What Restaurants Can Do Better NOW

Foreign. Restaurant Coach Nation. Whoa. I am so excited to be here today with you. We're actually simultaneously streaming today on Twitter as well. I normally don't stream on Twitter. I try to keep these trainings usually exclusive for the Restaurant Coach Nation and the Restaurant Coach University. But today decided to break out of the shell a little bit, doing something a little different, and then offer this on Twitter as well. So the Restaurant Coach Nation is a private Facebook group where we get together every weekend on Sunday, and we basically all have this kind of belief that restaurants become better when the people in them become better. And how we do that starts with training ourselves, becoming better people and better leaders. We're also a huge believer that mediocrity sucks. So that's why we're here today. I want to talk about what, you know, what can restaurants do better now? There's tons of stuff going on out there in the world. You got different variants going on, you know, unemployment, labor crisis, trying to find new people. Some restaurants are basically having, you know, right back to they were in 2020 with the pandemic, having some struggles. So let's get some relief. Let's get some. Let's get some action stuff that we can start doing better now, what we can do as an industry actually together now to help elevate not only our restaurant, but maybe elevate the restaurant industry as a total. That would be a great thing, wouldn't it? So I just have to give everyone a fair warning that most of my workshops are kind of adult censured. Okay. The sessions you're about to hear contains explicit language, adult themes, a few bad jokes. I do write my own jokes, by the way, and may not be suitable for restaurants that condone mediocrity. We are all anti mediocrity here at the Restaurant Coast Nation. So boo to mediocrity and viewer discretion is advised. Of course, the Restaurant Coach Nation is just one step. What I call is an integrated coaching path and an integrated coaching suite. Most restaurants that are struggling, we'll talk about the different levels of restaurant kind of growth. Most restaurants are start off what I call in the valley of mediocrity. That's where most restaurants live. I would say 80% of every restaurant market. 80% of the restaurants in that market are in the valley of mediocrity. That's where most restaurants live. A lot of them have bad toxic cultures. And then they finally decide to move up to a better level. And then that first step is allowed them to do is they join the Restaurant Coach Nation after that next step up part of the integrated coaching suite that I offer is the Restaurant Coach University where we have online training, we have access to my private training library, we have live training calls. And then after that is Restaurant Masterminds more. Now, as you move up the ladder, of course, the accountability gets a little more intense. Restaurant Masterminds, you get everything at the Restaurant Coach University level, plus you get two weekly mastermind calls. Monday is always an educational call. Thursday is a Q and A call, and then the top of the summit. What I call is the Summit, Summit of outstanding. That's the restaurant accelerator program. This is where I basically, you do the restaurant mastermind groups. You get the calls there. You also get the Restaurant Coach University training stuff, but you also get one on one accountability. So whatever path you're on is great. I'm just glad you're here at the Restaurant Coach Nation because you actually shows me that you're interested in becoming better and becoming a better person. And that starts is that actually is the first path to getting the restaurant in life that you want. Okay, now I have this reoccurring nightmare. And the reoccurring nightmare kind of goes like this. I'm walking down the street in a major city and then, you know, just for. I just. Let's say it's New York. And then this nightmare I'm having, I'm walking down, you know, this deserted street in New York and there's no restaurants. I mean, there's no restaurants at all. And I'm really, really shocked. All the restaurants have shut the doors because no one wants to work in restaurants anymore. In fact, the only thing you can get, if you want to get food, remember those old kind of auto mats, those, you know, retro automats where basically you get food out of a vending machine. And I hate to say these things are actually making a comeback. These auto mats are making a comeback. Technology should always enhance hospitality, but should not replace it. Now in this nightmare I have, people don't dine out anymore. What they do is they just eat. And that's sad. That's really, really sad. I hate to tell everybody but the restaurants, especially the restaurant industry, we're really at a crossroads and it needs your help. Remember, don't ask what your restaurant can do for you. Ask what you can do for your restaurant. You need to remember that there's a difference between service and hospitality. Service is the mechanical component. Serve from the left, clear from the right. Hospitality is the human connection. And as an industry overall, and I get this all the time, there's no talent out there. No one wants to work in restaurants. I hate to tell everybody this. We've done this to ourselves as a, as a kind of an industry overall. All right, this is kind of basically a self inflicted wound and it's from the stereotypes that we've created. We've, you know, we had this stereotype that we treat people like they're disposable, we pay them dirt, we work them long hours, and if they're lucky, they might get to eat some food out of a deli cup, standing over trash can or sitting in the alley on a milk crate. The restaurant industry has really become a meme. And I'm sure you've seen those memes on social media and maybe you've even laughed at them or, you know, shared some of them, you know, in your, in your kind of social media feed. The thing is, we have to understand that if we don't change course soon, that nightmare I have could very well become a reality. So today what I want to do is I want to talk about how we can improve our restaurants to make them more, let me say, appealing. How do we break through this stigma and this stereotype we have of being a really, really bad place to work, Elevate it to a level where actually people start looking