High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 673: How to Flip Your Mindset and Perform at Your Best with Frank Kitchen, Keynote Speaker and High Performance Motivation Expert

Episode Date: April 3, 2025

On today’s episode, we’re joined by a truly inspiring guest—Frank Kitchen, a Certified Speaking Professional and High-Performance Motivation Expert. Frank is known for helping individuals and organizations think, act, and perform at their highest level.  Frank’s journey as a speaker began with a major life pivot—he was fired from his job on Father’s Day weekend. Instead of letting that setback define him, Frank made a courageous choice: he pursued his dream of becoming a full-time professional speaker. Today, his story of resilience and mindset mastery captivates audiences. In our conversation, Frank shares how he teaches others to: How to “Flip Your Mindset”  Ways to “Cook Up the Results You’re Hunger For”  How to live his Live F.R.E.S.H. philosophy And other powerful strategies to stay motivated, overcome challenges, and live with purpose Frank is also a bestselling author, mentor, and community leader—and his passion for helping others grow shines through in every word. This is a conversation full of energy, insight, and practical tools to help you elevate your performance and impact.  HIGH PERFORMANCE MINDSET SHOWNOTES FOR THIS EPISODE CONNECT WITH FRANK KITCHEN HERE REQUEST A FREE MENTAL BREAKTHROUGH CALL WITH DR. CINDRA AND/OR HER TEAM TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THE MENTALLY STRONG INSTITUTE Love the show? Rate and review the show for Cindra to mention you on the next episode.  

Welcome to the High Performance Mindset podcast, where we dive into mental strategies, tools, and stories behind high performance. I'm your host, Dr. Syndra Campoff, and on today's episode, we're joined by a truly inspiring guest, Frank Kitchen, a certified speaking professional and high performance motivation expert. Frank is known for helping individuals and organizations think, act, and perform at their highest level. And Frank's journey as a speaker began with a major life pivot.

He was fired from his job on Father's Day weekend. And instead of letting the setback define him, Frank made a courageous choice to pursue his dream of becoming a full-time professional speaker. Today his stories of resilience and mindset mastery captivates audiences everywhere. And in our conversation today, Frank shares how he teaches others to flip your mindset, cook up the results you're hungry for, how to live his fresh philosophy, and other powerful strategies to stay motivated, overcome challenges, and live with purpose. This is a conversation full of fun, energy, insight, and practical tools to help you elevate your performance and impact. So let's get

to it. Let's welcome Frank Kitchen. Welcome Frank Kitchen, a CSP, to the iPerformance Mindset podcast. I'm so excited to talk to you Frank and learn from you and allow everyone else to learn more about what you do and how you can positively support them today. So thank you so much for being here on the podcast. Thanks for having me on here, Syndra. I mean, I started following you a few years ago, so to be on your podcast, this is an amazing day for me. So you're the best. And it's fun. We got to see each other more at the CSP Summit just in December. So it was fun to see you there. And so today we're talking about having a fresh mindset, what fresh means, and we're

going to talk about culture and why that matters to everyone who's listening. So why, Frank, should people listen to us today to talk about mindset and culture? I think the reason people should listen to our conversation today is there's a lot of quote experts out there who will just talk a good game right now, but they've never actually gone through any tragedies or difficult times. And I know this when I started my speaking, I was always trying to tell people how to make their life better, but I'd never gone through a tragic time. But then when you actually have some challenges and barriers put into your life, it helps

you better connect and resonate with people from the stage or in a podcast interview because now we truly understand the pain that people are going through. So there's one thing to talk to people, talk at people, but there's a better one when you get a chance to talk with people and understand what they're going through and offering advice based off of either as we said earlier research based or Personal experiences that you've had and the successes that you've seen Tell us about a tough moment that has shaped your perspective Yeah, my perspective. I always will share with people. I shared on stage now

I didn't share before because I shared earlier. When I first started my speaking, I'd just go up there and try to be speaker man and just be, everything's perfect. And then got on stage one day and finally shared with some people the story of I got fired on Father's Day. And I got fired on Father's Day. My wife was pregnant with our second child. And it's Father's Day weekend.

We had to go to her parents' house. I've lost my job. and I got to go tell her father, hey, I want to be a professional speaker. I mean, that's tough times right there because my wife is as young as a daughter and to try to go tell somebody that you want to make a living, quote, running your mouth. And you've been talking about this for about seven or eight years and haven't had success, that's a tough moment. Yeah, absolutely. How did the father-in-law respond? Well, at first he goes, what are you going to do?

And when I was about the time I was going to do, my wife, because she's my biggest support back, her Kelly, she goes, hey, we've got a plan. And I looked at her like, we do. She goes, yes. And then she told her dad that I had signed up for a speaker showcase that weekend in his town. So she goes, hey, and these are scary words. She goes, take my dad with you. Oh, no.

No pressure. No pressure. Oh my gosh, the father-in-law. Not sure the future is. Waiting for the second child, his third grandchild to come. And now I've got to go do a showcase where you're trying to get booked as a speaker. And then you have your father-in-law in the back of the room who's never really seen you speak in front of a group before.

No pressure. No pressure. How did the speaker showcase go for you? So the speaker showcase went amazing. And you know, I've got pictures of selfie, everybody's smiling, having a good time. And often when I'm speaking, I have the audience cross their arms, because my father-in-law loves to cross his arms. And he's kind of like to get that pit boss face, like if you go to a casino.

And while I'm doing this speech, and I should be focusing on, to make it even scarier, this was a high school student leadership conference. So I've got my father-in-law in the room and 200 scary people, which are kids who can walk out on you in a heartbeat. So when I should have been focusing on the kids, I just kept looking at him in the back of the room with his arms crossed. And when the event was over, he's a former marketing exec for the phone company, I went back to talk to him and he goes, Frank, let's go home and talk about this.

