DAN SIMONS

This week, I had the opportunity to join a panel discussion at GreenBiz Group's VERGE 20 online conference, "How to Serve Great Food and Cut Emissions at the Same Time." Other panelists included: David Havelick, Sustainability Manager, Harvard University and Edwina Hughes, Engagement Specialist, World Resources Institute. Verge20 is the leading platform for accelerating the clean economy. Nearly 10,000 leaders participated in advancing systemic solutions to address the climate crisis.

The virus is still here, it is still a pandemic, we remain without leadership at a federal level, and none of this looks to be changing anytime soon. Our Twitter streams, Facebook feeds, and the news supply daily doses of pandemic effects: facts, opinions, fear, anxiety, worry, the inability to forecast business revenues or a family budget – with no tangible end in sight. So, what can change? Us. We can change. We can stop living in the limbo land of COVID World, with everything that comes with it – including hope that it will soon be over – and just start thinking World. Waiting, hoping, and tweeting about future solutions when COVID World is over is ineffective. Here we are. This is what we have. This is our World with no clear end in sight. As a business leader, I know the strategy can’t be “when COVID World is over, we’ll do x, y, and z.” Here we are. This is what we have. The business strategy needs to be rooted in what we can and must do now, in this World, and going forward. As a parent, I know this is also true at home. How long can I let my young teenage/tweenage wolves run wild, without reading or learning, with Xbox fusing into their synapses? Bill Gates, one of the very few talking heads worth listening to on pandemic issues, was crystal clear in his piece from April, “The first modern pandemic.” He is apolitical and drama-free. It has been clear since February/March 2020 that America was in for an 18- to 24-month journey, at the shortest. Point being, our businesses and our families aren’t built to pause and hold their breath for 24 months – not when the conditions have changed so much that deep, fundamental shifts in business models and family routines are required. This isn’t a phase to be waited out; hunkering down and using hope as a strategy will land your business in bankruptcy and your family torn and tried in visible and invisible ways. Us. We can change. Here we are. This is what we have. Let’s stop thinking it is a phase we can wait out like when we held our breath driving by a cemetery so the spirits wouldn’t get in us. The first step in a plan is to accept the reality, to see the facts on the ground and acknowledge a plan is needed. Here we are. This is what we have. Time to abandon the pause of COVID World and immerse into the plan and implementation of World. Everything is on the table, nothing can be assumed or protected, defensiveness about how we’ve always done it will not serve anyone now. New day, blue ocean, call it what it is to you, just call it something that triggers your action. Fundamental changes. Business models, sales channels, structural costs, a path to cash flow positive, bold risk-taking calculated and implemented as quickly as your situation requires. I realize there are many industries not hit as hard as mine – but that doesn’t mean the disruption isn’t happening in your industry. Don’t wait to feel the earthquake to pack your go bag. At home, with our families, this World needs revised and new routines. As we’re teaching our kids about race, we should also be teaching them about money, and what it takes to keep a household under a roof and off the street. We need to figure out learning pods and distance learning. We need to replace some of the structure previously provided by school with new structures. And we need to think of ways to not just survive, but dream of how we can thrive, and implement these visions now. I can either keep complaining about failing at parenting and wishing for an end to COVID World, or I can remember this is World. Here we are. This is what we have. I can step up and create with my family the structures, schedules, and commitments that are needed to keep us sane, growing, and learning how to succeed in this World. Accepting and planning for World will protect all of us from the roller-coaster of “hope” – today we’ll read about a vaccine, and think we’re almost there, I can keep holding my breath. Tomorrow we’ll read that vaccines require multiple doses, and then soon we’ll read about vaccines failing in Phase 3 trials. This is all predictable. So, let’s stop holding our breath and hoping; let’s do what we need to do in World. And when a solution does come, we won’t have run out of air. I do believe there is a post-pandemic reality with an effective vaccine and excellent therapeutics and a daily life that looks much like it did in 2019, or better. I am hoping for our own version of the Roaring Twenties. But I can’t know when that will begin with any certainty, and I want my business and my family to be intact when that day comes. So, I’m changing anything and everything I can to make it in today’s World. I am embracing the now with all that it is and all that it isn’t and making plans for this World, as it currently is. Here we are. This is what we have.

