Month: October 2017

everyone is different

“He who thinketh he leadeth and have no one following him is only taking a walk”

I am back to the subject a leadership, it is a topic that is always on my mind, both as a business owner and as a parent. When I first became aware of this thing, “leadership”, I was not really clear on what it was, or how it was different than being an owner or a manager. I just knew that there were people in my life that were natural born leaders, and that I did not see myself as one. I may be behind the times, but it is a relatively new concept for me, this idea that you can create leaders. As I began delving into learning about this leadership thing, there was one simple definition that helped me see what it really means. Leadership is influence. If you have no influence over people, it is impossible to lead. If you don’t have the ability to touch lives, to create change, you are not a leader. Can a leader be destructive? Absolutely, as we have seen and continue to see in world we live in right now, with the tragedies and injustice we see happening on the world stage. So influence makes a leader, but to be a truly great leader there is more to it than that.

Integrity is the variable that determines the type of leader you are. Who you are is who you attract, and if you are working to create leaders as I am, it is important to be the model and live what you believe in.

The biggest lesson I have learned as a parent is that everyone is different. You cannot treat everyone the same, because everyone is not the same, even with the same upbringing and the same gene pool. As a leader it’s like you have to be a practical psychologist. You have to learn to read between the lines and to become aware of what works with each person you are in contact with. Sometimes it means being very strict and matter of fact, other people require a softer touch. Ultimately it means connecting with people and paying attention to your intuition when listening to what they say, through their words, but more importantly, through their actions.

Most of our communication is non-verbal, and that is why “do as I say, not as I do” is so ineffective. People do what people see, your actions and your intentions speak louder than words.

“Above all else, good leaders are open. They go up, down, and around their organizations to reach people. They don’t stick to established channels. They’re informal. They’re straight with people. They make a religion out of being accessible.” —Jack Welch

leaders made here

The vast majority of organizations have a shortage of leaders. Not a shortage of managers, but a shortage of leaders. There is a prevailing thought pattern in many companies that managers are what is needed. We used to be one of those companies. We thought that a manager was the solution to all of our problems. Managers to tell everyone what to do, to measure their progress, to enforce the rules. The best of them help ensure that the workload is distributed fairly and that sales and expense targets are met, the worst of them…well, the worst of them we could talk volumes about. The ones who live in their own little world and don’t even manage let alone connect with their team. The ones who are inflexible with their rules and don’t allow creativity. The ones who think they deserve the respect because they have the title. The ones who have no idea how to motivate or inspire their people. The ones who end up costing you dollars and loss of talent through their incompetence.

Someone in the organization has to wake up. If it is the top dog, great, but it doesn’t have to be. For us it began with an amazing individual who came to work in our restaurants. He is one of the people that I can see was sent to me at exactly the right time, for us and also for him. He embodied the work ethic that James and I share, but beyond that, he has an energy and a yearning to do more for others and to help them along their journey as he had been helped. He saw the coming and going of many people in our organization who we had placed in positions of management that were unable to lead. He continued caring and building and connecting, in spite of the chaos around him. He brought a young man on board who started as a dishwasher, and in that most difficult position in our organization as far as straight physical labor and mental fortitude, proved himself to be a superstar. Within a year he had helped this young man grow into a kitchen manager. How did he do this? Not by teaching him the nuts and bolts of how to run a kitchen, although that of course plays an important part. Instead, he encouraged in him the most important part of being a leader. How to connect.

We all communicate, but CONNECTING is where the magic happens. It happens when you work side by side with someone, when you are there to support them WHEN THEY NEED IT, not when it is good for you. It is when you know that they have 2 kids, or that their wife suffers from depression, or that they are helping to support their parents and disabled brother in another country. When they trust you and you trust them, to be there for each other as human beings, not just in the workplace. Leadership is many things, most of all to continue growing and learning, but it all starts with connecting. This is what we are teaching at our restaurants, we are taking responsibility for the 80+ people that are working with us, giving them tools that they can carry with them on their journey, whether they stay with us or not. Not everyone is at the point in their lives where they are ready to step up and lead, but we love them all the same nonetheless. We have a commitment to share with them what we have learned, to lay the tools out for them to pick up and do with them what they will. This is the culture at Denica’s Real Food Kitchen. This is why I wake up early every day. This is why I am here.

“A Dream You Dream Alone Is Only A Dream. A Dream You Dream Together Is Reality.”
– John Lennon/Yoko Ono

living on purpose

Good intentions are a world away from living with intention.

