Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / Episode 46: Denyelle Bruno, President & CEO Tender Greens
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: What's shaken.
- 0:02Speaker 2: You are listening to episode forty six of Hurdle, a
- 0:06Speaker 2: podcast that talks to everyone from entrepreneurs to CEOs and
- 0:09Speaker 2: athletes about how they got through tough times hurdles of
- 0:12Speaker 2: sorts by leaning into wellness. Emily Abadi here coming at
- 0:16Speaker 2: you with some fire today from Danielle Bruno. She's the
- 0:20Speaker 2: president and CEO of tender Greens, a California based fast
- 0:24Speaker 2: casual chain that serves the most delicious, seasonal, responsibly sourced foods.
- 0:30Speaker 2: I'm personally amped because the first of many tender Greens
- 0:33Speaker 2: locations opened here in New York City not too long ago,
- 0:35Speaker 2: near Union Square. I actually just walked by where their
- 0:39Speaker 2: other location is going to be, by Bryant Park. Trust me,
- 0:43Speaker 2: their seared Mediterranean steak salad is to die for. Today's
- 0:48Speaker 2: episode is brought to you by Jbird. Different runs have
- 0:52Speaker 2: different vibes when it comes to if I'm listening to
- 0:54Speaker 2: a hype up playlist or my favorite podcasts, But regardless,
- 0:57Speaker 2: good headphones that make all the difference. Right now, my
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- 1:15Speaker 3: Again.
- 1:15Speaker 2: That's Jaybirdsport dot Com. Use the code Hurdle for twenty
- 1:20Speaker 2: percent off a pair of their new headphones. This episode's
- 1:24Speaker 2: also brought to you by Athleticgreens. You know when you
- 1:27Speaker 2: reach for a green juice and it just tastes like
- 1:29Speaker 2: you're drinking grass.
- 1:31Speaker 1: Yeah, this is nothing like that.
- 1:34Speaker 2: Athleticgreens tastes refreshing and contains twelve servings of fruits and vegetables,
- 1:39Speaker 2: giving me the boost I need to start every day
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- 2:02Speaker 1: Now let's talk about Danielle. Danielle is one of the.
- 2:05Speaker 2: Most laid back CEOs I've had the chance of talking
- 2:08Speaker 2: to since starting the pod, and.
- 2:10Speaker 1: In her words, she tells me in today's episode.
- 2:12Speaker 2: That she was born to stand out, that California native
- 2:16Speaker 2: knew from a young age a few things, one that
- 2:19Speaker 2: she was a lesbian and two that she had a
- 2:22Speaker 2: passion for leadership, which is no wonder why her resume
- 2:26Speaker 2: is loaded with past gigs at big brands like Pete's
- 2:28Speaker 2: Coffee and Tea, Macy's Apple and Dry Bar. Today, she
- 2:33Speaker 2: talks about owning her quote executive presence, something that was
- 2:37Speaker 2: criticized heavily throughout her rise to the top, and we
- 2:40Speaker 2: talk about the aha moment that happened when she was
- 2:42Speaker 2: running around a lake in Oakland that changed her life
- 2:45Speaker 2: forever for the better. If you're hunting for takeaways, there
- 2:49Speaker 2: are plenty here. One of my favorite quotes from today's episodes,
- 2:53Speaker 2: she says, it's the things that make you stand out
- 2:56Speaker 2: that make you successful, not the things that make you
- 2:59Speaker 2: fit in.
- 3:01Speaker 1: Yeah, this one's a jam I promise.
- 3:03Speaker 2: Hit me up at Hurdle Podcast, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.
- 3:06Speaker 1: Shout out to all of you.
- 3:07Speaker 2: Hurdle's Instagram is now at three thousand followers strong and growing.
- 3:12Speaker 2: Also shout out to Laura who emailed me this week
- 3:14Speaker 2: over at Emily at Hurdle dot us looking for some
- 3:17Speaker 2: advice and tips for an anxious first time marathon or girl,
- 3:21Speaker 2: I have been there, I know how you feel. For
- 3:24Speaker 2: first timers, all I can say is just enjoy the process.
- 3:27Speaker 2: It's a big accomplishment and getting to the start is
- 3:30Speaker 2: major within itself. Crossing the finish line also big, and
- 3:34Speaker 2: it doesn't matter how long it takes you. All you
- 3:37Speaker 2: need to know is that when you get there, it's
- 3:39Speaker 2: a reminder that with dedication and hard work.
- 3:42Speaker 1: You can do anything you set your mind to.
- 3:44Speaker 2: On that note, exciting news, hurdlers, I'm going to be
- 3:47Speaker 2: launching a ten minute bonus episode once weekly, each of
- 3:50Speaker 2: which will focus in on a topic that you guys
- 3:52Speaker 2: are reaching out to me with questions about, whether that's
- 3:55Speaker 2: tips for success on how to be a morning person,
- 3:57Speaker 2: or stick to an exercise routine, or even become your
- 4:00Speaker 2: own boss, which in my case took us solid two
- 4:02Speaker 2: years to say. I feel like I'm not totally screwing
- 4:05Speaker 2: up this whole thing anyway. Some days I'll even have
- 4:08Speaker 2: a little help on these hurdle moment blips from guests
- 4:10Speaker 2: and friends and so on. It's all a little experimental
- 4:13Speaker 2: right now. So it's coming soon, and i'd love your
- 4:16Speaker 2: feedback on what you want to hear about so please
- 4:18Speaker 2: send me your DMS, send me emails, let me know
- 4:22Speaker 2: how I can help you. Again, my email it's Emily
- 4:25Speaker 2: at hurdle dot us and I think that's it. As
- 4:28Speaker 2: always rate review in the iTunes store. I really appreciate
- 4:31Speaker 2: your feedback. And with that, let's get to hurdling.
- 4:42Speaker 1: Today.
- 4:43Speaker 2: I'm sitting here with Danielle Bruno. She's the president and
- 4:45Speaker 2: CEO of tender Greens.
- 4:47Speaker 1: Hey, Hi, how you doing great? Great?
- 4:50Speaker 2: Always a good thing. Even though it's raining and the
- 4:52Speaker 2: teachers are on strike in La Yep, We're gonna deal
- 4:56Speaker 2: with it.
- 4:56Speaker 3: We're gonna deal with it.
- 4:57Speaker 2: Really excited to be here because I feel like tender
- 5:00Speaker 2: Greens just opened in New York City. I want to
- 5:02Speaker 2: talk to my audience a little bit about the company
- 5:05Speaker 2: because there are twenty nine locations in three states, so it's.
- 5:09Speaker 1: Not everywhere yet, not yet, So talk to me about
- 5:11Speaker 1: what tender Greens is.
- 5:13Speaker 3: So tender Greens is probably would be considered in the
- 5:17Speaker 3: fast casual category, but tender Greens really is the kind
- 5:20Speaker 3: of place where you get a five star meal for
- 5:22Speaker 3: a three star price. We source all of our food
- 5:25Speaker 3: from the best possible sources. We have executive chefs in
- 5:29Speaker 3: every location, and we make food from scratch daily, so
- 5:34Speaker 3: you're really getting a gourmet meal for the price of
- 5:37Speaker 3: what you would pay going to I won't name any
- 5:41Speaker 3: other places, but you know, I mean you can get
- 5:42Speaker 3: an amazing steak plate with mashed potatoes and some seasonal
- 5:46Speaker 3: greens for you know, less than fifteen dollars.
- 5:48Speaker 2: Well that was that was going to be my next question,
- 5:50Speaker 2: So like, what kind of food are you getting when
- 5:52Speaker 2: you walk in the door.
- 5:52Speaker 3: Well, we're called tender greens, but our best seller is
- 5:54Speaker 3: a steak plate, so there's some Sometimes there's a little
- 5:58Speaker 3: bit of a naming challenge as a result, but we
- 6:01Speaker 3: do sell salads like people expect, but we also sell
- 6:04Speaker 3: a lot of fish. We sell steak chicken. We saw
- 6:08Speaker 3: an amazing fried chicken sandwich. But all of it is
- 6:13Speaker 3: really based on a culinary background, so I would say
- 6:17Speaker 3: it's the best version of anything out there.
- 6:19Speaker 2: So talk to me a little bit about your background.
- 6:21Speaker 2: Do you have a background in food? I don't, Okay, I.
- 6:24Speaker 3: Don't have a background in food.
- 6:25Speaker 1: Where are you from?
- 6:25Speaker 3: I have a background in eating. I'm perfect good at that. Yeah,
- 6:28Speaker 3: I do that for a while. My background is really
- 6:31Speaker 3: so the through line is My background's in people. So
- 6:36Speaker 3: I love the consumer that eats in our space, and
- 6:41Speaker 3: I love the kind of employee that's drawn to this
- 6:43Speaker 3: kind of a business. So I've worked at a lot
- 6:45Speaker 3: of different kinds of consumer companies that are all best
- 6:47Speaker 3: in class and what they do. Prior to coming to
- 6:49Speaker 3: tender Greens, I was actually a dry bar where I
- 6:51Speaker 3: was president of retail there and I was there for
- 6:53Speaker 3: about three and a half years and opened I think
- 6:55Speaker 3: seventy locations with them.