I am grateful to have received PPP monies in the second round of funding. I am grateful that I have some positive news for my salaried team who have been working twice as much for less than half their pre-COVID salaries for months. But PPP just isn’t enough. At Farmers Restaurant Group, we have seven independent restaurants, and each received the properly calculated amount of PPP funds based on a 2.5 times multiple of our monthly payroll. We didn’t use even a penny of the money when we first received it, because the rules made it a deal with the devil. We were grateful when legislators amended the rules to allow for realistic use by restaurants. Through May 31st (2.5 months of governmental restrictions), we lost $3M in cash flow for all seven restaurants combined. Merge that with pre-COVID accounts payable of $1.6M, and it means we’re staring at a total cash use/need of $4.6M. Sales tax deferrals + local taxes (including the baseball stadium tax, which has always been ridiculous, and now even more so) are also now due, requiring an average of $115K of additional cash from each of our seven restaurants. When COVID hit, we bet on ourselves by staying open, pivoting to a Market & Grocery while still offering our restaurant menus and leaning into our additional debts and struggles. It was insanely risky, but it has kept our business running. Even without PPP, we have rehired several hundred people. We knew we were burning through our cash on hand, but we decided it was a less risky path to create a new business model with a grocery than it would be to shut down and try to wait it out. Now, even as occupancy restrictions are being lifted with six-foot distancing remaining in place, we will only be able to accommodate between 35% to 40% of our usual seat count. Even as the restrictions lift, that doesn’t mean guests will be (or should be) rushing out to crowd into restaurants and bars. These restrictions and people’s continued social distancing lives will continue to severely affect our ability to generate profit indefinitely. Prior to COVID, restaurant margins were 10% or less with rent structures, wages rising, and taxes due. The PPP funds are the current and necessary lifeline of our business, but not a long enough lifeline to pull us all the way to shore. How are we using PPP? PPP is allowing us to have at least some sort of short-term conversation with our landlords. We now have enough cash flow for a few months as we work to re-open the restaurants and adapt to all of the increased expenses, new protocols, and strangely low sales volumes that are the new normal of our COVID world. Now that we have started to use the PPP funds, we’re raising salaries and (re-)creating jobs. This isn’t just a data point. This is about the day-to-day lives of individuals with bills to pay, families to support, and COVID world to navigate. If it was just about money, our team would’ve abandoned ship months ago, but it isn’t. It’s about heart, soul, mission, and community. Our PPP funding amounts for each of our seven restaurants ranged from $700K to $2.2M. As a function of payroll and occupancy, we will spend this money, per the exact PPP use-of-funds rules, in about four months. Between now and then, we need to not only break-even with 100% of our operating expenses, we need to be building a cash reserve so that we can continue to make payments on the accounts payable mountain that the COVID shutdown created. The total of all the money that we owe to vendors and landlords averages $428,000 for each of our seven restaurants – a total of over $3M. We must be able to generate positive cash flow to pay down these old costs, stay current with new costs, and create a path forward. As of today, our plan is working, albeit risky and wobbly. Each restaurant has made huge progress yet continues to lose between $8K and $27K per week. While that seems dire, it represents huge progress. Imagine that 10 weeks ago our sales were down 90% and our weekly cash loss was 10 times what we have cut it down to now. Next Steps Our top two goals are crystal clear: 1) Creating a safe environment for employees and customers 2) Getting each restaurant to break even or better We MUST accomplish these goals, or our restaurants will close. Unless a business like ours is profitable, it ceases to exist. We don’t have access to public market funds or a myriad of other sources of capital. We can’t operate at a loss for any sustained amount of time. So, while I’m grateful for PPP money, and I know every one of our employees who is receiving a paycheck and seeing their compensation increase towards pre-COVID levels is also grateful, it just isn’t enough funding. For a business to grow, let alone stabilize, it needs cash on hand to weather the storm, to fix the ovens, to pay for new uniforms, and to invest in training. For a business to grow in COVID world, it also needs money to cover PPE costs, new safety protocols, new jobs and roles including health screenings, along with substantially increased costs for paid sick leave. Now is the time to take the next steps, to go beyond the short-term crisis funding of PPP and create a massive fund of long-term, low-interest loans that independent restaurants can access in order for us all to reimagine our P&L’s, to make our work environments permanently safer, and to give us a shot at creating viable businesses for the long-term. Restaurants that were profitable in 2019 should be able to qualify for these loans. Why Do Independent Restaurants Matter? Restaurants are job creators and career ladder builders. Restaurants support a complex ecosystem from farmers and fishermen to HVAC suppliers and valet attendants. Restaurants pump rent into the real estate system and huge sums of taxes via sales and payroll taxes. Restaurants donate millions of meals to their local communities on a continuous basis all across the country. During COVID, restaurants have been essential, responding quickly to public need and supporting the overtaxed food supply chain when grocery shelves were often bare. Independent restaurants are a different species from corporately owned or publicly traded restaurants. We don’t have access to sophisticated funding sources and often, we operate with a different set of priorities. Independent restaurants are tied deeply to our communities and people. We represent thousands of unique threads in the diverse fabric of what creates America’s tastes, feelings, experiences, and economies. We are essential to the diversity and richness of our culture and the strength and resilience of our economy.

