Episode

Debra Sunderland Coaching

September 05, 2024 01:15:53

Brandon Styll relaunches Brandon's Book Club with executive coach Debra Sunderland, who guides him and the audience through The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer and Diana Chapman.

Episode Summary

Brandon Styll relaunches Brandon's Book Club with executive coach Debra Sunderland, who guides him and the audience through The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer and Diana Chapman. Debra shares her own wake-up call, a near-fatal bike crash at age 42 that pulled her out of an autopilot life of overachievement, and explains how that experience shaped her approach to coaching CEOs and business owners. The conversation centers on living above the line versus below the line, taking radical responsibility, and getting curious instead of falling into blame, shame, or hero behavior.

Brandon opens up about his own patterns, the urge to control three restaurants, to fix discomfort for others, and to hero his way through problems like running out of strawberries on a Sunday brunch. Debra walks him through how leaders unintentionally create the results they don't want, why clarity breeds trust, and how to identify your genius zone instead of draining yourself in tasks you only tolerate. Listeners are invited to read the book's introduction and first two commitments before Debra returns at the end of September.

Brandon also previews Burger Patty, a Monday and Tuesday pop-up at Chago's with Arnold Myint reviving the legendary PM Burger, the Cafe Cheesery now open at the Frist, the Gordon Food Service show in Louisville, the What Chefs Want warehouse open house, and a Giving Kitchen tequila tasting fundraiser at Marbol on October 17.

Key Takeaways

  • Conscious leadership starts with asking what part you played in the result you don't want, instead of defaulting to blame or shame.
  • Above the line means leading from curiosity, trust, and openness; below the line means leading from control, fear, and defense, and our brains default to below the line 96 to 98 percent of the time.
  • Heroing, stepping into your team's lane to fix things, signals distrust, exhausts the leader, and trains employees to disengage or wait for you to take over.
  • Clarity breeds trust. Slow down to set specific expectations and confirm a whole yes from your team rather than issuing mandates.
  • Identify your genius zone, the work that energizes you, and delegate the incompetence and competence quadrants so you stop draining yourself on tasks someone else would love.
  • When something goes wrong, like an employee stealing or a missing prep order, look back at the red flags you blew past in hiring, agreements, or accountability conversations.
  • Leaders cannot lead clearly when they are trying to keep everyone comfortable; sitting with someone else's discomfort is part of the job.

Chapters

  • 02:18Welcome Back to Brandon's Book ClubBrandon Styll reintroduces the book club format and frames the episode around The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.
  • 04:24Heroing, Curiosity, and Owning the ResultBrandon shares his biggest takeaway so far, that fixing other people's discomfort isn't leadership and that leaders must ask what part they play in unwanted results.
  • 07:18Nashville Industry AnnouncementsUpdates on the Cafe Cheesery opening at the Frist, the GFS food show in Louisville, the What Chefs Want warehouse open house, the Burger Patty pop-up at Chago's with Arnold Myint, and the Giving Kitchen Raising Spirits event at Marbol.
  • 13:26Meet Debra SunderlandDebra introduces her coaching, management, and hemp businesses and her academic background in political science, an NYU inner MBA, and emotional intelligence work with Daniel Goleman.
  • 17:51From Bike Crash to CoachingDebra recounts the high-speed crash and coma at age 42 that exposed her autopilot achievement pattern and pushed her into conscious leadership work.
  • 19:23Above the Line vs Below the LineDebra explains the amygdala-driven default to safety, why comfort blocks growth, and the difference between leading from curiosity versus control.
  • 22:58Three Lanes and the Hero TrapA breakdown of my lane, your lane, and the universe's lane, and how heroing erodes trust and pushes good employees out.
  • 34:30The Drama Triangle and VictimhoodHow victim, hero, and villain roles keep leaders looking outside themselves for safety, and why awareness of the pattern is the way out.
  • 37:30Three Questions Most CEOs FailDebra asks whether you believe you are enough, have enough, and know how to love yourself, and explains why fear-based leadership cannot create abundance.
  • 45:13How to Actually Look in the MirrorPractical first steps for self-inquiry: notice the ego's voice, choose a new thought, and rewire it through repetition and neuroplasticity.
  • 53:08Living in Your Genius ZoneWalking through the four quadrants of incompetence, competence, excellence, and genius, with Brandon identifying podcasting and Friday night service as his genius.
  • 01:00:50The Strawberry StoryBrandon's real-time example of being asked to buy berries on a Sunday morning becomes a case study in heroing, anger, and the missing curiosity conversation.
  • 01:08:56Results Show You What You HaveDebra reframes unwanted results as honest data and challenges leaders to look at hiring decisions, ignored red flags, and unclear agreements.
  • 01:13:30Reading Assignment and Wrap-UpBrandon and Debra assign the introduction plus commitments one and two of the book before Debra returns at the end of September.

Notable Quotes

"If you own a business and you are not growing, your business isn't growing. As much as a leader grows, it's as quickly as their business will grow or not grow."

Debra Sunderland, 15:16

"You want to get good and uncomfortable around the patterns that have served you well but no longer serve you."

Debra Sunderland, 20:18

"If we get in the other person's lane, they unconsciously, not intentionally, believe you don't trust them, and that builds a lack of trust on both sides."

Debra Sunderland, 31:17

"Your result shows you not what you want, but what you have. A conscious leader is going to get their quickest learning by looking at what is really there, not making up a story."

Debra Sunderland, 01:09:00

Topics

Conscious Leadership Restaurant Ownership Emotional Intelligence Coaching Book Club Drama Triangle Genius Zone Radical Responsibility Nashville Events Burger Pop-Up
Mentioned: Cafe Cheesery, Frist Center for the Arts, Chago's, Marbol, International Market, PM
Full transcript

00:00Are you looking to grow your business or are you looking to start a business? Finding a retail spot is number one. You gotta do this. And that is why we're talking about the Chandler James Retail Team at Lee & Associates. Miller Chandler and Leann James are your go-to brokers to do just that. They're located downtown in the heart of it all in the Batman building and they're serving all of Middle Tennessee. Let me tell you, both Miller and Leann are Tennessee native so you know they know the neighborhoods. They know they know the demographics and they can help you find your dream location. Now here's the cool part. Chandler James can help you find and negotiate terms on your next restaurant location. They represent both retail tenants and landlords in our market, which means they can also help you with lease versus buy decisions and act as your leasing agent should you ever decide to go all in and purchase commercial real estate. If you'd like to get ahold of them, give them a call at the office. Their phone number is 615-751-2340.

01:05That is the Chandler James Retail Team. Give them a call today. At What Chefs Want, they deliver the seven most needed product lines to meet the unique needs of chefs and restaurateurs. From local to global and from staple items to gourmet rarities, they have the variety of products to cover all of your needs. Produce, seafood, meats, gourmet, staples, to-go and dairy. At What Chefs Want, they're transforming food service by eliminating minimum orders, offering split cases and providing daily deliveries with 24-7 customer support. This means chefs have the flexibility to order what they need when they need it. Experiment with new ingredients and keep their kitchens consistently stocked with fresh supplies. It's all about empowering culinary creativity while streamlining operations. Check them out at whatchefswant.com or give them a call at 800-600-8510. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City.

02:11Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello, Music City. And welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll. I'm the host of Nashville Restaurant Radio. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host. We are powered by Gordon Food Service and this is a welcome back to Brandon's Book Club. Big time. First off, I wanna address, Crystal's not on this episode. I do wanna make the announcement that the Cafe Cheesery in the Frist Center for the Arts is now open. So next time you wanna go do fromage-focused food, you can go to the Cafe Cheesery in the Frist Center for the Arts. And she has been busy as hell getting that thing going together. So I've done a couple episodes here with some industry-adjacent people and I thought this was a great time to bring back Brandon's Book Club.

