ISI Brotherhood Podcast

110. I'm Successful and I'm Bored

• Aaron Walker & Kevin Wallenbeck

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What if success doesn't make you happy? There is an often unspoken challenge of feeling bored and unfulfilled despite achieving your entrepreneurial dreams. Through personal stories and insights from Mark Nichols, a seasoned Chick-fil-A owner-operator with over 33 years under his belt, we explore what to do with boredom and burnout.

Key Takeaways:

  • How do you get the best payoffs while bored?
  • How do you move forward when you're bored? 
  • The path to get successful and bored
  • Ways to get out of the boredom mindset

“When you obtain that goal you've been working towards for years, that doesn’t scratch the itch like you thought it was going to.” If you're successful and thought you'd be happy by now, here what these guys in their sixties with years of experience have to say about pursuing happiness and finding real fulfillment in your life. 

Through candid conversations, we emphasize that taking a step back to adjust your "why" is not only okay but essential for achieving long-term fulfillment. Learn how to use breaks as a tool for gaining clarity and rejuvenating your passion for both work and life.

Connect with Mark Nichols by joining the ISI Community:
Iron Sharpens Iron Community: https://isibrotherhood.com/community

If you want to hear more speakers like this every month and be with the guys on the call, join the Iron Sharpens Iron Community today: https://www.isibrotherhood.com/isi-community

Connect with Big A:
View From The Top Website: https://isibrotherhood.com
The ISI Newsletter: https://www.isibrotherhood.com/newsletter
Big A’s Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronwalkerviewfromthetop/

Speaker 1:

Hey guys, welcome back to View From the Top podcast, where we help growth-minded men who desire momentum in their business, their family and their finance get through the valleys and up the mountains into their very own view from the top. Hey, today's episode is brought to you by the ISI Brotherhood. If you want to be connected and engaged with a growing group of growth-minded Christian businessmen and leaders who are making informed, vetted decisions through a biblical lens, go check out the ISI community for yourself at isibrotherhoodcom. All right, without further ado, let's get the man with a million Southern aphorisms in the studio. Welcome.

Speaker 2:

Big A Aphorisms. I think that's a new word on me. They didn't teach that at Madison High School. Okay so aphorisms.

Speaker 1:

Here's the thing. I didn't know what you say, those little sayings that you say all the time. Do you have one off the top of your head?

Speaker 2:

Well, like he doesn't know his butt from third base yeah exactly.

Speaker 1:

You have like a million of those things and I was talking with Sonny last night. I'm like what are those things called? We didn't know. So we started looking them up. You have lots of interesting like little words that mean. So we looked at everything from like baffle, gabs and idioms to colloquialisms and pluralities and trumpery, and the last one I thought was best, useless words, but aphorisms is the actual word. Aphorisms is the actual word. So now you know what they are.

Speaker 2:

I can rest now. I've been really wondering.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I don't think you're really going to tell anybody that.

Speaker 2:

So no, I probably won't remember it until we get off this episode.

Speaker 1:

How you been Wally Things going well, I'm doing well man.

Speaker 2:

Life's good. You know, I'm tired. Robin's had me putting up Christmas decorations this week. It's like everything is up beginning of November and I'm like Robin really Like it's before Thanksgiving. She's like I get tired of looking at it for two weeks. I want to look at it for two months and I'm like, okay, so November 1st and then this week's little extra things and we're all ready for Christmas. You ready?

Speaker 1:

No, we are the week probably Thanksgiving week or the week after. Sonia Get all the bins out, load them all up in the living room and then she goes to town.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I love it. We've got a big storage area because I've seen your Christmas decorations we do. Yeah, Mine pale in comparison.

Speaker 1:

I think you guys used to. You just mentioned that you guys kind of cut back this year.

Speaker 2:

We did. Robin got rid of half of it last year. She's like no, we're going to take this stuff to the goodwill. I'm done with it. I'm like Robin, do you realize what we paid for this? She said you say that every time we get rid of something and I'm like, okay, I'll do whatever. She called the girls. They didn didn't want it, so I took it straight to the goodwill.

Speaker 1:

Somebody got a good deal. Somebody will get great use out of it and go to a good cause.

