Speaker 1: 0:08

Today's episode is featuring my good friend, adam Lamb. We are going to talk about his new book, the Successful Chef Time Strategies that Actually Work. At its core, this book is a guide for chefs who are ready to stop drowning in the daily grind and start leading their time before it leads them into burnout. This isn't just another generic productivity book written by somebody outside the industry. It's a field-tested, emotionally grounded and brutally honest guide written by a chef for chefs, one who's been in the weeds, lost the plot more than once and found a way back by reclaiming the one thing. We never seem to have enough of time. Today we're going to talk about the 1% way, the principle that small, consistent changes lead to lasting transformation. The narrow path, a practice of eliminating distractions and staying rooted in your core values. And the time method, a leadership framework specifically designed for kitchen culture. Stay tuned, there's tons of value in this episode.

Speaker 1: 1:13

Welcome to the Restaurant Leadership Podcast, the show where restaurant leaders learn tools, tactics and habits from the world's greatest operators. I'm your host, kristen Marvin, with Solutions by Kristen. I've spent the last two decades in the restaurant industry and now partner with restaurant owners to develop their leaders and scale their businesses through powerful one-on-one coaching, group coaching and leadership workshops. This show is complete with episodes around coaching, leadership development and interviews with powerful industry leaders. You can now engage with me on the show and share topics you'd like to hear about leadership lessons you want to learn and any feedback you have. Simply click the link at the top of the show notes and I will give you a shout out on a future episode. Thanks so much for listening and I look forward to connecting. All right, adam, I warned you before we jumped on the call. I'm a little spicy today and so I'm going to challenge you on some things. I don't. You know, it's not a personal thing. We're friends. We've done this before.

Speaker 2: 2:23

Absolutely.

Speaker 1: 2:25

So thank you so much for your time, as always appreciate this.

Speaker 2: 2:28

By the way, as a chef, I appreciate the spice. Thank you, can't be too much for me.

Speaker 1: 2:35

Well played, so time strategies that actually work.

Speaker 2: 2:39

Yep.

Speaker 1: 2:41

Why this topic? Why right now?

Speaker 2: 2:48

why this topic? Why right now? Uh, interestingly enough, you know, as my businesses started to grow, I was became more and more interested in, like, like, what's really going on? Like, what are the top 10 biggest problems that chefs are having in 2025? So it was the first time I'd ever done deep research with um, with, with chat, gpt, and it's weird because typically, or historically, I would say, not a lot is written about, you know, the culinary industry and the problems that they're having. You know it's kind of a gray area, but I think, because of the pandemic and some other influences, that that there have been more and more studies. So I mean, it was 26 pages long, it was. It was a really, really well done. And so once we got the top 10 problems, I said what can I do or create that would support them?

Speaker 2: 3:35

And so we together came up with this idea of a and I don't want to say short form book, but it's what is considered a low content book.

Speaker 2: 3:45

So there's not a whole lot of fluff, there's not a whole lot of story, it's like let's, let's be real about what the problem is. And these are things that I've come to find out in my career, and not only as a chef, but also as a coach that have worked and that have worked for me. Each one of the chapters also has, you know, either a worksheet, um, that's, uh, there's a central site where they can download those, so it is a work in progress Like this is about getting the work done. It's not about a whole lot of fluff, and the feedback that I've gotten has been very positive because of that, like they don't have time. Every time you try to talk to a chef, uh, I'm sorry, don't have enough time. So the reason why time strategies that actually work had to be first is that if you can't lead your time, if you can't manage your time, if you can't be the master of your time, then nothing else is going to work.

Speaker 1: 4:39

Adam, whose responsibility is it to manage time? Is it the owner operator? Is it the chef? Where do you put that responsibility?

Speaker 2: 4:49

Ultimately it's our responsibility. You know we have a good we typically we have a very good understanding of the operation. And yet, just speaking for myself, you know I'll get up late, I won't make sure that I have time to go to the gym, feel like shit later, and then I'm, you know, eating French fries and doing whatever I can to kind of balance myself out. So ultimately, what I've come to understand is that until I can lead myself, I really can't lead out.

Speaker 1: 5:17

Yeah, when you're talking about?

