266 - Building a Legacy: The Importance of Listening, Diversity, and Emotional Intelligence in Leadership with Infuse Hospitality's Michael Schultz

Welcome to Listening with Leaders. I'm Doug Noll, lawyer turned peacemaker. I teach executive leaders how to listen to emotions rather than words so that they can become the leaders everyone wants to follow. And I teach those same leaders how to be authentically present, available, and connected to their families despite being insanely busy. I have learned that we are 98% emotional and only 2% rational. Learning how to listen to emotions is, in my experience, the foundational skill of life. Stick around to the end of the show, and I'll reveal how you can be on our next guest in 15 to 20 minutes. So let's get started. Michael Schultz, welcome to Listening with Leaders. You are the founder and chair of a company called Infuse Hospitality, which can be found, of course, at theusehospitality.com. And you are also a serial entrepreneur with a bunch of other ventures. Welcome to the show.

Thank you very much for having me.

I know we want to, I think, first of all, we'd all be interested in your backstory. You have a number of different companies. You've had some exits. You've got a lot going on right now with these companies. Tell us how you started and found this kind of success.

It is an interesting story because it, I think in today's day and age is a different story as what I'm seeking out is, I think, different than maybe other founders. But I started in the restaurant business at the age of 12 years old, washing dishes to help my family so that we could eat and have medicine in the same day and worked my way through that. Industry. I was extremely driven to become an executive and get ahead. And so I gave up really everything to work 80, 100 hours a week to get ahead, whether I had pneumonia or had to miss a funeral or had to miss a wedding. I was extremely dedicated to achieving the goal of becoming in charge. And I became, after many decades, an executive of a company. And that's when my wife, Sari, became pregnant with my first of now 4 children, Sadie. And that's where everything really changed. And it was really as if somebody had switched out my eyes and all of a sudden I looked out and said, oh my God, that's somebody's mother that works for us. That's somebody's brother, cousin, sister. And it hit me that, oh, I'm not only am I responsible for this company, I'm responsible for these people. And their well-being and their families and the communities in which we operate. And it took a few months for me to really understand, because I'll tell you that I felt disappointed in myself and I couldn't put my finger in what was wrong. And I would look in the mirror and I had achieved what I wanted to achieve, but I was disappointed. And the reality is what finally hit me is that I was concerned with the legacy that I was going to leave this child. And I didn't want the legacy to be, your dad was terrific. He got the stock from $1.28 to $29. That was not the legacy. And having grown up with minimal financial resources, I also was taught and had the greatest upbringing. That's not the important thing in life. And that the real problems in life can't be solved with money. And so truly, I became obsessed with the legacy that I was going to leave and what people were going to say about me when I was gone. So I walked into a board meeting and I said, we have all of this opportunity to change people's lives and give them opportunity and impact the communities in which we operate. And it all came out of me. And the response was, Thank you for your warm fuzzies. You've got 2 quarters to get from X to Y and don't ever come in here and give us a lecture about this nonsense. And it was then and there that I figured out that if you really wanted to control what was important and the nucleus and objective of an organ, you had to own it. And it's great timing when people talk about being an entrepreneur and starting. There's no perfect time, just like there's no perfect time to have a child. There's no perfect time to get married. People are waiting for this perfect moment. I don't I don't think the world works that way. And so I walked in a couple days before my wife gave birth to my first child, as she was walking out of an ultrasound, and announced that I had quit my job and was going to start my adventure as an entrepreneur, which I'm pretty sure put my wife into labor. And, and so there's no perfect time, but that was the start of my entrepreneurial journey. And the reason I did it is because I wasn't afraid of failing, and I was afraid of looking back on my last breath and wondering what if. And I was obsessed with the stories that people will share about me when I'm gone with my children. And I want that story to be with a smile on their face saying, let me tell you a story about your old man. And so that's, that was the start of it. Perfect timing, right?

How long ago was that?