In mid-February 2020, I started paying attention. By March 1st, I saw the impending train wreck. From March 16th to now, I’ve learned and established some important lessons that are helping me, as a leader and a follower, as a partner and an individual. I’m not giving advice here. I’m simply sharing what is working for me on the daily in case it is helpful to you. 1) Each morning, I acknowledge the fear in order to do my best in the fight. I recognize it, and I call it out. This ensures it can’t rush up and take me by surprise during the day – or it helps prevent at least some of that. I see it, I name it, sometimes I say it out loud, and this helps me handle it. 2) Every single day, I’m paying double the amount of attention to the mental health and wellness of myself first, and then those around me – my family, my friends, my team. I start with the assumption that everyone is hurting to some degree, no matter how they share or convey it, and I go from there. 3) Each day, I make the choice to accept and embrace the unknown as motivation and opportunity. I was wrong before when I thought I could see over the horizon, confident it was clear. Just as I would be wrong today to think I can see over the horizon, and it is murky. Now is what we know, the future is what we create. In our company, we made the decision to stay in the fight, rather than shut down, believing restaurants are essential to serve our communities and wanting to keep our business alive. 4) I have blown up and replaced many of my pre-COVID world paradigms and ways of processing, rebuilding a construct that works in this rapidly changing and insanely steep, learning-curve environment. Now, I need less analysis, less debate, and more just do it. And then fast opinion-forming and decision-making. One of those decisions has been to pivot to a market and grocery, which we did in the 18 days from March 16th to April 4th. There was zero time or bandwidth for well-considered business plans and new business launch strategies. 5) The resiliency and value of a relationship can be difficult to measure in good times, yet it becomes insanely important to have and know in tough times. Now, it is more apparent than ever that I can’t do it alone, without my wife, my biz partner, my true friends, my team. Having a solid company culture in place, surrounding myself with good, dependable peeps, and fostering true connection and teamwork continues to serve me well during these Covid days, and frankly, is saving me and our company. My overall approach is clear: The destruction, the fear, and what feels like low odds of success don’t necessarily have to have any effect on my outcomes. It is on me to set aside all of the reasons I should fail – and there are many – and focus on controlling what I can control. This motivates me. The challenge, the must-dos: These are my fuel. They guide my focus and drive my actions.

Last week, I was invited to join The Aspen Institute discussion, Open to Good Jobs: Now is the Time to Improving Equity and Job Quality in Restaurant Work. Check it out below. Hosted by Maureen Conway, Vice President of The Aspen Institute and Executive Director of Economic Opportunities Program, other panelists included: Nikki M.G. Cole, National Policy Campaign Director, One Fair Wage; Saru Jayaraman, President, One Fair Wage and Director, Food Labor Research Center, University of California, Berkeley; and Mutale Kanyanta, Owner, LOCALS Food. The Aspen Institute indicated the goal of our conversation was to discuss "ideas for business practices, public policies, and partnerships, including an innovative public/private effort that’s addressing the interests that workers, small business owners, and communities all share in a thriving restaurant sector."