at the restaurant industry as a really, really great opportunity for them and a viable, viable long term career option. All right? I don't want you to lose, I don't want you to lose touch with what really is the cure that's gonna, that's gonna save all this. Now, the cure I'm gonna talk about today, it's the same cure that saves any business. Okay? And I see it, I see it every day working with, you know, thousands of restaurants over the years, and you probably see it every day in your restaurant, but you're probably unaware of the impact it has. You're unaware of the impact it has on not only your guest reviews, it has impact on your sales, it has impact on your profits, has impact pretty much on everything. And a lot of people take it for granted. And a lot of people don't know, really, really are not really in tune with it. Of course, if you know me for any time, you know what I'm going to talk about right now? I'm going to talk about culture, that curious culture. Now, we've never met before, and this is the first time you heard me speaking. Please allow me to share a little bit about my backstory. I grew up in the restaurant industry. My father was a corporate Executive chef for a large hotel chain. Anybody, if you remember those, like, old Holiday Inns with a huge, big sign? The green sign in the arrow? Yes, that's. I'm pretty old. And I started, like most people, I started washing dishes, and then I moved up to doing prep. And eventually I started cooking and working my way up through the brigade system. And then I would do something to piss my father off, and I'd be back peeling vegetables. My dad, I mean, he was a really, really talented chef, but he was like the Gordon Ramsay at his time. And when I was 18, he told me. He told me it was in my blood. And I told him I wanted a transfusion. So I did what a lot of young men would do, trying to escape a very dominant father. I joined the Air Force. I was supposed to go into language school. Specifically, I was supposed to go in there, actually, Russian language school. And then a funny thing happened. This sergeant came in and showed us this film. These guys jumping out of airplanes, repelling out helicopters, scuba diving, mountain climbing, and doing this, you know, combat search and rescue. And I was like, that looked a lot more exciting than language school. So I tried out for a team called pararescue. Now, Pararescue has one of the highest washout rates in the special operations training schools. And we started with around 90 guys. And about two years later, when we got through all the training, I stood on stage with just 11 guys who made it through the training with me. And then after four years in the military, I went to college at the University of Miami. And then a funny. Another amazing thing happened. I could get jobs in restaurants because I had experience in high school. And I realized I really liked the restaurant industry, especially when it had my dad yelling and screaming at me. So I decided to make a career out of it. Started working at the right chefs, working the right places, learning as much as I could at 30 up in my first restaurant. At 33 of my second restaurant, I sold them both after eight years. And then I was recruited. I was recruited by a chef out in California. I might have heard of his name, Wolfgang Puck. And I worked for Wolf for five years, opening restaurants for him around the country. And then 2005, I started my own consulting company. And I do have a couple books out there, some Amazon bestsellers. I have, your restaurant sucks. Your restaurant still sucks. And coming out very, very soon will be, your restaurant culture sucks. And I'm excited about my third book coming out. It's gonna be great. Let's talk about the house rules today. Number one, as always, have fun. Please, please have fun. Number two, take notes. Research has shown if you write stuff down in your own handwriting, you're 70% more likely to remember it 30 days from now. And number three, every once in a while, you hear me say hashtag wtsd. What does the hashtag WTSD means? Means quite simply, write this down. These are the gold nuggets that I really want you to take notes on. All right, here's your first hashtag, wtsd. Restaurant success is not rocket science. It's people science. That's your first wt. Write this down. Wtsd. Write this down. Restaurant success is not rocket science. It is people science. A lot of times people, like, come to me and like, you know, just give me a new checklist. Give me this, you know, give me a new. A new program. Give me a software system. I need new training manuals. I need to just understand my KPIs. I just need a budget. Those stuffs are great. I love systems. I really, really love systems. I'm telling you, if you don't have the right people in place, all the other stuff does not work. Restaurant success is not rocket science. It is people science. And I'm going to give you a great example when we're talking about culture today and what restaurants can do now. And I'm really huge believer they can improve their culture as the number one thing they can do. I'm going to give you a quick little definition between the difference between brand versus culture. A lot of people think brand and culture are the same. They're similar, but they're not the same. Here's my definition. Brand is what your guests say about you to their friends, to their families on your online reviews. Culture is what your team says about you to their friends, to their family. All right? Branding. Culture have a symbiotic relationship and that they coexist. You cannot have one without the other, and they depend on each other. The strength of your culture will reinforce and strengthen your brand. The strength of your brand will actually reinforce your culture too. It attracts these things. You can always almost think of it. I would. I would kind of, like, describe it kind of like yin yang, all right? Like a yin Yang symbol. Brand and culture are harmonious and symbiotic. They live in a coexisting relationship. You need them both, right? You need them both to survive. Now, the next thing we gotta get clear out of the way before we really start talking about how to fix all this stuff was you gotta understand where you are. I'm A huge believer in that if you want to go someplace new, you gotta figure out where you are, just like in a gps, a GPS in your car. I gotta know where I am, I gotta know where, what my final destination is. And then I can create a map or massive action plan to get there. So let's talk real quick about the different levels of culture. There are four levels of culture, and they actually all coincide with the different levels of restaurant growth that I talk about a lot. There's bad restaurants at the bottom. They make up about, you know, 20% of the market. There's good restaurants in the middle, they make about 60% of the market. 