Misty Blu Hardwick

00:00Do you know who your insurance agent is for your restaurant? Because a lot of companies will send out cheap prices and they'll offer you the best deal, but really when it comes down to it, what you're looking for is the right insurance with the best service. And that's why Robin's insurance exists today. Matthew Clements is your guy. If you have an issue, feel secure that you can call Matthew Clements anytime. His number, by the way, is 863-409-9372. Robin's insurance specializes in restaurant insurance. So if you don't know who your insurance agent is and you don't have a specific number, you can call to get ahold of a person. Hey, service is important. You know that, you know that in your restaurant, it is also important when it comes to insurance. So give Matthew Clements a call, talk to him, meet with him, learn about what they can offer you that can probably save you some money and get you better insurance. 863-409-9372.

01:07It's M Clements, M C L E M E N T S at Robins, R O B I N S I N S dot com. Give them a call today. Welcome to Nashville restaurant radio, the tastiest hour of talk in music city. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello music city and welcome to Nashville restaurant radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am your host coming at you on a Friday, heading into the weekend. We got a fun show for you. Today we talk with Misty Blue Hardwick.

02:11She is the on premise market manager at Brown Foreman. Brown Foreman is a large liquor company. They do Jack Daniels, Woodford, among a bunch of other brands. And she's one of those people who caught my eye. She's just very interesting. She's all over the place. She's a fitness instructor. She's a, um, she's, she's, I feel like there's an event every night. Like every time that I pull up my Instagram, like damn, there's another event that they're at. And I just, I don't know, it's interesting. I don't know how people balance their time and energy for all that stuff. So I wanted to talk to her and learn about her and it was a very, very good interview. We actually did the interview live today on Facebook, which was kind of fun. So hopefully maybe you saw some of it. Maybe you saw all of it. Here's the actual audio version of it. And we just had a lot of fun. One of the topics of conversation that we talk about is my interview, my lineup topics. So I record these every week. I do. I just sit down and I record lineup topics and I talk about one that went through my brain the other day and I record them and I don't put them out.

03:19I don't ever, I put them out sometimes because I'm in my own head and I'm like, ah, I'm afraid, which is funny because the last one that I did was on being afraid. It was about swimming with sharks or being afraid of sharks. And I read the Matthew McConaughey book and it was, he just attacked all of his fears immediately. And it made me think about like fears, like, what do we fear? What are we afraid of? Why are we, why do we postpone things? I feel like every time I'm afraid of something and I do it, or if I'm just procrastinating, I'm like, I really don't want to do that. Or I perceive something's going to suck. I just hold off on it. And then when I finally do it, I go, well, that was easy. Like updating our website, like the website for Nash restaurant radio, updating all the episodes in there. It's just, it's daunting. So I got to go back and I'm, I'm behind on it. But when I do it, I go, oh, that was really easy. I should have done that a long time ago. Um, and one of those things that I was thinking about is, you know, restaurants, it's, it's HR, it's benefits, it's payroll and net checks.

04:25This was on the actual lineup topic. Net checks was the sponsor. And that's one of those things I think we, as small business owners look at, and you're like, ah, HR payroll benefits. Like I got, I got to do it. I need to do it. And it's just kind of a challenge, but net checks makes it easy. It's a one touch thing. You know, they work with thousands of restaurants and they deal with challenges like yours every day. I'm going to read this. They deal with general ledger integration, paperless onboarding with e-verify, multiple pay rates with tipped overtime calculation rate, mobile access for employees to pay stubs, request time off and view schedules, tip pools and sharing calculations, department allocation, state unemployment management, employment and wage verification, ACA, compliance. I mean, they have an app that covers like all of that. And it is amazing how easy it is. You just got to do it. And it's not that hard. You guys just jump in there. And sometimes when you just do the thing. So my, my lineup topic was about that thing that you're afraid of, that thing that you're afraid of doing, which the irony is that I was afraid of putting this upside down because I didn't like the way it sounded, but yeah, you're afraid to do it.

05:41Just go do it. Give it a shot. In this episode, we talk about rear view mirrors and looking back. And I really, I think this is one of those things that you just got to do. You know, you got to, you got to just face your fears. And so HR, one of these things that can possibly be give Anna Smith a call over at net check 615-491-0669. She is also available at a Smith at net checks. That's C H E X N E T C H E X online.com. Okay. That is your girl to go to net checks is amazing. They support Nashville restaurant radio, which in turn, I want to talk about local and rapid restaurants. I want to bring you guys the coolest stuff. You're going to hear a little bit more about go tab and maintain IQ in this episode. These are amazing new tech companies. I think you're going to love, I love bringing this stuff to you. Stay tuned. I've got a big announcement in my episode Monday with Jim Myers. Jim Myers is over at the Elliston place soda shop. And later in the episode, I talk about kind of some things that are coming up. I tease it on this episode, but at the end of my episode with Jim Myers, I start talking about something new that's coming to the hospitality scene in Nashville. And I'm excited. So without further ado, I think we should jump in and talk with miss Misty blue Hardwick.

07:07I think it sounds great. I'll try not to snort when I laugh. I prefer la snorting while laughing. That's the way to go. So Misty blue Hardwick, welcome to Nashville restaurant radio. Thank you. I appreciate the welcome. I don't know what your title is or what the hell you do, but I figured you would tell me. Yes. Well, Instagram would say, I work hard and I play hard. Okay. Technically true. So that's what I know about you. Yes. I'm the on-premise market manager for Brown Foreman on-premise is just anywhere that you could purchase liquid to lips. So that's a bar or restaurants. That's Bonnaroo or pride. That's Nissan or Bridgestone. It's a big world and Brown Foreman's workhorses we all know as Jack Daniels, but the portfolio is much more than that. So Woodford, Old Forester, Elhemador, Ford's gin. I mean, the list keeps going on and on.

08:09Woodford is actually the bourbon that took me out. Oh, I want to hear about that. That was the last thing that I drank before I called it quits. And it was a whole bottle in one night. And I went, Nope, that's it. No more quantity. Well, at least it was the good, the good juice on the way out. And I'm a, I am a Tennessee Squire. Oh, I don't know. Does people know about that? It's like a secret thing. Is that anything special at all? Super secret society. Yes. You actually own one square inch of land in Lynchburg. Bring it. You get all the discounts. You get the first release information before the typical consumer would have it. All the whiskey collectors wish they could be Squires because then you would have more access to information. I can't even be a Squire because I'm affiliated with the industry. Really? Yeah. Not because I'm a woman by the way, because that's all changed. But, was that, that used to be a thing? Well, I mean, I couldn't pinpoint a single female Squire for a very long time, but there, there are women now. So, I'm actually the first woman in my role here in Tennessee. So, you know, things are changing. It's just, you know, to write a very big ship will take a substantial amount of time.

09:22Yeah. Well, I want to talk about it. So I, um, we are live right now on, on Facebook. And if you're out there listening and you would like to comment or anything, you just, you can type it into Facebook. If you're on Facebook, you can type a question or a comment and I can ask Misty blue live right here. So this is different than our normal show. I normally record shows and then we put them out later. I said, fuck it today. We're going to do this. We're good. This show is going to come out Friday morning. So I thought we'll just let people do it live and then we'll, we'll, we'll put it out tomorrow. And if any brawls occur, there's time to edit those out. So that's great. There is. Well, people will get to see the brawls live and then we can take it off later. Later. Yes. Um, well, as far as the booze piece, actually, uh, I was not a drinker until I was 21. My father is a recovering alcoholic and he got sober when I was six years old and out of respect for him. I've, uh, up until a year ago, I've never brought alcohol into his house and I only did that as a bottle of wine for my mother. Um, so, it was, you know, it was really difficult the first year for me, just being around it, which, which is kind of bullshit because I got lucky.

10:33I, my last drink was on October the 27th. My sober date is October 28th, 2019. So going into 2020 when we were all forced to be alone, I wasn't forced to be around much people drinking. And my wife quit drinking when I quit drinking and like in solidarity, like, Hey, she didn't care about drinking anyway. She was like, if you're not going to drink, then I won't drink around you, which was fantastic. But now two and a half years later, I'm in the midst of everything and I've learned enough about myself and all the stuff around alcoholism to go, Hey, look, it's not, it's not a problem. It's not, I have no problem with alcohol. I have no problem with anybody who drinks. It's just me. I have that allergy. They say that I can't just have one. No, I understand. I mean, I don't care if you'll bring it around me, whatever they do. Great. Well, I mean for me, I just didn't want to be the type of person who had a problem in, you know, being a child of an alcoholic, it's always in the back of your mind. Is this something that's hereditary for me, or is this going to come up later in life? So I wanted to wait until I was well adjusted enough to know that I could handle my own alcohol.

