job. That's the job of life. It's the law of entropy. Until you understand that, you're going to get pissed off every time someone moves a salt shaker off the center of the table. But here's the thing. It's not your job to get upset. And I love that last line. It's not your job to get upset. It's a remarkably insightful line that almost kind of channels in some kind of Buddhism. See, business owners and restaurant owners often struggle in the face of change and uncertainty. So how should you react if your salt shaker keeps getting moved? So Pat then tells Danny, he says, you know, your job is just to move the salt shaker back each time and let them know exactly what you stand for. Let them know what excellence looks like for you. And if you're ever willing to let them decide where that center is, where the salt shaker goes, I want you to give the keys away. Okay? Just give. And he said, basically, you just give. Give up the freaking store. See where your center lies? You have to know it, you have to name it, and you have to stick to it. And also you have to believe in it. Everyone who works with you needs to know what matters to you. And then they're going to respect you and, and appreciate your unwavering value and standards. Your inner belief about business is going to guide you through the tough times. I. I always tell people, and we tell our mastermind group all the time, whenever you're in doubt or you feel like you don't. You're at crossroads, you don't know what to do. Look at your core values. Your core values are always your compass. But when you concede your core values to someone else. It's time for you to quit that salt shaker kind of theory. To me, it's a powerful metaphor for one of the keys to success in the restaurant industry and that's maintaining high standards and core values. Change is inevitable and you will always be faced with challenges along the way. The key phrase here is, and like Danny's mentor Pat told him, let them know what excellent means to you. So this quote isn't about never changing and never adapting. It's about never wavering on your core values. Danny Myers takes this kind of, this compelling kind of story and he explains how it kind of transformed his managerial, his kind of leadership style. And Danny said, basically by understanding salt shaker theory, it helped me develop and teach a style. What I call is constant gentle pressure. It's the way I return the salt shaker to the center table. Each time in life it gets moved and I tell, he says, I tell the leaders that I work with to say the same. And he says the same message over and over again. I'm going to be extremely specific about every component on what the tabletop, you know, what belongs on the tabletop. Now I anticipate outside forces, including you. You're going to kind of work, you know, because entropy, you're going to kind of conspire to change the table setting. Now every time that happens, I'm going to move everything back to the way it should be and you should too. That's the constant aspect, but I'm never going to recenter the salt shaker in a way that denies you your dignity. That's the gentle aspect, but the standards are the standards. And I am constantly watching every table and pushing back on every salt shaker that's moved. Because excellence, performance is paramount. That's the pressure. Constant, general pressure is my preferred technique for leadership guidance and coaching. It's the job of any business owner to be very clear as to the company's non negotiable core values. Now it's such a simple, simple analogy, but I really think it drives home a great point. Your core values define you and sticking to your standards is essential to effectively managing and leading your business. So let me ask you a question right now and you can put in the chat if you like. Okay. Can you remember who you were before your restaurant changed you into who you are today? Can you remember who you were? Can you remember who you were before life hits you? Your team pushed back? Stress, anxiety, Covid, can you remember who you were? Maybe. Here's what we need to do, maybe we need to kind of develop a new version of you. Maybe it's time to reinvent yourself and your restaurant into what I call your kind of 2.0 version. And that's what I want. That's what this whole Thrive Summit is about, helping you reinvent yourself. We're going to give you lots of different tools, but here's the thing about tools. You got to pick them up and use them. A hammer on the table is just potential. It's not until I pick it up and actually apply it that actually has any work and any value to it. Right? So let's do a test here real quick. Remember I said earlier that words are powerful and I can't hear you, but I'm going to assume you're going to. You're being active, you're interacting. You're going to play this all out, all right? So I'm going to do a little test, and here's what I want you to do. I want you to say, I'm hungry for success, right? Everyone say, I'm hungry for success. Now here's what I want you to do. I want you to say, I'm starving for success, which triggered more emotions inside of you and put it in the chat. Hungry or starving? Which one? Which word triggered more emotions? I'm hungry for success or I'm starving for success. Which one triggered more emotions? Hungry or starving? Just put in the chat, Hungry or starving? I got all day. People starving. Starving for success. There's a huge difference. There's a big difference. I got another one for you. All right, how about this one? Say this one. Say, I can't do it now Say, I won't do that. Which one held more power for you? Right. I can't do that or I won't do that. Which one held more power? I can't do that or I won't do that? A lot of times when people come to us and we ask us questions, we take the easy way out and we say, we can't do that. If you really want to take back your personal power, say, I won't do that. You know why? Because it goes against my core values. When you draw that line in the sand and tell everybody where you stand.

Yeah.