Restaurants have been my life for as long as I can remember. I am as proud of my work with our farmer-owned restaurant company as I am happy – honestly happy – to go to work every day. Part of this love stems from the bottom-line basics of hospitality: taking care of people. And part of this stems from the toughness and resilience of my biz partner and team, and others across this industry – a gritty, hard-working & caring, get-it-done, and be-creative-while-you-are-at-it culture. Maybe this comes with our territory. There’s never been true stability in the restaurant business. Yesterday’s success has never guaranteed a full dining room tomorrow. Success every day takes an amazing team, legit culture, and some amount of good luck. As difficult as it has always been, I knew what I signed up for. I knew it could wobble or struggle, and that was always part of the work. But I never really thought it could just evaporate in an instant. But, evaporate it did. In our company, we went from over 1,000 employees to under 100; from serving 50,000 diners a week across seven restaurants, to serving 2,500 diners per week at their car or their doorstep. It was decision time. Do we limp along, wounded and without a real business model burning cash until we’re unable to continue to operate? Do we just close? As I wrote in an earlier post, we quite quickly decided no, we weren’t going to go down either of those paths. We wanted to stay in the fight. But we knew that to do so, we needed to create a new company, a new model, a new recipe – using all our ingredients: (1) amazing people with heart, soul, and expertise; (2) passionate guests and communities who believed in our farmer-owned business and scratch-made approach to dining; (3) exceptional partners and suppliers who wanted to help us stay open; and (4) a very clear fight or flight response that screamed “FIGHT.” From March 17th to April 4th, we took those ingredients and created a new recipe, adding a little of this, a lot of that, mixing and blending, shaping and cooking, and believing that we could make something great... ... and Founding Farmers morphed into Founding Farmers Market & Grocery. We are still operating our restaurants, only To Go for the moment, but now we’re much more. Now we are five markets in DC, MD, VA, and PA, each with over 500 items (and growing!) including chef-prepared foods, freshly baked breads and pastries, a butcher & deli, fruits & veggies, house-churned ice cream, beer, wine, bottle craft cocktails, spirits, CBD and Apothekary plant-based medicine, and household essentials like toilet paper and even face masks. We are meeting our customers where they are… and right now, that means in their car or at their front door, contact-free. We are doing it as safely as we can with workplace safety paramount. As needs evolved, so have we. As our customers evolve, we evolve with them. But we are still the same people, adapting to our changing world, working even harder than usual to serve our customers and communities, while trying our best to save our company. Yes, we had to lay off 1,100 people, but now, forty-four days later, we’ve rehired 275 and counting. I can’t even find the words to describe the incredible efforts of my team, so I’ll settle for a simple, resounding, heartfelt Thank You & Bravo. Of course, when our guests and customers are ready for us to meet them at the table in our dining room, or at our bar, we’ll be thrilled to be right there, providing our style of hospitality, culinary and beverage delight, and just good old-fashioned service. In the meantime, we’re also delighted to provide your groceries.

Since very early in my career, I have always believed that in my restaurants – where my friends eat, where my children eat, where my team eats – we had to be vigilant in our health and safety practices if we were to provide true hospitality. Workplace safety is a paramount obligation in this industry. It has to be. The public trusts the meals they eat in restaurants are safe to consume. Employees deserve an environment that is safe for them physically, mentally, and spiritually. So, while it might look like I built a career on hospitality, I really built my career on caring about people. For me and my business partner, Mike V., caring for people and hospitality are inseparable. As COVID-19 hit our area and intensifies daily, we have decided to continue serving our guests and communities, adapting as needed to the changing recommendations and regulations from health and government officials. We already had a company culture and commitment to health and safety, with extensive protocols (in English and Spanish) and two full time health & safety employees. Our operational and training systems, as well as talented and driven team, also gave us a unique capacity to adjust and evolve, so much so that we are now operating 4, soon to be 5, online grocery stores in addition to our restaurants. Serving Our People, Our Customers, Our Communities We believed then and now that what we are doing is vital for our people, our guests, and our communities. Foodservice providers are essential infrastructure. Communities need food. Grocery stores can’t do it alone if restaurants aren’t meeting some percentage of the demand. So here we are, faced with the decision to continue to provide food and to figure out how to do it as safely as possible. We made a commitment to give free daily family meals for everyone still working and those we had to lay off. We know in some cases we are the only source of food for folks who aren’t earning and aren’t able to get unemployment funds. We believe that to have jobs and benefits in the long-term, we need to continue to have a company operating in the short-term. With a potential deep recession or depression coming, we know jobs are a literal lifeline. The Work & the Worry Throughout my career, I’ve taught myself to focus on the work not the worry. I’ve always found that diligent planning followed by intense implementation allows me to channel my thoughts about what I can control rather than being consumed by the worry of what I can’t. So, we have been planning and grinding since the beginning of March, and the struggle is real. We have supply chain issues daily with the food, staples, and essentials – just like everyone who can’t find toilet paper and flour. Luckily, we have built vital relationships with our suppliers and farmers to get what our customers need and are able to continue to trace where our food comes from. We have new operational challenges, as we try to maintain social distancing measures, wear our PPE, and provide contact-free service. Of course there are hiccups as we strive to channel our hospitality to the curbside or your front door, in masks and gloves. In a matter of weeks, we are now grocers, serving our customers in an entirely new way, and every day, we are learning and working, adapting and staying in the fight. We have always known it was a matter of when, not if, a team member, customer, friend, or member of my family would test positive. In our restaurants, we’ve been preparing for that inevitability. We put proactive protocols in place with Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for the staff, virus-killing fogging, and employee screening. We continually seek advice from experts in the medical community and use the CDC as a