So now I'm going, oh no, it's like go home and talk about this. He's going to find a way to hide the body and make me disappear. And I invited some other speakers who were at the conference with me because I go, hey, if there's witnesses, then he can't come down as hard on me. So we sat in his backyard for a few hours and he started to ask me questions, you know, all three of us, asked us questions about the speaking business. And after he asked all his questions, he looked at us and he goes, hey, because, you know, he's seen speakers before.

He goes, I love what I saw. This is what you're born to do. What can I do to help? Oh, wow. So, you know, we're going to be talking about mindset today. I had fear talking to him for so long, expected a negative comment where I should have invited him to come out and watch earlier

because then he started giving me all these ideas and feedback and to really go deep into this whole kitchen philosophy. And I've got my wife's backing now, I got my father-in-law's backing. It's like, okay, let's go for this. So that was like, quote, a scary time. I call it a tragic time, but ever since that point, I've been doing this world of professional speaking full-time.

Yeah, that's awesome. You know, and Frank, there's so many ways that people can relate to what you said because starting a new career and a job as an entrepreneur and a speaker, that's really scary and there's a lot of thoughts in the beginning of, am I going to fail? Am I even going to be good at this? Which maybe people who are listening aren't necessarily interested in becoming professional speakers, but they also have that same fear and anxiety towards whatever big goal that they have to go after.

And now I can say, all right, Frank Kitchen is CSP, which in case people don't know what that is, it's this designation with the National Speakers Association. Only 12% of speakers actually have this designation. And that means that Frank has shown superior delivery, and also has had a certain amount of engagements, which is a lot over the last five years or so.

So congratulations for making it. Yeah. And that was a big part of the story that I'll share with audiences now is for the first maybe 15, 20 minutes, I share my story going, hey, I went from fired to getting acceptance and backing from my family and friends to joining National Speakers Association to five years later. So this is like a six year process since being fired to being recognized, you know, with our CSP, which is to make it sound even better,

Syndra, because you've got your CSP also. There's less than 500 of us on the planet. Yeah. And so you think about 8 billion people. So to go from, as you said, a spying entrepreneur to being recognized as one of the top in your field, I'm like, wow, that's amazing. So I go, what's the amazing, the people who are listening to me, what's the amazing you

have? And I always share with people, I go, I was like, nothing is easy, but anything's possible. I was like, but anything that's possible, it requires a lot of work and a lot of, not just physical commitment, but mental commitment. Yeah, nothing is easy, but anything is possible. I think that shows you the importance of mindset. Frank, what I'd love to actually have you talk a little bit about is your acronym FRESH. You talk about this idea of flipping your mindset.

At first, maybe you just talk about what does flipping your mindset actually mean to you, and then what is your FRESH acronym? Okay. So obviously with my last name being Kitchen, for years I ran away from that name thing and it's like, okay, it's too hokey. But when people met me, they're always, they're making some type of culinary or kitchen type of just term to me. That's what people remember me my. So the first piece when we talk about flipping your mindset was, okay, well, let me go full boring because I've had, you know, 50 years of jokes. Why not turn that into something? So when I talk about flipping your mindset was, okay, well, let me go full bore into this. I've had, you know, 50 years of jokes. Why not turn that into something? Yeah.

So when I talk about flipping your mindset, I'll walk out on stage with a big three foot spatula. I mean, so people like it. I say, well, my father-in-law says, Hey, you know what? I believe in you. You can do this. I'm like, at that moment, my mindset changed. Now I'll show this to you cause you'll like it.

So it's kind of right there on the screen. Oh, it's awesome. But, uh, I was telling people when you flip your mindset, the analogy is just like cooking. I was like, whether you can cook or you can't, whether you can or you can't cook, when people grab that spatula, it's a mental commitment saying, hey, you know what, here's a goal that I have that I aspire to do. And I don't care that I haven't done this before, or I don't care that I've done it before because I want to come back and get better. So you're grabbing that spatula, that mental spatula, say, hey, you know what? I'm going to put the work in.

So for many of us in our lives, you know, we'll go to the house and we're like, well, I'm going to cook this. We're like, they've never cooked it before in their life. They burned the house down. They go and do them. We're all like, worried, but this person's like, I can do it. But in our life, whether it's a career, a business, or organization, we go, oh, I haven't done this before.

So we back away, because obviously we know that our brain is wired to, a lot of people say protect this, but we know it's obviously to actually manage our energy. So if something seems difficult, the brain naturally is gonna say, let's probably say something's a little bit easier and it's gonna require less energy. So when we flip our mindset, the first piece is,

when I say grab the spatula, it's like, hey, I'm gonna cook. But then from there, you can say I'm gonna cook, but you gotta put action when I say grab the spatula, it's like, hey, I'm going to cook. But then from there, you can say I'm going to cook, but you got to put action in. So the spatula, you know, you use it to cook, but when we cook something, it doesn't always go right. So the spatula is used to split things over to make sure it's done properly. So we always have to be willing to adjust, you know, and be flexible with what we're going for. But the most important part, and this is when I was chasing a speaking dream for a long

time, why I failed, was the most important part, and this is when I was chasing a speaking dream for the longest time, why I failed was the most important thing about a spatula is a cook never finds satisfaction in cooking for themselves. They find more satisfaction in working for others and a spatula is used to serve. It is not used to serve yourself first, it's used to serve others. So that was my pitfall for the longest time was I was telling myself, I can't do this. I've never done this before. I'm not smart enough. And I needed to put my mind to start saying, Hey, you know what? You're hungry.