15% of the market is great. What I call thriving. And the very top of the pyramid is what I call the outstanding restaurants or the driving restaurants. Now, for each level of growth in a restaurant, I'm gonna tell you there is a corresponding culture that goes with each level, and it's really, really cool. At the bottom, bad restaurants, they have toxic cultures. Plain, simple. This is where your team runs the restaurant, but they run the restaurant their way. That next level up. When people start getting to that good level of growth, they basically start adapting what is known as a training culture. You start training, but usually it's only after the onboarding or during the onboarding phase, like when someone's first hired you, you train someone right in the very beginning, you give them some training. You give them like, usually it's a three or four day follow around, follow somebody. I call it very tribal, and you turn them loose on your guest. The next level up from that is what I call great. These are those thriving restaurants. They start implementing and developing what's known as a learning culture. Learning culture is where you're training consistently and you're always seeking to improve. The greatest thing you can do if your restaurant is at that, especially at that good stage where you have a training culture, move it up. Take that one big step and make a dedication, make a commitment to start implementing and starting creating a learning culture. It will change your restaurant overnight. I'm just telling you, it will change your restaurant for the good if you start implementing a learning culture, right? And then that very top one is what we call a leadership culture. Leadership culture is what we have here is your team runs a restaurant, but they run a restaurant your way. If you notice, the toxic culture and the leadership culture are very, very same. That the team runs a restaurant. The only difference is at the toxic level, that the team runs a restaurant their way. At the leadership level, they run the restaurant. But they run it your way. And if you want to know, perhaps like, you know, hey, Donald, where does my restaurant kind of rate? If I need. Is there any kind of quiz or something I can do to figure out if my restaurant's bad, good, great, or outstanding? Yes, there is a simple, simple way you can do that. If you can just head over to therestaurantcheckup.com. just actually, it's actually restaurant checkup.com and you can take. So I think it takes like five minutes to take this little checkup and it will actually tell you where your restaurant is. Is your restaurant struggling, surviving, thriving, or driving in the market? It's easy, easy one to take. You can actually just go to the restaurant, just go to restaurant checkup.com. or actually, if you go to my website, the restaurantcoach.com in that top bar, you can actually click the link. So how do we fix culture? Culture, to me is a lot like Kool Aid. And a lot of times you gotta make them drink the Kool Aid. All right? I drink these energy drinks and I drink these green drinks all day. A lot of times when you're working with your team, you gotta drink the culture. But here's the thing, you gotta drink it first. Culture flows down, does not flow up. Hashtag, write this shit down. Culture flows down, it does not flow up. That starts with you. You have to drink the Kool Aid first. You have to be committed to creating a better restaurant. If you're not committed to creating a better restaurant, if you just think it's on them to become better and that you become a better leader, you're not going to go too far. I'm just telling you right now. So let's talk about some of the things that are going to get in your way when you start creating this outstanding culture. The number one thing you have to understand, when you start changing stuff, change pushes back. Because change does not like to change. Tell you this, but it's true. Change does not like to change. And when you start trying to implement new stuff, new standards, new changes into your culture, the team, the culture, out of a chain, out of a necessity for survival. Because all organisms, all living things, have a need to survive. They do not want to move forward. Sometimes it will push back on you, and it will push back on you hard. It all starts off with what's known as the standard degradation effect. The biggest enemy in the fight of a toxic culture is denial. Hashtag, write that down. The biggest enemy in the fight against a toxic culture is denial. By the owners or leaders of the organization. Some people call it silent approval. Silent approval is when you don't say something when you see a slip in the standards. And what happens when you don't say something when you see a slip in the standards? You're basically approving a new, lower standard. This is what's known as what I call is the standard degration effect. It's real, I'm telling you. It happens every day in restaurants, even to great ones. So what exactly is the standard degradation effect? It's quite simple. And I bet you've seen it play out in restaurants before, and maybe it's even happening in your restaurant right now. But you gotta be honest with yourself. You see, you start off with the best intentions. These really I call lofty standards. And you might even proclaim, you know, up to the heavens that especially when you start a new restaurant, you know, my restaurant's gonna be different. We're gonna be amazing, we're gonna be great. I'm gonna treat people different. I'm going to have these super high standards. And it starts off that way. And then one day you get a little resistance, get a little pushback from one or two team members. And then someone asks you, hey, be reasonable about this standard. Or they say that, you know, it's just, it's too much, it's too hard, and that they have an easier way. Now, you might not think that that one decision to take the easy road can change the entire