Darren says, can't shut you down, right? Yeah. Won't you know, I won't do that. I won't compromise. There are certain elements of my life I won't compromise. I will not compromise my core values. I will not compromise taking care of myself. There are certain things I will not Compromise. And that's where I want you to get to hashtag, write this down. This is a good one. I want you to start getting traction, and I want you to remember this. Your restaurant and your life is a direct reflection of what you tolerate, both in yourself and in others. Your life and your restaurant is a reflection of what you tolerate. So let's fix that. I got a really great exercise for you here. Here's what I want you to do. Once you get a piece of paper, and this is actually the fastest way to kind of reverse the degration of your standards, is to get clarity about what you're no longer willing to tolerate. So get a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle. On one column, write me, and on the other column write others. Right. Piece of paper, line down the middle. One side says me, one side says other. Here's what I want you to do. Here's the exercise you're going to do. And you can do it now. Or if you want to put one in, one or two in the chat, I want you to write down at least 20. 20, that's a two and a zero. I want you to write down 20 things on each side that you're no longer willing to tolerate. For example, you could. On the me side, you could say, I must. I'm not going to tolerate using social media as a distraction. I'm not going to tolerate not working out consistently. I'm not going to tolerate eating junk food. I'm not going to tolerate, you know, drinking soda. On the other side, it could be with others. I say I'm not going to tolerate gossip. I'm not going to tolerate tardiness. I'm not going to tolerate not following the recipe. I'm not going to tolerate toxic staff. And I want you to go until you get 20. Promise me you're going to do this until you get 20 on each side. And I'm going to give you a fair warning. It's far easier. It's far easier to do the list about other people because you know why? It's so easy to see the faults in others. It's so hard to see the faults in ourselves. I'm gonna bring Darren and Pam on about that. How is it easy to cast the stone and throw the glass. Throw the stone in the glass house, right?

Preach it, Donald. I mean, you're killing it out there. You know, people tolerating these behaviors is. You don't realize how detrimental it is to your business and to your life. Right? And if you're doing this in your restaurant, you're tolerating this behavior. Your restaurant is not to the standards or to the vision that you originally had for your restaurant. You know, when you opened your restaurant, you had a vision for it. And I wonder why it's not there. Well, the truth is, it's because of what's being tolerated. The behaviors that you're not correcting on a daily basis.

Perfect example of that incongruence that we were talking about. Because when you see something that doesn't go the way you want and you have this little battle between. That's not what I want, but I'm afraid to say something that's an incongruence, and it just eats at you. It'll continue to eat at you all day sometimes because you didn't choose to down sit, say something right then.

Exactly. And Darren put in the chat, you know, can't shut you down. Here's the thing I want you to remember is that here's the problem with most people, we. We want guarantees from other people, but we don't have guarantees with ourselves. That's the problem. You need to start holding yourself to a higher standard.

Absolutely. When you said that earlier, when you said the word can't, like, can't is such a foreign word to me, I'm like, like, like. It just hits me wrong. That word. I. I hate that word.

Makes me cringe. Yeah.

And you know what I'll say if someone says to me they can't do something? What would I.

Just the story you're telling yourself, it's.

The story you're telling yourself. And if you believe that story, it's the truth, then you really can't do it. Right. So change your story. Change your life.