That was 14 years ago. And so that was certainly, you know, there's ups and downs to the stories, right? People ask, what's it like being an entrepreneur? And I say, you go from feeling like you want to jump off the roof to feeling like you won the lotto to wanting to jump off the roof again. And that's the first minute and a half of your day. So it's the reality is that the most valuable resource I have is my time. I don't know how much of it I have. And once I spend it, it's gone. And so when you look at things that way and what's important to you and what's the diamonds in life, to me, it's not the money. It's about the impact that we can have on people and our work to make the world better in the time that we're given here. And so that leap of faith is scary, but scarier to look back and wonder what if.

That's really interesting. I had the same experience. 22 years as a trial lawyer, went back to school, got my master's degree in peacemaking and conflict studies, could not come to agreement with my partners about what I wanted to do. Gave him one week's notice, left $10 million on the table, and walked out and started my own peacemaking practice to follow my heart.

Yeah. I don't think anyone's gonna count our crap when we're going. That's just the— and so passing go and collecting the $200, that never was the KPI for me to judge on how I was doing on, on my life I was given here in this physical world.

Exactly. I, I totally, yep. Absolutely right. And service to others is where the real meaning comes from. Viktor Frankl in his famous book talked about that all the way at the end of the book. He said the most important thing we can do is serve others. And when we serve others, that creates meaning in our own life.

I don't know if— it doesn't hurt to read the book, but I know if you go feed starving children today, that feeling that you'll have inside is exactly what they're talking about. So that's a correct analogy in my book.

I haven't fed starving children, but I have worked with lifers and long-term inmates in maximum security prisons teaching them how to stop prison violence. You get the idea.

Any kind of good deed will give you that feeling that you get inside. To me, that's the diamonds of this world.

Tell us a little bit about one of your companies that is extremely successful. It's called Infuse Hospitality, based out of Chicago where you're from. Tell us a little bit about what that company does.

Yeah, and so Infuse Hospitality truly is a contract food service company for the modern that's only limited by the scope of the imagination. And so in 2016, we started this organization because we felt that there was a, a very significant gap in the world of commercial real estate, in the world of, of hotels and resorts, multi-unit residential, in the workplace, in the quality of experiences and how people build spaces and create spaces to be really curated environments for driving community. And certainly for thousands of years, that's been done through food and beverage, right? That's when you look at different cultures from around the world, it's the music, it's the food and beverages that, that make everything so very interesting. And so that's what we do at Infuse. Um, whether it is large commercial real estate assets or advising people on how to attract and retain talent, we do that through food and beverage, whether it's traditional retail bars, restaurants, amenity floors, anything that you can think of involving food and beverage. By the time COVID hit, Infuse from the end of 2016 to the time COVID hit was operating 40 million square feet in 42 states and 2 provinces of Canada. Everything from ConAgra's headquarters to food and beverage experiences at Willis Tower to restaurants like Fred's Barney's Madison Avenue in New York, a $22 million a year restaurant. So that's what Infuse does from, from coffee to fine dining and everything in in between. We help provide solutions by being good listeners to what our strategic partner clients' problems are.

We'll come back to that, that being a good listener in a second. First, what is it now you've had the success, you've got, you've had other companies that have exited, you've got other companies you're working in, what is it that gets you up in the morning and gets you excited to go to work?