- 6:57Speaker 1: Wow.
- 6:57Speaker 3: Part of that I was at Pizza Coffee, and I
- 7:00Speaker 3: held a variety of jobs. The last I think was
- 7:03Speaker 3: vice president of retail Strategy. And I've worked in a
- 7:07Speaker 3: few other places, probably most notably I opened the first
- 7:10Speaker 3: Apple retail stores Oh Wow. So I was one of
- 7:13Speaker 3: the seven people hired to be part of the team
- 7:15Speaker 3: and hired by Ron Johnson to create that project. And
- 7:18Speaker 3: I was there for about five years and that was fascinating.
- 7:21Speaker 3: So the thing I always say is the same woman
- 7:24Speaker 3: who would eat at tender Greens would get a blowout,
- 7:27Speaker 3: would you know, drink Pize coffee, woul buy an Apple computer.
- 7:30Speaker 3: So there is a lane, and there is a through line,
- 7:32Speaker 3: but it's not in the restaurant industry.
- 7:34Speaker 2: Can you give me like a snippet of insight into
- 7:37Speaker 2: what a VP of retail strategy or like what that like,
- 7:42Speaker 2: like what kind of things that person does?
- 7:44Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean it varies a little bit depending on
- 7:46Speaker 3: the company and the company size, but broadly speaking, it's
- 7:49Speaker 3: everything from deciding where the location should be so real
- 7:53Speaker 3: estate often, the design and the flow of the business,
- 7:58Speaker 3: the marketing strategy always be the operations of the business,
- 8:02Speaker 3: so that's the whole customer journey, the deployment for the team.
- 8:06Speaker 3: It can also include things like training and other HR functions,
- 8:11Speaker 3: but broadly speaking, it's everything from soup to nuts. When
- 8:14Speaker 3: a customer walks into the door to get whatever product
- 8:17Speaker 3: they're getting, and the point they leave. It's basically the
- 8:19Speaker 3: person who's thinking about the journey the whole way and
- 8:22Speaker 3: imagining how to create a strategy to make that improve
- 8:25Speaker 3: over the course of time.
- 8:27Speaker 2: When you were starting out in this and just like
- 8:30Speaker 2: on your career path, did you know that there was
- 8:32Speaker 2: a person that was in charge of all those things?
- 8:34Speaker 3: No? God, no, no, And I definitely didn't want to
- 8:36Speaker 3: be in retail, right. No. I started out my career
- 8:40Speaker 3: at Macy's West and Union Square in San Francisco.
- 8:42Speaker 1: And you're from California.
- 8:44Speaker 3: From California, So I started in Macy's West in Union Square,
- 8:48Speaker 3: and I thought, Okay, well, this is a great job
- 8:50Speaker 3: to have after college, and it'll be fun and it'll
- 8:52Speaker 3: buy me time to figure out what I want to do.
- 8:54Speaker 3: And I ended up being good at it, and good
- 8:57Speaker 3: at it in ways that we're different than the reasons
- 9:00Speaker 3: other people were good at it, which I can elaborate on,
- 9:02Speaker 3: but basically, in my time there, I learned that I
- 9:06Speaker 3: had sort of a unique management style that really worked
- 9:08Speaker 3: for this industry. And it was because of that style
- 9:10Speaker 3: that ended up being recruited to Apple to be part
- 9:12Speaker 3: of that team. So, you know, being part of the
- 9:15Speaker 3: Apple team, I had the opportunity to build the stores,
- 9:18Speaker 3: build the policies, the systems that you know, work on
- 9:21Speaker 3: every single part of it, and that sort of solidified
- 9:24Speaker 3: my future in retail.
- 9:25Speaker 1: I've got to ask you, like, what was so unique?
- 9:28Speaker 3: What was so unique? Well, there's a few things that
- 9:30Speaker 3: were unique about it. One is it was basically a
- 9:33Speaker 3: you know, two billion dollars startups, So we had the
- 9:35Speaker 3: opportunity to do everything from scratch. You know, usually when
- 9:38Speaker 3: you come into a retail organization, there's all kinds of
- 9:42Speaker 3: legacy stuff that you have to deal with, and many
- 9:44Speaker 3: times I say, well, if I've been here when that
- 9:45Speaker 3: decision was made, I would have done that differently. And
- 9:47Speaker 3: whether it's around the design or the technology or the
- 9:50Speaker 3: training program, there's always something that could be better, could
- 9:53Speaker 3: be upgraded, that's hard to change. This was an opportunity
- 9:56Speaker 3: to start from scratch with a lot of money behind
- 9:58Speaker 3: us and a company name behind us into philosophy that
- 10:01Speaker 3: really allowed us to build what, you know, I think
- 10:04Speaker 3: is arguably the best retail concept in the world, and
- 10:08Speaker 3: that was because you know, Apple did stand for something.
- 10:11Speaker 3: It's hard to remember back then because it's been a
- 10:14Speaker 3: while now, but you know, Apple wasn't an household name.
- 10:16Speaker 3: When I started at Apple, we had four and a
- 10:20Speaker 3: half percent market penetration and a lot of people didn't
- 10:23Speaker 3: know who Apple was outside of California. So growing the
- 10:26Speaker 3: Apple business through retail was a huge bet. It paid off,
- 10:30Speaker 3: but it wasn't a guaranteed success. But luckily, because we
- 10:33Speaker 3: had the funds and the support behind us, we were
- 10:35Speaker 3: able to create an amazing experience and similar to Starbucks,
- 10:39Speaker 3: I think it was one of the few places that
- 10:41Speaker 3: actually created a gathering space for like minded people, and
- 10:45Speaker 3: that's not something that ever had been considered in the
- 10:47Speaker 3: world of technology before.
- 10:49Speaker 1: Right.
- 10:49Speaker 2: Wow, You've had a pretty awesome seed at the table
- 10:52Speaker 2: on a lot of these really prominent companies, and I
- 10:54Speaker 2: think to hold these positions it takes.
- 10:57Speaker 1: A lot of confidence. Have you always considered yourself to
- 10:59Speaker 1: be a confident in person?
- 11:01Speaker 3: I have? Yeah, Actually, yeah, it's it's I have no
- 11:05Speaker 3: good reason for it. I really was confident as a kid,
- 11:09Speaker 3: despite you know, being in situations where I probably should
- 11:14Speaker 3: have been a little bit more humble. I've just always
- 11:15Speaker 3: been confident. I can't say I've had, you know, a
- 11:18Speaker 3: lot of you know, tons of a ton of other
- 11:20Speaker 3: innate skills, But for some reason, I've always been confident
- 11:24Speaker 3: as a kid.
- 11:24Speaker 1: So where did you grow up in California?
- 11:27Speaker 3: I grew up in the valley.
- 11:28Speaker 1: Yeah, I grew up in the valley. Elaborate on the valley.
- 11:30Speaker 3: Yeah, oh right, right, sorry, the people wait home, wait,
- 11:33Speaker 3: there are people who are not from La.
- 11:35Speaker 1: Let this podcast.
- 11:36Speaker 3: So I actually grew up in the San Fernando Valley.
- 11:38Speaker 3: So it's a suburb of LA. It's about twenty minutes
- 11:41Speaker 3: north of here.
- 11:41Speaker 2: Okay, all right, and you grew up in the valley
- 11:43Speaker 2: siblings situation.
- 11:45Speaker 3: Two younger brothers.
- 11:46Speaker 1: Okay, and university.
- 11:50Speaker 3: I did my undergrad at UC Santa Cruz and later
- 11:52Speaker 3: I went to grad school at USF.
- 11:54Speaker 1: Got it. And when you were in college, what were
- 11:56Speaker 1: you what were you madjoring it.
- 11:58Speaker 3: Social psychology and then I majored in organizational design as
- 12:03Speaker 3: a grad student.
- 12:04Speaker 2: Okay, And you mentioned you were extremely confident all by
- 12:07Speaker 2: there probably being some situations where you maybe should have
- 12:10Speaker 2: taken a step back.
- 12:11Speaker 3: Yeah.
- 12:11Speaker 1: Can you articulate anything about that?
- 12:13Speaker 3: Yeah? I think I can. I've actually given it a
- 12:16Speaker 3: lot of thought, and I've just come up short with
- 12:19Speaker 3: any good reason for it. But I just always had
- 12:23Speaker 3: a lot of confidence. I was always very self assured.
- 12:28Speaker 3: I was very physically active. My parents, I think they
- 12:34Speaker 3: were also very confident people, so maybe that was part
- 12:36Speaker 3: of it. My dad was actually a homicide detective for LAPD.
- 12:40Speaker 3: My mom was a stay at home mom for many
- 12:42Speaker 3: years until they got divorced. But I was sort of
- 12:45Speaker 3: the king of my street, the queen of my street.
- 12:48Speaker 3: I don't know, I just you know, I just was
- 12:50Speaker 3: in charge of actually it still exists to this day.