Put the work in, make it happen, but stop focusing so much on yourself and focus on who you can serve. And when I started to do that, that's when work and phone calls started to come in. Because early on, you know how this as a business, everything we do is me, me, me, me, me, me versus now it's a point like, Hey, how can I be of service to you? How can I be a resource for you? What can I serve you? So that's the first part about flipping your mindset and just making a mental commitment to get dirty and go out there and cook. I tell people to cook up, quote, the results that you hunger for. Awesome. I love that. And you know, even Frank, I think this is important on sports teams.

And I'll talk about like when I'm working with sports teams that it's easy to really feel sorry for yourself. Like let's say you made a mistake or there's a turnover and it's easy to go on the sidelines and be frustrated. But when we can turn our attention to others, it helps us get out of our own head and we're less likely to overthink or question ourselves. And when we're focusing on other people, right? Giving each other positive energy or pumping each other up or, you know, building each other up,

that does help us get out of our own head too. Yeah, exactly. Because as you said, you know, all of us here listening right now, there's those points where since you're talking about sports, I'll make a golf analogy. Perfect. I told people like when I'm golfing with my friend, he happens to be a golf coach, plays golf all the time.

I golf like a handful of times per year. So when he comes out to visit me, we'll go golf. And then I put it right in the middle of the fairway. I start thinking about all these different opportunities and next thing you know, I shank that shot because I got too much in my mind, like was it our cognitive overload, right? But when I hit it into the trees, all I can focus on like, okay, he's out in the middle of the fairway, he's waiting for me, there's a group behind me, I don't want to mess them up. And then I hit the most beautiful shot like out of trouble because I've only got one thing to really focus on,

which is just, you know, what's the solution? But I feel too many of us focus so many on the what ifs, what can't have, or the negative side where it's just going like, focus on the solution because you can probably break down what the actual scientific term is for, but I was sure people were like, where your mind goes, your mouth and your body will follow. So it's like, what are we focusing on? Absolutely, for sure. It's so easy because of our brain and our default is to focus on what's wrong, or what's missing

instead of what's right and what we have. Hi, this is Cinder Campoff. And thanks for listening to the high performance mindset. Did you know that the ideas we share in the show are things we actually specialize in implementing? If you want to become mentally stronger, lead your team more effectively and get to your goals quicker. Visit freementalbreakthroughcall.com to sign up for your free mental breakthrough call with one of our certified coaches. Again, that's freementalbreakthroughcall.com to sign up for your free call. Talk to you soon. Tell us about the Fresh acronym and what that means.

Yeah, so the Fresh acronym always was a joke with my name. I worked at places and I used to, way back I used to be a retail manager and train people in open stores up. And I wanted my employees to just be the best they could, whether it be in sales or customer service. And I recognized that I couldn't be around those people all the time, so what could I do?

So this was back in the 90s, and KB Toys, the toy store in the mall. I am. Okay, they're getting paid every Friday. I was like, I'm going to put a newsletter on their check so they can see what's going on. So I put games and activities on there, but the newsletter was called Fresh From the Kitchen. I love it. Because it was, quote, fresh information for me.

So then as the speaking developed, I'm like, okay, well, we've got to flip our mindset. But in order to flip our mindset, it's not about what we think about or talk about, it's how we live. And it's like, oh, wait, well, what we have to do is we have to live fresh. And I was talking to my wife, like, do we live fun? Is it fun? She goes, fun's overused. She's like, you used to write that newsletter, you wrote your book saying fresh from the

kitchen. It's like, why don't you find an acronym for fresh? So fresh turned out to be what was in my diary and my journal, all the reasons that I had failed at past pursuits. So when I talk about living, as I said, one thing to think about it, one thing to talk about it, but it's something to live.

And I go, if we can live these five parts of the acronym every day, there will always be thinking about what we can do. So the first part was we have to live focused. So what do we focus on? And I told people the easiest thing to think about a focus is to think about a little child. If you're a parent and you have a kid, you've ever been a kid and had parents,

you know, at some point you say, I'm hungry. And then they go and make you something and they come back and you're like, that's not what I want. Yeah. And they'll ask you, it's like, well, what do you want? Cause you want specifics. So for us in our lives, when we're going after any aspiration, is we've got to be laser focused. And when we're focused, we're also unapologetic.

I mean, you and I go out to a restaurant right now, Sandra, and you and I both say we're hungry. You're going to grab whatever you grab. I want to grab what I grab. And none of us are going to judge each other, be critical. You probably just ask, hey, Frank, do you like it? Is it good? But it's funny in our world where we're afraid

to share our focus because we're worried about being judged by other people or whatever, but this is your life. So I always will share with people, let's live focused. Have that one thing that you're looking to go for. Don't, you know, over-clutter yourself. From there, we go, we gotta live resourceful. We're in a world where we always are talking about what resources that we don't have, but

we've never had every resource. But if we're resourceful, back to the kid analogy again, they don't take no for an answer. So they'll tell you where to go find it. Like my kids, hey, it's like, well, we don't have that in the house. Well, we can go down the street to the grocery store. Well, don't have that right, don't have any cash with me right now. Well, use your credit card. I mean, they're just- They can be really resourceful when they really

want something. And the biggest thing is the biggest resource we have are other human beings. Like you and I just shared, we're both part of the National Speakers Association. So if I'm struggling, I'm one click away from reaching out to a colleague who can help answer my questions or provide clarity and focus for me. So we're resourceful, we're focused on what we can do versus what we can't. But we're obviously in a world right now where we're constantly hearing what we're not good at and what we can't do.

