Stephanie Richardson

00:00Welcome 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. It is Friday, going into a beautiful weekend, very excited about the weather going into this weekend. And we are going to be talking with Ms. Stephanie Richardson today. Stephanie Richardson is a business coach, a John Maxwell certified coach. And today she's talking about the six things that are going to make you successful. And this was an interesting meeting. I met her at a Chamber of Commerce meeting at Marble and I just really enjoyed my conversation with her at this meeting.

01:05And I said, Hey, I'd love to learn more about what you do because I do that sometimes. I like to learn more about what people do. And so she came in studio and I said, Hey, let's look, let's record it. And so we did. And I thought it was some pretty good content and I'm going to put it out there today. So Stephanie gives her information at the end if you want to learn more about what she does or you want to, you enjoy this and you want to do more of that. And it's just a fun, fun episode, just short little episode. I think it's a little more than 30 minutes and we're going to, we're just going to do it. I want to tell you guys that we've got two big events coming up. One of them is Toast Nashville. You've seen the last couple of episodes, been talking about Toast Nashville. It's going to be the weekend of April 19th, 20th and 21st. The past two episodes, Chef Kev Desain was really an amazing, fun conversation. Then the following week on April the 28th is going to be the Giving Kitchens annual event. It's the Tennessee Tasting. It's going to be at 114 Second Avenue South, which is right downtown.

02:06Really cool event space. There's going to be lots of great food, lots of great times and for a great cause. All the money goes to help restaurant workers. I mean, they're, they're here to help restaurant workers. Giving Kitchen is really our charity of choice here at Nashville Restaurant Radio. Love them and every single thing they're doing. I will be there. My restaurant Chagos will be there and we'll be passing out some nachos and some fun things and I will be the MC for the evening. So I would love to meet you. If you're going to be there, go to givingkitchen.org and purchase tickets to that. We'd love to sell a bunch of tickets. There's VIP tickets. Okay. So check this out. Strategic hospitality and I believe Locust is going to be doing a special pre-opening kind of a thing. So strategic hospitality, which is Bastion, Henrietta Redd, Locust, Kisser, all those people and I don't know if all those people are going to be there, but I know that there's going to be a special tasting before the event.

03:08So go to givingkitchen.org, check it out and if you can get those VIP tickets, I would do that now because they're going to sell out. I will also be auctioning off at that event. You can be the host of this podcast for a day. If you'd like to come into studio and we're going to do an interview, you will get to interview celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern. He hasn't even been on the show yet. I have not even had him on the show and he has agreed to come in and do the show. I don't know if it's going to be via Zoom or if he's going to be in person, depends on what time is and if he's in Nashville, we'll figure it out, but he has agreed to do it. I'm excited about that and you can auction. You can win that and we would love for you to win that and that'll be an episode that we put out on the air just like a normal episode. So lots of fun and yeah, I don't have a whole lot more. We've got a bunch of amazing episodes coming up. We have Anna Aguilar and Josh Cook and Maria from Tentissimo.

04:12That's going to be next week. We're going to have, gosh, we've already got some interviews ready for May in mental health awareness month. We've got a Sarah Gavigan episode coming up and the week after next, we are going to interview Gloria Johnson, the Senate candidate for running for Senate and she's one of the Tennessee three and we're really excited to bring her in. Caroline will be back for that one and yeah, we've got a roundup coming up. Lots of fun things. So stay with us here. Make sure that you subscribe wherever you are listening to this and last thing I want to say is I just want to send a big thank you out to Gordon Food Service. You guys are amazing and they have supported this podcast. They've been our title sponsor. We are powered by Gordon Food Service because they are the ones that make this thing go. They are amazing and if you are looking for a broadliner, if you're looking for a company that really cares, see they're the only broadliner out there that's still family owned.

05:13So they're nimble. They're quick. They can move. They don't have to ask shareholders and go and well, I don't know, man, the boss won't like that. Like they can do the things. They are here to help you guys succeed. The thing that I love, if I say one thing about Gordon Food Service that I absolutely love is that they do what they say they're going to do. They do what they say they're going to do. They're honest and they follow through. Their whole warehouse is amazing. It's all done electronically. Technologically, it is out of this world and if you call your Gordon Food Service or if you call Paul Hunter, you can look in the show notes. We put these in there often, different information, how to get a hold of people. You can go down and take a tour. They would love to have you out to do a tour of their facility. It is second to none. It's really, you go see this warehouse and you're like, whoa, if you want to call Paul Hunter, his number is 615-945-6753. He's the new business development manager over at Gordon Food Service.