11:36So when you were 21, what was the first thing that you drank? What was the first experimentation in alcohol? So the first thing I ever drank was the neck of a Zima. And if, uh, me too, my first drink was Zima also. And if Mike Hines, the, uh, one of the owners of Nashville barrel company is listening, he will remember trying to slip me a screwdriver earlier in the night. And it ended up being a Zima that I took the sip of, not the screwdriver. But the first time I actually sat down to drink, my ex was a probium X rider and I was in California and all the boys, we had just broken up. So all the boys were out drinking. And it was going to be my first night and they all wanted to take bets on who was going to pick the right drink for me. And someone tried to get me a vanilla Stoly and seven up. Ooh, that tasted like cotton candy medicine. I was like a hard no, hard no. And someone else tried a rum and diet. That was a hard no. If you get the lime, I don't know. It depends on the rum.

12:38I drink rum and diets for a while. When I was like, I, after, after you drink them for a little bit, they aren't as bad, but for your first drink, no. Terrible. So, so sugary. And then someone, of course tried to do something carbonated, which I'm not really a big fan of. And finally the bartender got really perturbed. This was at the standard rooftop in downtown LA, super trendy bar back in the day. And he was so annoyed as any big sologist air quotes would be. And he goes, can I just guess? And all everybody was like, fine, fine, fine. And he came back with it's, you know, the rocks glass between a shot glass and a rocks glass that one halfway in between. Yeah. Slightly pink on the rocks. I took a sip. I took the whole thing back. I was like, this is delicious. What is it? He's like, that's whiskey with a splash of cranberry. So my first real drink was in essence whiskey. And that's kind of what I stuck to. I'm a big whiskey. I was a big whiskey fan. I love, I, I went to Napa. I'm a, I did my sommelier in 2003 and I finally went to Napa. I don't know however long behind that, but I loved, like when you got there, everybody had like their own, like, Oh, this is only at the vineyard.

13:46You can only get this here. You can only get this there. And I was like, there's an entire culture around this. And I was blown away. I was like, I want to be here. This is fantastic. And then my brother-in-law got married and right in the middle of Bourbon country and he was like one of the first whiskey guardians for Angel's Envy. And at his wedding, all these people started busting out bottles of bourbon. And I was like, what the fuck is that? And like, it was all these like super duper special bottles and we were just kind of tasting. And I was like, this is the same thing as like Napa, but it's bourbon and it's close to my house. And I was like, I was like, okay, I'm in, like, I love all of this. I love the stories. I love the, you know, we went to do some tastings. You got to actually like drink out of like the whole thing in the barrel and you're tasting straight out of the barrel. And you're like, this is the greatest thing in my life. It's called thieving whiskey. I mean, of course you make it sound cool like that. Yeah, but it's thieving for sure. But like, I, I didn't know that whiskey was like that.

14:50And it became like this whole obsession of mine. So, you know, I like to say back in the day, but prior to being on the supplier side of things, I was with the distributor prior to that. It was running a restaurant. And so I do a lot of staff education still, you know, and one of the things I always like to tell people is people drink for three reasons. One, it gets them drunk, obviously. Yeah. Two, it's because it tastes great. Or if you're not really into the primary spirit, that's why you drink cocktails. Or if you are into the primary spirit, that's why you drink it neat. It's because of the flavor profile. But then the third reason is the X factor. It's the romance and whiskey and wine to your point. And now tequila down that we're learning so much more about tequila has so much history that it's in, in my opinion, in most people's opinion, it's romantic to learn something that you didn't know. This culture, this, this quiet historical fact about something. So we'll teach us something about Jack Daniels. Tell us something like, cause I just, I mean, there's so many things to say. We at Maribor, we had this, we have to have something called the top shelf and it's like this specialty bourbon menu and I've got the Sinatra and I've got the 10 year and I've got the Coy Hill.

15:58You got some of that. I have the Coy Hill and Nick, nobody knows about it. And I go, I have some 71% Jack Daniels, like 71 proof. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, 71%. And they're like, that's like 142. I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I know. I know it's here and people get shocked and they're like, that's just amazing. Like tell me something about. Oh gosh, scratching the surface. There's so much to say. Well, the Coy Hill in particular that just came out every year, Jack Daniels, for the last few years, they've done these Tennessee tasters, which are three, seven, five mils that you can only get here in the state of Tennessee. And all they do is it's a barrel treatment or it's a different aging process or they just tweak the process a little bit. And the consumer really predicates based upon how much was sold and how quickly what of those two iterations will become a heritage barrel. And the heritage barrel is the single barrel version of whatever those Tennessee tasters were.

17:00And the Coy Hill in particular was the result of that very process of the two Tennessee tasters coming out, the consumers deciding which one they liked the most. And then they went in that direction for the single barrel. It was so popular, however, that they decided to do a second release of it. They were going to release it to some other States and they decided not to. So Tennessee will be receiving some more of that later in the year when all of the brown form and allocations come out for birthday bourbon and wood for baccarat and all those sexy ones. So it was funny though, because a lot of friends in town wanted my sample bottle and my mentor in the business who has now passed away, John Hardaway, he had a theory of when you're first in the industry on the supplier side, always request two sample bottles, one to keep and one to share. And the later in your career you get, then you can have the pull to ask for three sample bottles, one to keep, one to share, one to give away. But you never give it away the first year. You got to hold onto it and find that right situation to give it away for.

18:02You've got to have that leverage. You got to, you got to be able to say I got something for you because this world is all about, right? Absolutely. And so I was very pumped because I got three units of Coy Hill. And of course everybody wanted one. So I ended up giving one away immediately. Who'd you give it to? I don't want to say because I don't want to make anybody mad that didn't receive one. But if you're the person you're sitting here right now going, that was me. What's up? Exactly. But to make it up for the people that I didn't give the barrel or the bottle to, we had a Coy Hill experience at Jack Daniels where they hosted all these folks on this private tour tasting down to the caves. They showed the actual barrel house where the Coy Hill is selected from something that it's like behind the curtain. And so I sent as many of those folks that did not get my bottle as possible and they all know who they are. So they might have been able to do. But that was an opportunity for, I think a total of 112 people. So very, very small opportunity. Wow. You know, you seem like you love what you do a hundred percent.

19:05You, you know, you kind of, I met you today when you walked up and you're like, how do you know who I am? Yeah. Which is kind of creepy because I'll meet people like, Hey, I love your podcast. I'm like, I have no idea who you are. Like, how do you, are you stalking me? Like what's going on? But I put this out there and I expect that. But you, you put your stuff out on social media and I follow you on Instagram. I don't know how I found you, but I just, you know, it always gives you recommendations. Hey, you follow these 12 people here. You should follow this person. But you're like at some event or doing something like every night. Oh yeah. And on your profile, it says that you're like a fitness instructor. Yeah. But I don't like there, there's, there's so many things that you're doing. So like what motivates, like you're the most people I just find you to be fascinating. And I don't have no idea. I don't know you from Adam learning about you. This is fun. Thank you for being here. But like, I just want to know like what makes you tick, like and what causes that and what is your other business and how do you find time to do everything?

20:08Well, my therapist would say that that is a result of damage to childhood. The resilient adult. But no, fitness for her. Yes. Yes. And it's not so bad to be a damaged child because then you have a higher propensity to become a resilient adult. Right. But fitness for me is not just fitness. I've, you know, struggled with a lot of things growing up and I felt that, you know, a lot of women experience eating disorders when things kind of go pear shaped younger in life. And rather than continuing to go down that road, I found that fitness helped me be the healthiest version that I could be without being down the black hole of neuroses with food. And it's a whole thing. I think it's terrible what we do to women as far as the expectations to what you should look like. And all of these things are just, yeah, I can't imagine going through that as a young woman. Oh yeah. But you know, with it started as an eating disorder and then I wanted to become healthy and you know, finding a great therapist and finding a great support system and healing some previous wounds and fitness just became more than just fitness.