trajectory of your culture, but it does. It's that single moment that starts a chain reaction, just like dominoes tipping over, which is the beginning of the degration of your standards. Hashtag, write this down. Once you sell out one standard, it's easier for the staff to. To get you to compromise on the other standards. Another thing you're. You're going to kind of confront when you start changing stuff, as I call the resistance curve. This is an example of a resistance curve. So on the far left, you start a new standard. And just imagine if you don't have the slides here, if you're listening to this on audio, basically think of the bell curve. So on the left, you have a gradual line, it sloops up, it reaches the peak, then it starts curving down, it goes down to the left, just like the bell curve does in school. The resistance curve is the exact same bell curve. Because there's always an kind of a moment where things get kind of a moment of clarity, basically, is what I call it. So you start with this new standard, and on this resistance curve, you're going to implement. And as you implement, of course it's new. Everyone loves it, they're all buying it. They're, oh my God, this is the greatest thing in the world. Yeah, this could be cool. We're gonna love it. And then you get to that point where it says resistance. That's the first obstacle resistance. And I hate to tell you this, sometimes resistance is not covert, is not overt. You don't see it, it's more covert. It's when the team starts talking about it behind, you know, they start getting little clicks and they start talking. I don't know if that's a really good idea. You know, I thought it was a good idea, but, you know, actually when I started thinking I didn't think it was a good idea. Do you think it's a good. I don't think it's a good idea. So you start getting this little bit of resistance, this mental kind of block. And then what happens, there's a little space between resistance and the next level is where you actually see physical push back. They actually don't do it. They kind of ref. You know, they. Oh, I just forgot. They start giving you excuses. Oh, yeah, oh, yeah. Oh, you want me to do. Oh, yeah, okay. Oh, I wasn't clear. When you get pushback, then it's going to go into this next phase, what's called bargaining. Bargaining is they're going to come to you and remember, just there's like these five cycles of grief. There's like these same grief levels when you're actually trying to make change in your restaurant. The bargaining phase is they're going to come back to you and try to make a deal. They're going to get you to try to compromise your standards, lower your standards, make it a little bit easier, be reasonable. It's at this moment right here, you have a, you have a choice. If you give in, you're going to be spending back and forth time between pushback and bargain. Because now they know they got you and they know every time they don't like what they want to do or they want to do it differently, they can just push back on you. You're going to eventually give in and they know they're going to have you. You have to hold the line here and you have to say, no, this is the way we're going to do it. It's not open for debate, it's not open negotiation. This is what we call non negotiable and this is the way I want it done. And you're Very calm about it, you don't lose your temper, very even keel about it and you just say, no, that's the way we're doing it. And then after that, when they realize that there's no compromise, they can't come back and forth. They can't. You're not going to compromise your stance, you're not going to sell out. Then you'll push through the bargaining phase and you'll get what's known as buy in. And that's what you want. So let me give you the recipe for an outstanding culture. If I was going to give you a step by step recipe to make an outstanding culture, here's what it would look like. It'd be one part mission, core value and vision. One part strength based hiring. One part communication. One part standards and expectations. One part personal accountability. One part growth and opportunity. One part appreciation. One part trust, One part respect. One part connection, One part authentic leadership. Mix it all the well, mix it, mix it, mix it and then drink it. Now, let me talk about recipes here. I just gave you the recipe for culture. The exact recipe. Working with thousands of restaurants. This is the recipe I know works. If you have a recipe and you leave out an ingredient, what happens to the recipe? Yes, you're screwed. Does not turn out the way you want it to. The same thing goes for this recipe for culture. If you leave out one or multiple ingredients, your culture will not cultivate, it will not develop to the level you need it to. Follow the recipe and you get consistent results. That's why we write recipes. So the first part of this recipe is what I call the triad. All my clients, whether you're in restaurant coach, University, restaurant masterminds, or restaurant accelerator, they hear me preach about this so much, I would estimate that I probably mentioned this topic at least once on any coaching call during the week. Culture is everything and it starts with the triad hashtag. Write that down. Culture is everything and it starts with a triad. The triad is the foundation of all outstanding cultures. And here's the sad news. Most people don't even have this in place. All right? Most people do not know their mission, their core values and their vision. They might have a vague idea in their head and they kind of know what they stand for. But I'm telling you, without this element firmly in place, your culture is going to start to drift from what you want into what your team wants. Culture is created by designer to by default. You either have an active hand in its creation or that culture will create itself. All restaurants have a culture. 