Purpose-Driven Leadership: Insights from a Chick-fil-A Success Story

If you could go to any fast food restaurant in the world, I mean, we're in the car together and we're riding and I say to you, where's your favorite fast food restaurant? Let's go there today. I'm wondering what you would choose. Well, I know what I would choose. I would choose Chick Fil A. It's my favorite restaurant. I've been going to the Dwarf House where it all started. I've been going there since 1967. And we have a special guest today who wasn't even born when I started going to the dwarf house in 1967. That's where Chick Fil A really took off. And our guest today is someone you're really going to enjoy.

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A. Rohm, author and world renowned public speaker, as he shares stories involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good, spirited, positive and fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rohm.

Hi, I'm Dr. Robert Rohm, President of Personality Insight and this is our podcast called Becoming Wiser. In this podcast we try to focus on giving you some information, a tip, an inside track to how to become a wise person. Our guest today is a dear friend of mine and a very wise gentleman and is a Chick Fil A owner operator. Our guest is Chris Darley. Chris, welcome to the show today.

Doudi, glad to be here.

Chris is an incredible individual. The reason I say he's my owner operator, because the Chick Fil A I go to more than any other one is his. He's the owner operator and he keeps that thing popping and hopping all the time. Chris has a rich background in Chick Fil A. Chris, why don't you tell us how you got started, how you moved into corporate and then all the way into how you have your own store today.

Absolutely. Well, thank you. By the way, for those I. I have not lied when I say there are very few people in my life that are more important than Dr. Robert Room for the influence he's had on my life. So I'm humbled and excited to be here today and I, I love to tell you my chicken story. I started chick fil a 30 years ago, so I did. I came out as a fetus working at Chick Fil A. So I've excited to say that for sure. It was my first job at the age of 16 and grew up and working at Chick Fil a. As a 16 year old I said I love this. And at 17 I found myself going, I want to do this. I talked to my operator, Brad Williams, shout out to Brad and David Daniels, who was my general manager. And I wanted to do this idea of serving people, ministry and this idea of business, of competition. I didn't know you, but I want to beat you. And so like, how do I do both of these things? I thought you had to either go work at a nonprofit or you worked in business. And at the age of 17, I said, this is what I want to do. I want to be a Chick fil A owner operator. And I went to school with that intention, went to Clemson, got a degree in business and a 22 year old kid who was just full of piss and vinegar. I said, I'm going to go for it. So I printed off an application because that's what you did 20 something years ago. You printed something off and you filled it out by hand. I actually, I might have used a typewriter if I'm really, really honest. And I filled out that application and for some reason they said yes to a 22 year old kid to become an owner operator with Chick fil a. I like to tell people that I use the Chick fil a f word and the Chick fil a f word is flexible. I said, I'm flexible. Where do you want to go? Sheboygan, Wisconsin? Sure, you know, maybe you want to go to Topeka, Kansas. And landed in Greensboro, North Carolina. My wife and I were in school. She moved with me to Greensboro. We started a chick fil a there and that was in July of 2001. Was there for two years and then had the opportunity to go to California. Now, so this is crazy. There were only three Chick Fil A's in the whole state of California in 2003. And when we arrived in October of 2003, people didn't know it. Chick A flick, chick fill, chick fil A. They legitimately had no idea what it was. And it was such an incredible opportunity to be a pioneer on the west coast. Literally going into a place where people didn't know what the brand was. I actually remember answering the phone one day and a woman said, hi, yes, is this a girl's clothing store? And I, I thought it was a prank. I was waiting for someone to laugh on the other end and she wasn't laughing. She legitimately had no idea what Chick fil A was. And so anyways, I had the incredible opportunity of being out there for three years and then the chickfila F word came up again. There was some flexibility of a new role at the corporate office and I love new things as we'll Talk about a little bit with my personality, I was like, oh sure, a new opportunity. And took the opportunity to do that from 2006 to 2008. And here's the irony there is that I was in a role of recruiting operators, right? So I was looking for the best operators. And at some point in time I said, what would it look like if I think I'm the best candidate for a restaurant? And so in 2008 I actually put my name in the hat and got selected for Chick Fil A East Lake, which is in Marietta, Georgia. And that's where I am still to this day. Had the opportunity of taking over the Chick Lay inside of Mercedes Benz Stadium about two years ago. So that's been a. A fun challenge that I added to the repertoire in the last couple of years. So that's the short version of my chicken history.