03:16I've made reference to my business coach or this person that I'm working with and today I have her on the show. Her name is Deborah Sunderland and she practices a book called The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. We talk all about it in the interview and I cannot wait to share it with you. But I'll tell you, we all think that we're doing the best job that we possibly can and I've been doing this for 30 years. And I think I'm a leader and I can get out there and do it and man, every time I go in there, it just sharpens those knives. I mean, it is out of control what I am learning. And you know, it's funny because we're taught a lot of things in the industry. We are taught that, you know, you make people happy. You make people happy. You get in there and you take care of the guests and you take care of your people and this is really, really important. And I think that the overlying thing about take care of people is be nice, get in there, make them comfortable, make them happy. And we try and do that every single day, not only for our guests, but for our internal guests as well, which is our employees that work there.

04:17We wanna make their lives great. And one of the things that I'm terrible at and that I have been trying to get good at is being comfortable when somebody else is uncomfortable. Right, that is a tough thing for me is when I see somebody who's uncomfortable, I wanna fix it. I wanna get in there. I'm so sorry, let's make you happy. How can I fix this thing? And that's not leadership. That's called heroing, where you go in and you be the hero and fix all this stuff. Sometimes people need to sit in an uncomfortable situation. They need to feel what they've done. They need to reflect on it. They need to be curious about it. And I'm not good at allowing people to do that. I wanna fix their problem immediately. And so that's been a major thing that I've learned. The curiosity piece is really big. But the biggest thing to me is there's a notion in this book and we're gonna talk about a lot of this stuff, but I'll tell you on the front end, I would love for you to read this book and do this with us because everybody needs it is really, really valuable.

05:24The concept is the world is gonna world. Every single day, the world's not gonna stop. It's just gonna keep turning and things are gonna happen. And things happen for a reason. The reason is that's the effort that you've put into it. So it is what it is. Nothing is good, nothing is bad. It is just the result of what you put in, which is one of the things I talked about at the beginning of the episode is what part do I play in the result that I don't want? So if sales aren't there, or if you don't manage kitchen labor or your food costs, your liquor beer wine, it's easy to blame somebody. And it's easy to blame somebody and turn around and say, how come this is the way that it is? Or why did this happen? And we tend to look for people, that's not accountability. The accountability starts with ourselves and looking in the mirror and saying, what part did I play in the role of that? And getting curious around it. So as things happen, not thinking of them as good nor bad, but just that this is the result that happened.

06:30This is the actual thing that happened. So let's get curious, how did that happen? What's going on with it? What part did I play in this result? And what can I do to change the result for the future? And it's a powerful concept that's really hard to do. And there's a lot involved with that. There's 15 commitments. We're talking about the first two here. So this is a powerful thing. And what I'd like to do at the end of this is get a group of people together after the book club is over and figure out a way to, if I can get Debra to facilitate like a small group or something where we can all kind of get together and work on it because it's really, really impactful. So we'll learn more about that. And we'll be talking about it throughout the next month. I do have a couple of announcements to make. So we have a couple of, they're not food shows. One is a food show. Gordon Food Service, our fantastic title sponsor, is doing a food show on September the 17th.

07:33And on September the 17th, I am going to be in Louisville for this show. And I'm going to be recording the podcast live. So I'm going to be there at the show. I'll have a booth. It'll be Nashville Restaurant Radio Booth. And if you go to the show, I would love for you to stop by and come on the show. We're going to be recording this and we'll be putting it out as a fun episode, talking to a bunch of different chefs all over the Southeast. And if you want to go to the show, contact your Gordon Food Service rep and come on out to Louisville and check it out. It's going to be at the Agriculture Center and it's going to be a lot of fun. I'd love to meet you. And that is happening on September the 18th. Sorry, September the 18th. I'm going down on the 17th. So September the 18th is the Gordon Food Service show. Now I'll also tell you that same day, same time is the What Chefs Want New Warehouse Open House. So What Chefs Want is they have a new facility and they're inviting everybody down for an open house that morning.

08:35Walk through the warehouse, check it out, see all this stuff, meet the people, do the whole thing. So there's two different shows. They're both on the same day and choose where you want to go. But I think you should go to one of them. I think it's really important to go and see where your food comes from. So if you buy everything from GFS, go to the GFS show. If you want to buy things from GFS, go check out the GFS food show. If you buy from What Chefs Want, formerly known as Creation Gardens, and you want to see where your produce is and all the different things, then go check that out. It's right here in Nashville, a little less of a drive. But I will be in Louisville at the GFS show. So that's going to be a ton of fun. As I mentioned before, that the Cafe Cheesery is now open in the Frist Center for the Arts. And you should go check that out too. We over at Chagos, our Mexican restaurant, it's a canteen, it's got all kinds of food, but our restaurant is collaborating with Arnold Mint and his sister Anna over at the International Market. And we are doing a burger pop-up called Burger Patty.

09:39It starts on September the 10th, and then it's going to be every Monday and Tuesday for three more weeks after that. So I'll get you the exact dates right now. September the 10th, and then we have the 17th and 18th, I'm sorry, the 16th and 17th, the 23rd and 24th, and then the 30th and October the 1st will be the last one. So there's going to be eight days. I would go early and I would come in and I would try this. So what we're doing is, Arnold used to own PM, which was an amazing place. And the PM Burger was like the number one burger in Nashville for eight years, and he is bringing it back. So you will be able to come to Chagos on any of those seven nights, and you'll be able to get the old PM Burger. He's got another burger, and then we have a vegan option. We've got some fries with our cheese sauce, but it's going to be at Chagos on Mondays and Tuesdays in the month of September, starting on September the 10th.

10:39So mark your calendars because it is going to be wild, and I'm really excited to bring this opportunity to everybody. I know Arnold is too. It's a, I've had the burger like 10 times now. It's so good. It's been fun as we've tested and take pictures and stuff, but it's officially time to start telling people about it. It's going to be this coming next week, next week on Tuesday. Come check it out. It's going to be a big deal. The other thing that we are doing is over at Merbol on October the 17th. That's why the 17th in my head earlier. October 17th, we are doing an event called Raising Spirits, and it is in a benefit for the Giving Kitchen. It's going to be a Giving Kitchen signature event, and it is going to be a tequila tasting. So we're going to have five different tequila brands. We're going to have live music. There's going to be bars. There's going to be an auction. Plus it's at Merbol, so inside of the historic home, out on the patio. It's going to be an amazing evening. And if you've thought about the Giving Kitchen, want to learn more about the Giving Kitchen, this is a great opportunity to support the Giving Kitchen.

11:44Come out, get tickets, and then show up. And I think Jen Heidinger-Kendrick, who's the founder, is going to be there. The whole team from the Giving Kitchen will be there. You can meet people. You can just, what a great cause. And I'm so happy to help facilitate this at one of our restaurants, Merbol. So that's going to happen October the 17th. Please save the date, mark your calendars, and go follow Merbol and follow the Giving Kitchen because we're going to be posting updates, and I'll be talking about it here, obviously. And it's going to be a lot of fun. So that's food and drink and music at a fun night to help restaurant workers. I am pumped. So yeah, so those are a lot of announcements today, and I'm excited. Go buy this book. Go buy this book, get involved. Debra's going to come back at the end of September. We're going to do this show. I'd love to have you join us. You could be on Nashville Restaurant Radio if you read the book and you have questions about it because it's a lot. But if you're a leader in any capacity, especially if you're an owner or a CEO, this is for you.