06:14They're just amazing people and I wanted to say thank you for your title sponsorship. I don't do a lot of ads for them because this is powered by them and they sponsor the final thought which we're going to have here in just a little bit, the end of this interview. But they're just awesome and I wanted to give them a shout out and if you're looking for a broad line supplier, you need to check out Gordon Food Service. All right, let's jump in right now. Stephanie Richardson, John Maxwell, Coach. Super excited today to welcome in Stephanie Richardson. Stephanie is the owner of Unlock Your Potential and you're a coach. You're a business coach, public speaking coach. You do all kinds of stuff. I do, yes. Tell me about yourself. Okay, so I am a John Maxwell certified coach, Maxwell leadership team. I coach a lot of CEOs and entrepreneurs and business owners.

07:15And what I coach them on is six areas of their life, not just their business goals, but other areas of their life that I feel like are also important so they have better harmony in their life. Balance. Yes. That's the word I like to use. Harmony is even better. You like that. So there's six things. I think it would be really fun to go over what those six things are because if you are a restaurant owner or somebody in this industry, it's like having children and they're constantly like grabbing at your leg and work-life balance is really hard because it's always calling you. I mean, every single day the restaurant is open unless you do like a Monday through Friday daytime place and you're closed on the weekends, but 95% of restaurants are open seven days a week. And just because it's Saturday doesn't mean that shit's not going to happen on a Saturday. So I think this has really been beneficial for my listeners to kind of understand exactly what you do and maybe at the end you can give your number out and if people want to learn more about what you do, maybe they can contact you.

08:23Sounds great. What's the first thing? Well, obviously we look at business goals. So my goal is to help people increase their revenue, increase the number of customers they have in their business and we track all of those things, marketing, lots of different things, networking that we work on to help them improve their business goals. So what is the first thing you do if you're talking to me and you say, hey, what are your business goals? Let's just say I have very clear business goals, KPIs for everything I'm looking for and I've got a good business plan, budget set up, I'm rocking and rolling, but part of that means I'm there 70 hours a week. Right. And I think part of it is that people may be crushing it at work, but they're ignoring their health and fitness or their relationships in their life. And I was a therapist for 10 years, so a licensed professional counselor.

09:25And I feel like all of these areas are intertwined. So if you positively or negatively impact any of the areas, they impact the others. So if you're crushing your business goals, but you're ignoring your health and fitness at some point, that's going to come back to bite you and it's going to take you away from work because suddenly you're sick. Yeah. Or you're in the hospital. Or you're in the hospital. You have a heart attack or a stroke from stress, something. Right. So I really think it's important for people to look at not only their business goals, health and fitness, finances, personal growth. Are these part of the one through six or this all part one? These are all part of the one through six. Okay. So let's back it up to one is understanding what your business goals are. Business goals. Figure out business goals. What is number two? So we'll just pick health and fitness next. Health and fitness.

10:25Okay. So you help people identify their business goals and then you help people. You put them on a workout plan. I don't put them on a workout plan, but I help them identify what they want their workout plan to be. And I have even had clients text me at four in the morning saying I'm up or showing me a picture of them at the gym for accountability purposes. Nice. Because they know if they don't do that, they're not going to go. I think James Clear, are you familiar with James Clear and Atomic Habits? If you just get up every day and go to the gym, I got up this morning and I had a very distinct plan that I was going to go to the gym and I was going to do this and I was going to meet you here and I've got to be at the restaurant all night long and a lot of other things were going on. But we woke up this morning and we had a baby chipmunk in the backyard. And last night, my wife sent me a picture of her holding a chipmunk, a baby chipmunk. And I'm like, oh my God, do we have a baby chipmunk as a pet now?

