Month: August 2017

who we think we are

“She is unapologetically herself” is so appealing to me. Hearing it has me thinking about the image we have of ourselves and how it drives our actions, our thoughts, our beliefs. It is all tied to our being caught up in other people’s opinions of us. The fact is that we are not who we think we are, we are who we think other people think we are. You may have to read that again to wrap your head around it, I know I did.

We can never get into another person’s head and see what they see, so the projection we have of ourselves is filtered through our own eyes, our own experiences, our own perception. I am always surprised when I hear myself being described by someone, positively and negatively. It’s much easier to say that you don’t care what other people think than it is to get there, I am there in theory but in real life I’m not. I get tested time and time again. A few years ago I had an exiting employee tell me I was selfish and greedy because I did not let them work overtime. No matter how I attempted to explain to him the facts about running a healthy business with over 80 employees, I could not change his views. Why did his opinion of me strike a nerve? I know that what other people think of me is none of my business. I know that his opinion is based on his own world view and life experiences. I know that I operate from abundance, yet it still hurt. My image of myself and who I really am at my core is love and generosity and giving. I work and practice and write and read and talk and dream and pray and live this.

But selfish and greedy. That was his view of me. This interaction caused me to turn my awareness inward and to look deeply into myself, and to see that there absolutely have been times in my life where I have acted selfishly. Maybe this is why it hit a nerve. I needed to look at that part of me that has sometimes run the show, the selfish, scared, victim part that can justify anything, who needed to be stay in retirement.

There will always be people that don’t agree with the way you parent, or drive, or your political views, or how you run your business, or spend your money, or live your life. We are so caught up in ensuring that we don’t stray from the image we have of ourselves as a “good father, good husband, good man” that it can cause us agony when we feel the polarization that is caused with people when you are being true to who you really are.

We are dealing with this right now, having had to make a so very hard decision that we believe is the right decision. Although we are strong and firm in our belief that we are doing the most loving thing, albeit the most difficult thing for this person by letting them fall down and hit bottom, the harder part for our hearts has been, even now, with our increased awareness of ourselves, the opinions of other people. Specifically people that are close to us and as a result of relationship have more ability to touch the thorns that are still deep in our hearts.

So we come back to being unapologetically ourselves. To being consciously aware of our actions, and to remember that you can’t expect everyone to agree with you or approve of you or like you or think you are great. To work to detach yourself from the good opinions just as much as the harsh ones and to become more self aware, and to always act with love.

success defined

“To travel hopefully is better than to arrive” Robert Louis Stevenson

We live in a highly competitive world. There is a lot of weight placed on winning, or being the best, or passing up your competition. As a mother of five I even see it in my kids. I realize this can be a motivator for some people, but I define success as something totally different than winning a championship or having the best numbers, or a great report card, or owning the nicest car. Success can only be rated by the barometer that is inside us, and if you are not aware of this you will be stuck in the never ending hamster wheel of trying to be better than someone else. If you are defining success by outside measures, there will ALWAYS be someone who is performing at a higher level than you.

Success is actually a side effect, a by-product, of hard work. It comes when you have given all you have to be the best you can be. Is it possible to win without this? Of course it is, but I know that unless you are giving your all, the victories will feel empty. Only you know if you have given your best to whatever you are doing, whether you are leading a team, in a relationship, at the gym. Its been said that you are only competing with yourself, and I believe this whole-heartedly.

We have been blessed with success by external measures, and it is always a little disconcerting to me when people congratulate me for a busy restaurant. For me, the success of our restaurants is only an external indicator of what I am working to do. As we grew our business from one location, where I was an integral player on the court, a hands on operator, to where we are now, with 4 locations in different cities, it required me to look at success in a different way. I’m not going to candy coat it and say it was an easy evolution for me. It was some of the most difficult growth I have had to do thus far. As I moved from defining my worth as being busy, to defining my success instead as a leader, it required some heavy lifting.

We all have a strong innate desire to feel like we are here for a reason. We want to make a difference and matter. When I was an operator, it was easy to see that what I was doing, the daily tasks required to operate a business, made me matter. But now we are in a different place in our development. We have people working in our organization, leading, managing, doing better than I did at ensuring we are working together to meet and exceed our vision. Now, being the best I can be means I am learning constantly with intention. I am offering support and coaching to those that I lead. I am seeing the emergence of great leaders right in front of me, and it is very humbling.

