Monty Moran, former Co-CEO of Chipotle, argues that chasing money kills success. Instead, passion and excellence attract wealth. He credits Chipotle's growth to authenticity and care for employees, including sitting one-on-one with over 25,000 workers to build what he calls love in the workplace.
Chapters
I'd say that if your goal was to make a lot of money, that is the first indication that you're not going to make a lot of money.
We have Monty Moran, the CEO of Chipotle. Imagine that, folks. Imagine creating a restaurant chain that is so loved that it has a $35 billion valuation that roughly 1.5 million people eat there every single week. Monty, is that number correct?
Every day?
Every day, 1.5 million people. What is your essence? What is that DNA within you that gave you the gift to be part of Chipotle and to help grow it to what it became?
People talk way too much about money and dollars and numbers. What is it? Why is it Elon Musk successful because he wants to make money? Well, that can't be the case. So Elon wasn't worried about money. You know, Elon was passionate and wanted to do something that he was thrilled to do and that he thought would be awesome for the world. You know, I mean, the iPhone, you know, Steve Jobs was trying to make this incredibly designed, amazing thing that everyone would love and totally be thrilled with and think was perfect and wouldn't be able to live without. And his passion was to build an amazing, amazing, incredibly well designed product. I find that the people who are thrilled and excited about something and allow themselves to go in the direction that they're thrilled to go tend to be people who become quite, you know, quote, unquote successful. Now, of course, because he was so fascinated and passionate about doing something beautifully, well, money followed. And that's almost always the case with anyone who makes a successful business or makes a lot of money. It wasn't money they were trying to make. They were trying to make something incredible.
If you read Monty's book Love is Guac Is Extra, you'll kind of understand that this is not an ordinary mind. You would think you'd be reading a book and starting a restaurant, but instead, Monty goes on to talk about topics as diverse as authenticity, as Buddhism, as love in the workplace. Reading it doesn't sound like you are talking to a CEO. You're not. He's not talking about numbers. He's not talking about the traditional stuff. He's talking about being real. And maybe that's why Chipotle seems to generate this almost metaphysical love among its. Its fans, me included. I thought I was going to be reading a business book about scaling a restaurant.
You were. You were. What could ever work better than to scale a restaurant or to build a business, than to actually harness the beauty and wisdom and talent of human beings. But society thinks that wealth is what success means. Wealth, you know, and fake. Well, that's not what success means. Although the things that are, that are success, like feeling fulfilled, becoming the best version of yourself, helping the people around you be at your best, improving the lives of those around you. Those things, those are success in my opinion. If you go into a corporation and in my case, if you become the CEO of a corporation and you bring this love and you care about people and you sit with them, and I sat with over 25,000 people at Chipotle, one on one in every restaurant, every time. But I'd sit with them and I would sit down with them and go, how are you? And it wasn't about the work. I'd be like, how are you doing? Who are you? What's up? You know, and they would talk to me. Oh my gosh. Nice to talk to you. It's great to meet you. You're the CEO. I can't believe I get to sit down with you. And I said, well, I can't believe I get to sit down with you. This is great.
Nassanya Ravis, who's a Mindvalley member, just wrote this in our chat. I've always thought CEOs of billion dollar companies were just mean, rude people and not tuned with the real world. And listening to Monty for the first time, my whole mindset has definitely shifted. Monty, what I love about you is that you're giving and putting forth a new model for leadership that people like me who are aspiring to build a billion dollar company can look up to. Thank you for showing me a better model.