Man, that's awesome. What would you say was, looking back, hindsight's always 20 20. If you could wave a magic wand, would you want to stay at the corporate location and continue to work there? Or do you really found you find your love by having your own store and being outside of finding other owner operators?

That's so good. You know, I really do believe that purpose is greater than function. Right. I get to serve my purpose no matter where I am. So I believe that my purpose is to invest in next generation leaders to help them reach their full, God given potential. That's my purpose. So I can express that purpose at a restaurant, I could express that purpose at the corporate office. I could express that purpose by going out and selling shoes. And so looking back, I really would say, though it's what I needed to do. I needed to do those different things in my journey because of getting those different experiences. My grandfather actually said to me when I took that job at the corporate office, he said, I'm so glad that you're doing this because he was an entrepreneur. And he goes, man, you're actually going to get a paycheck. And I realized that I enjoyed the paycheck, but I enjoyed the challenge more than I enjoyed the paycheck. And so I'm glad that I came back to the restaurant. I'm glad that I have the opportunity to work with young people. But honestly, I could do both. As long as it's something that's challenging and fun, I mean, I'm going to be pumped to do it.

That's so cool. Zig Ziglar used to say, if the job or the opportunity is not bigger or more important than the money Then the money will never be bigger than the job or the opportunity. So I think that's really true. If you do what you love and you love what you do. I mean, I've been doing this since June of 1991, so that's, you know, 33 years this month. And I feel like I just do what I enjoy doing every day. You know, sharing the information about personalities, training, teaching. And so I know you do that. By the way, speaking of that, how do you use the disk model of information? You've been through our training. You're one of our certified human behavior consultants. How does disc understanding personalities play when it comes to hiring new employees and then also placing them on the team? Correctly?

Yeah, for sure. Well, I have to tell the short story about when I met you. It wasn't the very first time, but it was the first time I actually talked to you. You were sitting in the back booth at Chickwee east lake, which we called your office at the time. And I walked up and I just asked you a very simple question. And about three hours later, I got up from that table, and I had no idea how little I knew about personalities. At that moment, you shared story after story of going, yeah, well, I asked this question and then this. And at that moment, you gave me either that time or a couple of months later, you gave me this. Right? So it's a fun book, and this is my fun book. And if you guys can see this, this sucker literally looks like a piece of tissue paper. I mean, it's got notes written on it. It is got. I mean, every page is filled out, and I leverage it almost every single week. As a leader. I just got done teaching five of our recently hired team members about their personality style, went through the fun book, gave them an opportunity to fill out the assessment so they could know more about themselves and how to interact with others. And we use it in every aspect, right? So we talk about this is that purpose comes before personality, but personality has to be known to know your purpose. And so we leverage it and hiring like you said. So for us, you're working in the back of the house. Clearly, you need to have some aspect of a seat. You need to know how to do it right. We need to make sure we're following the procedures. You're on the front. You're on the front of the house. You're working with customers. You got to be the eye. You've got to be the person that shaking hands and kissing babies and having a great time with. You know, the fun of being in the drive through window or being out the dining room. So we leverage DISC in every way, shape or form. And I know there are a thousand different options and ways to talk about personalities, but I think DISC is the simplest and the one that you can teach the quickest to make the biggest impact. Then if people want to go deeper, which I love, you can then go into the depths of understanding, of problem solving and leadership and communication and marriage, yada, yada, yada. So long story short, it's my commercial for disc. We use it all the time. We use personality insights and everything that we do.

Honestly, you know what's interesting to me, and one of my daughters said this after she grew up learning all about DISC as she was growing up, she said, dad, how do people think, how do people interact? How do they operate on a daily basis when they don't understand personality information? She, she said, you'll always be figuring out or looking at somebody wondering why are you being that way or why are you acting like that or why are you doing that? What are some of the keys that you have found maybe are that help. And by the way, this is a pet peeve of mine. I never ever, ever like to say it's the wrong person for the job because I don't like those two words beside each other. You're the wrong person. But I do believe it might be the wrong job for a particular person. I could look at someone and say, this is the wrong job for you, but I would never say you're the wrong person. So how has that played out? Maybe in putting some of your team members in strategic places that cause them to flourish and succeed.