21:19It's a health mentality. And I've, I of course view it differently. The fitness community in Nashville is very cutthroat and there's a, well, as far as the aesthetic of it, how do you look and to your point, the Instagram piece, the impressions or the impression you have on others. I think that there are two different types of fitness trainer and one is aware that this is a lifestyle of health and the other is aware that this is a lifestyle of aesthetics. Yeah. And whether or not you start out in the health world, once you live in the fitness world for a long time, we all tend to get to the wrong side of it. But there's a way to say to somebody, you're making great progress without saying, Hey, you're looking skinny today or you look so lean. You know, there's a way to say you look healthy and encourage a qualifying great choices versus quantifying what you can and can't do based upon macros. And you know, this whole, I can get down that rabbit hole, but for me, I'm learning. So I'm, I try and stay in shape and I try and go hike a lot, but I don't eat as well as I should. And I'm working on that piece too.

22:28Well, but that's the point though. Not everybody is going to have every single aspect or, or piece of their pie figured out, right? Yeah. We all have to get to a point in our health and our development to where we can have the, you know, the cognizance to say, maybe I should work on this, you know, so you're already there by, by pinpointing what it is that you can improve upon. But the fitness piece keeps me honest to my career. And before I actually had this career, I, you know, the journey to get here was long. I was in the service industry for a long time and I drugged trash cans and was covered in simple syrup and you know, ate a lot of shit as they say. And then from there I went to the distributor from the distributor to the supplier, but in the process I couldn't pay the bills until I was certain point in my career without supplementing my income other ways. And so for me, fitness became like, Oh, of course I'll start teaching on the side. Well, then I started a 5 a.m. for shed fitness here in Nashville and then I was beholding to these 30 people every morning and they're just great accountability partner. It is those 30 people, those 30, 35 people that I see every day. Yeah.

23:38And every time I thought to myself, you know, maybe I'll teach one last class. Well, maybe I'll do a different time. I, there's just no way to walk away from 5 a.m. They're my, they're my champion. So do you get up every day at 5 a.m. or four? What does that schedule look like for you? Typically before if I was teaching at five, I was working out at 4 a.m. because that was the only timeframe I could squeeze it in. But now I've, with this supplier role, I can build more of my own schedule. So I'm able to work out at six now, which is great. So you get to sleep in. Yeah. And on the weekends, I don't have to teach until seven. So that's an extra hour there too. And so you do, so you get up bright and early every day, not every day, but yeah, but I mean for the most part, and then you go work out, you teach your class. After that, I assume you go home, shower, change, whatever you gotta do. What does your day look like after that? I walk the dog. I look her in the eye. She's a pit bull rescue. Her name is Rye. Rye naturally. And I want to find her a brother.

24:39If anybody's out there who has a rescue pit bull, who won't bite my rescue pit bull on the face. I want to name them Jack. So they could be Jack Rye together. But I walk her, I look her in the eye, tell her how important you're wearing today. Jack Daniel's Rye. She's got her own Instagram page too. If you want to follow your dog, what is the Instagram handle? Rye the rescue pup. Rye RYE the rescue pup. Okay. That's awesome. And then you're just to get people to know you are miss Misty blue. M I S S M I S T Y B L U on Instagram. So people can follow you like I do and stalk you and see all the insanity that is you every day. Well, I'm currently private because I'm going through a divorce at this point. But I was public for many, many years. And actually to your point, I just found all kinds of new friends on the internet. They were like, you might be interesting. And then likewise, let's be buddies. But so Rye and I spend the morning together. I walk her, I do admin at the house. I take a 20 minute power nap, get ready for the day, take meetings all day. How do you do it? How do you do like a power nap?

25:49Um, I have a trick. I don't even know how I don't even know what that is. I tried one the other day and it was, it was, I was just, I would literally have like an hour and I was like, I'm going to go lay in bed and see if I can. And I fell asleep and I was done. I was like the rest of the day. I was like, I don't know what the hell happened, but I'm a, I slept in the middle of the day and I'm fucked now the whole rest of the day. Well, so like I liked, I used to set alarms. Now my body kind of knows, but I placed my hands together on my chest because it slows your heart rate down. Does it? So you place your hands like you're praying. Yep. And then you hold it to your chest, link my fingers together and I breathe really slowly for about 30, 40 seconds. And it's like meditate kind of not really. I don't meditate. I, but once I get to that 30, 40 second mark, I then, this is hilarious, but I then start to think about and prioritize how I would spend my money. If I were to win the lottery step by step by step. And by the time I get to the third step, I'm out. I'm dying to know what step one is. Well, usually it's family. I'm like, wow, how can I invest this for my family?

26:51Okay. So let's just say you went $350 million. I'm not talking like, I won 20 grand. Like we know that would be gone in an hour. $350 million. First thing you do. I'd split off a third of it and I helped my family build their homes, pay off their debt, make sure that their kids went to college, you know, things like that. I'd make sure they were taking care of and investing properly. But that's a hundred million dollars. You would spend a day. You could probably do that for a lot less. Yeah. But it'd be a huge family, a hundred people in your family. You give everybody a million dollars. Well, yeah, but I just think that if, if it's a fantastical quantity of money, it shouldn't just be my fantasy. That's being, it should be, you know, I should share it. You know, I don't know. There's no right or wrong answer here. You are a hundred percent right. And then usually after that, it's like, how am I going to travel for the next two years and what kind of infrastructure would that require? Is it going to be by boat or by plane? Do I need to buy either? Do I need a chef? Definitely. I need my own personal trainer.

27:54So I don't have to train myself and be bored every day. Who's traveling with me. What about the dog care? What about getting, you know, and that's, that's how it usually goes the second route. You're worrying about dog care. You have $350 million. I was like, who's going to take care of that? You hire 12 people to walk your dog every hour to bring you like, you can have your dog's own chef. Yes. Which she would appreciate. She's cause she's allergic to a lot of foods. She's a hot mess guys. We have a Bernadoodle. I don't even know what that is. It is not a rescue dog. It is a designer dog. It's the opposite of a rescue dog, but I am allergic to dogs. So I needed like a hypoallergenic dog and I really wanted a dog. And so this was a, it's a, it's a, it's a poodle and a burnings mountain dog. So how big is this dog? It's 50 pounds. Oh, that's manageable. And what, what is this dog's name? Dolly. Dolly Parton still. Loving that. Dolly. Yes. And Dolly, and we have a cat named Mr. Business.

28:59You don't say his whole name when you call him, do you? Yeah. Mr. Business. Well, his full name is Mr. Jim Business, but we just call him Mr. Bit. So this was a, I'll tell you the story of my cat. It'll be really fast. We went to St. Martin in January, my wife and I, and this was a trip. We were making up from August. We weren't able to go. And her sister came in from Louisville to, uh, to, to watch our children. We have two children, there's seven and eight. And she said, I've just rescued a cat and I need to bring the cat with me cause I don't have anybody to watch this cat. And we're like, um, of course my wife's like, okay, we just need you to come watch the kids. That's great. And I'm like, yeah, right. You're bringing a cat to my house or my children can fall in love with it over three or four days without your supervision. Yeah. Yeah. That cat's going home with you like no way in hell. And so literally get back and the kids like, we love the cat. And I was like, no shit, the cat and the cat is the most chill cat in the entire world. Our seven year old just carries him around and he's totally cool with it. He's just like, yeah, and he likes it. He's just down.

30:01What color is this cat? It's like an orange tabby. The best. It was an amazing cat is the best cat I've ever had in my life. I I'm not a big cat fan, but I did have an orange tabby back in the day and his name was Yeager. I might have a thing with alcohol and he got screwvite crystals and passed unfortunately. But man, that cat was the coolest cat. You might as well been a dog. But the she named Mr. Business is a, the cat and Bob's burgers. Apparently his name is Mr. Business and he was going to be a cat model. So she named the cat Mr. Jim Business and we just call him Mr. Business. It's, it's, I just think it's a hilarious name and I love it. That's like, I mean, but like that's when your parents used to call you by your full name. Mr. Jim Business. What are you doing? I've, I've always said if I won the lottery and I think about this a lot that I don't same, same as you have not to take a nap, but I'm going to use that now. Yeah, it always works for me. I always said I would pay off everybody's debt, like everybody in my family, all of their homes, everything. And that's what you get from me. If you're really fiscally conservative and you don't have any debt, well then I'll hook you up with whatever I paid for the most person, you know, whatever it is. And then I would go to Fiji and I would rent one of, you know, they have like those, those huts on the water and there's like, but there's like 10 of them. There's like a whole compound.