Speaker 2:

Hey, I'm pretty stoked about today's podcast episode. I'm successful and I'm bored. You know I was thinking about this as we were kind of talking it through. I probably could have done a monologue on this, because I've been successful and bored three times in my life. I've retired more than the law allows, robin said, and so I've been up against this so many times. But when we were thinking about this, I started thinking about all the challenges that we're faced today.

Speaker 2:

Successful business owners face this, but they rarely talk about it, and what it is is oftentimes boredom. A lot of guys, after they've achieved some level of financial success and reaching all their business goals and dreams, many of these guys find themselves feeling a sense of restlessness. They're like I'm restless, I don't really know what to do. Some of the guys feel unfulfilled and then they start wondering I wonder what's next. This is more than just a lull, and I found that to be true in my personal life. It's a signal that something deeper really might be missing, and I can tell you from experience I've uncovered some things in my personal life that was missing, as a result of me figuring out why I was bored.

Speaker 2:

Well, you guys that are listening today if you're successful, but you still feel like there's something off. Hopefully, this episode is gonna help you identify why that might be, and we're gonna try to offer you a few practical steps to kind of reignite your passion and your purpose, because without those things, I promise you, you're going to remain somewhat bored. I think it's time to break free from the trap of boredom and really discover what truly matters. And, man, we got to get our buddy in here, mark Nichols. Bring him in the studio, wally. I want to introduce Mark to the guys today.

Speaker 1:

All right, let's get Mark in here mark.

Speaker 3:

Uh, to the guys today.

Speaker 2:

All right, let's get mark in here, mark, hey everybody, yeah, man, good to see you guys. Man, this has been a guy that's been in our community for about eight or nine years now. Very successful guy, been with, uh, chick-fil-a like 41 years. We were talking about it in kind of the pre-interview. He delivered pizzas for a year and then he went to Chick-fil-A and he's been there ever since. So been an owner-operator. Now what 33 years.

Speaker 3:

That's a long time, Mark. Yeah, but it's a while. You know, I've been with Chick-fil-A longer than Kevin's been alive, I think. I think we kind of figured that out man Not quite almost, I don't know Almost. Hey, there's no diss on you. That just shows you how old I am.

Speaker 2:

That's all. Yeah, kevin was nine years old when you started working at Chick-fil-A. That's right. Okay, that's been a minute.

Speaker 2:

Mark, you've been a great guy man. You've been a great friend. You're a trusted advisor of the Iron Sharpens Iron Brotherhood. A lot of the guys look up to you. We've been fortunate to have you a number of times do keynote speaking at our live event. Uber successful now with two highly successful Chick-fil-A's. I think you've got about 250 employees that you manage. You're doing just a great job.

Speaker 2:

But you and I have had numerous conversations. I've been the recipient of Mark's generosity and inviting me to his lake house and enjoying fishing. We won't talk about who normally wins those little tournaments you and I have, but I will share some of the conversations that we've had. Sitting out on your back porch enjoying a great steak and overlooking the lake, and we've caught ourselves in this situation of like I don't know if I'm still supposed to be here. Should I sell the business? I'm a little bit bored, like what is next? What is the reason I'm here? Like some deep, deep conversations, and there couldn't be any better person to be on this podcast episode today than you. So thank you for giving us your time.

Speaker 3:

Thanks for asking me, man. I'm very honored to be here and, yeah, big A, we've had some great conversations and Kevin, we have as well, and you guys are valued friends and associates. We do ISI together and, man, that's been a huge blessing for the last eight years of my life. Just left our live event at my mountain house over the weekend. Matter of fact, just got back last night from spending a wonderful weekend with nine guys in our group and it was just tremendous. So, anyway, glad to be a part of this today.

Speaker 2:

Mark, let's dive in just for a little bit. I'll start and then each person can kind of chime in. You know, when I was 27 years old I sold my first business to a Fortune 500 company and you know I could have just retired and been done and it wasn't that much money but it was enough.

Speaker 1:

Back then it was quite a bit of money.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it was then, but yeah, but it was like. And then, 18 months later, robin woke me up in the middle of the day. I was getting in the bed, like not laying on the couch, taking a nap. I was getting in the bed in the middle of the day and I gained 50 pounds in 18 months. And she said this is not what I signed up for. I said I'm bored and a lot of people listening to this today will be like, oh man, I would love to experience that. I'm not gonna take away from it.