Speaker 2: 5:27

when you talk about time strategies, are you taking? Talking about time management specifically? I mean, I guess we'd have to start somewhere. Yes, yeah, I mean there are aspects of it that need to be managed, but it's more proactive than that. So a couple of principles that underpin all these books and, by the way, as I said, there's 10 editions of these coming out over the next year or so is the idea of um, of the 1% way, which is a dedication to becoming 1% better than yesterday.

Speaker 2: 5:53

Just reflecting on my own career in life, you know, when I wanted to make changes, it was always a big rash. You know I'm going to do this and I'm going to do that and you know, a week later I'm falling on my face and it took me a while to understand that. You know small, consistent steps, over time you'll big results. So how do we land that in our career, in our lives, such that we're more focused on that than any huge splash? And what I can tell you is that. Give you a great example.

Speaker 2: 6:22

I did 75 hard. So it's this exercise program and made famous. And you do the same five things every day for 75 days. You have to work out twice a day. One must be outside 45 minutes, you have to drink a gallon of water, you have to be on some type of eating plan, it doesn't matter, and so these things. What I found was the first time I failed after about 21 days. Second time was about seven days, then it's 14 days no alcohol. It's a. It's a very, very strict way of of kind of putting yourself to the test, and it wasn't until I understood that this was not something that I needed to get by or past to get to something else, but the juice was really in the moment, like really diving deep into what I was doing, moment by moment by moment, and that's where the magic was.

Speaker 1: 7:18

Yeah, I've done 75 hard a couple of times Sucks right. It's, it doesn't seem sustainable. I think the intention of it is absolutely to disrupt. So, it goes against everything that you just talked about with getting 1% better every single day, because trying to work out twice for 45 minutes, once in the morning, once in the afternoon, doing it outside is is so difficult and you know he lets you do whatever diet you want to do, the drastic. You know the reading 10 pages, I can't remember what else is it the gallon of water.

Speaker 1: 7:53

It's so regimented, which I feel like is not, is not real, is not natural life, especially in the restaurant business, where every single day is different. We know that shift is going to begin at a certain time every day and we know that it's going to end at a certain time every day, and then everything else in that is just completely up to chance, right?

Speaker 2: 8:17

Exactly. We know the doors are going to close at some point 100%.

Speaker 1: 8:20

How do you encourage people to maintain that focus of getting better by 1% every single day? How do they keep that top of mind in such a crazy industry like ours?

Speaker 2: 8:32

I know I actually had to write a journal because that's what I ended up doing is like spending time writing these things out every day, having a goal for seven days and then it goes into for seven days, and then it goes into a month and then it goes into a quarter, and I'm not really focused on you know what that's going to look like after 90 days. I'm more focused on like what's the next seven days and, to your point, yeah, it kind of goes counter to what we were like, what we would espouse. For myself, it was about again, kind of this, and I want to say self-management or self-leadership, but it had been a long time since I felt really good about any consistent effort that I had put in. My experience with the hospitality industry is, you know, I got addicted to instant gratification. So, you know, to hell with like 75 days. I'm like getting to the next hour, right, and that becomes a cycle of which, like I couldn't hold myself accountable to anything.

Speaker 2: 9:26

And I don't mean like getting my inventory done on time. I'm talking about for my own personal being, my own personal way of showing up to my family, showing up to the people who I love, that work and the one thing that, uh, that the that the originator says is that somewhere between day 60 and day 70, something happens. It's, you know, he doesn't say religious experience, but I had a complete out-of-body experience. It was about eight o'clock at night and I was running down the street coming up to the rise next to the church, not too far away, and I felt so good that I started thinking about like when was the last time I felt this good?

Speaker 2: 10:08

And it turned out it was, you know, 1986. Like I remembered the moment when I decided that I could no longer be playful and funny and loose, that I had to be a hard ass, that I had to be the edge, that I had to be the apex predator in the, in the punch bowl, and it was a, uh, heart rending experience for me. Well, what had happened was that I recovered so much of myself and, like he says, you know once, that the confidence is, you know, bulletproof. That's not necessarily true, but I started to remember parts of myself and hold myself in a certain amount of respect, treating my life and my body in such a way that it deserved. And I did know that, you know, for years and years and years I threw my body around with great abandon. It was like the thing I could always count on, until I couldn't anymore.