resource, along with our local health departments. We have internal written processes and ensure that we have team members focused on determining what to do proactively and reactively. We’ve been diligent to keep anyone with symptoms out of work and we’ve encouraged employees to get tested. Now that we've received our first positive test result, we moved immediately to implement our response plan. This is now the reality of every workplace that operates safely in this “new” world. I don’t like this reality, or many of the choices we have to make. On March 16th, we laid off 1,100 team members. That was awful. I still get a pit in my stomach just typing the words. As of today, we’ve re-hired 265 employees. We’ve donated thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of meals, and we now make hand sanitizer in our distillery. We’ve fed health care workers and first responders and those who can’t afford or access fresh food. This is what I constantly remind myself. We have a plan. We have a mission. We are working and making a difference. We have to lean into the worry and focus on the plan. Our plan is about caring for people. It is about safety and the food supply. People need food, people need jobs, and people deserve to trust what they eat, and feel safe in the place they produce it. I can’t stop the virus. On our own, we fail. But together, we can make progress. With my partner, with our team, we can slow the virus. We can serve our communities by providing contact-free provisions to help people #stayhome, practice social distancing, and stay safe. We can help our people with our internal protocols and by magnifying our culture of workplace safety. When we have people with symptoms, we can pay them to stay home while they recover. We can create jobs, serve food safely, and do our part in the community. Help Needed Even with the extensive efforts we are taking (including efforts that are beyond reach for many establishments), this can’t be left only to us. We need help from the Government. We need more testing, rapid testing, with availability to everyone who wants a test. We need antibody testing, so people can know if they already have the antibodies that may prevent additional infection. We need contact tracing and effective quarantining. We need scientists, emergency response experts, and medical professionals setting the direction. We need access to and funding for PPE, which should be covered by the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). I’ve become good at navigating the supply chain from China, and in the US, to ensure my team has gloves, masks, and shields – but it shouldn’t be this difficult or this expensive. My team is amazing. My team is doing their part. We are staying in the fight to feed and serve. We are trying to focus on the work, not the worry. We want to model how to get through this until we can get to a more normal time when restaurants can open. Together, with transparency, support, and leadership, I know we can get there. Our work may be more difficult than ever. But it is more important than ever. Also check out: A Restaurant Question: #ShutUsDown or #StayInTheFight?

As a member of society, a parent, and a restaurateur, I am sitting smack dab in the center of this question: Should restaurants be shut down or should they continue to be part of essential infrastructure and allowed to operate for take-out and delivery? So many questions in our Brave New COVID World have answers that don’t give us fully what we want. We are living in a time when we must choose solutions that are less bad, where the positive outweighs the negative. It would be false and shortsighted to say the safest thing is to shut down all restaurants. Yes, we can, and must, flatten the curve. I support social distancing, quarantines, and shutting down non-essentials. I agree grocery stores should be pacing their shoppers to avoid crowds, and I appreciate companies like OpenTable for rapidly created new software to do that for diners. I also agree UPS and FedEx drivers should keep working, as safely as possible—as should shelf stockers, warehouse workers, food processing plant workers, pharmacy employees, bankers, trash collectors, and many more who keep vital elements of society flowing and support the rest of us staying home as much as we can. I also believe restaurants need to continue to feed us. At the simplest level, if restaurants do not play a role in feeding first responders, health care workers, and everyone who supports them, who will? But restaurants have another vital role. All foodservice providers, which is what restaurants are or can become, are essential to all of us right now. We need to continue to provide food and other necessities to our communities. If we eliminate the food and goods supply chain that restaurants have access to, there won’t be enough availability of food and goods in grocery stores. Let me repeat this: without the restaurant supply chain, the grocery supply chain becomes further overwhelmed, even more crowded and under-supplied than it already is, both on store shelves and what is available for delivery. And this is with many, but not all, restaurants continuing to provide take-out and delivery. In our restaurant supply chain, we have access to products and packaging that the grocery stores do not or cannot use. What can a grocery store do with a 50 pound bag of flour, a box of 144 eggs on flats, or a giant box of individually wrapped toilet paper rolls? Not much. They need their products in retail packages with bar codes for scanning. But a restaurant turned retailer? We can give toilet paper rolls away with orders. We can create new, innovative ways to package and deliver food and necessities to our communities, all the while creating jobs, providing charity, and doing our part to keep society fed and healthy. Our communities include those who are physically able to access food, and those who are not; those who can currently pay for food, and those who cannot. Restaurants are collaborating with one another, leaning on existing relationships and building new ones to feed laid-off employees, and joining forces to create charitable systems that bring in donations and push out food to those who cannot afford it. So yes, let’s flatten the curve. We must. But please stop the narrowly focused “shut us down” messaging and thinking, whether you are inside or outside of the restaurant industry. It really fails to see the whole picture. We have to accept we have a dilemma where either road we take can be indicted with a narrow view. Still, our best path right now is to climb up to the high road, eyes wide open, safety gear and systems in continual check, and do everything we can to care for our employees and our communities. The government on its own cannot save us. I wish advocacy and government programs would be a comprehensive solution if every restaurant closed, but that is simply not realistic. We need our restaurants to support our food system. The restaurant industry is full of intensely hard-working, passionate, and entrepreneurial teams. We must evolve and innovate at a faster pace than once thought possible. We are making a difference in our communities now, providing food for so many, and keeping spirits up during these house-bound times. We know our work is essential to our communities. We want to stay in the fight.

