Latest / The Inspired Stories Podcast / The Power of Positive Beliefs: Ari Weinzweig on Building Zingerman's $80 Million Food Empire | Restaurants & Franchises Series

Transcript

The Power of Positive Beliefs: Ari Weinzweig on Building Zingerman's $80 Million Food Empire | Restaurants & Franchises Series · The Inspired Stories Podcast

• 0:04
  Welcome to another edition of the Inspired Stories podcast
• 0:08
  where leaders share their experiences so we can learn from
• 0:11
  their successes and be inspired by how they've overcome
• 0:14
  adversity. My name is Anthony Kotaspodi and
• 0:17
  today's guest is Ari Vinesweig. Ari is the Co founding partner
• 0:21
  of Zingerman's community of businesses and Iconic
• 0:24
  collaborative of food focused businesses in Ann Arbor, MI.
• 0:28
  Zingerman's began in 1982 as a small deli and has since grown
• 0:32
  into a community of a dozen businesses focused on full
• 0:36
  flavored and traditional food along with exceptional service
• 0:39
  and creating positive experiences for their customers.
• 0:43
  The organization overall has a staff of over 700, two, 175 of
• 0:49
  whom own a share in the business, as well as 18 managing
• 0:53
  partners, and will do over $80 million in sales this year.
• 0:57
  Zingerman's has received numerous accolades over the
• 1:00
  years and Ari has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from
• 1:04
  Bon Appetit and recognition from the American Cheese Society for
• 1:08
  its dedication to quality. Ari holds a degree in Russian
• 1:12
  History and is an accomplished author, having written 15 books
• 1:17
  and pamphlets, including A Lapsed Anarchist Approach to
• 1:21
  Building a Great Business, which was the first of his many
• 1:23
  publications. The pamphlet A Revolution of
• 1:27
  Dignity in the 21st Century Workplace and the chat book Life
• 1:31
  Lessons I Learned from Being a Line Cook are some of his most
• 1:35
  recent releases. His insight out of the
• 1:38
  mainstream perspectives of leadership in life, combined
• 1:41
  with a deep passion for exceptional food has helped the
• 1:44
  Zingerman's community become a cherished brand for customers
• 1:47
  worldwide. Now before we get into all that
• 1:50
  good stuff, today's episode is brought to you by my company,
• 1:53
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  To find out if your company qualifies, contact us today at
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  AD back benefitsagency.com. Now back to our guest today, the
• 2:21
  Co founder of Zingerman's. Ari, I appreciate you making the
• 2:24
  time to Share your story today. My pleasure, Anthony, Good to
• 2:27
  see you. All right, let's do it.
• 2:29
  So take us back to the humble beginnings.
• 2:31
  What was the inspiration for starting your first restaurant?
• 2:36
  Well, the the writer Rebecca Solnit says that starting a
• 2:40
  story, deciding where a story begins is like dipping a cup in
• 2:44
  the ocean. So there's a hundred different
• 2:46
  places we could start this, but I'll start it today with I came
• 2:51
  to, I mean, you're in the Midwest.
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  I'm in the Midwest. I came from the Midwest.
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  So I grew up in Chicago. I came here to Ann Arbor to go
• 2:58
  to school at University of Michigan, which many people will
• 3:01
  have seen on football weekends on TV, sometimes playing Ohio
• 3:06
  State, and studied Russian history like you said and also
• 3:11
  studied anarchism quite a bit. University of Michigan has the
• 3:16
  largest anarchist collection in the country.
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  It's not a well publicized promotional piece for them, but
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  it's the truth. It's a great collection in the
• 3:25
  grad library. Anyway, after graduating with my
• 3:28
  history degree, I had really no clue what I was going to do
• 3:31
  next. Visioning, as you probably know,
• 3:34
  is a huge piece of our work here.
• 3:35
  We write visions for pretty much everything we work on.
• 3:39
  When I graduated, I had no vision at all, only what David
• 3:44
  White Whyte, the poet and writer whose work I really admire and
• 3:48
  appreciate. He calls it the Via Negativa.
• 3:52
  This is where you're completely clueless about where you would
• 3:55
  like to go, but you're very clear where you don't want to
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  go. I knew I didn't want to go home.
• 4:01
  And in order to facilitate that financially, I needed a job.
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  And I have driven a taxi part time while I was in school,
• 4:08
  which was fine, but not particularly interesting.
• 4:11
  One of my college roommates was waiting tables at a restaurant
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  in downtown Ann Arbor. And for those who've never been
• 4:16
  here, at the whole town's only about 100,000 people, so 15
• 4:21
  minutes from one end to the other, no matter where you are.
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  And so I thought, all right, I don't know, he likes his job.
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  I don't know anything about restaurants or food or waiting
• 4:29
  tables. But I got to do something.
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  So I went and applied for that job and they said they'd call
• 4:34
  after an interview. And I waited a couple of weeks
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  and then called. Some anxiety was starting to go
• 4:38
  up. And so I went back and I
• 4:41
  reapplied as a busboy thinking, you know, if I do good work,
• 4:44
  they'll promote me. And once again, we had a nice
• 4:47
  interview. Once again, they didn't call.
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  So then another couple weeks went by, rent was coming due.
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  I was getting really nervous. I really didn't want to move
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  home. So I went back and offered to do
• 4:56
  anything, which I now know that third time we could call
• 4:59
  emotional resilience in the spirit of your podcast theme,
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  but but I didn't know that at the time.
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  Anyway, they said, great, do you want to wash dishes?
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  And I said, sure, I'll do anything I need to work.
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  And they said, awesome, can you start tomorrow?
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  And I did. So that's how I got going.
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  I, I really had no intention of doing anything other than paying
• 5:20
  rent. But it turned out that I
• 5:22
  stumbled into work that I really love.
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  I still cook every night at home.
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  I, I work the floor at Zingerman's Roadhouse every
• 5:29
  night for an hour or two or whatever, just to always, it's
• 5:32
  very grounding for me. And then I get home and we eat
• 5:35
  like Spaniards in our house, like 11:00 at night.
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  But but anyway, so I lucked out because I stumbled into work
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  that I really love and then also great people.
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  So my business partner, Paul Saginaw, who's been in this with
• 5:47
  me since the get go, he was the general manager and it was his
• 5:51
  first day as GM was my first day as dishwasher.
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  So that's how we met. I started prepping and then line
• 5:58
  cooking as per the chat book that you referenced in your very
• 6:01
  nice intro. And I started to be a line cook
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  and then manage kitchens. And I worked for them for about
• 6:06
  four years total. Paul left about halfway through
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  that four year stint. And he opened a little fish
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  market that's here in town, still called Monahan's, one of
• 6:16
  the best in the country to this day.
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  And he and I stayed friends. And fall of 1981, which is now
• 6:23
  ancient history, closer to World War 2 than it is to today.
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  I decided I was, you know, I didn't hate going to work, but
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  it was just less and less inspiring.
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  They didn't write visions, but I could see where they were headed
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  was not where I really wanted a head.