80% of restaurants have one that does not allow them to maximize their potential. And what happens is they make. They basically remain stuck in a perpetual loop of drama and chaos. Sure, you know, they might have a good week, a good month. You know, even a broken watch is correct twice a day. However, they tend to be a roller coaster of emotions, a roller coaster of profitability, a roller coaster of turnover, highs and lows, ups and downs, and I'm telling you, it will drive a normal person crazy or to drink after a while. These are some examples of what I call as a core value mission card and the core value mission card. Hold on, I'll take a little sip. The core value mission card is a tool that every one of my members use. It's a physical tool. It's not just a piece of paper like it looks like right here. It's actually. They print them out and it's actually a physical tool they use every time they talk to a team member because they always circle everything back to their core values. If you see my core value mission card there, I use a compass kind of as analogy. And I use it a lot just because to me, my core values are my compass. If they come from my heart and I'm in alignment with them, they always point to true north for me. Anytime I make a business decision, anytime I make a decision about anything, I always look at my core value card and always ask myself, am I acting in alignment and incongruency with my core values? If I am, I move forward. If not, it's usually a bad decision. I'm just telling you, of course, my mission. I always think your mission statement should be very, very short and to the point, like my mission. Build your brand, strengthen your team, increase your profits. Boom. This is a tool every. Every restaurant in the world should be having. They should have this card. You should have your mission and your core value card printed out, and you should use them every time you talk to an employee to re. To basically show them that you're serious about this. And also, everything always circles back. All behavior problems, I'm telling you, are core value problems. Fix the core values and the behavior starts getting into alignment. Next up, strength based hiring. Now, we've all made bad hirings. You know, I made bad tons of bad hires before. All right. Our gut is great at making decisions at times. And then there's other times when you kind of scratch your head in disbelief and go, huh, didn't see that coming. Right? You know, my. My fundamental hiring process when I started out in the restaurant industry was Like a lot of people still do today. Hire by experience. Need a line cook. I looked for applications and found someone who had the most experience or had experience. Neither. General manager. Oh, hey, wow. This guy's got 13 years as a general manager. It's a slam dunk, right? Only was that simple. It's not simple at all, actually. Over the years I have found out, I have discovered there are eight keys to finding out if someone is a good, good fit for your team. Okay. Experience is only one dynamic in the decision to see if someone's a good fit for your team. There are eight. And sadly, we tend to use only number one. Okay. Experience. Personality, behavior dynamics. If you're not using a behavioral assessment to get the right people on the bus and the right people in the right places, your team is being held back. You are being held back. Job fit. Is this the right person for the job? Do I have the right person in the right place? This is where behavioral dynamics go and tell me. And I'm sure you've seen this before. You've walked into restaurants and you've seen that really, really nice girl behind the host stand, meek as a mouse. She's really, really nice. And she want. And you walk up to, you know, to get seen. She's hi. How many people in your party? And you can barely. And you have to lean forward to hear. Great person, wrong job. Right. Core values are another thing. I like to ask people what their core values are, what they stand for. If they don't stand for anything, they'll fall for anything. You know, they're basically, they're. They're just kind of like, they're sheep. I don't need sheep on my team. Right. I need people who can think, think on their feet. Especially if I ever want to get to the point where I actually start working more on my business, less in my business. This is how you do it. Belief systems. There's tons of psychological and subconscious belief systems people hold on to. If you don't know how to pull those things out during a behavioral interview, you might be stuck with some really bad hires. Emotional intelligence. Another one. Kinetic energy. How much energy these people naturally have. You. You've all seen these people. They come in, they've been in there, they've been at work for an hour, and they walk up to you and ask you for a break. You're like, hey, you've just been here for an hour. Yeah, I'm just really. I'm just really run down, you know, These people have low kinetic energy. And of course make sure it's a good cultural dynamic and team fit. There are eight dynamics you have to look at when you're putting someone into a team communication. Now, I've said this for the last 25 years, that all business problems are people problems. The other side of that is that all people problems are communication problems. Now, here's where things go bad for restaurants. And honestly, it's the one thing they could fix, and they could fix it fast if they put some energy into becoming better communicators. The number one problem with communication is we tend to think that it's the other person's duty to communicate better. Wrong idea, wrong attitude. Right. There's five daily topics. Each of my. Each of my coaching clients are told over and over and over and over again that they preach about every single day. We call this the daily five sermon. The Daily five sermon is quite this. All my members are told, you must preach, and you are a preacher. Basically, you are a preacher of culture. You are a preacher of core values. The daily five sermon consists of this. Number one, you talk about your mission. Number two, your core values. Number three, your vision, your reason why you do what you do. Number four, you're always talking about your standards and expectations. And number five, you're always giving words of affirmation, words of encouragement, positive feedback. You can walk into any restaurant in the world and I'm sure you could find something wrong. You could also walk into any restaurant in the world and you could find some things. You're doing amazing. We tend to be very, very critical of our team to the point where sometimes they just feel like they're getting beat up every single day. The daily five sermon is this. I'm looking for things that I'm reinforcing that steer them towards the direction I want with the culture I want. My mission, my core values, my vision, my why I do what I do. I'm talking