Speaker 2:

I mean, it was cool that I was able to sell to the Fortune 500. And I did have a little bit of money and had a little free time. I was able to fish and play golf, but you can only do that so much. And what I discovered in myself was that my buddies were out working, they were crushing it, they had purpose, they had meaning in their life, and I was like watching reruns of Andy Griffith and I'm like, golly, is this the way it's going to be? Like it's nice to have a little bit of money, but is this really what I want to do? And so, yeah, where have you guys found yourself second guessing or questioning, because both of you guys have had a level of success as great or greater than I'm referring to here. And what are your thoughts when you're alone and you're thinking through your purpose and the meaning? What are you guys thinking about?

Speaker 3:

Interestingly enough, big A. You know, through the years I've had my ups and downs moments where I'm very engaged in my business and excited and looking to the future. Other times when I'm kind of bored, removed from it, it and the. You know, the. No doubt I've gone through seasons with this and uh, you know we invested in other businesses along the way and I can't operate businesses with my agreement with Chick-fil-A, but you know we can, uh, I can, invest in them. So we figured out a creative way to invest in businesses, uh, with other partners and stuff, and some of those have gone good. Most of them have not.

Speaker 3:

So, but you know, being creative and being bored kind of leads you maybe to being creative at times and sometimes that can go good or bad. But I will say this the one thing that's kept me coming back to loving what I do as a Chick-fil-A owner operator is the word reinvention. Loving what I do as a Chick-fil-A owner operator is the word reinvention. Like, I have consistently had to figure out how to reinvent myself, my purpose, my why and just the motivator that keeps me going. And what is it? It changes through the years but reinvention has been the number one thing that's helped me.

Speaker 2:

Give us an example of like how you reinvent. What does that mean? When you say reinvent, like you blow it up even if it's working, or what do you do?

Speaker 3:

Normally, yeah, I don't mess with the business a lot. I reinvent me. I reinvent what's important to me, what the next five or 10 years is going to look like for me and my family and my life, and I go in and I kind of attack that. I remember earlier in my business, around 2003,. I just got so burnt out on doing the same thing over and over and I was really hands-on managing one restaurant at the time and I said I had managers, but I was in there all the time and I realized, man, this is a marathon, not a sprint, and if I really want to make it to the end of the marathon I've got to recreate who I am. And so I just kind of came up with you know what are the things in the business that I'm great at and I enjoy doing the most, and let me figure out a way for me to focus on that list of items and nothing else.

Speaker 3:

And then you know, John Maxwell says it best. He said you know you lead on your strengths and you hire on your weaknesses. So I figured out a way I need to hire a bunch of people, the right people, develop them and then get out of their way and let me focus on the things that I do best. And reinventing myself to that point was the big aha moment in about 2003. And then, through the years I've had to continually do that, I did it again this last year I got a hobby. This was a new one, so I got. You know I'm into the jeeping thing, so I bought me a jeep wrangler, upgraded it. I'm in my fourth jeep wrangler in a year and a half.

Speaker 1:

I'm kind of crazy about it, taking it off road.

Speaker 3:

All over the place I got ducks. I'm a ducker, yeah, some people aren't.

Speaker 2:

But I really you got on your dash oh, oh, they're all over, yeah I, they were going, they were, they were going all over the place.

Speaker 3:

I had to finally take some down. See, the ducking thing is you duck jeeps if you like. If you like somebody's jeep, you give them a duck.

Speaker 2:

So I duck everybody yeah, I didn't know how you got those. I'm glad I duck I.

Speaker 3:

I duck every jeep wrangler I see and then I'm getting a lot of ducks in return and anyway it's fun. But my wife and I are traveling around the country and doing some really cool things and that's a reinvention too, so it has helped my business. Well, I'll come back to the business focused, energized, relaxed. And there's some more I'll talk about in a minute around how, by you reinventing yourself, it will enable you to reinvent others in your business next.

Speaker 2:

Pragmatically speaking, like what is the activity you go through? You go out on your deck, do you get other people? Do you talk to your lead team? I know you're in your mastermind. Tell us the steps you go through to make these decisions.