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  So I thought, you know what, screw it, it's time to do
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  something else. So I gave two months notice,
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  November 181. I really had no clue what would
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  be next. It was just time to get out of
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  there. And in one of those nice life
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  stories that actually worked out, Paul called me like 2 days
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  later and he said, hey, this building's coming open near the
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  fish market, let's go check it out.
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  And he had grown up in Detroit where he could get good deli
• 7:00
  food. And in Chicago, where I grew up,
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  you could get it. You couldn't really get it here.
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  And somehow within a week, we decided we would open.
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  And somehow, 4 1/2 months later we had renovated the whole
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  space, redone the floors, the walls, written the menu, costed
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  the menu, ordered product, got the equipment in, and we opened
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  up March 15th, 1982 with two employees in 1300 square feet.
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  So you went from concept to opening up in 4 1/2 months?
• 7:30
  Yeah. And where did the?
• 7:32
  Yeah, it takes like four months to get a meeting set up.
• 7:34
  Yeah. Where?
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  Where did the funds come from? You guys were still pretty
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  young. Well, there weren't that many
• 7:40
  funds. Most people will not remember
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  because they weren't there. But 1982 the economy was in very
• 7:49
  bad shape, especially here in Michigan.
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  Interest rates were about 18%. And as I when I teach our new
• 7:57
  staff orientation, which I'll be doing Sunday again this week, I
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  remind them the 18% was to the bank, not to the credit card
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  company. So in our current bout of
• 8:07
  inflation, which seems incredibly small and minor and
• 8:10
  barely significant to us, to people who've, you know, grew up
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  in the 90s and 2000s, they never had inflation.
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  We for us, it's the norm. It's actually the absence of
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  inflation that was the aberration.
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  But anyway, we got $20,000 as a second mortgage on Paul's house.
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  And then my grandmother lent us $2000, no interest, which with
• 8:33
  that interest rate was actually very nice.
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  And that was how we opened. Wow.
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  And then so first day's doors open and what was the result?
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  Instant success The. Result was in one day, we went
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  from 2 employees to 700. No, you know, we worked, man.
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  I mean, we made sandwiches, we cleaned up, we did some things
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  well, we made some mistakes and sort of sums up what we're still
• 8:58
  doing today. It's just bigger.
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  What you studied in school, you know, Russian history, anarchy,
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  how does this sort of tie into the the restaurant influence or
• 9:12
  are they just sort of completely separate?
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  Well, at the time I would have said they were completely
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  separate. It was not on my mind, nor was I
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  really worried about it. Now, I would say it's actually
• 9:25
  enormously helpful and it's proven to be a big part of what
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  we do. The Russian history part,
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  especially in recent years, as I don't want to get controversial,
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  but as conversations about autocracy, you know, most people
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  in the US have heard a word that's kind of like that but
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  don't even know what it means. I've spent my whole adult life
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  studying it either intensively or somewhat and I'm painfully
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  aware of what happens in autocratic settings with the
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  arbitrariness of application of rules and power consolidation,
• 10:08
  etcetera. And I would say also that that
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  model of autocracy, you know, often much more benevolently,
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  benevolently than it was done and or is done in Russia to this
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  day, is still the model that most businesses use.
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  Interesting. Say more about that.
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  Well, most, I mean, not saying this as a criticism, but most
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  businesses are run, you know, essentially like monarchies.
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  I mean, it's off. I have friends who do it.
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  And it's not a criticism, excuse me, but it's typically, you
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  know, they're benevolent monarchs and they like the
• 10:45
  employees and they're trying to do the right job, the right
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  thing, but all the decisions are still mostly made by the owner.
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  And, you know, that's how we started to, I mean, we had two
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  employees that never occurred to us to really do much else.
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  But as we started to study, you know, what I would now call
• 11:01
  whatever organizational development or, you know, theory
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  of leadership and stuff, then we started to see there were other
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  ways to do it, that we're not out of sync with our intuitive
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  sense of what to do. But that gave us a, you know, a
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  lot more to think about in terms of those constructs.
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  And so two things I'll add. And then, you know, 1 is just
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  with the, you mentioned the Dignity pamphlet, which really
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  started with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which is 3
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  years ago this month. And my feeling of helplessness
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  and despair. And for whatever reasons, it hit
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  me very hard. And you know, in my despair, I
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  started to do really the only thing introverted history majors
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  like me know how to do well, which is read books and study.
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  And so I started to study Ukrainian history because I
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  realized I knew a lot fair bit about Russian history, but very
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  little about Ukraine. And despite Vladimir Putin
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  belief or story that Ukraine doesn't really exist, it's
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  actually more likely that Russia came out of Ukraine and Ukraine
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  came out of Russia. But anyway, I started to study
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  Ukraine in history. And it's not like I discovered
• 12:12
  anything that wasn't commonly known to people who had done it.
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  I just hadn't done it. And Long story short, and I, I
• 12:19
  just felt so helpless because I didn't like it felt like a
• 12:23
  school shooting for a country, you know, for no reason.
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  One day somebody just barged in and started killing people.
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  And anyway, in 2014 or 2013, I'll say it's all the details,
• 12:39
  but people started to demonstrate against the Russian
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  sponsored president of Ukraine. And that culminated in February
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  of 2014 with basically they threw out the Russian sponsored
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  president and essentially claimed their independence
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  spiritually. They had had legal independence
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  since the fall of the Soviet Union.
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  And that event was called the Revolution of Dignity.
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  And when I read that, I was like, Oh my God, I know what to
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  do. Like this is what I can do.
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  I can't go to Ukraine. I don't know how to shoot a gun.
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  I'm not interested in learning, but I can make dignity happen
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  right here, right now. And so that really led me to
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  both research dignity more and then to commit to just, you
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  know, not that I was trying not to practice dignity, but, you
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  know, to really understand it at a much deeper level and then put
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  it to work all day, every day. And in the belief that a, in a,
• 13:39
  in a country where dignity is the norm, people like Vladimir
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  Putin could never come to power because it's antithetical to
• 13:46
  dignity. And in a country like Russia, we
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  could not work the way we work because the way we work is
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  antithetical to the way that country is structured.
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  And, and then also that although revolution, this is my history
• 14:00
  major, as revolution is generally we're taught that it's
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  like this event like July 4th, 1770s, you know, or, but it's
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  not. It's really more day-to-day
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  living, like those are political events that get into history
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  books. But really a revolution in an
• 14:16
  anarchist sense is how I treat you right now, how I treat
• 14:20
  myself. It's what we do every day.
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  And so a revolution of dignity could be made to happen simply
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  by all of us deciding to treat everybody we deal with with
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  dignity. So what did that look like from
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  a practical perspective? How did you decide to bring to
• 14:36
  your life and the those people around you?
• 14:39
  So in 1994, so 12 years in, we started Zinc Train, which is our
• 14:45
  training business, and Maggie Bayless was the managing partner
• 14:49
  there. She had worked in the
• 14:50
  restaurants with me and Paul as a cocktail waitress.
• 14:53
  She was a German lit major from Oberlin College of three hours
• 14:58
  north of where you are in Ohio. And but she she eventually went
• 15:02
  back to school at Michigan to get her MBA.