31:12It looks like like a fern leaf almost looking thing. I would rent like a whole thing and I would invite anybody from my family wanted to go for a month. Stay as long as you want, don't stay as long as you want, but it's a free month in Fiji. And then after that, nobody's going to see me again. I like that for like 10 years. Oh yeah. I'm going to just be on an Island. I'm going to get a catamaran. I'm going to boat and I'm just going to go Island to Island and I'm just going to fricking kick it. When the zombie apocalypse happens, you'll be safe at sea. So this is funny because I didn't know how many other people think about that. And I will tell you the owner of our restaurant, Stephen smithing, I asked him one day, I said, what would you do if you won the lottery? And he goes, well, I like to, you know, like when the whole staff throws in, you know, we do this, when there's, we get like a four or 500 million. He goes, I like to throw in a match, what everybody does because I think it'd be fun to win the lottery with a bunch of like my friends because there's no fun because I have friends that have like money like that. He's like, can you have to have friends of mine like that or else you have to just pay for everybody all the time? Oh, well no, I would hire my friends to be my hired friends. I mean, like we were no longer friends. You're my hired friend.

32:21You're coming with me everywhere we go. Yeah, you kind of have to do that though. My best friend of 20 years. I'm about to turn 40 this year, and we have officially now been best friends for half of our lives. And he lives in California now. And, and we always joke that no matter if I, if I lived in a cardboard box or I was the richest person on earth, he always has a place to stay with me. And, um, so when I think about winning the lottery in terms of those things, I'm like, now Phil and I are just taking over. Phil and I are, it's always Phil. In fact, even though it's such a funny story, when I was getting in a proposed to, um, years ago before the whole divorce, obviously it's like step one, get proposed to step two, agree three. Yeah. So, um, so, but I thought my birthday surprise rather than being proposed to you was that Phil was coming in town and that my fiance at the time was, um, going to surprise me with my best friend. So we get to love circle.

33:23There's a picnic blanket, whiskey on ice, music playing. And I'm like, and I said, you know, Phil does love love circle. So that makes some sense. And I'm looking at Lucas, like, what are you looking for? I'm like for Phil. He's like, he then proposes. And the first words out of my mouth are, but where's Phil the whole time? I thought he was going to be there. And he's like, what the fuck? He's like, Bill is not coming. Okay. I was like, well then that wasn't a perfect proposal. Then I guess, I mean, I'll do it, but I mean, can we have Phil here? So I can have given you appropriate. Yes. This is why it didn't work out guys. Always have your, your girl's best friend. Was he your maid of honor? Uh, he was, he was my, my best maid or man. And there was that thing where they call it like that's the whole thing. There was a movie. Yeah. Man of honor. Man of honor. Is that what they call it? Yeah. Yeah. That's pretty cool. Well, yeah, he was, he's everything. You guys have got to meet Phil. Most people in Nashville know Phil, but anyway, probably.

34:27He was a great bartender at play and tribe for him for a few years. He's done promo work for Jack throughout the years. He's been a friend to Jack, a friend of Jack. Yeah. Okay. So we got off on a tangent. I'm sorry. You say like, take a power nap, we're talking about your day way back 20 minutes ago, we were talking about your day and you said you take a power nap. And I had to know how you do that, which was, thank you for elaborating on that. Yeah. You wake up from the power nap and then let's, let's move on with your day. And this is a perfect time for you to hear a word from our sponsors. What chefs want has been serving the Nashville restaurant community for over 15 years. During that time, they've worked tirelessly to be, well, what chefs want seven day deliveries, no fuel charges, 24 seven customer care, unparalleled availability, and they'll split almost everything they sell. If you're the kind of person that wants to see what's new when it comes in stock, you should follow them on the socials at what chefs want and sign up to be a customer at what chefs want.com.

35:36You have heard me talk about super source for the last two years. And in that time, Jason Ellis, I feel like he's taken over the city. It is hard for me to get a guest in here that doesn't use super source. And I'm telling you, everybody loves him. When you mentioned Jason, they're like, Oh my gosh, that guy's legitimate. Ask yourself this question. Do you feel that way about the person that provides you with your dish machine and chemicals? Because he's the real deal. And guess what? He's not going to make you sign a five year contract. He's never going to say, Oh, you signed a contract. It's on you. He goes week to week. You never sign a contract. So he earns your business every single week. I loved it when we had cam and Nickian from the red perch. And they said, he's like one of our employees. When he's in the building, he's that good. You should call him today. If you don't feel that way about your dish machine and chemical person, 770-337-1143 is how you get ahold of Jason or go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Or go to NashvilleRestaurantRadio.com. Click the sponsors tab.

36:38There's a special link on there that will give you special discounts for new customers. Call them now. Okay. So maybe you have a job. Maybe you don't necessarily need another full-time job, but you'd like to make a little bit of extra money. You need a better work life balance. Maybe change the way you work. GigPro can provide the opportunity for higher pay, a flexible schedule, and hopefully connect you with the right fit for a longterm employment. If you go sign up right now at go.gigpro.com forward slash pro, you can do that. Just think, you don't have to sign up and work somewhere for a long time. You can go accept gigs and see if you like it. I know it's amazing. And once you sign up for every one of your friends, you get to sign up, you will get $5. So go to go.gigpro.com forward slash pro right now. Okay. So we got off on a tangent. I'm sorry. You say, like, take a power nap. We're talking about your day way back 20 minutes ago, we were talking about your day and you said you take a power nap and I had to know how you do that, which was, thank you for elaborating on that.

37:48You wake up from the power nap and then let's, let's move on with your day. Yeah. I make sure that it's, I try to stack all my appointments together and then leave a window of about two hours to go back home and spend more time with the dog because now that I'm a single dog parent, I don't have, you know, really help on the backend. And then nighttime events, I try to wrap them up by around 10 o'clock at the latest. And I try to not to stay out beyond 10 or 10 or beyond, but like one or two times a week so that I do have the energy to wake back up. And typically those nights, those next days are my rest days from the gym. How many days a week are you at an event at nighttime? Well, unfortunately, Nashville is the highest activated market in the country. In Canada, we've eclipsed Las Vegas. So the average of events that we have per month is around 30. And if you're doing the math, that means that there's a lot of events that are happening simultaneously. So May, September and October, I would say five nights a week.

38:50Those are our busy months. And then May, September and October are so spring and fall. Yes. And then aside from July and February, those are probably two slowest months. Every other month is still about three nights a week. Wow. So, yeah. And if I if I don't come out, for instance, the only night this week that I'm not booked is tomorrow night. And I have a fitness competition Saturday morning, so I can't be booked physically. OK, now what is a fitness competition? Is that like, I need to know. We pick things up, we throw them, we race each other around. It's there's a lot of high fives. How do you compete in fitness? I just I mean, is it who can lift the most? Is it who looks the best while doing it? Well, I have done a bikini competition where that is all about your physical features. Is that weird? It is terrible to do that, like to stand up there. You feel away. Well, and there's there's the piece that nobody really talks about. They're like, you're never going to feel so empowered in your life as you do when you walk in on that stage.

39:54Asterix. True. However, every step you take off the stage, you feel less than you just felt on the stage. And it's a reference point where it's just like, well, that was the best that I could be. And now every day is less than my best. Oh, yeah, it's very bleak. And then this whole diet by elimination, if you do a lot of research, your body produces non-essential aminos built to process food. And when you stop putting in certain types of food to your body, your body stops producing these non-essential aminos. And lactase is a great example, which processes lactate. So you can become lactose intolerant. So all of these elimination diets that people are doing, long term effects are really just that you won't be able to process the food later on down the road. So when you're prepping for these bikini contests and everything, there's so much elimination in your diet. To be able to eat normal food again takes a very long time. It took me about four years to actually eat red meat more than once every five or six months.

40:57Why did you, to do like a bikini contest, you can't eat red meat? What does red meat do? Just add protein and... Well, it just depends on your coach, your schedule, your dieting, your plan. So, but it is a process of elimination to lean. So, but I don't know. I don't know. OK, so competition. Competition, but I'm not in a CrossFit gym by any means. We're in a HIIT style gym, which is high intensity interval training. High intensity interval training. Yeah. And it's not like an orange theory, which is kind of like a whisper of HIIT. You know, you cardio, you floor, you cardio, you floor. But Shed, where I work out at, it's every circuit is integrated, where it's your heart rate spikes and drops. You're using different parts of the body. It's for ADD people like myself, it's always moving and changing and never the same. So our fitness competitions are really just the same idea. Some of it's cardio based, some of it's rep based and some of it's like plyo.