Speaker 3:

Well, it's not a science at all, it's an art. It's just kind of like you feel the coming on. You feel like you're burned out, you don't want to go to work, you don't want to do the same old stuff. And you got to say what is it that makes me enjoy this and what has, in the past, made me enjoy it? And I realized that, um, you know, what I love to do is to develop leaders and promote leaders and help them figure out how to have the best life possible. So for me, that means not micromanaging them, but giving them the opportunity to develop and grow their leadership without me hovering over them. So giving them space and then finding key touch points to go back to them is how kind of I figured that out Now sitting on the back deck, looking at the lake, going fishing, whatever, getting my head clear, going to my ISI mastermind group, bouncing it off them.

Speaker 3:

But in the end it comes down to that gut feeling of I'm frustrated. What do I need to do now? Which leads me to the thought okay, how do I reinvent me in this season of my life? And the seasons of our life will change us. Now that I'm 59, I'm looking out, saying okay, you know how many years of good, solid health do I have left Not life left, but health. So I can bounce around on the Jeep today and climb in and out of it and do all that stuff, but can I do that 10, 15 years from now? Maybe not. So I'm going to go and have fun with this today so that I can be better for my people when I come back to the business. And it's worked, mark, you said something that's important.

Speaker 2:

Wally, sorry, just for a second. I listened to a podcast this week with Patrick Linsoni and he said in there that none of us are burnt out, we're all bored. And you just said it. You said when I get bored, when I get burnt out, I discover that I'm bored, and he's saying they're the same. He said we're not burnt out, we're bored, and that's what you just said in describing that. Sorry, wally, go ahead.

Speaker 1:

I don't know. It's all good man. My question, mark, I had for you was around like how do you? You mentioned it earlier and I think, if I look back on my own experiences with this and you guys are a bit ahead of me, we got kind of three 51, you you're 59 big a's, 64 this year, big a's that right right, yeah, um, so we've got pretty good spread there.

Speaker 1:

Like I wish I would have known that it was okay for those periods of boredom to take a little bit of time. Do you agree with that or not? Like I thought when I started feeling it that I was like oh my gosh, something's wrong with me, I've got to like and I started doing stupid stuff to try to like fix it, versus taking the time that it needed. Like, to your point, you said hey, I got to, I go on a vacation, I travel, I do this, I get away to be able to come back and I don't know that I've done that. Well, what's been your experience with like taking time to let that I don't want to say the boredom sit, but like, or do you jump right into it right away? I'll tackle this first.

Speaker 2:

What I discovered that I didn't know was that your desires change, your why changes, your circumstances change, and I thought when I was young I would set the goals, the dreams and the aspirations and would go accomplish that. And life has a way of redirecting us. Challenges with children, grandchildren, location, opportunities, all those things change, and I used to encourage men to set goals 10 years out. I don't go past three years now because things change so rapidly and I give myself permission now to go. It's okay, and it's certainly okay to take a minute. Wally, you know that some of my aspirations have changed in the past three or four years, sure, and you've been on the leading edge with that, me making my decisions, and it's difficult, and I wish someone had told me how difficult it was years ago to prepare me for this time in my life. And so, yeah, just for me, I've come to the stark realization that it's okay for your desires to change your location, your why, because life deals you different hands and you have to adapt to that.

Speaker 1:

So, yeah, I would say it's okay. Before Mark answers that question, I want to dive into that a little bit more Big A, mark, before Mark answers that question, I want to dive into that a little bit more Big A Because I hadn't really thought about it until you said it around the idea of often, when we're younger and we're building businesses and then we find some level of success and listen, your level of success to give you more time to become bored doesn't have to mean that you're raking in a million dollars a year, like it can be much less than that, depending on your lifestyle and all those things. So one of the things that you said Big A that I want to lean into a little bit is the idea of, like, we work so hard, we have these visions, these goals, things we want to accomplish as entrepreneurs and business owners, and then we kind of get there. You start to achieve those things, but we don't take the time to readjust our why, and so that was my experience.

Speaker 1:

That's what I did. I hung onto that too long, or I got bored over a period of a couple of years before I sold my business because I was trying to like I had reached that point that I've been trying to reach for 16 years and I get there and I didn't had really struggling with how to change that, not my identity, like who I was, but like I just wanted to like live in that moment Almost like that's all that mattered, like too long I couldn't. Had a hard time, like seeing a difference, of what would be different and why and how that would have purpose and drive me forward.