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  And Long story short, she fell in love with training and that
• 15:09
  became her passion. So organizational training
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  design is really her, you know, the same way I feel about food
• 15:16
  or now about leadership. That's how she is about training
• 15:19
  and from working with her, excuse me for many years, you
• 15:24
  know, I've learned like there's all these great words that
• 15:27
  everybody likes vision, customer service, but most places have no
• 15:34
  definition and no clarity. So they just go give good
• 15:37
  service, but nobody knows what it is they.
• 15:39
  Just throw the buzzwords around. Exactly.
• 15:44
  Excuse me, but so I was like, OK, what does dignity really
• 15:47
  mean? So I started doing homework and
• 15:50
  I ended up with six elements of dignity, which I'm happy to walk
• 15:53
  through if that helps. Yeah, let's hear it.
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  So the first is to honor the humanity of everybody that we're
• 16:02
  working with. It doesn't mean we need to be
• 16:06
  their therapist. It's just to acknowledge that
• 16:08
  everybody, you, me and anybody else that we meet, you know,
• 16:11
  everybody's got hopes, everybody's got dreams,
• 16:14
  everybody's got fears. We're all struggling.
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  We all got insecurities, we all got things that we're having a
• 16:20
  hard time with. And so just, you know,
• 16:23
  regardless of anybody's position on the org chart or how long
• 16:27
  they've been there or whether they're doing a good job or a
• 16:29
  bad job, they still have a life and they still matter as a human
• 16:32
  being. And so just it could be as
• 16:34
  simple as instead of asking them, you know, about the
• 16:38
  football game yesterday is to ask them how their kids doing in
• 16:41
  school or what they've been reading or how their parents
• 16:45
  doing that, you know, has had elder, that they're having elder
• 16:48
  care, you know, challenges. I mean it, it takes 60 seconds,
• 16:51
  but just to honor who they are. The second one is to be
• 16:57
  authentic, but there's a parenthetical component, which
• 17:01
  is authenticity, but without acting out.
• 17:05
  So, you know, dumping on somebody and then going, I'm
• 17:08
  just telling you how I feel is not what I'm talking about.
• 17:12
  This is about being true to who you are.
• 17:16
  Sorry, I'm at the very tail end of a cult.
• 17:20
  It's being true to who you are and sharing your anxieties, but
• 17:23
  it's doing it in a way that's respectful or treats the other
• 17:27
  person with dignity. So there's ways to say what our
• 17:30
  fears are that don't just dump it on the other person.
• 17:34
  So it's not just blurting out whatever comes to your mind in a
• 17:38
  disrespectful way. It's saying, I'm really, you
• 17:40
  know, when this happens, it really pushes my buttons and I
• 17:45
  get very anxious. Let's talk about it.
• 17:48
  The third thing is that to give everybody a meaningful say, and
• 17:54
  it doesn't mean we need, we use consensus a lot at the partner
• 17:57
  level, but it doesn't mean we run the whole organization by
• 18:00
  consensus of all 700 people, but it's say.
• 18:03
  That sounds like the definition of anarchy.
• 18:05
  Well, anarchism is not chaos. That's the misconception that
• 18:11
  people have been taught. We can get into that in a
• 18:14
  minute, but we use consensus. We've been running the
• 18:17
  organization by consensus of our partners group for 30 years,
• 18:20
  which started as Sevener six or seven people, but is now like 22
• 18:26
  and we've been doing that for 30 years.
• 18:30
  But anyway, it doesn't mean we use consensus for all decisions
• 18:32
  at 700 people. It just means that people have a
• 18:34
  way to voice their ideas, thoughts, concerns, hopes and
• 18:40
  dreams in a way that's constructively considered.
• 18:42
  Not just like, yes, honey, that's nice to see you next year
• 18:46
  in a, in a, in a survey, but more that, you know, so here and
• 18:50
  we have all our meetings are open, we're open book
• 18:54
  management, we have a change process that we teach to
• 18:57
  everybody. So those are just some of the
• 18:59
  ways that it can happen. But voting certainly is one way
• 19:03
  that's super relevant in our country.
• 19:05
  But as I remind people, they vote in Russia too, it just
• 19:08
  doesn't really mean anything. So voting alone doesn't give you
• 19:11
  a meaningful say. And I think when people have a
• 19:15
  meaningful say, IE their voice is heard and given serious
• 19:19
  consideration, it makes a big difference.
• 19:21
  How do you let them know that their voice is heard?
• 19:24
  Well, as simple as what I just going to do with you right now,
• 19:27
  which is, that's a good question.
• 19:29
  Anthony let's you know, and I, I think that's what we do.
• 19:32
  I mean, it's, it's, it's really treating people with dignity.
• 19:35
  So not creating some superficial.
• 19:38
  You know, there's a lot of big corporate programs where they
• 19:40
  have like the superficial thing with the survey and the focus
• 19:43
  group and then HR reports on it, but nothing really happens.
• 19:46
  I mean, this is where, you know, I, I, I got an e-mail from a, a
• 19:52
  nice guy who works at our mail order that I don't, I mean, I
• 19:55
  know who he is. I don't see him that often
• 19:58
  emailed to see if I would get together for coffee.
• 20:00
  So it's on my list to answer him tonight and do it like, why not,
• 20:04
  you know, so and then like. Over 700 employees, yeah, who
• 20:07
  works in your mail order, can e-mail you and set up an
• 20:10
  appointment with you. Yeah, I mean, but then you know,
• 20:13
  all, like I said, all the meetings are open.
• 20:15
  So next Thursday it'll be our Zingerman's wide huddle.
• 20:19
  So it's essentially where we run the organization.
• 20:22
  I mean, in a sense it's, it's figuratively a little bit like
• 20:24
  the board of directors meeting, but the meetings are open.
• 20:27
  So they'll be, I don't know, 40-50 people, 60 people in the
• 20:31
  room 1618 will be partners, but the rest will be from all over
• 20:36
  the organization. And then as a carry over from
• 20:39
  the pandemic, there'll be a Zoom link and they'll be, I don't
• 20:42
  know, 40 people on there, you know, so it's just, and if you
• 20:46
  raise your hand and you, you talk, I mean, you know, it
• 20:48
  doesn't mean people are going to do what you want necessarily,
• 20:50
  but they don't do what I want necessarily either.
• 20:52
  So, and then there's a change process.
• 20:55
  So instead of you making a suggestion, then I consider it
• 20:58
  and I act like King Solomon and decide it's teaching you how to
• 21:02
  lead so that you begin the process.
• 21:05
  And my job is to coach you on it.
• 21:06
  Even if you're not the decision maker, you can still lead
• 21:09
  change. So those are just a couple
• 21:11
  examples. And then culturally, like I
• 21:13
  said, it's just if you're really treating people with dignity and
• 21:16
  listening and not being dismissive like they're six
• 21:19
  years old and they don't know what they're talking about and
• 21:22
  not being patronizing in it, then I think it it works.
• 21:25
  It comes across as authentic, which is part of the.