42:00And we all have the same challenge based upon our body capacity, if you will. What do you win? Just the bragging rights, really. Like the gold star. Yeah. And typically every year, even like we as a gym run the Spartan race together as well. OK. And typically I would take the slow group or the new group or the tentative group or the people that are really scared or it's their first time. Because I want to bring everybody over and in. And what is the Spartan? That's the like the race where it's like you run miles when there's like these obstacles that you have to like overcome. It's almost like a marine training kind of a thing. And there's a lot of a lot of mud. Oh, gross. Yeah. Right. Is that a thing? Oh, yeah. I can see the pictures and people are just like covered in mud. And you have to swim in the mud. And that's gross. Yeah. And like you have to throw spears and the spears are not like, you know, hand whittled in the Alps. They're from like Home Depot with a spearhead at the end of it, you know. And I would and I threw a spear one year and I got a splinter in my eye and I had to race the rest of the race with the shenanigans.

43:05I'm telling you. And if you don't complete an obstacle at Spartan, you have to do 30 burpees every time. So in essence, you can end up doing 150 burpees throughout the race. Do you know something? I don't think I've ever done a burpee in my entire. I don't even know. I don't even know what I think I know what a burpee is. But is that where you're standing and then you have to like go down and do a push up and jump back up? Basically. Is that something along those lines? It's head, shoulders, knees and toes, ground back up. That's the easiest way to figure it out. Why do they call it a burpee? I don't know. I really don't. That's I mean, that's a good research. Let's get romantic about fitness, guys. Let's really get into it. Can someone Google this? Yeah, we're live right now. So if you're watching this and you know what burpee stands for, just put it in the comments. Nobody's commenting right now. Well, I mean, nobody wants to talk about working out. They want to talk about booze. I you know what? But I don't care. Kind of like these are I'm in a I'm in a I'm working out every day like twice a day.

44:05And I'm like, I'm looking for advice here. That's what I'm saying. I'm like, you need recovery. Recovery. Yeah. All working out is is breaking down your muscles. Recovery builds them back. So you're just breaking, breaking, breaking. You need some build back. Yeah. There's a friend of mine who owns this great venue called Urban Sweats, and it's an infrared sauna where you go in and for 30 minutes you have infrared lights. You sweat in this bed. She also does the cold plunge tubs. It's almost like the ice bath without ice. And you shock your system into recovery with the heat and the cold. Oh, I think you'd probably benefit from that if you're working out. I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah. Her I do like I like go hiking and I'll do like a five mile hike. But then and then I'll go to the gym and do like weights. How long are you working out, though, at the gym? Well, 30, 40 minutes. But I'm doing pretty, you know, I do I go pretty fast. Like I don't do a lot of like in between sets. I just I just go all through it. Well, 35 minutes is optimal burn.

45:07Anything beyond that is kind of, you know, loading down. OK, I don't know what any of that means. I just know that I feel better when I do it. It gets like this anxiety or anything out of my body. I feel like. Well, then you need to go to urban sweat because then you basically, in essence, are recovering, but also sweating for 30 minutes. So you're actually building your muscles back while still feeling like you're you're burning, you know. Oh, so I might check it out if I were you. I go too often. Urban sweat. Yes. And I actually I go to purge out some of the city. OK. I work out in the morning. I'll teach one. I'll, you know, do you drink? Well, it's funny because a lot of people perceive me as the heaviest drinker they know, but they don't know my tricks. So that's what I'm saying, like, because you can't. When you represent the brand and you have to be there, you're I think that's the thing that people miss is that you're working. Oh, yeah. Like all of these times like you. There's such a fine line between.

46:09I'm having a blast and I'm working. And I'll give you the example. I used to run a company called Fresh Point, right? Their largest produce company in the nation. And I was the manager of Nashville when we had hockey tickets, season tickets to the Predators, and I would go all the time to these Preds games with chefs and restaurant owners. And I had a lot of fun. Yeah. But at some point, and people are like, well, you get to go to Preds games. But I'm not with my friends. No, you're an entertainer. I'm working the whole time I'm there. I'm buying drinks. I'm entertaining. And while I'm having fun, I'm also on. And like when I get home, like I crash because I'm tired and I it's like that. OK, now I can just like stop because it's a lot of work to be on that long. Well, this is something that a lot of the people in the industry, once we kind of can trust one another enough to commiserate, we talk about constantly. It's like we have burnout of optimism, burnout of compassion, burnout of empathy.

47:09And not because by nature, most of the people that are in the hospitality world and in the industry itself are givers in nature. They're helpers in nature. That's why we're in it. But spirit of service. Yes. But then you go into your personal life and you've you've tapped that vein so much. And then your personal relationships expect the same of you because that's the role you've played in everybody's life. You know, and it's not as if people are trying to take advantage of your time and your help. But it's hard to express to people, hey, I'm off right now. I'm I'm not entertaining you. I'm not even entertaining me. I am just present. I'm here. You know, it's a hard thing to do. And on vacation is a great example. You spend all this time and money planning a vacation and you get there and you feel like you have to be on on vacation versus being able to unplug, you know, because most of what vacations are, what parties and good times and fun. And that's what you do for a living. So I don't know. I go. I've learned we went to we did some like we'd go to Mexico every year. Lucky we used to go do all of like the excursions.

48:12We're going to go, you know, cliff dive into cenotes. It's going to be amazing. And then finally, I was like, I don't want to leave the resort. We're going to sit our happy ass right here and play bocce ball when they call for bocce. I want to play a little pool volleyball. I'm going to sit by the pool and drink. Oh, yeah. And I'm going to fall asleep at some point in the day. And then we'll go take a nap and they'll come back out for the PM festivities. Love that. And I'm going to do that for a week. We're going to walk down the beach. We'll get some exercise. Eventually, we did that. And I was like, holy shit, this is the vacation. This is the vacation from being on all the time. You can just sit back and do nothing. Well, it's the industry here because I've been in Nashville for so long. You either know old Misty Blue or you know current Misty Blue. And if some people know both, but they've they've seen the evolution, if you will. But so the old Misty Blue order in every bar in Nashville was I'd walk in and I'd have a shot of Jack and Jack on the rocks to chase it with.

49:18Oh, yeah, that's a good one. I could get I used to get down with that. So it's like basically two shots of Jack. One is a little slightly colder. So when I go into certain bars and people see me coming in, they'll just set it up on the bar. And I'm like, oh, God, here we go. So but the new and improved evolved Misty Blue is I drink mama's water is what we call it. And we just do gentlemen, Jack and water tall, ideally in a pint glass, so there's more water. Hydrate while you dehydrate. And then I get a water with no ice on the side. And I just continue to add more water to my whiskey and drink one cocktail to everyone else's four. Yeah. And so when someone's like, it's time for shots. Well, I'm ready for a shot because I've only had an ounce and a quarter of booze and four waters. Inevitably at some point throughout the night, it's going to be time for shots. Oh, yeah, especially with Jack Daniels as a brand in a portfolio, especially a red door slash red blur, depending on whenever you go in there. That's there's a difference of what you get.

50:20Oh, but but yeah, it kind of sounds exhausting, sober, but most tipsy person in the room. You've got to be perceived as both at all times. So do you really and you have to be perceived to be tipsy? Yeah, you have to be part of the moment. Right. So it's I mean, there are people in the industry that choose not to drink. And that's incredible because, you know, I've done the sober thing for my fitness competitions. Sure. And it takes a lot of dedication and a lot of conversations with friends over and over and over again as to why you're not drinking, which I think is bullshit. Bullshit. Yeah. Just let some people let people be who they want to be. Don't fucking drink. Yeah. I don't I don't need to explain it to you. That's it. I just I'm but I love non alcoholic beer. Oh, yeah. And there's so many really good non alcoholic beers. So I can now go to a bar and I can get the Laganitas, whatever. And I can get there's there's a ton of them. But Untitled Art makes a really good IPA and they do a good West Coast IPA.