We've got to be resourceful. After that, we're going to be living enthusiastic. I love to share what this one is saying as like the excitement of the result or the energy has to be stronger than the excitement of the work because we're not designed to want to work. We don't want to stress ourselves. And I said, we have to essentially get into a vacation mode. I mean, it's funny when we get ready to go on vacation, how productive we get in the

last 48 hours. Because all we're thinking about, we're tricking our brain now because we're thinking more about the result, which we know we're giving ourselves that little burst. Uh, what's the actual term for when we were releasing? Uh, dopamine. Dopamine. So we're giving ourselves that. Dopamine. Yeah.

Cause I'm going to be on the beach. My toes are going to be in the sand. I'm going to have an adult beverage in my hand. I'm like glasses. I'm going to be a way note. So all of a sudden we start doing the work, but when we focus on the work, we're not getting that dopamine hit. And it's like, Oh, it's going to take eight hours.

It's going to go. So I always will tell people like, we got to be enthusiastic. So it's like, what excites you? And I'll get people goes like, well, I want to run my own business and it excites me to have my own schedule. I'm like, that's not enough emotion. I was like, what does that mean?

And the person goes, I just want to be able to go to a movie in the middle of the day whenever I want to. I'm like, that will drive you. It was like, did you see how much you got excited? Say like that. From there, so we got focused, resourceful, enthusiastic. Then we have what's called strong, so I say mentally strong. And the idea is what are we consuming on a day-to-day basis as far as around us?

You understand this. I'll share. I've learned by talking to experts like yourself that they go, hey, our brain isn't fully wired until we're 25 years old. So we've been receiving all these different inputs, and especially the ones that are very tactile and hands-on experiences that wires our brain. But now as we get to be adults and older, guess what? The brain can still be rewired, but we need a little bit more. So we have to watch. What are we watching on social media, in the media? Who are the people

we're hanging out with? What are the environments that we're in? I failed with my speaking for the first seven or eight years because nothing wrong with it, but I was spending my time with a lot of nine-five mindset people. I wasn't hanging out with entrepreneurs. The entrepreneur started to tell me, he's like, hey Frank, here's where you can trip and fall. Here's where you got to go do. Here's a book. Here's research. Here's how you go and do. And being that mentally strong, like even right now, the way I wake up every day is, you know, have like a routine to start the day.

Come going like, okay, if these things are important to me, my health, my business, that should be the first way to start my day off with not check the sports score, check my email, check the news. Let me build my mental and physical health before I start that day off. So that's strong. And then the final one is we have to live honest. Honest. We have to be honest with ourselves.

Many of us are too afraid to go ask for help. We're afraid to ask for questions. We're in this microwave generation where we think everything should happen overnight. So somebody will watch syndrome and be like, oh, I want to have a podcast like her. Well, I'm going to ask you right now. How long did it take you to start your podcast? Well, I've had it since 2017.

So, but it did take a while just to even out the courage to start it. Yeah, but people will look at it right now and they're like, okay, so it's 2025, 2017. So this to start it. Yeah. But people will look at it right now and they're like, okay, so it's 2025, 2017, so this is version 8.0, and I'm sure you're a lot better now than it was in 2017. So we have to be honest with ourselves to recognize that, hey, guess what? We're going to make mistakes. We need to ask for help. There are going to be tough times.

No matter what you see in our culture right now, everything isn't perfect. Nobody is an overnight success. So if we can live focused, resourceful, enthusiastic, strong, and honest daily, that allows us to flip our mindset and ensure that we can work towards cooking up that dream we hunger for. And that dream, guess what? We might hit that dream, it may fall a little short, or we may even exceed it. But at least you're going to be working your way closer towards it. Yeah, I love it. Thank you so much, Frank. So focused, resourceful, enthusiastic,

mentally strong. I like that part. And then honest. And as I was thinking about it, I was thinking about a couple of things that, when you said you were just one step away from any of your answers by calling someone an NSA, That's everybody else who's listening. They're one step away from anybody answering their question or anyone giving more clarity on what they want. To be honest, this focus and being laser focused and being unapologetic for that, Frank, is very hard for people. I find that it's hard for people to say, this is what I want, I'm going to claim it and I'm going to go after it with a deep conviction.

Like, there's not a lot of people that I actually personally know that can do that. I feel like more people that I know limit themselves than really claiming what they want and going after it. But the time when they actually change, or like you said, flipped their mindset is now when they're pressing to a quarter. So I'm like, I read that point in the movie Cinderella Man, and they go, what changed? And he goes, I got hungry. Because now they're about to get kicked out of the apartment.

So for a lot of us is once something gets taken away, so people who max out their credit card, then they know it's out of the care of their finances. Because now they have no option to go and do. So as you said, it's difficult for all of us. You may struggle with this at some point with things during the day, but then it's just like, okay, let me just focus on what I can control in my life because too many times we focus on number one is we lie to ourselves. We self justify why we don't go for something so we don't get hurt.

Then many of us, we care, and when I say we care, we care and value the opinions of people who don't care and value us. So we'll put more input or more, you know, onus into somebody we don't know walking down the street than your mother, your father, your mentor, your boss, then, you know, a colleague who goes, hey, you know what, that's really good.

Oh, you're just saying that. And then we go watch somebody else. We wait, we're like, okay, well, we'll just wish, which is passive. We'll wish the idea turns out. Right. Stop, stop waiting. And people are like, well, I can't start my business today, Frank. I'm like, but you could go, like you said, reach out to an entrepreneur.

You could go into a podcast. You could go watch a book. If there's college students listening to this right now, I love college students or high school students when I talk to them. I'm going like, guys, you guys, it's so easy. Like what? I was like, you could reach out to any of these influencers out there. You'll find them on social media and say, I'm writing a paper on you.

