Hello, this is Corey. Before we get started, I want to share with you a new thing I'm doing for the Cincinnati business leaders. In January of this year, I launched a prioritized leader academy and brought together eight different business leaders and owners. And we meet once a month as well as have coaching in between our different sessions. So basically it's a mastermind, but we've added strong content incorporated faith into the piece. And so it has gone so well that in October, we are launching our second cohort. So if you are a business leader or a business owner, and you are looking for community, you were looking for coaching, you were looking for additional content to help push you forward. Then reach out. Love to give you more information on what this looks like. You can email me@coreyatcorymcarlson.com. Or go ahead and give me a call 7 2 0 3 0 1 8 3 7 7. And this is for any Cincinnati business owner or leader who is looking to grow over this next 12 month period.
Welcome to the win at home first podcast. I'm your host, Cory Carlson. This podcast is where we talk about how successful business leaders win, not only at work, but also at home. On this podcast, we will go behind the scenes with great leaders to hear stories of how they win. Thank you for listening and on to today's episode.
(02:03): Hello, this is Corey today's episode. David Falk is packed with wisdom. If you don't know David Falk, you've probably eaten at one of his restaurants. I know in Cincinnati, three of my favorite restaurants are his soda Boca and not so fun to experience each of them. And so he has this demand of excellence at the office or in the restaurants. And so I want to talk about how, how does he dial it down at home? So he's not just so high control. And so we have a great discussion there because selfishly, I continue to figure out, Hey, how do I dial down my day job of coaching and leading every day to be in a good husband and good father.
(02:12): So a good discussion there, we have a good discussion around ambition because as he has been driven to be successful, and now they have their multiple cities, hundreds of employees. So how has he balanced an ambition? And then a very cool story about he had headlights coming down towards him and just felt a call from God to start handing over his story for a greater story. And then we talk about COVID how it hit the restaurant industry, how they navigated through it. It is packed with good stuff. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did on to today's episode. Hello, this is Corey Carlson. Welcome to the winter home first podcast today, I'm joined by David fault, who is owner and
(02:58): Founder of the Boca restaurant group. And if you have ever been to Cincinnati, my three favorite restaurants, Boca soda, and nada, they are now in five different cities, four states. So he is just doing very well on the Workfront. And then at home, he has three kids. One was just born two weeks ago, as well as just a man that is just going after excellence, which we'll talk about throughout this podcast. And so, David, it's great to have you on the podcast today. Awesome. Thanks for having me. Well, Let's start off. What is that key trait to win at work and went home? The first
(03:35): Word that comes to mind? There's probably better words, but the first word is pace and, you know, backstory. I, I was like, you know, I'm a chef, right? So obviously, and I, I was not blessed with my, my bride's metabolism. Okay. So, you know, it's, I'm one of these guys. It's very easy for me to put on weight and it's very hard to lose it. And right when we were married and we were having your first daughter, I was the heaviest I'd been. And one of my friends, I met this guy in Israel, actually on a trip over there, long story short, he became one of my best friends. And, and he's a runner, he's a P and G or runner, you know, and he's like, I'm going to get you running. I'm like, dude, I'm a bowling ball with legs like that.
(04:17): My body was not great to run, but nonetheless, if you, if you know this guy he's a pretty persuasive. And lo and behold, I ended up, he said, what's your goal weight? I was like two 13 to 15, somewhere around there, honestly like my goal, like 180 9 and I'll never get there. And he's like, well, I challenge you to get there through the pregnancy and so long. And the short of it is, you know, I just work this plan for six months and I hit it three days before Frankie, my oldest was born, but, you know, it's, it's really just pace, right. Because, you know, if, and, and I have many, many years of doing it the wrong way where, you know, I had no pace. And so what I would do, and I'm a sprinter by nature, definitely not a marathon runner. And I feel like that's something that, you know, that's something that the Lord is doing in me in general.
(05:03): And so I would sprint at work, right. And then I would crash land in the end of the weekend. And with my time off and my wife, you give work your best and, you know, your family gets the rest quantity of it's like, well, that's not good. So it was just more of a pace thing. So it's like, what is the pace? And obviously the other, I would say pace in humility, right? So it's, it's the humility to know that, that it's not all about you at work. And it's definitely, you can talk to my wife. It definitely know about me at home. It's really taking responsibility for it. Right. You know, so we're called, as I believe we're called, you know, as a husband, I'm probably leading my family and that's like, I need to lead both sides of it. Right. And my family's way more important than my company is.