Speaker 1: 10:58

Here's the thing 80% of restaurants fail because they don't have the systems, not because they have bad food or service. If you're ready to stop being the bottleneck in your own business and start building something that can actually scale profitably, I want you to put Multi-Unit Mastery, my new book, directly in your hands for free. Go to irfbookcom right now and grab your copy. Go to IRFbookcom right now and grab your copy. When you do, you're going to get access to some additional tools that are not available anywhere else. This is about building a legacy, not just another location. Stop putting it off and go get your book Again.

Speaker 2: 11:39

That's IRFbookcom so part of it was like this sense of self, you know. Also, you know, I know one of the core things about your business is mine is like really working with clients on their core values, like because once you get it it's a whole different story, and I think that was kind of part of it and this idea of like if I can draw a line in the sand and say I am going to take small, measurable steps towards this goal and you achieve the goal, that shifts a lot for folks, did for me there's something about what's coming up for me right now around this instant gratification when you, when you work out, when you're doing a 75 hard, you work out, you're taking care of yourself, you finish your workout, you get this instant gratification when you're plating a dish and you see it come to life and it's perfectly presented and you set, you hand it off to the food runner expo.

Speaker 1: 12:38

There's instant gratification from the front of house perspective when we drop it on the table and then we see the guest light eyes, light up it. It's the best thing and it's and I have been chasing that, becoming an, you know, since I've become an entrepreneur. I had a moment this morning where I was just like I'm going to do this big project, to do it, and so I have to be careful about those dopamine hits right, especially from an addiction perspective, and I wonder, because it is such a natural part of the industry, do you feel like there's a situation where instant gratification can be beneficial for?

Speaker 2: 13:16

leadership. Sure, I mean anything within reason, I mean measured. To your point about the dopamine, like I think that that's something that not a whole lot of folks are actually, um, actually focused on, because once you flood that brain case with so much dopamine, the brain will actually start to thin out the receptors because it's a washing too much. So when you come off the other side of that and there's less and less dopamine, there's less receptors out and that's where the crash comes and that's where start chasing the high again.

Speaker 2: 13:51

You know, I got to a point, kristen, where you know people would come up to me and like, oh, chef, and I was completely stone-faced, like they could not understand what I did in such a way that would give me any idea that, you know, like holding them in judgment because they were happy. The other part that really that like kind of the thing that I didn't count on, was being forced during 75 hard to create boundaries, to actually sit down with the people in my life and say, hey, I'm going to go on this journey, this is what it's going to take. Are you with me or not? And and what was so weird about that? You know, jennifer is a, my wife is a, is a transformational coach and speaker.

Speaker 2: 14:33

And you know, still, yeah, we still fuck up, still can't communicate, and so to be able to, forced into this, like, okay, here's my choice, I can ask for what I want, even though I might think that the answer is no. But it's not the answer that I'm really looking for. I'm looking for that sense of self in which I can actually speak my truth in that space and regardless of how it's taken with respect, of course, there are all kinds of unintended consequence or benefits to that experience that I carry forward now and as part of my coaching. It's like clarity, directness and communication. You know to your point, designing alliances like to have that upfront, with no ambiguity, is really, really powerful, and most people have no idea how to live that way because it's just so much is on the slide.

Speaker 1: 15:28

Totally so. You talk about the narrow path right and again going deeper into boundaries here. So talk a little bit about what you mean by the narrow path in this book.

Speaker 2: 15:44

Yeah, it's um, I mean, they've called it a bunch of stuff. Monk mode is another way of saying it, but it's a process of looking at what you want to accomplish. Okay, I'm going to go on this journey of discovery or mastery around a particular thing. I can choose to have my attention broken up by notifications, by red and yellow fast food signs and yellow fast food signs. You know, the world is built to put us to sleep, and when I, you know, when I was in the process and I was watching a football game on TV and I was like, oh, like, the difference between conscious and unconscious is a very slim thing. But you know, it's nice to just kind of sit back and relax and not care or worry for whatever reason, and I'm not saying that worry is a thing.

Speaker 2: 16:34

However, I had a conversation with my wife just recently about this idea, about owning and stepping into more of my king energy. Does she need to tell me to take out the garbage? You know all these little things. And because I was sick and I had back surgery, you know she took care of me for a long time and she stepped right into leadership because I wasn't there to do that. And, as a matter of fact, last weekend I had to tell her okay, thank you, I'm so grateful, but I'm back now.