12:50I think she says something at the beginning of the episode if you're a leader and you think that you're doing great and you're not growing, your company isn't growing. You've got to continue to grow. And if you've been looking for something like this and you haven't found the right option, there's a couple different options out there, Vistage and different things. If you're looking for something like this, this is a free option to read a book and talk to the person who is going to be facilitating it. And maybe it's something that can help you out a lot. And I'm excited to be somebody who's facilitating this for you. So let's jump in right now with Debra Sunderland. Super excited today to welcome in Debra Sunderland and she is the owner of Sunderland Coaching. And you have other businesses as well. That's right. I have a management service business and a hemp cannabis business as well. A hemp cannabis business? Is that out of like your front?

13:51I'm growing it back there. Is that like out of your front door? I'm growing it out of my ears. I love it. So let's, I don't even know where to begin today because there's so much I want to talk to you. So I work with you, me and Steven, our company works with you. And it's been one of the more impactful things that I've dealt with. I even made a video after last time we left and I put it on LinkedIn that was like, guys, I am blown away right now and I don't even know what to do. And I just started talking a little bit about a concept that you put into my brain. The concept was what part do you play in the result you don't want? And I have used that a thousand times since that day, just in my own self-reflection and in reflection with other people. As I'm coaching people on my team, I've kind of went, wow, that's not the result you wanted. And this is all based around a book called the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership.

14:54Correct. Correct. Yes. And you teach this. Yes. So I want to tee this up to say, this is going to be our Brandon's book club, book of the month that we haven't done in a year, but I'm excited, look, kids are back, school's back. We as adults need to go back to school too. So here we go. I love that. Always learning. If you own a business and you are not growing, your business isn't growing. As much as a leader grows, it's as quickly as their business will grow or not grow. And it's a never done thing. And that's the fun of it, if we're willing to learn. How many people come to you and they kind of feel like they're done growing. They're like, I mean, I'm here, but we're doing great. And then you spend time with them and they go, oh shit, I'm like not even close to where I need to be. Yeah, I think business owners are amazing people and they do so much and they wear so many hats. Sometimes they don't, I would say a lot of the time, they don't pause to actually look at what reality is because they go on autopilot.

16:00They sure as all heck know how to get things done until there's usually a big hiccup and then they have to stop and pause. So I teach and coach, I've been certified in this work. I've been doing it for 10 years now. It changes my life, this conscious leadership. Until they are willing to stop and pause and really face what isn't working without blame or shame of themselves or someone else, just to get curious, they're gonna keep doing the same pattern. But I don't want people to have to come to a big hiccup before they have to learn. I prefer they learn along the way, that way they're happier, there's more peace in their business and their business grows more quickly. So you said you're certified in the 15 commits conscious and I'm gonna go back to all of that. I wanna get a little bit of your credentials. Okay. Do you have a degree in psychology? I have a degree in political science with two years of psychology and then I have an MBA in the inner MBA at NYU where we studied the people part of running a business and then I also worked out of Harvard in emotional intelligence with Dan Goldman.

17:08Very nice. Yeah, that's a good learning. Emotional intelligence is probably the thing right now. I'm kind of hyper focused on because I thought I was there and then through a lot of conversations with you in the room and then I'm reading a book right now called Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. And it's helped me realize a lot of my stuff too. If there's a great book out there also, if you're like wondering why am I the way that I am? This is a, it's a really good one. I highly recommend it. Awesome. So tell, give me like the 30 second, 90 second about yourself just kind of in how you got into doing this. So I was always the overachiever since I was young. I came from a family, a home that wasn't safe. So I was looking for unconsciously a way to be accepted and love outside of my home. And so what I learned at school was to be the one with the A's, get the gold star on your forehead, achieve, achieve, achieve, fast track runner, first chair violinist and on and on it went until I became number two out of 998 women racing my bike at age 42 and had a serious crash in a race that almost took my life.

18:25I'm actually not supposed to be here. So I was put in a coma and that, yep, that coma with all my crushed ribs, punctured lung, yada, yada, yada, all these things. I woke up out of that coma and realizing I lived a life in a coma by being on autopilot, doing what other people thought told me was success. And I was really great at success. Lots of accolades across the United States, all kinds of social media, blah, blah, blah. However, I was never at peace because it was always anxiety driving me to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. So now, since I've learned consciousness, where I make my decisions from, am I making them from trust and love and curiosity or am I making them from control, lack of trust and defense give you two very different options. So I'm a huge proponent of learning around where you're making your decisions from and being present and being on autopilot, basically is what we are and we're in a coma, we're on autopilot. So you're referencing a principle that comes from the book and that's if you draw a black line and are you living above the line or are you living below the line?

19:34That's right. Can you elaborate a little bit on that concept? Yeah, so all of us have this beautiful part of our brain called the amygdala and it's a really smart, yep, Brandon knows it and it is super, super helpful if you wanna be safe all the time but the problem with being safe is what? Boring, it's not, I don't know. You can't grow when you're safe. That's what I meant to say. Yeah, you can't grow and you're just comfortable, right? And we know that we all wanna grow and lots of us don't like to be uncomfortable. So what we do is avoid discomfort and when we do that, what happens? We don't grow. We don't grow, right. So I say you wanna get good and uncomfortable around the patterns that have served you well but no longer serve you. And so above the line teaching is am I open? Am I curious to look at other ways of doing my life, leading my business, leading myself?

20:39When I get a result I don't want, I could be curious to learn and get all my learnings or below the line is I'm going to blame myself, there's something wrong with me, there's something wrong with the world, there's something wrong with my team and then we just do drama around and around, blame, blame, blame and shame and then there's all kinds of ways that we do blame which you had kind of mentioned, I think the drama triangle. I mentioned that beforehand, I said I really wanna talk about the drama triangle because I think it's all over the place but I wanna get back to the getting uncomfortable piece. One of the book club books we did last year was called The Comfort Crisis by a guy named Michael Easter. Have you ever read this book or not? But he, the whole principle of the book is you need to be uncomfortable. We are all adults, I'm in my 40s and I know what I like. I'm very attuned to what I like. I don't, I know what I don't like. I know that a 72 degree room is wonderful and I can sit in a 72 degree room all day long. If you walk through an airport and you see everybody for, everybody's on their phones because it's uncomfortable to sit at an airport and so we reach for that thing that makes us comfortable all the time.

21:48Oh, my phone, that's my, it's like our phones are our binky, like it's our blanket. Now it's the thing that makes us comfortable and so the principle of the book was leave the phone down, turn the AC off when you're driving in, get uncomfortable until you don't, until you get out of your comfort zone, you'll never grow because where you are right now is this, but the world is out here and that's one of the things that you practice and I think people in our industry have a really tough time doing that because our entire job is to make people comfortable. I gotta make food you're gonna like, I gotta make sure the temperature's where you like it. When you go eat in our restaurants, all I wanna do is make you comfortable and happy. So in our, you start to believe this lie that everything has to be comfortable and even in tough conversations, not only with direct reports or anybody, but your spouse, your children, like this thing bleeds over into so many aspects of your life that, hey, sitting in a conversation with somebody who the other person is uncomfortable to me is the hardest thing that I do.

22:56Yes, that's right. Typically, so in our world of consciousness, we call that trying to keep ourselves or other people comfortable. We call that avoidance or heroing. We trying to make ourselves feel better or we try to make other people feel better. Now, I just wanna say in the hero role, when we take on more than our responsibility, it's exhausting because we're not called to help other people feel comfortable. Now, I know you are all gonna freak out when I say that. Ah, and what I mean by that is the unconscious mind ego, 96 to 98% of the time, again, is trying to keep us safe. And so it doesn't like conflict, right? So what it's going to do is go ahead of itself and go to the future and think about, oh, what does that person need or what do they not wanna hear? And so I'm gonna tamp myself down and put myself in a box and not speak fully what's on my mind and heart, I'm gonna water it down or I'm going to ignore myself to give that person something.