- 12:53Speaker 3: I'm sort of in charge of the fun of my friends,
- 12:55Speaker 3: and I sort of organized things and I'm the person
- 12:57Speaker 3: who's deciding what we're all going to do. And I
- 12:59Speaker 3: did that as a.
- 13:00Speaker 1: Kid, and you're in the sandlot.
- 13:02Speaker 3: Yeah, they just they just let me do it, and
- 13:04Speaker 3: so I just kind of took control and it just
- 13:07Speaker 3: kind of worked out. So I have learned that, you know,
- 13:11Speaker 3: in situations where you take control, people just tend to follow.
- 13:14Speaker 3: So that was probably an interesting lesson for me as
- 13:17Speaker 3: a kid. But you know, when I was twelve, my
- 13:20Speaker 3: parents got divorced and it was very ugly divorced. So
- 13:23Speaker 3: I was actually happy they got divorced, which a lot
- 13:26Speaker 3: of people are, you know, sad when they say they
- 13:27Speaker 3: hear the parents are getting divorced. But I was happy
- 13:29Speaker 3: about it. And so it was a little weird because
- 13:33Speaker 3: I grew up on this street with all the same
- 13:34Speaker 3: group of friends until I was about twelve, and then
- 13:36Speaker 3: the thirteen my mom moved us into a condo with
- 13:40Speaker 3: two friends of hers, so we lived with I lived
- 13:42Speaker 3: with these three women who were I don't know, I
- 13:44Speaker 3: guess in their late thirties at the time.
- 13:46Speaker 1: Did they all have kids.
- 13:48Speaker 3: No, she was the only one who had kids, but
- 13:51Speaker 3: they were single and kind of fun. I mean it was.
- 13:55Speaker 3: It was a radical change from the very suburban, nuclear
- 14:00Speaker 3: family that I was raised in, and I moved away
- 14:03Speaker 3: from those friends, and so I became very different than
- 14:07Speaker 3: them around almost that exact same time, I started to
- 14:10Speaker 3: realize I was a lesbian. So it was kind of
- 14:12Speaker 3: a lot at once, and sort of the otherness became
- 14:17Speaker 3: apparent to me. When I say it, there's no good
- 14:21Speaker 3: reasons for my confidence. The truth is, the otherness didn't
- 14:23Speaker 3: totally bother me. It was I knew I was different.
- 14:26Speaker 3: I didn't totally know why, and I still today don't
- 14:28Speaker 3: know if it was because of my orientation or something else.
- 14:32Speaker 3: But I always felt different from other people. But that
- 14:34Speaker 3: always felt kind of good to me because I never
- 14:37Speaker 3: really totally wanted to fit in. I didn't know if
- 14:38Speaker 3: I wanted to, but I didn't really want to.
- 14:40Speaker 2: It's kind of interesting that you come into this realization
- 14:44Speaker 2: and all of a sudden you're in the situation where
- 14:46Speaker 2: you're surrounded with so many what seems to be really
- 14:48Speaker 2: strong women.
- 14:49Speaker 3: Yes, actually nobody's ever made that connection, but that's true.
- 14:54Speaker 2: Your story a little bit. All By definitely has its differences.
- 14:57Speaker 2: I sat down with Stadie Lincoln, the founder of Bart three,
- 15:00Speaker 2: and when she was growing up, she grew up with
- 15:03Speaker 2: what she called aunties, which was her mother took her
- 15:07Speaker 2: and her brother Miguel, who founded we Work. He took
- 15:10Speaker 2: her and her brother Miguel to live with like some
- 15:13Speaker 2: of her friends, and they became her aunties. And they
- 15:15Speaker 2: all just like lived in this commune together. Because that's
- 15:17Speaker 2: a total normal, crazy upbringing. And I mean, the both
- 15:21Speaker 2: of them have seemed to done quite well with that
- 15:23Speaker 2: sort of situation. But I mean, everyone's different, and so
- 15:26Speaker 2: it's probably really special that you had that foundation of
- 15:29Speaker 2: sorts to site it being a little bit rocky, it.
- 15:32Speaker 3: Is really special. And I mean that theme, the theme
- 15:36Speaker 3: of not living the standard life and the value of
- 15:40Speaker 3: that has continued to become more obvious to me as
- 15:43Speaker 3: I've gotten older.
- 15:44Speaker 2: What would you say some of the values that you
- 15:47Speaker 2: learned during that time were that you've kind of carried
- 15:50Speaker 2: along with you as you've come of age.
- 15:52Speaker 3: Here this this might be a leade, but I'm married
- 15:56Speaker 3: now and I have two kids, and my wife came
- 16:00Speaker 3: from a very typical family that was upper middle class,
- 16:06Speaker 3: and it was, you know, everything was very traditional, really
- 16:11Speaker 3: smart family and very successful. The relationship to what you
- 16:14Speaker 3: just asked me, and my answer is so, my wife had,
- 16:18Speaker 3: when we first had kids, a very particular view of
- 16:22Speaker 3: how kids are supposed to be raised. And I think
- 16:25Speaker 3: she had probably a very standard view that a lot
- 16:28Speaker 3: of people have when raising kids. I think when you're
- 16:30Speaker 3: in any kind of minority, there's this hypercritical desire to
- 16:34Speaker 3: be the best version of something. So it's like, we're
- 16:37Speaker 3: lesbian couple with kids, which means that we can't have
- 16:39Speaker 3: any faults and we're just going to be the amazing
- 16:42Speaker 3: archetype for everyone out there, so we can be a
- 16:45Speaker 3: role model. And so I think in addition to her
- 16:47Speaker 3: natural sense of like, these are the rules, and this
- 16:49Speaker 3: is how we're supposed to behave as a parent, I
- 16:51Speaker 3: think that was an additional pressure for her. I've never
- 16:54Speaker 3: had a sense of how things were supposed to be.
- 16:56Speaker 3: I never had these rules that if you want your
- 16:59Speaker 3: kid to be the certain way, this is how they'll
- 17:01Speaker 3: grow up. I didn't grow up with that. And because
- 17:05Speaker 3: I didn't grow up with it, and the people that
- 17:06Speaker 3: I've known, including myself, who didn't grow up with that
- 17:10Speaker 3: actually ended up being more successful in many ways and
- 17:13Speaker 3: just self sufficient and confident. I think that there's some
- 17:17Speaker 3: myths around what, you know, what a nuclear family should
- 17:20Speaker 3: look like, or what a traditional family should be. I
- 17:22Speaker 3: think we all, many of us, put a lot of
- 17:24Speaker 3: pressure on ourselves to be a certain kind of way.
- 17:26Speaker 3: And I only recently became aware of the term parent shaming.
- 17:30Speaker 3: But you know, there's a lot of people out there
- 17:32Speaker 3: who feel like they're supposed to act in a certain way,
- 17:34Speaker 3: They're supposed to completely change who they are when they
- 17:36Speaker 3: become parents, and I, for better for worse, didn't have
- 17:41Speaker 3: that feeling so.
- 17:41Speaker 1: Totally laid out in that way for me totally.
- 17:43Speaker 2: I had a woman her name is Ali Feller. She
- 17:46Speaker 2: has a podcast herself called Ali on the Run, and
- 17:49Speaker 2: she and I were talking about her quote unquote title,
- 17:52Speaker 2: because you know, I introduced you on the pod and
- 17:54Speaker 2: I'm like, Danielle is the CEO and president of Tender Greens,
- 17:57Speaker 2: And Ali is like, well, I'm the host of Aali
- 17:59Speaker 2: on the Run. But sometimes when I say that people
- 18:03Speaker 2: have children, and they feel like the first thing they're
- 18:05Speaker 2: supposed to say is well, I'm a mom, right, and
- 18:08Speaker 2: I'm this and I'm that And she says, I have
- 18:11Speaker 2: this sense of guilt that I'm saying something wrong because
- 18:14Speaker 2: mom isn't the first thing that comes out of my mouth.
- 18:16Speaker 2: She's like, I love my baby, like Annie is my wife,
- 18:20Speaker 2: but she doesn't define me every single second of my day.
- 18:24Speaker 2: She definitely contributes to who she is, sure, but she's
- 18:27Speaker 2: realized lately that she has some sort of mom guilt
- 18:30Speaker 2: that it's not the first thing she throws out into
- 18:32Speaker 2: the world.
- 18:32Speaker 3: I've never even said mom, Like, this is so funny
- 18:34Speaker 3: that you say that. Now I feel like I should
- 18:36Speaker 3: have some mom guilt. I don't actually have a lot
- 18:38Speaker 3: of guilt because I had a resolution about five years
- 18:40Speaker 3: ago where I stopped feeling guilt and it actually worked.
- 18:42Speaker 3: It really worked. I know, it's just it's it's the
- 18:47Speaker 3: other podcast.
- 18:48Speaker 2: But well, you have to be really confident in the
- 18:49Speaker 2: way that you carry yourself with you don't have any guilt.
- 18:52Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, wow, Well, I just I really want to look.