Yeah. So the question, the Ds ask what, the eyes ask who, the S asks how and the C says why. And so one of the things we do is we think about what are the questions this person is asking. So if this person is asking a lot of why questions, we're going to help this person get into a role that's more analytical. Let's give them some spreadsheets, let's give them some data to dig into. If this person is constantly saying, oh, who's going to be here on Saturday? Well, then let's get them in a setting where they're going to be leading, where they're going to be out in front touching customers, touching the opportunity to lead other people. So definitely use it in that way. But I think the biggest way that we use it is this idea of under control and out of control. The under control strength of your personality is in that healthy place. And so for me, as an example, I'm a dreamer, I'm a positive thinker, right? So if I'm in an optimistic state, you know that I'm healthy. If I'm in an unrealistic state, when I start talking about things that aren't realistic, I know that I'm in an unhealthy place. So one of the biggest ways that we use that is teaching my leaders to look for a team member. And if they're out of control, going, wait, is this because they are not in the right job? Are they not in the right setting? Or maybe you're not giving them the right coaching because something, like you said, it's not the wrong person. Something's not fitting though, right? I mean, maybe It's a size 7 on the size 8 foot, or maybe it's a size 12 on a size 8 foot. Something though, is not fitting. And personalities gives, I mean, knowing personalities gives us the opportunity of helping that person succeed and then helping our team succeed. I'm with you, right? I don't understand how someone can go through life going, I don't understand Spanish, but not learning a little bit of Spanish, I don't understand German. Well, then learn a little bit of German. And as you taught me many, many years ago, it's not about right and wrong, it's about different. And every language is a little bit different and every personality style is a little bit different. So our responsibilities as leaders, we've got to teach. If we don't teach, we can't expect them to learn. So that's just a couple of ways that we leverage it in the restaurant.

Well, that's just so good. And that you're able to train these people who are, many of them are in high school or right out of high school or young in college in their learning. I mean, wouldn't it have been great if you had known all this information at their age? That makes me, that's the thing I live with, that I'm a little bitter about is that I was probably in my 30s before, you know, I really began to focus and understand this. Of course, you have to get some life under your belt before you can understand much of anything. But learning it at a young age. I've taught this to 4, 5, 6 year olds and you know, they can begin to understand it. You said something that's very, very intriguing and that's the fact that most people need to remember that disc is not a label. We're not trying to categorize people or label People or pigeonhole them or put them in a box. We're trying to understand them. You know, the truth of the matter is you can be a good D, I, s or C person because dis is about behaviors. It's not about values. You can also be a very bad D, I, s or C type person if you have bad values. So how have you, how are you coaching or training leaders? I know that's a passion of yours to as they are at work every day to combine, you might say the good behavior of disc with leadership traits.

So I want to use a specific name and hopefully Julian will listen to this. I'll share it with him. So Julian's a great example. Julian's been with me with for eight years and Julian is an SC personality style. He is supportive and cautious. He loves doing the work. If you said, hey Julian, you're going to work this spot for 12 hours today and you're going to do that for the next 365 days, he would say sounds like a plan, right? Hard working, just unbelievably kind, servant hearted, incredible individual. Well, as he has grown in his leadership ability he has seen that that is not working. But what happens, he didn't know what was not working. He didn't see the other side of himself. And so what I had to do is I had to lead him in a totally different way than I would lead myself. As an ID personality. I don't want any rules. I just say here's the sandbox, go play in it, go figure it out. Right? And in the last year and this I actually might get emotional when I just think about this. In the last year he has skyrocketed his influence. He has catapulted into the next level of leadership because he has slowed down and started to realize finally I know how to be the healthy version of myself and I know how to be the other parts of myself. It's really hard. So for him to be the inspiring leader is really challenging. But he now, he now knows I have to do that. I have to be able to look at my leaders and my team and go, hey guys, our goal is to hit this for overall satisfaction and I know that we're capable and we're going to do it.