Speaker 2:

You know, I get to share this often on podcast interviews when I'm guesting. But one of the things that you just said that I think it's important to recognize and acknowledge is that when you obtain that goal, sometimes it doesn't scratch the itch like you thought it was going to. A lot of people say when I get here, then I'm going to enjoy myself, then I'm going to be happy, and happiness is a choice, right, it's not a trait, and we can decide to be content and happy, not complacent where we currently are. But a lot of people think that money is going to scratch the itch or success is going to scratch the itch and then everything is okay. And it's not, because then you've got different challenges and you've got different obstacles and it's elusive and it keeps going out further and you keep thinking this tangible possession or this asset is going to fulfill you and that's just not reality.

Speaker 1:

Good word, mark. How about you If you go back and think about is it okay that it takes time, like is there? Have you jumped right to the next thing? A?

Speaker 3:

lot of thoughts coming in. But first of all, success could be a real detriment to you, not necessarily a blessing, because it depends on how you handle it and what do you do with it. And sometimes that success creates more stresses and difficulties in your life that if you don't change and reinvent yourself in how to deal with that and you still try to deal with it the way you dealt with the problems you had five years ago, then you may really have some uphill battle with your family, your life, your health and the business itself. So you know it's a challenge. First of all, I think boredom in the business is not only natural but it's healthy. So I think it's natural because if you build a business over time and you have any measure of success whether it's you have one employee, no employees, a hundred thousand a year, a million a year, whatever it is, whatever you define as your successful point when you get there and you look up and you feel yourself getting a little bored, it's natural, number one. But it's really healthy because it drives you back to who you are, why you got involved in it and what are you going to do next.

Speaker 3:

And, as Big A said, our life changes, our seasons change Like now I've got four grandbabies. Hopefully we'll have more here in the future. So all of a sudden I've got a new priority. Yeah well, we're trying, they're trying, hopefully. So anyway, with that going on, I've got a new priority. So I have to rearrange my business life because I've got to be at a baseball game and I've got to be at a gymnastic event, and these are priorities now that I didn't have before. So I think that our lives change over time.

Speaker 3:

And this question came to me at a workshop Chick-fil-A workshop a week ago, and this guy he asked this question. He said you know, we often ask ourselves what's going to change in the next 10 years. Well, everything's probably going to change in the next 10 years. I mean, we have a vote today. Who knows what that's going to bring out and what kind of changes we'll see after that. Either way, you know, whoever gets in office, there's going to be changes, you know. But the reality is a better. Question is not what's going to change, because everything's going to change. The question is what's not going to change in the next 10 years. And by thinking about what's not going to change in the next 10 years, sometimes when you're bored, it's better to realign with those questions and those items so that then you can be more effective and create significance in your life, instead of trying to create more success.

Speaker 2:

Mark, you said something that I think is pretty profound, that we shouldn't miss, unless don't gloss over it. Two years ago I took a two-month sabbatical and the first two weeks were very difficult, like physically, I was trembling. You could look at my hands, I was shaking. I was so nervous. And then it allowed me to get into a state of reflection that, honestly, I was bored. I didn't have any activities, like I canceled everything. There was nothing I had to do, sat on my patio, took trips, and out of that I restructured my life and came back to the office two months later, a new person, and it was only through the boredom that I was able to do that, because we don't realize how shallow we think until we don't have anything to think about.

Speaker 2:

And I wanna encourage those listening if you're able to take some time off, you can really get down into a level of thinking that you couldn't before. So to Mark's point boredom is healthy. I couldn't agree more with that. It forces you to rethink. It gives you the bandwidth to reorchestrate the way you really want your life. So, yeah, don't look at it necessarily as bad.

Speaker 1:

I want to lean into that real quick because what you guys were talking about, like, I agree with you. You know you guys have had years of experience to get to a point where you think boredom's healthy. The average guy listening to this podcast today thinks you're absolutely freaking, insane, right.

Speaker 2:

That's crazy talk right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, the reason I think, yeah, and I think the reason for that is because we don't, we're not aware when that boredom happens. We just try to stay in that space and we try to force it. And you guys have got to a point of maturity where you're able to take a step back and be aware of what's going on, which allows you to give yourself that space to think. I'm assuming that didn't come last week. I'm assuming that you got a time to be able to get there.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I've got a comment to this. You know, as right as you said, that I was thinking to myself that most men in business and on this podcast and not on this podcast they would love the problem of being bored. They would love it. And even in my industry I know a ton of Chick-fil-A owner operators there's thousands of us and man, how many of them are in there every day in the grind literally running their restaurants, either because they love it and they want to and there's a lot of them that do that or because they have to, or they make some kind of choice that they're willing to cut their profit. I mean, they want to increase their profits, so they're there. But whatever the case is, they're there. And then in the general marketplace most men are just trying to get there. And I understand that and I would say this make it a goal to get there.