- 18:56Speaker 3: I don't know. Well, I think I was telling you
- 18:58Speaker 3: about my whole oxygen mask philosophy, which is the yeah,
- 19:03Speaker 3: so basically, when people are feeling bad that they're not
- 19:08Speaker 3: behaving in a certain way and they're going to disappoint
- 19:10Speaker 3: other people, or they should be doing something a certain way,
- 19:14Speaker 3: or they're not responding or reacting in the way that
- 19:16Speaker 3: they would expect. That doesn't resonate for me because my
- 19:20Speaker 3: philosophy is you have to be the best version of
- 19:22Speaker 3: yourself to be providing what you should be providing to
- 19:25Speaker 3: other people. So it's kind of put the oxygen mask
- 19:27Speaker 3: on yourself before you put it on your child or whatever,
- 19:30Speaker 3: because you have to stay present, you have to stay alert.
- 19:34Speaker 3: You can't feel resentment and frustration that you're in an
- 19:37Speaker 3: experience just because somehow you feel obligated. And I think
- 19:41Speaker 3: that's the worst version of guilt, is people feeling obligated
- 19:46Speaker 3: and doing things that actually negatively impact what they actually
- 19:50Speaker 3: have to provide. Wow, there's a way that this could
- 19:53Speaker 3: come across sounding really self centered and really selfish. But
- 19:57Speaker 3: for me, the first thought that goes through my mind
- 19:59Speaker 3: is is that what I want to be doing, is
- 20:02Speaker 3: that what I want to be doing, is that what
- 20:03Speaker 3: I want to be participating in is that the way
- 20:05Speaker 3: that I want to show up. If it's not, then
- 20:08Speaker 3: I just simply can't do it.
- 20:09Speaker 1: Yeah, I love the term showing up.
- 20:12Speaker 2: I think It's something that I've been working on a
- 20:14Speaker 2: lot in recent years, is showing up and being entirely
- 20:17Speaker 2: present for everything that I'm doing. If I'm going to
- 20:19Speaker 2: make a commitment, if I'm going to go to something,
- 20:21Speaker 2: if I'm going to do something, especially in this climate
- 20:24Speaker 2: of us being so attached to our phones, It's like,
- 20:27Speaker 2: if I decided I wanted to show up, then I
- 20:29Speaker 2: should show up totally.
- 20:30Speaker 3: I have a bracelet that says present on it because
- 20:34Speaker 3: it's really the most important quality to me. Yeah, just
- 20:37Speaker 3: being fully present in all times. That also means saying no.
- 20:40Speaker 3: That also means if somebody invites you to something and
- 20:43Speaker 3: you don't want to go, or you can't go, or
- 20:45Speaker 3: you can't totally be there, that you just say no. Yeah,
- 20:47Speaker 3: that's totally acceptable. Yeah, knows just an acceptable answer.
- 20:51Speaker 1: I think.
- 20:52Speaker 2: Also it's just the feeling like you don't want to
- 20:55Speaker 2: let somebody else down. But this goes back to this
- 20:57Speaker 2: idea of like what is it that you want to do?
- 21:00Speaker 2: Do you want to be there or are you just
- 21:02Speaker 2: doing it as a favor to someone else? And if
- 21:03Speaker 2: you're doing it as a favor, then what's the reasoning
- 21:05Speaker 2: behind that favor? Are you trying to get something else
- 21:07Speaker 2: out of this entirely.
- 21:10Speaker 3: It's the kind of thing that if you fully live
- 21:13Speaker 3: your life this way, the people around you know that
- 21:15Speaker 3: about you. So when you are there, they're excited and
- 21:18Speaker 3: they know you're fully there, and when you show up,
- 21:20Speaker 3: they know that you're one hundred percent there. If you
- 21:24Speaker 3: can't make it, then I think, I mean, I haven't
- 21:27Speaker 3: asked people, but I suspect that they know. If I'm
- 21:30Speaker 3: not going to attend something, I'm not going to participate.
- 21:32Speaker 3: It's because I know I can't give my all and
- 21:34Speaker 3: I think they appreciate that.
- 21:42Speaker 2: Taking a quick break from Danielle to shout out my sponsor, Jaybird,
- 21:45Speaker 2: And what I love about this company is that the
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- 22:13Speaker 2: What I love about these is that there's nothing dangling
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- 22:18Speaker 2: the audio quality is great from the second I put
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- 22:23Speaker 2: a bunch of different interchangeable tips and what they call wings,
- 22:25Speaker 2: which is great because that means you can customize your
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- 22:31Speaker 2: means they're not going anywhere, they're not falling out, which
- 22:35Speaker 2: is clutch. Plus, the four hour playtime is perfect for
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- 23:05Speaker 2: xt true Wireless. Let's get back to it. You're holding
- 23:18Speaker 2: all these big positions at these great companies. You're all
- 23:20Speaker 2: in Apple, You're all in in Pete's. You join the
- 23:22Speaker 2: team here in twenty seventeen. But a little bit before
- 23:26Speaker 2: that you have a little bit of a dialogue with
- 23:30Speaker 2: yourself based on something that happened network Sure.
- 23:33Speaker 3: I think it was about eight years ago when I
- 23:37Speaker 3: went into a new VP role at PiZZ Coffee. I
- 23:41Speaker 3: was in a conversation where we were talking about growth
- 23:45Speaker 3: and opportunities, and there was a conversation which somebody mentioned
- 23:50Speaker 3: to me that I really had to work on my
- 23:51Speaker 3: executive presence and I really had no idea what executive
- 23:55Speaker 3: presence was, and in fact, I don't think the person
- 23:57Speaker 3: actually knew what executive presence was, because when I looked
- 24:00Speaker 3: it up, it was a little bit about confidence and
- 24:03Speaker 3: trust and things that I think I do have. But
- 24:06Speaker 3: what I think they were trying to say is that
- 24:08Speaker 3: I wasn't carrying myself like a traditional, typical, buttoned up
- 24:11Speaker 3: exec and that I needed to behave dress speak in
- 24:17Speaker 3: a way that was more aligned with people of my
- 24:21Speaker 3: job title. And it really caused me to go into
- 24:25Speaker 3: the spin because I was always confident because quite frankly,
- 24:29Speaker 3: I was always successful at what I did, and so
- 24:32Speaker 3: this feedback threw me because I thought, well, I don't
- 24:36Speaker 3: even know if I know how to do those things,
- 24:38Speaker 3: and it wasn't it didn't make me angry, it didn't
- 24:41Speaker 3: even make me upset. I just felt really concerned because
- 24:44Speaker 3: I sincerely did not allow to do those things. I mean,
- 24:48Speaker 3: I was the best version of myself, which is what
- 24:50Speaker 3: I thought made me good at my job. So I thought,
- 24:52Speaker 3: if I start changing all these things about who I
- 24:54Speaker 3: am so that I fit into this box, how am
- 24:57Speaker 3: I going to still be good at the things that
- 24:59Speaker 3: make me good? I mean, one of the things that
- 25:00Speaker 3: makes me good, I think is that I'm approachable, I
- 25:03Speaker 3: connect with people. I don't have a power trip, I
- 25:05Speaker 3: don't carry the mistique that I think is associated with
- 25:07Speaker 3: executive presidents because I am available and those things I
- 25:12Speaker 3: think have helped me be successful. So I spent probably
- 25:16Speaker 3: I don't know if it was weeks or months, going
- 25:18Speaker 3: through this period of like, well, maybe I should just
- 25:21Speaker 3: consider a different job because I'm clearly not this corporaty
- 25:25Speaker 3: professional and I'm not going to be able to be
- 25:26Speaker 3: that person, so maybe I should do something else. And
- 25:29Speaker 3: there really weren't a lot of examples. I mean, Steve
- 25:32Speaker 3: Jobs is probably one of the biggest examples, especially for men,
- 25:35Speaker 3: that says you can be successful and not wear a suit, right,
- 25:37Speaker 3: But there weren't really a lot of examples and there
- 25:39Speaker 3: still are not a lot of examples of women who don't,
- 25:43Speaker 3: you know, try and wear the perfect heel to a party,
- 25:46Speaker 3: which is something that I honestly like. I mean, I
- 25:49Speaker 3: would rather take a part a car engine, which I
- 25:52Speaker 3: have no idea how to do, then try and pick
- 25:54Speaker 3: the perfect heel. I don't even know what that is,
- 25:56Speaker 3: but right, But you know, the notion that I was
- 26:00Speaker 3: supposed to behave in a certain way was really elusive
- 26:03Speaker 3: to me, and so I went through this internal journey
- 26:07Speaker 3: around what I should actually be doing with my life.
