Author: Denica Freitas

work out

I haven’t always believed in the power of exercise, it was more the opposite, in fact. I was the awkward girl who always got picked last for the team during PE, it was well known I was NOT athletic. It wasn’t just that I had no skills, but also no desire. I could never understand when they said “Keep your eye on the ball”. How the heck are you supposed to do that when it’s flying at you at high speed? Running was always a hated activity, I would beg my mom to write me a note on Fridays excusing me from the laps around the field that were a scheduled part of our physical education. I saw myself as chubby (though I wasn’t), unfit (which I was), and NOT the athletic type.

In my early 20’s I made a brief attempt at riding a bike, which resulted in a spill that left me with road rash on my knees and elbows, effectively curing me of the brief desire to change my image of myself. I set myself firmly back in the “unathletic” category. It wasn’t until my 30’s that I discovered the amazing life changing magic of working out. I can’t remember what inspired me other than a spark of interest in doing something for myself. I signed up at the local community center for an aerobics class and as luck would have it, I found the perfect instructor for me. She was energetic, young, and super fit. Her classes were full of people (mainly women, with a smattering of men) at all different levels of fitness, and she played amazing music as she motivated us to kick and stretch and work our abs to UB40’s Red Red Wine. As I entered my 40’s I was bitten by the desire to run. I began reading about running, and actually began to believe that it was something I could do. I started slow, and before you knew it I was hooked. I was addicted to the endorphins and the schedule I made for myself and the goals of running longer and longer distances. I completed a couple of half marathons and was having fun competing with myself. Then I broke my ankle.

The recovery for the broken ankle was one of the most challenging times of personal growth for me in my life. I was abruptly reminded to slow down as I was restricted to crutches and nothing but rest for several weeks. The independence I thrived on was gone, I could not drive myself anywhere, and my running career was over, at least for a while. What took its place finally is cycling. First on a tandem since I was scared to get back in the saddle, and now with my own mountain bike on steeper and steeper hills.

I just read an article about Richard Branson, the incredibly successful entrepreneur and billionaire where he was asked how to be more productive. His answer confirmed what I believe to my core, two short words that for me make the difference between a good day and an outstanding one. There is nothing like the feeling after you have done something super hard and worked your body, the one and only one we get this time around. It is the perfect way to gain a different perspective on life. “Work Out.”

maximizing

So what now, now that I’ve learned the lesson that the best way to grow my organization and impact is from the inside, by growing my people? I’ve learned about the difference between leading followers, no matter how amazing they may perform:
(10+10+10+10+10=level 50 effectiveness)
and creating leaders:
(10x10x10x10x10=level 100,000 effectiveness).

So my work is done, right? I just need to keep mentoring these leaders and its easy on out from here. Stall. Another lesson. Not everyone you are mentoring and developing will grow into the leader you need to take your organization where you want it to go. There may be good people that have the desire, but lack the ability. Let’s say you have one of your 5 that no matter what you do with them, they are not showing they are able to increase their leadership abilities. Now you have 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 5= level 50,000. This is a 50% decrease in effectiveness for your entire team. This is why you have to be constantly looking at who is in your inner circle.

Not only does your inner circle, or your support crew as we also call it, have to have great talent, but also a good attitude. And like gremlins when exposed to water, attitude will compound when exposed to others. Some things are not contagious, things like skill, experience, talent, but attitude on the other hand is contagious. It’s sad but true though that a negative, or wrong, attitude will spread more quickly than a positive one, that is why it is so imperative to know who is influencing your culture, and to constantly be working to ensure you have the right fit.

compounding interest

“You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with,” – Jim Rohn

I often think of this quote and am grateful to have the amazing family and team to spend my time with. It’s really interesting to me how true it is that we attract who we are, because when I was pushing and climbing and focused on achieving, the people we were attracting into our organization were much the same. But as I began to pause and look around, and learn about what leadership is, there began to appear an incredible fulfillment as I began intentionally shifting from being a ladder climber to being a ladder builder.

My reasons were not predetermined, but rather as a result of finally being done with learning the same lessons over and over again. I think any problems we are facing in our organization, or in our lives, are here to teach us a lesson. They will keep appearing in different forms until we get to the root of the message and grow or change. How many times do I need to stub my toe on the hand weights that are sitting on the corner by the bed before I get the message and move them? When will I learn that if I am not focusing on my food and exercise I will feel crappy? When will I finally remember that blowing up never has the desired effect? When will I learn that the best way to grow our organization is to grow our people?