51:24And you can just get one of those and pour it in a glass. And I can and nobody and I can feel like I'm in in the whole thing. Yeah. And then you don't get, you know, pressured to answer, you know, the hundred questions. And I don't I'm happy to say I don't drink because I'm an alcoholic. I'm kind of a proud alcoholic. One of those people that I've told people is it's kind of like coming out of the closet. Like I knew for a long time, like I I make a lot of bad decisions when I drink. And I wake up a lot of times and I'm like, I need to make three phone calls and apologize to these people because I was the shot guy. And now I don't do that. And I recognize that. And I'm proud of that. And I'm like, hey, if I can I've got this podcast, if I can at all, if somebody else out there feels that way, like once I finally said, hey, I'm an alcoholic, I was able to go, holy shit, that feels so good. I don't have to like wake up and wonder. I felt like I was in the closet kind of a thing. So when I finally just was like, OK, I'm not going to drink anymore. Like, holy shit, that's my new identity. And I love it. And so I just jumped into that.

52:24And so I think the thing I think we need more people to sort of pinpoint and identify that they have a problem with alcohol. And, you know, in this industry, a lot of people just don't want to discuss it. But now that, you know, mental health has become so sort of readily discussed, I hope that here in the next five, ten years, we can see more of that where people are like, I wish I could drink, but I simply can't. Or I'm figuring that out about myself and just, you know, be a little bit more honest along the way, because I know all the people that I surround myself with want each other to to be the happiest and the best that we can be. I don't know a single person that would shame somebody, you know, in my in my family, my squad, my group, you know, for choosing not to drink. You know, so I just wish that more people and I hope that if they're listening, that they can say so, because I can see some of my friends struggling with it. And it's not my place to sort of put you on blast. But I'm here if you want to talk about it, you know. And, you know, I want to normalize the conversation around it, because literally it is an allergy. It's one of those things like I can't just have one. And every time that I have more than one, something happens.

53:26And at some point, that's going to create a bad situation that you're going to not want to be in. There's a rock bottom. Everybody hits at some point in this in this alcoholics world. But if there's a way in which you can identify that, hey, I'm going down that path. And before that rock bottom hits, if I could, we call that raising the bottom. Instead of having to like hit that rock bottom and have that car accident where you almost die or you kill somebody else or something like that. You can go, hey, look, I have all of those tendencies. And while I may not have got caught drinking and driving, I do it all the time. Like, eventually that's going to happen. So raising the bottom is, hey, I'm going to go ahead and stop that before I have real serious consequences or jail time or any of that kind of stuff. And but do you think, though, I mean, from your perspective, having gone through like the coming out, as you said, process of I have an issue with this and I don't want to live that kind of a life. Do you feel like your friendships supported that?

54:28Or do you feel like, I don't know, how could if how would you be a friend to somebody he was figuring that out for themselves? Well, I am a friend to a lot of people. You know, I've told my story on this podcast, and so I get phone calls, you know, kind of regularly from people who are saying, hey, look, I think I might have a problem. What should I do? What are the next steps? It's probably my favorite phone call to get. Because I love the bravery of somebody who identifies that. And so many people don't know what the first step is. They don't want to say, I am an alcoholic. So what do I do? But if they can casually say, hey, look, these are some things I've been thinking like, what is your thought process? My friends have been a thousand percent percent percent supportive, because I think they were tired of the alcoholic brand. And my friends were like, thank God you stopped drinking because you're an asshole. And the thing is, is that I was an asshole and drinking wasn't my problem. It was my solution. Right. I was I grew up in a sort of problem.

55:28I was a middle child. And my whole life was, hey, suck it up. Be a man. Be a man. Be a man. You're not allowed to have emotions. Wasn't told that. But that was the impression that I got was that you just needed to be a man. And that was it got me a long way in life. I was Teflon. Right. At the end of the day, you couldn't. You couldn't faze me. At the end of the day, I just drink and I wouldn't have to face emotions. So when I quit drinking, all of a sudden, I was like, holy shit, I have to face all of these emotions that are happening. And then that's where therapy and that's where AA for me and Brene Brown and all like learning. Oh, my God, like this is what this emotion is. This is what I'm feeling. And I haven't validated so many other people's emotions because I didn't recognize any emotion in me. So how can you possibly have an emotion, you know? And now raising kids and just this this authenticity, I feel that I get to be instead of having to hide behind something is pretty amazing.

56:29And so I love to put it sharing some of that like that. Like, hey, look, you get to not hide anymore. You have to start facing some of the shit that you're afraid of. And it feels really good. When did you start drinking? What age? I was probably 17 or 18. I mean, I was we're we're like in our house, like at 18. Like if we were at dinner, my dad would let us drink a beer, a glass of wine. Like he was as long as we can control. And we had a pool, you know, it's like there's parties every weekend. And it was like, hey, about the pool, I want to have a beer. They were like, that's fine. Like, but don't get wasted. Yeah, we did. Of course. I mean, that was also I think that that when I look back at my life, because I was so afraid to be an alcoholic and I didn't drink, I didn't want to be like my dad was, you know. But and I waited so late to drink. That was just like aware, like an awareness that I had that I I hadn't figured out my own feelings or how to process feelings or really trust my own intuition for a lot of reasons. So it's like, why would I start introducing alcohol as a means of escape before I'm capable of taking care of myself?

57:33Well, that's really intelligent. But it's only because, you know, we had to grow up so quick, you know, that I that I even had that perspective. But, you know, of course, now I do see, though, that people around me must perceive me as somebody who is reckless or is out too often or drinks too much. And I know that part of my job is to present a certain package. Right. And I I want to be aware of the image that I'm portraying. That's why I'm very, very cognizant. I put on fitness posts. I make sure that I put on, you know, parts of who I am outside of the job as well on my social media so that people just don't think it's easy or even manageable to be at events, drinking all the time. You know, that's why I wanted to have you on the show, because, yeah, I tried to figure that out. I'm like, well, I did sales for so long. Oh, so you can get it then. Well, yeah, I mean, I was a sales manager for and I had many reps and we would do those events all the time that you have to go to.

58:35And there's a massive amount of balance that you have to have. And there's this perception people have of you. And I think that my perception of you was what she's putting out there. Is what she is, but there's a lot involved there as to how she does that, and it's intentional. Yeah, well, I just I have a responsibility. So before my page was private, you know, I had so many people reaching out to me because before I started working for Brown Forman, when I was really in the healthiest physical fitness realm of my life, a lot of people were reaching out about orthorexia, which is the eating disorder I struggled with growing up. And I just have a responsibility to speak honestly and not cover up insecurities. And and in that goes, if I can just relay that over to the whole booze world as well, it just kind of works in the same vein. Because then now, like you're discussing people, I don't want them to perceive me as somebody who's reckless and therefore become more reckless or not deal with issues they're trying to deal with.

59:39I want them to know that there is a balance. You got to find out what that balance is. So. But, you know, now that the page is private, you know, I don't really have to. I've been posting a lot more of my feelings, you know, which are which is OK. Yeah, I guess, I guess. But I was always very like, don't put that quote up there. That could be snarky, you know, or or that's too that's too tender, too vulnerable. Let's let's just be middle of the road, Misty. So I've recorded like five episodes. I do something called line up topics. OK. And so on Wednesday, it's like to put out an episode. It's just me talking for 10 minutes, like I would do to my team. Like at either restaurant, if I do like a 10 minute lineup where I have like my deep thoughts and I go, guys, this is the bigger picture of what we're doing. And I like to put something out there. So if you're a manager or somebody because lineups are there's a point where you can go here. These are the specials that you want to do. Some of this motivational, inspirational to bring everybody in. Like, let's get the things started off right. So I like to throw stuff out there. If I have a particularly good one one day, I'm like, I'm proud of myself for that.

01:00:42And I thought and I've recorded like five of them that I've just never released. You got to do that. That are just like there that are like these these these like me. I feel preachy. You know, you should for a lineup. You're the well, you're not preachy. You're the boy scout. You're not the teacher. You're the boy scout. You're with the person, right? You're traveling with them through the process. It's just your time to shine a little bit brighter. Well, they glean that knowledge and then they move forward. I'm hoping somebody can pick something up. I had this I had this deep thought yesterday. I took the doors off of my Jeep. Right. So I have a Jeep Wrangler. Well, it's 90 degrees out. Now is the time. Well, I was like, I want to take that. It's kind of a pain in the ass to take them. You got to like unplug a bunch of stuff and drills and you take the doors off. But I was like, I'm going to do it. I have no patience. Yeah, I was like, yes, it's a whole thing. Right. But I was like, today, I'm just I'm going to do it. It might rain, but fuck it. But it's really hard because the side view mirrors are on the doors.