Can I have a podcast sit down with you for five minutes? I was like, and they're right here with you. What's going on? And like, it's that easy? I'm like, yeah, but we're just so programmed in our world to think that everything is hard and difficult or we have to have it our way. And we're now teaching everybody that everything requires, you know, some work, some struggles, some challenges, some failure.

Like when I share the fresh piece on stage, I tell people like, hey, if you're living fresh, you are working to cook up the dreams you hunger for while you're inspiring others to do the same. And guess what? While you're cooking, even a burnt meal doesn't stop you from being hungry. And I have people like, hey, has anybody ever cooked something in the middle of the night and then it burns? I was like, do you just go to bed to go, no, I go find something else. I was like, that's the mindset we have to be in.

I was like, just always looking for a solution. Nice. Nice. Frank, I agree that it's like people make changes when they're hungry when they have no other option. And I think about for you, you got fired, you had no other option is to double down on professional speaking. And I think about even how this relates to me is,

I don't think you know this, but I was at the 2013 Boston Marathon when the bombing occurred, and I was just a couple of blocks away. And it was actually that moment that I got a whole, well, during the day, during when we were trying to figure out what was happening and was there bombs in our hotel and all that, you know, my race didn't matter. Actually, it was my family. And then my second thing that mattered most was my passion. And I just remember asking myself questions like, why am I still here? You know, like what difference do I make? Why do I do what I do? And at that point in 2013, I was working with sports teams. I was a college professor, but I was not a professional speaker

and I wasn't an author. And I hadn't done work with a Minnesota Vikings or any of these other professional sports teams that I have now. And I got back and I just, I think that experience made me realize like I'm playing small. Like I'm doing things that are just easy and comfortable instead of really going after really what I deeply want. And that experience, that difficulty made me with this F laser focused. And maybe even a little bit of unapologetic like no this is this is what I'm gonna do you know and there are people at the beginning that was like yeah you're gonna work for them instead of Vikings like good luck you're a woman you know you know uh and but I guess what I'm

trying to say is I you know hopefully as people are listening they're thinking about maybe times in their life where they didn't feel like they had another option and they got hungry. And also to help people think about how are you playing small and what do you really know that you want to kind of go after? Yeah. I mean, what you're explaining there is I often tell people is like, either is like, you can call it our mind, our brain, I say mindset, is our mental cookbook. And I go, if this book has no recipes in there, I was like, then you're going to start playing

small. So the idea is, I was sure with my wife, she was a teacher, was it comes down to exposure. What are we exposing ourselves to? Because if we have less exposure, then we do start thinking small. But as you start to figure out options, you open up this beautiful, you've got to think, I'm hungry tonight. And sometimes it can be overwhelming, but you open up this beautiful, you've got to think, I'm hungry tonight. And sometimes it can be overwhelming, but you open up this cookbook and there's like 200 recipes.

Okay, well, yeah, now you've got to go pick out the right one, but you're like, okay, there's options versus if you open up and there's nothing in there because of the people that you've been around, the experience that you had, the point, like you said, plain, small or plain, safe. Boom. So for anybody listening to this right now, the first piece should always be, hey, let me just go get as much exposure to different activities as possible because that will change your mind. I always get some people who I work with, like, hey, what's your favorite thing to do? And one client was like, she's like, I love horseback riding. I'm like, well,

put horseback riding on your calendar. She's like, what? I was like, you've got your meetings planned on there, when to pay the bills, but you've got no time for yourself on there. Well, then she started to meet up with her horse and rode her horse. Now she has a business doing that now to help all these execs have relief, stress. And she's like, man, I could have done this so long ago, but she says, I wasn't thinking about it. I was thinking I had to go work for somebody. I couldn't work for myself.

So there's some points where we just get outside and we get around people like yourself. We're like, whoa, like you said, you work for the Minnesota Vikings. How crazy does that sound? You're working with one of the top two NFL teams because that scorecard came out yesterday. And like they get, you know, eight pluses all the way through as far as how they treat their players, which I know you're part of that process. Sounds crazy, but it's possible. Yeah, it's possible.

And you know, I love Frank Nguyen. OK, so your keynote about flipping your mindset, we've talked about what that means in this fresh acronym. And ultimately, what this helps you do is identify and overcome barriers that might be limiting you, right? That are limiting you that you can't get the results that you really want.

Tell us about what you found is some of those barriers that might get in the way of potential. Yeah. Well, the first piece is I told you about the kitchen analogies. I told people if there's something that you want to make, I was like, let's think about if we're at our house. If we're at our house and we're about to make something, the first thing we do is we go look at the cupboards in the pantry to see what we have. So if you don't have certain things, that's a barrier.

So one of the first things I do with anybody that I coach or work with is like, hey, let's identify the barriers first. I was like, because everything else will be easy. I was like, so let's find out, you know, what do you watch on a daily basis? What do you read? Who have you been around?

I was like, let's start to put, you know, some of these things down. Like, which one of these would you consider a barrier? And it's a lot of deep thinking, but they go, oh yeah, well, I want to be a business owner. I'm like, well, how many business owners do you hang out with? They go, none.

I'm like, well, that's a barrier for you. I was like, so you need to go right down now, kind of like on your recipe or ingredient list is that I need to be around entrepreneurs. Okay, cool. You want to be a professional speaker. I'm like, hey, have you spoken in public before? No, then maybe you want to take a public speaking class. So what we have to do is start thinking about,

okay, what do we want to go do? List out all the things that you feel that you need. And if you don't know it, then I'd tell people to go hang out with other cooks and chefs. I mean, have an interview like this and ask them like, hey, what did you not only do right, but what are all the things you did wrong?