• 21:28
  Six elements because it is because it is the 4th 1 is to be
• 21:34
  to to choose positive beliefs to begin with positive beliefs.
• 21:37
  So I wrote a the new chat book is a little tiny, you know, it's
• 21:41
  what poetry gets published in a lot.
• 21:42
  So that's like 50 little pages. But I wrote a 600 page book on
• 21:47
  beliefs, which is the opposite end of the publishing continuum.
• 21:52
  But so it's a longer conversation.
• 21:54
  But metaphorically, I began as I was working on that book 10
• 22:01
  years ago, to look at beliefs like the root system of our
• 22:04
  lives because I started to understand what I had never
• 22:07
  understood, which is that every action you and I take is based
• 22:11
  on what we believe other than instinct.
• 22:14
  If it's, you know, somebody throws a ball at us, we're going
• 22:16
  to duck. But other than that, it's all,
• 22:18
  you know, me choosing to be here, you choosing to interview
• 22:21
  me is based on our beliefs. Even if we didn't think about it
• 22:24
  that way. It's the reality.
• 22:26
  And so I like simple models that honor complexity, gives us ways
• 22:31
  to process. That's what the six elements of
• 22:33
  dignity are. It's what the writer Carol
• 22:36
  Sanford would call a framework. So it doesn't tell you what to
• 22:38
  do, but it gives you a frame within which to process and use
• 22:42
  your own ability. So three types of beliefs.
• 22:46
  I started to look at negative beliefs, neutral beliefs,
• 22:50
  positive beliefs. So if beliefs are the root
• 22:53
  system and all the actions come from the beliefs, you don't need
• 22:56
  to be a farmer or a philosopher to figure out that negative
• 22:59
  beliefs will always create negative outcomes.
• 23:02
  Neutral beliefs don't do much. Positive beliefs create positive
• 23:05
  outcomes. That's not Pollyanna and it's
• 23:07
  not false positivity. It's not to say there's no
• 23:10
  problems, but you can have negative beliefs about a
• 23:11
  problem, which is it's their fault, it's his fault, it's her
• 23:14
  fault, we're screwed, we're victims.
• 23:17
  Or you could have positive beliefs about a problem, which
• 23:19
  is this is bad. Let's get to work.
• 23:22
  Yeah, you know, I've got two young boys who are 8 and 10, and
• 23:24
  something that I try to remind myself of as well as them is
• 23:28
  that there's always good things, there's always bad things.
• 23:31
  Where do you want to put your attention?
• 23:33
  What do you want to focus on? I can pick the happiest day of
• 23:35
  my life and I really think about it.
• 23:37
  I can find something wrong with that and I can 0IN on it and I
• 23:40
  can make myself unhappy and miserable.
• 23:43
  And so I like, I love what you're saying.
• 23:45
  Like, you think you talk about it in terms of a farming
• 23:48
  metaphor. Yeah.
• 23:49
  If, if you plant seeds of happy thoughts, that's what you're
• 23:52
  going to get. If you plant seeds of miserable
• 23:54
  thoughts, you're going. To get rid of that.
• 23:56
  And it's not to be Pollyanna. I mean, there's many challenges.
• 23:59
  It's just choosing to believe that people are doing the best
• 24:03
  they can with what they got, even if I really don't like what
• 24:06
  they're doing and that my role matters and that I can choose to
• 24:11
  get involved and to try to make a difference, not just stand on
• 24:14
  the side and critique. So it means, you know, rather
• 24:18
  than wasting my energy was now how I would see it, you know,
• 24:21
  telling stories about how bad you are.
• 24:24
  It's just, you know, to just whatever.
• 24:27
  I didn't, I might not have liked what you did, which in this case
• 24:30
  isn't true, but I might not have liked what somebody else did.
• 24:32
  But I just choose to believe whatever they got something else
• 24:35
  going on or they have limited information or misguided
• 24:39
  beliefs. But I don't need to waste my
• 24:41
  time thinking negative thoughts about them.
• 24:44
  We could just have a peer-to-peer conversation.
• 24:46
  So doesn't mean I don't confront in a healthy way.
• 24:49
  It doesn't mean I don't bring up concerns.
• 24:51
  It just means that I'm not making up conspiracy stories
• 24:54
  about why something went wrong. The fifth one is to help
• 24:58
  everybody in the organization get to greatness.
• 25:02
  And, and that's my commitment, you know, and greatness is in
• 25:06
  their terms, not mine, although it's framed by our vision and
• 25:10
  our values. So if they come and say, you
• 25:14
  know, I want, I, I heard you want to help us get to
• 25:16
  greatness. I want to start the Zingerman's
• 25:19
  Nazi Party chapter that's outside our values.
• 25:23
  So I can still treat them with dignity while I tell them that
• 25:26
  we're not going to do that. But within our values and
• 25:29
  vision, there's a huge range of opportunity.
• 25:32
  So some people we hire want to be managing partners here, Some
• 25:35
  want to just come in and work and someone, you know, they're
• 25:38
  here for the summer and they're bussing tables and they're 17
• 25:41
  and they're going to go away to college.
• 25:43
  So all of those are good options for greatness that they can
• 25:46
  define. It just needs to be within our
• 25:49
  frame. So employees aren't just, you
• 25:52
  know, interchangeable machine parts.
• 25:54
  They're people that we really care about.
• 25:57
  And it's, it's sort of obvious once you choose this belief.
• 25:59
  I mean, if 600 of the 700 people who work here feel awesome and
• 26:04
  are getting to greatness by their own terms, I'm doing
• 26:07
  wonderful. And then the last one is
• 26:09
  probably I think the hardest, and that's to have some modicum,
• 26:13
  reasonable modicum of equity through the organization.
• 26:17
  So, you know, as I tell the new staff orientation, it's not, you
• 26:20
  know, going to blow them out of their their minds that I make
• 26:24
  more money than they do. Like I think everybody knows
• 26:27
  that. But if I were to be making as
• 26:28
  much more money as some of what they read about in the news,
• 26:33
  it's ridiculous in my belief. And you know, it's it's
• 26:38
  unhealthy. And this is where you could see
• 26:40
  it in Russia if you want to use my Russian history degree.
• 26:43
  Russia has the highest economic inequity in the world.
• 26:49
  The USA believe is second. It doesn't make for healthy
• 26:52
  ecosystems if there's that much inequity.
• 26:55
  So inevitably there's some, I'm not saying everybody I should
• 26:59
  make the same $15.00 an hour or whatever, but you know, trying
• 27:02
  to do it in a reasonable way. And then it's not just equity of
• 27:05
  money, but equity of resources for learning, equity of
• 27:08
  resources for help, equity of support, you know, all of that.
• 27:12
  And, and it's hard. I'm not saying we're there.
• 27:14
  I mean, it's just trying to work on it.
• 27:17
  So these six things, it, it's a, they apply.
• 27:21
  I I challenge myself every day to do them with everybody that I
• 27:25
  work with. And then I try to do, I need to
• 27:28
  do them for myself too. So I need to be honor my own
• 27:32
  humanity and imperfection, honor my authenticity.