01:01:46So I start driving and think about that. I started driving. I'm like. I can't see around me, and then I put like the the top of it, I put in the back and I couldn't see out the back window. Oh, God. And I was there was like a bit of panic because I was trying to change lanes. I was like, oh, shit, I don't know if there's a person. I'm like sticking my head out the side of the car to do it. But I had this deep thought and I was like, you know, it's amazing how important it is to be able to look behind you. Oh, that's a good point. Not just in the sense of, hey, look, I'm turning and he's next to me. But like when I drive, I realize how much I look in the rear view mirrors. Like I'm constantly looking at my surroundings so that I can. I'm a proactive driver. I'm not like I'm a great I'm like I go right. So I like to know I can tell I like my surroundings all around me all the time. And so I'm driving like I can't see anything. I thought, what an amazing thought about like life, like how important it is to be able to look back at things that we've done and just like to be able to look back almost every single day just experiences that you've done, even if you've done the wrong thing, like looking back to realize where you're going.

01:03:03And how important it is, how many times a day we look back at past experiences that we've done, what we've done right, what we've done wrong, but how much we lean on that, how much we grow every single day and how vital that is. And just like the difference, like rear view mirrors, how important is looking behind you to know that you're going to go forward to assess risk and how important it is to make mistakes. Oh, yeah. And how important it is to fuck up and go, hey, but then to learn from that and say, oh, you know what? That was bad that in my past, I did that. And going forward, I'm not going to do that again. And I don't want, you know, the the story behind that, the deeper thought was, don't be afraid to do stuff. Don't be so petrified that something might not go right. Just fucking do it. Just go and learn whatever you can from it if it's right or wrong. But take that chance. So many times you're afraid to do something and it's not that hard once you get into it. You're like, oh, that wasn't that bad. Like, just go. Or like the the lesson right now, there's this whole trend.

01:04:05I don't have a tick tock. I do like the 40 year old version, which is I watch the tick tocks that were cool a month ago on Instagram Reels. But so this whole new trend is in order to be good at something, you have to be bad at it. And if you never get good at it, it's OK to still be bad at it. At least you're trying. Yeah. And that's all these videos of people grown grown adults trying something silly that they've never tried before, like roller skating or something else. Right. But if the pressure that you the pressure isn't I have to be good at this eventually or I have to figure this out or I have to be the best that I can be. The pressure should be I have to experience this. It's not result based. It's more, you know, experience based. Right. So and so that kind of takes the fear. When you take the results pressure away, it takes a little bit of the fear away. And looking behind you, like you were saying, it's all assessing risk. Right. That's how you're an adult. That's how you survive. Survival of the fittest is assessing risk. So if like you said, you're not actually taking chances.

01:05:06There's nothing to assess. So how are we going to survive and move forward if we've got nothing to. Yeah. So we are going to take a quick break. And I'm just going to tell you real fast about the compost company, because Jeffrey and his brother, Clay Ezell, are here to take your food waste and compost it and turn it into fresh organic soil. Right. So it sounds easy, but there's all this food waste that you're putting in your dumpster every single day goes to a goes to the landfill where it gets underneath these big piles of trash bags. And it just creates greenhouse gases. It creates methane, which is bad for the environment. It's probably the worst thing that can happen for our environment. But you, you right now can give Jeffrey Ezell a call 615-866-8152. What they will do is they will bring special trash cans and then you put your food waste in it and then they will come pick it up and clean it out for you. And it is super inexpensive. And you can start doing something to help save the world.

01:06:09Imagine if everybody in the city did this, how much food waste we could stop in the landfills that stops all of this greenhouse gases. And you know what? I think employees would love their employers to do that. So we talk about retention, we talk about the little things we need to do. Why aren't there any employees? Because they want to work at places that compost their food waste. All right. So the compost company is here for you. Go follow them on Instagram at compost company. And they will give a shout out when you go and you sign up. Your guests want to know that, too. They will post about it. Call Jeffrey Ezell, 615-866-8152. Now back to the interview. I don't know. I don't know who said it. Feels like a Ted Lasso comment, but it's like if everybody did things right all the time, we wouldn't know what was wrong. That's true. Yeah. You know, because I would just be like, this is how it is. The sky is blue. This is how it is. Like, this is the way I'm Mandalorian. And then that sci-fi movie gets a little bit weird after episode two or three because we're all sheep.

01:07:15Well, here we go. See, so that was an hour of us talking. Was it? Did it feel like 12 minutes? Yeah, it absolutely did. I don't know. What did we learn today? I'm not really sure. Balance. I mean, if you do want to talk more specific to the to the world of booze, there are so many romantic stories I could tell you about Jack Daniels. Why I fell in love with it. Why I fell in love with this industry. What I find is that most people either dive deeper or get the fuck out. And the people that get the fuck out typically got the bartending job or the serving job because it paid well, but resented the parts of the process that didn't serve them, which is financial. Right. So it's the services that I'm getting the tip. So that's like a gold star. I've done a good job. Give me that money. Give me that money. But if what you love about the industry is beyond the tip, obviously, it's difficult and you don't love it every day. You know, it's a grind for sure. It's a grind. But there are so many parts of the job. I haven't bartended since 2013, I think.

01:08:21So so for a long time or or 14, maybe I can't remember. But what I do remember about bartending, what I miss most about it was when you're in the weeds and you're slammed and everyone's just trying to survive. It's an innate ability to care for everybody around you. Your teammates, the guests, everybody's goal is to make sure everybody's OK. That feeling that you're constantly surrounded with in the middle of chaos. You can't replicate unless you're in a high stress environment like that. You know, oh, there's definitely a high. Yeah. You get from being three deep at the bar. Oh, yeah. And you're just like, but we're all in this together and we're all going to make it work. And, you know, I sometimes the bar that I bartended at primarily was Whiskey Kitchen. I opened Whiskey Kitchen back in 2010, nine, ten. And yeah, and so I sold you guys produce. Yeah, I know. You mentioned the name of the company. I was like, I know that company well. But but I mean, I still go in there and nostalgia takes over. And I sit at the same spot on the bar and I look at the same drain and I see how the bottles are organized and I subcategorize.

01:09:25And I'm just tiny, tiny kitchen. Oh, the tiniest kitchen you've ever been in. Tiniest kitchen ever. The tiny little window. Oh, yeah. They get sunshine. They can. You know, the kitchen staff, most of the kitchen staff is still there. Luis used to sit in the outside walking cooler and prep meat with mittens on gloves on because he was freezing. And he would do that for two hours at a time. Come out, do side work inside for two hours, go back all day long. Luis still works at Whiskey Kitchen. I'm just that was the hardest thing about leaving M Street were the people I put in a three month notice. It's like I just was so devastated to leave the family. I cried. Did you leave there to do this? No. So in order to work for the distributor, I needed to change my resume. M Street at the time wasn't giving any sort of higher ranking roles than bartender or lead bartender. Now their structure has changed and they give a lot of the service industry a better opportunity to continue to grow.

01:10:26But at the time, that wasn't the case. So I had to go to a different restaurant company to be like an AGM position, a sponsorship partnership position. I did that for about five, six months and then went to Lippman Brothers as a distributor rep. OK. I was there for right at five years. And then I came to Brown Form and it'll be three years in November. So, wow. Yeah. And it's great. I've got an agency team now. And I purposely hired only agency people that have worked in this industry, because I think with my experience at Lippman Brothers, and maybe this is true in other distributors, but or suppliers. But when you hire somebody who hasn't done the grind, who doesn't understand a P mix, a build cost, who doesn't understand what a clopin is and how you can't your turnover on your staff and what a staff is or what a lineup is, if you don't have that experience, how can you sell effectively? Right. Yeah. And how can you provide value? Because we all are in sales, but those of us that are in sales, I feel like there's all these different approaches to sales.

01:11:30But I'm an empathetic seller. I can't sell you anything unless I know what you need. Well, you're more of a consultative salesperson. You're not walking in pushing something that you have. I have to hit a quota. You're saying, tell me about your business. Tell me your story. Tell me your theory behind what you're selling. And then let me see if I have a solution that fits for you versus I have a solution. Let me tell you about it. Here's a pen by the pen. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I had a rep come in yesterday from a company, he's a newer guy, and he was, hey, is this person here? And I was sitting at the bar on my computer, never met him before. He didn't know who I was or anything. And he's like, hey, is this person here? And I was like, no, he's not here today. He's like, oh, just come by to taste him on this this wine. And I was like, did you have an appointment? He goes, well, no, but I was in the area and I thought he wanted to try this. And I go, OK. I said, first of all, we like to do appointments and quarterly we change up if there's something that's not moving, we'll we'll sell it. And I went through kind of my whole spiel. But I said, they're really the thing for you going forward.