And I always love to ask the question, like what did you do wrong? Cause that helps me grow faster. Cause I don't know, want to know all the successes. I want to know what are, you know, the little landlines I have to avoid and watch out. But that allows you to put together this list of what you need to go and do, and you'll start to know, quote, what you need to go shop for in order to produce this result that you want.

And that's why I love, lucky enough with my last name, but it ties in so well with culinary and food. And it's great that I took three years of culinary, so I can do analogies. But that's what happens is we have these barriers and we're focusing so hard. It's like, well, I got to make this happen, make this happen, make this happen. And it's like, no, no, no, you got to slow down first. And we got to eliminate those barriers because those barriers are a weight on you. It's holding you back.

It's slowing you down. After that you work with, it's like that parachute that they have, slowing them down, they're trying to learn how to get faster. So we, we have to knock out the barriers first and then all you can focus on after that is all the things you can do. Yeah, absolutely. Well, I like these questions about what do you watch? What do you read?

Who do you surround yourself with? And people might not even really think about how what you watch, what you read, who you surround yourself with does shape you and your perspective and what you think that you can do. And I think about just trying to surround myself with people who are just one step ahead of me, you know? And I think that's what's great about the National Speakers Association or other associations people might be a part of is you can always find somebody who's more experienced

or has a skill set that you don't have and that you want to keep growing in. Yeah, I mean, and like you said, it's scary. So you work with athletes and I'm a former athlete, but people used to get on me like, Frank, you live out here in the suburbs. Why do you go downtown all the time? You barely get on the court or give me time.

I'm going, like, that's the only way I'm going to get better. But as you said, we have this comfort zone. So yeah, I ruled the courts out in the time. You barely get on the court or get any time. I'm going like, that's the only way I'm going to get better. But as you said, we have this comfort zone where you sort of do. So yeah, I ruled the courts out in the suburbs. I could get on any time. I show up sick. They'd still pick me. Okay. That's not making me better. But hey, having that challenge of I didn't get on the court, maybe go, hey, you know what? I got to practice a little bit better. Oh wait, let me go find that person who's one step ahead of me. What are you doing? Oh, well, hey, I'm not just coming down here on Saturday.

I'm in the gym like five days a week. Oh, okay, I need to do that type of piece. Hey, you know what? You got poor ball handling. You need to work better on your ball handling because out in the suburbs, I can be lazy with it. But down here, and it keeps getting stolen. So that's the part is we're in this world where we want everything to be easy and everything that's

broadcast to us is showing ease. Even right now if someone wants to lose weight, they're like, okay, take this drug. If somebody wants to do, oh, this app's going to make it easy for you, and you start to recognize the easy has some type of cost further down the line. So it might seem easy now, but guess what? People go look for trips. It's like, oh yeah, I paid $1,000 for the trip. And then all of a sudden, the sender walks in and it's like, well, you know there's a

website you just could have clicked the button and you wouldn't have had that $1,000 charge. What? Because it was easy. So we have to just understand that everything takes a little bit of time. Everything's going to have some challenges. We are gonna fall on our face, but that's our greatest time for growth is when we have those mistakes.

For you as a speaker, for me as a speaker, people are like, what do you speak on on stage? I'm like, most of the time I'm sharing the mistakes that I've made or the people I work with sharing their mistakes, so the audience doesn't do that. Yeah, absolutely. We can learn from each other. And you know, when we're thinking about kind of this fresh mindset, it's very much like

helping us think about how we can improve and how we can keep developing ourselves, right? And I'm curious about how you see kind of mindset and culture coming together, right? Because you also speak on culture and where that's more maybe like one person's contribution to the culture and how everybody contributes to the culture. How do you see those two concepts, culture and mindset coming together? So the program you're talking about, the program is called It's Okay to Play. And I had a mentor years ago when I was working in retail and a lot of ways he trained us

was through games. And at first, like, oh, why is he doing this? But then when he put the challenge on, we became, how's the best way to describe it? Obviously, when we play a game, the first thing is like a game is challenging. We're never good the first time. As we start to practice and play, we start to develop skills and develop habits. And once something becomes a habit habitual, that eventually becomes reflexive. And we didn't realize Jim was doing that. So Jim came in and he goes, hey guys, my goal is not to be judged off of the sales that

I make, but the people I promote. We're all cashiers, high school college, like what is this guy talking about? Everybody in that meeting ended up getting their own store. Oh wow. So it created this culture of, hey, I want to have the growth of my people. So everywhere I've worked for 30 years in talent development has always been like, how do I make those people better? And people are like, well, what if they leave? I'm like, okay, good, we'll get somebody else. But as you said, our minds are so programmed to think of the negative, where I watch Jim and I'll see him here in two weeks.

It was funny, I had a speech two years ago and all of a sudden he was actually in the audience and we had to see each other in 20 plus years. And I was sharing the story and I just shared with people, I was like, hey, positive cultures produce productive people. He worked to create this culture where everybody was valued. And if we value people to grow, then it shows that we care. And we've got too much now where we see people as a number or we've watching all these companies and government doing all these cuts.

It's like, okay, well, you're saying that the people aren't loyal and aren't going there, but you've shown no value to them, whether it means flexible schedules, by that, where they want to grow, what their talents are. It's just like, we spent all this time recruiting them, get them in and then the one that deepened in the pool is like, okay, if you can't swim, that's your fault versus someone like Jim has created this culture of, hey, number one, we are a team. So I always will share with people. I never call people staff, volunteers, members.