• 27:37
  So what's true for me and what's right for me, give myself a
• 27:41
  meaningful say in my own life, which a lot of people, no one's
• 27:44
  going to say they don't. But we often give away our own
• 27:48
  values to try to please other people, to choose positive
• 27:52
  beliefs about myself. So not to be the Super critical
• 27:55
  voice that I was raised with and, you know, berate myself to,
• 28:00
  to go for greatness, whether whatever that means for for me
• 28:03
  as an individual. And then to create some kind of
• 28:06
  equity in my life, you know, which I get to decide what it
• 28:09
  is. But you know that things are
• 28:10
  working out well. So after this, I'm going to go
• 28:13
  run. I run every day.
• 28:15
  I, I train myself to, you know, like if people have little kids,
• 28:19
  it's appropriate that they're going to say I can't meet at
• 28:21
  that time. I need to pick up my kid at
• 28:23
  daycare or school. Nobody argues if you say you're
• 28:27
  going to go run, you can't meet. They're like, come on, just
• 28:29
  don't run. Like whatever, you know.
• 28:30
  And I'm like, no, I don't have kids.
• 28:32
  Non negotiable. For me, this, yeah, because it
• 28:34
  keeps my sanity and it keeps my mental health.
• 28:38
  And what's the difference? You know, it's, it's like me
• 28:41
  saying whatever, your kid will be fine.
• 28:42
  It's not that cold out, pick him up an hour late, you know.
• 28:45
  So it was really understanding that for me.
• 28:48
  I'm not saying that's true for everybody, but for me, that
• 28:51
  running time really helps me to stay balanced and grounded.
• 28:56
  And and then really, it's to remember to do dignity with our
• 28:59
  purveyors, with our community, with the planet, all the way
• 29:04
  around. So you're part restaurateur,
• 29:07
  part author, philosopher, and all of these things sort of
• 29:12
  intersect to support what you're doing.
• 29:14
  I guess I mean, everybody's a lot more than one thing.
• 29:17
  No, nobody's one thing. Fair enough, but there's you're
• 29:21
  you're a. Podcaster, a business owner, a
• 29:23
  father and a nice guy and of Calabrian heritage.
• 29:27
  I already know all that. Wow, you you, you created quite
• 29:30
  a list there pretty shortly. So let's go back a little bit
• 29:35
  further. Why Russian history?
• 29:37
  Why did it start there? Oh, I don't know Russian
• 29:39
  background. No.
• 29:40
  Well, I mean, I'm Russian Jewish background, but Russian Jews are
• 29:45
  not bonded to Russian history. They weren't allowed to be part
• 29:48
  of it for the most part. So that's not really why.
• 29:52
  I just, I liked it and they didn't have general studies in
• 29:56
  those days, so I needed to declare a major when I got to
• 29:59
  junior year and I picked that. I've always been interested in
• 30:03
  the people on the periphery. So not like inspired by the
• 30:09
  czars or the Soviet rulers, but more the people on the edge.
• 30:14
  So Soviet dissidents, the anarchists, you know, the the 19
• 30:20
  O 5 revolution where they tried to install a democratic system
• 30:23
  and failed, etcetera. So it's it's the people who were
• 30:26
  pushed out to the edge and treated in the, in the context
• 30:30
  of our previous conversation, without dignity.
• 30:34
  So, OK, let's go back to the, the restaurants now.
• 30:36
  So you started the, this first restaurant back in the early 80s
• 30:40
  with your, your friend and your partner who's a deli took quite
• 30:45
  a bit of work to get off the ground.
• 30:46
  When we when did you get to the point where you're like, we're
• 30:48
  on to something here, we can build on this.
• 30:52
  Well, it's still a lot of work. Everything's a lot of work, I
• 30:55
  think to do well, whether it's podcasting or parenting or
• 30:59
  writing poetry or running a business.
• 31:01
  There's nothing easy about any of it, I don't think.
• 31:04
  I mean, you have a moment here and there for feels easy, but
• 31:08
  it's the exception not to rule, I think.
• 31:09
  But anyway, it didn't really work like that.
• 31:13
  It, it was in 1993, so we were eleven years in.
• 31:18
  We expanded the building twice. It was only 1300 square feet, so
• 31:23
  we had to add it on twice. We're in historic district, so
• 31:26
  it's not that easy to make changes.
• 31:30
  And one summer day, so the opposite end of the calendar
• 31:33
  from where you and I are right now.
• 31:35
  It was much it's, it's sunny here in Ann Arbor today, but it
• 31:38
  was a lot warmer then. And there's a little bench out
• 31:41
  front of the deli building. And Paul grabbed me about 10 in
• 31:43
  the morning, which is anybody who's worked in food.
• 31:46
  That's when I should have been inside getting the sandwich line
• 31:48
  ready for the lunch rush. And he sits me down up front of
• 31:51
  the bench, and he looks at me and he's like, OK, in 10 years,
• 31:55
  what are we doing? And I'm like, I don't know what
• 31:58
  we're doing in 10 years. That little question turned into
• 32:05
  in the moment, you know, kind of like, why are you bothering me?
• 32:07
  And, you know, he was like, no, this is our work.
• 32:10
  What are we doing? So when we opened the deli in
• 32:12
  1982, we did not write a vision the way we now do it all the
• 32:15
  time. Not because we thought it was a
• 32:18
  bad idea or had negative beliefs about it, but just we didn't
• 32:21
  know you could write a vision. Most people don't, but in, in,
• 32:25
  in hindsight, we had one in our heads, which is quite common.
• 32:29
  Most everybody who's getting to greatness of their choosing,
• 32:32
  whether it's in your marketing work or in parenting, whatever
• 32:36
  you, you've all, everybody's imagined this positive future
• 32:40
  that they're going towards. So in our heads, we knew from
• 32:44
  the beginning we won't. We wanted something really
• 32:46
  special. We didn't want to be a copy of
• 32:48
  New York or Chicago or Detroit. We knew we wanted great food and
• 32:52
  great service and a great place for people to work.
• 32:55
  And we knew we wanted to do it in a very down to earth way,
• 32:58
  which doesn't seem that radical in 2025.
• 33:01
  But in 1982, to get really amazing food, you really had to
• 33:04
  get dressed up most of the time. And that wasn't what we wanted.
• 33:08
  And from the beginning we knew we only wanted one.
• 33:11
  No disrespect to those who open chains.
• 33:15
  It's just not my thing. It for me, it's boring.
• 33:17
  I mean, I'm not saying other people shouldn't do it, but I am
• 33:21
  not drawn to that. I'm drawn to the places where 20
• 33:24
  years later, you still remember going there because it was so
• 33:27
  amazing. Sort of like your dad's family
• 33:31
  village. Like if there were twenty of
• 33:34
  them dotted across the United States, it wouldn't be such a
• 33:37
  special experience to go back and visit.
• 33:40
  So that's really what we wanted. And that's really what Paul was.
• 33:43
  You know, he goes, well, we've turned down offers from other
• 33:45
  cities because we're only opening one.