Speaker 3:

Like, the way you get there is you grow the business enough and you grow your leadership team enough where they're running things without you in the day to day and then you can look around and say, okay, where do I fit? What's my new role? And you know there's certain several stages to get there. You've got to have leaders that are good at what they do. They can lead other people. And then you've got to have leaders that have a system in which that they can, you know, hang everything on and work through the processes with a system.

Speaker 3:

Then these leaders have to be able to replicate that process, to build a pipeline of new leaders and then, once they've done that, they can hover above it, like you are, and they can oversee the entire thing, the entire organization and growth of it. And when you can get there yourself, then you can help others come through that process and then they can get to that point. It's kind of where I'm at now, like my new role is how can I get my 30 managers but primarily about 15, and then, beyond that, even six how can I get at least the six maybe the 15, hovering and having freedom in their schedule and loving what they do because of that? So part of my boredom is to lean back into my leaders, how I can help and help them overcome that so they have better lives and better jobs and better careers.

Speaker 1:

It's good we have a friend. All of us have a shared friend, seth Buwekli, and he did a TED Talk one time and I'm not I'm going to not get this quote exactly, but this is the. This is the antithesis of it is that the greatest test in life may not be a failure, but of success, and you said earlier that not everybody has these challenges and problems. But the success in our lives can bring on a whole different kind of challenge that we've never experienced, even when we've experienced failure.

Speaker 2:

I want to talk about some of the warning signs, some of the things that as you become successful and you feel a sense of boredom, where do you guys see that you have spent relationship capital to accomplish your success? Because I think a lot of guys their business success comes at the expense of close relationships, business success comes at the expense of close relationships. And what are some of the warnings that you might offer some of the guys listening today to pay attention to as they become successful, reaching that sense of boredom and paying attention to those relationships? And the reason I'm highlighting this is because our number one core value is relationships matter most. Number one core value is relationships matter most. And that's in our organization, that's in my family, everywhere, because I almost came home to you know, I say with a pocket full of money to a house full of strangers. The relationship capital that I burn up building the businesses you're like was it worth it? And so what warnings would you give guys today for paying?

Speaker 3:

attention to those close relationships. You know I'll chime in here. It's easy to look up when you're 50 and say, wow, you know what do I have now, you know who's in my life, what's important to me, and then you know what have I done all these years to nurture that. And it's hard when you're 30, or really an age isn't the criteria here, but I just know in my life, when I was in my thirties, man, I was just driving hard to build the business, right, yeah, forties still trying to get there. And then somewhere in the forties, late forties, 50, things kind of settled in a little bit. And what you don't want to do is you don't want to look up when you're 50, like you said, big A, and like where are my friends? They're not here anymore because I didn't keep them with me, I didn't have, you know, time for friends along the way. And then my kids, they don't know me. Or even, you know, wait till you're an empty nester and you look at your wife and you're looking at each other. Like you know, wow, yeah, is this going to be good or bad? You know, no, you want to. You want to, like send them kids off to college and high five each other and say baby, let's hit the road. This is great. You know, we don't have the time of our life now. I mean, you've got to. You got to build that when you're 30 and 40, though, so you can enjoy it when you're 50. You you know I'm contemplating writing a book.

Speaker 3:

I've contemplated writing a book for a long time. I never do it. I haven't done it yet. Anyway, this one's going to be called. I think I'd rather be a goose than an eagle. And doing a little research on an eagle versus a goose, a Canadian goose. You know, the eagles pretty much fly alone. Sometimes you'll see them in a pair and every once in a while, if they're feeding in a certain environment, they'll be in a flock, but not for long. They usually get back on their own. But goose, geese, however you say it, the geese fly together, they encourage each other, they build family together, they have a relationship together, they fly in the V, they honk and encourage each other. And it's just, you know, you look at them like these guys are enjoying their life, and these eagles look like they're just pissed off at the world the whole time, flying around trying to kill something. And so I'd rather be a goose than an eagle, and just some thoughts.