Speaker 2: 17:04

So get the hell out of the garage, cause I had to clean the whole thing, just reorganize it, cause everybody's piling stuff around, um, but the narrow path is really about just getting rid of distraction. So I don't have any notifications on my phone, I don't have any notifications on my computer, and the first block of my day, which is typically, you know, about two and a half hours, I try very hard to make sure that I'm doing one thing, cause I I think you're Kristen, we have that kind of excitement thing we share that you know. You start thinking about this, and then there's another thing and, uh, you were pointed out to me. Oh, you're. You have another tool now that you're very prolific, my friend.

Speaker 2: 17:46

Right, you know, chasing this shiny object, I mean again, it's it's kind of that conditioning of always trying to keep the highest amount of dopamine in the brain as possible because it feels good, and when you start starving your body of those type of rewards, you know the. The other thing about um, about instant gratification, is that we forget that gratification delayed is a superpower. There are people who have to wait five years for their building. An architect. There's no joy, I shouldn't say no joy, but he waits a long time, or she waits a long time for that building to finally come up. And you know, going to the gym every day, there's no great, you know ha-ha in the gym, but there is that, that thing that's out in front. That's always possible and always permissible, as long as you're making the choice to do that. And so I guess it comes right down to like how do I want to spend my attention?

Speaker 1: 18:48

How do you recommend and work with your students here around this, the bootcamp that you've got around, the successful chef program? How are you teaching chefs and wine cooks and sous chefs to eliminate distractions during service?

Speaker 2: 19:04

I think we're pretty well conditioned to do that. As a matter of fact, um, I and several people, lots of people I talked to, you know they they relish going to work, especially when there's difficulty at home, right, because things are so like, things are happening at such a rate of speed that if you're you're not present, then it all goes sideways. So it's almost like a, like a gimme to go to work and be taken over by that environment. And yet as soon as you walk out the door at the end of the night, that's when that stuff comes creeping in. So you're going to go have a beer with the boys or are you going to? You know, go home, you know take a walk before you get in your car.

Speaker 2: 19:51

So again, I think it all for me it comes down to choice, and the fact that I made bad choices does not mean that I can't make a better one, because I spent a lot of my time in shame and regret. Talked to a coaching client yesterday, said he spends about 60% of his time feeling guilty because he really, really wants to make sure that his people are trained really well, but he doesn't have the time because they're constantly understaffed and then when he sees them go over the cliff, he feels bad, and so he's wondering, like, where's that boundary where I can feel like I did everything that I possibly could and I get to be okay with that. And they also get to be, you know, conscious beings with choice and say, you know, did you come on time? Did you have your station set, you know? So I think that that's a level of emotional balance that is tricky to attain but is always worth the attempt.

Speaker 1: 20:43

How do you help a client like that get out of that vicious cycle and really get to the root cause of what's going on with the turnover?

Speaker 2: 20:51

Sure. Well, after listening for a long time and asking questions, I said, okay, so what would it look like if you actually planned it? He's like what are you talking about? Like well, you know you're in season, you know when business, businesses and when businesses. So what if you took one person and decided on Wednesday I'm going to spend 20 minutes with this person?

Speaker 2: 21:15

Now, that's not as much as you'd like to do, but everybody else starts seeing it and appreciating the fact that you're taking time out of your day to spend with them. And right now they're in a slippery slope because there's been some stuff where people have been kind of checked out and um, and he really cares a lot, and so I encouraged him to schedule that shit. Like if it's important, it goes in a planner. Like I don't care, I constantly putting things in my calendar, so I don't. First, so I don't forget, but secondly, so I don't overcommit, because I have a bad habit of, you know, wanting to please people, so I'll overcommit to certain things. And then I look at my calendar. I'm like, can I do this today?

Speaker 1: 21:57

Yeah, I had a conversation yesterday. I think this is such a it's such a big problem. It's so systemic. It's always been there. I think and I don't know if you see this, but more and more people in the industry are starting to reach out and ask for help. Now there's so much more comfortability around having conversations like this, which is absolutely extraordinary.