• 33:48
  And people are opening on campus because we won't open other
• 33:50
  spots over there. And you know, what are we doing?
• 33:53
  I was like, Paul, I got work to do.
• 33:55
  And he's like, no, this is our work.
• 33:58
  So in hindsight, I would say he was asking me, what's your
• 34:00
  vision? We just didn't have that
• 34:01
  language. I don't think he had one.
• 34:03
  He I know I didn't have one. It's not like we were satisfied
• 34:07
  because we've always been about continuous improvement long
• 34:09
  before there was a Toyota way. But there's a difference, big
• 34:15
  difference between improving what you have and going after an
• 34:18
  inspiring vision of the future. So anyway, his question started
• 34:23
  a year long argument, Eye rolls, lots of swear words and
• 34:26
  frustration. But as we still do today, we
• 34:29
  just keep coming back to the table until we figure it out.
• 34:34
  And we had a lot of conversations.
• 34:37
  And during that year, we got to know a guy named Stosh
• 34:39
  Kasmirski. And Stosh passed away.
• 34:42
  I think it's seven years ago this May, which is very sad for
• 34:46
  us. But he taught us the process
• 34:48
  that we now call visioning. And he had learned it from a guy
• 34:51
  named Ron Lippit, who was at the Institute of Social Research
• 34:56
  here at University of Michigan in the late 50s, sixties, 70s
• 34:59
  and early 80s. And Ron called it preferred
• 35:02
  featuring. That's how Stash, who was one of
• 35:05
  the many people who learned it from Ron, taught it to us.
• 35:07
  And then we've adapted it to be what we do now.
• 35:12
  But out of that learning, we wrote our first vision.
• 35:15
  And it was called Zingerman's 2009.
• 35:17
  So if you're quick at math, you realize we went 15 years in the
• 35:20
  future, not ten. And that vision was the first
• 35:26
  time we ever wrote one. And it was, it basically
• 35:29
  described that we would create a community of businesses so we
• 35:31
  could grow but keep the deli unique.
• 35:35
  We would open other Zingerman's businesses with different
• 35:38
  specialties, so would all be one organization.
• 35:41
  So we could provide opportunity and center create synergy across
• 35:45
  the organization, but we wouldn't do what everybody else
• 35:47
  did, which is open 23 more delis and and that there would be
• 35:51
  managing partners in each business, which you referenced
• 35:54
  in the intro, because our experience was we liked working
• 35:57
  as partners. You know, even though we have
• 36:00
  our days of disagreement that we felt both felt a lot better
• 36:04
  being in it with somebody than being alone.
• 36:07
  And that this is a generalization, which I don't
• 36:11
  really like to do normally, but in general and restaurant world,
• 36:15
  when the owner's on site, it's a different energy than when
• 36:18
  you're in unit #12 and the manager means well, but it's not
• 36:22
  the same. And I never liked that.
• 36:24
  And that's what we didn't want. So that's what we wrote in that
• 36:28
  vision, and that's where the growth came from.
• 36:30
  So it wasn't like knowing that we were ready, because I don't
• 36:33
  think you're ever ready. It's just deciding that that was
• 36:37
  what we were going to create for all those reasons.
• 36:41
  That's really interesting. And So what was the second?
• 36:44
  It's just to understand you didn't want to open up 10 of the
• 36:47
  same thing because that's just boring to you, correct.
• 36:50
  Even though that there would be scales of efficiency there
• 36:53
  because you can replicate sort of the same footprint, the same
• 36:55
  model, the same food ordering. Yeah, I don't care about that.
• 36:58
  Like I want to be more creative. I want to use my energy in a
• 37:01
  different way. Yeah, and it's just, it's not
• 37:05
  like from a customer's. I mean no disrespect because I
• 37:07
  have friends who do it but like I don't nobody goes to the X
• 37:12
  restaurant that started downtown and now is in the suburbs.
• 37:15
  It's way more convenient and you're happy cuz you got two
• 37:18
  kids like you do and you don't want to drive downtown and it's
• 37:22
  still pretty good. But like nobody goes in there
• 37:24
  and it's like, this is awesome. Like, you know, it's convenient
• 37:28
  and you like convenience. And I'm not down on convenience,
• 37:31
  but I'm much more interested in creating unique things that are
• 37:35
  really compelling and special that people want to talk about
• 37:38
  because they're really not the same as everything else.
• 37:43
  And so this managing partner model, obviously you're giving
• 37:46
  up some equity, but you think the trade off is worth it
• 37:49
  because you're getting somebody who's a lot more invested.
• 37:53
  You know, this is their baby and they're, they're just, they're
• 37:56
  going to be sort of fine tuning the details more so than a
• 37:59
  general manager would. Correct.
• 38:01
  And that's it. That's obviously there can be
• 38:03
  people who are owners that don't do a good job and there's some
• 38:05
  awesome managers in the world. So it's a generalization.
• 38:08
  But but yeah, I mean, you know, the here's the pattern that's
• 38:12
  very common. You know, we bring you in to be
• 38:15
  the general manager of the new restaurant we're starting.
• 38:19
  It's Calabrian food. You're excited, you know, we
• 38:23
  give you a bonus on profit. You love it.
• 38:25
  But then two years later, you're like I, you know, I got this
• 38:27
  other offer to go to New York and that, you know, and now
• 38:31
  you're gone. And now I got your work and it's
• 38:34
  like I was already working full time.
• 38:35
  I don't need your work. You know, I would have been fine
• 38:38
  with what we had. So again, there's no guarantees.
• 38:41
  But it's really different when it's their passion and their
• 38:45
  dream and where it fits with our dream and we can work together,
• 38:51
  it's a whole lot different. And so are you coming up with
• 38:55
  the new idea and then looking for a partner to step in or you
• 38:57
  are people bringing the the concepts to you?
• 39:00
  It's it sounds good to say we have the idea and we look, but
• 39:05
  it it's never really worked. I got a lot of ideas.
• 39:09
  Ideas are very inexpensive. The hard part's finding who
• 39:13
  wants to do it for 20 years and so it's it's played out that it
• 39:19
  really works better when it's their idea and it fits with our
• 39:23
  vision and our values. And so then what did they get by
• 39:27
  becoming a part of the the Zingerman's family?
• 39:29
  Why not just they've got this idea going and start.
• 39:32
  For some people it makes sense. I mean, it's, it's up to them,
• 39:35
  you know, it's, there's an essay in Part 1 of the business book,
• 39:40
  Building a Great Business, which you referenced in the intro.
• 39:42
  That's called 12 Natural Laws of Business.
• 39:47
  The really, I'd learned later, 12 natural laws of living a
• 39:50
  great life. But basically they're like
• 39:52
  gravity. Everybody who's getting the
• 39:54
  greatness of, I don't mean making the most money, but
• 39:57
  getting the greatness of their own choosing is essentially
• 40:01
  living those natural laws. So whether it's a basketball
• 40:04
  team or a Symphony Orchestra or a small business or a big
• 40:09
  business or a country or community for that matter,
• 40:12
  they're living those natural laws.
• 40:13
  One of them is strengths lead to weaknesses.