John Maxwell often says “To add growth, lead followers. To multiply growth, lead leaders.” The impact and effectiveness you have when you are creating leaders, not followers, is compounding. Every leader’s level of success is determined by those closest to him. This is your inner circle, the people you rely on to help you get things done, turn to for support, and seek advice from. In our organization, this consists of the leadership in each of my locations, the managers and key employees that are operating our businesses, the team within our team. In a smaller business, this may mean your entire staff.

Put it this way, if you add 5 superstar followers, lets call them “10’s” to your team, you have 10+10+10+10+10. The effectiveness of your team is at 50. But when you begin developing leaders by spending time intentionally mentoring them, giving them added responsibilities, give credit when things go well and hold them accountable when they don’t, you will begin to see the benefit of compounding. Your 5 superstars who are leaders’ effectiveness is now 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10, or 100,000. I don’t know about you, but I like that math.

reputations

“Reputation is what others perceive you as being, and their opinion may be right or wrong. Character, however, is what you really are, and nobody truly knows that but you. But you are what matters most.” -John Wooden

So much of my identity has been tied to my business, maybe because I share the same name as my organization, but I think it is more than that. It used to be so very difficult for me to hear any negative feedback about what we were doing. Although I am not in every location all the time (impossible now with 4 different cities), I keep close tabs on what is going on. I get alerts on my phone whenever we get an online review, and it used to be that the alert would trigger a Pavlovian type response in my gut. I would feel a bit of dread, expecting the worst but hoping for the best. Most of the time the reviews were glowing, sometimes critical, and other times downright mean. I know we are humans, and as such imperfect, so there are bound to be mistakes and failures in our delivery, but that was a hard lesson to accept. I think it is a basic human need that we want to be loved, and when you think your business is you, and someone doesn’t love your business, it can feel very much like a lover’s rejection. At least that is what it felt like to me for many years.

James would remind me “don’t take it personally”, but that was easy advice to hear, not so much to implement. I can’t recall a specific moment where the transition started, it was more a process of learning to love myself and to believe in my own integrity and character as a person that helped me get off the roller coaster ride of emotions. Even if we are not business owners, we have reputations. There are people judging and sorting and putting us into boxes all day long. Just notice it, we all do it. “He is a great dad.”, “She is a go-getter.”, “He is a hothead.” The thing is that whatever box you get put in, your reputation, is based on the other person’s perception and life experiences, it may not have anything to do with you other than you share one similarity to something they have experienced in their past, so they file you there.

The only thing that really matters is who you are, how you act and the things you do in public and in private. I can see clearly now that my business is so very much more than me. It has grown and blossomed through the people that I have working with me every day. I am humbled and blessed to see the love they bring to our communities and the people we serve, without me being there. Its still a bummer when we sometimes blow it, but we are human, and what matters more is how we respond when we do make mistakes. This is where the test of our character comes, when we have the opportunity to learn, to show extra love when we failed to make someone happy, and to grow.

You are not your reputation, you are much more than that.

good to great

Some people seem to have a natural ability to provide genuine service. You can recognize them by the genuine smiles and eye contact that they give you, the open body language, the willingness to take time to listen or talk to you. There is a woman at the Safeway I shop at that is this way. No matter how long the lines or hot the day or grouchy the customer, she always seems to have a ready smile, lilting, upbeat voice, and positive attitude. I go out of my way to stand in her line when I see her working, irresistibly attracted to her energy and the knowledge that when I leave her line I will feel just a little bit lighter. There is the busboy at the restaurant we went to a couple of weeks ago who was balancing an insane number of dirty plates on his tray, yet took the time to look at each of us as he removed the dishes from in front of us, give us a slight nod and a smile. Or Manny, our amazing gardener extraordinaire who is always so busy but makes the time for us when we need a fence repaired, a tree planted, or help with our sprinklers.

We are blessed to have people like this in each of our restaurants, naturals who need no further prompting to do whatever it takes to ensure our guests are delighted. But not everyone is a natural. The Disney company has service down to a science, and has books and even a training program for companies to learn how to perfect customer service. If you have ever been to Disneyland or Disney World, you may not realize how much has gone into the training to create a magical experience for you. The always crowded parks are a testament to the success they have been able to create and maintain. With so many employees have they been lucky and attracted only naturals? I think no. But you can teach people what great service looks like.