I don't know how anyone leads without understanding personality styles because they're going to end up just throwing stuff against the wall and see if it sticks. And a lot of times it doesn't. Which then turns into poor leadership of leading that person because they're just guessing, right? They're frustrated. Now we got a frustrated organization. So to that. To the point of I don't know that I answered the question. So go a little bit deeper if there's anything I didn't answer. As my brain started to.

I love talking to you because you are me, I am you. You know, we have the attention span of a gnat and. But that keeps things pretty lively, and I know that it does there. Now are you. I've been to your store many, many times, and it seems to me that you many times are not there. Is that strategic? Why would you not be at your own store? Now? When I was growing up, years ago, so to speak, and I heard about Chick Fil A, one of the requirements was the owner operator had to be there 40 hours a week. Couldn't have any other stores. But you seem to practice what you preach by letting leaders develop without you there overseeing them. Is that a scary thing to do?

Yeah. It's interesting thinking about Ken Blanchard's model of situational leadership. Direct, coach, support and delegate is that one of the hardest things for me to do is to not jump from directing to delegating. Right. If I tell you what to do, and for me, that's exciting, go do it. I want the freedom. Some individuals need more coaching and support. And so to answer your question is that I need to strategically walk through that process with all of my leaders. Here's what you need to do. Right. Then give you all the details, then give you some support, and then fully take my hands off to say, now it's your time to shine. Right. So yes, it is strategic. I can't work on the business if I'm constantly in the business. The business becomes too close and I can't have the perspective for the next 3 quarters, 4 quarters, 10 years, 15 years. And so we have to develop. We're constantly developing the next group of leaders. We need to have a legacy. We need to have a bench. We've got to have someone that is going to take over in emergency scenarios or in legacy scenarios. I really did learn that from the Cathy family, is that you watch how true. It passed that on to Dan and Dan to Andrew. So Andrew is now the CEO of Chick Fil A. And Dan said, I am not going to give the baton when I have to, but when he is ready. And so that's what I've done. I've really watched that and go, wow, I'm going to pass this on when people are ready. Not when I want to, but when I. I want to do this. Beforehand so that we're not in these emergency settings. Now, I will tell you, I've had many August that have rolled around and high school seniors have graduated and too many people left and, you know, some rocky scenarios where we didn't have enough people ready. And it has taught me that I've got to get ahead of it and I've got to develop that bench because if not, I'm going to be slinging some chicken myself or salt and some fries or handing some, you know, milkshakes out to some, some hungry teenagers.

You know, we live in a world where I hear a lot of statements along these lines, well.

The Gen Z generation don't know how to work or their teenagers are lazy. And sorry, as I have thought about it, of course, you have to have a little bit of maturity to understand how life works, how business works. How do you take someone who. Here's the best example, you know, Tim Scott, I'm sure that name's for me. He's a senator, African American senator from South Carolina. And I saw him being interviewed one day and they asked him, you know, how'd you end up a senator? And he started talking about how he learned how to work at his first job, which was Chick Fil A. Chick Fil A? Yeah. So he's gone from being a young teenage African American kid who's learning how to work to being a United States senator and also a presidential candidate. I know some great things will come from him. So I guess what I'm asking you is how do you take such raw talent that's quote unquote, lazy, sorry, good for nothing, these teenagers and developing them into people who can run and become United States senators.

Yeah. I'm curious of what the greatest generation said about your generation, of what baby boomers said about Gen Xers. And the reality is this, and this is actually my passion point. So I'm going to take this as my soapbox, if you will. I would like to take responsibility on behalf of every baby boomer and Gen Xer out there and say I'm sorry to the millennials and the Gen Zers. Right. I'm sorry that for some reason we have blamed you when we have taught you exactly what you know. We gave you this mindset that said it's supposed to be easy. Go to school, get an education, and life is going to be easy. Well, here's what you and I both know. That's a lie. The truth is you must do simple, hard work. Anytime we ask someone or we tell, oh, that's going to be easy. We're setting them up to fail. Because nothing in life that's worthwhile is easy. Everything in life that's worthwhile is hard. Right. Being married easy or hard?