11:25This is the most exciting thing I've ever seen in my life. I've always dreamed of chipmunks are the cutest things on the planet. And she goes, no, we're eating dinner and the cat, we saw the cat ready to pounce on something. We're like, oh, look, the cat's hunting outside. And then the cat jumps in this pile of leaves and comes out with a chipmunk in its mouth. It's really banging like, no, don't do it. And the cat drops the chipmunk. We run out there and it's just a little baby and it's unharmed like the cat didn't hurt it at all. So they held it and tried to feed it nuts and berries and stuff. And then it wasn't really, it was alive and it was a baby. So they put it back in the woods and they were like, well, maybe the mom will come and rescue it. And this morning, the cat was like dying to go back outside. So my wife went outside to find the chipmunk and it was still there, but it was lethargic and it wasn't really moving a lot. So she picked it up and we put it in a box and we warmed it up and she like just held it like next to her and it like woke up and it was moving around. We cut up an apple and we gave it, long story short, we called, I go to the vet. I'm going everywhere to try and figure out what do we need to do with this baby chipmunk because the cat's just going to eat it.

12:30And so I took it. I had to drive to Walden's puddle this morning and I dropped it off, but that's in Jolton was not in my plan today, but on the way back she goes, hey, we need to talk. We have all this stuff going on. And I said, okay, but I'm going to the gym and I went to the gym, but I was only there for like 25 minutes. Normally I do an hour, but I was like, I have to go because if I don't, then that's a day I didn't achieve that. But as James Clear always in Atomic Habits was every day, even if you go for five minutes, get your ass up, get dressed and go to the gym, even do five minutes of treadmill and then leave because at least it starts that habit. Absolutely. Is that right? I totally agree with that. I'm sorry to make that point, but I did that today. I don't think you have to be in the gym for two hours a day to be doing something that's effective on your head for your health. Go for a walk outside. Being in nature is massive for just everything and don't listen to an iPod.

13:30Don't listen to anything. Just walk and be bored. Let your brain wander. I love doing that. I love being outside in nature. Yeah. Okay. So business plan, health and fitness number three. Personal growth. Personal growth. What do you mean by personal growth? Something that you're doing to focus on growing yourself, learning new information. It could be listening to a podcast. Yeah. It could be reading, could be taking a course, could be anything like that. I have a couple of clients that have gotten their pilot's license, one that studied Japanese. So just something to help you. Pickleball? Pickleball, whatever. Something new that you're learning to help you grow. Do you know, and I'm just going to pepper this with personal anecdotes as we talk. But one of my favorite things is I live right by Percy Warner Park. And so I love going and doing like the white trail or the blue trail, red trail. But I'll do is I'll find a book or a podcast and I'll start listening as I'm walking.

14:33And then as soon as I find my brain wandering on one of the topics, right? So if you had a podcast you had and you're talking about personal health, whatever, and my brain started going off in this. I then turn it off and just let my brain go for the rest of the hike. Take the AirPods out and I just let my brain wander. And I love that. And then when I get back in the car, I always write notes as to what I've thought about what they were because obviously there's a podcasters content and I've got three restaurants I'm operating. So I'm thinking about leadership and oh, there's this coaching I should have with this person. And I always have these epiphanies when I'm on the trail walking by myself alone with my thoughts. Then I sit down and I write this stuff down. But those are a personal and I think of all kinds of stuff I can do. It's the best time that I have. But it's because you're you're quiet and quiet. And a lot of people don't do that. As leaders, they don't take the time to be quiet. And one of the things that I encourage my clients to do is have what I call CEO time there you go every week, which is usually at the end of the week.

15:38And it's reflection time of what went well this week, what didn't go so great. What do I need to do next week to move the needle forward? But you have to take that time to be still. It could be outside sitting outside listening, but time to be present and be still and assess. Yeah. And intentional time. Right. That you schedule. Right. Like you need to put it on your calendar Friday at two between two and three. I'm going to drive to Centennial Park and I'm going to park under a tree, turn music off, hide my phone, maybe with a notepad and just and maybe answer. Is it those three specific questions? Those are great questions, I think, for reflection. And I think let's repeat those questions. OK, so what went well this week? OK, what didn't go so great? And then what do I need to do differently next week to move the needle forward? What went really well? Where do I have opportunities or what didn't go well? And then preparation. What for next week can I what did I learn from this week from those two things that I can take into next week to be better?