(05:47): And it's taken me a long time to kind of get there. And, you know, there's a lot going on, you know, there's a pandemic on a restaurant group, everything else, you know, restaurant being in the restaurant business without a pandemic stuff. So when we had our third, I told people, I treated it like a restaurant opening. I mean, I've got staff, the lore, I brought resources around my wife and it's honestly been magical. So, and we've got, we're, we're blessed to have great grand, you know, amazing grandmas that want to help out and aunts that want to help out. And, you know, and, and we've got, yeah, we've got babysitters lined up so that it's not just your crash landing into this total chaos.
(06:22): Good ones there. David, you mentioned leveraging, well, basically a financial capital framework that you're familiar with using the coaching practices, those five capitals, spiritual than relational than physical intellectual financial. And how can we leverage those lower capitals, such as financial to pay people to free us up with time, whether it's to pursue purpose, whether it's to be more intentional with our family,
(06:47): It's also relational. Right. You know, like who do you know? And if you're in a, you know, if you've got a great community or you got some people that like, who can you lean on? I will get asked to do these charity dinners and sell them at auction. And like, well, whenever these dinners would come up, I would get there. And I'm exhausted. It's my one day off. It's like me and one other dude, and we're feeding eight people and we got to cook. And then we got to clean the house up and her, and I'm like this, I need this ox. So I finally sat there and I said, okay, when somebody asks me, I said, I'm only doing it. If you will agree to pay for one staff member for every guest that you have. So if I'm cooking for eight people, you're paying for eight staff members to come.
(07:24): And what I realized, but, you know, they're like, sure, yeah, fine, whatever. Well, you know, I would have my staff go in there. They loved it. They're getting extra cash. And I would just roll in like for 30 minutes before it I'd hang out, doing my song and dance, I get back out of there. And that's kind of how I feel about this. Like if you bring it up hands around something, all of a sudden something that is world war three becomes like, it's actually the most enjoyable kind of birth. And I've had a lot of sweet time with my two older kids, because especially with the middle one, who's a mama's girl. She was like, oh, mama, mama. And we were like, man, we just, when there's a baby pops out, she's going to be freaking. And so I love it because she's now all about bed.
(07:59): Now, are you talking about the, the who? I think that's a great concept. Just the thing you've heard the phrase for who not, how so? How can I think you and I may be wired in the same where it's like, I can just get it done. I'll go do it myself, do it my way. And so a lot of times my default is how will I get this done? And over the years really transitioned to who can help get this done? When
(08:20): I was younger, it was like, I just jumped into doing, and now it is, it's all about who it's all. I mean, it's, that's folk is going to be 20 years coming up, but my club gonna be 20 years. And I would tell you, the first 20 years, our product was the food, the restaurants, you know, the, the design, the experience. And it sounds like cheesy cliche, but it's just true is that I, for me, the vision that I feel like we have is that for the next 20 years, our, our product is going to be our team. It's our staff and they're attracted
(08:46): To purpose and the culture. So if you're building something other than just putting good food on the table, but instead it's about excellence, it's about just building that overall experience like you do so well, they're in for that. Yeah. And so you're probably attracting lot of the good talent because it's all about purpose and people for them. Yeah.
(09:05): And our purpose is very simple. It's blowing people away. And so we do, you know, we give people carb launch in our staff and our organization, whatever ideas they have to blow people away. And they can be tear jerkers to just funny and humorous and everything in between. But, and it is like, I kind of, you know, obviously I started the company, so it's 20 years ends. And so with that, and that's that purpose that, you know, we find that people are drawn to. Cause I always say in our business is only two types of people in this industry and maybe life, I don't know, I can't speak that. I can speak to the restaurant industry. I'm not that smart, but in our industry, there's people that have the spirit, what I call the mercenary spirit. And you see this in servers all the time.
