The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 346: Cameron Mitchell - Yes Is The Answer, What Is The Question?

Episode Date: January 6, 2020

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Text LEARNERS to 44222 Full show notes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com #346: Cameron Mitchell is the founder & CEO of Cameron Mitchell Restaurants.  In 2018, they celebrated their 25th anniversary. He employees more than 5,000 people and his restaurants do $300m/year in sales. He is the author of Yes Is The Answer, What Is The Question?  He has been recognized as Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and Young, as a Small Business Person of the Year by the U.S. Small Business Administration and as one of 50 New Taste Makers by Nation's Restaurant News. Notes: "Leaders who sustain excellence believe in people.  They put trust in people." Must have strong culture and values Writing your core values -- The benefit of putting pen to paper and the courage to act on them (including firing a superstar if he doesn't live up to the values set) His goals: Go to the Culinary Institute of America Become GM at age 24 Regional at age 26 VP of Operations at age 30 Be president of a restaurant company by age 35 Go to the Culinary Institute of America He woke his mom up at a 1:00am and told her his goals "When you share your goals, people want to hold you accountable to them..." He went to Culinary Institute of America. Same place as Anthony Bourdain. The CIA was the Harvard of culinary schools. He got turned down initially because of his low high school grades -- "I had the can do, but didn't have the want to initially" He once worked 100 days in a row without a day off (that included a 1 hour and 45 minute commute each way) "I equate it to the doll that you punch and it comes right back up." -- Must be resilient "You cannot build a life like this or be successful without a commitment to hard work" Years ago Cameron was a young man with a dream, a yellow note pad, and a pen.  He wrote down 5 questions and answers that articulated who he would be, why he would exist, and what he believed and did as a restaurant company. The 5 Questions: Who are we? What do we want to be? Why are we in business? What is your role? What is our goal? After those questions were answered, Cameron created their eight core values to live by... Fundraising (for people to invest in his new restaurant business) was a grueling process. He got rejected 9 out of 10 pitches when trying to raise money for his first restaurant.  Cameron shares everything he learned from so much rejection and failure... Initially Cameron was a bad boss and people threatened to quit because of him… He got help from Jim Collins and other mentors. Why the answer is always yes... --> Cameron shares the symbolism of a milkshake. To grow his business, he needed to hire great leaders to help him scale and run other restaurants... He shares the key qualities he looked for when making hiring decisions.  The first leader he hired 20+ years ago is still with him today. "I'm constantly pushing on where could we be?  Constantly thinking about how we can be better?" The Customer Comes Second -- Book by Hal Rosenbluth that impacted Cameron. Cameron gave 5% of the purchase price ($4.6m) to his associates (employees) when they sold a portion of their business to Ruth's Chris and gave a unique gift/experience to his senior leaders (paid for their kids college tuition, sent them on a European trip with their spouse) Associates must come first Cameron described with emotion the power of having children had on him... Before Cameron had even met his wife, he would tell people, "I'm working for a wife and kids I don't even know yet." The moment of clarity when you have that walk with your wife... When she's in the wheelchair holding your new baby. "You can't be successful at home if you're not successful at work.  You can't be successful at work if you're not successful at home." "Everyone sees the outward success.  But the family is the inward success." Their associates get 8 weeks paid vacation. The culture and values must hold up especially when times are tough Cameron tells the story of a time when his best chef used bad language towards another associate.  Cameron fired him within five minutes. "If we don't live those values every single day, then they become no good." General life advice: "Integrity takes years to build and minutes to ruin.  You must lead with integrity." "Cutting corners in life will get you nowhere."  Don't think of the easier way to do things.  "If it were easy everybody would do it.  I don't want the easy way, I want the right way." "Positive mental attitude.  It's what you do with your day that defines you.  Be constantly aware of that." Be unwavering with your work ethic.  "We're pushing forward every day."  

Before we get started real quick, I wanted to talk to you briefly about my book. This is one specific project that I will not shy away from promoting, primarily because this is my life's work. I've started writing it about five years ago. However, I had to reflect on the bulk of my life in order to get the material on the page. and 70,000 words later with some great editing by a few friends. And my publisher McGraw-Hill, it's ready to go. And I firmly believe it can make a big impact on leaders of all organizations, regardless of shape or size.

And my mission is to help leaders be more effective because they have so much influence. Think about a boss in your life. Perhaps when you first got promoted, you probably copied what they did, both good and bad. And unfortunately, some of the bad can outweigh the good. And that could be damaging. And so I realize the power that people and leadership have, and I want you to use that power for good so that when you see the wake left behind you, there are so many working in a positive manner to create a culture that is full of committed people. I firmly believe it can help you. I love it if you would pre-order to show my publisher McGrawl Hill that we have an army of learning

leaders that want this book. Go to learning leader.com or wherever books are sold and pick up a copy of my book, Welcome to Management. Thank you so much. All right, here we go. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Brixie and Meyer. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here.

Text learners to 4422. In order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world, receive mindful Monday updates what I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. Also, give you more details on my book. Welcome to Management Text. Learners to 4422. Now on tonight's featured leader, it's the great Cameron Mitchell. He's the founder and CEO of Cameron Mitchell,

restaurants. In 2018, they celebrated their 25th anniversary. He employs more than 5,000 people and his restaurants do $300 million a year in sales. He's also the bestselling author of a great book titled, Yes is the Answer. What is the question? I met with Cameron in his office in Columbus, Ohio. Some of the topics that we discussed, his goal setting process and specific details on how you can create your own frameworks for exceeding goals. Then he shares the five questions all leaders should ask themselves in order to build a culture where people want to do great work. And then how to deal with rejection?

Cameron went 14 months without a paycheck while working to raise money from investors for his first restaurant. He shares what he learned from those tough times and how it made him better. His story is remarkable, and there's so much we can learn from it to help us be more effective leaders. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Cameron Mitchell. All right, Cameron, I want to set the stage for you. It was about, what, three months ago, we were celebrating. My younger brother got inducted into the Ohio State Hall of Fame, Athletic Hall of Fame.

He played football here at Ohio State. And we were celebrating for the day, and it was really important that we were going to have a fantastic, dinner. And his wife, Laura, my sister-in-law, who was the best, she planned the whole day and night. And at night, we went for dinner. We went to Del Mar. And, oh, you got something here? Go ahead. Go ahead. Were you there this night? No, no, no, no. Okay. So anyway, we're at Del Mar, and they bring out all of these appetizers, and they were in, every one of them were incredible. Then we order a meal. And I, you know, I try not to go overboard with things, but I remember looked at Miranda and I said, this may be the best meal I've ever had.

And I thought, so my, my immediate thought was, I want to meet the person who created this place. And so that, Cameron, that is how I became aware of you was because I ate in one of your restaurants. So obviously you have many of them and we'll get to that. But because we had that dinner at Del Mar, I was blown away by the service, by the food, by the entire experience. And I thought, I've got to meet that guy.