24:00And so that's why we start to suffer as leaders because we have also needs that need to be met as well. And that needs to come first, meaning when we put ourselves aside, we can't lead clearly. And when we can't lead clearly because we're in someone else's lane, then things get mucky, right? So I like to say the three lanes in the world, my lane, your lane, God, the universe's lane. If we get into someone else's lane, we are going to cause a problem. We cannot change someone's thinking. We cannot change how they feel. The unconscious mind, the ego, so egotistical, it thinks it can change someone's heart and mind, right? We think it all the time. And it's insane to think that you can. And I don't wanna get into that topic here, but I do, if you've ever fired somebody in that person, and I've done this, I don't know how many times, just in a moment where you have an employee who's underperforming, you know they're underperforming. They're creating drama, they're coming in late, all of the things. And in your mind and in the other leader's mind, you're like, this person does not match our culture.

25:05They don't understand our core values. And they're not a good culture fit and they need to go. But you wanna keep them, like you're doing everything you can, you've communicated to the leaders what you feel, but you haven't communicated to that person because you're afraid of how they're, you think that you have, because you've talked about it so much, then you finally get to the day we have to let that person go and they're shocked. And they're like, what are you talking about? Like, dude, I've been here for whatever. And you're like, but you've been doing all this stuff that you haven't necessarily communicated to them because that's conflict. And then you're afraid of how they're gonna respond. It's unconscious. This isn't something that you're, well, don't tell them. Like you and your brain start to feel like, I've told that they should know, they know, they know that they're this close. But then that's kinda what you're talking about, right? If you've ever been a leader who's done that. And this shows up, this is a beautiful example you're bringing and it shows up in so many different ways. So when a situation like that happens, we're avoiding the leader who doesn't wanna really say, hey, this isn't working or let's look at what's happening here.

26:16We wanna take, I wanna go backwards. We wanna take responsibility as a leader. So whenever we get a result that we don't want, for instance, our team, whenever someone on our team isn't doing what we thought they should be doing or as quickly or how we want them to do it, we can go ahead and blame them. But if we blame them and then we fire them, we know that that's a huge loss. The biggest loss in any industry is when we have to lose someone and rehire. So we wanna try to avoid that. So the best way, the quickest way to solve bleeding money is to look at how am I responsible, not less than or more than my responsibility that my teammate doesn't understand or I might not understand what they're supposed to be doing and by when. Because typically leaders are flying by the seat of their pants and they're not detailed enough or communicating well with their people as to what it is specifically and by when they would like something done. And on the flip side of that, it's usually a mandate instead of a conversation because we don't know what the other people that we work with are going through.

27:25They might have- There's no curiosity in that. There's no curiosity. It's kind of a control thing. We become controlling when we're scared or anxious or we think things should be done. But if we can have an open conversation and invites the other person to say, yes, I have a whole yes to cleaning the tables and putting things away by 11 before people start coming in and I'm on it. Or if they say, I'm already doing this thing because you had asked me to do this, because as leaders, we forget what we ask our people to do. It's not that they're usually being lazy. It just usually comes down to miscommunication. And then that person could say, so do you want me to do the other thing or do you want me to clean the tables? And then you say, oh no, at this time, I really want you to clean the table. So as specific as we can be. And when we're doing that, clarity breeds trust. Lack of clarity brings insecurity and scarcity. So we want to be as leaders, slow down in order to go fast. When we don't slow down, we actually are going to have to slow down because then we had to fire someone because we didn't take the time to teach them well or to be clear with them.

28:31Which happens a lot. I first learned this when I started going to AA, right? So it was a serenity prayer thing for me. You start the AA meeting off in one of the first things that they do. And I don't know, first of all, I'm not supposed to be talking about AA. I don't know how this works, but when you think about the serenity prayer, God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage, the wisdom. No, the courage changes things I can and the wisdom to the difference, right? I've said that how many times it's hard for me to even say. But they say when you're an alcoholic that you have an insanity and you have to give your insanity away to a higher power. Like you can't continue on the way that you are. It's like the preamble to doing this work. Like you do this step work, but you have to realize, my insanity was control and power. Is that I thought I could control two restaurants and wife, kids, all of the things. I thought I could have control over everything.

29:34And it was driving me crazy because there's no fucking way. Like I can't do it. And I finally gave that away and I gave that to my higher power in this particular scenario. And it was the most releasing, like freeing thing that I've ever done in my life because I was a ball of anxiety. And I was, I had no, first of all, I had no clue. I had zero idea that any of this was going on. This was just my life. I didn't know. And so when I finally went, oh yeah, I need my fingers on every little thing. And then I went, I'm taking the opportunity from people to really shine because I have to be in control. And so it's an amazing, it was an amazing moment for me that kind of when I walked into your office, it was a, it resonated very deeply because I was like, yes, I'm with you.

30:36I can move forward. I didn't have to take that layer of clothes off first. It was already there. Okay, I would like to go back because what you're saying is so important. When we get in other people's lane, heroing, taking on more than our responsibility because we want it done our way, we want it done quickly. We want, we're anxious that a client's not gonna be happy. Whatever story comes up in our mind. When I say story, it's the ego telling us stories to keep us safe. And it tells us scary stories and then we get anxious. Then we act on anxiety. We temporarily limit our anxiety by stepping in someone else's lane. We comfort ourselves. But then what happens is if we get in the other person's lane, they unconsciously, not intentionally believe you don't trust them. And that builds a lack of trust on both sides. And then their job is going to be like, well, Brandon's gonna do it anyway. So why even bother or? I'm not gonna be good enough for him.

31:37I'm gonna do this and he's gonna come by and fix it anyway, because it's never good enough for him. They're gonna half ass it or they're gonna do it late or eventually they're gonna feel like there's no engagement for them. There isn't a place for them. So they're gonna leave. They're gonna start looking for another job. They don't feel valued as a person that they have worth and value to give an organization. So that's when they leave because they don't feel that they're truly a part of something. Yeah, and if you're out there listening to this right now going, oh, yeah, that's okay. Like this is, I've done a lot of work on this through therapy and lots of meetings. And Deborah really helped me sharpen. And I am so early in this process. I'm not by any means representing that I'm like a graduate of this. I am a newbie, several sessions in, but I'm so floored by just the detail of understanding. I told somebody the other day, I said, I have a therapist and I have you.

32:40And I go, the combination of these two are pretty fucking awesome. And I said, you know what I love about Deborah? She calls me on my shit. Like if I'm in a meeting and I'll say, the other day we were in a meeting and I said, it was a group kind of a thing. And I said, what she's trying to say is this. And I was trying to clarify for her. And she looked at me and she goes, where are you saying this from? You're below the line or above the line? And I went, well, by the context of your question, I'm gonna guess it was below the line. And she goes, you're hearing right now. She's uncomfortable and you're trying to fix her. Let her be uncomfortable. That's what we're here to do. But like that bluntness is so what I need. And I don't even, I think people are afraid of that, because you're talking about being direct, being clear is so important. People can handle it. And they, I need that. If you were to say, now Brandon, let's talk about like, no, no, no, you just, you're so direct. And I absolutely love that aspect of it. Well, the reason I do this is not to control you or to make you, not that I can make you feel a certain way. It's because I care about people desperately want them to know they do not need to suffer.

33:46And when we get out of our, who we're called to be and what we're here to do by stepping in other people's lanes or doing other things we're not supposed to do, we suffer. And I don't want that for people. I want business leaders, owners, restaurants to thrive. And the only way we can do that is to stay in our thriving space. And once we get out of it, we don't nourish ourselves. And so this is where I'm doing this from. And also I've done this so much, I can see it right away. I can see the pattern. We all have patterns, because you know why? I have the same patterns. We all have the same. So what you see, what I see in you is what I see in me. It's the same thing. Yeah. Let's go, let's get into some of the material. Let's talk about the heroing, right? Because there's this three pronged thing. What do you call it? What's it called? Well, the whole, it's called the drama triangle. The drama triangle. The drama triangle. And it's all based under victimhood.