(09:43): And they, they they, you know, they sit there and, you know, Mercedes spirit, all they care about is getting as much money out of your wallet, into theirs as possible. And then you have the spirit of hospitality, right? And that's like, my mom, like she just can't help herself. She, she give literally the shirt off her back to anybody. And the problem is, is that mercenary spirit looks a lot like the spirit of hospitality. If you don't know where to look, but we, people we're, human beings are pretty intuitive. And you can just tell when a service taking care of you, like they're smiling, they remember your drink, but they don't really care about you. And to me, the spirit of hospitality is where the magic happens. Now it's a challenge, but you have to remind people like we actually have to make money because the challenge in our business is that you really are linked to hospitality.
(10:23): Hospitality is not directly linked to capitalism and financial profit. I always make the case that, you know, of course, if I go into your house and you invite us over for dinner and we have this amazing meal, and then at the end of it, you hand me a check, right? Probably going to be a little offended or think that's pretty odd, right? When we train people, we tell them that, Hey, treat them like they're out. I would say are the worst moment for us in any dining experience is when we drop the check. Cause that's where we have to break character. And
(10:47): Just so you know, that's not only in the restaurant industry, there's a great book called give and take Adam Grant wrote it. And it was just the idea that in all different industries, there are givers, those that have that hospitality spirit, you're talking about where they're, they're giving referrals, they're giving tips, connecting people to each other, whatever it may be. And then there's takers. They are just out for the PO. They're just out for, you know, what's in it for them. And it's a great book to showing that, Hey, sometimes takers actually take off faster in their careers, but then they'll hit a taker ceiling, but givers is a little slower burn. And then all of a sudden it can be a hockey stick. And you know, you mentioned the, the mercenaries. I think they blow their cover when they're kind of, okay. Then at the very end they give you that bill. It is over the top, man. Thank you so much for being here. It come back again. It's like, I have not seen your smile all the time, but I will tell you whenever we dine in your three restaurants, I've only been to the Cincinnati ones. And I'm sure it's the exact same everywhere. But man, it is consistent from the moment you sit down to when you leave and that blow people away. As you call on the team BPA, it works.
(11:56): There's three steps to integrate BPA. If you think about anybody that's ever blown you away, ever did anything for you. You'll you'll find these three things. Step one is aggressive listening. Like you've got to listen. That was actually going to be the other thing I thought of when you said balancing work and home is being a great listener, which I'm not great at, but that would be something that definitely, I would definitely put up there as to, for me to aspire to my wife would definitely agree with that. But aggressive listening. Step one, step two is an organic creative idea. That's designed to blow a person or a group of people away. It's it can be a BPA for one person or group of people, but it's organic and it's creative. It happens right there when you're talking to them, whatever. And then the last one is flawless execution.
(12:39): Right? And so make sure you execute on it so that it is a BPA. Like I always call this my wife, my wife's sometimes bad at the third. And if she gets you a present, cause she lists, she listened to you. She's got an organic creative idea and I'm sure everybody listening has some of the, are. They are this person. My wife has never made it to Christmas. Right. Ever without telling me what I was getting for Christmas. So do you want to know, do you want to know what I got you go excited, but she just, you know, we've had servers sit there where we like have a BDA where somebody [inaudible] covered a book or go to white castle. So we run out and get a whole bag of sliders. Right. And the server comes up. Guess what? We ran out to get your whole backside. It's like, no, you're ruining the baby
(13:21): BPA. When I think of that, I think of excellence when I've been in your restaurants. Excellent. How do you lead at home where there's an even at work too, but where there's some grace, but yet you're going for excellence. I know in my own parenting and running my own house, if I'm not careful, you know, the kids doing their devotions, I want them talking about what is their vision for their life. You know, I've tried to bring the excellence of my coaching program into the home, which backfires. And how have you found the, the ability to in, in your laughing as I even say that as if it's still a work in progress. Yeah. So how does excellent look in your house? So
(14:02): I too made that mistake and I fell into the, well, I know how to lead. I mean, I lead my business all the time. I'm just going to lead it home like I do at work. And that means basically what I say goes, man, I, that didn't go over. Well, I had a good buddy of mine, Steve Emmanuel, he and I were on vacation and he's been a great friend and kind of mentor. And I said, you know, let's talk about, you know, lead the fail. I know how to lead and blah, blah. Like basically what I was getting to was I wanted him to go to my wife and basically say, Hey, you're doing this all wrong. You need to obey your husband. Kind of do it. You know, like thinking like that, he just gets real quiet. One of his daughters came up and was like, daddy, daddy.
