Lineup Topic

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City. Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio's version of Line Up Topics. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host today. So one of the things we've been doing around here is, one of the things that I do, and this is no bullshit, like I drive around and I think about, my brain just goes, right? I try and go hiking a lot. If you follow me at Brandon underscore NRR, I post pictures of the trails and all this stuff that I do. But what I do is I like to listen to different podcasts and different inspirational people and just different things. And I've got two restaurants that I run.

01:02And so constantly coming up with line up topics can be a challenge, but I'm constantly thinking about ways to motivate people, how to get people going, how to get people to think in a different way. And this is literally what I do because I try and figure out every day how to make it the best day possible. What can I do today to make today amazing? And most of the things, most of the things that I see people get down on or they, they're just, you got to work through something. It's really an attitude issue and it's really a perspective issue. And once you help people see things a different way, they can move forward with it. So I went to the gym the other day and at the end of the gym, when you go to the YMCA, they give you these, there's like a little bowl, like it's like a mint bowl, but it's like a mind mint and these little pieces of paper that are folded up and you grab a piece of paper. Usually it's like a Bible verse or something, you know, that you can take it with you. It's like a mint for your mind. Well, the other day I grabbed, I don't know why I was leaving. I was like, I'm going to grab one a day. I want to see what comes out of this.

02:03And it was a quote. It was a quote from Rick Warren and I posted this on socials and I said, Hey, look, there's a lineup topic coming from this. So here you go. The quote is this, and I'm going to center this around my buddies at what chefs want. Humility is built by defeating the temptation to be dishonest. Humility grows when you refuse to be prideful and endurance develops every time you reject the temptation to give up. Okay. I'm going to read that again. Integrity is built by defeating the temptation to be dishonest. Humility grows when you refuse to be prideful and endurance develops every time you reject the temptation to give up. So I'm still working on the humility growing and refusing to be prideful. However, I think if you're human being, everybody has, I think it's so well done, like in the old cartoons where you have the little angel that would pop up and little devil that would pop up and there's like this right and left side where you're trying to figure out like, what's the right thing to do?

03:11It's like, for me, it's like, should I have that bowl of ice cream at nighttime? And the little angel is like, no, you don't need that ice cream. Go to bed. And the little devil is like, eat it, eat it. And I think for a lot of people, there's right or wrong and that comes in so many different ways. And I'm not going to give examples. There's, you know, steal, don't steal, really easy stuff. But integrity is built by defeating the temptation to be dishonest. In recovery, you know, one of the things that I found that I did a lot was I used to lie. I used to lie a lot about my drinking and I would hide it from people, namely my wife. And I would choose to be dishonest because I was afraid of addressing my shortcomings. Right. I think really all we're dealing with there is fear. There's this fear that once I give in or once somebody knows this or I'm going to get in trouble in 90% of the time, it's not that bad. 90% of the time. You know what? Sometimes it's the music, but sometimes we build up this fear and we just got to attack it.

04:16And I think that the temptation to be dishonest is with every single person, but like, what's the other side of it? Like just true authenticity, like who gives a shit if you don't like me? You know, I think integrity is a huge part. I think let's do the right thing. And the way that we put it in the recovery community is do the next right thing. And what I wanted to say was what chefs want, right? So they're a sponsor. But also I talked with Monty Crawford, who's I think their COO today for like 40 minutes. And Monty and I have a long relationship and Monty hired me straight out of the restaurants when I was, gosh, it was 2005. So I mean, gosh, it had to be 17 years ago. I mean, I was like 26. And you know, one of their main philosophies that they said was, is that, you know what? We're going to do the right thing. We're going to do the thing that helps chefs the most. And I love that. And I remember talking to Monty about it this today, just, and we were waxing poetic about sitting down the first time he met me and, you know, they were like, we have six accounts in Nashville.

05:28And, you know, I've been here for, Monty had only been there for a year or so, maybe less. I don't know, but he was in other cities, but we were building up Nashville, six accounts. And I think that four years later, when I left, I think we had like 78. And I mean, just those beginning days of going out there and hustling seven days a week, we just, we were just such a small company and you had to do the right thing. That was the main thing. I think this last part, which I thought was really interesting to bring it back to them also was endurance develops every time you reject the temptation to give up. And I will tell you, as a small company coming out of Louisville, Kentucky, Creation Gardens back in the day, everybody hated Creation Gardens and a lot of them still do. Creation Gardens was an absolute disrupter. They were people that came out that said, you can order seven days if you want. We'll split anything that we sell, we'll source anything.