So that's why I'm here in your office today in Columbus, Ohio. Well, thanks, Ryan. It's great to hear. I'm glad you had a terrific experience. So welcome. It was great. So there's so much to get to. But I, Cameron, one question I do like to ask leaders that I speak with from all over the world is for a living now, I study leaders who sustain excellence over an extended period of time, not the ones who just have a little bit of a success, but the ones who have been able to have this upward trajectory to continuously sustain excellence. Not that there's not bumps in the road. Of course there are. But from your perspective, when you think of the people in your life that you surround yourself with, or just your own story, what have you found to be the commonalities among leaders who sustain excellence? Well, I think leaders of sustain excellence believe in people and they trust in people. And in our case, I've got about 5,000 people I'm surrounded with at Cameron Mitchell restaurants and a wonderful leadership team and people have been to me 15, 20, 25 years. And we have built this company wrapped around our culture and values and that strong culture and values

has become the backbone of our organization which helps maintain our quality and throughout the system for many, many years. I also know, I want to like get to your story because it's a fascinating one that I think people listening could be inspired by and learn a lot from because there's a lot of points in it, a lot of moments throughout. You appear to me to, to be a very goal-oriented, goal-driven person, starting at an age earlier than I think most people understand the value of writing down goals. Can you share with me your thought process

and maybe some of the stories around you write, the yellow notepad and you writing your goals at a young age and why that's been so meaningful for you? Yes, I believe in goal setting since a very young age and in the power of goal setting. And I still, to this day, set my goals. So here on my desk over here I have on my legal pad, which I've been using for so many years. These are my fourth quarter goals written down here. So I keep them to my right at all times.

And I'm in my fourth quarter of my career. So thus the title of the fourth quarter goals. And I describe it in my book, yes is the answer. What's the question? And I tell the story about when I had that moment of that epiphany, if you will, I was 18 right at a high school going nowhere, working for beer money in restaurants, living home with mom, and just kind of trying to figure out what I'm going to do. And during shift change on a Friday afternoon, this restaurant was just very, very busy, and it was chaotic and pantomone, I like to say, in the kitchen. And manager's barking orders, and I was behind the line about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, getting ready to leave and come back.

I had to come back for a double shift that day at an hour later and be a host. and I was going to go home and change. It just hit me like a ton of bricks that, you know, this is what I'm going to do the rest of my life. I love this business. So I don't know how I did it, but instinctively I got home that night and I wrote out my goals and I want to be president of a restaurant company since I was 35. By the time I was 35, I was going to go to the Culinary Institute of America, which I had heard about as the Harvard of culinary schools, and to get a great culinary education or to be president of a restaurant company,

then intermediate steps along the way. I become general manager at 24 and regional 26 and vice president of operations at 30. And I woke my mom up at one in the morning and shared her with my goal, my goals with her. And that just turned it around. I went back to work the next day, 180 degrees. I'd actually been suspended and put on probation for three days for being late and 30 days and for being late. And I went too many times and was lazy and so forth. and just totally turned my whole life around literally overnight.

And on Saturday I was working for my future, my career, and I became the hardest working guy in a kitchen with the best attitude, literally in a 24-hour period. And so I've used goals throughout the rest of my life, and like I said, I still have them today and working towards the next chapter of my career. And when you have your goals, and running them down is just one thing. It's just one step.

You need to share your goals with everybody and I was sharing them with my mom. And when you share your goals, one, it commits you to them. When you share them with others, it's one thing if they're inside of you, and it's easy. And God knows, I've said I'm going to start a diet Monday, and by Monday at lunch, I'm having a double cheeseburger. That's going to be hard for a restaurant with all this good food to be on a diet. Yeah, excuse me.

So, anyways, so those goals usually don't last long. But it's the goals that you write down that you plot out and plot your future. And they become very, very empowering. And then people also want to help you achieve your goals, too. So the more you can share your goals with others, the more they become involved in you and helping you get to where you want to go. You mentioned the CIA, a culinary Institute of America. And I read Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, an amazing book, too.

In addition to yes his answer, what is the question? And I'm fascinated by this because he went there, you went there, and you rave about it. I know you're still a big supporter of it. What did you, how did that set you up for your future by going to the Harvard of the Culinary Institute? And one, I'm curious, how did you get in? Because that's hard. I know you've written about a little bit in your book. But how did you get in and how did that set you up for your future?

Well, again, the first part is how did I get in? And I got turned down the first time I applied because my high school grades were so poor. I finished 592 out of 597 in my class rank and at 1.05 GPA. And high school I had the can do. I didn't have the will do. And so now I got turned down because of my high school grades. So I went to Columbus State Community College here and took some math news courses and got A's and reapplied. And I used my can do attitude at that point.

And so because my goal was to get to the school, I wasn't really going to take no for an answer. It was just a momentary setback when I got turned down. No, but not yet, right? Yeah. Yeah. And finally got accepted. We joke about it. It's kind of funny that I eventually became.

the first ever alumni board chair of the board and I'm second largest donor in a school's history of alumni donor and fell in love of the school and I've been involved with it ever since. But, you know, and they didn't want to get me in at first. So we kind of have that little laugh. But anyways, I finally got in. And so those, it's just another example of having those goals and getting in there. And then the CIA itself is a institution that really teaches you from day one. about, you know, the kitchen and kitchen discipline and quality and the standards and the drive. And they're the leader in hospitality education, culinary education in the world. And they've maintained those standards over the years.

And actually today are unsurpassed. It's unbelievable what they've done up there. So I think, you know, part of my recipe for success to everybody is to get the best education you can. And that's one key component to it. and self-study I self-study a lot too I was used to discipline myself too to you know instead of going out and having beers with friends at night I would do that a couple nights a week but the rest of the time I would sit home and make sure I was studying and reading every trade journal I could and so forth I saw too that you once had a hundred straight days talk about work ethic you had you had a hundred

straight days I guess I read this in your book correct without a day off and that was while you're at CIA and it was you had an hour and 45 minute commute one way I believe right right and you and and that was just part of your makeup yeah sometimes you I think it's important to share you look at you now and you're like wow what a beautiful office you got all this money you fly everywhere you but all of the work that's led up to this point is um is amazing I think it's it's it's it's it's would be short-sighted of us not to mention the type of work that it's taken you to get here what What was that like and what was your mindset during those 100 days? And, you know, there's many more since then.

Yeah, so I got up at 6 in the morning every Saturday and Sunday and drove down to the city and worked in the city. I wanted to get my New York restaurant experience. And I did that on the weekends. And so drove down and back every Saturday and Sunday. And a lot of tiring drives driving up the Taekonic Parkway on Sunday evening going back to school. But to me, I was just committed to, this was just part of my education. I was there to get an education. I was there to grow and learn.

And so I was going to take full advantage of that as I moved along. But there's always interesting parallels. You look at someone's outward success, and you forget that, you know, how much, you know, next year I celebrated 40 years in the restaurant business. So this didn't happen overnight. This was a series of one step at a time and hundreds of thousands of steps along the way.

But the goal setting again, my goal was to, not to be president of a restaurant company. That's one thing, but to be successful at it, and I want to build a company that's been going to be around for 50, 60, 70, 80, 100 years long after I'm in the big restaurant in the sky. And there's a lot, lot to

that. But, you know, I always equated myself to, you know, the doll that would stand up and you'd punch it and go down and pop back up. And I don't forget what it's called, but that's really what I was like. I mean, it was

You know, you could knock me down, but I would get right back up. And it was, yes, sir, may I have another and doing whatever I needed to do. Was that innate in you, or did you have to develop that skill? Well, it was innate. I mean, it was, that's your old question about leadership. Sure. Learn as a nature versus nurture. And I think with my leadership, you know, I've always, you know, it was to be Cub Scouts, you know,

working up to my Cub Scout leader, you know, or whatever. I did that. And it was kind of in my nature. I was also pretty lazy growing up. But once I got committed to my goals, then hard work is just a part of that. You cannot have success and you cannot build a life like that without committing to hard work. And they're not mutually exclusive. Who did you look up to when you were a kid?