about my standards, expectations. Nope, we don't do it like that. We do it like this. Oh, let me show you how we want. I want done like this. Let me show you. Let's do it. Let's reinforce it. Make sure you guys understand how exactly I want it done. And then five, remember affirmation. Every human being on the planet has a need to feel appreciated. Everyone wants a little bit of thank you. Hey, you know what? Thanks for being here. Thanks, you know, great job. When I owned my restaurants, I never left the restaurants without walking up to everyone in the team and saying thank you. I made it a pact with myself I would never Leave the restaurant without having a sincere, looking them in the eye, shake their hand and say, you know, hey, thanks for being here. Hey, thanks for doing that. Hey, thanks for helping out with that table. Hey, thanks for handling that person that was seemed a little bit irate. Daily 5 sermon will change your life and it will change your restaurant. If you practice it every day. You can't do the daily, daily five sermon once a week. That's not a daily five. That's a weekly five. That's not going to work. You need constant, steady reinforcement every single day. All right, I want to be a dead horse there. Standards and I'm, I, I would say through emails, text message, direct messages on social media, I'm asked this question at least two dozen times a week. Let's say, hey, coach, what's one thing I could do today to improve my restaurant? What's one thing I could do today to improve my restaurant? And restaurant owners kind of get a really weird look in their face if I'm talking to them in person or I usually don't hear back from them when I text them back and I say just three words, raise your standards. Write this down. The number one thing, the only thing that will change your restaurant, change your money, change your relationships, pretty much change everything in your life, is you must raise your standards. Personal accountability. How do you change the world one person at a time? How do you change the restaurant industry one restaurant culture at a time? If there was an end goal to creating culture, it would be this. You want every member on your team to act with personal accountability in their day to day actions. See, when your culture adopts accountability into its DNA, you stop having your restaurant run your life. Your team runs the restaurant following your standards, your expectations, your processes, your mission, core values, your vision. I'm telling you, it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing to see when it happens. I've actually had owners cry when they call me when they realize they finally reach this kind of pinnacle. How do you get there? Of course it all starts with you and your actions. Personal accountability is more than a habit. It's a belief system that comes from your core values. Do you see a little trend here? Do you see a little kind of trend here with core values? I have my core value card printed out and actually when I'm on calls, I put it up on, I have a pd, a JPEG of it. I have it blown up on one of the screens on my computer. It's that valuable. I always have to be in alignment in, in Congruency with my core values. When I do, I'm on track. When I'm out of alignment with my core values, I'm telling you right now, goes bad. It usually goes bad pretty fast. Growth and opportunity. One of the fundamental laws of life is either you're growing or dying. And I don't mean that to me sound morbid or depressing. It's just basically a fact. In the restaurant world, if your restaurant is not growing, you're maintaining. To maintain is a slow death sentence because you've be. You've basically succumbed to mediocrity. The thing that breaks my heart the most is to see a restaurant that's forsaken its groot. It's kind of duty to grow. It's duty to become more and just accept things as they are and just accept being average. And I'm sure I've mentioned this before, and that's one of the reasons why the Restaurant Coach Nation exists, is that, you know, we think mediocrity sucks. In psychology, they talk about either having a growth mindset or a fixed mindset. If you get some time, Google this stuff, it's really cool. Growth mindset or fixed mindset? When someone has a growth mindset, they believe that they can continue to learn, grow, develop, and become a better version of themselves. People with a fixed mindset believe that they can't learn. They're held down by the system. They're just, that's just the way life is. They just were born on this side or that side of the tracks. You know, it just, you know, I just can't get any better. I'm pretty much, this is it. I've peaked. They pretty much think this is as good as they're ever going to be. That is the worst thing in the world to me. It's, it's, it's depressing to see people take that victim mentality and to have that fixed, that fixed mindset that they just can't be any better. It's, it's basically a death sentence. It's a slow death sentence, which is really, really sad because they could fix it if they really, really wanted to. Appreciation. I talked about this with the Daily Five sermon. The two most powerful words in the world are thank you. Don't you feel good. Don't you feel good when someone says, hey, you know, thank you. Now if, if you're a human being with a heart, you feel good when someone says thank you. Now I would probably tend to say that sociopaths and psychopaths are the only exceptions but here's the thing. Two small words, just two syllables. So much power, so little used. Now I'm gonna go on a little preacher rant here and again and say this once, you know, and you've probably heard this saying a thousand times, your team doesn't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And that's gonna start with you caring about yourself. Remember I talked about some of those things about hiring and one of those things with belief systems. Belief systems or BS are a lot of the things that are holding you back from reaching your potential. Okay? Now for the love of all it's holy, this is not a dissertation about your ego or arrogance. I'm just talking about having some self appreciation for the person who you are. If you're watching this, listening to this, you want to be a better leader. I mean, you want to have a better restaurant, you want to have a better life, you want to be happier, right? And how do I know