• 40:17
  And one of them is that success means you get better problems.
• 40:22
  So if you open multiple units of the same thing, then you you
• 40:26
  described what some of the strengths are, but then the
• 40:29
  problem is it's not interesting. If you choose to open different
• 40:34
  things, then you get that problem, you know, which is you
• 40:37
  have to learn a new industry every time.
• 40:39
  But we chose that problem, so for us, it worked out.
• 40:44
  And what do they get? What do they get?
• 40:46
  So they get to be, If they want to work on their own, that's the
• 40:51
  problem they're choosing. That's where I was headed.
• 40:53
  If they want to be part of a collective with partners, they
• 40:57
  get to have that. So yeah, if they want to do it
• 40:59
  on their own, go for it. I would never try to talk them
• 41:01
  out of it. If you want to work as part of
• 41:03
  something bigger than yourself, then this is a great place to do
• 41:07
  it. So they get the support of the
• 41:09
  organization. They get all these cool people
• 41:11
  to work with. They get, you know, now like our
• 41:14
  name is tied to it. So whatever the Business School
• 41:19
  would call it, brand equity that we've built up over 43 years
• 41:23
  becomes part of their business equation.
• 41:26
  And then they're not alone, you know, which I mean, I would say
• 41:29
  from having trained, talked to and having friends who own
• 41:32
  businesses and have no partners is lonely, man.
• 41:35
  I mean, is lonely enough when you have partners and, you know,
• 41:39
  most people's spouse gets sick of hearing about it.
• 41:42
  So, you know, who do you talk to, right?
• 41:45
  And some people are lucky and they got a good friend that they
• 41:47
  talk to about all the time. But a lot of people have nobody.
• 41:50
  And so this is where, you know, I choose, we choose to work
• 41:55
  collaboratively, which has its issues too, but they're the
• 41:58
  issues we choose. So from a practical standpoint,
• 42:02
  they're going to get maybe some financial support they.
• 42:04
  Yeah, they own. Well, they own a share.
• 42:06
  Administrative support, payroll benefits, things.
• 42:09
  Yeah. And they pay in for that.
• 42:10
  I mean it's not free, but and and then we make decisions by
• 42:15
  consensus. So, you know, whether they own
• 42:18
  10% or 90%, we still make partner level decisions by
• 42:22
  consensus. So it doesn't, as Maggie always
• 42:24
  would say, it's implicit consensus.
• 42:26
  It doesn't mean she's calling me and Paul every time she wants to
• 42:29
  change the size of the glass, you know.
• 42:31
  But as she describes it, if in her gut she knows we're not
• 42:34
  going to like it or she's concerned we might not like it,
• 42:37
  she knows she really should pick up the phone and call.
• 42:41
  And then they participate in running the whole organization.
• 42:44
  That's how we set it up from the beginning.
• 42:46
  So if your marketing business was in what we call the Z Cab or
• 42:51
  Zingerman's community businesses, you would be the
• 42:54
  partner in there and you're a partner running the whole
• 42:56
  organization as part of that partners group.
• 43:01
  And so how is it that what was the number over 200?
• 43:04
  Folks, So then we have another thing that's where they, it's
• 43:08
  called, we call it community shares.
• 43:10
  So it's a way to an imperfect but meaningful way to create
• 43:14
  employee ownership and, and those shares are different.
• 43:18
  So that's not being the managing partner.
• 43:20
  It's owning a share in the brand.
• 43:23
  We spent five years trying to figure out how to do it.
• 43:25
  It's not easy here because we have, you know, whatever 15
• 43:28
  different companies that are different ownership in each one.
• 43:32
  But it was a way to create a chance, like if you came to work
• 43:37
  here as a Baker or a barista at the coffee house or, you know,
• 43:43
  whatever, you can own a share and like where else are you
• 43:46
  going to make coffee drinks in Ann Arbor that you're going to
• 43:49
  be an owner in the business. And so it's $1000 a share.
• 43:53
  They can only keep the share while they work.
• 43:55
  It's like a Co-op. So I own 1, you know, whatever
• 43:59
  275 other people own one. And you know, they get again,
• 44:03
  the psychic value of being an owner, which for me is more
• 44:06
  important than the money. But others are different.
• 44:09
  They get a a dividend based on the profit of the whole
• 44:13
  organization. And they also get a little
• 44:16
  coupon book with cool stuff. And then if they leave, they
• 44:20
  need to we give them the thousand, they get the $1000
• 44:23
  back. So the share is always worth
• 44:25
  $1000. They just get the dividend, some
• 44:27
  of the other benefits, yeah. Because we're not selling the
• 44:29
  business. So there's no, there's no, you
• 44:33
  know, it's not Google. Like you have stock options and
• 44:35
  one day you're going to be a billionaire if you just hold on
• 44:37
  long enough. Yeah, that's a.
• 44:40
  Whole other conversation we have a perpetual purpose trust, but.
• 44:46
  What is that? What is it?
• 44:49
  Like what do you like and podcast episodes to get all
• 44:52
  this? We're, we're not going to get to
• 44:55
  any of my questions here, but that's all right.
• 44:56
  We're talking. About we've got a lot of good
• 44:58
  stuff to do, but perpetual purpose trust, there's about 45
• 45:02
  or 50 in the US, There's going to be a lot more in the years to
• 45:05
  come. Again, not saying this
• 45:09
  judgmentally. The typical business model is
• 45:12
  whatever you and I have, you know, start Anthony's Pizza.
• 45:15
  We build it up. We open a few spots.
• 45:17
  We get to be my age. We sell it, we retire, we take
• 45:21
  the money, we move to, I don't know, wherever people want to
• 45:24
  move to and on it goes. Usually the sale goes to a
• 45:28
  bigger company who goes, oh, Anthony's Pizza, that caught us
• 45:32
  both. The guy, I love it.
• 45:33
  We're going to go national with it.
• 45:35
  And they, you know, generally it doesn't go that great.
• 45:38
  In my experience, this is the other way.
• 45:43
  So instead of we plant the forest, we clear cut the forest
• 45:47
  and take the money. This is to make an old growth
• 45:49
  forest. So in a very simplistic sense,
• 45:53
  it's me and Paul gifting the brand to itself so it can never
• 45:57
  be sold. So it creates a trust that owns
• 46:03
  a share of the trust as a veto so that it's not really running
• 46:07
  the organization that's already being done elsewhere, but that
• 46:11
  it precludes the brand from being sold to whoever for $100
• 46:17
  million. So that Zingerman stays here in
• 46:20
  the community if we do our work well for 50 hundred 150 years.
• 46:25
  So instead of. It basically it puts a mechanism
• 46:29
  in place that prevents it from being sold to the PE firm or.
• 46:34
  Whoever else, instead of what happens to all, almost all of
• 46:37
  those companies, which is like, you know, these two cool guys
• 46:41
  started this business in Ann Arbor and it's a Ann Arbor
• 46:43
  institution and then we sell it. And now there's somebody, you
• 46:46
  know, no disrespect sitting in the 18th floor of a Manhattan
• 46:49
  office building deciding what the price of corned beef should
• 46:52
  be, or somebody in, you know, Dubai or Denver or whatever.