I know your family, it's well documented in your book about your dad and everything. So I'm curious, who did you look up to? Well, once I got serious about the restaurant business, I started to read books from various leaders within the industry. Rich Melman is one of my idols in Chicago. He's the greatest restaurateur ever in the country, in my opinion. Dave Thomas, Dave Way, Dave's way with Wendy's. And got to know him later on in life before he passed away,

became a friend of his. Norman Brinker, Brinker International. And so there's a lot of industry luminaries that I studied. And they were mentors of mine even though they didn't know it, you know. And so, you know, you take a lot from people's lives and apply them to your own lives. Yeah. Can you know the reasons why I wrote the book? Yeah.

Well, I highly encourage people to read it. Can you share the symbolism of a milkshake with us? Mm-hmm. The milkshake to me has become the symbol of hospitality in our company. Mm-hmm. We have always since day one, our culture, yes, has been the answer. So, but it wasn't until 2000 in, so we started 93. So it was 2002.

I was in a local restaurant with my wife and my in-laws and my two kids. I have three at the time I had a four-year-old son and a two-year-old son. And my wife did not want to go to this restaurant. You don't take care of kids. It's Saturday afternoon. And I said, you know, I want to see a dish there. I wanted to go. Really nice, like upscale type.

Yeah. Yeah. And we get there. And, you know, I order a. grilled cheese for my son. And they said, we don't have grilled cheese. I said, okay. So I were at a club sandwich, hold the turkey hamlets, bacon,

tomato, middle, slice of bread. And if you could saute what's left in a pan on each side for me, it would be great. So I got my grilled cheese. And then I wanted a small chocolate shake. And she said, well, we can't do that. All we have is a big, hogendos, 32-ounce, like soft serve, milkshake. It's way too big. And we just can't do that.

I'm sorry. And so I asked her, ask her manager to come over and talk to me. So the manager comes over or asks her manager, she comes back and says she can't do it. I said, we have your manager come over and talk to me. And my wife starts kicking me into the table. Don't do this. You don't make a scene.

I go, I'm not going to make a scene. I just want to know why. So she comes over and says, I apologize, we can't make it because we pre-portioned the ice cream and back. And if we make a small milkshake for your son, what will we do the rest of the ice cream? Now, of course, I know that's absolutely not true. I'm in the restaurant business. No one's back there pre-portioning ice cream to make milkshakes and so forth.

So I said, okay. I said, can I get a chocolate milk? And she said, yes. And part of our culture is great people delivering genuine hospitality. So now she is great people delivering genuine hospitality by getting me a chocolate milk. And she's bending the rules. I don't even think they had chocolate milk on the menu.

So I said, okay. She turns to walk away. And I said, hold on your menu here, you had a warm carrot cake and a warm. warm brandy dessert. And it said, Alamode 2.95. I said, what's Alamode me? She was, well, that's a scoop of ice cream to go to the desserts. I said, great, can I have an order of Alamode to go with that chocolate milk you're going to make

me? And if you can whip that up in a blender for me, that'd be terrific. And so she chastises me at the table and so that'll be expensive sir. It's fine. I can handle it. No problem. And so she leaves table to get my chocolate milkshake now and my wife's fuming.

We're never coming here again. I told you this. And so A couple weeks later, I'm the keynote speaker at the High Regency downtown. 500 people for business lunch, and I talk about the answer is yes, what's the question? And in our company, and that wouldn't have happened in our company. And about two weeks later, a gal comes up to me on a street and says, hey, my husband saw you speak, want to take you up on your milkshake story, and went into one of your restaurants in the bar and tried to order a chocolate milkshake.

And the bartender said, we don't make chocolate milkshakes. here we don't do that. Meanwhile, we have everything we need to do that. And she tells me this in the street. It's like she punched me in the gut right in the middle of the street. She didn't realize it. But, and I go into our Monday morning leadership meeting fired up. And I said, you know, what are our people to understand? Yes is the answer. What's the question? We have to further drive that message home because it's not fully resonating with our people. So we start to think about brainstorming how we're going to do that. And so we, well, so let's tell the milkshake story to our people. That's great. And let's make the milkshake, the icon of hospitality. And yes is the answer.

Great people delivering Jamie in Hospitality. Well, that's great. How are we going to do that? You know, and so we say, well, we started brainstorming our milkshake pins for people. We, at our pit stops, our pre-shift means, we can do a milkshake toast on Saturday to the person that went above and beyond the call of duty and so forth. And that's great. And it's just not enough. and we start, keep going. And we said, well, at orientation, everybody goes through four-hour orientation with our company, about our company culture and values and, you know, the basic expectations and so forth and what to expect and their training schedules and so forth.

And I said, well, let's make a chocolate milkshake as we tell the story to everybody, their first day of work for our orientation and ingrain that in them right from day one. And that's great. That's a great idea. let's do that. And so, and let's, let's do a milkshake toast.

Every major meeting, every, you know, cabinet meeting, presence round table, leadership conference, everything we do. So important people coming to the office,

we greet them with a milkshake toast, et cetera. So today, we make thousands and thousands and thousands of chocolate milkshakes a year within our company. And there is not a soul

in our organization today that does not understand the milkshake and does not understand that yes is the answer. what's the question. I love it. Part of your process as you're building again with the yellow pad as you had to write down five questions followed up by eight values and I think this can apply for anybody listening regardless of their they care about the restaurant business but if they're

building any business or even if they're just simply a manager within a big organization which a lot of people listening are in a role like that. So can you share the important of the five questions and the eight values that came from it and how that could potentially apply to to really anybody in any leadership position. Yeah, sure, exactly. And I would take it even a step further. It can, they can just apply to anybody personally in their life.

And so, and these five questions, we call them our cultural pillars. And when I was in my, when I left my company July 11th of 1992 to start what would be camera, I spent the first 30 days, or company culture and, value. And I remember distinctively, it was the summertime. I have my shorts on and, you know,

I'm by myself and my one-bedroom apartment. And I've got poster boards all over the walls and legal pads everywhere in books and articles and I'm reading and writing and editing and creating this company culture and value. So those five questions, I believe any business has to be able to ask themselves and be able to, I say not only ask themselves, not only be able to answer, but I always throw in the words answer with conviction and authority. So these questions cannot be something that's just on the wall or something that's on a piece of paper. They need to be understood to the core.

And so first and foremost, the question is, you know, what do we want to be? And we want to be an extraordinary restaurant company. By definition, and all these are very simple because I wanted to be very simple and very easily understood. And so the opposite, by definition, extraordinary is the opposite of ordinary. So we want to be an extraordinary restaurant company. Secondly, I think any organization is to ask themselves, who are we?

So we define ourselves as great people delivering genuine hospitality. We all know great people in our lives. Delivering means someone's receiving. Genuine means from the heart hospitality is treating guests like we treat people in our own homes. So guests in our own homes. So we are great people delivering genuine hospitality. hospitality so we've asked ourselves what we want to be we've asked ourselves who are we now as we're going to create this business what is our mission and our mission is to very simply to thrive with both

cultural and fiscal responsibility and what does that mean it means you know a CEO of a restaurant company our number one mission is not to make a profit our number one mission is to maintain our culture and values and so and again because I want to be a restaurant company it's around for many, many, many years. The key to doing that is being a culturally and values-driven organizations. So that's job number one.

Job number one, A, right behind it is to make a profit, and I like to say make a damn good profit. Everybody knows me, knows I drive profit hard and anybody that works with me. It's the lifeblood of a business. So we drive profit hard and we're always, we measure ourselves

against the top publicly out restaurant companies and we're always in the upper 10 percentile certainly upper quartile in terms of profitability percent of profit in relation to sales. So, but we'll never drive profit at the expense of our people or it's the expense of our culture. Perfect examples of that are we're closed seven major holidays a year plus Super Bowl Sunday. We could be open those days, especially Christmas Eve and Christmas and Thanksgiving and make a lot more money. But it's important for us to our people. I don't want to work those days.