Speaker 1:

That's good. You say that, mark, and at first I'm like that's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard. And then I'm like, wait a second, like well, I mean, think about it right, as an Eagle. We're like, oh, we should be that, that's what we should be. Then I start thinking especially you said geese are out there honking at each other. I'm like that sounds terrible, but but I've been in those environments where geese are honking at each other. But what you said, I, I personally, take life too seriously and so I'm the eagle looking around like I'm going to kill something all the time and I miss a lot of honking, I miss a lot of relationships. And you know, I started thinking to myself yeah, geese are just kind of like you know whatever, hanging out in groups or whatever, but when they fly they take turns leading right, hanging out in groups or whatever, but when they fly they take turns leading right.

Speaker 2:

Well, have you ever noticed that in the arms they're never symmetrical? Do you know why? What do you mean? The arms, the arms of the V. There's one arm always longer than the other.

Speaker 1:

Oh.

Speaker 3:

Do you know, why?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I can't tell if this is like truth or a joke.

Speaker 2:

Well, there's more geese in one than there is I see, there you go.

Speaker 2:

The thing that's really as we end up today. The thing that I want to talk about a little bit is routine and the lack of challenge, and I think a lot of times we get into maintaining and managing and there's no real challenge ahead of us. Mark, you could do your business in your sleep now. Right, you know exactly how to do every aspect of it. Mark, we'll start with you. What do you do to challenge yourself and how do you do that effectively? You said that you reinvent yourself, and I get that, but do you intentionally do hard things? You said that you reinvent yourself, and I get that, but do you intentionally do hard things? Do you look for something that you're unfamiliar with, Like, what is it that you do? And then, Wally, we'll go to you that you challenge yourself to not be in that boredom, to not be routine, to keep it interesting and exciting.

Speaker 3:

You know, for me it's a little bit easier because I'm in the chain of restaurants where we can look at other guys' performance, things they're doing and it kind of say, wow, how do I stand up to that? You know we don't stand out performance-wise in any one area in my business. We're not great at one thing. I'd say the best thing we have is we have a world-class leadership organization as far as like your profits or your sales growth, quality scores, all this stuff. I mean we're well-rounded, like I want to be really good at everything and for me that's kind of been a mantra for years, like let's continue to be well-rounded and grow the business in that manner. When I'm around other operators we always talk about, you know, best practices and that kind of thing.

Speaker 3:

Recently we've had a real new push on our delivery business and you know the reason is because, as this last year has been kind of tough economically, transaction counts are down, people are eating out less but people still want food at home. So how do I get there Other than being open-minded to listen and look at others to see what they're doing and then practically apply that back to us? Also, I got a group of hungry leaders under me and sometimes, when I'm not in my best moment, they're driving me. They're saying, hey, we need to do this, or we need to go here, or we need to add this marketing approach, or we need to tighten down financially over here. A lot of times they're dragging me through the process. So, honestly, putting yourself around the right people will help you win in that game a lot of times. And if you're the most motivated one, then go figure it out. That's great. I end up being the beneficiary of a great team.

Speaker 2:

Wally, how do you challenge?

Speaker 1:

yourself. I've not done it very well. Recently, when I sold the business it was a couple of years before I sold the business in 19 that I started to get some of that boredom and then kind of carried through. I did some new things. I joined the leadership team at ISI to serve men with our mission there, you know, on a part-time basis, fractional basis over the years, but I've not done that well. And so what I've discovered this year, this past summer, through my ISI group, through some individual efforts on my own, trying to trying to figure out like what's missing. You know, like what's missing.

Speaker 1:

I think one of those ingredients for me is adventure. Uh, I love to do things, I love to. I'm curious person, naturally, and, and I had just gotten kind of so isolated in my own thoughts I was around people but I just allowed myself to get isolated in my own thoughts and that I had kind of worried in some sense that what I had achieved I was going to lose. I'd never experienced that before. Right, when you have some success, you get something and it's like now that I have it I was tempted to go into like protection mode and that's not very fun, and a life of scarcity versus a life of abundance is very different right, you know.

Speaker 2:

I'm glad you said that because we didn't touch on that earlier and I see this happening over and over. Guys have a level of success in their aspirations, their goals, their dreams that got them there. They took some risk and then, when you get it, you like become Mother Hubbard.