Good intentions mean you hope things will work out well, you wish things would change, you desire it to be better. Good intentions will get you thinking about what you want to do, but it takes more than thinking to make things happen.

To change anything, to improve your life, to grow, you have to be on purpose. You have to take that leap from wanting to doing. From hoping to executing. From dreaming to living. It starts with the intention, the dream, but sitting at your desk thinking about it will never bring it to reality. You have to express it. By talking about it, by writing it down, by enlisting help, by looking for people that are doing it already successfully and modelling them.

That dream going round and round in your head, that vision of a world without violence, the dream of being an artist, the hope that you will find the perfect mate, the dream of owning your own business- they are all possible. They are possible because we are the authors of our stories. We don’t realize it until we see it, that we can start right now changing the direction of our path. We can choose to verbalize, to vocalize, to take that dream, that vision, that hope, and place it out here. Take it out of your head, put it into the world.

All of the stories you tell yourself about why it is impossible are B.S. The story that no one can make a living as an artist, that businesses fail, that you need to have a ‘real job’, that violence is too ingrained, that all the good ones are taken- all B.S. They are the stories of your life that were written by other people. Take hold of the pen, and begin writing your story ON PURPOSE. With intention. Out loud.

“Infuse your life with action. Don’t wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope.” – Bradley Whitford

bigger on the inside

Is it true that more and more small businesses are disappearing? When I was growing up we had a local butcher shop, a fish market, a co-op grocery store, the “milk depot”. There were independent bookstores, clothing shops, hof braus, corner coffee shops. Places where you knew the owners, saw their kids working on the weekends…Now it seems that the brands that are growing and taking over the prime real estate are the ones that have the biggest budgets, the Costcos, the Dick’s, the Lazy Dogs, the Starbucks. And every marketing expert has been preaching the power of the story, so the big brands are working to tell us a story about why they are not giants that are gobbling up the little guys. But I wonder.

I love small business. I love to go to a place that is not quite “perfect”, where they may be slightly short staffed and going crazy, where the signs are hand made, where the people are genuine and don’t follow a script. I seek them out and support them and see in them the cure to mass corporate overload as they are living their American dream. I get asked often if I am going to take my restaurants big. I get all kinds of free advice and kudos and you shoulds. And maybe they are right, we have something good, so the automatic thought for many is to grow it, but why? For me, as the driver of the Denica’s brand, it is my fiduciary responsibility to my team, my family, my integrity, to ensure that our growth is organic. That means growing from the inside. For the reasons that are right for us. Not to make more money, not for ego, not for glory or fame. Instead a decision to grow our brand has to benefit more than just me, or my immediate circle. It has to provide a place for the people that are working with me to grow into positions of leadership, a place for them to make more money, a place for the people in the communities we serve to come and have a loving, friendly place to eat.

So are we growing? Yes we are growing. We are growing our people, watering and nurturing the seeds of greatness that exist in all of us. We are providing a place where they can begin to dream and to see that we can make this world a better place, one interaction at a time. The love in our organization is HUGE, though our company is small. We are bigger on the inside.

“The universe is big, its vast and complicated, and ridiculous. And sometimes, very rarely, impossible things just happen and we call them miracles. And that’s the theory. Nine hundred years, never seen one yet, but this would do me.”
― Steven Moffat

fear

Everybody feels it. It is the biggest thing, that holds us back from taking action. Fear of leaving something that is secure and stepping into the unknown. Fear of trying something new that we may not be good at. Fear of what people will say if we fall on our face. Fear of not having enough money. Fear of losing love people have for us. Fear of speaking up and asking for what you want. What is that feeling? Where does it come from?

I can pull it up in an instant just by thinking of some of the moments in my life where I felt it. The sick feeling in your gut, the heavy weight of some negative energy that just cloaks your body, the hyperawareness that suddenly occurs to every perceived threat to your current world. We have a global connected consciousness that has a deeply rutted path of fear, of scarcity, of separation. But we also have an even stronger space that is tremendously powerful, strong and able. Able to create a beautiful life in spite of or because of the challenges that we have faced along the path. I am not going to say it is easy to disconnect yourself from the stickiness of fear, it is freaking hard shit. It can take a cataclysmic event like losing someone or getting cancer that shoves you into another reality where you have to question who you are. It can take going bankrupt, losing your business, the end of your marriage, losing your home. But it can also happen another way – you can choose to let go without needing the hard lesson. You can begin to open your thoughts to the idea that fear is not acting in your favor. Begin to open your mind to the idea that fear is not a message to stop, but instead a message that you are headed in the right direction. Fear is telling you to step forward, step up, hold someones hand if you need it, but move.