And therefore, I don't think our people, want to work those days. And so I think that's leadership, but an example right there, how, you know, you treat others the way you want to be treated and so forth. So I wouldn't ask others to do things that I don't want to do myself or wouldn't do myself. And so, um, so that's how we, that's our mission. Okay. So we've, so we've asked those three questions. The fourth question is, you know, what is your role? So again, those 5,000 associates in our company have multiple different job descriptions. I don't know, hundreds of different job descriptions. It's server in Beverly Hills or, you know, general manager in Boston or whatever, you know,

president or whatever your case of your title may be. But we all 5,000 have the same role. And then it's to make raving fans of the five groups of people we do business with first and foremost our fellow associates, our guests, our purveyors, our partners, and our community. And, you know, we believe that you have to belong to one of those five constituencies to have any interaction with our restaurant company. If we make raving fans of those five groups of people, We'll make raving fans of everybody we come in contact with. So that is everybody's role within the company. And then finally, what is our goal?

Now, we all know companies have hundreds of goals, daily goals, weekly goals, yearly goals, year-de-goals. They come, they go, they change all the time. But we have one goal that's 24-7-365. And then it's to be better today than we were yesterday and better tomorrow than we are today. And so what does that mean? Well, first of all, it creates a culture of change.

You cannot be better. something today than you were yesterday, better something tomorrow than you are today, unless you work at it, unless you are constantly trying to improve your craft and excel and so forth. And you have to do that by change. So in growth. So that's number one. Number two, it's our insurance policy. If we would sit here today, for example, and say, you know, Cameron Mitchell restaurants, we agree very quickly. Camer Mitchell restaurants is somewhat of a successful restaurant company. We could debate for hours how successful, but, But we would agree with that simple statement.

And so if we're better today as a company than we were yesterday and better tomorrow than we are today, by that alone, tomorrow will be more of a successful restaurant company than we are today. And so that's our goal and our business goal. So those five questions. So we think about them, you know, how does that apply to an individual? Well, my role is to make raving fans of everybody I come in contact with my life, my friends, my friends, family, my church, my workmates, whoever I come in contact, you know, those five groups of people that I come in contact. You know, my goal in life is to thrive with both cultural and fiscal responsibility, you know, so I want to be a good person. I want to be fiscally responsible. I want

to grow my life. So it, I want to be better today than I was yesterday. I want to be better tomorrow than I am today. So these are not only business goals, I think, in questions and pillars that I think people could, and applies all every spectrum of business, I think people can use it for their personal lives. And I've heard it. I've gotten hundreds of letters from people who've left our company to pursue other ventures and say thank you for, you know, sharing that with me. And it's made an impact on my life individually and my life within my new company today that I'm at.

So it's been good. I mean, you're speaking my language, Cameron, like learning leader, like my favorite, the reason I entitled the show that five years ago was because the people I really look up to, the leaders, the bosses, coaches, anybody in my life is because they were striving to constantly be better the next day. And the saying we use, which I learned from JJ Redick has never arrived always becoming, regardless of any achievement you get to. You're constantly striving to improve and get better and better. So I love hearing that. What does that look like for you on a daily basis? I was looking around your office for you. I didn't hear all your books. You're obviously

you well read. You have surrounded yourself with an incredible team, which I've read about in your book. What is the daily process to make sure Cameron Mitchell, guy, who's already achieved amazing levels of success in multiple areas of life to keep going, though? Well, I don't know that I have a specific routine or anything like that. And I wouldn't say I'm well read. I've read a lot of 40 pages of books. I put them down and I move on to the next one and so forth.

and skim through them, but I still, to this day, have to force myself to read. Good to great was a big influence on you. Absolutely. That's one of the few that I've read cover to cover a couple times. But, yes, a huge impact. So anyways, I think it's a mentality that is ingrained in me. That I'm constantly thinking, maybe even to a fault sometimes, that, you know, I'm not satisfied with where we are.

We can be better. And so I'm constantly pushing our people, you know, how to think outside the box, how to think, you know, not what's right in front of you, but think about where we could be or we could, you know, what, you know, versus, well, we're, we're just slow there. Or are we just, you know, that restaurant isn't resonating like we wanted to or whatever, you know, we can always be better. We can always make it's an endless pursuit as you were talking. Well, it feels like you have a, what Jim Collins would say as a healthy, productive paranoia. Yes. Whereas you're not a paranoid person, but you're, you're constantly, it's constantly on your mind thinking about. I thought, I think I heard you say this once that you still wake up most mornings, if not every morning, nervous and hope and concern that that this is not going to keep going.

Yeah. Yeah, I'm chicken little. That's for sure. But to hear that is, I think it's two things. One, it's kind of amazing. It's surprising. But it's also in a weird way, reassuring to people. people because they look at you and say, this guy's living the life.

He probably just puts his feet up and chills, but you're waking up with the productive partner or it's still to this day every day. Yeah. And I always, I've always said, and I honestly believe this, that I have fear of failure all the time, you know, and we've closed restaurants. We've made mistakes. Those things, I'm not, that's just walking up to the, from the dugout to home plate and keep swinging.

You know, you know you're going to strike out sometimes. You're going to hit some home runs, et cetera. but but I have this innate fear of failure and with that though said I know failure is not an option I will never fail I know that but it doesn't change the fear that gets me up every day or the you know and we have lots of you know if I really think about it hard enough we have a tremendous amount of responsibility you know to our to our charities that we support our bank that lends us money our partners and invest money our people that are building their careers

with our company. They count on me to keep the company in safe harbor and not to drive the ship into the teeth of the storm. So that weighs on you and I think like your choice of words or it's a healthy dose of fear.

I don't ring my hands every day. I'm not down and gloom. I have a positive mental attitude. But I It's that constant effort to be better. And because I also know if we're not, then we ultimately will fail. I mean, if we, the status quo is never good enough. And if you just maintain the status quo, eventually you'll become out of business.

And so you have to change and evolve. And I know that. So, so that's the kind of attitude, I guess, I approach every single day with. I, I know one experience you dealt with, I identified with it. My first real job after I got played football in college and a little bit after college. And my first real job, it was an inside sales rep telephonic professional organization making 60 to 80 calls a day. And there'd be some days where you would have 80 times where they would hang up on you. They would say no, whatever.

So I went through an amazing amount of rejection, which I thought was such a great experiences for me to go through early in my career. And for you, you are working. You're fundraising. You're trying to raise money and nine times out of 10 people are saying no and you just had to keep going. What was that experience like when you're trying to raise money from a combination of basically anybody you know to raise money to build your restaurant business from nothing? Yet you're still getting rejected almost every single time. Yeah, it was brutal. This is back in the very beginning when I was trying to get their first restaurant funded.

and, you know, I couldn't date. I couldn't do anything and, you know, dealt a little bit with depression, you know, just lowline, but, you know, because you're getting that rejection. And people are nice about it, you know, you get, you meet with them. And, you know, we're not going to invest. What they're really saying is no to you and saying they don't believe in you. Right. You can't help but take it personal.