Speaker 2:

You put your arms around it, like become Mother Hubbard. You put your arms around it, you're trying to protect it, and all the things that you used to do to get successful, you stopped doing and now you spend all of your effort and energy in protecting your little nest, right so, mark?

Speaker 1:

was yeah, you're spot on. Mark was talking about taking some time and taking a trip or taking some time off. So one of the things that I'm looking forward to hopefully my plan is to have something going into 2025, in 2025. I initially thought I wanted to walk to hike the whole Appalachian Trail at the same time, which is called a through hike, and it's like just over six months and Sonny is not a big fan of that, so, and I don't know how that works in my world anyway, but it sounds great.

Speaker 1:

And then I got thinking but if I don't do a through hike, like it's going to be, really, everybody asked me like, oh, you did the up late contrail, yeah, but I kind of did it, you know, here and here and here. It just didn't feel like it was like complete or like you know, like the big enough thing. And I was talking to an ISI brother at a retreat recently and I was telling him this and he looked at me and he goes I'd go on a section hike with you. And immediately my whole mindset and heart changed and I was like if I could find 10 guys to go on 10 section hikes with me over the next 10 years, that would be a better way to complete the hike than do it in six months by myself. So finding some new ways to approach adventure. At the same time, get some of that white space. I think we all need to be able to reset and be aware of what's going on in ourselves set and be aware of what's going on in ourselves.

Speaker 3:

An executive with Chick-fil-A a while back told us that one of the things he does to stay fresh is learn something new outside the business. He learned how to play guitar. Well, for me this jeeping thing has been unbelievable because I went to Colorado and Utah for 20 days in early October. But I came back so fresh last September, early October, but I came back so fresh, so ready to re-engage with my leaders and to get back to the business. Those things will absolutely reinvigorate you.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, that's good. You sold more chicken while you were gone than when you're there too. Yep, yep, yeah, wally. What I think is really interesting and we don't want to miss this either is that another reason to surround yourself with trusted advisors is you didn't know what you didn't know, and he introduced a new possibility to you that you hadn't even thought about. Doing this in sections with other people. Now you're accomplishing building relationships, you do the trail, you accomplish that goal, and you get to do it with somebody that you can celebrate with. So I thought that was pretty cool, mark. Any final comments or thoughts related to this topic before we end today?

Speaker 3:

No, I think that you know boredom being healthy is a good, a super thought here. And you know another. You know how do you kind of get there, how do you get to where you are bored, and I got a quote here that was given to me at this Chick-fil-A event the other day. It really stood out to me it's what are my non-negotiable highest payoff activities? Like to get bored, you got to have a team that works. So what are my highest payoff, non-negotiable activities? That's stuck in my head ever since I heard that, because I keep asking myself that with my health, my family, with my business, and then, when I'm bored, get back to that Like what are the activities that are going to give me the best payoffs and what do I really want my life to look like in the next 10 years?

Speaker 2:

And what are the things that aren't going to change?

Speaker 1:

That's so good, wally. Final comments no, I don't have any man.

Speaker 2:

You can finish up you know we we always share kind of the problem. But we wanted to end today by saying that there's ways to get out of this mindset. Like, if you're bored and some of the things are reigniting a higher purpose, like, rethink through what it is that you're doing and why you're doing it. I wanna encourage you to really invest in relationships. I want you to think about the people that you're with and going on that journey with those people, because relationships do matter most. And I want to encourage everyone to get out of isolation, because that is the enemy of excellence.

Speaker 2:

And if you wanna to go further, you've got to go in community. You can't do it alone. Right, you can go quicker, but you can't go near as far and then pursue new challenges and we kind of talked about that here at the end, what is it that? What is your Jeep right? What is your Appalachian Trail? What is the thing that can give you that ability to think at a different level? And when you reconnect with your purpose and then you invest in your relationships that are important and you really make those priority and then you think about the new challenges that you can embrace, I promise you, if you'll go through that exercise, it'll give you that view from the top that you're so urgently trying to pursue.

Speaker 1:

Hey guys, thanks so much for listening again today. Reminder go check out isibrotherhoodcom where you can connect and engage with other Christian businessmen who are striving in their lives the same as you. We'll see you next week.