Speaker 2: 22:20

I was. So it's such a great conversation and even in the moment as we're talking I wasn't really doing a whole lot of coaching it's. You know it's our first session. I'm just trying to get a grounding of where he's at and he's self-correcting in the moment as he's saying things, catching himself. I first had to encourage him to use I statements, so I was like I would encourage you to like, because this is the first step into into the three pillars of relationship. The relationship with yourself was like just owning it and not kicking yourself in the ass because shame and regret, you know it's just a great excuse to not do what you're what you want to do. So either we're going to recreate the past or, you know, be scared that we're going to do that. Or we're just going to say, okay, I made the wrong choice, that. Or we're just going to say, okay, I made the wrong choice, now what? So part of it is, I think, being willing to have some grace and tenderness with yourself.

Speaker 1: 23:16

I see this time management issue coming up a lot, with younger people coming up in the industry, and I think and I've had this conversation a couple of times in the last couple of weeks I think I'm coaching a couple of regional managers that are coming up in the ranks and they're regionals for the first time and they're the owner of the restaurant groups that they work for and said to me Kristen, I don't know how to do this, I don't know how to be a regional, so I need somebody that's been in their shoes to work with them, please, and give them the structure and the accountability that they need to start off in a really positive, successful way, so that we can this can be.

Speaker 1: 23:51

There's longevity here, there's sustainability here, right, and what I keep hearing from them is I can't figure out how to get everything done. And I think when we're promoting people internally in the industry, we are doing a really good job of sitting down with a piece of paper or having a conversation with someone saying here's the logistics of everything that you need to get done, but we are not training them and showing them how to do it or being honest about the pressures of the job and how difficult it is to manage people and how to have conversations and how to hold people accountable. And I had a client yesterday say I can't. He's a brand new GM. He said I can't figure out how to get everything done on my list. And I said tell me what you, what you're doing and what. What are your shoulder times. And he said what does that mean?

Speaker 2: 24:41

You know, and I said okay great, this is fun.

Speaker 1: 24:44

These are the these are the fundamentals that these people need, right, I was like well, the older times are. Your are your slower times, and that's the best time to get stuff done. Appoint somebody to be in charge, be the lead, be the eyes that's the person you're developing to be on your leadership bench. And take time, 30 minutes before your shift, 30 minutes after your shift, to go get your stuff done so that you go home and you know that it's all taken care of and you don't have to stress and worry about it.

Speaker 2: 25:10

You know, the back part of that conversation is what does real delegation look like? Right, when we've been, I have been held accountable for every little thing that happens as the chef, like it's all, all of it's fucked up, like, yeah, okay, yeah, it's me, my fault, my fault, you know that I didn't train somebody or whatever, and part of that's dismissive, but it's absolutely correct. And yet true delegation is allowing some folks some space to wobble a little bit, right, so they get a sense of their own power, that they can pull themselves out. And I love what you did with that, Kristen, because you know that's a whole shoulder idea. You know, as a chef early in my career, I had to understand where those shoulder seasons were, because you come out of season and you get and you blast right through it and you blow the budget. So you're looking ahead, not to your point. You know a regional is probably, you know, three to six months ahead with this planner Planning on these things, and then, as they start coming closer, that time compression makes it feel like, oh my God, how am I going to get all this stuff done?

Speaker 2: 26:18

Because you're not supposed to. You stay in your A game and then you give your B game to somebody who's that's their A game, and as entrepreneurs or solopreneurs, we don't have the luxury of that. There's only one person, and so we end up gaining. Like I can't tell you how much I've learned, even about editing pdfs. Like when was I ever gonna? Last week I was coding an app Like are you kidding me? But to that point, um, because the time thing is so important.

Speaker 2: 26:57

The next book that had to come after that is communication. Yeah, so there's another book coming out um the end of the month about communication strategies that actually work, because I couldn't think of a single time in my life when things went sideways that it didn't have its root somehow in communication or communication, no communication. And so I think that idea, christine, you put on, like again being very clear about the outcome. This is like. This is the project. This is what a good outcome looks. Outcome, this is the project. This is what a good outcome looks like. This is what a bad outcome looks like, so that they have an understanding of where the lines in the sand are drawn. No-transcript, they'll go all for it. But if they don't, if they, if people keep moving the goalposts on them, they're like yeah, I was.