Yeah. Having kids, easier. Hard. Hard. Being able to have savings, Hard. Being able to go on vacation. Anything that's worthwhile is hard. And the reality is we taught, especially millennials, we taught them that it's supposed to be easy. And now we're wondering why they think that. So we got to take some responsibility. So I did this actually with my leadership team last summer as I had a meeting and I said, guys, I want to take ownership for two entire generations of poor leadership. And now that I've taken that responsibility, can we all stop making excuses and decide to do the hard work together? And they looked at me and they said, yeah, let's do it. So I think the most important thing that we've got to do is that as the leaders is we have to take responsibility. Right? I do believe I have something sitting on my desk and I do believe you gave it to me many, many years ago. And it's this. And it says, I'm responsible, right? I'm responsible. And the leadership model at Chick Fil a, the heart model, H e a r t s e r b e is accept responsibility and respond with courage. That's a good looking side you got there. We have got to, we've got to accept responsibility. Like, if they learned it, we taught them, right? If the student hasn't learned, the teacher hasn't taught. So if we are going to blame an entire generation of laziness and entitlement, then someone taught them that, right? So for us, I'm ecstatic that we have the creativity and the ingenuity to be able to do the things that individuals that are millennials and gen zers can do. Let's leverage that talent.

Let's leverage.

Let's not vilify it. Let's take it to the next level and to give them the maturity and the wisdom that they need. I mean, that's the whole concept of this podcast, is that we need to give wisdom. Well, how do you give wisdom? You apply knowledge. Well, how do you apply knowledge? You ask questions. And we need to ask more questions than make more statements. You don't tell a kid, don't use your phone. You ask the question, hey, I'm curious. How's it going to spend three hours scrolling through TikTok.

And let that sink in? And don't force feed someone. I don't want to be Force fed. Right. As a matter of fact, I'm going to have a conversation with an individual here in a couple hours and it is going to be full of questions. And I am really sure there's going to be some frustrating times, but that's the reality during that conversation. It's going to be a hard, challenging, worthwhile conversation. But I am ultimately responsible for that conversation, not the individual that's on the other end of it. Right. They're the ones that need to be growing, not me. So that's my thought.

That's. I know that people who are listening this today. I hope and pray literally that you're listening and taking notes and getting some. This is good stuff. Chris is not speaking from theory, he's speaking from experience.

I got to work with Zig Ziglar many years ago and Zig used to say this. Anything in life worth doing at all is worth doing poorly until you learn how to do it better. We all have to learn how to grow up. We all have to learn how to walk, stand on our own two feet. There's a time we just laid in a baby bed, then we rolled over and then we got to where we could rock a little bit and then we crawled and then we toddled and walked and ran and water skied and snow skied and ice skated and roller skated and all the other things. But it has to start and so it's great that you are recognizing those traits don't come naturally. They have to have some effort put forth to them. I remember one time and did you ever get to meet and know Truett before he passed away? Very well. Did you know him?

I did. As an 18 year old. I was the our class, my 1996 high school class was the first class to receive the S. Truett Cathy Scholar Award. So I got to meet him as an 18 year old and then multiple times throughout my career. I've actually got a wonderful picture of where he came out to California with Martha and I. My wife and I got to stand with True it as we toured him around our our new restaurant in California before it was built. So anyways, yes, so thankful.

He was a great, great man and a wonderful individual. He gave me one time. This is one of my favorite things to do. I'm so sorry I lost it. But he gave me a Chick Fil A. Get a free sandwich at Chick Fil A. You've probably got some in your pocket right now. There they are. That's what the coupon and then he signed it. I asked him to sign it for me. So I would go into a Chick Fil a and I would say, is this. Is this card any good here? And the owner operator would look at it, and then he would literally almost jump out of his skin. It was like having a Mickey Mantle autograph baseball card or something. He would say, where did you get this? I said, well, Truitt gave it to me, and that was always a lot of fun. But one. One quick story, and I want you to run with this. I heard Truitt speaking one night. He talked about. He said, when I began training people to work at Chick Fil a, he said I would find a young man and I would. His job would be cleaning the bathrooms. And he said, here's the way I would talk to him. I'd say, this is where you're going to start. He said, now, if I had this job, these would be the cleanest bathrooms anyone ever walked into. And you would put me in a position where I couldn't afford to leave you working in the bathroom because you did such a good job, I would have to promote you to do something else. Now, never will forget him saying that, telling that story, because that's, in essence, the secret to life and getting promoted. You do such a good job that someone looks at you and says, we can't leave them there.