We are definitely in a service business, but really isn’t any business? If we use as models the people that exemplify great service, and teach our team how to duplicate it, can we be like Disney? No matter what your thoughts are about the theme park (crowded, expensive, crowded) I don’t think anyone would argue that as a model for service and success in business, they have it down. We have taken the qualities that identify great service for our type of business, and listed them out on paper. We train our team, the naturals and the rookies, as to what great service looks like. We focus on great service, and service will improve. It’s the way it works. Where focus goes, energy flows.

gratitude

I spent many years of my life in search of happiness. I read books, searched online, tried to find it in other people and see if they could share some with me. There are books on my shelf that spell out at least 10 different secrets to finding it. My husband, who I am so attracted to for many reasons, one of the strongest of which is his eternal positivity, would tell me that happiness is like a butterfly, the more you chase it the more it escapes you, but if you just stand still, it will land on your shoulder and there you are. I loved the poetry of this secret to happiness, but I could not seem to translate it into real life.

I could not understand why I had such a struggle with dissatisfaction. I had so much to be grateful for, yet there always seemed to be something missing. Its not like I was never happy, but for me happy had an opposite, and the opposite was despair. It was a feeling that I was not worthwhile. It stemmed from some deeply limiting beliefs that I was not smart, that I was weak, that I was selfish, that I was unlovable. I was extremely hard on myself, it was like I had a strict headmistress in my head who followed me around all the time, beating me with a paddle over the head every time I made a mistake. She was always giving me instant feedback, things like “you are so stupid, why would you do that?”, and “you are so needy, no wonder you have no friends”, or “you should have known better, you are so lame”.

Over a period of time, I began to not just get tired of the despair and dissatisfaction, but to question where it came from. I began asking myself, why do I feel this way? What began is my journey to discovering what true happiness is to me. For me, happiness has no opposite when it is tied to gratitude. No matter where you are in your life situation, there are always things that you can find to be grateful for if you look. I began writing down as a daily habit 10 things I was grateful for. At first this seemed silly and compulsory, as I listed the big, easy things first, like my home and family, but as time went on, I began to notice the little things as well. It began the habit of looking at how much good there is in my life, no matter how much “stress” I created. I learned to appreciate the things that matter, to become present and notice the small things such as a drop of dew on a leaf, or the fog, or a small ant carrying food to his home. To be grateful to be alive every day to enjoy this world one more time.

The first words out of my mouth each day are thank you, a prayer to say thank you for another day. I am here in heaven on earth to enjoy this life, to help others along the path, to give love.

“Each day I see Jesus Christ in all of his distressing disguises.” Mother Theresa

who you are

The process of becoming self aware requires us to unlearn so much of what you thought to be true. It’s like deconstructing a wall, brick by brick. We may not even know the wall exists, it’s just the result of years of reacting and conditioning and modeling behaviors and opinions from the people around us. The bricks are the beliefs that we have picked up and taken as gospel, most of them when we are very young and as such a blank slate. We come into this world with a fresh start, although some babies I am sure bring some baggage along with them. There are babies who are jolly and happy and easy, and then the ones who are cranky, demanding and opinionated. We get here and we are helpless little bundles of cuteness, and our parents and well meaning caregivers get to work protecting and teaching us the rules of survival. What we don’t realize is that these people that are loving and caring for us all have their own fears and beliefs that may or may not be founded in any reality we will experience in our lives.

When my parents were growing up, they were raised with a scarcity mindset. Their parents had lived through the depression, and had endured periods of hunger and lack. My mother grew up in poverty in another country, at a level hard for me to imagine, but easy to remember for her. Somehow, although you would think this would have made them miserly, the opposite was true. They give more than they have, although they still remain frugal in so many things, as evidenced by my dad’s garage, the car he drives, and the things they choose to save.

The scarcity mindset was the most challenging brick to remove for me, I have never gone hungry, I have always had a roof over my head, and even if money was tight, I was always blessed with enough resources and support to have all I needed for survival. Then why did I fear not having enough? This is what I needed to unlearn. It is a process and a decision and a constant reminder to myself that I will always have enough. I can lose everything and I will never lose myself.