(14:37): He's like, no, daddy can't talk, go sit down over there. And I was like, oh wow. And like, you know, kind of gave a cue to his family. Like I need to have, you know, have a conversation with this, you know, young punk. And I just like, I was like, oh, is I felt like I just like walked into the principal's office. He goes, look, you know, his take was, and I've found this to be true. It's like, yes, we call it a lead. But it's more like a shepherd than it is like a, you know, like a chef in a kitchen. And so a Shepherd's job is to kind of lead the sheep into a pasture. You know, you want to protect them. You want it. But you know, you're kind of gently bringing them along and you want to get them there.
(15:13): And it shouldn't feel like they're getting whipped every day. And I was just like, so, and I've been thinking a lot about when Jesus says, let your gentleness be evident to all people would not tell you that, you know, I've been known for my gentleness. However, my staff will tell you. And I think my wife would definitely say this to my staff calls me chef light. Now the ones that have been around for a long time with the new staff, they're like, oh, he's kind of like chef right now. He's not like the old school. And they tell horror stories about driving to work. So stressed off, they missed the exit and then they're even more stressed out. And there's all kinds of stories about back in the old days. So to me, it's one of the things that I think is just a great practice at work and at home and in life is to get alignment on expectations when there is no emotion.
(16:01): So if I can align on expectations with my wife, Hey, this is, you know, this is the expectation, you know, that's the expectation, right? And, and we have an expectation now that we're working on of trying to every Sunday, I'm cooking dinner and we're doing just a legit sit down dinner. Her expectation for me is when I'm off work, I'm off work. Right. And then I'm going to take her on a date night, once a week. And so just getting that out in front way, it's the same thing with staff members. It's exactly the same thing, right. If I can get alignment on expectations sitting here, like, Hey, are we cool with this? This is kind of what I'm thinking and getting, you know, getting buy-in right. Like I'm not dictating this. I'm just saying, Hey, what do you think about this? You know, babe, what if we do this?
(16:45): Right. And yeah. Okay, cool. Well then now that we've kind of, you know, set in and if it seems like it's overwhelming or, you know, whatever, that's where I have to sit there and say, you know, maybe this was too much. And always just like in the restaurants, erring on the side of hospitality, I always, I'm a big believer in hearing on the side of grace. I don't always do that, but I would tell you, my wife would have told you early on the first three to four years of marriage I was all truth and no brace. You know, I'm, I'm still more truth than grace. I'm sure she would save it. I've definitely amped up the grace meter. And I think we all, you know, people fall on different sides of that. Some people are all grace. I know people, especially in parenting, like they're all grace and no truth. And so while we have a lot of spoiled entitled kids right here, just took the words out
(17:31): Of my mouth. Just the visual of the shepherd. It's the rod and the staff. It is it's, you know, it's a little bit of, you know, girl in them towards them and then kind of the, the product truth and grace invitation and challenge. Those similar tensions that we have talked about Proverbs 13, 24, versus whoever spares. The rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline them. And then it says the ESV. I used the paper version still
(18:01): In small footnote. It says he who loves him, disciplines him early. Thank you very much for listening to today's episode. I hope you are joining it so far before we go back to the rest of this episode, I wanted to share with you my book when at home first, some of you have read it. So thank you very much for others of you. You have not. And I encourage if you're looking for a resource to help you with these times of your work is now in your home and your home is now in your work. And what this looks like. This book is being helpful to many leaders like you whores magazine said it was one of seven books. Everyone on your team should read in the book is broken up into four different sections to help you versus about you. Understand who you are. The second is marriage in ideas and tips to help with your marriage. Third is parenting and then last is work. So these four different sections to help you recalibrate during this time and to help move forward. So if you are needing additional resource, I encourage you to check out my book went home first. It is available on Amazon, as well as audible and so on to the rest of the episode. Thank you very much.