Oh, the people. I'll tell you, it gets— that's why I jump out of bed at 4:30 in the morning to run and do my job, because it's exciting to be able to impact and provide people an opportunity to make a better life for themselves and their families. The flip side of that is how scary it is when you're laying in bed trying to go to sleep at night. And so for me, when people join our organization and say they want to be a part of Infuse, it's not, okay, all of a sudden here's the pledge ship, we're letting you into the club. It's me and the leaders in our organization taking on the responsibility for the wellbeing of that individual and their families and making a promise that we're going to invest in them and give them the tools and the support that they need to be able to grow and have a better tomorrow. And so it's very exciting and it's very scary all at the same time. And if you have someone on, if someone tells you it's not scary, I would think twice about that person because when you're responsible for people feeding their children, it gets pretty scary. And listen, we're not operating on people's children and saving lives. We're legal drug dealers. We sell caffeine, sugar, carbs. So what we're doing is not that important, but the people and their families and their wellbeing and their experience and having a culture where they don't have to do the things that I did to get ahead in my career. I don't believe that you should have to miss the important things in your life. I don't believe that you should have to not be able to make doctor's appointments for your children or go to these events. And it was the belief that even in the food and beverage industry, you should be able to be a single mom and a CEO, that I want our people to have a different experience in our organization and not have to give up the things that I did that I will never get back. I'm not proud of the story I told earlier about the things that I missed from my family and the things that I missed in my life. And there's not enough money in the entire planet that I would do it again because I didn't know any better because someone didn't teach me. And so now anybody who will listen, I'm trying to advise them that there's a different way to do it so that they don't make the same mistake I did. You very nicely said how successful our organization is. We'll tell in the future on how it impacts the communities, our partners, and our team members and their families. That'll be the telltale of the success of the organization. And God willing, I'll be here till about 120 years old, so I'll be around to hear about it, I hope.

I'm curious, how many employees does Infuse have right now?

Enough to make it scary.

Would you say you have 44 million square feet under management of some kind or contract?

Well, it's 44. We service about 40 million square feet spanning 42 states and constantly growing. We've, I think, opened 3 things in the last few weeks. And so it's very, it's very exciting. And I'll tell you the most pleasurable thing. Is getting on an airplane and going and talking to our people and hearing their stories and getting to talk to the dishwasher and turn and say, I'm still the dishwasher and I was a dishwasher and I value your opinion and your work is important, right? Because if I disappear for a month, I think everybody will be fine. If the dishwasher doesn't show up at our restaurant tonight in, in New York or Minneapolis or San Francisco, we got a real problem. And so it's such a great pleasure to learn the stories and the backgrounds and the diversity The diversity is just so beautiful throughout the organization. And I believe that those different experiences and backgrounds combined is what gives us an advantage as an organization and what makes the world interesting. It's really that diversity that makes the world beautiful.

I know there are a lot of people who think diversity is a bad thing, but I think it's absolutely our greatest strength.

I ask the question. If every rose was a rose, would we still ask to stop and smell the roses? And so when you think about it that way, if all of our food and music and all of these celebrations of life were exactly the same, would that be interesting? Where would we travel to? What would we do? And so it— I guess it really depends on how you look at it, but it would be pretty boring to me if everybody was the same. I'm very lucky to have had really great business partners in different organizations. And I'll tell you, the best part of the relationship and the partnership is our differences and that we don't think the same. And that means that you don't always come to the same agreement because of— you don't have a shared history of experiences, but very powerful when you respect each other and you can talk through where they're coming from to come up with a compromise that gives you a solution with a great percentage of winning. If all of my partners were the same as me, what's the value in the partnership? Right.

So what is it, Michael, that's unique about you throughout your life?

Oh, depends on who you ask.

I'm asking you. Let me finish the question. What's unique about you that you bring to the table personally that's made you so successful?