The reminder yet again is to understand that success is a journey and is built on the foundation of bringing all you have to what you do. No matter what it is, playing full-out and always leaving nothing on the table. If you cannot bring yourself to do this on a daily basis, it’s time to do some soul searching. You may need to change what you do, or better yet, change why you are doing it. I never liked doing laundry, but I have found a why that makes it something I like to do. It is something I do to show my family I love them, and it is an opportunity for me to practice being present as I fold the clothes. I didn’t like to answer the email complaints we get when we fail to deliver on our promises of exceptional food and service, but now I put my all of my heart and love into the apologies and replies, and am grateful for the opportunity to hopefully make things right with the person. Success means that I have given my all, no matter what the result, win or lose. It’s all in how you run the race.

dream lesson

Do you ever wake up from a dream only to go right back into it? If its a good dream I get fuzzy and happy, but the last time this happened I kept going back into the dream/nightmare of having to sing on stage. I love to sing, but I sing in my car. When no one’s around. I remember when my son was a baby and I sang him a lullaby and he cried. Despite years of being in choir, I am not a singer. Yet for some reason my subconscious last night had me singing solo with a guitarist on stage to a song I didn’t know. I don’t usually put much weight on the importance of dreams, but as I reflect on this dream, it seems to be sending me a couple of lessons that have been coming up a lot lately for me.

Preparation and fear. “If you fail to prepare, you are preparing to fail” is a quote I have used when gearing up my team for a busy holiday, and my dream-identity’s obvious failure to prepare for the stage is a vivid reminder of the fear that can rise up when you’ve not done the groundwork. As I am leading my new projects at work and continuing to grow my business, preparation is the left side of success- fear is the right. It can be so easy though to take it to the extreme and spend so much time on preparation that you never face the fear and take action. This brings to mind another quote, just as important, “Do it afraid”. You may never feel ready, but that’s ok. Your mindset must be I am always ready, because opportunity knocks once.

Do It Afraid!

patience

I struggle with impatience, I know it is one of my weaknesses. When I decide I want to do something, it is like lighting a fuse on a stick of dynamite. I begin to become more and more aware of the thing I want to do or be or see or try. It’s especially hard when I can envision how I want something to be. The gap between where I see things being and where they actually are is the testing ground for my practice of patience. It takes time to build a business, it takes vision and consistency and few rewards for the hours spent building the foundation.

We may have been in this business for 17 years, but when I look at the path that has let us to where we are today, I see that James’s first restaurant job working as a busboy at Dino’s was just one of the places where the seeds were sown in the field that is our life today. The Saturdays in high school that I didn’t want to work at my mom’s bridal shop were the path to learning to sacrifice for the family business. The winters in Tahoe were where James learned the value of a free meal while holding two jobs, one of them at the ski slopes and one in restaurants. Being able to keep the proceeds from the little shop my parents helped my sister and I set up when we were in our early teens was the beginning of my lessons on managing money. The years in Maui where James had his first experiences with entrepreneurship, where he learned the value of being the boss. The moonlighting I did making wedding cakes while I worked on bookkeeping for my mom’s company were the testing grounds for being self motivated. The excitement of having something new to offer the community when James brought espresso to Castro Valley in the early days at Cookie Express was the inspiration for innovation. The realities of starting a new business with young children and little financial resources…bouncing checks and selling tires to pay rent…learning to be resourceful. All the time spent along the ride we were learning the lessons and building the foundation of our lives now.

So my impatience gets tempered when I reflect back and see that it’s a process. Every step along the way is a chance to move in the direction of my vision. I can clearly remember the feeling when we could not do what other people around us were doing. We could not take vacations, we could not buy cars, we put every dollar back into the business, and all of our energy as well. Our kids grew up in the restaurant. The kids came in while we worked in the morning and after school, and watched cartoons while they did their homework. The train tables we have in our restaurants were to help entertain our kids while we worked. The photos of our family on the walls are because the restaurant is an extension of our family, and we spent most of our awake time at the original Denica’s in Dublin.

This world of right now can only perpetuate the impatience, which is why reflecting on the journey and the building blocks to today remind me of how life unfolds with our without my impatience.

be kind or be right

Have you noticed that in a lot of the more heated conversations you have witnessed or participated in there is a battle of the egos being played? There is a back and forth, each person rallying back their opinion or statement, focused on being right. The ego wants to be right all the time, and if we are not aware of this, or even if we are, but caught up in the discussion, it will take the reins and charge. It can be like a horse racing out of control, the desire to prove to the other person that they are wrong and you are right. The truth is that you may be right, but that you have a choice. The choice is whether to be kind, or whether to be right. Choose the higher choice, choose to be kind instead of right and notice the effect on the person you are in debate with. It is powerful stuff.

enjoy the ride

My lungs were burning as I grinded up the hill, keeping my eyes focused just a little in front of my front tire. It had been at least 4 months since I was on my bike. Life had gotten in the way, and as I sometimes do, I forgot the incredible high from getting a great workout. I kept pedaling and breathing and working to keep my mind from going to the deadly thoughts of stopping to rest. If I keep my eyes only on the dirt, I don’t look up the hill at the steep incline still in front of me. I finally reach a little part that is still uphill but not as steep, and fool myself into thinking its flat, telling my dying lungs, recover, recover. I make it to the top and immediately take a moment to put my feet on the ground, panting, sweating from my head to my dripping back, and let my heart slow. I know this trail well, it’s close to my house and I have ridden it many times. Without stopping or falling. I have also had it kick my butt more than once, as my beautifully scarred knees are evidence of.