Right. Right. So I like to tell one story. I was during that fundraising, you know, for. I couldn't do it full time because, you know, I didn't have that many prospects. I had a couple hundred prospects, but I remember me in my apartment one day,

and when you get depressed, you get tired. So I was, you know, taking a nap at 2 in the afternoon. But this is attention to the little details. You know, the phone would ring, and I wouldn't answer it on the first ring because if I'm, you know, I didn't want people think for a minute. I was sleeping in the middle of the afternoon.

So I'd get up, stand up, you know, refreshing up, hello, you know. And they didn't know that I was, asleep 30 seconds earlier. So, sorry, I didn't know if that was a potential partner on the line. No potential partners ever going to invest with you if you're sleeping in the afternoon. So those little stories. But it goes back to that goal city.

If I didn't have that overreaching goal that I was going to be president of restaurant company and I was going to start my own restaurant company and that failure was not an option, I never would have made it through that. Never, you know. So that's, again, the power. of that goal setting gives you the strength and internal strength to keep moving and keep moving forward and as long as I was moving forward I could live with myself and it was you know slowly but surely were there moments though through the rejection where you said you know let me just go get a job

I can go work in a restaurant let's forget this this is I thought this was I didn't realize it would be so hard to get my own restaurant business off the ground and I didn't know at the time and I reflect background today it was one of the hardest things I ever did my life. It's almost good that you didn't know, right? Right, right. I've said that many times, ignorance is bliss to a certain extent. Sure.

If I really knew the risk I was taking, if I really knew, I probably wouldn't have done it. You know, so that ignorance was also powerful to a certain extent with me. And once you get in, it's like trying to swim across the river, you know, you can't just stop. You know, you either go back or you've got to get to the other side or you're drowned. So that became powerful also. And, you know, and that was always the option I could go back and start my career over and do so, you know, I had a good resume. I wasn't really worried about that, but it's what I didn't want to do by any means.

I remember I was down literally to my, giving up my apartment. I was maxed out on my credit cards. I had borrowed 12 grand for my brother. I had burned through that. I had nothing left. I had moved into my mom's condo. She was in Florida at the time. and I had $70 left for all and change to buy some groceries.

And I still have that picture. I put in the book there. I'm sticking an imaginary gun to my head. And I got the restaurant funded that followed that week. And I was able to write myself back a check for $7,000 that I had spent on copying. And I dropped out of typing class in high school. So I had to pay someone to type all my letters and my business plan and so forth. And I lived off that $7,000 in March of 1993.

until we opened up October 5th of 1993. Because 14 months, I went without a paycheck, not trying to get the first restaurant open. And that, you know, you don't realize at the time. You know, kids don't realize at the time. But these lessons in life, that determination, you know, getting through, you know, New York. And one of the sweetest moments I've had in my life was

I came out of New York one day on that Saturday and Sundays, you know, I had Sunday afternoon at work and my, I had all beat up BMW with a stick shift and I couldn't get it to start and I had six bucks to my name, a gas card, no phone, didn't know anybody, you know, and I looked around the corner I was parked on a 42nd or 44th Street

and Lexington Avenue was slightly downhill, so I pushed my car by myself to Lexington and downhill and got in and popped a clutch and was able to get started and drive back to school. Wow. And, you know, that, that, from that point, point to, I think it was roughly 35 years later,

to opening this incredible, you know, restaurant in Manhattan, you know, that we spent $11 million on in this flagship restaurant for us. And with my, you know, family in tow for opening night was, I know what do you want to call the word

serendipity or whatever, but it was just those, and I've had many of those instances that the lessons in life early have given you the foundation and have given me the foundation to. And the strength, to get through.

And then when you get there to the other side, you know, the celebration, you know, it's fabulous. One of the other aspects that almost made me nervous while I'm reading about it is that you just, it doesn't feel like you would ever be content with the success of a restaurant.

It was always, okay, we have to go open another one in another one. And not just around Columbus, but around in, like you said, New York City, I'm reading that thinking you've got to spend like $100,000 a month

annual increases, locking yourself in for forever, essentially. So you're basically going to owe them millions upon millions, and you're doing it in Beverly Hills and Florida and all over the place. A good friend of mine named Johnny Thomas has just opened his third restaurant about a year ago, and you're a guy he looks up to a lot as well. And every time he opens a new one, it is, I mean, it is basically 24-7 for more than a year. He is working constantly, and they're very good restaurants. was there are there ever times throughout you're like let's slow down a little bit or is that just

your mentality to always look to grow no uh that that's a twofold answer yes my mentality is always look to grow yeah however um with that said we've overgrown a couple times and and in scott's i remember reading about that yeah that was a rough one right yeah we lost a fortune on that a hundred grand a month on that one and and millions of dollars on that one but uh you know so Uh, today I am a little more cautious today. Um, because over these years of this growth, it's a very capital intensive business. And, you know, I've had to worry about making payroll. I don't know, at least a dozen times or more.

We've never missed a payroll, but you know, where I've had to call up friends or somewhere, you know, borrow some money real quick to make sure, you know, Thursday night that payroll went through. But, um, and it was never because of profit. We never struggled financially because of profit or, lack of profit, we struggled financially because we were growing and making these huge capital expenditures that we didn't have enough money for. We had to continually raise capital or borrow additional capital from the banks and so forth to grow. So today I'm not as aggressive as I used to be on that. And I don't ever want to have to borrow another dime to build a restaurant. Quite frankly,

I wanted to be out of cash flow and pay down our debt, not, you know, acquire more debt. So I'm a little more risk adverse today, but I don't think there'll be a year or day that goes by that we don't grow. Yeah. I want to get back to your values. I mentioned they stem off the questions because the first one, and I love this about them, the first one is that your associates come first, right? Because like there's whether you're reading about Amazon, they're talking about customer

obsession and that's first on their list. And it's not first on your list. Correct. First on your list are the great people that helped us, you know, that set us up in this room. You're some of your associates that work in this beautiful office here in Columbus. And it's obvious that they seem like happy people. I would imagine that's ingrained in your culture because they know of the eight values. They come first.

Right. How did you, I think now this is a little bit more mainstream, but when you came up with this, it was not. It was always customer comes for, especially in the restaurant business. How did you come up with this at the time when you did to say, no, I'm putting them first as opposed to the customers? Well, back in those days in my apartment when I was writing this company culture and values, I read a book entitled The Customer Comes Second from Hal Rosenbluth. And he, and that was his mentality, and I just loved it. And, you know, because I was an hourly associate, you know, I would, you know, I never really felt like the company necessarily cared about me too much. But I remember this one company I worked for, we had a one-year anniversary party for the newest, all the associates had been there since day one.

they rolled out a great dinner for us and drinks and we had a ball and how good that made me feel you know and so we we now we so we adopt that from the very beginning it's not that i don't care about great guest service in the guests i mean i always say runs the deepest depths of my heart you know and i love to take care of people but those associates i look as a triangle relationship with a CEO of a restaurant company and when i say the associates come first they're the ones that we have a relationship with every day. They're the ones that deliver the camera Mitchell restaurant experience. Not me. I'm a desk

jockey. They're the ones out there. So, we are guests. We see, you know, once a week, you know, once every couple days, once a month, once a year. Unfortunately, sometimes once and never again. It happens very rarely, but not very often. And so,

but it's our people we see every day. And they don't care, they'll never care about our guests until they know how much we care about them. And and they truly do come first in our organization. We do hundreds of things we do throughout the organization. But like tonight, for example, I've got 200 people coming to my house tonight, so it's our annual company holiday party,

so it's all the people from the home office and a spouse, all of our operating partners around the country. We fly them in and a guest to come in for the weekend and beat our house, my wife, and I open up our home. Every year we have a group called, the young leadership group was about a dozen young managers in the company we kind of handpicked to help and work on projects from the company and senior leaders of the company to get to know them better and so forth so they're invited with their guests and and they just love it

and our catering team rolls out the red carpet you know they want to make this the best party and I want to make this the best party they've ever gone to in their lives and and people just feel that care and that concern you know, an associate has a tragedy in her family. We step up and help them. I mean, I can go on and on and on, I think we do. And when they feel that care and concern, and they, in return, care and concern about it,

have care and concern about us, and therefore care and concern about our guests and doing the right thing within our organization. So it's the triangular relationship. We take care of our people. Our people take care of our guests. Our guests take care of our company. That's the way we look at it.