(19:15): The thing that gets lost in this, I think for a lot of young, like I got a buddy of mine, he's about to have his first and he's like, man, we got to go to coffee or go on a run because I need to pick your brain. Right? I'm like, dude, I will give you everything I have trust me because I've made every mistake you can. But the thing that shocked me about it was that if you discipline your children early, you really don't have to deal with it a whole lot later. Like it establishes the culture where it's like early. I mean, we can tell you the first time Frankie disobeyed us directly. I mean, Kate and I both remember it and yes, we spank our kids and I looked at my wife and I sat there and in my head I was like, man, this would be really good if Kaitlin disciplined her and sure enough, it was like, she read my mind.
(20:00): She ran, picked up Frankie and sure enough, you know, took her in the bathroom. We were on vacation and she comes out crying and she had apologized to daddy and she did. And we celebrated her and say, great job way to repent. And like, literally it's just, you know, there was like that maybe one more time. And then she just gets it. Like we just have, like, we just don't like, if you do it early, it saves so much pain down the road. Now granted, our oldest is only five, but I don't know. I mean, you hear about the terrible twos and the threes and the fours and we've just not had any of that. And now number two, our second child Gigi, she is way more like me. But even, even she gets, I mean, you just it's and it's also amazing. I don't want, it's not like we go around and speak at our kids everyday.
(20:44): I mean, it's a rarity that we have to, and it's only when they literally look you straight in the eye and they just totally disobey you. Like, it's a challenge. It's like, what are you going to do about it? You know? But generally it's just, it's just casting vision over your kids. Like, we just don't do this here. You know, this, this isn't how the books, you know, this isn't how the folks operate. We don't do that. A fog family and little Gigi just sits there like, oh, and she's only two, but she's just sitting here like, oh, it's amazing. That's the other thing is I don't think people give kids enough credit for how smart they are. Like, look, you can't discipline your kid at that age. They're not that smart. And I'm like, then you don't understand kids. Cause I literally remember being two and a half, three and looking at my parents and being like, oh my mom has all the control in the world. So I'm going to get her wrapped around my finger and I'm going to get almost everything I want. And I told my brothers that and they lost their mind. They're like, you got to be kidding me. Cause that's exactly what you did. I'm like, yeah, dude, I knew it three, two or three. That she's the one who ruled the roost. You know?
(21:37): Well, a little bit of value guys parented is how we did as well as just being your, make your yes. Be your yes. And your no be your no. Where back to your kids being smart or how kids are smart out there. If you say, you know, stop it or I'm going to take that iPad away. And if you don't take the iPad away, they know exactly that your yes does not mean you. And so for us, we also spanked. And when we said no iPad, it was gone. I'm not a big fan of the Hey, five more minutes, five more minutes. I no. And so some of those things and you feel like a, a jerk at the beginning, but David, you made a comment how the age of your kids fast forward, mine are 17, 13 and nine. And it's the truth. And grace has paid off very, very grateful that Holly and I were on the same page with that.
(22:28): Well, and I D I, I will say there is nothing to me. That's more critical to being able to execute whatever vision you have at home, then you and your spouse being on the same page. Cause that was the other thing in my, in my family growing up is my mom and my dad weren't. So I would want something. My dad rightly my dad was always basically right. Like, no, don't give that to him. My mom's like, yes, I'm eating, you know? And so I would see them bickering at each other and I just realized the power struggle and how to manipulate it because ultimately somebody I heard a badass or somebody said, if you want to know what, I don't know what determination looks like. It's a 13 year old trying to get an iPhone. Right. Like they, and they're like, okay, I'm going to go to mom. Mom says no. Then I'm going to go to dad. Dad's says, I'm going to grandma. Then I'm going to go to grandpa. Like, that is not my persistence. That is like, you know what I mean? And kids are, I mean, so being on the same page and I, and I literally can watch my, mainly my oldest sit there and try to pit us against each other. Cause that's, mom's something and mom will say no. So to me, I'm like, don't look at me. We're not playing this game. You know,
(23:33): They are at maybe opposite ends of a couple issues in the home. I think going back to what David said earlier of, Hey, alignment and expectations, when there's no emotion, when everyone's doing great in the house, that's the time to talk about, Hey, can we talk about bedtime or can we talk about time on the iPad or whatever it is not in the thick of the moment. And if you
(23:53): Think it's going to be challenging, like a challenging thing, ask it as a question. What do you think about this? You know, what, what's your take? So, you know, I, you know, as opposed Isaac
(24:04): David part of my story is a moment where I've felt and heard from God. You need to hand over your small story for a greater story. Is there a moment in your life where the David wages wasn't working anymore and you needed a hand over your story for a greater story, to me,
(24:23): Handing over your, your story to a greater story, basically handing over your story to God's story, right? It's it's, to me it's like dying to yourself, right? So I don't know that there's, I mean, yes, there was a pinnacle moment. I was 20, 25 years old, always believed in God was like raised Catholic. And I have a lot of grace for any young cooks or people in my organization or, or in our industry who are really arrogant and really talented it because wow, we don't, we won't hire them and we'll get them out of organization as quickly as possible when everybody else kind of hates on. I might. Well, like, I kind of know that kid. That was me. And so I was, the, my quick story is I was the most arrogant cook and I was also, you know, I was also pretty talented and I was driving down that road and there was, there were headlights coming up that not, it wasn't like in the same lane.