- 26:09Speaker 3: I think I even saw a life coach. I mean,
- 26:11Speaker 3: I was really like, what am I going to do
- 26:12Speaker 3: about this? And I'm gonna have to I mean I
- 26:14Speaker 3: was really like, I'm gonna have to confromise who I am,
- 26:16Speaker 3: and you know, I'm gonna have to you know, start,
- 26:18Speaker 3: you know, really thinking about being politically correct when I
- 26:22Speaker 3: say something, because you know, who knows, you know where
- 26:25Speaker 3: I'm going to go wrong. And you know, in this
- 26:28Speaker 3: time period, I was, I was talking to friends and
- 26:31Speaker 3: I was you know, I lived in Oakland, so I
- 26:33Speaker 3: was doing a lot of running around Lake Merit and
- 26:36Speaker 3: you know, I realized that my friends were kind of
- 26:38Speaker 3: a motley crew. I mean, I had a lot of
- 26:40Speaker 3: artists and writers and musicians, and I thought, God, I'm
- 26:43Speaker 3: not I'm surrounded by these corporative people, Like, I'm so
- 26:45Speaker 3: not qualified to be a corporate person. I don't I
- 26:47Speaker 3: don't know these people. I'm not of these people. I
- 26:49Speaker 3: wasn't raised. I was raised, you know, very working class
- 26:52Speaker 3: Italian family. So I wasn't even like groomed to be
- 26:54Speaker 3: an executive. And so I really went through this period
- 26:56Speaker 3: of being like, I'm just not qualified to do this,
- 26:59Speaker 3: and so I should probably reconsider my life. And I
- 27:04Speaker 3: don't know exactly what the moment was, but I know
- 27:06Speaker 3: I was running around the lake and listening to a podcast,
- 27:10Speaker 3: and in the podcast, the guy I was listening to
- 27:15Speaker 3: made some comment about, you know, live your life till
- 27:17Speaker 3: it makes you cry. And I don't know what it
- 27:19Speaker 3: was specifically about that expression, but it's sort of tapped
- 27:23Speaker 3: into me, like this idea of like fully participating, fully
- 27:26Speaker 3: being present, being totally who you are. And it occurred
- 27:29Speaker 3: to me that if I wasn't completely who I am
- 27:33Speaker 3: in every situation, then I was going to come up short.
- 27:36Speaker 3: And it was a really pivotal moment for me because
- 27:40Speaker 3: it was at that time like it was like a
- 27:42Speaker 3: flash of lightning. I mean, I haven't gone back since.
- 27:44Speaker 3: And it was as of that day that I was like,
- 27:45Speaker 3: this is who I am, this is who I'm going
- 27:47Speaker 3: to be. I'm going to be successful in this format,
- 27:50Speaker 3: and I'm going to use all the things that make
- 27:52Speaker 3: me unique to help me be successful. And the journey's
- 27:55Speaker 3: been amazing ever since because it's just like I unlocked
- 27:58Speaker 3: the secret that the people in the you know, C
- 28:02Speaker 3: suites weren't sharing, which is basically, there's all this information
- 28:05Speaker 3: out there to hold you back, and most people fall
- 28:08Speaker 3: into the trap of listening to it and then they'll
- 28:10Speaker 3: get stuck and then we're still at the top alone
- 28:13Speaker 3: and we've got ales space for ourselves. Once I unlock that,
- 28:15Speaker 3: I was like, holy shit, Like you can actually be
- 28:19Speaker 3: who you are and be successful. And the more unique
- 28:23Speaker 3: you are and the more things about you that are
- 28:25Speaker 3: different and the more you tap into that, actually the
- 28:28Speaker 3: more successful you could be because it's actually the things
- 28:30Speaker 3: that make you stand out that make you successful, not
- 28:33Speaker 3: the things that make you fit in. But nobody tells
- 28:36Speaker 3: you that early on. Everybody's really busy trying to force
- 28:39Speaker 3: you into this really particular lane, and it can be
- 28:42Speaker 3: it can be soul sucking. But I'm grateful that I
- 28:46Speaker 3: had the opportunity to come out of that experience and
- 28:49Speaker 3: that I'm sitting in front of you today and I'm
- 28:52Speaker 3: not wearing like you know, I don't want to stereotype,
- 28:54Speaker 3: because I'm sure there's a lot of very successful women
- 28:57Speaker 3: who wear you know, pants, suits and heels and have
- 28:59Speaker 3: a bob or whatever it is, whatever the rules are
- 29:01Speaker 3: around it, have whatever the rules are around it. But
- 29:05Speaker 3: you know, I just feel like and hopefully those people
- 29:07Speaker 3: are doing it because they don't feel like they have
- 29:09Speaker 3: rules either, and they're just being their true self.
- 29:10Speaker 1: They like the bob.
- 29:11Speaker 3: They like the bob, They've always liked the bob. So
- 29:14Speaker 3: I mean, I've just suddenly when day realized that there
- 29:16Speaker 3: are no rules and that you can do life, you know,
- 29:21Speaker 3: as who you are, and that was really free, special, special.
- 29:26Speaker 1: It's interesting to me a couple of things.
- 29:28Speaker 2: One, I knew you were Italian the second we sat
- 29:30Speaker 2: down to me there this is obviously why this is
- 29:32Speaker 2: going so well. And two, it's funny to hear you
- 29:36Speaker 2: talk about this because talking about this kind of like
- 29:39Speaker 2: out of body experience and you're questioning all that.
- 29:43Speaker 1: You know.
- 29:44Speaker 2: It sounds a little bit parallel to when you and
- 29:47Speaker 2: your wife are thinking about how you have to raise
- 29:49Speaker 2: your kids, and your wife has these guidelines that she
- 29:53Speaker 2: feels like she needs to follow to be a good parent,
- 29:55Speaker 2: and you're like, you don't need.
- 29:56Speaker 1: To follow these guidelines.
- 29:57Speaker 2: That's nothing important here, And all of a sudden one's like,
- 30:00Speaker 2: this is how you should be as an executive, and
- 30:02Speaker 2: you're like, whoa, I mean, you're more nervous. You're more
- 30:05Speaker 2: nervous about the rules and the executive than you are
- 30:07Speaker 2: about running your household.
- 30:09Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 30:10Speaker 3: Well, I think that's personally because of the order of things,
- 30:12Speaker 3: that's for sure. Once I got comfortable with the idea
- 30:14Speaker 3: of no rules, but I mean, there are rules in
- 30:16Speaker 3: every role we have in life, right, you have rules
- 30:18Speaker 3: as a daughter, as a parent, as you know, a
- 30:22Speaker 3: co worker, as you know, whatever. I think, there's all
- 30:25Speaker 3: these rules, and we all know the rules, and you know,
- 30:29Speaker 3: many people try very hard to follow those rules. One
- 30:31Speaker 3: day I just decided I wasn't following any of them anymore.
- 30:34Speaker 3: And by the way, my wife would kill me if
- 30:35Speaker 3: I didn't say she's really come around, and she now
- 30:40Speaker 3: has really embraced this idea of not trying to be
- 30:42Speaker 3: the perfect parent, and I think we're both a lot
- 30:44Speaker 3: happier as a result.
- 30:45Speaker 2: I think a lot of parents are constantly embracing this
- 30:47Speaker 2: idea that they don't have to be the perfect patent.
- 30:49Speaker 2: I mean, I'm embracing the idea that I don't have
- 30:51Speaker 2: to be a perfect podcaster or a perfect journalist, or
- 30:54Speaker 2: right just perfect. Really perfect is boring. Perfect is boring.
- 30:57Speaker 2: I love that saying. I'm going to take that with me,
- 31:00Speaker 2: put it in my pocket for later. Okay, so you
- 31:03Speaker 2: mentioned running around a lake. How else do you chill out?
- 31:11Speaker 3: I I actually it's I run around a lake now
- 31:14Speaker 3: again too, So I live in I live in Silver Lake,
- 31:15Speaker 3: So I run around the lake there usually, and I
- 31:19Speaker 3: do some you know, home exercises, but probably my most
- 31:25Speaker 3: relaxing activity where I can totally get out of my
- 31:27Speaker 3: head is karaoke.
- 31:30Speaker 1: Oh.
- 31:30Speaker 2: I have to tell the people at home that I
- 31:32Speaker 2: walked into Daniel's office and there's microphones hanging from the ceiling,
- 31:37Speaker 2: not real ones, fake ones.
- 31:38Speaker 1: But it was a birthday prank.
- 31:40Speaker 3: Supposedly it was a it was a decoration.
- 31:44Speaker 1: A birthday decoration.
- 31:46Speaker 2: Karaoke, Well, okay, I have to be honest, I have
- 31:50Speaker 2: a go to karaoke song. Okay, it's Billy joelsme even
- 31:53Speaker 2: start the fire, of course, that's one that's w What's yours.
- 32:01Speaker 3: My go to? I do love Billy Joel and piano
- 32:04Speaker 3: Man's definitely up there. Oh yeah, But I'd say my
- 32:08Speaker 3: go to is rocketmanned by.
- 32:10Speaker 1: Oh Elton someone.
- 32:13Speaker 2: Sometimes you're just the lyrics, okay, okay, So karaoke is
- 32:18Speaker 2: how we chill out. So now you're in this position
- 32:21Speaker 2: at tender Greens, do you feel in your role here
- 32:25Speaker 2: that there's like a certain amount of pressure to be
- 32:27Speaker 2: really in tune with what you're eating and your health
- 32:30Speaker 2: and like your overall picture of well being.
