Author: Denica Freitas

procrastination or anticipation

There is one thing never to say when it comes to leadership- “I’ll do it tomorrow.” Most of us live under the assumption that tomorrow is guaranteed, but it never is. What is guaranteed is that if you leave for tomorrow the important things, I can assure you that something can and will arise to need your immediate attention. The task you left for tomorrow will get bumped to the bottom of the list, or even forgotten completely. It took me a long time to learn this lesson. I was guilty of procrastination, and as a side effect I had the tendency to over-commit as well as the mindset that I had to do it all myself.

When I was was still in the role of operator, instead of owner (a topic for another day), I placed all the orders, I handled the payroll, did the bookkeeping, human resources, going to the bank, scheduling, inventory, hiring the list goes on…I was often in the place of overwhelm. I finally got tired of learning the lesson that procrastinating would be the dog that bit me time and time again after repeated lessons. Lessons like “I’ll place my orders tomorrow.” and tomorrow when I come in my opening baker overslept and we are short staffed and I am on the front line until 2 pm, well after the cut-off time to get my orders placed. Or lessons like “We are totally staffed, I don’t need to interview this candidate.” and just a few days later someone quits. How about “I’ll do the check run tomorrow” and tomorrow I forget and get caught up and days go by, then my landlord calls to see why they haven’t gotten the rent check!

It was a lot of lessons like this, and unlearning the mindset I had that “I work well under pressure”. The opposite of procrastination is anticipation. Anticipate that you will NOT have more time tomorrow or later or this afternoon. Leadership is the ability to look around the corner and anticipate what’s coming. To see more, and to see before.

If you make a list of your tasks or projects or to-dos, what happens? Most of us, when we look at our list or agenda, do the easiest first. Or if not the easiest, the one we enjoy the most (or least dread!) In reality 20% of the items on your list will garner 80% returns, and those 20% are where you should start. And don’t forget the important things that prevent the urgent things from appearing. It’s important to pay your bills if you want to continue receiving product or services, its important to connect with your team if you want to build a positive culture, its important to eat well in order to stay healthy. If you don’t take care of the important stuff, the urgent will begin to raise the red flag.

disconnecting

I just got back from 2 full days where I was disconnected from all technology. We took our youngest son up to Kennedy Meadows to camp, hike and make giant campfires. It was such a gift to be able to spend the time with my husband and my son, uninterrupted by emails or phone calls. I found myself reconnecting with the earth and feeling so refreshed and at peace watching the flowing river. The extremes in the weather, from hot to thundershowers and hailstorms were a reminder to me that life goes on with or without my attempts at controlling it.

I can’t remember the last time I spent 2 days away from computers or phones or tv, or even 1 day. Even my writing was different, usually I am hammering it out on a keyboard. But since we were camping, it was instead in pencil in the little blue book I have-the cobalt blue cover with “Fearless Dreamer” in gold script that I bought as a vow to begin dreaming again. The way I “write” write is an mirror of my journey, there are pages and pages filled at the beginning, then a lapse with a shopping list, lists of stories of milestones in my life, a list of names I have promised to pray for, lots of blank pages, and then a new series of thoughts beginning at the end of the book moving backwards. There are even pages where for some reason I have written upside down. There is little that is linear.

For roughly the first half of my life thus far I lived a very…how can I say…planned out life. I had a distinct idea of what my life was supposed to look like, and I followed the path of least resistance to get there. I got married just 4 days shy of my 21st birthday, and bought my first home, a cutesy, old little cracker-box, not long after. I worked for my mom’s business, without much ambition, but happy to stay in the safety net of her influence. By the time I was 23 I was a mother myself, and with my new baby girl in the picture, my girlhood dreams were coming true.

It was the birth of my son and the upheaval that he brought with his unique and unexpected special needs that was the first big disruption in the linear path that was my life until then. At the time I could not see it, but now with the wisdom and perspective that time brings, I can see that this was the greatest gift I could receive. His presence caused an earthquake in my small, sheltered, safe life. He was a loud and insistent messenger that there is little that we can control.

That is, and continues to be one of the lessons I am challenged with as I grow and continue this journey that is my life. Life, death, weather, seasons, sunrise, eclipse, all happen with our without my involvement. The changes and fluctuations in life from comfort to uncertainty and back are all part of the natural flow and law of existence, and the only thing I can control is my own thoughts and reactions to them. And it is a process, a journey, a moment by moment decision to let go of the desire to control.

pretenders

Are you for real or faking it? If you are faking it you are more concerned with your image than in the result. If you are faking it you give up quickly instead of putting in the work. If you are faking it you are jealous when other people on your team or in your field succeed. If you are faking it you have a hard time admitting when you have made a mistake.

What if who you ARE is who you attract? Can you take responsibility for the problems you face with the people you are leading? If you are pretending you will attract pretenders.

Real leaders want others to succeed. They take the blame when things go wrong and give the credit to their team when things go well. Real leaders live what they teach. They value humility and integrity. They know that what is below the surface is bigger than what is in plain sight. They know that growth requires sacrifice, and that it’s worth it.