Speaker 1: 27:52

I was having this conversation last week with another GM and talking about how to create checklists for them and keep their time really focused and structured so that when distractions do come up or they're exhausted at the end of the shift, they have something to keep them focused at the end of the day so they can still get their stuff done and be really, really efficient. And I said, okay, we're going to create this system for you. And then I want you to look at your chef and see if that system's in place. And I started asking questions. And this is going back to your, to the earlier question. I asked you about time management. Whose responsibility is it? Because I think it's. I think it's a shared responsibility.

Speaker 1: 28:33

I don't think that restaurant owners in some cases are doing a good enough job. I think they're empowering their, their leaders, too much and I don't think that they are protecting them. And what I mean by that is this example. I asked this GM. I said, okay, talk to me about your chef. When chef goes on vacation or chef gets sick, who's placing the orders and doing the inventory and writing the schedule? And they said, well, chef just takes it with them. That's so fucked up.

Speaker 2: 29:04

I'm sorry.

Speaker 1: 29:08

I know you're laughing, but like it's so fucked up and I'm so. I'm so sick and tired of that because to say that out loud and and just have that be acceptable behavior, right, like that's the way we've always done it. That's bullshit and I want. I don't think that that restaurant owner actually knows what's going on.

Speaker 2: 29:25

So on the complete other side of that spectrum was a conversation I had where chef left sous chef's there. Owner steps in, works very, very diligently, puts his apron on every day, does the orders, does the schedules and then he promotes the sous chef to a chef and says OK, schedule's yours now. Like, what, like. What do you mean now, like what, like, what do you mean? Uh, going to the store every morning, you know, because you forgot to put avocados, like so the whole it kind of like the way you were. I'm like okay, so what are your systems? What's going on? Send me the sheets. I want to see you know, because it's like so to me it's so much fun because I'm not living it from moment to moment.

Speaker 2: 30:09

But when someone's like ready to check out because they haven't been supported, like so there's that one line of like just expecting that you need shuffle, handle it. Yeah, no problem, and again, it's a shared responsibility. But I'll bet any amount of money chef ain't saying anything about it just going along. Hey, listen, I talked like I understand that in some countries it's illegal now to call an employee when he's off. It is like I think it's germany or in a couple other countries if your employee is off, you cannot call him at home. And I'm not saying that we have to be that crazy, but appreciating the boundary between work and home is probably a powerful exercise for everybody, because it's just bleeding all over everywhere and then it gets sloppy and then it's so hard to be able to judge whether or not someone's doing a good job that way.

Speaker 1: 31:10

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 31:12

Right, so yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:15

So talk about this time method that you've created for the book.

Speaker 2: 31:21

Well, I don't necessarily know if it's a method, but there's all these little pieces that kind of blend together when they're applied in a certain way. So boundaries, communication, like understanding. So I am not a big advocate of work-life balance. I think it's bullshit, but I am a big advocate for work-life harmony. I think it's bullshit, but I am a big advocate for work-life harmony. And that may look like looking at the year's calendar and sitting down with your wife and letting her know okay, so this is shoulder season and this is when we start have to hiring people, and that's when I have to be really, really present, because without that communication, she's left her own devices to try to figure out what the hell's going on. Oh, he's just ignoring me and I know that that's an extreme example, but it happens all the time. We got the work life over here and we've got a personal life over here and somehow they don't touch. So you know it's all. And it also kind of starts with core values and like, okay, so what is absolutely non-negotiable for you? And from that point, let's, let's work. So having an understanding of an appreciation for you know the choices that you've made and that you can make new choices, that there is a certain amount of not a certain amount of responsibility, but a responsibility, and how you're communicating with others effectively or not, and to what degree you're willing to be distracted or not, all kind of blend together into a new way of being so that you're absolutely positively present when you're at work and then when you're at home, you're absolutely positively present.

Speaker 2: 33:03

I'll tell you a quick story. Down on Longboat Key in Florida, my wife and two young daughters were just going to go out for a couple of days. It was like a Monday or Tuesday or whatever. Just sit by the beach and my pager started buzzing in the car on the way from Fort Lauderdale and we set up our chairs and the girls are playing in the surf and it was a perfect day out. And my phone continued to buzz until I could no longer ignore it. And then, about 10 minutes later, I turned up and I watched my wife start breaking down chairs and putting stuff in a bag. I'm like what are you doing? And she's like we're leaving. I'm like what do you mean we're leaving? She's like listen, it's going to be like this the entire time. I don't want to be here and, to my deep regret, I watched her pack the whole car up and we all got in and left because I thought it was safer for me to be back at work or closer to work than be present with my kids. And I really mean safer, because there seemed to be like, the farther I got, the bigger risk there was. But again, it was all fear-based for me. But it was like man, I wish I had that choice one more time, because I'd just be on the beach, present and to me.