We say team because when you say team, that shows that you value somebody because of the team, it means you have some type of special skill or ability that we can combine with everybody. Cause we're all specialists to create the result that we want. If we think about cooking, the most important person when it comes to cooking is the dishwasher. Now society may say that person's not good, but if we don't have any dishes, we can't cook. Yeah. Well, we've got a dishwasher, we've got a cook, we've got somebody who sets the table,

we've got somebody who makes the menu design. That's a team. So that's my feeling about a culture is what are we doing to create this spot where everybody has an opportunity to grow, not just the one person or the person up there at the top. I mean, I'm going to let you talk here, but I just think about my wife. I said she was a teacher for 12 years and she's like, I said that. Because sometimes she says such great things she didn't notice she said it. But one time she goes, hey Frank, she's like, why are we in this world right now

where we're always playing King of the Mountain? So I'll ask my audience, it's like, hey everybody, what's the purpose of King of the Mountain? Everybody's like, to get to the top. I'm like, no, I was like, what's the purpose of King to the Mountain? And someone usually will yell out, to knock the person off. I'm like, that's become our society.

What can I do to knock somebody off to make myself feel better? Well, my wife says, can we just pull everybody up and all enjoy the view together? So we do this thing every New Year's, it's called our Live Fresh hike. And we invite people to meet us at a mountain somewhere here in Phoenix, we've been doing it for 10 years.

And we climb to the top of the mountain and we get everybody on the mountain top, take a picture, we get people flags to mark down their goals. And we're like, hey, this is the deal. We can all enjoy the view together. We don't have to be in this world. We have to push somebody down just to lift ourselves up. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I completely agree with that, Frank. And I was thinking about what research backs up what you just said about positive culture and how that creates performance and creates results. And I think about the study by Lusato Humphrey, and I'm like, where they looked at 60 management teams and they looked at their positivity percentage.

And what they found is the highest performing team had a 5.6 to 1 positivity percentage. So that means that their verbals, their nonverbals, like how they interacted with each other were positive, right? So almost 6 to 1 positivity percentage. And so the research supports what you're saying. And when we're doing the opposite, the lower performing teams and the mid performing team, I think the middle performing team had a 2.1 ratio. The lowest performing team had a 0.3 to one. So that means triple the negativity to positivity.

And it does make a difference, not only in our own mind and what are we saying to ourselves, but also what are we saying to others and are we giving energy or draining energy? Yeah, we start to pull it away and it's nice to walk somewhere where someone will be honest with you. They're not telling you, hey, just be happy, kumbaya, but they understand ultimately is like, if you and I go play a game somewhere, I'm going to ask you like, okay, what's the objective of the game? What are the rules? How do I go play a game somewhere, I'm going to ask you like, okay, what's the objective of the game? What are the rules?

How do I go and do? Who's the good players? And you explain that to me. And I understand right off the bat, it's not going to be good. But if I start to mess up, you're going to be next to me like, hey, Frank, this happened to me before. Do it this way next time. And then eventually I start getting better and better.

And eventually I will win at that. And that's where like, you know, if you watch when kids and people are always playing games, it's always you're watching how well they get together. My wife, I said, again, as being a teacher, she'd watch our kids play sports, our son was playing baseball. And she goes, Frank, man, I wish this was an education. She goes, the coach has all these different stations

and different coaches and parents helping work on one particular skill to make the kids better overall. She's like, I wish we could do that in our world. Like, yeah, there's places that are like that. Or I'm working to teach people how to go and do. Because she's like, okay, the kids need to get better at hitting, go to the hitting coach. Need to get pitching, go to the pitching guy.

Outfield is going there. She's like, it's all about just getting them better. It's not criticizing them versus that's how our world's become. It's like we're quick to criticize people, but slow to recognize what their abilities are and the potential that they have. And as you said, when we can create that culture, that 5.6 or 6 to 1 where it's like, hey, I'm going to make you better. I want to make you the best at this.

Or what do you want to do? What do you want to accomplish? Okay, thank you. Okay, let's go ahead and do it. And I was on a podcast years ago and someone goes, once again, well, once you lose people, I'm like, well, no, you actually start to build a pipeline because when those people leave, then they advocate for you saying, hey, this was one of the best places to work at.

They helped me get promoted. So when I worked at a college, I had my dean of students and it was funny, we had the dean of students, he had a part-time opening, less pay than a full-time opening and more pay in the president's office. But because of the culture that he created, people would always come in, fill them like, how many of you guys have 30 applicants and we've got two? And when the pay that came in, they go, hey, we know the culture here is everybody who's ever worked for you eventually gets a full-time job somewhere else in the college and their specialty.

So we understand that you do a great job training people and preparing them for the future. And, and I said, and that ended up attracting people. I mean, I think right now we'll go out to later today, but I know Costco's got one of those cultures where everybody, that's the place. And like, there's a point where they go, they don't have enough slots for the people who line up there because of just how they treat their employees. Yeah, it does make a difference.

And I'm curious, you know, what advice would you give people who want to think about either energizing or empowering or maybe even retaining their team members? What would you say, or maybe two or three pieces of advice that you give people? Well, we're in a world right now, no matter what generation that you're in, whether we have like four or five generations in the workplace right now, but no matter the generation, people want to be involved. They wanna have a stake, they wanna have a say. And if we get to the point, like, hey, do as I say,

that whole thing, do as I say, not as I do, we've gotta get away from that. So we have to bring people in and start to ask the questions, like, what value do you think you can bring here? How can, we hope, and somebody might be there just to punch a check and go and do it, like, okay, I'm not gonna necessarily push them as hard, but someone's like, hey, I'd think you can bring here? How can we help? And somebody might basically be there just to punch a check and go and do it. Like, okay, I'm not going to necessarily push them as hard, but someone's like, Hey, I'd like to be a manager.