I want to be on a team. I want a squad. A posse. A crew. I want to be part of a unit on a mission that can only be accomplished together. I believe together is far better than apart, than solo. I’ve always been like this. I could never understand taking a bike ride alone, going for a walk alone, or taking runs on the ski slope alone. I see that other people often love being alone. They find true joy from a solo, amazing ski run in delicious powder, and it can fill their cup. I see that and think, “What’s the point? Ski or walk alone? Why?” I could just stay still and end up in the same place. A walk, alone, simply reinforces for me that I’m alone. I don’t want to be alone. I want to be together. (It helps that I’m certain my dog, and every dog I’ve ever had, is fluent in English, so my squad doesn’t have to be all humans, but it does need beating hearts.) Why am I so stuck on togetherness? It starts with this: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” This ancient, unattributed proverb represents my deepest belief. With an alleged source somewhere in Africa,I’m not trying to grab the elusive mantle of African proverbs to boost myself. But I personally know this proverb to be true. For me. And I can’t say it any better than this. Do I ever need a moment to myself? Sure. A moment. A few minutes. That’s all I need. Don’t mistake my togetherness preference for being happy around everyone. No, if I’m around the wrong people, people with whom I can’t form a team, then ugh, get me outta there. So I’m not that guy who runs around doling out hugs to everyone, chatting up randoms, and extracting satisfaction from almost any interaction. Just the opposite. I’m intensely committed to spending my time with the humans (or other creatures) who contribute to making me feel good, which includes allowing me to participate in helping them feel good. I’m intensely committed to working with others to make something great, better, new, interesting. Sometimes together includes tough conversations, intense accountability, feelings of failure, and falling short. But it also always includes Being Together, being with someone else, doing something together. I believe in the power of a posse and think a great team can achieve so much more than a single, alone person can. Yet, I also know it is not the only way, nor the best way for everyone. Clearly, many people are actually better, happier, more inspired and productive alone. My message here is simple: Know what YOU need and get it. If you are like me and together time is your jam, then build your team, carefully grow and tend your crew. If alone time is what fills your cup, then create, actually demand, that alone time. If there is someone or something that is sapping your energy when you are around them, or even not around them, then damn it, make the change, learn the polite but hardcore “no” and create a world that fulfills you without all the excess that doesn’t. Map out your life and your schedule and how you spend your time on your terms. If you are getting what you need and you’ve cut out, edited out, or deleted the useless stuff, then bravo, keep going. Keep those shields up with all the good stuff inside the perimeter. Thanks for reading. Go YOUR way.