34:46The entire thing is. We're at the effect of what is outside of us. And we're trying to control or manage something outside of ourselves in order to feel safe, in order to feel loved, in order to feel connected and comfortable. Yes. And so if we're looking outside of ourselves to feel enough, right? Good luck. Because it will now, it'll be a never ending. That's what woke me up to this work, is I was thinking I'm going to win on that podium today when I went plummeting to the curb and almost died, right? So I had to have a hard wake up. That's the other reason I do this work. I do not want, if I can save one other person from having to have a hard, painful wake up into what they're here to do in this world, I wanna do that, right? You know what they call that in my world? Raising the bottom. Raising the bottom. So most people come to quit drugs and alcohol at their rock bottom. If we can recognize, we know the tendency, we know when somebody's doing that.

35:47If we can help them before they have to go all the way to the bottom, we call that raising the bottom. We wanna raise the bottom so you don't have to go all the way to the, we don't want you to have to have the car wreck and be in the hospital. If I can raise that bottom to where you can kind of come to this realization before you do that, then that's awesome. So this is kind of a similar. It's a similar thing and it could be a slippery slope. So I just wanna say people don't need help. Oh. Because everyone already knows inside themselves the answers. If they pause and get really uncomfortable to see themselves and to know themselves. How do we do that? To be still. I love meditating and for me, we're not talking about the Enneagram, but we will a little bit. I'm a three on the Enneagram, so I'm the overachiever and I'm a winner and I'm a doer. I'm the typical workaholic. So sitting still for me was like pulling my hair out, right?

36:49But it was the thing that I needed because I needed to see my patterns that weren't serving me. And we all need to see, we're not our patterns, but sometimes our patterns become us. So we need to separate ourselves from our patterns of our doing. And how do we become clear with ourselves? Where are we really avoiding and not feeling all the way through and not seeing ourselves because we're terrified to know who we really are. And so when we're in victimhood, we lose ourselves and we think that we'll be loved if we do something for our spouse or we'll be liked if a client is happy. And we get these temporary hits, but they're not sustainable. We have to come inward and love ourselves and know we are enough. And three questions, I know I've told you this before, that I always ask my CEOs. One, do you believe you are enough? Just right here right now, that you as a being are enough, that you are worthy.

37:49Number two, do you believe you have enough? Do you have enough of the basics? A house, roof, clothing, love, just right here right now. And number three, do you know how to love yourself? And unfortunately, every CEO, and I'm talking billionaire CEOs all the way down to startups, no one has said yes to any of those three questions. And so if we're running an organization that the opposite of love is fear. If we're running a business or an organization or restaurant based out of fear, which is scarcity, we can never get abundance inside of ourselves or abundance in our organization. We are gonna keep running and running and running to try and get something from the outside to fill that up. And it's not sustainable. That's why we have the most successful leaders taking their lives because they've reached the top and they're still not happy.

38:50They've worked their entire life achieving, achieving, and it has never fulfilled them. So most important, I want business owners, restaurant owners to live a fulfilled life, growing and thriving their business and their people. Because if like, what are we doing this dear ones for? Why are we doing it, right? If we don't know our purpose and our calling and why we're waking up every day, if it's just for money or to get things done, that is, we're more than that. Our life is more than that. But this isn't just for restaurant owners. I mean, this is anybody in the world. This is anyone. This is a server, this is a bartender. This is not, you don't have to be the CEO of a company. That's right, that's right. For you and what you do, we talk about CEOs and owners because they have the ability to affect so many people that work for them. And so you want to affect as many people as possible. This isn't just, I just want to verify that you're not saying, owners, we want you to be great. But no, when you're great, you can really be a conscious leader and help so many other people and inspire them to do, to be the best of themselves.

39:56Not just- Absolutely. When we learn to take responsibility for ourselves, how I think is how it brings my feelings, brings my action steps, which brings my results. We must be aware of our thinking. We have 65 to 70,000 thoughts a day and most of us are unaware. And we go on autopilot believing those thoughts. Then we have feelings from those thoughts and then we act on those thoughts. So 95 to 90, or 96 to 98% of the time, we're in this circle. We're going to take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors. Hi, this is Matthew Clements, Robin's Insurance Agency. We care about ensuring the hospitality industry. We want to make sure that you're taken care of and that we take one less stressor off your plate so you can sleep well at night. At the end of the day, when you purchase an insurance policy, you're really purchasing peace of mind. And we want to showcase that and how we operate within the hospitality space during the summer of giving by giving back to the giving kitchen.

40:57If you call today to ask for a quote, we will be sure to give $50 in your name to the giving kitchen. Just give me a call. Area code 863-409-9372. We specialize in ensuring the hospitality space and we want to be sure to give back. We look forward to hearing from you. Sharpier's Bakery is a locally owned and family operated wholesale bakery providing bread to Nashville's best eateries. They've been operating in Nashville since 1986, providing high quality fresh bread daily for restaurants, catering companies, hospitals, and universities. Their bread is free from preservatives and artificial additives. Learn more at sharpiers.com. That's C-H-A-R-P-I-E-R-S.com or you can give Erin Mosso a call directly. Her number is 615-319-6453. That's Sharpier's Bakery. Cali Sober, the totally legal THC infused mocktail.

41:59Cali Sober was created to provide a better alternative to alcohol. No dependence, no ulcers, no liver damage, and no night you want to forget or mornings asking, what happened? They only use non-synthetic all-natural Delta-9 THC derived from the hemp plant. It is the real deal. The same buzz, the same chill you'd expect from THC. Best of all, Cali Sober is federally legal because it is made with hemp-derived THC, which is a legal substance under the 2018 Farm Bill. If you're a restaurant, you can pick this up through Litman Brothers. They offer three different flavors, Paloma Spritz, Ranch Water, and Berry Ginger Fizz, all with less than 3% THC by volume with five milligrams of THC per serving. Please enjoy responsibly. We are so excited to introduce a new sponsor to Nashville Restaurant Radio, All-Star Fire Protection.

43:00These guys are your local solution to all your fire suppression needs. All-Star Fire opened in Nashville 34 years ago, and they continue to grow. They're now serving Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Bowling Green. They have over 130 team members and they got 40 trucks out on the roads at all times to service your restaurant. And you know what I love? When I was talking with them, and I said, hey man, what makes you different? I get you're local, you do all the things, but what makes you different? And he said, you know what makes us different? He said, we actually care. He goes, I actually care. These people are small business owners. This is their life. And we're a small business as well, and we understand what they're going through, and we take that approach. We actually care about their business. We want them to be ready in the case of a fire, which is why they offer trainings. They will go in and they will sit with your staff and say, hey, this is how you use a fire extinguisher. How many people out there actually know how to use a fire extinguisher? They wanna make sure that you're getting the most out of it. They're building those relationships. And that is why I am proud to introduce All-Star Fire Protection to you.

44:05You can get ahold of Rob Bowman. You should call him today. His number is 615-431-3760. That's 615-431-3760. I think that we were talking about being a victim. Oh, yeah, yeah, exactly. And being whole, you said the three questions for that you asked them, and then who can actually do those? Yeah, and you're right. So I do this work. I always start with the owner or the CEO because it is a trickle-down effect. If they have a culture, culture comes from the CEO. What they tolerate, they get more of, whatever that is. And so the more awareness they have and how they wanna lead their people is gonna be based on how they first lead themselves, how well they know themselves and where they're making their decisions from. Am I making my decisions from scarcity below the line, fear, control, closed, or am I making my decisions from curiosity, trust, and openness to learn, especially when I get a result I don't want? How is that result teaching me? How is it there for me to get uncomfortable and learn?