- 32:34Speaker 3: I wouldn't say there's pressure around it. I would say
- 32:37Speaker 3: there's a lot of awareness around eating well.
- 32:39Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 32:40Speaker 3: And you know, I was a tender Greens customer for
- 32:43Speaker 3: years before I started working here, so I was always
- 32:45Speaker 3: a fan of the food. I don't think I always
- 32:48Speaker 3: understood what made it so great, just the quality of
- 32:51Speaker 3: the ingredients and the skill set of the executive chefs
- 32:56Speaker 3: and the freshness of the food. But I was always
- 33:00Speaker 3: fan of it. I did, however, still partake in other
- 33:04Speaker 3: sort of unhealthy things, like you know, I'd say my
- 33:06Speaker 3: vice would be like diet coke, right, So I would
- 33:09Speaker 3: still drink diet coke. And I'm still occasionally like eat
- 33:12Speaker 3: chips and things like that. And it's not that I
- 33:14Speaker 3: don't do those things anymore, but I've become way more
- 33:17Speaker 3: aware of the idea of sort of additives and unnatural
- 33:21Speaker 3: ingredients because being here and hearing so many stories and
- 33:26Speaker 3: being around these chefs and talking to the farmers and
- 33:29Speaker 3: understanding the links we go to to make sure we
- 33:33Speaker 3: provide really clean, delicious food, and that so many people
- 33:38Speaker 3: are huge fans of the product because it's really important
- 33:43Speaker 3: to them to eat that kind of food and to
- 33:46Speaker 3: not even necessarily stay healthy, but just eat delicious food
- 33:49Speaker 3: that they can feel good about that doesn't make them
- 33:51Speaker 3: feel like shit later, you know. I mean, it's like
- 33:52Speaker 3: once people start doing that, they start to realize, oh,
- 33:56Speaker 3: something's different. And so, you know, we cater lunch here
- 33:59Speaker 3: every sing day. So literally, if I'm in the office,
- 34:01Speaker 3: I'll eat tend of Greens every day for lunch, and
- 34:03Speaker 3: if I'm in the field, I'm usually visiting restaurants. So
- 34:05Speaker 3: I very often eat ten of greens when I'm on
- 34:07Speaker 3: the field. I feel better. I just feel better. I mean,
- 34:10Speaker 3: it's it's when when I do randomly go like we're
- 34:14Speaker 3: on a like a long drive on Highway five, and
- 34:17Speaker 3: that's a really long stretch of road.
- 34:20Speaker 2: Better you understand, you need to explain what your quick
- 34:25Speaker 2: references aren't what.
- 34:26Speaker 3: It goes from one side of California to the other
- 34:28Speaker 3: side of California, and there's a lot of fast food
- 34:30Speaker 3: along the way, and it's it's very much the time
- 34:33Speaker 3: when many of us take that opportunity to have this
- 34:35Speaker 3: guilty pleasure to to stop at a you know, talkobt
- 34:38Speaker 3: or whatever it may be. And I've since I've been
- 34:41Speaker 3: working here, I definitely have this sense of like what's
- 34:45Speaker 3: in this? Like I don't I don't know what the
- 34:47Speaker 3: ingredients are. And because I know so much more about
- 34:51Speaker 3: the variations of ingredients that exist out there in the world,
- 34:55Speaker 3: I've realized, like, who knows what the hell could be
- 34:57Speaker 3: in the food? Like it just didn't even occur to
- 34:59Speaker 3: me that there was a possibility that that food could
- 35:02Speaker 3: be old, or that it could you know, the meat
- 35:05Speaker 3: that people could be using or you know were sourced
- 35:08Speaker 3: from inhumane conditions or you know safe conditions, or that
- 35:13Speaker 3: you know things could be stale or old or have
- 35:16Speaker 3: additives like those things just weren't as part of a
- 35:19Speaker 3: part of my radar. So there's no pressure, but there's
- 35:22Speaker 3: definitely a sense on my part that I want to
- 35:25Speaker 3: be aware of what I'm putting my body.
- 35:26Speaker 2: When you say that you're using clean ingredients, what are
- 35:29Speaker 2: you talking about when you say that.
- 35:31Speaker 3: So when you get food straight from the source, and
- 35:38Speaker 3: the food is you know, raised in you know, so
- 35:41Speaker 3: it's grown in the in the most enriched soil without chemicals,
- 35:46Speaker 3: and that food is directly shipped to the restaurant that day,
- 35:50Speaker 3: you can serve that food without adding as many seasonings
- 35:54Speaker 3: and salt and still have it tastes fresh. The same
- 35:56Speaker 3: is true with with protein products, The same is true
- 36:00Speaker 3: with you know, carbohydrates. The pure the food in its birth,
- 36:07Speaker 3: the better it will taste if it's served fresh. And
- 36:10Speaker 3: so very often you know when you're eating food, I mean,
- 36:14Speaker 3: obviously the worst case scenario is people who are adding
- 36:18Speaker 3: things into things like meat just because it's cheaper to
- 36:20Speaker 3: not have it be one hundred percent. So if you
- 36:23Speaker 3: have something like beef and you know, it was fed
- 36:26Speaker 3: on a grass diet and it was you know, you know,
- 36:32Speaker 3: I mean this sounds strange, but actually the stress of
- 36:35Speaker 3: a cow can actually affect the taste of the meat.
- 36:38Speaker 3: So I know this not belie ye. So they're these
- 36:41Speaker 3: cows that are eating grass. They're not in a stressful environment,
- 36:45Speaker 3: and you know, I mean, inevitably not a great outcome
- 36:48Speaker 3: for them. But you know, when they get to the restaurant,
- 36:52Speaker 3: it's all very fresh, and it's served by an executive
- 36:55Speaker 3: chef who knows how to cut it, who knows how
- 36:57Speaker 3: to serve it. They salt it lightly, but you know,
- 37:00Speaker 3: it's not filled with all kinds of other things because
- 37:03Speaker 3: it doesn't need to be. So that's right, very clean.
- 37:05Speaker 3: I mean, all of our all of our dishes really
- 37:08Speaker 3: have you know, just a handful of ingredients, and they're
- 37:10Speaker 3: all very obvious ingredients, right, and even if they're unique
- 37:14Speaker 3: or more exotic ingredients, they're not meant to be hiding anything.
- 37:18Speaker 3: They're meant to enhance.
- 37:19Speaker 1: Right.
- 37:20Speaker 2: I actually love that I was reading about someone was
- 37:22Speaker 2: providing feedback that they felt weird that the lettuce wasn't smaller,
- 37:26Speaker 2: and the feedback from the company was, well, if we
- 37:29Speaker 2: don't cut the lettuce, it stays pressure for longer.
- 37:31Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.
- 37:33Speaker 2: And then it's it's it is big, yeah, and it's
- 37:36Speaker 2: but it's just it's just interesting that like even something
- 37:39Speaker 2: as small in mini school as a detail like that
- 37:41Speaker 2: is something that you guys kind of take into consideration.
- 37:43Speaker 2: Absolutely quick break to give my sponsor, Athletic Greens some love.
- 37:53Speaker 2: I have made a major breakthrough this week and that
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- 38:08Speaker 2: to this point where I know how great I feel
- 38:11Speaker 2: having Athletic Greens is a part of my daily routine.
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- 38:42Speaker 2: Let's get back to it. This is your first job
- 38:52Speaker 2: that's been strictly in food.
- 38:54Speaker 1: I mean, I guess.
- 38:55Speaker 2: Pete's different, just different beasts.
- 38:58Speaker 1: Okay, so this is your first job that's been struck
- 39:00Speaker 1: clean food.
- 39:00Speaker 2: So what has been one of the biggest challenges coming
- 39:02Speaker 2: into a kind of niche like this, Well, the.
- 39:06Speaker 3: Restaurant business operationally is really complex and so really learning
- 39:11Speaker 3: I mean especially because we make everything from scratch, so
- 39:14Speaker 3: we have you know, ovens and hoods and you know,
- 39:18Speaker 3: we have all the various you know things that are
- 39:23Speaker 3: required to make every kind of food. So like learning
- 39:25Speaker 3: about how the operations of a kitchen work has been
- 39:28Speaker 3: really interesting to me. I mean my backgrounds and operations
- 39:30Speaker 3: so it's usually a strength of mind, but coming in
- 39:33Speaker 3: here I felt like, you know, I didn't know anything
- 39:35Speaker 3: because just learning how to run a kitchen is really specific.