We have to promote them. We have to give them a bigger job or a better job, because what they've done, they've mastered it so well, we need to take them and put them into something else. Does that still resonate with you? How does that work these days?

So I think the. The most important part of this is that if 30 years ago, that is the team member that walked in the door, the team member that walked in the door learned that at home because someone at home said to that young man or a young boy or girl, hey, here's what you need to do. Do a great job cleaning the bathrooms. Do a great job sweeping the floors, washing the dishes. And when you do that, you will grow. Because, hey, that's my story, right? But what happened was, is that parents started saying, hey, you know what you need to do? You need to go in and negotiate for more money. You know what you need to do? You need to talk about how you do a great job in the Beta Club, right? Hey, you need to tell them that you have great grades. Now, I don't know about you, Dr. Rowan, but I've never had a calculus test pay for my water bill. I don't know about you, but Just because you can take a calculus test does not mean that you can actually work. So what we had to shift in the restaurant is to say, since they're not walking in the door, that mindset. We're going to start with teaching that mindset. So we are going to ask questions around, hey, why are you here?

To get a paycheck. Well, that's why you're at any job. No, why are you here at Chick Fil? A East Lake? Why are you here at Chick Fil? A Mercedes Benz and helping them see that they are actually here for a deeper purpose? And when they can connect their work to their purpose, then we can start saying things just like you said. I said this to a leader last. I'm trying to see when I had that conversation, it was last Tuesday. And I said, hey, man, here's the deal. You need to place it in the position. Me in the position where I have to look at Julie and go, man, we got to promote this guy. Like, this guy's doing such a great job. If we don't promote him, he is going to go work somewhere else because he is going to take his talent and. And go apply that talent somewhere else. Now, he has a deep personality, so he needs challenge, he needs choice, and he needs control. So let's give him those three things so that he can grow here, impact the next group of leaders, and then we can keep that flywheel churning. Right? We can get that momentum going because of that. And so not only would I say it is so true, but it is more important than ever for leaders to stop and say, hey, it doesn't matter if they walk in the door that way. We've got to teach them. Because if we don't, we are not going to have that leadership bench. We are not going to have an enduring culture. It's just going to be one and done. You got one great leader, and next thing you know, they're gone. Well, they took all the capital with them because the capital is all inside of here and inside of here.

You know, as we begin to wind this down, you just talked about something that is a soapbox of mine. Talking about soapbox. And that's. How do you teach people to think? And I have five college degrees. I'm 75 years old. I've been around the world many, many times. I've spoken to kings and presidents and shoeshine boys. And I'm very grateful for every opportunity I've ever had in my whole life. But I have discovered the only way you can teach someone how to Think is by asking them questions. Because when you make a statement, if you just have an imperative sentence that ends in a period or exclamation point, exclamatory sentence, or any other kind of communication where you make a statement and you just say something. No one. If I said, you know, it's five o' clock today, well, that doesn't require any thinking. But does anyone know what time it is? Now you have to think, what time is it? Do I have a watch? Can I look on my phone? I have to think. The hardest thing I have ever learned in my whole life. It works two ways. If I want to think, I have to ask myself questions. Like going to the airport. I have a flight at 6 o'.

Clock.

What time should I leave the house? Well, it's 36 miles to the airport. I'm going to allow at least an hour. And I can't control parking, I can't control baggage check in, I can't control security. I better allow at least four hours. See, I'm teaching me how to be successful by asking questions. Then it works also for others. When you ask your children questions, they have to think. That's been a big challenge because it's so much easier to tell people things than to stop and say, how can I turn this sentence into a question? I'm going to let you wrap it up by how have you learned? Because I can tell you're big on the question aspect and you're a teller like me. Either one of us can't work in a bank because we're tellers. But how have you learned to twist that or turn that and turn it into something profitable by asking questions. I'd be intrigued to hear your answer.