45:05If we're willing, we will blow past and grow our business very quickly if we do that. All right, we're gonna get back to my favorite question, which is, what part do I play in the result I don't want? But I also want to ask you this. Let's say I'm a restaurant owner and I'm listening to this right now and I'm on a hike somewhere, or I'm driving down the stream, driving down West End right now hearing this and it's resonating with me. I'm going, ah, you know, I get, this sounds, how do I look in the mirror, so to speak? You said when you got into your wreck, you woke up and all of a sudden you had to read, you had to look in a mirror and go, what do I like, what I see? If I'm a guy right now, a girl right now, I'm working woman and I wanna do this, how do I actually do that work? Yeah, well, that's a big question. And there's lots of ways, there's not just one way. But one way is if you're at that point where you wanna look, I'd say give yourself appreciation for just being curious to know yourself more.

46:13Give yourself love and looking at yourself without judgment because typically what the ego does, it's gonna turn around and look at you and judge you up the head to toe, right? And it's gonna blame you and you didn't do this well enough and why can't you get this right? And oh my gosh, here this is again and what's wrong with you and- I live in that world a lot of the time. That's probably my biggest problem. Yeah, absolutely and it's not a problem. It's just that we have learned to listen to the ego. So I first of all say, stop listening to it. Tell the ego, shut up, that you don't need to be safe anymore. You appreciate the words but you're not gonna listen to them anymore. So I would find first of all, a thought that in your mind that you no longer serves you. It makes your heart not feel good. It makes your body kind of go into a ball. Stop believing it and choose, we call this neuroplasticity. Find a new thought that you wanna believe about yourself. You might not believe, you probably won't believe it now but I want you to write it all over and put it on your phone, put it on your mirror in your bathroom, put it somewhere if you cook a lot, put it like if you're a restaurateur or you like to just cook in your house, put it on your refrigerator and I want you to say it out loud.

47:28I want you to wake up in the morning and speak those words, looking to yourself in the mirror. I want you to say it until it's rewired in your mind and it becomes your new automatic. That's what neuroplasticity is. We rewire the old thought by replacing it with a new thought until it becomes our natural new thought. What's an example of that? I'm not saying people need to steal this but like I can't, I'm six foot six. I can't look in the mirror and go, I'm five foot four. That's not a real thing. I can't just like manifest that. So I'm talking about where you know that you are making yourself small, where you feel uncomfortable, where you go outside of yourself to feel good enough. So for me, I'll be honest, right now it's three restaurants. I wanna be in those three restaurants all the time. I want everybody to see me in the restaurants helping. I wanna be the leader that everybody loves and I have all these things and that's impossible for me to do, to be in three places at one time and do all of the things and so I think for me, I say, hey, I'm doing a great job for the amount of time that I have and I know that my heart is there but I lay in bed and that's when the ego just eats me for lunch.

48:47I lay in bed and I'm like, oh, I missed that. That thing happened and I wasn't there and I just, ah, but it's okay. I'd like for you to take, even tweak that a little more if you're open to it. Yeah. Okay. So I don't do this. I'm just saying that's where I would come from if I was starting this thing. This is where I would go. So let's tweak this a little bit because we are a nation of doers. We believe that if we win and do, we're all taught this since we went to school, that we are worthy. We are worthy of getting that gold star. So first of all, I'd like all of you dear people in this podcast world to know, gosh darn it, you are enough and I'm gonna cry because you matter. You have breath. You are created to live here in this time for a certain reason and to only fulfill your role. No one can fulfill who you're called to be. So I would say instead of, oh, I gotta get this done and that was enough or whatever it was, I would like to say, you know what? I'm learning to become me and everything is my teacher. How about that?

49:47I'm just learning to become me and everything is my teacher. Or it could be, I'm learning to become who I wanna become and I'm doing my best. I'm doing my very best. And I wanna tell dear leaders that if they believe that for themselves, they're gonna start to believe that their people are coming to work probably trying to do their best as well. Because I always say, people don't normally come to work to say, yeah, I wanna fail and I wanna suck today. No, people wanna do their best. They wanna have fun. They wanna be connected to each other. They wanna grow and thrive. But the ego doesn't want that because we just said, no, it wants to put us in a box to keep us safe. So I want you to pick a really big thought to tell yourself. So what might that be for you? Oh man, what might my big thought be for me? I think that I am enough. I think that's the big one, right? I am enough, I am enough. Am I enough for what I'm doing?

50:49And I think that, yes, you said, I don't wanna get off me because I'm happy to do this all day long. But you said that we all know the answers inside of our heads. Inside your hearts. Inside your hearts. We all know what we need, what can need to be doing, all of these things inside of our hearts. But we don't act on them. We tend to do something different because is it ego? Is it social society? What is the reason why we don't act on our heart? We don't act on our heart because of the thoughts that come into our mind that become our beliefs. We don't check the thoughts that come into our mind. We just believe them. And 96 to 98% of those times, they are going to be negative judgmental thoughts because that's what the ego does. The ego is our threat sensor. It's in the world looking for any threat against you. Someone's not gonna like you. Someone's gonna be upset with you. Someone's gonna complain, blah, blah, blah. And so it's gonna be like, okay, well, you better think of this and you better do that.

51:49And then it's going to tell you that if you fix that, then you're okay. So by just saying, you know what I like to tell myself? You know what? I have breath. So I am worthy and I'm enough because one day, dear ones, our breath is gonna be taken away and we can't control our breath, meaning that is a gift for I believe from God. And one day it is going to be taken away. So every moment that you can breathe and your lungs are moving and it's giving you oxygen in your blood and it's giving you ability to think in your brain because you have enough oxygen to your head, that is a gift because you are a gift. And the very basics, let's stay with the basics. I'm worthy and I have enough because I have breath. I love it. Think, this is so fun. I am so happy that you are here talking about this stuff. We're gonna take a quick break to hear a word from our sponsors and then when we come back, I really wanna talk about a couple of things. I wanna talk about our genius, which is online of what we're talking about right now.

52:50What's in your heart, the thing that energizes you. And then I wanna talk about what part we play in the result that we don't want. Stay tuned, be back in just a second. Ready? Yeah. A real pause right there. All right, we are back with Deborah Sunderland and we've been talking about everything. We're talking about life and leadership above the line, below the line. Before the break, we were talking about your heart and we were talking about, you know in your heart what it is and we are scared in our ego and all of the things. One of the sessions that we had, you left and you said, I want you to take a minute every time you're feeling exhausted and tired and I want you to stop and see what you're doing.

53:52See what it is you're doing. And I think that the principle behind that was the things that are not in your genius and we're gonna get into that, wear you out because you have to do so many things that you're not, that's not what you're born, that's not what your heart wants you to do. And then on the other side, when you're energized and you're excited and you're talking and you're like, why do I feel all this energy? What are you doing in that moment because that is when you're in your genius. And I feel in my, I love sitting here in the studio talking to you, I get so amped when I'm getting ready for an interview and this moment right now, in this moment, we're live, we're recording, I could bench press a thousand pounds. This is one of my favorite moments. Similarly, Friday night in a restaurant, a million things going on, that is also, that is the most energizing, three deep in a bar, you're in the weeds, those are the moments that I'm the most alive.

55:00You put me in front of a computer where I'm typing into a spreadsheet and you just kill me. That is not the thing, that is not my genius. So let's talk about what that means. You're genius. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so this is huge and I love how you, I'm appreciating you for noticing what lights you up, right? You know, you already know. I know you're a people person, so that lights you the heck up. I love it. Right, you just love people. And being on a computer, ain't no people there. So yeah, like administrative, I'm the same, like administrative stuff. So it's really divinely what gifts you were given, what talents you were given, what expertise you were given and all of that put together and you just have so much energy that time passes by and it's effortless, it's not a waste of like your energy where you're like, oh, I'm dreading this and you do it.