“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.” – Pablo Picasso

trade up

There are many lessons to remember when you are leading people. Some lessons become ingrained, such as the fulfillment that is achieved when you look outside yourself and help others. Others need constant reminders, like it is a process, and to look at the big picture. Every person has their strengths and their weaknesses, and although it can be tempting to focus on ever facet of yourself at once, for me what has proven to be most effective is to surround myself with people who are strong where I am still growing. If you look at anything too closely, you will lose the perspective that standing back brings. For me, the big picture is definitely a weak point, but I have learned to imagine myself physically above, in the air even, and looking down and around at the world I am living in. I can take myself back through my memory to 5 years ago from today, and scan forward to now and see the progress I have made, not only personally, but in our business. It can be challenging when facing the day to day issues than invariably come up to test us, but if you can see the progress, and look at how life has unfolded for you, then can you really start to believe in the power of process.

I am still learning, every day and every moment. I think that I have found the perfect solution for a problem, only to trade one issue for another. The key is to trade up. The problems we had at the beginning of our business, not enough customers, got traded for the problem of not enough employees to serve them, to the problem of not enough seating, to the problem of not enough parking… The person you were sure was going to be able to handle the project falters, the timeline you had set gets blown, your plan has to change. Life is full of puzzles and opportunities for us to choose how we look at what is going on in our lives. Remember to reflect and to give yourself the occasional, or frequent, pat on the back for how you have grown. Each trade up is another way for us to use the tools in our toolbelt and learn again. Be a quick learner, and keep moving on up.

“A Pessimist Sees The Difficulty In Every Opportunity; An Optimist Sees The Opportunity In Every Difficulty.” – Winston Churchill

answers inside

Even with the best intentions, there are bound to be distractions that take you (me) away from doing the important stuff. The stuff that matters. The lure of the internet and all of it’s infinity of answers to every possible need or problem I can come up with is definitely a level one distraction. The amount of information that is accessible to us at the click of a button would have blown our minds 15 years ago. I think it is an amazing gift we have been given to be so connected – albeit virtually – with what is going on all around the world, however I also think that it has made us lazy. We have become dependent on finding the answers we seek outside of ourselves, through Google, or Bing or whatever your search engine of choice is.

I was trying to remember the name of a movie, that movie* with Kevin Spacey where he telling a tall tale yet was the mastermind behind the heist, and the overwhelming instinct was to “google it”, instead of using my brain and searching my memories for the title that was filed somewhere in the filing cabinet in the corner of my mind. As we habitually Google the cause of our headaches, the best way to terminate someone, how to get your kid to help with chores, are we losing the ability to find the answers we seek inside us?

The work that has to be done is to build the muscle of self knowledge. How? By listening to the gut, and trusting your instincts. I can certainly find as many answers as there are opinions on the great world wide web, but ultimately the best answer for me is always going to be the one that sounds true. So go ahead and Google if you think you need it, but wake up to the fact that for every “best solution” there is and equally valid opposite solution out there. You have the answer already, you are just looking for verification. Start practicing being confident in your gut, and looking less for the quick answer. This is just one more road to becoming more self aware, which for me is the journey of my life. Getting to know me.

*The Usual Suspects

“Inner guidance is heard like soft music in the night by those who have learned to listen.”
― Vernon Howard

start small

“The direction of your focus is the direction your life will move. Let yourself move toward what is good, valuable, strong and true.” – Ralph Marston

Thinking big forces you to stretch. It engages the part of your mind that is mostly busy at night writing the crazy dreams that we wake up wondering where they came from. The secret is to think big but start small. Everything that exists, no matter how big, started with an idea, a dream, started small. Don’t let your big ideas scare you into being paralyzed. Dream as big as your imagination will allow. Write your dream down on paper, keep it in your line of sight, talk about it, think about it. Take the small steps that are the foundation of anything big, and look for the opportunities that are there for you to build that dream into a reality. We become what we think about, and if your dream is kept at the forefront of your awareness, you will begin to notice around you avenues, or doorways, that will lead you one step closer.

I have a dream that my restaurants are not about food, though food is the medium through which we deliver our message. Our message is love. Our message is kindness. Our message is to make our world a better place. It didn’t start this way, it has been an evolution for me as a founder, and as I continue to grow and follow my path. It started as a dream, but also from dire need. I needed a way to support my family, and this was what I was good at, what I knew, what I enjoyed.