There you go. So I want to talk about. All business problems are people problems. And here's the thing. All people problems are basically one thing. And a lot of people mentioned this in the beginning of the. Of the. Of the talk we had. I asked what was the one thing that you really wanted to work on? And a lot of people said, culture. See, those people problems create a toxic or unproductive culture. Culture is actually. I'm telling you, culture is the secret sauce that separates the good from the great from the outstanding. And culture is created either by design or default. Many restaurants have a culture they do not want because they allow their standards to degrade. And then that does is it compromises your brand. Remember, your restaurant is a reflection of what you tolerate. I want you to use that list you just did of what you're Tolerating. And I want you to make an action plan to remove the items off that list. Now, here's my other thing I'm going to tell you about change. I have to give you a very fair warning about change. Change is probably the most challenging thing I do as a coach. And change is a lot like wrestling a gorilla. And why do I say that? Because when you're wrestling a gorilla, here's the secret. You don't stop when you're tired. You stop when the gorilla's tired. When you fail to grow as a person, you hold your restaurant hostage to remaining the same. And the Sad thing is, 80% of people who run restaurants are okay with who they are and having their restaurant the way it currently is. See what happened? Mediocrity. And mediocrity has consumed them and they've accepted the life. And the restaurant that's less than it could be. Is that you right now? And just be honest with yourself. Are you settling for a life in a restaurant less than you could have that you know, it could be deep down if you are. Here's one of the reasons. When you're playing at that mediocrity or average level, what you're basically playing, you're playing a life like checkers. Most restaurants play checkers. What do I mean? Checkers is. It's reactionary. Like, life moves you counter, life moves you counter. You're basically going back and forth. You're just basically in reaction mode all the time. And when people say they're stressed out, I can tell you right now, I know what their mindset is. They're playing checkers, they're not playing chess. Successful restaurants, the best restaurants in the world, they're very strategic about change, and they're very strategic about their core values, about their culture and about themselves and developing themselves into becoming better leaders. And they push themselves to use the tools and tactics, and they actually play more like a mental chess game. I'm sure you can probably come up to this right now and understand. What's the number one thing holding your restaurant back? Put in the chat if you know what it is. What's the number one thing holding your restaurant back? Type it in the chat. I've been leading up to it all this time. You know what it is. You know to say it. You'll feel better when you say it. It's you. It's you, the leader. One of the things I say in all my books is that culture flows down. It doesn't flow up. And culture starts with you. Culture flows down doesn't flow up. And culture starts with you. And we talked about this earlier. I'm going to say it again. Questions do hold the answer. The quality of your life and your restaurant depends on the quality of questions you ask. Your. Your brain is a problem solving machine that actually always leans towards survival. So if you ask yourself a lousy question like, why aren't there any good people out there to hire? Your brain easily finds the answer. These kids are lazy and they don't want to work. Is that true? No. What we like to do in our mastermind groups is we like to have you, you know, if you want better results, ask better questions. So why aren't there any good people out there? Maybe a better answer would be, you know, maybe I need to become a better leader and maybe I need to create a culture that attracts top talent. Oh, my God. That's amazing. Maybe it's all you. Maybe it's on you. Here's the million dollar question I want you to. I want you to learn today. Okay? Here's the million dollar question. Everyone ready? It's big truth bomb time. You might want to sit down for this one. Sit down. Might want to sit down. Take a deep breath. Grab your brown paper bag. How can you lead yourself if you can't? How can you lead others if you can't lead yourself? How can you lead others if you can't lead yourself? You can't. That's the trick. If you want to become a better leader, you have to be a better leader to yourself. You have to lead yourself better. Now, how's that start? How do you change that? You raise your standards first. And what you're willing to tolerate, you have to do that for yourself first before you try to implement it on your team. You know why? Because if you don't try to. If you don't live the standards in the, in the core values that you're preaching, you're basically a hypocrite. And people will not follow a hypocrite. I want you to step up. I want you to be the leader that your team deserves. If you become the leader that your team deserves, I'm telling you right now, they will follow you and they'll follow you and they'll stay loyal and they'll stay with you as long as they want them to. Okay? Be the leader that your team deserves. And trust me, they will follow you till the very end. People want leaders. And one of the things I think is really lacking in the restaurant industry is true authentic leadership. I think Darren and Pam could probably add to that, too. In saying that's one of the things we see is a lack of leadership in the restaurant industry.

Absolutely. 100%. You know, I just. I just put it in the chat. And it's something that, you know, my son often says. He says, you know, your biggest problem is looking back at you in the mirror all the time.

And.

And it's just exactly what you were saying. It's changed your standards as a leader. It's change what you tolerate in your restaurant, change your perspective. The questions that you ask yourself, like talking about employees, instead of saying, there's just no good employees out there, why don't you start saying, no, there's tons of good employees out there. I just have to attract them into my business.

Exactly.

So it's just your perspective. It's what you tolerate, it's what you believe. And, And. And it's the leadership, the way you lead yourself that'll reflect and lead your company. And it's the culture that you set.

Right.

Everything talk, Donald, is you.

You. You.

Start the group with.

This is a good talk. I thought to start off with. It is.

It's awesome. It's awesome.

Yeah. I decided I'm not. I'm not. I'm not, like, holding back. I'm just. I'm going, like full tilt, you know, I'm going full. I'm going full brick. Darren has this great metaphor about the velvet brick. And you got yours on your desk. Mine's, like, buried under. I'm getting. I'm in the process of moving my. I'm moving from Albuquerque to Scottsdale, so I'm in the process of moving. So my. My brick is buried, actually underneath all my stuff. I'm getting ready to pack up. But, yeah, tell them about the velvet brick real quick. We got a few minutes left before this session ends, so.