I think that my background in having shared experience with our workforce. I did it. I've been there. I put myself through school. I was a server leaving, not having enough money to get on the bus to go home that day. And I just think the perspective of my upbringing and what my parents taught me, like, I didn't have 1,000 toys, right? I had a pair of chopsticks and a pan, but I was allowed to use my imagination. And I think that because of that, I never forgot where I came from. And I understand the struggles that people go through. And I have sympathy and empathy. And I also think that what's different about me is that I take on the responsibility of all of that. And really it's, I've never not made an investment or bought a stock and then complained about the return. And I look at people the same way. If someone joins our organization and we're not investing in them and we're not training and educating them and giving them the tools that they need, then what do we expect as far as a return? And so for me, I think one thing that's very different is that people come and ask me questions and very rarely do I give them an answer. I give them stories because I want them to use the data. I want to be helpful to them in giving them data, but I don't want to make the decisions for them. And some of the best things that I ever learned were from mistakes that I made. And so I allow people to make mistakes. If they're going to blow up the science lab, I'll interject because it's going to hurt people. But for the most part, people come to me with questions and I answer with questions and I provide data and I force them to make the decisions because I feel like A lot of the things that— the most important things that I learned throughout my career, if you're a good listener and you're watching carefully enough, some of the most important lessons may be not what to do. And those are equally as important as what to do. And so I do not feel that I am any more important than anyone else, and I can't do it without them. And so I think that people feel valued and appreciated. And that's, I think, something that's different about me.

You've mentioned listening a couple of times. How do you become a good listener?

I think that it is critical to understand and hear more than the words. And unless you're still enough and silent enough, it's impossible to do that. When you're physically in the room with somebody, you can really feel the energy. There's a lot that's said from the body language. There's just there's so much going on that you can't— your brain can't possibly see or recognize or understand any of that when your mouth is open and the words are coming out, or when you're not really listening and then you're just sitting there thinking about what you're going to say next. When you're truly still and you're truly silent, you can notice many things. I'll tell you one thing. One thing I think is as part of a world, I think that we've stopped listening. And I'll tell you that I believe this is a world where miracles are happening all of the time. And I just think that we're so busy with all of these different things, the social media, the— which I think is one of the worst things that's ever happened to the world. We have lost the ability to sit silently and listen. And so I think we're not only missing so much in our businesses, I think we're missing so much in the world. And having a perspective of light and goodness can remove so much darkness, but it's so easy in our careers, in our lives, in our businesses to really focus on the one dark cloud versus all the rest of the blue, beautiful sky. So I think listening is more than opening your ears. And is really critically important.

Interesting. We're very much aligned. I'm a lawyer turned peacemaker, and today I teach people how to listen to emotions rather than to words. And when you do that, all kinds of magic happens. But the key is to do exactly what you're talking about, which is to read another person's emotions. You need to be silent inside yourself. And it turns out that our brains are hardwired for reading each other's emotions. We just We ignore it. We ignore that innate ability we have, and so we don't use it. And but once you do use it, I think what you're talking about is the experience of being able to see a person for who they really are and what they're really intending to feel, say, experience, and what they're not talking about, but what they're experiencing that may be contradictory to what they're talking about.

And I agree.

And my feeling is that If people had the skills that I teach, which is this deep listening, we would have a very different world than we have right now. The problem, as you've pointed out, the problem that we have here in the United States especially is people are not listening to each other. And so they're big. It's too easy to become polarized and isolated and tribal rather than sitting down and listening to each other and discovering that we have much more in common than we have that divide us.

I think the world needs some Mr. Rogers right now is what I've been— is what I've been saying. We— the whole world needs to just sit down and watch some Mr. Rogers, right? And start counting all of the blessings that there are. There's certainly more that brings us together as people than the propaganda that's been put out there that we're really further apart. It can change with one spark of light and goodness. And so I think when you focus on that and you start truly listening and hearing each other and not just tolerating. Tolerating is not a great word. To tolerate something doesn't mean to accept something. It doesn't mean to find, find pieces of it that you can align on. And so when we talk about tolerance and tolerating, I think we need to do a lot more than tolerate. We need to look for the good And I think when you're focused on that, to be quite honest, I think that with organizations, if you're focused on the money, doesn't happen. I think if you're focused on doing the right thing for the right reason, I believe that success is a byproduct of fulfilling your passion. And so to all of those out there that are looking to start a business, drive their business, I think that we really need to look at it as a vehicle for more than money and really take a deep look as to what we're doing and why we're doing it and, and what drives that passion. Because we have such little time, none of us know how much we have, and you got to be spending it in a way that's meaningful and important and impactful.