- 39:39Speaker 3: There's the perishability of food, there's the supply chain of food,
- 39:43Speaker 3: there's you know, things like you know you have to
- 39:46Speaker 3: be aware of. You know, we had this big romaine
- 39:48Speaker 3: crisis recently, which you know doesn't exist in the blowout business. So,
- 39:52Speaker 3: you know, being really aware of the fact that there's
- 39:55Speaker 3: a whole sequence of events from the food getting from
- 39:59Speaker 3: the farm to the consumer that can go wrong has
- 40:04Speaker 3: been really fascinating and challenging. And then also learning all
- 40:07Speaker 3: of the stuff that I just mentioned to you about
- 40:09Speaker 3: what makes the food different, what makes it pressure, what
- 40:11Speaker 3: makes it taste better. All of our restaurants are run
- 40:14Speaker 3: by classically trained executive chefs, so they all have these
- 40:17Speaker 3: strong culinary backgrounds, so really learning from them how foods
- 40:21Speaker 3: are made in the best possible way to make them
- 40:23Speaker 3: taste really good but without reducing the nutritional quality. It's
- 40:28Speaker 3: been a lot to learn, but it's been great.
- 40:29Speaker 2: I'd love to dial it back a little bit and
- 40:31Speaker 2: talk a little bit more about your executive strategy, internal dialogue.
- 40:38Speaker 2: Moving forward from that scenario, so you come to terms
- 40:44Speaker 2: with the type of leader you are and the type
- 40:46Speaker 2: of woman you are in business, and honestly a lot
- 40:49Speaker 2: more about who you are.
- 40:49Speaker 1: In general, both in the door and out of the door.
- 40:52Speaker 2: And do you find that this realization inspires you to
- 40:57Speaker 2: move forward in your career in a different way.
- 41:01Speaker 3: Yeah, it does in a lot of ways. One just
- 41:05Speaker 3: from a practical standpoint, I think feeling really comfortable with
- 41:09Speaker 3: the idea that there's no one right answer for how
- 41:12Speaker 3: to do things, there's no one right way to be
- 41:14Speaker 3: and feeling confident allows me, for some foremost to hire
- 41:19Speaker 3: an amazing executive team because something that's incredibly important to
- 41:23Speaker 3: me is that they all know more than I do.
- 41:26Speaker 3: So you know, my you know, my head of marketing
- 41:28Speaker 3: has to know way more about marketing than I do.
- 41:29Speaker 3: My head of operations has to know way more about
- 41:31Speaker 3: operations than I do, so that I can always get
- 41:35Speaker 3: the best possible advice and guidance from them. Yeah, I'm
- 41:37Speaker 3: pretty good at listening for what makes sense, But you know,
- 41:41Speaker 3: I think having people who are willing to push back.
- 41:44Speaker 3: And one of my rules is if we make a
- 41:47Speaker 3: decision here and it goes out in the wild and
- 41:50Speaker 3: it fails, and anybody in this room says, you know,
- 41:54Speaker 3: we shouldn't have done it that way, that's a disaster
- 41:57Speaker 3: for me because that means that somebody didn't feel comfortable
- 42:00Speaker 3: before it got out there to say this isn't a
- 42:02Speaker 3: good idea, and I hold them responsible for that. So
- 42:06Speaker 3: sometimes some CEOs can have a problem with people not
- 42:09Speaker 3: giving them feedback or being honest, but I require it
- 42:12Speaker 3: of them. So part of it is that because I
- 42:17Speaker 3: sort of coach them to be like I am, in
- 42:19Speaker 3: the sense of, if you're confident and you feel good
- 42:21Speaker 3: about what you're doing, just try it, push it, you know,
- 42:24Speaker 3: put something out there, and don't worry about how it's
- 42:27Speaker 3: going to make other people feel, because we're probably going
- 42:28Speaker 3: to come up with something really interesting as a result.
- 42:31Speaker 3: So it affects my leadership in that way because I
- 42:34Speaker 3: think I encourage that same sort of behavior. In terms
- 42:36Speaker 3: of my own career, I don't have any sense of
- 42:40Speaker 3: limitation around what I can do. I mean, for me,
- 42:43Speaker 3: it's the most important thing is that I love what
- 42:45Speaker 3: I'm doing and I feel passionate about it, and then
- 42:46Speaker 3: I'm excited about it. And when I don't feel that way,
- 42:49Speaker 3: I'm fine leaving. I don't feel like I have to
- 42:51Speaker 3: say I'm going to be here forever, because it's not.
- 42:53Speaker 3: You know, I won't be I'll all be here as
- 42:55Speaker 3: long as I'm challenged and as long as I feel
- 42:57Speaker 3: like I'm providing the best version of what somebody can
- 42:59Speaker 3: provide in this role. But then I'll have my next adventure,
- 43:02Speaker 3: and I don't know what it will be. And as
- 43:03Speaker 3: long as it doesn't require me to have, you know,
- 43:05Speaker 3: a medical degree or something like that, I'm sure I'll
- 43:08Speaker 3: do it. You know, because there are lots of things
- 43:09Speaker 3: I've taken on that I didn't know how to do
- 43:11Speaker 3: and I just figured it out.
- 43:12Speaker 2: I love the idea I hire people that are smarter
- 43:14Speaker 2: than me. I think there can be sometimes like a
- 43:17Speaker 2: little bit of a complex, like you're.
- 43:19Speaker 1: Trying to reel it in.
- 43:20Speaker 2: You don't want to feel uncomfortable, but the right person
- 43:23Speaker 2: in a leadership position wants to get a little uncomfortable
- 43:25Speaker 2: because they want to get pushed to the next level.
- 43:28Speaker 2: If you're not willing to get pushed to the next level,
- 43:30Speaker 2: then you're always going to be in the exact same spot.
- 43:32Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it.
- 43:34Speaker 3: Not only pushes me, but it pushes them because they
- 43:38Speaker 3: challenge each other. And you know, if we have a
- 43:41Speaker 3: meeting and there's not some friction or discomfort or even
- 43:45Speaker 3: you know, if the fight breaks out, like then I
- 43:47Speaker 3: feel like it wasn't a successful meeting. Yeah, because everybody's
- 43:50Speaker 3: really really understanding their version of what success looks like,
- 43:54Speaker 3: and so I don't want my head of operations to
- 43:57Speaker 3: be thinking about the best version of marketing, and I
- 43:59Speaker 3: don't want my HR person to be thinking about operations.
- 44:01Speaker 3: I want them all think about what the best version
- 44:04Speaker 3: of their job is and to go for it, and
- 44:07Speaker 3: if that conflicts with somebody else, then they need to
- 44:10Speaker 3: work through it and we end up in really great
- 44:12Speaker 3: places because we're not all in this group think mode.
- 44:15Speaker 1: Right.
- 44:16Speaker 2: I have a question, and excuse me if it's out
- 44:19Speaker 2: in line, but I'm kind of curious to know when
- 44:21Speaker 2: that person criticized your executive strategy, do you think at
- 44:26Speaker 2: all there was any commentary on your sexuality in there.
- 44:29Speaker 3: I think nothing's out aligned for me, by the way, well,
- 44:32Speaker 3: and I always want to be PC.
- 44:34Speaker 1: On the podcast I taught people are going to understand
- 44:36Speaker 1: these questions.
- 44:37Speaker 3: I appreciate it.
- 44:37Speaker 1: I feel like that's something that I'm kind of curious about.
- 44:40Speaker 3: I think it may have been a byproduct of my sexuality,
- 44:44Speaker 3: because I mean, you see, I'm like, I'm wearing torn jeans,
- 44:48Speaker 3: which I guess they're very traundays, they're very trendy, as
- 44:51Speaker 3: trendy as the Bob sometimes exactly well these days, really
- 44:54Speaker 3: you need to be wearing the torn jeans and the
- 44:56Speaker 3: combat boots. But back then, I pretty much have dressed
- 45:01Speaker 3: the same since I was twelve. So I think it
- 45:04Speaker 3: may have been a commentary on my sexuality. I think
- 45:09Speaker 3: it may have been a commentary on my overall presence,
- 45:12Speaker 3: which certainly, I mean, we're all sort of a product
- 45:15Speaker 3: of who we are outside work. And I you know,
- 45:19Speaker 3: when I grew up, I was a tomboy. And you know,
- 45:22Speaker 3: not saying that all tomboys become lesbians, don't worry, But
- 45:25Speaker 3: I think I just have always had this style. And
- 45:28Speaker 3: you know this, this may not sound PC, but I
- 45:32Speaker 3: don't think I had that same desire or drive to
- 45:40Speaker 3: appeal to men who, quite frankly, are usually in the
- 45:45Speaker 3: leadership positions. Yeah, the person who said this may happen
- 45:48Speaker 3: to be a male.
- 45:48Speaker 2: I think this is that's actually like a strong suit
- 45:51Speaker 2: that puts you at an advantage.
- 45:53Speaker 3: It does, you know what, It puts me an advantage.