So Temptesopolis, he. Tim just retired as the president of Chick Fil A. He retired last year. And Tim Tesopoulos was the wisest person I've ever interacted with. And I got the privilege of spending two days with Tim when I worked on staff. We went on a trip to Arkansas and I literally filled out a legal pad of notes. And on the way back from that trip, we sat at the airport and I said, tim, how did you get to be like this? And his answer was, you know, I've learned that when people speak, I mean, when. Sorry, I want to hit pause.

Tim said, I learned when people ask me questions, I listen. No, that's not what he said. Pause. What do you say?

Oh, there it is. Yeah. And what Tim said is, when I speak, people listen. It's just a few words and so Tim taught me, you ask really good questions, you'll get really good answers. You ask great questions, you get great answers. And Tim said, hey, if you want great feedback, ask permission. Hey, Dr. Rem, can I give you some feedback? Right. Hey, can I give you some insight? You ask permission instead of making statements. And when you ask permission, that they literally open up the neural pathways to be ready to receive. And I'll never, ever forget that, because that's then taught me as I've gone back to, like you said, going back to school and workshops and trainings and all these things that I love to go and tell people, well, I can go tell them, but if I come back and go, hey, I'm curious. What are y' all learning right now?

Quiet pause. Then I could say, I'm curious, right? If I could share something with you. And they say, yes, and next thing you know, I can share that. And instead of making just a statement, they are ready to receive that information because asking questions. So if we ask great questions, we're going to get great answers. And the true blessing that you have no idea, that you just bless me with, is that I get to have a really encouraging conversation with my amazing daughter tonight. And she is one of the most talented human beings. And this was such a great reminder for me to ask those great questions instead of making those statements that are honestly gonna sound just like, if you came into my room later tonight and you made a bunch of statements, I'd go, yeah, whatever. Whatever. Yeah, great. And I just move on. But you asked me some great questions. I'm gonna be grateful forever because you made me think. And that's going to be an enduring way to learn. So thank you.

You are like, I hope everyone listening, they can understand why, like, you're one of my favorite people in the whole world. We could, whenever we've had the opportunity to talk or meet or get to spend time breaking bread together or having a meal together or just talking, it's always been encouraging. And you are very, very special. Not only Chick Fil, a owner operator, but a very special friend. And we share a mutual faith. We know that God is at work in our lives, and that's an important aspect of everything we do as well. One last word. I'll give you the last word, then I'll take this out afterwards, if you could. Someone's listening today and they said, give me your best. You know, people tend to remember the first thing they hear and the last thing they hear. What would be some great advice that you would give to a young person. If you were speaking to yourself again, maybe 16, 17 years old, or someone starting out in life, what's maybe one key concept you would want to leave with them today?

You are enough.

You have been created with a purpose. You've been created on purpose. And there is no striving necessary to increase that or improve that purpose. And if you really want to know who you are and why you exist, slow down, don't speed up. Striving is not going to do anything in creating headaches and heartache. If you want to find out who you are, slow down and listen to the reality of the truth of who you are instead of listening to that outside voice of the world that more than likely is going to say that you're not enough. I recently have slowed down to realize that I wish that 14, 15, 16 year old version of me would have thought I am enough. Because if I would have done that, I would have made so many better decisions. And so in this world that is full of social media and all sorts of input, just so much input is. It's not that it's inherently bad, it's just too much. And we've all got to take a moment to slow down. And if we slow down, we actually will speed up, ironically enough.

That's such a great word. Our guest today has been Chris Darley. Chris, we would like to ask you to come back again sometime in the future, share some more great wisdom with us. You're an amazing person. I love you, my friend.

Love you too.

Thank you all for being part of our show today. Chris Darley, owner operator of the Marietta East Lake Chick Fil A. If you're ever on Roswell Road in Marietta, please go by and check in with him. We love Chick Fil A. We love the people there and what they stand for. And we hope that some words of wisdom that have been shared by myself or especially Chris today have been helpful for you. Thanks so much. We look forward to you being on another podcast, Becoming Wiser with Personality Insights. I'm Dr. Robert Rome. Thank you so much. Have a great day. God bless you.

Bye. Bye. For more information about this podcast, please visit www.becomingwiserpodcast.