56:01It's just like, no, no, no. You wanna keep doing it, you could keep doing it and it's not even based on something that you get for doing it. Of course, we get a wage for doing things, but you would be like, I don't even have to have money because I love doing this. Like my work that I do here now, I wanna do this till I die. If I can change one person's life, help them see themselves before I die, this is worth it to me. So it's that thing. It's like, what is that you would do it till you die? Like it is something you love and it is just, you just spiral on up. So the goal is to find out what that is and then lean into it. Like do that thing. Do it as much as you possibly can. What about this? There's stuff that you have to do because you have to do the admin stuff. I love recording the podcast, but you know what I hate doing? Going back in and editing it, adding the intro and music and sounds and advertising and you put the whole, like that takes me like two and a half, three hours to do and that's me sitting in front of a computer.

57:08When I can hyper-focus, I have ADHD. When I hyper-focus, I can get it done pretty quick, but like if I have to look at my phone to do anything, I'm like, ooh, and then 30 minutes later, I'm like, shit, I gotta get back to the podcast. Yeah, so of course, right, in the real world, right, there are things, quote unquote, that I need to get done. So what I say is, Commitment 8 is really the book, Living Your Genius, Understanding Your Purpose, Your Calling, and everyone wants to know that, but first we have to peel back the onion that we've put up to protect ourselves. Don't be upset, guys, if you're not sure like what lights you up because you've just been doing what you've been told much of your life, either by your parents or your boss or your teacher, totally normal. But when we try to look at this, there are four quadrants of how we can show up in the world. One is doing something that we know we suck at it, but we do it anyway, and that's, I hate doing that. You asked me to build something out of the box.

58:08I like, first of all, I hate reading instructions, so I like, just don't, bleh. So I would rather pay someone to do that. I'm not even gonna go there. So if you've got that, you just really don't wanna do that, really don't do it as much as possible. Get someone who does love doing that. There is someone in the world who loves doing it, someone that loves doing it on your team. Do not do it because you are made to do your genius because the world needs you to do it because you're gonna get things done quickly and move your business forward. The second is competency. You might be competent in it, but you really don't like doing it. So if you're competent at it, I would say do that 10% or less during your day because it's going to drain you. Then the third is excellence, and that's what we've been trained in in the United States, is to win, like me, to be excellent and to achieve. Of course, that's wonderful, but if we're doing it and it's not fulfilling us, it's still going to be draining us. And the fourth quadrant is our genius. And in the book, The Big Leap, that we gleaned commitment eight from by Gay Hendricks, I recommend that as a book as well, dear ones, is he says most people will never get to their genius or because it is a leap of faith.

59:23It is a leap of I can do all these other things in excellence, just like I could race my bike and beat people or I could be the top salesperson, but those things did not light me up all the time. Yes, of course, riding my bike did, but being slapped against a curb and being in a coma, not so great. However, so I just want you to notice. Do you still ride? I still ride. I'm not racing, but I still ride, yes. But I mean, like, that's your genius, that's the thing that you love. That's what I love doing. Even if it took you down, like that's a side effect. Like you've got to still keep going, right? Still keep going because I love it. And again, people, this is a good point that you bring up, what most people ask, you're not still riding your bike, are you? Where do you think they're asking that question from? Below the line. Fear, yes, because we are wired, everyone, not just some people, not just you or me, but everyone's wired, hardwired to make decisions from fear. So if I were to make my decision from fear, I wouldn't be riding my bike.

01:00:27And I would be missing my- So where do you make that decision from? You make it from curiosity. So, hmm. How is that? I would like to do the hmm sound because it gets you into curiosity. Hmm. Do I want to ride my bike? Yes. Okay, beautiful. What would be the safest way to ride my bike? And then I want to think as many options of safety. When we're in curiosity, we can think of many opportunities, not just one way. And when we're below the line, the ego's looking for just one way to do things. And when we're only looking for one way, guys, you know that probably ain't gonna work out the way you want and then we're stuck because we haven't thought of other ways. So we want to find out what are all the other ways. So gosh, I could ride my bike, a bigger bike, like I'm riding my mountain bike because it's safer, and I'm gonna ride it on a path instead of in the street where I crashed on my racing bike. Try to put things in place that makes sense to me and still light my heart up. So that's what I do. I love that.

01:01:27I will tell you a real life example of where this is completely irrelevant to genius or any of that stuff, but where this actually works when it comes to curiosity is what piqued this. We had a situation last week where I'm not gonna use those names or anything, but I was at one of the restaurants on a Sunday brunch and our chef said, hey, can you run to the store and get six clamshells of blackberries, blueberries and strawberries? And I was like, I mean, yeah, but why? Like we knew Sunday was coming. We knew that we do all of these things on brunch. Like, why don't we have like, what's going on here? Well, last week they ordered too many. So this week they ordered too little and we just don't have it. And I'm like, dude, there's a fucking order guide here. Like, this is how this works. Like, what are you doing, man? Like, this cannot happen again. And this isn't the first time, right? This is many times we've had to go to the store to get strawberries on a Sunday. And it's like, we have a chocolate fountain that takes strawberries.

01:02:30We know we're gonna need strawberries. Like, this is the thing. And I was so frustrated. He actually said, hey, can Steven on his way in pick them up? So I texted, I sent Steven, yeah, the owner of the company. And I messaged Steven because I had to leave. I had to go, I had another meeting. I was just only there for like an hour in the morning. I knew he was coming in. I said, hey, on your way in, will you stop and get this? And he kind of was in the, hmm. My phone immediately rang. And he goes, hey, man, what's going on with the strawberries? And I said, well, this, this, this, and he goes, well, did you, this is where I was, ugh, I'm so mad. Why did this happen to me? This is, you know, I'm in this to me mindset, right? That's a line by the way, then things happened to us. We're at the effect of, we're below the line. Okay, carry on. Yes, exactly. So I'm, I didn't realize it in the moment cause I'm just pissed that this didn't happen. And we've talked about this, damn it. And, and I didn't yell any of those things, but like I, I, I was stern with my questioning.

01:03:33And so he goes, well, did you get curious? Did you find out like what's going on there? And I said, well, kind of I asked him what the fuck is going on. I didn't, I didn't say that. I said, I said, I asked him, how come we don't have the strawberries? And he goes, well, get curious in that moment. Let's find out what's going on and maybe we can find a solution for the future. And, but I went, damn you using the tools. Like exactly. Yeah, cause you know why? It feels good to be angry, right? No. So I just want a real life example of how this works. Let's be honest guys, we, it feels good to be angry and we're, we're actually addicted to below the line feelings. Cause I'm the boss and I'm right and you fucked up. And it feels good to be right. But when we're right, we're in defense and we're closed. So we can't think of other things, right? Beautiful. So when I know we're almost at time, but I just want to say it could also bringing in the person that had this conversation calling you for the strawberries is a way to shift out of that could be like, okay, no, hey man, I noticed I'm feeling angry for a moment here.

01:04:34Let me just take a moment to pause because I want to let my anger come through me. Before I reply to you, take three deep breaths, let the anger pass through you. Our emotions only last to 90, 90 seconds. Regulate yourself instead of responding in anger or frustration or fear, totally normal dear ones is what comes up for us. You are just like me. We're all the same. And then you could even say to him, you know, I want to get curious because I thought we had protocol for this already. And I'd like to get curious with you from your perspective. How do we get to this place where we are purchasing strawberries at 10 a.m. for our 11 opening for brunch on Sunday? Let's get curious, how did this happen? So they start to take responsibility as well for how they've created something that's not working for them. Because if you go and just get the strawberries for them, guess what they're going to do next week? They're going to follow you and they're going to go, because they know you're going to go get strawberries. I heroed in that moment. I was the hero. I'll go get the strawberries, no problem.