I'm curious about, and I don't know how much of this you do, today. But I was reading about David Miller that hire because he's from Dayton. I think he was out in L.A. and he wanted to move back to Ohio. And you ended up hiring him, I guess, more than 20 years ago and now he's your president and CEO. Correct? When you are, because I think this applies to anybody in leadership role, when you're looking to make a hire, when you want to add someone to your team, specifically in a leadership role, what, what are some of the, the characteristics or quality you look for in a person to bring onto your team? Well, I first let me preface it that we don't outside hire very much for leadership positions

or management positions. It's usually 80 plus percent of our people of promote from within. That's, again, a value we have. I don't ever want to, I wouldn't want to be a manager working for a company, working to become a general manager, and busting my hump and doing a great job and have the company outside hire general manager on top of me that it does not seem right to me so a majority of people we bring in are from from inside now we do outside hire and and when you look at you know everybody asks I get questioned literally thousands of

times you know where do you get such great people and how do you deliver such great service all all you know every day and that's what you even led with how we got together I said you know they think we have some unique systems that, you know, hiring system and so forth. And we don't. We, you know, we just talk to people. And if we like them, we feel good about them. We bring them in.

And we, you know, I hire a new CFO. Our last CFO is with us for 23 years. And she went to a part-time position to do special projects with me. And she actually ran the process to hire a new CFO. But we did, we had our search firm and we did, went through all the interviews and all that. But, and this person ended up being fabulous. But my whole theory is, listen, just hire them.

And we're one of those companies that on board or off board quickly, I should say, they're either, you know. And you either, you have one or two flavors with our company. You're here for a few months and you're out, or you're here for many, many years and you stay. And so not everybody works out. You can't, I mean, I've used all the predictive, you know, tests and all that. And it's all, you know, it doesn't really change your batting average very often.

It's really we're looking for good people that are busy, that are active and that want to grow. And but ultimately, you're just taking a chance. Yeah. And so, and you can, you can't do much to mitigate that chance. So really, the people you're hiring aren't any different than anybody else. That's what I say. And the same people, the same people, everybody else gets. So what do you think it is once they get into a camera?

It's a culture and the value. They love the company. I will also tell you to frame that a little bit further, we have, we've had a number of people leave the company to, you know, they get an offer over here, another restaurant company, an offer to move up. And, and, or they might think,

well, I've learned what I can from this company, whatever their reason might be. And we don't have a lot of people, very, very low turnover, obviously, industry low turnover. But the ones that do leave, we've had, I don't know, hundreds of stories over the years or once they come back. You know, and a lot of companies

don't even like to hire people that don't have a rule. You can't, once you leave, you can't come back. And my theory is just the opposite. I think when people leave the company and the grass is not greener and they come back to the company even more and dear to the company

and really understand that culture and the values and how important that is to them and the great quality of life that they have here with our organization. So it's, we've done that hundreds of times over the years and it's been great for us. I know you're also a pretty amazing gift giver. You went through a time where you sold, I believe it was 94, which then shifted to $92 million worth

that you essentially took off the table from Ruth Chris. Yeah, we sold 22 of our fish restaurants to Ruth's steakhouse for 19 million. And at that time to your senior leaders or your leadership team, you gave them. all amazing gifts and experiences in addition to the bowling party uh so what talk to me about your philosophy on on gift giving when it comes to your people well yeah that's a good story so first of all i gave 5% of the purchase price to our team so that was 4.6 million dollars i divvied up to our team and um our management team and i did it in a kind of unique way which i think is cool we you know it's like the executive team for example got two percent to the deal so they got

that $920,000. And I put them into two categories. One was their years of service to their company and the salary. So I split the pot in half. And so if you had 10 years with the company, there was 100 years in the total, you got 10% of that pot. If your salary was 100 grand and there was a million bucks in that salary pot, you got 10%.

But it was a great equalizer. So it equalized everybody's gift. But, you know, and that was nice, and it's a good story, you know, give away, you know, $4.6 million, you know, off that. But my theory was those are the people that got us there. So I'm not going to not share in the spoils of success, you know, with them. Right. You didn't technically have to do that. No, I didn't have to at all.

But I wouldn't put my head on a pillow. Right. Knowing I didn't do that. So that's number one. But one night I'm laying in beds when I wake up kind of a middle of night and as we're approaching closing this sale and it just wasn't enough. The money is one thing that's great, but it is just money at the end of the day.

I want to do something heartfelt, something that was above and beyond that. And so I got up and went down to my desk, my office, and down at home and it was up the rest of the night. I figured out what I could give to each one of our executive team members something special so that would be really meaningful to them. And from me, it was from my pocket.

It wasn't from the company's pocket. It was out of my pocket. And, you know, I wanted to somewhat be in the same range, but that really didn't mean need to be. But so certain examples are vice president of operations. Never was able to really save for his kids college. He had three kids in college or going to college. And it was, I knew he was weighing on him. So I told him, you know, so I wrote a handwritten note to each one of them.

And I said, you know, thank you for all you've done for the company. and, you know, I would like to pay for the first year of college for each one of your three kids at Ohio State, you know, local state school. And, or equivalence if they went somewhere else. But, you know, our CFO had been working so hard on the deal, and she's a mother, three kids and husband and crying, you know, I'm thinking this is killing me. You know, I'm not seeing my husband and all that stuff. So I got her a nice trip with her husband and flew her down on a private jet to a resort for three days. and to reconnect with her husband and after this was all done. That's what I think.

So we had this, you know, again, we sold for $19 million, you know, pretty big deal for us at the time. And so I want to do just the opposite instead of champagne and all that, we went to a local pub and had beers and cheeseburgers. And then we had bowling shirts made for everybody. We went bowling that afternoon. And at this pub at lunch is when I gave everybody their card and everybody kind of read out loud that their card was to each other.

And everybody was crying. And, you know, it was just, my HR director was a huge Pittsburgh sports fan. So I got him four tickets on a third baseline for the Pirates game season tickets. And I got him season tickets, I think, on the close to the 50 or for the Steelers games. And that year for that season, you know. And so that kind of thing is that people don't forget it. They never would forget it. And it's more than the money.

The money is important. And we have people of double, triple, quadruple, when it doubled their salary since they started with the company for sure and making nice living for themselves. But it goes to the care and concern the company has for them. And I gave our director team and leadership team for our 25 year anniversary, you know, I want to share our 25 year anniversary with our five people we want to make Raven fans of it.

For our director team and our executive team who are really the main leaders of our organization, and everything was in 25s. You know, it was a 25, you know, we did the book for the 25 year anniversary. We did 25% off for our guests on something, you know, just everything. And so I gave that team two and a half main. dollars for the 25 year anniversary you know and and and surprise them all with their checks and I broke it up again the same way but in it you know it was a huge amount of money to it was a huge amount of money but to that group of people there's probably 40 people in that group you know it it uh

but it was enough that they didn't expect it it was enough to make an impact in their lives and and so forth and um and I was just sharing our company's success with that. Yeah, I also get the sense that family is a big deal to you, both your family, as I'm looking at a picture of your family as well as you treat your people you work with like family. How did, I think it was 1998, I relieve you. Yeah, that you guys run 25 million in revenue and you had your first son, Charlie. We have a daughter named Charlie, so we love that name. Great.