Yeah, so. So what the velvet covered brick is. Is. It's a. It's a metaphor. It's analogy for leadership. Right? Because in. In leadership, when you're trying to lead your staff and when you're trying to set culture and boundaries within your restaurant or within, you know, within your life, there are certain core values, certain principles that. It's like a brick, you know, A brick. You can't. You can't break it. You can't. It's solid. It's immovable. So there are certain things that I won't bend on. I'm not pliable on. And these are my core values. These are what drives me. And these to the principles that drive our Business, our restaurant. But if I was to be a brick as a leader, a brick is, you know, if you. If I said to you describe a brick, you would say to me, probably, it's. It's rough, it's scratchy, and, you know, if I rubbed up against it, I'd probably have a mark on my face right now. So you can't be a brick to your staff, because if you're a brick to your staff, then no one will approach you. You become an unapproachable leader. Everyone's scared of you because they say, hey, if I go near Darren or I go near Donald or Pam, it hurts. You know, if I talk to them, if I bring something up, you know, it hurts. I walk away with, like, little bruises and I'm bleeding. So you need to cover the brick with a velvet covering so that you're approachable as a leader. People could come to me, they could talk to me, they could bring problems to me, they could bring questions to me, suggestions. And they're not going to get scratched because I have a velvet covering on. Okay. But there are principles that I'm just not pliable on. And yes, this is a real brick.

I know. I was like, when he gave me one, I was like, I thought it was gonna be like a box with velvet wrapped around. No, that's like a real brick. Yeah. So you understand the weight of it.

Yeah, yeah. And as a leader, it helps. It helps to keep this in my office because sometimes, you know, we're all human. I could be more bricky or more Donald than. Than I like to be.

That was mostly brick, so. So sometimes a little more velvet. I'm mostly brick.

Yeah.

So sometimes I'm 80. 20. 80, 20 brick, 20 velvet.

Yeah. So sometimes I have to look over, look at the brick and remind myself, hey, my. My coverings falling off a little bit. I need to get that velvet back on there so I don't hurt somebody.

Exactly. So, yeah. So someone put a question in the chat. Will this video be available after this live summit? Yeah. The videos will be on this Facebook group for two days. So you got two days till Friday to check out the replays. If. After that, if you want access, we do have a little VIP package you can get. It's only. It's just $47. You're going to get that. All the replays, lifetime access. You also get a workbook that will be available tomorrow that is compiled from some of the notes from the. Some of the stuff I take when the speakers are talking. I'm Going to take some notes and put together a little workbook for you, so that way you can review it and go through it. And then we also have some really other cool bonuses too. So.

Yeah, absolutely. And I know this is a long day. We have, you know, we have eight sessions this day. Five great speakers, eight awesome sessions. I hope you can make all eight of them. Right. But I don't know what your schedule is.

It's hard. We understand that. That's why we're leaving the replays available.

Yeah, but the replays will be available. Try to catch up on them. Try not to miss them, because everyone is going to be important and critical to your restaurant.

Very true. So we want to say thanks for showing for this first one. If you have not. I mean, I know people. This first session we streamed out on, like, we streamed out on Periscope YouTube. We also streamed it on the Restaurant Coach page, also on the Restaurant Coach Nation if you're watching it for the first time. If you want to see the other seven sessions that are coming up next, just go and join our Facebook group. There's a. I put a link in the chat. You just go in there, sign up. Darren did mention that someone was like, who's monitoring the Facebook group and letting people in. I was like, oh, damn, I gotta do that too. So I'm letting people in as fast as I can. So it's hard when I'm speaking and monitoring everything. It'll be easier when I'm doing it, when I'm just kind of monitoring the sessions for speakers. So again, we want to say thanks for showing up today. Thanks for this first session. Next up, you do not want to miss this next one. In less than five minutes, Dusty Lee is going to take you and teach you leadership from the flight deck, how to own your mission. The man is an amazing. He's got some incredible stories. Pam shares a lot of the stories from Dusty, but I'm looking forward to this one. How about. I think this is gonna be the. This is the one. I'm like, get some popcorn out.

It's gonna.

It's a perfect next one, too. Because of the topic you were just talking about how there's a lack of true leaders in the restaurant industry. Nobody teaches us. We don't. There's no just curriculum out there for people to be prepared to be in a leadership position. So for some people, it's really a natural thing. But for some people, I mean, look at how many books there are out there about leadership. This is something you have to work on, the military is a little bit different. So this is great that Dusty's going next because from day one, officers are leaders and they. Their entire career involves leadership training. So I hope this is going to be really valuable for everybody. I'm excited.

Awesome.

Well, we'll see everyone. If you got a. I'm gonna give everyone like a four minute break. If you gotta, you know, take care of some business, grab a, grab a new beverage or reheat your tea like Darren does. This is your time, this is your chance. And we'll see you at about four minutes. At 10:00am Mountain Standard Time. Dusty Lee will be on stage and he's gonna talk about leadership from the flight deck. And we'll see everyone then.

Hi, everyone.