(25:13): And it was just a car cars at night. It was car coming at me at the other lane. It was a voice in my head. Just says, if that car hit you head on and you met your maker, how would you feel? And I, it scared that, you know what on me? I mean, I was just like it. Cause I knew I was, I was, I was super arrogant. I was super talented, but I knew that I just simply couldn't take credit for my talent because I literally my story very much like a, you know, almost like I call it the salt of Paul conversion, right. Because I hated food as a kid, but I walked into the restaurant business when I was 15, all my brothers and I just fell in love with like, this is home, but my hands shook. And so I couldn't pour coffee.
(25:55): I was pouring coffee over this elderly woman. And I was scared to death. I was going to burn her. So I was like, I'm born in the kitchen. I told my dad that my dad like, dude, you actually have to like food to go to the kitchen. I'm like, no, I kind of am. And I got really into it. And then out of that just exploded this kind of unforeseen talent, which was, and it literally felt like a kind of Saul to Paul conversion. Like this is insane. Like I'm, I'm the last person in the world that should either a, be passionate about the food or be any good at it because I hated food, basically my entire existence up to that point. Now granted it was, you know, 16 years of life. And so anyway, I just, when I thought about that, I was like scared to, you know, it scared that, you know what out of me to sit there and say, man, I'm gonna, you know, I'm going to meet God.
(26:33): And he gave me all these talents and this is what I did with it. So that really started a very long and growing. I was thinking about this back when we were talking about spanking. Cause I know that's very lots of people all over the fence on that. And whatever, all I will say is anybody. And I think this is a fair assessment. I get myself in trouble, but I don't know anybody, anybody who has a relationship with the Lord where the Lord has not spanked them. And I have definitely been spanked where the is like, okay. And it's all out of love. Like you're going down a bad path. You're going to feel the pain. The big conversion for me is, like I said earlier, I'm not sure when of converting from, you know, what I'm going to do to now spending the vast majority of my time saying who's going to do this and, and really going from a, a player and, and to a coach. And now I feel like more of like a general manager of a, like a baseball team where you're looking through the minors, you're looking through your organization, who's going to play third base next. And you know, is there anybody on the market that we can get? And that's, and, and that, you know, for me to do that, I've got to release a lot of, you know, I got to release a lot of things to my team and delegate, which hasn't always been the easiest thing for me to do per
(27:42): Se. I think if any industry got hit, the hardest here in the last 18 months was for sure your industry, the restaurant industry, how did you keep your head in the game? I mean, for sure you had rough days, how did you continue to go back to God, keep your head up, lead your team, lead your family. During that,
(28:00): What I did was I did a, a 30 day kind of prayer journey where I just sat with the Lord in the morning and just said, what are we supposed to do? And again, I don't like to take a whole lot of credit for the decisions that we made, because this goes back to why I ultimately became a Christian, was that I realized these weren't my thoughts, right? Like these, I, I, I guess I'll take credit for being obedient to them and listening, but like, you know, I'm wearing this out right now from Domo that got launched in COVID that, you know, saved a million jobs and was a huge, but that was like that. I just came here. Now, let me tell you, I will take a measure of credit for the amount of work that went into it. Because as a God has a sense of humor.