The next section is a rolling hill to the point where it becomes technical. This is always the scariest part for me, the steep downhill that requires intense concentration, trust in God and the bike. The deep grooves, ruts, roots and rocks that are signature on this trail have sent me skidding at best and over the handlebars in a youtube worthy spill at worst not too long ago. I practice a mantra as I navigate the downhill, “You got this, trust the bike, keep your eyes where you want to go” over and over in my head to keep out the fear. I let myself stop and walk a particularly steep section, forgiving myself for not being brave. When I blessedly reach the bottom I am excited because the last part of my ride is my favorite. The rolling hills are just hilly enough to require little pedaling, the momentum from the smooth downhill carries me right up the next incline and I am able to let go and smile, breathe and feel the joy and thrill of the wind cooling my sweaty self.

This part makes it all worth it and is when I am reminded why I love to mountain bike. It’s such a perfect metaphor for my life, the hard steep uphills when we are working to build something new whether it is a new restaurant, or striving to buy our dream home, or raising our young family full of little ones years ago. Then comes the really hard part, after we open, the tweaks and reversals and start overs you have to make when learning something new or raising teenagers or stretching your limits. But finally there comes a time when you can breathe, coast a little and really take a look at what you have done. This is where I say thank you, thank you for the ride, then start again.

“Though the road’s been rocky it sure feels good to me.”
― Bob Marley

crazy teenager

There are so many moving parts in any business that it seems like it can sometimes be a never ending process to get things right. Even in a well run organization, there are inevitable leaks that spout as you are growing and moving forward with momentum. There is a pattern, or a life cycle in all businesses, no matter whether you are a restaurant, a tech company, a real estate group, a construction company…Big and small, we all face similar challenges as we grow. It’s not unlike the lifecycle of a human being, with the intense attention needed when your business is a newborn, to the chaos that ensues during the go-go grow phase, like an out of control teenager. Even when a business hits it prime, then inevitably starts to age, like we see now with brands like Sears, Red Robin, Chili’s, it’s just part of the cycle of life.

In our business we were teenagers for a very long time. I like to think now we have advanced to young adults, but there are still times when I wonder if I am not unlike my little 3 year old niece who insists she’s a big girl. Much of our teenager phase was recognizable by the lack of systems and the issues we faced. We spent a lot of energy and time “putting out fires” and plugging the holes that would happen all the time. It was like trying to hold a handful of goo. No matter how close I held my fingers together, there would inevitably be a leak, then another and another as I addressed each one. Teenagers are fearless. You can caution them and warn them about the perils of driving fast, but they want to learn by their own mistakes. We were in crisis mode all the time.

So how did we grow up? I made the decision. I got tired of the chaos and realized that I was the leader. It was time for me to grow up and take responsibility for the challenges we faced. We decided to stop hiring from desperation. We stopped assuming our people knew what to do just because they were experienced or well paid. We limited what we were focusing on, and changed that focus to leadership. We changed our inner circle and listened to different voices. We put new leaders in charge. This all gave momentum to the next phase in our growth. By focusing on our people and developing their leadership we are growing from the inside out. Instead of the pedal to the metal method of our adolescence, we have transformed into gardeners, planting seeds that are pushing from the bottom up towards the light. The process of developing leaders takes time. The seeds of greatness lay dormant until the conditions are right for them to germinate and grow. It is our mission now as leaders to find those seeds in our people and help them grow.

The decision to change the course of my organization, from the toddler stage when I was so in love with what we were selling, to the teenager stage when I was so in love with our guests, to the stage we are in now, where we are in love with our tribe, has brought me so much energy and keeps me motivated and loving what I do. I needed to redefine what we are here to do. I believe I am here on this earth still because my work is not done. I am here to help and serve the people in our tribe, which includes the employees, the clients, the vendors, and our communities. This is what gets me up early every day and keeps me smiling no matter what.

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.” E.E. Cummings

kill them with kindness

I know I can’t make everyone happy, but in business I certainly give it my best efforts. Ultimately your customers and clients want to know you care. If they know you care and are listening to them its like earning credits in a game of pinball. You may blow it once, twice, even many times, but as long as there are credits left they will let you play again. You earn those credits not by buying them with a quarter, but by adding value in other ways. By giving them more than they expect, by over delivering, by under-promising, by getting it to them sooner, sometimes by being more expensive thus more exclusive. By returning their phone calls or emails quickly, as if you were standing by waiting for their contact. By genuinely caring about their time and being on time to your appointments, or in our case when serving their meal. If you don’t care about your customer, you better start now or get out. You need to love them more than the widget or service or cookies you sell. It doesn’t matter how great your product is if you fail to build and create the relationships with the people who will buy it. And maintain those relationships through the thick and thin.