And what, what, how did that change you or what impacted did, did, did, did it? having a child and the way you view work and family. Because I think there's a lot of people who obviously have that going on. It's something to think about. Well, we'll have a lot of thoughts on that. I hope I don't take too much time. But one of the things is interesting is I used to tell people all the time, I'm working for a wife and kids that I don't even know yet.

You know, and it truly was, you know, driving back and forth every weekend to New York City. You're, you know, pushing, you know, to build a company. I didn't know my wife at the time. I didn't know my children. I didn't know who they were. You thought that way, though? Oh, absolutely. I said 100 times to people.

I'm working harder for a wife and kids. I don't know yet. And so, and I married my wife. I met her actually 30 days or 90 days after we opened. She came in as a guest to the restaurant with a girl that I knew and she introduced us and I went out for a date and we both knew that night. We were going to marry each other. So it was kind of great.

Did you say that? Yeah. to her. She wrote in her diary and I told my buds the next day, I think I met the girl in a marriage. How did you know? Just the way we hit it off, we went at Fridays for a drink at 9 o'clock and she was a teacher. I didn't know at the time.

She was a teacher. She'd be up at 5.30 in the morning and we ended up closing a bar that night at 1 in the morning and just knew. I mean, you know, you just know when you know. And we dated for, what, 70 months and I asked her to marry me on her birthday, on her 25th birthday and she's had her 50th birthday a couple months ago and I got her nice new ring to commemorate that and 25 years earlier to ask her to marry me and so I thought it was fitting but and then to have that I was just telling the story literally the other day I like two days ago

we were talking with some guys that aren't married and I was talking about that walk which you've experienced that walk when your wife is in a wheelchair and new baby in hands and that walk to go get the car. Oh yeah, we got it on a video, you know, and, um, and that there, I don't know if I've had many more moments of clarity in my life than that, that, you know, that I'm, when I get in a car and I come back and pick up my wife and our newborn, uh, that that child's life was in my hands, you know, in my responsibility, the rest of, I guess we choked up to think about it, the rest of, you know, my life. And so, um, and, you know, it, uh, you're seeing this picture I have this picture up on my wall here, this portrait picture of my family, my wife, and three kids.

And everybody sees the outward success, you know, and the family is the inward success. And I said long ago, I never wanted to build a business and be successful. And at the end of the day, be divorced and not know my kids. And I've seen it happen to too many people. And I feel I could have easily built a billion-dollar business if I wanted to. But I would have had, it would have been the expense of something. and it would have been at the expense of my family, and that wasn't going to happen in the cards for me.

So, as you know, have a young child that, you know, it's not easy, you know, but it's labor of love and so forth. So I work probably just as hard to build that family in that family unit as I did to build the business. So to me there, we have a saying in our company that you can't be successful at home if you're not successful at work, and you can't be successful at work if you're not successful. at home. So we as a company embrace that and we embrace people's life and balance and and making sure they can do anything they want. I want to tell you managers, listen, I want you to make

more games than you miss. You know, you're going to miss some. There's no doubt about it, but you got to make more than you miss. And, you know, if you had daughters recital or whatever, you better come to hell or high water, never miss that. Work is not more important than that. So when we frame it that way as a company, that's why we have people building their careers in our company. They get eight weeks paid vacation, you know, after 20 years of service. And the retail business is just unheard of.

You know, and, you know, they have control of their time. I always say, listen, you sit around friends, hey, let's go here, let's go to the beach next to three weeks from now, you know, whatever. You don't have to go, oh, I can ask my boss. I'm not sure I get the time off. Yes is the answer. What's the question?

You know, so, yes, you ask your boss, hey, can I go to the beach with my friends, take that weekend off in three weeks from now? But you know what the answer is going to be, you know. That was it? I get into it's looking back now and all the restaurants and they're everywhere. But was it like this from day one? Yeah. Because I think that's something people want to hear or at least learn more about.

It's easier to say it now once the money's flowing, their restaurants are here. But I talked to Jason Freed, a great CEO of a company called Basecamp, and he's like, we want to build a calm business, meaning it's not like I'm going to work like crazy and then have a life. It's I'm going to work hard and have a life at the same time. And that's what he calls a calm business. I don't know if I'd call this calm, but I would say, how are you able to do this even before you technically made money or became successful? You said, this is the reason that we're successful. Is that how you view it? Well, listen. There are, we're many, many, many moments along the way that, you know, our culture and values today is in green and concrete. I mean, it is, you know, everything else is up for discussion except for our culture and values. It's just not, you know, there's just not even up for debate. It is what it is, and it will always be there. It would not have that strength today if over the years, We didn't, we threw it out the window or we didn't, we didn't, I mean, you have to day and day out.

I remember our first restaurant, I just opened my second restaurant. And one of our cultural values is we treat people with eloquent language and we care and respect for our people. You know, this is, we were doing the Me Too thing 25 years ago. I mean, it's not, you know, it wasn't really new to us. So we had this chef who was my opening chef, who was really great chef. but he was difficult and he called one of our managers in a heated moment, you know, the C word and in front of everybody else and so forth. And if our associates didn't come first and our values didn't come first,

and if I was really worried about the guests, that was my top priority, I would have say, come on, go over, talk to her, apologize, you know, you didn't mean it, this, you know, da-da-da-da. But instead he was out of the building within five minutes of my arrival. And, you know, I didn't have a backup chef. I didn't, you know, I'd just opened a second restaurant. I couldn't even be, I'd be there, you know, and I promoted two young guys to co-chefs, two young, wet behind the ear, green, sous chefs.

And, but we've had those cultural moments all along the way. And if, if we didn't live that culture, from day one and live it every day, even when we get challenged, then it becomes no good and it becomes weak. And so we had to. I remember in 2009 after the sale transaction, you know, we went and built a bunch of restaurants over-expansated

and, you know, the world's coming to an end. And, you know, I hear Stacey, my assistant comes in and says, and we kept our whole team. We didn't, even though we sold 22 restaurants, we kept everybody because I was going to rebuild the business. and I didn't want to fire anybody, right? And so she comes about 11 o'clock in the morning and says, you know, a bunch of people on the back are talking about

worried about layoffs, getting laid off, and so forth. I said, I want you to call it all-staff meeting five minutes. Come back, I get everybody together. I said, I understand there's fear there's going to be some layoffs. And I said, yeah, we're in a very difficult time. I said, but, you know, a whole piece about the associates come first. I said, we're currently spending about $700,000 in advertising and marketing. I said, you know, you just come in every day, you go up and see Carolyn, our VP of marketing,

and are we still advertising marketing a day, then you know there's not going to be a layoffs, because I'm going to cut our advertising budget and our marketing budget before I cut the people budget. And then I said, so as long as that's happening, you know there's not going to be in layoffs. I said, secondly, if we cut the marketing budget, we're still need to save another million bucks or half a million bucks or whatever. I'd say, I'd have another all staff meeting and say, I'd say, Listen, folks, we got to let six or seven people go or I need everybody to take, you know, 10% pay cut. And I'm going to leave the room and let you all decide.