(28:45): Anybody that knows me, it's a minor miracle. I'm even on this call right now using technology. I am the most technologically inept human being you've ever met, but you know, it just sat there and said, yeah, I think for one, the beginning part of James, right. You know, you go to that, it's considered this joy. Right. And, and the one thing about I, you know, yes, we got hit is, you know, there are a few industries got hit harder than ours. And I said this to my peers to try to get them pumped up early on. I remember saying this, I'm like, look guys, here's the deal. Yeah. The crap hit the storm. But let me tell ya, the storm came for a bunch of frickin w we are the business version of baby seals. Okay. Like if anybody knows how to take a storm and turn it around it's guys in the restaurant business, I mean, it's just, this is a brutal business.
(29:32): So from my perspective, I felt like I'd been somewhat groomed for this moment, my entire career, because every night is chaotic and crazy, and you're trying to mitigate challenges. Now, this was a bigger challenge. It was unique. But on the drive down, I mean, I was talking to my team and I just told my team. I said, look, two things. I said a lot. One was, I don't know where, but somewhere in the midst of this, there's going to be opportunity. And we are clearly on a sinking ship. So we need, and I'm just going to tell you, whoever gets off the sinking ship, jumps into the water, swims, the fastest to a lifeboat gets in the lifeboat, rose the fastest and gets the land. The soonest is going to win and a great line from BJ sing. When they asked them, do you get upset when it rains on you in a tournament, if you don't know, VJ sings, a golfer, people are listening, you know, and they said, you know, VJ, you get upset when it rains on you in a tournament, he goes only if it's only ran on me.
(30:26): And that's kind of how I felt. And that's all my team that like, look, this has happened in everybody. And I just believe in our team, I believe that we would work harder. We would run faster than the vast majority of people. And we would just get after it. And you know, the good news is COVID sucks, but people still had to eat. Right. And I, and the one thing I heard is we started getting into, I didn't hear anybody sit there and claim that they were losing weight during COVID. So I said, look, they're consuming calories. They're just not consuming in our house. So we better figure out a feed them and nurse. Yeah, man.
(30:52): Thanks for sharing that. And I just, I love your humility that you had in the whole process. And then, but just sharing some of those pieces, that, how you lead your team and even lead yourself. The only
(31:03): Thing I would say is there've been a couple of times in my career where there, you didn't know, like you may be going down, right? I mean, there was no question. And one of them was we're building Boken Soto. I was like, wait, this may not work. And at one point we like fired all the designers, everything I brought my COO and the time, and he said, you're going to design this restaurant. We're going to design it piece by piece ourselves. And it was basically just this mindset of like, if we're going to go down, we're going to go down swinging and we'll just give it our best effort to see what happens. You know? So there wasn't, I'm not, I don't know a lot of people sit there and talk about like, oh, I never thought I'd fail. And you know, you know, I had this sense that I was just, you know, I never, like, I'm never going to fail. I'm like, no, it's kinda like somebody said, like going into battle. If you're not nervous, you're an idiot. Right? Like you're not, you know, so you, you should be nervous. Right. But at the same time, you need to take that energy and sit there and say, well, look, if I'm going to go down, I'm going to go down swinging.
(31:57): Yes. Your comment about being nervous. I remember a quote Michael Jordan had about, they asked her, why do you get nervous for games? He said, absolutely. I still do. Because if I didn't, that means I don't care. You're not nervous. If you're not scared, then it doesn't have your full attention. Right. I don't know of anybody that is in a storm. That's sitting here besides Jesus taking a nap, David, this is fantastic. What's the best way for people to get a hold of you or to experience the blowing people away.
(32:24): I was done. There are restaurants. I don't know. Come check us out, check it out. Thank you very, very much for your time. I appreciate it greatly. My pleasure. Anytime. I want to thank you for listening to my podcast. When at home first, I am so grateful to hear from listeners like you, that this content has been helpful. So now I would love for you to pay it forward. I want to get this message in the hands of more listeners. We need leaders to be winning both at home and at work, especially during this time. So please take a minute to share this episode with somebody you think would find value in it, as well as rate and subscribe as a thank you, please visit my website@coriumcarlson.com to download a free resource that people are finding value in. Thank you very much.
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