James had a famous in our family customer that would come in to his cookie store and complain every time. If he wasn’t there she would let him know that the cashiers were gossiping. If he was there she would complain that the muffin she wanted was too small. Or the windows were dirty or he was too expensive or she didn’t like the pictures on his wall. This went on for some time, yet she still came in. She would park herself in the cookie store with the old guys in the corner and complain. Complain about life or her daughter or whatever current event going on. How did this customer become one of our biggest fans? James practiced kindness. He would apologize, sympathize, and truly listen to her complaint, making it right whenever he could. If you can turn around the biggest complainer they will still broadcast, but a different message about you.

If you get defensive when you get a complaint, you are in love with your product. Take a look at that and stop taking it personally. Even if the product is you. Love your client, your guest, your customer. They are, or should be the reason you are doing what you do.

why I write

As I sit here contemplating what to write, my mind goes to why I am writing. When I was a young girl I would write in a journal, but for some reason stopped. My memories of my early writing are littered with the experiences that may have turned me off to putting my thoughts down on paper. There were the countless times where my mother read my journal and sat me down to talk about my very private thoughts, a violation of the highest level to any youngster, although now as a mother myself I have more sympathy for why she would do that. There was the time I left my journal under the desk in my social studies class as a junior in high school. Typically, my journal back then was full of the dreams and agonies that my teen years were full of. My horror was only exceeded by my embarrassment when one of my friends brought the journal to me, sternly telling me “You really should keep track of where you leave this, people were reading it.” At that time the ramblings were about my crush on the popular football player at our school, “Chad”, and I was sure the story circled around to him to my dismay. For the next year and a half until graduation I avoided any possible contact with him or anyone in his group, dropping my eyes if we passed in the hall and doing my best to become invisible.

But here I am, doing it again, putting my thoughts down, but this time in an intentionally public way. Why? It has become clear to me that I really love to write. And I am proud of my journey, the mistakes and all. The how I write means more I think at this moment than why. When I committed to writing every day, I did not think about “well what if I have nothing to write?” There have been days where I sit here in my writing space and need to quiet my mind to hear my thoughts, if that makes sense. Much of the time, though, I wake up with words jumbling in my mind and need to force myself to first let the dogs out and start the coffee brewing before sitting down to get it out. When I write it is like my mind is turned off, the words flow through me and into my fingers The writing is littered with misspelled words, usually transposed i and e or for some reason I exchange the c’s for x’s. I let it all flow out for as long as it needs to, then I pause and read over what I have written.

The process tells me that I am doing what I should be doing. The inspiration and words are coming from deep inside me, or from somewhere else, I am not sure. It is the same when you are involved in any project where you are in the flow, things are moving seemingly perfectly in sync and you lose track of time. I would like to think that we all have times when this is what we experience, and if we don’t something needs to change. When we are in the flow, or the zone, and what we do doesn’t seem like work, that is the juice. That is when the universe conspires to help us, and the right people or ideas or resources show up a the exact moment that you need them. I have been here many times in my life, but it is only now in retrospect that I can see it. It has meant becoming more aware of who I really am, and unapologetically being that person. Not some image of who I think I should be, but me.

branding

If you are trying to be everything to everybody you will be nothing to no one. There is always going to be a percentage of the population who loves you, a percentage who can’t stand you, and those who don’t care. Your primary focus must remain on your authentic voice and your vision.

This means not taking it personally when you have critics. In actuality, embrace it. Take the feedback and grow from it if you can. Ignore the haters and nay-sayers, they are not your tribe. Live with integrity and focus your energy and attention on the ones who love you. They are the ones who need to hear your message, the ones who want what you are providing, who can propel your brand.

There is tremendous power in the tribe of people who love and support you. Exceed their expectations and always ask yourself how you can add more value to them. Listen to them, always, but especially when they give you feedback. Feedback is the most valuable opportunity to make things better for your tribe, team, clients, followers, organization.

When you are on the inside looking out your view is very one dimensional, depending on your personality you may be focusing on all the little details that are not perfect, or turning a blind eye to potentially damaging issues that can be percolating in your group. Feedback from your tribe is the way to look from the outside in. This view is the perception you are projecting. Checking often with your tribe helps to ensure you are staying true to your values.

When building your brand never compromise on your standards, always be open to new and better ways, and know that your people are your biggest asset.