01:12:33And I went into this like parenting kind of a mode. Don't let it slip. You you you nice guy. And I said. If you walked in and said, hey, can we look over your P mix together and can we identify what's really moving, what's not moving on my what I'm selling you? And then if there's a Chardonnay that's just not moving, I'd love to be able to offer you a solution that might be able to sell it. And then I'd love to come in and teach your staff. And what can I do like you coming in to identify areas that we need help and then fitting yourself into those? I was like, don't come in. I don't ever want to rep walking with wine. I don't want my managers drinking wine between two and four. But that's the problem. And they'll do that all day long if you let them. But that's the problem. I would I would say from my perspective, that's like 70 percent of what's happening in the market. Only 30 percent are truly like I have been in the industry. I give a shit about your bottom line. What can I do to help you? Let's sit down and talk about it. And so and so can I set an appointment? Yes. To come in and talk to you. Can I have your undivided attention for 45 minutes or even do the OPPO research?

01:13:34Even be a regular at that bar. Just sit and experience what it is that they do. Do the research without needing anything or providing. Just just be, you know, just be just learn. Yeah. Try the different cocktails. See what you've got and go, I have some ideas for this place. Yeah. Well, a lot of that manic and energy, though, comes from the fact that somebody might be great at sales, but doesn't understand the industry. Unfortunately, there's a lot of that. So, you know, well, Roxanne, I'm going to call her out by name Roxanne. She was Roxanne Rickles forever. And now Roxanne Rickles. Stu, no, that's a different one. Weinberg, Weinberg. Yes. Roxanne Rickles, Weinberg, Roxanne. Big shout out to Roxanne. She's fantastic. And I've had Roxanne for years. She's a get it person. She's the one who calls me and says, we just got our Sinatra allotment. Do you want some? And I go, yes, yes, I do. We just got the Koi Hill. Do you want a bottle? I'm like, yes, I do. I never have to worry about Roxanne ever. She's amazing. Yeah, they're very lucky to have Roxanne.

01:14:35Oh, 100 percent. And, you know, like, for instance, she touches a lot of our key accounts. Anything in Nashville that we would consider a key account is somebody who leverages the brand in a certain way and buys into what it is that Brown Foreman does as a whole, not just somebody who's like, I love some Jack Daniels and we're going to sell 5000 cases in a month. It's like, thank you. But in Tennessee, we don't have free goods. In order for me to be effective with you, we have to be partners. Yeah. I mean, I'm never going to pay you money just to be your friend. I'm never going to come in and just swipe my card for no for no fucking reason. So if we're going to have to work together, let's work together. I think that's the biggest mistake restaurateurs make right now is not partnering strategically, partnering with vendors who want to help them. But that's because they're all transplants right now. They're all coming from these other cities that do it differently and they don't know how Nashville works. I don't think that's the case. I think that everybody's been burned. I don't think that restaurateurs trust vendors.

01:15:37I think that they have so many times they've looked around and go, why are they paying that? And I'm paying this. And oh, we got caught speeding the term caught speeding as a vendor. And I was in the produce world, which is fucking competitive as hell. It's not like the Jack Daniels. Oh, you can only buy Jack Daniels from Lipman Brothers. Yeah. It's not like best brands and Empire and Ajax all have Jack Daniels. Yeah. And I've got to come in and show why you need to buy. Like everybody has romaine lettuce. But why are you buying from me? Yeah, like I will get it to you. Cold chain unbroken. There's a lot of that. Like, but like the trust from I run a restaurant. And why am I going to partner with you? People just don't. They pit each other. Well, I'll buy this if you do that. And this allocations and you need to do this to this quid pro quo stuff. Like find somebody that you trust and say, this is my goal. This is where I want to be. Can you help me get there? Can I trust you? Can we partner together? Because if restaurateurs used vendors like they use, like their managers, if you could trust vendors, they're all over the place.

01:16:44They're going to help you succeed way more than they're going to hurt you. Oh, yeah. And I think that's a it's just a thing. Well, I think that we should start a trend or or maybe even a secondary podcast of some kind where we explain if you're going to run a restaurant in Ashford, you're going to touch this hospitality world. These are things you're going to need to know and and or accept or learn to accept. You know, I'm going to talk about it in the episode Monday with Jim Myers. OK, and I'm starting something new. And I'm going to I'm going to I'm going to wait until the Monday show with Jim Myers towards the end of the show. I talk about the new thing I'm doing that's going to be very close to. It's not a podcast, but it is that. And I'll tell you about it after we're done. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll tell you when we're done. But I'm very excited about it. And I think you're going to go, holy shit. This is what we need. It's fantastic. On that note. Yes. On that note, you have probably stuff you have an app you have taken. Yeah, well, I just I wanted I wanted to circle back because as much as we talked about the industry, I just wanted to say when you're so grateful for what you have, I think this is true for anything in life.

01:17:53But when you're so grateful for what you have, that gratitude really translates into a whole different perspective. I wanted this job when I was 26 years old. I got this job and every day I'm so grateful for it. I wake up that that I want to hustle for this position because of how long I've wanted it, you know. But Brown Foreman was the only company I wanted to work for. I wasn't it's not that I wasn't approached by other people, but Brown Foreman is the oldest, still family owned, still historical, the most historical. They don't outsource their juice to any other brand. You think about how many whiskies that are made that are so many other whiskies, how many tequilas that are so many other tequilas. And Brown Foreman is authentic. It is old school. We make we're the only people that make our own barrels. So it's like we control everything. So not only am I so gracious and so just so thankful to have my dream job, but I have it for a company that I believe in. And so all of that is important.

01:18:55But then now they're the number one diversity and inclusion employer in America and Canada. Now the sustainability, we're down under three percent company wide. I'm like, so all the things that matter to me that I manifest in my own life are all coming through in the company that believes in me. And so it's like, I'm never going to not be grateful for this, you know. And so that's kind of the the full answer to the fitness booze question is the the fitness keeps me accountable to my booze world. But the booze world keeps me accountable to my fitness, too, because there's no there's no way I will ever give this career up. So there's no way I can stop working out, you know. But those are things that that that makes you whole. And that makes me so happy for you that you've found that. Yeah, like I'm just excited that like that's something that you get to do and you love it and you enjoy it. And. That's awesome. And I want to farm more people up. Yeah, I get them there, too. You know what I mean? All right, so we're going to end the interview, but I will tell you the last thing that you kind of just did it. I didn't set you up for this. I'm sorry. There's your snort. You did it.

01:19:57The last thing that you get to do today is you get to take us out. OK, so I always said Jerry's final thought. Do you know what that means? Is that Jerry Springer? Oh, my gosh. I always end his show and he would like some eyes like the show. So I always say you get to take us out. Whatever you want to say, as long as you want to say it about whatever you want to say. You're talking to I don't know who the hell you're talking to. Just whoever's listening. Miss Misty Blue, go. OK, well, none of us are going to be Rihanna or Johnny Appleseed. I guess so famous for something that we understand and famous for something that we have no reference point to. But we can be kind and we can be the first wave of many. So no matter what it is that we're doing, as long as we know that we're having an effect on other people and we take that seriously, I think that that's as famous as we're ever really going to get. Right.

01:21:00So maybe do more of that. Give a shit. There it is. Give a shit. Give a shit. Misty Blue Hardwick, thank you so much for taking your time today to come by and talk to me. Of course. Thank you for having me. And I'll have a non-alcoholic beer with you. Yes. All right. And that was a wrap. That was a lot of fun hanging out with Misty Blue. You know, I had no no expectations except for I was just really curious about what she's got going on and her motivation behind what she does and how she pulls it all together. Because I like people that get shit done. And that's awesome. I love I love hearing her story. I love her process. And I think it's funny that the staying sober throughout the night story, too. That was great. A lot a lot of fun. Thank you, Misty Blue, for joining us here on Nashville Restaurant Radio.

01:22:01Stay tuned. Monday, we are talking to Jim Myers. And this is a fun episode. This is this is another one. God, this is just great. You're going to love this interview with Jim Myers. At the end of the interview, I do let the cat out of the bag on something we've been working on for a little while. And I'm going to do an episode in the next week or two that fully outlines it. I'm so damn excited. So I hope that you guys out there are being safe. I love you guys. Bye.