That's exactly correct. Do you have any— how do you— going back to listening, I'm curious about— it's obviously critical to you, it's critical to your team. How have you inculcated this concept of listening to people, especially to potential clients, into your teams so that they understand that listening is more important than anything else?

It's not easy, and I'll tell you, sometimes they may think I have brain damage because it takes me so long to respond. But I'm also— it's— this is really going to upset, I think, some of my educators, 'cause I wasn't the greatest student of all time, but it turns out now I'm a teacher. And part of being a teacher is not teaching and expecting your students to adapt to the way that you teach. It is being a great observer and, and being able to adjust and be flexible and nimble and change the way that you're teaching so that it's received well by the student. Yes. And so when we talk about it in an organization, whether it's from a negotiation standpoint, or it's from a communication or problem solving, whatever the case may be, I ask them to look at it from the other person's perspective first and foremost. When we're doing deals, I don't want a great deal for me. I want a balanced deal that's great for both parties. And I don't understand why people are trying to negotiate themselves the best deal. Does that mean that it's going to work out well when you're going into a partnership with another party when you got the best deal? How about a fair deal where it's a in for everybody. So a lot of the times it's about understanding their perspective and understanding what's driving what they're saying and being able to quickly analyze that and respond from a, a place of looking through it from their lens. Because our lens is less important in that kind of situation. We just need to understand where and why they're coming from something so that we can acknowledge it, address it in a way that is appropriate for them, and get on to working on the solutions or whatever else is needed to move past that. And so if you're always talking from your perspective and you're not listening, it's really very difficult to find equal grounds in any kind of scenario, in my opinion.

You're right. Well, your opinion is fact. It's to the degree that you can acknowledge and validate another person in— I call it listening another person into existence. You drop down barriers and you make negotiations easier. You make relationships stronger. You build instant loyalty and trust and, and personal relationships, intimacy. It makes all the difference in the world. I, it's the foundational skill of life.. And that's why I teach it. And as far as I know, I'm the only one in the world that teaches listening the way that I do. But I have trained tens of thousands of people in these skills and watched every single one of them transform in amazing and powerful ways. You are, you, your message is powerful and I hope that a lot of people will take it to heart. One more question, Michael, and I'll let you go. What's one thing about yourself that we would never know about unless you revealed it to us?

One thing about me, I never held a child until my first child was born. Wow. And now the greatest pleasure of my life is my 4 children, who have been the biggest blessing to me. And so now that is my most important job. And man, did I miss out because there's a whole lot of beautiful babies out there, but literally never held a child until my first child was, was born. And it's been the greatest pleasure of my life to be able to watch their journey with my goal of creating 4 kind people has been a true blessing. But that's something I don't know if my wife even knows that. I don't know if I've ever told them.

That's fascinating. And obviously as you told us throughout our conversation today, that having children was a transformative, life-changing experience for you.

It was like somebody swapped out my eyes and thank God for that, because my new set is much better than the original set.

Good for you. Michael, it's been a real pleasure talking with you today. Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to be with us.

It's a great pleasure. Thank you. I enjoyed it.

You're welcome. Doug Noll here. Thank you so much for listening to Listening with Leaders. If you are a successful executive leader who would like to be on this program, please visit podcast.dougnull.com/podcast. If you got something out of this interview, would you please share this episode on social media? Just do a quick screenshot with your phone and text it to a friend or post it on the socials. If you know someone that would be a great guest, tag them on the social media to let them know about the show and include the hashtag #ListeningWithLeaders. I love seeing your posts and guest suggestions. We are regularly putting out new episodes and content. To make sure you don't miss any episodes, go ahead and subscribe. Your thumbs up ratings and reviews go a long way to help promote the show and mean a lot to me me and my team. Want to know more? Go to my website, DougNoll.com, or follow me on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram. That's @DouglasEnoll. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you on the next show.