NAB notice appreciate believe

I love acronyms, they help me remember important tools that I use to keep myself focused in the direction of growth. When I am up, or when I am down, NAB often comes into my thoughts, as a way of noticing why I am feeling this way. Feelings are the direct results of our thoughts, and what I NOTICE, APPRECIATE, and BELIEVE are the answer key to why the emotion is showing up right now.

What am I NOTICING? I am noticing that the more I build on my strengths and continue to intentionally grow every day, the more I seeing the positive effect I can have on the people I am leading. I am noticing that the growing leaders that I am investing my energy and love into are lifting me up as I continue to search for ways to add value to them. I am noticing all the good things in life. I am noticing my own process of labeling events as good or bad, and learning to accept the “bad” as not bad, just part of the journey of life.

What do I APPRECIATE? I appreciate the opportunities that come to me and the choice I have on how I want to respond to them. I appreciate that I am catching myself when I react instead of respond, and apologizing as soon as I realize I have done so. I appreciate myself as a whole learning growing person, and I forgive myself when I react. I appreciate the health and the abundance that is available to me.

What do I BELIEVE? I believe that I am following my purpose. I believe that small changes make a huge difference. I believe in the innate goodness of life. I believe that kindness is the answer to any problem. I believe that the positive effects and changes we make in ourselves have a ripple effect on the entire universe. I believe in being open and transparent and generous and humble.

choose love

Be independent of the good opinion of other people- Abraham Maslow

Life is teaching me that what other people think of me is none of my business. Other people are looking at us through their own glasses, which are absolutely different from my own , even though we may have similar values. They are basing their judgments and opinions about my actions, beliefs and success/failures on their own unique life experiences.

Each one of us is operating with a different prescription of perception. What makes you you is the series of experiences you have had in your life. For everyone, our experiences control our actions and thoughts, but sometimes we wake up to this. It can happen as a natural progression of your ongoing personal growth, and it can also happen as a result of a catastrophic event such as deep pain or loss. When we finally come to realize that we are not set in stone to react to everything, that we do have free choice, and can rise above reacting to actually responding, life becomes a more vast and open space of opportunity.

For me one of my big sources of pain was a fear of abandonment. I really have no idea where this came from, other than as long as I remember as a child and a young girl, I felt that I was not enough. This feeling of insecurity and uncertainty accompanied me through my life for a long time. As I grew and became a mother, and more successful in my career, it quieted down to a hum below the surface. This was better than the constant low I felt in the past, but it was not gone.

It would get triggered mostly by the ones I loved the most, as is their purpose. I believe that the people closest to us are here to help us grow, to trigger those reactions so that we can look at them and work to be free. My wonderful lover James is so devoted to me that he would always take steps to ensure that I felt safe, loved and secure. Inevitably there were instances when I was triggered nonetheless. Usually this would happen on the rare occasion when he left for a trip without me.

I distinctly remember in November of 2014 when James had an invitation to go to Maui with his friends. I made the conscious choice to tell him to go, with an open heart, truly wanting him to go without me. Maybe I knew that this was my opportunity to grow, because grow I did. While he was gone, I began to ask myself-why do I react with hurt, sorrow and abandonment when he is away from me? I looked inside, and realized that I had a choice! It made no sense that I react this way, I knew this man loves me totally, and he has always put my desires and wishes ahead of his own. It was time for me to do the same.

I still don’t like being away from my love, when I am with him I love the way we can be in a place of love together. What is different now is that I know that when he is gone (still rarely!) I will be growing more deeply into myself. I have learned that it is really true that you can change your life if you change the way you look at things. I have taught this for a long time in our business, when teaching how to deal with an unhappy guest or teammate. I have always looked at it as “They must really be having a bad day”, maybe they just received some bad news, or their spouse doesn’t tell them they are loved, or they are in pain. By changing the way you look at the experiences that come to you, you can choose to learn and grow. You always have the opportunity to make the choice of how you view your world and the people who come into it. Choose Love.

intention

Its not what you do but how you do, is what I have been told time and time again, but do we really realize how true it is? How many times have you said yes to something that you really didn’t want to do, for reasons like obligation, or not disappointing someone, guilt? But if it is really true, that its not what you do but how, doesn’t the “how” if you are not doing it out of pure joy and desire negate any possible positive impact from saying yes?

If you are martyring yourself or would rather be elsewhere, and you say yes, the energy you are bringing to the interaction or date or dinner or event is not going to be positive. What if you made the decision to stop trying to be everything to everyone? What if you gave up trying to please everyone and really got to know yourself and what brings you joy?

I’ll tell you what if. When you begin making decisions based on your values and truly what aligns with them its a game changer. You will suddenly find a tremendous feeling of peace. You will appreciate the freedom of being where you are, because you have chosen to be there. I can’t count the times in the past when I have said yes, sure, of course, no problem, okay, I’ll be there, I’ve got this, I don’t need help, I’ll do it. My habit of over committing and over booking was in constant danger of sending me into overload. The process of learning to be OK with saying no has shifted my perceived stress into genuine wellbeing. Everything I commit to I am all in, I know that this means I can’t say yes to everything. Take a look at your calendar from the past 30 days and you will see really look at where you are spending your time. Can you see what you are placing value on? Does it tell you what you want to hear?

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.