- 45:55Speaker 3: It also puts me in advantage with other women. So
- 45:58Speaker 3: the other thing that's interesting, And again, I think the
- 46:01Speaker 3: female dynamic and the female corporate dynamic, even in the
- 46:03Speaker 3: last five years, has dramatically changed. And this next generation,
- 46:06Speaker 3: they're like off the charts, they're so advanced. But there's
- 46:10Speaker 3: definitely been these times in my career where I experience
- 46:13Speaker 3: a lot of like females like being sort of jealous
- 46:16Speaker 3: and competitive towards each other in this way that I
- 46:19Speaker 3: was able to observe from afar because I never felt
- 46:21Speaker 3: that And it was sort of this strange thing that
- 46:24Speaker 3: I even remember saying to someone at one point, like
- 46:27Speaker 3: I never had the sense of I was competing. I
- 46:29Speaker 3: never really felt like I was competing with either gender
- 46:31Speaker 3: because I sort of felt like I was in my
- 46:32Speaker 3: own category. Not that orientation and gender aren't different things,
- 46:36Speaker 3: but I just didn't have to follow the same path,
- 46:39Speaker 3: so I wasn't like I was. It was like appason oranges,
- 46:42Speaker 3: so I sort of always had the advantage of being
- 46:44Speaker 3: like the only orange, which is.
- 46:47Speaker 2: Kind of a funny reference, the only orange, the only
- 46:50Speaker 2: orange I've got. I'm curious what is on the horizon
- 46:55Speaker 2: for tender greens except maybe some more states, obviously some
- 46:58Speaker 2: more stats.
- 46:59Speaker 3: So we're going to be growing quite a bit, and
- 47:02Speaker 3: we're going to be expanding quite a bit in New
- 47:05Speaker 3: York and in Massachusetts. We are looking over the next
- 47:10Speaker 3: couple of years at the South and the Midwest and
- 47:14Speaker 3: other states. The other thing that's going to be changing
- 47:17Speaker 3: is we're going to have a little bit more newness
- 47:21Speaker 3: to our menu. You know, we have some great menu
- 47:24Speaker 3: items and they are tried and true and they're the
- 47:27Speaker 3: best versions of what they are. But they've been on
- 47:29Speaker 3: the menus for a long time. So we're going to
- 47:32Speaker 3: see some changes to the menu that's going to add,
- 47:35Speaker 3: you know, some interest. I think we are going to
- 47:38Speaker 3: continue to have new seasonal favorites, which is something we
- 47:42Speaker 3: started last year. So you know, you'll see some things
- 47:45Speaker 3: like you know, Alba quartuna and you know, potentially something
- 47:49Speaker 3: like lobster. You'll see wagged beef next year. So there'll
- 47:51Speaker 3: be some interesting items that I don't think anybody else offers.
- 47:56Speaker 2: I will say that the whole idea of mixing up
- 47:59Speaker 2: the menu, it can be good and it can be bad.
- 48:02Speaker 2: It could because so Tender Green is still a small
- 48:05Speaker 2: situation in New York City, a competitor, Sweet Green, large
- 48:09Speaker 2: operation in New York City. Sometimes when they mix up
- 48:12Speaker 2: the menu on the staples, there's like a mass revolts.
- 48:15Speaker 3: Right now, And I've got to be careful because anybody
- 48:17Speaker 3: in LA listening to this might be panicking, right. Staples
- 48:20Speaker 3: will not be removed.
- 48:21Speaker 1: Do not remove.
- 48:22Speaker 3: We will not be removing the stables. There's some there's
- 48:25Speaker 3: some items that you know, people eat every single day.
- 48:28Speaker 3: We're not going to be changing those items. But we
- 48:29Speaker 3: have been testing items over the last six months and
- 48:33Speaker 3: we found that there were some new favorites that just
- 48:36Speaker 3: came in seasonally that we're going to be adding to
- 48:37Speaker 3: many permanently.
- 48:38Speaker 1: So for example, into that, we.
- 48:40Speaker 3: Had a Mediterranean steak salad that we launched and spring
- 48:43Speaker 3: of this year that was through the roof and people
- 48:46Speaker 3: just absolutely loved it, and it was meant to be
- 48:48Speaker 3: a seasonal item, and once we took it off the menu,
- 48:50Speaker 3: like my email box was just bombarded with why don't
- 48:53Speaker 3: you have this anymore? There's a few versions of that
- 48:55Speaker 3: will go on the menu permanently.
- 48:56Speaker 2: Got it and you actually just said something that's kind
- 48:58Speaker 2: of interesting to me. Can pep just like hit you up?
- 49:01Speaker 3: Oh?
- 49:02Speaker 1: I just shoot you an email?
- 49:03Speaker 3: Well, you know we have we have a head of
- 49:06Speaker 3: hospitality here who all the emails go to. But I'm
- 49:09Speaker 3: also see set on them, so I read them all.
- 49:13Speaker 1: That is it's like one of those things.
- 49:14Speaker 2: It's like sometimes you want to relinquish control, and sometimes
- 49:17Speaker 2: you don't want to relinquish control, and when you don't,
- 49:19Speaker 2: you get to sneak in and see what's going on
- 49:21Speaker 2: in the rightly in the background, and just read and
- 49:24Speaker 2: jump in. Very infrequently, what would you say has been
- 49:28Speaker 2: one of the best pieces of advice that you've been
- 49:30Speaker 2: given in your career.
- 49:33Speaker 3: One of the best pieces of advice I was given,
- 49:36Speaker 3: which is very specific to me, is something really simple,
- 49:39Speaker 3: which is pick your battles. You know, I think if
- 49:41Speaker 3: you're a passionate, driven person, it's easy to just jump
- 49:44Speaker 3: all over everything. And for me, there are times when
- 49:48Speaker 3: you could just let things go. A lot of things
- 49:49Speaker 3: resolve themselves, and so you know, being able to just
- 49:54Speaker 3: let things go that don't have a huge, long lasting
- 49:59Speaker 3: impression has been really important. And then you know, I
- 50:04Speaker 3: don't know if it was given to me or if
- 50:06Speaker 3: it was you know, miraculously sent to me, but I
- 50:09Speaker 3: think just be yourself, be yourself and focus on honing
- 50:14Speaker 3: your strengths. One thing I was told along the same
- 50:17Speaker 3: lines is, you know, don't worry so much about your weaknesses.
- 50:20Speaker 3: We all have weaknesses. If your weaknesses happen to be
- 50:23Speaker 3: the most important thing in your job, you're probably in
- 50:25Speaker 3: the wrong job. But other than that, focus on your strengths.
- 50:29Speaker 3: We all have weaknesses and don't waste your time.
- 50:32Speaker 1: I'm really digesting this line.
- 50:33Speaker 2: If your weaknesses happen to be the most important thing
- 50:36Speaker 2: in your job and you're probably in the wrong job,
- 50:37Speaker 2: what if you really want to be doing your job,
- 50:40Speaker 2: maybe it's just kind of time to time to come
- 50:42Speaker 2: to terms.
- 50:42Speaker 1: With the idea that you shouldn't be doing it. Yeah, yeah,
- 50:44Speaker 1: I guess you're right now.
- 50:45Speaker 3: I wanted to be a special painter, it would be
- 50:47Speaker 3: a really bad idea, right, Yeah, I know, even if
- 50:50Speaker 3: I really wanted it. Right, you have to have you know,
- 50:52Speaker 3: you have to have a skill and the confidencies that
- 50:55Speaker 3: align with what you want to be doing.
- 50:56Speaker 2: Maybe that's when your quote unquote job actually just becomes
- 50:59Speaker 2: your Yeah, Like you could paint for a hobby and
- 51:02Speaker 2: you don't need to get paid for it, exactly. Okay,
- 51:05Speaker 2: the way I wind down on the podcast every single time,
- 51:08Speaker 2: if you had the opportunity to give yourself in your
- 51:13Speaker 2: time at Pete's getting this criticism about your executive style,
- 51:20Speaker 2: you had a chance to give yourself a piece of
- 51:21Speaker 2: advice back then looking at it now, what.
- 51:23Speaker 1: Would you tell yourself at that point in your career.
- 51:28Speaker 3: I would tell myself to trust my instincts. That's it.
- 51:31Speaker 1: That's it, that's it. Okay, I like it, I dig it.
- 51:35Speaker 1: Thanks so much for sitting down with me.
- 51:37Speaker 3: Thank you.
- 51:37Speaker 1: I really appreciate your time.
- 51:39Speaker 2: Please take a moment leave a quick review of the
- 51:41Speaker 2: podcast by clicking the link with the description to this episode.
- 51:45Speaker 2: We all face multiple hurdles in life. I want to
- 51:47Speaker 2: hear about yours. Reach out to me at Emily at
- 51:50Speaker 2: Hurdle dot us. Connect with the podcast on Instagram and
- 51:53Speaker 2: Twitter at Hurdle Podcast.
- 51:55Speaker 1: Danielle, where do they find you? Where do they find
- 51:58Speaker 1: tender Greens? Give us the.
- 52:00Speaker 3: Yeah so Tendergreens dot com and you can find me
- 52:04Speaker 3: at Danielle dot Bruno at Tendergreens dot com, and you
- 52:07Speaker 3: can also find me on Instagram.
- 52:10Speaker 1: She just gave you her email, so she really wants
- 52:12Speaker 1: to know how you feel. I do.
- 52:14Speaker 2: I am at Emily Abadi, another hurdle conquered.
- 52:18Speaker 1: Catch you guys next time.