that? It's not that I'm Murphy the mind reader. I just work with a lot of restaurants and like I said, all business problems are people problems. Your people problems all stem from the relationship you have with yourself. Hashtag, write that down. Your people problems all stem from the relationship you have with yourself. It's true. Now when I was a member of the US Air Force pararescue teams, we had to do quite a bit of combat tactics, which basically, combat tactics is basically shooting at small targets in close quarters. Now growing up, I never had access to firearms. So shooting especially for, you know, very, very, being very precise with my shooting was quite new to me as a 19 year old pararescueman. You might even say that my shooting accuracy was kind of like. It was, it's kind of like how old people have sex. It was slow, sloppy, all over the place. All right? It was horrible. I did not bring a high level of trust in my fellow teammates who, who were going to go into combat situations with me. So what I do, I had to learn how to and hashtag, this is what you want to do, train the trust. A lot of times I'll hear restaurant owners say to me, why don't you do this and that? Why don't trust them? That's on you. You need to train the trust. How do you train the trust? You practice and practice and train and train and train. You practice and practice and practice. That's what I did with my shooting skills. I practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced and practiced even more to the point where I could group I could group my shots into the lid of a Pringle can from about 75ft away. That's pretty good. Whatever training you're doing right now with your team, I'm telling you in all honesty, you're not training enough. The common flaw that 99 of restaurants do is they do not train their team enough. Write this down. Don't change. Don't train your team until they get it right. Train them till they cannot get it wrong. I'll say that again. Don't train your team until they get it right. Train them until they can't get it wrong. That's going to require you to train and repeat and train and repeat and train and repeat more than you know. It has to become almost subconscious. And again, and we talked about this. Respect. Having a little respect for yourself. Having a little appreciation for yourself. If a person doesn't respect himself, they're never going to respect your culture. This is like, one of my favorite interview questions. I'll ask people, do you respect yourself? And then I'll say, well, give me some examples of how you respect yourself. Lack of respect is a huge red flag about a person's character. Because when you see them disrespect, you know, when you see them disrespect, you know, things in your restaurant, disrespect other people in your restaurant, they're basically disrespecting you. If you've ever see disrespect in your restaurant, I'm telling you right now, that's, like, the one thing that will get me, I mean, like, from zero to 60 in, like, two seconds. When I see disrespect in a restaurant, I gotta make a quick decision whether I want to continue working with this person or not. Hashtag, write this down. This is another huge thing. Lack of respect stems from a lot of personal issues in a person's life. Life. All right? Lack of respect stems from a lot of personal issues in a person's life. And when a person has a lot of personal issues going on, it's like waiting for a time bomb to go off in your culture. You can't fix everybody. Fix yourself first. Connection. You know, human beings, for all their. All their complexities, all their faults, we're social mammals at our core. We gather in groups for safety. We like to gather in groups to advance our species. Now, I know that might sound a little simplistic, but it really kind of serves to understand that if we want to cultivate an outstanding culture in our restaurant, we need connection. Now, here's where a lot of restaurants go astray. A lot of restaurants think connection means friendship. And sometimes friendship does happen. I mean, sometimes it does. But when it comes to the most successful restaurant cultures I've ever witnessed, I find that friendship can get in the way if people don't have the emotional intelligence to compartmentalize and separate those emotions. That's why we usually have a lot of those rules about no fraternization, no hanging out with the team. You know, leadership team, in the. In the team team shouldn't be out partying and getting drunk together, because, I mean, it does make a connection. A lot of times, that connection goes sideways. Go watch some reality TV shows, and you'll see where connections cross the line. And it gets. And it actually turns into a reality TV show pretty fast. Like from zero to 60, right? Gotta. You gotta watch that. Another thing is authentic, authentic leadership. Now, if you Google leadership, you'll find there's approximately 4.8 billion things that come back. 4.8 billion with a B. Different books, journals, articles, blog posts, all about leadership. I mean, holy crap. I mean, there's a lot of information out there about leadership. Now, here's my question to you. If there's so much information available on the Internet, why do we still have problems with leadership in our restaurants? I'll give you six words. Authentic leadership is the game changer. Now you're gonna say, hey, wait, Coach. Isn't all leadership. Authentic leadership? I wish it was that easy. Here's the cold, hard truth. No. Okay? Leadership is about leading a team through your words and actions. Authentic leadership is when you believe in yourself as a leader. Here's the question I want you to ask yourself today. Do you really. I mean, do you really believe in yourself as a leader? Do you have what they call imposter syndrome? Right? You gotta make sure. You gotta make sure. Why do you want to be a leader? Why do you do this? Someone once told me, and this was when I had my first restaurant, and I highly recommend this to everybody. There's three people we all need in our lives. We all need a mentor, an advocate, and a coach. The mentor will give you feedback, input, and acts as a sounding board. Your advocate is that kind of positive and inspiring person who believes in you and can help you get pumped up when you're feeling down. And that coach. You need that coach there to push you past your comfort zone and to hold you accountable to a higher