It evolved quickly, even concurrently, into being about the food. I know what I like, and that means it has to taste really good to me. It has to have the real stuff, no fake formulated food. That continues to be a priority for us and I am non-negotiable on that, ask my husband who continues to pout that I took away his beloved “American Cheese”. Not long after we opened I began to fall in love with the connections I was making. For the first time in my life I was comfortable with, thriving actually, when meeting new people. The former wallflower had found her place. The safety of being behind the counter gave me confidence to make friends and talk to people from all walks of life as they came into our business.

This was the zone for many years. I was busy, I had purpose, I was in the mix, my hand in the pot, making it happen from the front lines. Then the question began to get through my thoughts…what else do you want to do? What more? The bigger dream was knocking at the door. This brought the growth of our business from one, to three, now four locations. Now our platform has grown, has multiplied in fact, as we take our message to a broader scale. But it started small. It started with a dream, and the dream continues to grow as the people that are a part of it help to create and propel us. Their dreams feed my dream, and so we grow.

action is power

Knowledge is not power, action is power. You can read and study all you want but if you don’t actually do anything with what you know you are nothing but a spectator. Take your health, for example. There is no shortage of books and programs and step by step methods that will tell you how to be fit and lean, but sitting on the couch eating Chips Ahoy while reading them will never get you the result you are seeking. It may be knowledge that sparks the understanding that something needs to change, but action is the only thing that will actually change lives. We have an overwhelming amount of information being broadcasted into us during our day. Our instant access to what is going on anywhere in the world has brought us near awareness and knowledge overload. If we actually took everything in and felt it, we would curl into a ball and not want to leave the safety of our beds, so we filter.

Entrepreneur and speaker Jim Rohn said, “One of the best places to start to turn your life around is by doing whatever appears on your mental, ‘I should’ list.” It takes practice to begin to actually hear those subtle messages from our higher self that are working to get through the noise in our heads. I am not talking about the regret and self bashing “I should have done that differently”, but instead the “I should stop and talk to the guy asking for change”, or “I should call my friend and see how she’s doing”. Any should message that is telling you to help someone else. There is a tremendous power in taking action on your shoulds. It turns you from being a passive bystander into an active participant, an active author, of life. It means stepping up, just a bit, and taking responsibility for your world.

The good news is that it doesn’t take a lot. It doesn’t have to be a huge thing like rebuilding a school for the storm ravaged areas in Puerto Rico, or hosting a family displaced by the fires in your home. It can be small, like asking someone how their day is, and actually taking the time to care. The secret is that when you begin, you can’t go back. The rewards of helping others are immense and reflect back to us by making us…Feel Good. Taking action not only helps someone else, but it helps you. It helps you realize what you value, it helps you learn to listen to your internal guidance system, it helps you feel a purpose, it helps you grow. You can’t turn a butterfly back into a caterpillar, and when you intentionally work to help others, you begin the journey to learning to fly.

leader

“With the greatest leader above them, people barely know one exists. Next comes one whom they love and praise. Next comes one whom they fear. Next comes one whom they despise and defy. When a leader trusts no one, no one trusts him. The great leader speaks little. He never speaks carelessly. he works without self interest and leaves no trace. When all is finished, the people say ‘We did it ourselves’.”- 17th verse, Tao de Ching

I spent the better part of a year reading and studying the Tao de Ching. This ancient Chinese book of wisdom is full of the thought provoking verses that were a big catalyst in my personal growth as a human being and as a leader of my organizations and family. My notebook from this study is a hand written journal, where I would write out the verses one by one, spending as much time as I needed on each one, from one day to several, learning what they meant to me. The book is full of thoughts and insights and sketches, and as I read through it now, a year later, I am reminded again of my favorite verse. The 17th verse contains the principles that I strive to live by as I grow as a leader.

To be this kind of leader means setting aside your ego and becoming humble and grateful. It means being a servant leader, knowing that your most important job is to support those who are following you. It means giving credit to them, and taking the blame yourself. It involves empowering and nurturing the people who you lead, while always practicing self control. It is realizing that you have a tremendous impact, and that the little things make the biggest difference. Interfere less- interfere not at all. Be cautious with your words, you cannot know how deeply they can land in the heart of the listener. Give to give, not to get. Listen more, say less. Which brings to mind a favorite poem by the great Sufi poet Hafiz- “Everyone is God speaking, why not be polite and listen to him.”