16:44Yes. OK, I love that. And doing that, you're creating what we call white space in your day, which is the time in between meetings and other appointments and things that you have going on when you have nothing scheduled, when you are really scheduling with yourself that time for yourself. I call those clarity breaks. So that's we operate in our restaurants on the EOS process. Yes. James. James Clear again. Traction. Gino Wick. Yes. And one of the things I do is I like to schedule my general manager's clarity breaks, my manager's clarity breaks. I want you to go for a hike. Go to Radner Park. Go walk around for an hour. No iPads. But I want you to think about how we're going to address this issue. Or I want you to think about your day or whatever it might be. That same white space, that clarity break that you have to intentionally schedule, otherwise it all runs together. And you don't set aside time for it. Business goals, health and wellness, and then reflection.

17:47Personal growth. Personal growth. OK, personal growth is number three. Numero cuatro. Finances. All right, number five. We're not skipping that one. And number six. Finances. All right, well let's jump in. What are we doing on finances? How are you helping with finances? Now, is this personal finance or is this business finance? Could be either. So there are some clients that have a nurse practitioner client who is a single mom and I've helped her become completely debt free in her personal life. And both of her kids are graduating from college with no student loans. That's fantastic. Yeah, big, big deal. How do you do that? Hold her accountable to whatever she wants to pay for. Like she wanted to get a new deck put on. And so she has, she knows how many shifts she has to work extra to save up enough money to get the deck put on.

18:48And so we have worked on that kind of a budget, I guess is what you would call it. This is how much we have to save to be able to put the deck on to be able to pay for it. Things like that that I've done just to hold her accountable to that plan that she wanted. So I think that's interesting because you can kind of be an accountability coach for CEOs. Because CEOs and owners of companies or even myself, like I don't have somebody who hold I have to do that myself, which is one of the biggest challenges is that I don't think people understand the burden of holding yourself accountable while holding everybody else accountable. It's lonely at the top. It really is. So to have somebody like you to say, hey, what are you doing there? Where are we at? Kind of gives them an accountability piece that says, okay, I need to focus on a different way. Some people hate that. Some people do, but she welcomed it. And I think part of coaching is people that go through coaching want to grow.

19:50They want to learn. They're open to feedback. They're coachable. So I think that's the first step is she was coachable and she wanted that accountability around those financial goals. There's another client that I worked with who was in commercial real estate and had some financial goals that they wanted to accomplish with saving a certain amount of money in their bank account and also buying a fifth wheel for their family. And so we what's a fifth wheel? It's like a modular not like a mobile home, not a mobile home, but I don't know what you call it. Like, gosh, I can't even think what you call it. Like a moving I don't know what you call it. What do you call it? I don't know. Google Google Google fifth wheel here when you're home and we'll figure it out.

20:52It's called a fifth wheel. It's like we used to have a Winnebago when I was little, when I was a little girl. It's bigger than that and it's way bigger. So it's like a hotel on wheels, basically something like that. OK, I get. Yeah. So anyway, anyway, RV almost. But yeah, RV. That's that's a good word. But bigger than that. OK, well, that's pretty cool. So anyway, they wanted to do that. And so we were looking at goals around what they needed to do financially to be able to for that. Right. And so that's just another one of the goals that we worked on. So finances, yes, definitely with the business. So for example, chiropractors that I started coaching a lot of people when they coach with me, they stay with me many years. They've been with me for. And when I first started working with them, they were seeing about 100 patients a month. Now they're seeing 550, so you can just imagine what that's done with their revenue.

21:53That's incredible. Yeah. So that's the kind of thing we focus on. How many patients? How many new patients? So how many new customers in the restaurant business? Yeah, that's amazing. Who holds you accountable? I have coaches, too. You have coaches, too. I have therapists have therapists. Right. If they're a good therapist, they do. Yeah. Yeah. It's been similar kind of a deal for you. You have a coach that you work with. Yeah. OK. We have a coach and we meet monthly and hold each other accountable to our goals. I like that. OK. Number five. Is that number five or is that number six? That was four. All right. So let's recap. Business goals, fitness and health, personal goals, finances. This is all these are all the six steps and things that you do to help business professionals or CEOs or leaders, bosses. Number five. Spiritual. Spiritual. Oh, this is probably the one you get the biggest pushback on, isn't it?