Speaker 2: 34:23

When I can give my full presence, I get so much more back. You know, the conversations go smoother because I have a clear intention about what I'm trying to communicate and it just becomes clear for everybody, especially at work, to be able to have those clear, direct conversations about standards that apply to everybody. It's just such a great way to be and I get that. Some places are such a shit show that it's hard to figure out where to start, which is like okay, 20 minutes this week, that's it. Yeah, just that one thing. And that's 1%. Yeah, I mean it's not much, but you do that consistently over time. Now, all of a sudden, you've got people who really believe that you care. You care about them enough to skill them up, not for this job, but for their next job, I mean that carries a lot of weight.

Speaker 1: 35:13

It's one thing that I really it comes up a lot with restaurant owners that I work with. They want to position themselves, to be in the role that they want to be in and they want to be more present for their families. And you can't do that unless you've got the right people in the right places and you've created the systems for them to be able to operate without you. And some people are so against systems or they don't understand them. Something as simple as writing a checklist of items on how to write a schedule so that you can train somebody once and then leave that sheet with them so they have support when you're not in the room it's just that simple. That's a really efficient, simple system to put into place.

Speaker 2: 35:54

A chef I work with. You know he lives a couple blocks from the restaurant and so it's nothing for him to kind of toddle over there. You know, again, after I set up all these systems, you know, still with a legal pad doing his order, like he has his way, and I'm like dude, don't you get it? You will always be tied to that place and maybe now it's cool, but you have another relationship show up. How's that going to work? Yeah, you know where it might be okay right now, like if you're not creating a system that someone else can follow.

Speaker 2: 36:23

And the best thing I ever learned, man, was how to write a succession plan. Holy shit, right, you've got a staffing plan and now you've got a succession plan, and now you know who's moving where, so you can start training them and moving them in before they even know what's going on. And you've got it tucked. Nope, I mean sure there's. You lose people every now and then. But that type of system, to me, was always like I love to see all the pieces come together and when you start seeing the flow not only a product but people um, it becomes intoxicating, cause I, you know, I always like how can I make it better Like what is, like what is there, what's, what's the piece missing? And a staffing plan based upon um, based upon seasons, at the very least, if not weekly. But I mean these things because, let's face it, if you know you've got to hire 10 people, it's so much easier to do it six weeks out than two weeks.

Speaker 1: 37:15

Yeah, I love it. Adam, can you tell us what's next? I know you mentioned book two in the series, but can you give us a sneak peek?

Speaker 2: 37:25

Yep. So I've got um communication strategies uh, that actually work. Um, I've got communication strategies that actually work. I've also got the 1% journal that's coming out and I realized that without context it seems like a silly thing, but it's got. So I have a master book that I'm still finishing that has basically all of this stuff tied up to it and then broken out into these kinds of action guides.

Speaker 2: 37:48

The other thing that I'm really excited about is that I am finally building a tiered membership community for chefs and culinary professionals so we can get the hell off Facebook and that toxic shit. But it's an opportunity for us to be together in a really powerful place and they can self-select, um, if they want to tear up or tear down. But because there's free courses and PDF like all kinds of stuff in there and the um and the environment is set up so much like a Facebook feed, it's like scary. But I'm really excited about that because even during this boot camp, I recognize that connecting with somebody once a week is is probably not enough, right, and so people drift. They don't feel like they're supported, even in a coaching environment, and so it's been a real rigorous process for me to try to figure out what's the best delivery system and how do we keep people engaged. And because you know there's too many other again distractions out there.

Speaker 1: 38:52

Yeah, how can people get a hold of you?

Speaker 2: 38:56

You can reach me on LinkedIn, chef Adam M Lamb on Facebook, and you can always come to Chef Life Radio and listen to an episode or the website of Chef Life Coaching.

Speaker 1: 39:06

Awesome. Thank you, adam, so appreciate it Nice to have you. We'll talk to you soon, you bet. Thanks.