standard for yourself. See, a coach sees your untapped potential. That's what you need. You need all three you should have all three in your life. You should have a mentor, should have an advocate, and you should have a coach. I didn't realize that for a long time. And that's a lot. I think that when I first had my first restaurants, why my restaurant struggled a lot because I did not understand I needed all three people. If you surround yourself with too many advocates just there to pump you up, you don't get a good kind of dose of reality from a mentor or from a coach. And a coach actually will hold you accountable to it too. Now, I've said this over a thousand times in my life. Culture flows down, doesn't flow up. And that starts with you. If you take everything I just showed you to heart and implement it, you will see a dramatic change in your culture. When you change the culture, you change the trajectory of your restaurant. And it starts with you drinking the Kool Aid every day. Everything I just talked about, it all starts with you. Culture flows down. It doesn't flow up. That starts with you. You have to drink the Kool Aid every day. You just can't drink to Kool Aid every once or twice a week. You gotta drink it every day. You gotta be committed to this. You gotta be committed to holding your, your higher standard and then showing your team through your actions and your words in alignment with your core values that you are serious about this. The worst thing I can tell you is that toxic cultures tell you toxic cultures kills. They kill a brand faster than the economy, faster than the pandemic. Because a lot of times they don't just die right away. I mean, at least, you know, a pandemic or an economic recession, a lot of restaurants will just close quickly. I mean, a toxic culture is horrible because it's just a slow, slow death. I think that's the worst thing to see. It's like watching someone have cancer just whittle, you know, before your eyes and just, you know, it's horrible to see that, you know, I'm, I really have such a heavy heart for anybody. Had to witness anybody going through that. I would say the worst thing I've ever seen is watching a toxic culture just, just destroy a restaurant from the inside. Now, on the other hand, positive cultures really improve a lot of things. They improve, actually improve profits. If you don't believe me, there's a great study here from on Forbes that shows. They did a little study between cultures that had performance enhancing cultures and then without performance enhancing cult. And if you read that right, yes, that is correct. That's a 901 increase in stock price growth compared to a 74% increase. That is what a performance enhancing culture can do. It will elevate your team. It will elevate your brand. It will elevate everything. It'll elevate your life to a higher level. Gotta get on the culture. Culture Kool Aid. Got to mix it up every day. Don't miss an ingredient. I gave you a complete recipe here. Don't miss an ingredient. Mix it well, drink it first and then share it with your team. Last thing I want to do today is I want to share a little story with you. Take a trip back in time with me to 1519. The Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernando Cortez decided he wanted, he wanted to go down to the Yucatan and seize the treasure that Aztecs had. Now he's heard that, you know, for, I mean, 600 years, the Aztecs just ruled. And he's, you know, they've heard that they've amassed quite a big, huge, you know, treasure and some wealth. So he takes 500 soldiers, 100 sailors and 11 ships to the Yucatan. Now, some of his men had heard stories about the Aztecs. I mean, these guys are brutal. I mean, these guys, they don't take prisoners. You know what they do? They cut your heart out while you're still alive and sacrifice to their gods. These guys do not play. Some of the guys got a little worried. Some of the men got a little concerned when they land in Yucatan. A couple of them like, you know what, we should take a boat and get out of here. But Cortez found out about this little plot to kind of mutiny and take off. So he gathered up all the men, the ring leaders, and he wanted to make sure he sent a message that this wasn't going to happen. And no one was leaving. So he ordered his right hand men to burn the boats and scuttle the ships, you know, and he basically said, we either conquer or we die as heroes. That's pretty hardcore. But the thing is, when you're making a commitment to implement new culture or to change the culture in your restaurant, you have to be 100 committed. You have to be like Cortez. You got to say, there's no other. This is it. We're going forward or we're gonna die trying. We're gonna make it or we're gonna be like, we're just gonna buried me here in the Yucatan, I don't care. But I'm either going to succeed as a hero or I'm a die trying all right, three final words. I want to leave you. Please burn the boats. It's time to get the restaurant in life you want. Now, as I mentioned, the Restaurant Coach Nation, it's a free Facebook page for any restaurant owner, operator, industry thought leader and wants to share some ideas, help us break through this kind of stigma. You know that restaurants are a horrible place to work. We want to work together. We want to share. We want to have a little community we can grow and share things with. Of course, we all believe mediocrity sucks. If you want to take it to the next level, please, you can reach out to me@Donalderestaurantcoach.com be more than happy to talk to you about my other coaching programs again. I got the Restaurant Coach University. We got Restaurant Masterminds and the Restaurant Accelerator all available for you every Sunday at 3pm Mountain Time. Restaurant Coach Nation. I do a live training like this to kind of give you some tools and techniques and changing your mindset to help you make more and work less in your restaurant. I want to appreciate everyone for joining me today. Thank you. I'll leave the replay up for a little bit on the Facebook page, but then I do eventually pull them down. So thank you for staying here. Thank you for showing up. Thanks for attending. If you have any questions again, you can always reach out to me at Donald at the restaurantcoach. Com. I look forward to talking to you and I especially look forward to seeing everyone next week inside here in the Restaurant Coach Nation.