22:53No. No. Was it health and fitness or finances? Probably health and fitness. OK. I would say because that's the thing. I'm fine. I'm fine. Stop drinking. No. I think spiritual means different things to different people. And for some people, it's just what you described earlier, getting out in nature and walking and just being present in nature. It's a form of meditation. Right. And so that that may be what their spiritual goals are, are around doing more of that. Right. Mindfulness. Right. Mindfulness. For some of my clients, it is meditation. And so they might be practicing meditations. For some of them, it's going to church, Bible studies, serving at church. So it just depends. Each person is different and it's personal and whatever their goals are in those areas, whatever makes them feel more peace in that in that category, I think is what we focus on. OK, interesting, because I I think you can look at that.

23:59Calling it spiritual, I think some people would turn people off because they're like, hey, look, I don't want to deal with any of that stuff. I look at it because I'm in recovery, so to speak, and working a 12 step plan. One of those things is you have to give everything over to your higher power. Right. And you know, I think that's the biggest turn off when it comes to these 12 step programs for people. It's like I don't want to give. I don't not giving something over to God. But for me, it was one of the most powerful things that I ever did because I want to be in control. I want to be in control of everything in the world. I have three restaurants, I've got wife, kids, podcasts, consulting, all of these things. And I want to be in control of all of it. But you know what the reality is? I'm not. I can't be in six places at one time. And that drove me crazy. And that's the reason why one of the reasons why I drank was because I couldn't control everything in my life and it drove me nuts.

25:05And so at the end of the day, there's a lot of voices that were barking in my head that I should have done this. I should have done that. And what I did was I would have a drink and I would have two drinks. The term I need a drink to me is one of the most interesting terms because where I used to say I need a drink for now, I say I need to meditate. I need to take a moment because what I do and what I've learned is, is I give it over to God. Right? No, whatever my God is, I'm not. For me, I'm a Christian. I mean, like for me, maybe it's the literal God and I don't I'm not like an act. I don't go to church every week and I'm not practicing. You need to find God. That's not me. It's a very personal thing for me that when I give everything over to my higher power or when I give it to God and I say, God, I can't control everything. I'm going to give this to you and you let me control what I can because it is what it is.

26:09That was the most powerful thing I ever did in my life. It was the most powerful thing I ever did was to give all the anxiety and all of the things that I can't control over to a higher power and control the things that I could and then trust the rest of it will work out okay. And that's through meditation and that was through all these things. But when you say spiritual, it is so vital that you give that stuff over to whatever your spirituality is and to take that moment to go. I'm doing the best job I can and it's okay. Is that am I tracking with what you're talking about? Yes, because I think where we live in the Bible Belt, then people automatically think God, church, Christianity and that may not be the case for some of my clients and I want to honor that. I'm a Christian, but I also want to honor that not everyone is and spirituality may look totally different for them and that's okay.

27:14And that's okay. Right. You don't have to be Christian. I mean, yeah, I think that that's a good point. I don't know if some people, especially in our world, would say, no, there's only one God and we are going to heaven because we get to be like, no, no, look, whatever it is that you choose to worship or whatever, you have to worship whatever your spirituality is and maybe it's just a oneness that you feel with a wall. Whatever you if it's this microphone in front of us that you're that's your thing, then As long as you can find peace through it and you can practice giving whatever stress you have away to that and feeling that level of peace, I think it's great for you. I agree. Very cool. That's number five. Do we need to go any deeper on that? I'm good with it if you are. We'll be right back with number six right after these words from our sponsors.

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31:24Please enjoy responsibly. Number six. Relationships. All right, so that was the six. There's some tough topics in here. Things that you don't necessarily want to address, but you, I think these are the things that you kind of put aside and you're like, somebody's going to make me do these one day. And that's when I'll address them. And it looks like you've identified these are the things that we as leaders push aside to some day. And you come in and say, no, that day is today. Right. And you go, damn it. And there is where you come in to force people to look in the mirror and address some of these things that we continue to put off on the side. Right. Right. Absolutely. So for relationships, it could be time with their spouse. Maybe they haven't had a date night in years. And so it may be that's something that they want.