01:05:36I walk in with the grocery bags, like I'm some kind of like Superman. Look what I have procured from the massive publics, you know, like, and it's a whole thing. And they're like, yay, strawberries are here. And you're like, look at me. I went and fixed this problem. Right, and we don't want, we don't, the only, I'm going to tell you, there are no problems except for the ego making up problems. That's why we want to get out of our ego because it's always looking for a problem. It is saying there are problems everywhere and you are, you need to be on ultra vigilant alert. But we won't want to live our life like that or make our businesses run like that because we're going to be in panic mode and frustration mode and that doesn't work. So whenever it's a practice guys, this is all new. So this might not even make sense to you and that's okay too. But what does make sense, it's just start to practice what does make sense. So what makes sense is, huh, I can blame or shame this person or I can get curious, those are our options. And I can get them curious with me because we want to raise up curious, responsible, radically responsible people. And the way to do that is and have them join you. I want to get curious, will you get curious with me?

01:06:38How did we unintentionally, because no one does this on purpose. No one wants to do it on purpose that where you're running around for strawberries. No, we did this unintentionally. How did we unintentionally get here? Let's get our learnings together. And then another question you would ask me in this moment is you would say, so Brandon, you want to have all the berries to start brunch, right? That is the result in which you would like to have. So I'm saying this and I'm blaming other people because we don't have berries and now I gotta go be the hero, right? The question you're gonna ask me is, are you willing to get curious how you created a result you don't want? Are you willing to get curious on how you created? Well, I didn't create the result. What are you talking about? Yeah, well, if you are the leader of your business and if someone is calling you for help, you are responsible for creating this result. Not less than or more than, we want to be cautious about that.

01:07:40I'm not saying when things go awry, you're responsible to fix. That's sometimes what people hear me. That's not what I'm saying. I'm saying uncommittedly, unintentionally, you are committed. Here's a big one, guys. You are committed to going to get strawberries on Sunday by not having them. Somehow you're committed to that. Okay. Because it's what you have. All right, elaborate. So it's just as if you say I wanna weigh five pounds less by the end of September, right? No one else can get that weight off of you except for you. But you get on the scale and you notice you haven't lost an ounce. You gained a pound. You could even have gained a pound. Now you can go ahead and blame yourself, beat yourself up, think you're bad. It is what it is.

01:08:40But it is showing you this is the weight. Now you can argue with it and not face reality, which is what most people do because the ego, again, does not want to see reality. It wants to live in scarcity and put you in a box, beat the hell, beat you up. That's what it likes to do. Or you can say, hmm, my result shows me not what I want, but what I have. And a conscious leader is gonna get their quickest learning and grow their business, their life, their relationships by looking at what is really there, not making up a story. You can say you wanna have a great team that's thriving and a culture that's growing and that you're on all the same cylinders. But if that's not what you have, you must say what you really have. If you have people stealing from your organization, you cannot say that you have a trustworthy organization. You have the people that steal in your organization. So that means there's fear there. That's what you have.

01:09:41So how am I a part in that result? Let's get curious about what is my part in the result that I don't want. I don't want people stealing from the company. So if I'm the leader of that company and these things are happening, gosh, that's some introspective time you need to have because it's so much easier to say, well, it's not my fault that they stole. So we always wanna look at our decision-making. We make 33,000 decisions in a day. Most of them. That's why I'm so tired. Right? You've probably already done 60,000 by now. God. However, I just wanna say our decisions are unconscious. So we want to start to become... She's the best. She has this timer. Like every hour her thing goes off because she lives on the tightest schedule and we are at the end of our hour. Yeah, this is really important. So we're gonna close this because I want you guys to have this. First of all, remember you're beautiful and you're perfect and everything is for your learning. There is nothing wrong with you, dear ones.

01:10:42If you're willing to learn and grow, I want you to learn and throw and grow with us. But what I wanna say is we wanna look at our decision-making. So let's just say we do hire someone who is stealing from us. There's so much learning. It could be like, well, I wanna go back to when I even met that person from the first time and I started to interview them. Did my gut, my body, my heart, did I have a yes to that? My body leaned forward. Did I want to hire them? Or was there some kind of uncertainty and I didn't wanna make them feel a certain way so I didn't ask a really strong question or I blew past that, I blew past a red flag? Maybe, maybe not, but look backwards. You wanna look backwards on our decision-making or maybe they've been there for a year and there was some things that weren't aligned with what you asked them to do or they didn't show up or they did something that you felt you couldn't trust them but you blew past that red flag. Again, the answers are inside of you. So you wanna go back like where were the things I ignored because my ego was driving me and putting me in a box and I didn't trust myself.

01:11:49I didn't trust my gut. I didn't trust my emotional intelligence which we haven't been trained on, right? So those are some of the ways you wanna go back or where was an eye clear around my expectations with my partner or my teammate? I just thought they understood but I never took the time to get really clear on my end and ask them, are you in clear agreement? Do you have a whole yes? And if they don't have a whole yes, what is your whole yes? And we call that negotiating so that we are clear, radically clear and build impeccable agreements with each other and if a ball drops, the person that drops the ball, whether it's stealing or something else owns it and takes responsibility and says, I broke trust with you when I dropped the ball. How do I get back into trust with you? So these are the kinds of relationships we wanna build in learning. I hope this makes sense and I know it's deep but yeah. Well, the last thing we do and I'm gonna count what you just now said as this thing is the Gordon food service final thought.

01:12:50Okay. And so that was your final, I'm gonna give that to you as I know we're short on time and I just wanna say thank you. I love you. You're the best. So welcome. I love this. I love you. I love people who love learning and growing cause it's the best. I'm a student. I'm really into a lot of this right now and it's helping me in more ways than you know. I think I had a lot of death a few months ago in my family and it was really difficult for me and I think it opened up a space in me that made me, that really opened up an opportunity for me to learn and grow and then you coming into my life was amazing. I just, things happened for a reason and I couldn't, I just wanna share some of these learnings with the entire world. So we're gonna do Brandon's book club around this. We're gonna read this book and you're gonna come back in a month, right? So you're not gonna, people reading this book, I don't think you're gonna read it and fully just grasp it and move on. Like there's a lot that goes with this. I've read it twice now and I'm like very early in the stages of getting this thing done.

01:13:55So I wanna encourage you to go out there, buy this book, the 15 Commitments. Who are the authors? It's like seven authors. Yeah, clear your clothes. The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. If you could remember Jim Dethmer, D-E-T-H-M-E-R and Diana Chapman and Kaylee, I forget her last name, but remember those two, you'll find it. You can get it on Amazon. You can get it on Audible and in paper. I recommend getting both because my written book, I've had two now, they have become my second Bible. I've written all over them. There's pages falling out because it's never a one and done. The more you see, the more you see. And I just wanna say, I'd love for you to read the whole thing, but for our purposes, I'm meeting next time at the end of September is I would love for you to read the intro. It's 56 pages long and read Commitment one and two. One and two are the foundation for the entire book and you can read those and listen to those several times. If you wanna read past that, go ahead.

01:14:56But at least before the end of September, you'll see if you can master reading and listening to those three areas of the book. I think that's super easy. Number one is taking radical responsibility. Number two is learning through curiosity. That's right. Those two things will set you up. That was the basis of our entire conversation today was just those two things. Exactly. We didn't get into eliminating gossip and all of the fun stuff that are just vital in this whole process. We did get into a little bit of emotional intelligence, which is Commitment three, which is amazing when you start to listen and trust your intuition. Feeling all the feelings. Yes. Instead of them being triggered in your body and you react, yes. Yes. All right. Deborah Sunderland, thank you for joining us on Nashville Restaurant Radio. We'll see you at the end of September and thank you guys for listening. As always, we're not gonna do an outro today. So as always, we hope that you guys are being safe out there. Love you guys. Thank you guys, bye.