I'd like to run my own. Okay. Boom. Then now from number two is, and let's start to create a leadership program within the organization. These are potential leaders. So now when someone leaves, you're not going, Oh man, we got to go put a whole, another, you know, job post out there.

You've got this team that you've been training for months or years to be ready to fill into that spot. I'm like, I've worked at companies where they call it manager and trading. And we knew at some point we're going to get the call. It's kind of like minor leagues in sports, right? You're not ready for the big show yet, but we're going to make you better. And then the last one is what's the objective? I feel too many organizations, too many companies, businesses don't explain the end point. So it'd be like you right now training someone to succeed at the marathon, because you brought

that up earlier. And I remember challenging an executive one time about this. And I go, hey, I was like, you're telling everybody here to run a race, but you're not telling us how far we need to go. He goes, well, it's up to you to decide. I'm like, no, no. I was like, the way I trained for a 5k, a 10k, a half marathon or marathon, or, you know, or ultra, they're all different.

Yes, it's up to me to determine my training program, but you got to let me know what the end goal is. And so many people will go to these companies and jobs. They're like, okay, what's your objective here? Show up at Monday at eight o'clock. But what else? And they have no understanding of what role they play in there. And when I did a program, you know, play, I say, everybody right off the bat,

like, here's the rules, here's what's going on. Here's what we're here to teach you today. So now everybody understands that. And part of my rules are funny. I go, Hey, meet new people, have fun. Don't cause lawsuits. I'm like, that's kind of like any place that you go. Yeah.

Well, understand that they've said the bow is like, Oh, I can like any place that you go. Yeah. Well, understand that they've said the bowels like, oh, I can interact with new people. I can have fun. But like I said, I don't see enough places that have clear objectives as far as why we are there. Yeah. Such great advice. You know, I appreciated everything that you said today, Frank.

I loved, even at the beginning when we were talking about flipping the mindset and what that means to you and you were like, really that's about serving others and giving to others, right? And so many times we can think about all the what ifs and all the things that could go wrong. I like your fresh acronym and then we talked focused, resourceful, enthusiastic, mentally strong and honest. We talked about how people tend to make decisions when they're hungry, you know, and when they

feel like they don't have any other options or at least to go for their big goals and their big dreams. And then I appreciated what you said about like a growing culture and a positive culture. What other advice would you give us or anything else on your mind that I have not asked you? The big one is I love sharing with people. We talked about the mentally strong piece. And the last, I guess you say cooking reference for today, unless I come back, is I told people we need to have taste testers in our life.

And when I say taste tester, when you're working to cook up something that you're hungry for, literally, you have at least one person or a small group of people where you explain, here's my objective, here's what I want to go and do. So they know and understand where you want to go. Then what happens is from time to time, you ask them to sample. And they're sampling because one is you trust them, but more importantly, you know that they aren't going to tell you what you want to hear, they're going to tell you what you need to hear to hit your objective.

So I always recommend my favorite numbers four as like, hey, we have at least four taste testers or accountability partners in our lives. My wife is one. I've got an accountability partner in Chicago, one in St. Louis and my best friend. I talk to them weekly to let them know, here's what I'm working towards. Can you provide me some feedback or other times just to listen?

So that's the one I have for everybody listening or watching right now is, do you have that support group around you? They allow you not to get too high or even too low, but they're also there to remind you where you're like, man, I'm not good at this. I've never done anything before. They'll come back like, hey, remember, remember you worked with the Minnesota Vikings? Remember you went to Idaho to go work with that team? Remember how you helped out people at the Boston Marathon?

You're like, oh wait, yeah, I didn't realize I did all that. You know, you got your CSP, you had this podcast going for eight years. All right, they're there to refocus and recenter you. So that's the big, I tell everybody like right now, if there's anything you learned from today, go put together a list of taste testers, about four people, and then I want you to reach out to them at some point, say, hey, you know what?

I heard a podcast. I've got big dreams, big goals, big aspirations, personal professional life, and they talked about taste testers. I would like you to be my taste tester. And what's going to happen is when you write down these people's name, write why they're important to you, why you value them, write down their birthday, what's important about them. But when you ask them, like, hey, can we meet on a regular basis? But more often than not, when I've seen people do this,

that person goes, I've got big aspirations too. I've got big goals. Will you be my test tester, which goes back to the whole live fresh, which is we're living, we're cooking up the results that we hunger for while inspiring others to do the same. And as you said, that's that servant leadership piece is to focus not just on ourselves,

but how can we get out there, help others out and pull people up together? I love it. Thank you so much, Frank. Tell us how we can follow along with you, learn more about your speaking and other things that you might be up to. So the best way to do everything is just to go to Frank Kitchen, just one, most people only have one kitchen in their house,

frankkitchen.com and you'll find all sorts of resources on there. But also I've been putting a lot more information out on YouTube. So I'm posting probably about two or three times a week on YouTube. So just go YouTube forward slash Frank Kitchen and you're going to find lots of resources. So I always want to be helpful, make as much impact as I can in this world. So you can go there to find more information. Awesome. So frankkitchen.com and then youtube.com forward slash frankkitchen.

Thank you so much, Frank. It's been really fun to get to know you a little bit more and learn more about your expertise. So thank you so much for your time and your presence and your gift today. Yeah. Thank you so much, Cinder. I'll see you soon. Way to go for finishing another episode of the High Performance Mindset.

I'm giving you a virtual fist pump. Holy cow, did that go by way too fast for anyone else? If you want more, remember to subscribe and you can head over to Dr. Syndra for show notes and enjoy my exclusive community for High Performers where you get access to videos about mindset each week. So again you can head over to Dr. Syndra. See you next week!