06:30We don't care. Like, we just want to make your lives easier. And they just hustled. You know what? They were people that came out of service that they wanted to change the game and people attacked the shit out of them. I mean, every which way. How are you going to do seven days? How are you going to do this? How are you going to do that? Hey, look, I went to work for Freshpoint and I attacked them for a while too because I didn't know how to compete against it because they just did the thing that made chefs happy. Like they, so much so they changed their name to what chefs want. And I just started thinking about endurance and how they could easily have given up and said, nah, Nash, there's too much competition in Nashville and they're not going to do it. But man, Monty is one of those guys, 18 years of just every single day. That guy is one of the hardest working dudes I've ever come in contact with and was an amazing mentor to me and to this day is a great friend. And I'm honored to have them as a sponsor on the show. And as I did this, you know, lineup topics, I was thinking about just endurance and every day doing the right thing.

07:36That conversation really brought it up. But in the restaurant, every single day, something makes you want to quit. I mean, there's something never do you finish a day and you go, wow, that was exactly the way that we drew it up. I mean, it's rare. It happens. But like, it's rare. The sewage is backing up in the bathroom or somebody passed out in the parking lot or I mean, there's a hole in the ceiling. You name it. There's something that goes on every day in a restaurant and there's something that just beats you down. There's guests, there's the guy, you know, during the pandemic, it's the people that didn't want to wear a mask or they were yelling at you. There's somebody who's unruly. Somebody wants something for free. Somebody who wants to talk to the manager. There's the name Karen has come about throughout all of this. And every day there's something that makes you just go, God, this is freaking hard. And every day that we endure, every day that we continue to go on and we reject the temptation to give up, we grow stronger.

08:39You know, I have two different management teams at both the restaurants and nobody's perfect. And sometimes we argue. And I love it when we argue because it's passion that like bubbles out. I told the team the other day, because we were having this real passionate conversation, I said, guys, we are, this is one of the things that makes great teams. Like we have three different people here. We have six managers in one of the buildings and we have different chefs and people, but we all trust each other. And sometimes we fight and sometimes you get scared and you go, but you know what? This is what, this is what powers us through is getting through times like these. Enduring and understanding and instead of rejecting and giving up, you lean in, you put your arms around people and you say, that's it. That's hey, well, teach me, teach me to understand where you're coming from. It's understanding, it's sharing perspectives. It's true empathy. And I read this quote again, you know, endurance develops every time you reject the temptation.

09:43Not just sometimes, and I think there's an epidemic in the hospitality industry of people just going, fuck it, I'm out. I'm not dealing with this shit anymore. I don't ever, like if you look on these hospitality boards, a lot of times you hear people say, oh, they walked out, our chef walked out, this person walked out. Why does it always happen that way? Why are, why does in the restaurant industry specific people just walk out? Why are we not recognizing when people are that burnout on the front end and having conversation with them and giving them time off? Why are we not doing that? And why, if you're somebody who's willing to walk out, why are you not communicating that to the people above you? And if you work for people that don't give a shit about you, then don't work there. Work for places that do. I mean, I instruct every single person on our team that the people come first. That's it. And there are so many amazing restaurants out there that do the exact same thing. Locally owned and operated restaurants that genuinely care about you, that it is an actual family, but you don't build that actual family until.

10:47You, you, you have this endurance to you fight through, uh, until you reject the temptation to give up. All right. So there's a lot of topic today. When you feel like you're in that moment where you're overwhelmed or you want to give up, that's the time to lean in. That's the time to raise your hand. See, I need help. That's what we do. That's what this industry is. Let's stop walking out on jobs. Okay. And if you do walk out on a job, I want to, I'd love to know why you did that. Why in the moment you felt the need to leave a business high and dry. Cause I don't know any other career that people just walk out all the time, but it's ridiculous. So I'm gonna read it one last time and I don't know what you take out of this or how, what you do with it. It's my 10 to 15 minute deal. And I was talking to Monty today and I thought this is, this is a great opportunity to share how impressed I am with what chefs want, has been able to accomplish over the last 18 years and what a fixture they are on this industry, how they have helped so, so many people.

11:52But integrity is built by defeating the temptation to be dishonest. Humility grows when we refuse to be prideful and endurance develops every time you reject the temptation to give up. That is a Rick Warren quote. And, um, there it is. I said on the last episode with Misty blue that I hate doing these. I've recorded like five of them and I never put them out. I'm going to try and put this one out tonight. I feel very preachy. I feel very like who the fuck is this guy to come tell me what I need to be doing. But these are actual thoughts that go through my head. And this is the way my brain works. This is what the way it works every single day. When I'm at work, I'm walking around, I'm talking to people. I'm thinking, how can I help? What can I do to help share a perspective with this person who's upset? How can I understand where they're coming from and what can I do to make it better? What can I do to be a human being around them? And I encourage you to do the same. So thank you guys for listening. And, uh, we've got some fun shows coming up.

12:55We'll talk to you guys later. Hope you're being safe out there. Love you guys. Bye.