In order to continue to grow, you have to get to know yourself. We have layer after layer, and just when you uncover one thing, there is another one right below. It starts with looking inside when you get triggered. You know when it happens, when something brings up emotions you don’t like to feel, like anger, sadness, depression, apathy. These are all signals that there is some work to do. They are the puffs of smoke billowing from the fire you tried to put out, signalling that there are still coals smoldering in your deep unconscious. The only way to put those coals out completely is to look at them without resisting them or pushing them away, understand that they stem from fear, and then dunk them in the water of your acceptance and realization of what they are really telling you. I’d like to say then you are done, but the moment you think you have figured yourself out, there will come a test of your new beliefs, and another layer of the onion. It’s ok. That’s life. It’s the process of letting go again and again, no matter what life brings your way.

values

Have you ever noticed when something keeps coming into your awareness? I’m not talking about the hypnotic yet annoying marketing rendition of California Dreamin’ that is the lottery commercial. I do think the universe is conspiring to market a message to me when I keep seeing something or hearing it or coming into contact with it. I am learning to pay attention. Values is the word that keeps coming up for me. I have been using it an awful lot lately, a search of my writing over the last month pulled it up in no fewer than 16 times, and at the retreat I went to recently both of the speakers I sat in on had as their main subject matter…you guessed it, Values.

I know my personal values. I value family, my work, growth, health, and love, but I’ve been thinking, what about my organization’s values? Although we attempt to live by our personal values, part of being a leader is to articulate the team values to those you lead. I have been contemplating this, and when we had only 5 people on the team it was easy to influence them and work cohesively, especially since 3 of the 5 were my husband, my mom, and me. The challenge has come as we have grown. 20 people was still a tight ship, since I was hands on in the restaurant and James and I personally trained and hired everyone. The ration of 2:20 made it easier to communicate our values to the people working with us.

But now we have over 80 people that work in our organization, some in the front row, the people that greet you and take your order for your food, and just as many or more behind the scenes, prepping, baking, paying the bills, cleaning the restaurant and ensuring that the finished product, the experience we project, is a positive one for the people we serve. With such a large group of personalities it is even more important for us to clarify our values as a company and what we stand for. The shared values of the team are what bring the team together and help to direct the decisions they make every day, and if you have not shared these values with them, there can be less cohesion and chaos as everyone has a different idea of what is important. The team’s values are the glue that hold it together, especially at crunch time.

Most organizations have generic basic core values, like customer service, profitability and integrity, values that no one can argue are important, but the real power for us comes from identifying specific things that we value that if we are living by these things, the rest falls into place. For our organization our core values are:

1. We value people. We believe every person on the team plays an important role in the whole. We believe the best of people and focus being the best version of ourselves for the people we come into contact with.
2. We value teamwork. We know that one of us is never as effective as all of us. In the words of Mother Teresa “You can do what I cannot do. I can do what you cannot do. Together we can do great things.”
3. We value adding value to others. We exist to add value to the people on our team and to our guests. We work together to serve and brighten the day for those we interact with by exceeding expectations and doing whatever it takes to build loyalty.
4. We value personal growth. We believe in everyone’s potential for growth, and that we believe in giving our team the tools to succeed and to grow personally.

Do you know what your values are? Does your team?

motivation

“Every leader will hit a series of plateaus in their lives. The key is not to say there, because settling on a plateau can easily lead to an elongated season of comfort. Being comfortable is one of the leader’s worst enemies”
― Gary Rohrmayer

When you are first learning something new there is a tremendous growth curve, its new and exciting and you go from knowing nothing to so much in a short period of time. Then inevitably the momentum slows and you reach a plateau. If you are working out, learning to play a new sport, starting a new job, losing weight, your progress and excitement will slow. That alarm ringing at 5 am so you can get the early morning run in will want to get snoozed and the healthy feeling you have from eating better will become so normal that you will yearn for a hot fudge sundae or hot pizza or snickers bar just to see if its as good as you remember. The motivation that was so strong when you started may waver, and you may want to give up. But where does the motivation come from? Its a by-product of doing something. It is the benefit you get, the payout, for the work you put in. The only way to be motivated to get up early and work out or write or plan your week is to feel or anticipate the reward that comes when you are just doing it. You can think something to death and talk yourself out of any idea your imagination comes up with by waiting to feel motivated. Nike coined it just right with their “Just do it” catch-phrase.

The plateaus are gonna happen, and the true test is handling them when you reach them. I think of plateaus as the landings on the stairwells that we are climbing towards being the best version of ourselves. They present us with the perfect opportunity to turn around and look at the progress we have made thus far. Realize that although you are at the landing, you are still one floor or 5 floors or 20 floors up from the last plateau. Take a breath and remind yourself of why you started on the climb, celebrate your progress, and get moving.