32:25And so there is accountability around, okay, when's your date night this month? When are you going? Where are you going? What are you doing? Maybe they're going away for a weekend. Sounds lovely. Yeah. Honey, if you're listening, I want to go away for the weekend with you. That's great. So it could be planet time with their spouse. It could be time with their children as well. So it could be family activities that they're doing something, not sitting in front of the TV or watching a movie, but out doing some kind of activity together. Maybe it's hiking. Maybe it's going to a festival in the city or something. And when I was a therapist, one of the things that we did with family counseling is we encouraged the parents to spend one-on-one time with each child. And a lot of parents don't do that. They don't spend one-on-one time with each child to really strengthen that relationship with each one. And so making sure that that's part of what they're doing as well.

33:29And then there are extended family members that might be nearby, not nearby, or friends, or neighbors, or whoever those people are that are in their life that they really want to invest time in. Those are also people that we look at, are you spending time with those people? Do you have a sense of community in your neighborhood, if that's important to you? Are you spending time with your parents? Are you going to visit them if they're out of state? How frequently? But those kinds of things are what we focus on with relationships. Why is that important? It's a rhetorical question for me, but I'm asking you for the show. Why is that important? I feel like that the, I mean, if you're doing great at work, but who are you doing it for? Who are you doing it for? You're doing it for your family. You're doing it for the people in your life, whether it's your peer group, if you're not married and, you know, your friends that you're hanging out with. Maybe you're doing it to, you're growing and expanding so that you can influence them.

34:32As a parent, you're influencing your spouse and your children, obviously. And so I feel like it's important to have that time to invest in those relationships because especially if you have kids, you only have them for a short period of time. My daughter's graduating from college this, in a couple of months, and so it passes so quickly and you only have a short period of time to really impact their life. And if you've ignored it because you're at work all the time, then who are you doing it for? At some point, they're going to be grown and gone and out of the house. And then it's either you by yourself or you with your spouse. And if you don't invest in those relationships, then it's, again, like I said earlier, it's going to come back to bite you at some point in your life. This is one of those situations I feel like is exacerbated by comparison. And let me tell you, in our world, in the restaurant world, where seven days a week, you can work as much as you want to.

35:38Nobody's, the leader in the building, nobody's going to say, go home. You don't need to be here because there's always another guest that wants to see you, another hand to shake, another guest to greet, another fire to put out. You can be the hero all day long. And you, and I find myself going, well, this person does, they're there all the time. I need to, it's almost like keeping up with the Joneses thing. Well, if Randy works, you know, 80 hours a week and he doesn't miss his kids, then it's fine for me. But you have, you have to realize this is a very personal thing. It is. It doesn't matter what anybody else does. It is what lives in your heart. And if my kids are eight and 10, you know, this is, this is something that's been really near and dear to me over the last month or two, three months. I've been dealing with this side of balance really hard. And I've kind of come to the decision that, look, because somebody else works this much, well, their kids are grown, they're in college, they come home at night and their wife doesn't want to see them because their wife is playing bridge with a friend and they'd be sitting at home alone.

36:44Hey, if I go to work, it's a social thing. They want to be there. But me looking at them, well, they're always here. I should be there too. But my kids are missing out on having dinner with me because I'm comparing myself to somebody else is in a completely different world than I'm in. And I think you have to, again, look in the mirror and go, Hey, look, my kids are eight and 10 and I want to spend that. I want to throw the baseball with them. Summertime is getting dark. It doesn't get dark until eight o'clock. I got time at nighttime to play and to do fun things. And like, I'm choosing that in my life right now at night times, and especially on the weekends, I've started putting this podcast out on Fridays because I was leaving on Sundays to come down here to edit the show and deal with stuff. And it's like, I'm not going to, I'm not going to miss that time anymore. Who cares what day the show comes out? I don't give a shit. So now I'm prioritizing that and focusing on that. Because when the kids are 16, 17, 18, 19, and they go off to college, hey, I'll have more time. I'll have more.

37:44I can invest that time. But right now I have to cherish that time and I am not going to go in. I'm not going to go in because and because I have competent people who can operate the restaurant without me. I don't have to be there. And so that's a whole thing for me. Well, I think part of it is that that you have to trust the people that are on your team 100% to know that it's going to be run well without you. Right. They hired the right leadership to be there and fill in when you're not there. But kudos to you for choosing your family, because you said something earlier. You said, I can walk around, I can shake this hand of this guest or whatever, and I can be the hero. Well, you're being the hero at work, but your kids need you to be the hero at home. That's who you need to be the hero for. I mentioned this on a previous podcast just the other day with East Side on me, but being the hero, there's there's some things that people love being the hero. But do you know a woman named Debbie Sunderland?