What word is included in almost every job description and job posting, yet rarely defined? The vague descriptor that everyone requires but can’t effectively talk about, let alone teach… LEADER. The first definition in dictionary.com is “a person or thing that leads.” There is also the oft quoted: “a leader is someone who has followers.” Ugh, neither definition seems helpful. It seems sensible that if a skill is required, and you accept it as part of your job description, you should be crystal clear on what it means and what is required of you. Right? Whether you are the one writing the job description or the one applying for the job, shouldn’t you hold yourself to the standard of being able to define everything you’re requiring or agreeing to? I’ve been writing, and re-writing, my own definition of “leader” since early in my career. It has evolved, just as I have, and will likely continue to evolve. Today, my definition is: A leader is a mirror in which your team is inspired to look. In this mirror, they learn to see everything they need to make progress on their own journey towards greatness. The mirror, always crystal clear, delivers love in all its forms; tough, fair, caring. The source of that love is the leader's personal commitment to excellence, combined with the knowledge that winning alone is not winning at all. Ponder a few more definitions: “Lead now—from wherever you are. …If you’re not a leader on the bench, don’t call yourself a leader on the field. You’re either a leader everywhere or nowhere… Leader is not a title that the world gives to you—it’s an offering that you give to the world.” -- Abby Wambach, U.S. Soccer Olympic Gold Medalist & Author “If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.” -- John Quincy Adams “A sign of a good leader is not how many followers you have, but how many leaders you create.” -- Mahatma Gandhi “Ultimately, leadership is not about glorious crowning acts. It's about keeping your team focused on a goal and motivated to do their best to achieve it, especially when the stakes are high and the consequences really matter. It is about laying the groundwork for others' success, and then standing back and letting them shine.” -- Chris Hadfield, Canadian Astronaut “Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people, based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good.” -- Joanne B. Ciulla, Author, Professor & Director of the Institute for Ethical Leadership, Rutgers University School of Business Got your own definition? Got a fave from someone else? Write ‘em down and share them with me.

After posting my blog, 9 Steps to Making Your Smart Phone Your Tool... Not the Other Way Around, I got a lot of questions about HOW to do this with your kids and family. Here’s my short list for families on how to start managing phone use at home: 1. Awareness is always the best first step. Learn precisely how much everyone is currently using their phones by setting up automatic screen time tracking for everyone in your family. Use iPhone Screen Time, Android’s Dashboard, or similar app. 2. Meet regularly to review screen time. Make conversation around, “How much time you were on Snapchat?” or other apps/social media platforms. With multiple kids, create a contest to see who has the least. Include yourself, although you might have to compare their Snapchat screen time to another app you frequently use. 3. Set automatic time limits/reminders for particular apps tailored to each person’s screen time; agree on “downtime” for when the phone turns into a brick at night. 4. Adjust all of your notification settings together. Turn off ALL notifications from ALL apps, including banner notifications. Plan to live with it like this for a week. Meet again, and if desired, consciously choose one or two apps to allow notifications. But know why you want those notifications. To learn more about why you want to turn off your notifications, check out my other blog, Who’s the Tool? You or Your Smartphone, and order a copy of Catherine Price's How to Break Up with Your Phone. 5. Create a centralized charging station in the kitchen or wherever your family hangs out. Put phones there at night. Every night. And periodically throughout the day. By getting the phone (and smartwatch) physically away from your body, you’ll have a fighting chance to not respond to every unconscious impulse to check it, touch it, engage with it. 6. Have a “NO phones in bedrooms” rule for everyone (unless you need to keep your phone nearby for emergencies). This means you need to go back to old-school alarm clocks. Spend a few bucks on Amazon and get an alarm clock for every member of your family. You’ll love that you made this investment. 7. Last rule: No phones when watching TV. Pick ONE screen at a time. That’s it. Phones go back to your family’s central charging station (or what I like to call, “phone jail”). Not in anyone’s pocket. Not visible on the coffee table. Not nestled coyly between couch cushions. Try these 7 steps. I am fairly certain you will be psyched. But let me know how it goes. Other blogs possibly of interest: A Letter to Young Men Creating Your Own Personal Productivity Map

Who doesn’t love their bedroom? I know I do. That feeling of sinking into my bed, getting under the covers, letting the day wash away, knowing I have another shot at a good day tomorrow. If you love your bedroom as a lovely escape, an erogenous zone, and/or simply a safe place for some much-needed rest, it seems odd to let something ruin it. Recently someone asked me if I keep my cellphone with me at night. I presume it’s because I’ve got a bit of a reputation for obsessing about focus, attention, and intentionality. My answer is yes, with a giant caveat. I now allow my cellphone in my bedroom because I know I can trust myself to control my cellphone use. I have built very clear boundaries about cellphone use in various parts of my life (and the lives of my children) that include no web surfing, social media, or YouTube watching in bed at night, nor first thing in the morning. At this point, I know I can trust myself to follow those rules. At the same time, I know a lot of people who can’t (in part because I was one of them), who know they will use