And I assume I'm going to come back and you're going to say, we'll take the pay cut, you know, not the layoffs. And so until we have that meeting, you need to understand there's never going to be any layoffs, you know. And then if that meeting happens and we still don't, then there might be some layoffs and I'll have another meeting and tell you that might be coming when that's coming. I said, so until then, no layoffs. And I said, but with that said, yeah, we're in some deep shit here. You know, I need everybody's best and brightest.

I need you, if you got an idea to save 100 bucks or a thousand bucks or whatever, or how to do it better, I want to hear about them. And we need all hands on deck. We're in a storm right now. We need everybody rowing hard. And what do you think they did? Went back to their desk, fully committed, fully engaged in the organization, sent me all sorts of ideas, and we made it through without any layoffs.

But if it wasn't for that culture and values, if it was all about making a profit, if I held profit in higher esteem than our culture, and I might have said, okay, yeah, we got to lay off and right size of the ship and so forth. So it's amazing how those decisions all flow through the culture and values.

And those culture and values has to be non-negotiable. And that's the key. You don't really know, your values are tested most when it gets really hard. Right. When it gets really easy to say the values when things are good. Just like it's easy to be a leader and to be a captain when things are good. It's hard.

It's really revealed when things are tough. And that's when you know, is this really one of Cameron's values or not? And when you're able to do that, that's really what the action is. Cameron, I would imagine that whether it's somebody from Columbus State or CIA, places that you're really generous with your time and money, that you're sitting potentially like this or maybe on the phone with somebody who is younger, but ambitious. They want to make a positive contribution in the world and they say, hey,

what's some general life slash work advice that you would give to me as I want to, not necessarily just do exactly what you've done, but I want to make a positive contribution like you've done. What are some things I should be thinking about in order to make that happen? Well, I mean, I guess I always talk about integrity, you know, that integrity takes years to build and days to ruin. And, you know, you have to live your life.

That way. You need to lead with integrity. You need to grow with integrity. You know, it's Sunday night. It's midnight. You want to get out of work, you know. Are you doing the work needed to clean that walk in the way it should be? Or, you know, are you skipping cutting corners?

And, you know, cutting corners in life will get you nowhere, you know. And people used to get my hair, get up on a bad. back in my head when people lead with, well, we can do it easier this way. You know, I said, well, you know, that's great. But great restaurant tourier is difficult. If it was easy, everybody would do it, you know. So I don't necessarily want to the easiest way.

I don't know the right way. If we'd live by the right way and do things the right way, we'll be successful. That's number one, number two, positive mental attitude. You know, at 7 a.m. in the morning, my house is the same as at your house.

That's what you do with your day. that defines you, you know, and how you conduct yourself throughout that day. So you need to be constantly aware of that, how you're, you know, and yes, you're young, you're going to grow, you're going to make mistakes, et cetera, but I was always unwavering in my work ethic and, you know, my integrity ethic, and we're pushing forward every single day. And life is a journey. It's about some of thousands and thousands of steps, you know, it's not just one step, you know. And, you know, as we go through our journey, we make mistakes. We hit off in the wrong direction sometimes.

But it's a matter of any backtrack and you come back and get back on the right path. But it's just, I've made my mistakes, you know, but you don't punish yourself for those. You live by them. You learn from them and you grow, you know. So young people, I think that's a little misnomer out there. you know, millennials and so forth. They don't want to work hard. I find our millennials want to work very hard.

They just want to be more inclusive and some other things they want, but they haven't lost their work ethic per se. Now, they want things a little sooner sometimes than it takes, but, you know, success does not happen overnight, very rarely. Yes, there's, you know, examples of that. But that's about as often as someone winning the lottery. It's mostly hard work and dedication. to one's career or one's path or one's integrity or one's leadership over the years.

And it's the sum total of all those steps that counts. What's next for you? Well, moving into my goals over here, I talk about the two S's. And for me, yes, 40 years in the restaurant business, I joked my little fuel lights on a little bit, you know. You know, and I do want to live a little bit off the fat of the land a little bit now. And, you know, my kids, my wife, my younger sister will be leave the house to college a year from August and will be empty nesters. My wife will be retired from her job as a stay-at-home mom. And so, you know, I want to travel more with her and with friends and be with our kids and do those things.

So, so with that said, I'm moving more into the chairman's role of company and really focus in the two S-S-S. One is strategy, chief strategy officer. You know, so I'm not going to do all the heavy lifting anymore, but I'm still, as long as I'm capable, I'll still be up in the bridge and being in making sure the ship is in safe harbor. You know, we're not sailing into the titan, the iceberg, or into the teeth of the storm or a ground that we're in safe harbor. And I love that.

So as long as I'm capable to do that, I'll be the chief strategy officer. And the other S is stewardship. and the chief steward. And so really, stewardship is broken into three facets, really. It's stewardship of the company, of our people, you know, in our company, and tending to that and giving to that and so forth. And then stewardship of our industry, you know, whether it be a National Restaurant Association or Education Foundation or building a hostile management school, Columbus State,

or any of those things we've done. in our industry is give back to this wonderful industry that's been so great to me. So stewardship of our industry. And then the third is stewardship of our community. You know, Columbus community, which we live in, you know, and giving back, I'm on a number of boards here and, you know, support our children's hospital

or our cancer hospital and all those things. And just making impact in people's lives. So stewardship of our community. So those three aspects of stewardship I'm focusing on right now. So that's where I'm changing a little bit. and spending more and more time doing that. And, you know, well, I don't want to take a tremendous amount of risk anymore. We're still going to grow.

We're going to continue to push the envelope, but we don't need to get crazy about it anymore. So, because I want to be able to do things like this and, you know, give, you know, a tremendous amount of resources and time and money to some of these other institutions that are helping general community out. Yeah. personal question. If I wanted to take my beautiful wife on a lunch date today, where should I go? Well, not all of our restaurants are open for lunch.

I know. We thought we were going to go to Del Mar actually. Then we looked at was not open. The Guildhouse would be a great experience for lunch. Which one? The Guildhouse. It's right across the street from Delmar and a short north. That'd be a great experience for lunch.

For a more casual lunch, but busy, you know, would be Cap City Diner here in town. But those are your two best choices. And I think those are probably the only. our campus dinners are open for lunch. Oh, Hudson 29 is open for lunch. But a majority of our restaurants are dinner only. Gotcha. Yeah. Well, Cameron, thank you so much.

I would love both being Ohio guys. I'd love to continue this dialogue as we both progress. I'm so grateful that you welcomed us to your beautiful office here in Columbus, ma'am. Well, great, Ryan. It's been a pleasure to be with you today. So thank you. And I wish everybody lots of success in our life out there. Thanks, ma'am.

Okay. I am so grateful to Cameron for having us, my wife Miranda and me, in his office in Columbus, Ohio to record this one. It was evident from our time together that Cameron is fanatical about company culture. Every person we interacted with in his office had a warm, welcoming smile and seemed genuinely excited to see us. I just really enjoyed the experience. Some of the parts I found most impactful, the five questions to ask yourself as a leader. Who are we? What do we want to be? Why are we in business? What is your role? What is our goal? Then writing your core values, the benefit of putting pen to paper, and then having the courage to act on them,

including firing a superstar if he doesn't live up to the value set. Near the end of the conversation, when he was talking about his family, he briefly choked up when speaking about fatherhood and being a great dad and husband. I just thought it was a really human moment. I loved it. I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did and found it useful. If so, I would love it if you would tell a friend or two. Perhaps one that has never listened to the Learning Leaders Show. Tell them to check this one out with the great Cameron Mitchell. Thank you once again for continuing to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis.

For that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk with you next week. Can't wait.