38:47Debbie Sunderland, she does coaching on a book called Conscious Leadership. And I'm going to bring her in here, too, really soon. She's amazing. But when you when you're the hero, when you come in and you save the day, the problem with being the hero is that there's also a victim and there's a villain. And identifying who the victim and the villain are in that scenario is the scary part, because if I'm the hero at work, then the victim and the or the victim might be my kids because I they don't get me because I'm being a hero at the work. Or maybe it's the general manager who didn't plan accordingly and didn't have enough staff. But hey, they can rely on Brandon. Well, who's the victim and who's the like? And it's interesting if you take that triangular dynamic and try and figure out who's playing each one of those roles in those moments, because I love being a hero. It's like, well, of course you do. But why not figure out who the victim is first and maybe not have a villain and not have a victim? That would be the real hero.

39:51Right. Right. Exactly. Reacting to stuff and fixing it after you've made the mistake. I've always said this at four o'clock, you can fix a lot of things that you don't want to have to fix at seven o'clock in a restaurant, because if I can do it while everybody's standing around, if I can have all the linens that I'm going to replace throughout the shift in the right spot versus it's seven o'clock and we're on a two hour wait and I've got to get a linen, there's none there. I've got to go upstairs, the linen closet and get it like I could have easily stocked that at four o'clock. Why not do it then? And so it's same sort of a deal with a lot of the things in my life. I'm trying to figure out like, hey, how do you proactively do that and not be the hero all the time? I don't want to be the hero. I want to just be a player in the whole game. Let somebody else be the hero. Right. I mean, there was not a victim or a villain. I love that you're spending being more intentional about the time that you're spending with your children because you can't get that time back. That's lost. And I raised my daughter as a single mom.

40:54And I was very intentional about the time and the activities and the things that we did. And I always had people ask me as I was raising her, how do you get everything done that you get done? And it was because I planned it. I planned a time with her and I would say we're going to go to the Adventure Science Museum or we're going to go to the park or we're going to go to the pool. Mom's going to work for a couple of hours and then we're going to the pool the rest of the day or whatever. But she had something to look forward to. And I had a plan. That's the planning. Failing to plan is planning to fail. Right. Is that the the phrase? Well, I love it. So these are six really good techniques and you help executives through these things. Yes, you have to be an executive to do this or just be a vote if I'm a stay at home mom. Yeah. And I really want to get all this stuff under control because I'm drowning with housework and all of the stuff I got to do and my husband runs three restaurants.

41:56Right. Completely hypothetical situation right here. I don't just coach CEOs. I do coach a lot of CEOs, but I also coach a lot of business owners that are more, I would say, like an entrepreneur 1099 where there's it's like a physical therapist or chiropractor or a real estate agent, mortgage loan officer, software engineers. It's their own business and they really don't have a boss, but they probably wouldn't call themselves a CEO because it's maybe they're a solopreneur or maybe they only have two or three employees. Yeah, I love that. Well, I this is all super fascinating stuff. Let's just say I'm listening to this and I go, man, I need help in four of those six categories or I need help in all six or maybe just two of the categories. How hard is it? Like if I wanted to pick up the phone right now and call you, would it be best if I sent you an email or could I call you? Like, how would I get the ball rolling to do an initial consultation to find out if this is what's right for me?

42:59Yeah, I usually meet with people for the first time for like a 30 minute to 45 minute session, just a discovery session to see if we're a good fit for each other so they can reach out just by texting me or calling me and I can give my number if you want me to. Oh, yeah, do it. OK, six one five nine seven seven zero two five seven and I am on Facebook as unlock your potential with Stephanie. So you can reach out there or I'm on LinkedIn as well. I love it. OK, well, that that's amazing. You have an email address. I do. It's Steph Richardson one at Gmail. Steph Richardson and then the number one number one at Gmail dot com. So if you're hearing this and you think this is interesting and thank you for joining us today, tell me a little bit more about yourself, like your history. You said you were a therapist for five years. How long have you been doing the unlock your potential coaching? It's going on seven years with my coaching business. Wow. So I was a therapist and did that for many years and then I went into sales.