their phone if it is next to them, who won’t be able to resist one last swipety-swipe down the screen liking everything before they turn out the light. They need different boundaries, such as don’t put your cellphone in your bedroom (which was where this journey began for me). Why? The simple answer is: Because it isn’t good for you. There is a ton of research on why, from a Harvard study on the blue light powering our screens and its impact on melatonin and natural sleep cycles preventing a good night’s rest to the dopamine hit you get with each like so you keep checking back for more to the simple problem that it keeps you from unplugging from work or other life worries and drama to the many things we don’t yet know about the impact that these incredibly powerful and constantly-used devices have on our bodies and minds. I think about the addictive nature of cellphones. I use my relationship with alcohol as a model. As a functioning adult, I don’t wake up and have three glasses of wine with breakfast before work, even though I could. I know this would be bad for me, for my work, for my family, and beyond. I have rules for myself, and I follow them. We all know there are millions of advertising dollars being spent to feed all of us different takes on “drink wine” and “drink more wine” and “drink some wine right now” and “have a Bloody Mary since it’s morning.” I know it is everywhere I turn. Similarly, there are millions, if not billions, of dollars being spent by the brightest minds out there to encourage all of us to use our cellphones for everything. They seem to have an endless capacity to make our lives easier, more organized, more entertained, and to keep us more connected to other people’s devices. But notice it’s more about device to device or device to content connection than it is about actual human connection. Of course, millions of dollars are also being spent to make sure I don’t put down my phone, and neither do you or your children. Technology companies are working hard to create and maintain an addictive relationship between people and their smartphones, to keep us checking back all day long, for many upwards of hundreds of times a day. Some of this is maintained through social FOMO (Fear of Missing Out), which can be translated to phones to Nomophobia, meaning NO MObile PHOne phobia. One 2015 study of 100+ Midwestern undergrads found that cellphone separation had significant negative impact on cognition and emotion. If you could only read one article on how Silicon Valley is deliberately addicting all of us to our phones, check out “The Binge Breaker” in The Atlantic, featuring Tristan Harris, who once worked for Google. Harris says, “That itch to glance at our phone is a natural reaction to apps and websites engineered to get us scrolling as frequently as possible. The attention economy, which showers profits on companies that seize our focus, has kicked off what Harris calls a ‘race to the bottom of the brain stem. You could say that it’s my responsibility to exert self-control when it comes to digital usage,’ he explains, ‘but that’s not acknowledging that there’s a thousand people on the other side of the screen whose job is to break down whatever responsibility I can maintain.’ In short, we’ve lost control of our relationship with technology because technology has become better at controlling us.” Forgive me for being dramatic, but this is a battle. And, to have any chance of winning, the first step needs to be an awareness it’s occurring. I don’t know about you, but I know I’m not equipped by default to face off against some of the brightest minds in the world and piles of corporate dollars devoted to R&D to understand how to manipulate my human behavior and my brain chemistry as it relates to my now essential smartphone. The corporations are doing their job – maxing out their share price by developing customer addiction. Rest assured, they are not concerned about any other impacts. I can hear the defense now: “Smartphones don’t kill people in car accidents, people (using smartphones) kill people.” This argument has baffled me with regard to guns, just as it will with smartphones. In this battle, it’s me, you, our kids, and other individuals who need to defend ourselves. Am I saying smartphones are the new cigarettes? No, not exactly, but kinda. Because while cigarettes have zero value and smartphones have immense value, I’m deeply concerned about brain re-wiring taking place and the potential degradation of the human ability to focus. We need to understand and control the downside as we look to capitalize on the upside. So, why would I spend my last waking moments and my first waking moments of the day in front of a device that prevents a good night’s rest, alters my brain chemistry and my mind’s reward systems, and is designed to get me hooked and sell me stuff? Why wouldn’t I limit the number of my precious 168 weekly hours I spend on my device? As I tell my team and my students: If I don’t manage my cellphone use, then I am just ceding control of my mind to others while they stuff their pockets with money. If I don’t pay attention and set effective rules for myself (just like no drinking wine before work), and if I don’t follow those rules, I am allowing myself to be victimized. This is a serious addiction that we're still just beginning to understand, and its consequences may run parallel, or even far deeper, than cigarettes and booze. So, what to do about it? First, if you know you are totally addicted to your phone or if you aren’t sure but you check it 150 times a day, seeking the thumbs ups and counting your likes, STOP. Seriously. Save yourself. Get real. Recognize what’s happening. You are a pawn in someone else’s big game. Come up with a plan, a personal system, to manage your smartphone use. Make your smartphone your tool, not the other way around. And then, let’s start winning this battle. UPDATE: 1) If you have read this far, read Catherine Price's How to Break Up with Your Phone. 2) Learn how to use screen time and downtime on your iPhone, or Android dashboard. 3) Check out my other blogs, Nine Steps to Making Your Smartphone Your Tool… Not the Other Way Around and Seven Steps for Families to Manage Smartphones.