44:06So when my daughter was born, I stopped working in corporate America as a therapist and decided to be home with her so I could raise her and not put her in daycare. That was important to me. Yeah, I love that. And so I had started a direct sales company working with a direct sales company about five years prior and had built it to where I was making the income that I was in my counseling profession. So I just continued with that. Why did you leave the counseling profession? Because the number of hours that I was working was not going to be beneficial to being the kind of mom that I wanted to be. Well, there's a testimonial, I mean, for living what you're doing. Was there was there a similar moment where you just had like a I can't do this anymore? I was working 70 hours a week and I was on call 24 7. So if we had a child that was suicidal or ran away or on the weekends, then I was I was the regional supervisor. So the buck stopped with me.

45:06So I got notified and had to deal with it. And so anyway, yeah, it was just I knew I couldn't be present and be the kind of mom I wanted to be. So I stopped doing that and went into sales because I knew I could be home and raise her and spend a lot of time with her and it could be on my own schedule. Well, you've got to be so proud of her and I'm proud of yourself, too, because not only are you now coaching these things, but you lived it like you took these six things and did them yourself and actively made it happen. I did. Yeah, she's graduating in a couple of months and we have no student loan debt, wow, which is crazy because she went to a private art school, which is very expensive. And we've it's just how I am. I'm very intentional about living these things out. I'm not saying I'm perfect. We all we all have days that we're off, right?

46:07A hundred percent. But did I do something small in these areas? That was in the right direction. Well, I think it's important if you're going to be out coaching this stuff that you've lived it and it isn't like, oh, I read the book by Maxwell and now this is what I do. And I went to some class and I learned this and now this is what I do. Like, this is stuff you lived in your life. And this is how you made it as a single mom by practicing these six principles in your own life. And you have you're a testament to its success. Thanks. Right. Yes. And so now you get to do this. You get to help other people. And I imagine that's incredibly gratifying for you to see people can graduate. Do the people graduate from this thing or? Well, I guess what I love to tell people that are coming in is I move people from where they are to where they want to be. And that's my goal is to move them to where they want to be. And I have some clients that have been with me three and four years because of the relationship I have with them and the accountability that they know is good for them.

47:14And there are always new goals to work on each year, every year. Right. So so you're saying what you can do is you can take somebody and you can unlock their potential. Exactly. You like the way I brought that home. Come on. That full circle there. Stephanie, thank you so much for joining us today. One of the final things that we do on the show and I think that we could talk for hours, but I know you have a time frame. So what I want to do is we have the final thought. This is from Gordon Food Service, who is our final title sponsor. They do a final thoughts. What you can do is you can take us out of the show. Whatever you want to say, whatever piece of wisdom you want to share. It could be your favorite quote. It could be anything that you want. Literally, whatever you want to say, the mic is yours. You get to take us out. Go. John Maxwell says that if you don't create the future you want, you endure the future you get. I love it. That's a fine final thought from Stephanie Richardson.

48:18Thank you for joining us today. Well, thank you again, Stephanie Richardson. That was a fun conversation. Little departure from our everyday stuff. I work with a business coach at Second First. And Deborah Sunderland, there's lots of people out there that I think it's really cool when working with the coach, because we all tend to be emotionally involved in what we do. We're in there every day. And I love that commercial, the nose blind commercial, where you walk into a room and it's like, this stinks. Like, I can't smell it. When you're doing your stuff every day, you just don't recognize some of the things you could be doing. So it takes somebody who's not emotionally involved in your life to talk to you and learn and go, hey, you could be doing different things. Like, what? You just get into a rhythm. So even consultations with people like Stephanie are really, they're just great. They're great and they're beneficial. And it was a really fun conversation. I'm glad I was able to share it here.

49:19Let me know your thoughts. Go to our Instagram page and let us know what your thoughts are. You should go to the Instagram page anyway, because right now, for another 48 hours, we are giving away tickets to Toast Nashville. You can go to our Instagram page. If you guys got to write, you got to like the thing, you got to follow us. And then you got to type in which event you want to go to. I've got 12 sets of tickets to give away. Really excited about this. So I want to give them out. Go to our Instagram page, like us, follow us and tell me who you would take with you. Hope that you guys are being safe out there. Have a wonderful weekend. We'll be back next week better than ever. Love you guys. Bye.