• 46:56
  That's, you know, taking home the profit.
• 47:00
  It's keeping the decision making power and, and the money, most
• 47:03
  all of it in the community. So that, you know, because of,
• 47:07
  of an organization like ours, it's not just about the sales
• 47:10
  and the jobs, it's the quality of like a job in a bad workplace
• 47:14
  is not the same as a job in a healthy workplace. 43 years
• 47:18
  later. We have people who met in our
• 47:20
  business. We have people who met working
• 47:22
  in our business. We have people who grew up
• 47:24
  eating in our business, you know, the amount of
• 47:26
  contributions to the community, Like it's not just this plug and
• 47:30
  play thing that you pull up and drop down somewhere else.
• 47:34
  It's got roots and interconnectivity.
• 47:36
  And if you study forests, you know the the enrichment to the
• 47:41
  ecosystem from an old growth forest far exceeds what the same
• 47:45
  number of trees would be in an industrial forest planted 5
• 47:49
  miles away. So what happens to your shares
• 47:52
  upon your passing? Well, our shares are slowly
• 47:55
  moving more and more to the employees that own a share.
• 47:59
  So that's an LLC that they own in.
• 48:04
  So we've already moved 10% in the first few years and we'll
• 48:08
  move another 5% each year. Probably till we get to 5055%,
• 48:12
  I'll be owned by the employees and then I mean there's some
• 48:17
  other pieces and Paul and I keep, I don't know what, I don't
• 48:20
  even remember. 5 or 10% goes to our heirs.
• 48:24
  But they have no decision making, say they just, you know,
• 48:27
  have the equity stake. So we've talked a lot about
• 48:31
  several books, pamphlets, chapter books that you've
• 48:34
  written. Where can people find these?
• 48:37
  Are you like, is this Barnes and Noble?
• 48:39
  Like Amazon.com? Like you get it at
• 48:41
  codispote.com? No.
• 48:44
  So yes, good question. It probably won't be surprising
• 48:48
  after the first hour of our conversation that we're not
• 48:52
  following the more typical model.
• 48:54
  So I didn't love the big publishing world, which I did a
• 48:57
  book with many years ago. And then we just, I decided, you
• 49:00
  know, let's just do it ourselves.
• 49:02
  We were already doing a lot of design.
• 49:03
  You can see over my shoulder that part of a Zingerman's
• 49:06
  poster. And so we went back to doing our
• 49:10
  own. So we're sort of the farm to
• 49:11
  table version of books. We do all the everything design,
• 49:16
  layout, they're printed locally here in town.
• 49:19
  We stay off at Amazon in the belief that it's not values
• 49:23
  aligned with the way we work. And the more one works in ways
• 49:27
  that are values aligned, the better one's life is.
• 49:30
  And, and so that's what we do. So zingermanspress.com or
• 49:36
  zingtrain.com, or if they're in town, they're in the deli or the
• 49:40
  Roadhouse or the coffee company or whatever.
• 49:43
  So what didn't you like that you did the one book with
• 49:46
  traditional publishing? What?
• 49:48
  What? Went wrong there.
• 49:51
  There were a number of things. And again, I choose positive
• 49:54
  beliefs, so I'm not believing people were trying to mess me
• 49:57
  up. It's just I think the
• 50:00
  communication styles were not really that values aligned,
• 50:05
  which made it painful because they were talking to people who
• 50:08
  worked here in ways that we don't talk to each other here.
• 50:12
  And then, you know, they, I don't like the quality of I
• 50:18
  didn't like the quality of paper that they chose for the book.
• 50:21
  But it's their book at that point, you don't really own, you
• 50:24
  know. And so it's, it's what I I, I'm
• 50:27
  not a musician, but I listen to a lot of music and I read a lot
• 50:29
  of stuff about music. And I would always read these
• 50:31
  interviews with bands and they would say, like, yeah, we lost
• 50:34
  control of the music to the label.
• 50:36
  And that, you know, it's overproduced.
• 50:38
  It's this, it's that why? Because when you signed a deal
• 50:41
  with the record label, it's not your record.
• 50:44
  It has your name on it, but it's the labels record, they own it
• 50:48
  and they get to make the decisions.
• 50:50
  You know, unless you're Taylor Swift or whatever and you get to
• 50:54
  some point where you can have, you know, artistic and quotes
• 50:57
  control. And this was the same thing.
• 50:59
  It's like becomes their version of your book that your book.
• 51:03
  For many people, that's fine. It's just I care where the line
• 51:06
  breaks go and I care the the quality of the paper.
• 51:11
  And they were focused on hitting a price point.
• 51:14
  So they wanted lower quality paper.
• 51:16
  And I'm like, our customers don't care.
• 51:18
  They'd rather have a nicer book and pay more.
• 51:20
  That's what we sell. Like it's, it's in Congress, you
• 51:24
  know, to sell a cheaper book to get a price point when what we
• 51:27
  do is find the best quality food that we can get and charge
• 51:30
  whatever we need to charge. It doesn't make sense.
• 51:33
  And one of the anarchist beliefs that really hasn't formed my
• 51:36
  life is the belief that the means that you use.
• 51:40
  So how you go about doing something needs to be aligned
• 51:44
  with the ends that you're trying to achieve or congruent with the
• 51:47
  ends you're trying to achieve. So in a leadership standpoint,
• 51:50
  that would be the common but unfortunate thing where the boss
• 51:54
  yells at the employees for giving bad service is
• 51:58
  incongruous. So this is like having a
• 52:02
  moderately priced Zingerman's book to reach more people when
• 52:06
  our whole focus for at that time, 25 years was to get, don't
• 52:11
  worry about hitting the mainstream, find that amazing
• 52:14
  olive oil, the amazing cheese, and just charge what you need to
• 52:18
  charge. So it's just frustrating.
• 52:20
  And then I was like, you know, I don't live on the books.
• 52:22
  So I'd rather sell less books and feel good about it, then
• 52:26
  sell more books and get more money and not like it.
• 52:28
  And. So why write the books is this?
• 52:32
  Well, I started writing. No, I started writing.
• 52:36
  I never aspired to write. I'm a history major, so I, I
• 52:40
  kind of knew how to write papers.
• 52:42
  History favors, but that's not a claim to fame unless you're a
• 52:46
  professor, which I'm not. When we started the deli in 82,
• 52:52
  right from the beginning, we had like a little print on paper
• 52:56
  newsletter just in the belief, which we still have now, which
• 53:00
  is if we can't tell you why our products are special, why would
• 53:03
  you want to buy them? And and you know, that went
• 53:06
  pretty well. I was never really thrilled.
• 53:09
  It sound like it was bad, but I was always a little frustrated
• 53:12
  with the way the stuff was written or whatever.
• 53:15
  And in hindsight that was my fault.
• 53:17
  Not there the people who were doing it.
• 53:19
  But anyway, one of them moved out of town and I just was like,
• 53:22
  screw it, I'm going to do it myself.
• 53:25
  And then I started to try to write.
• 53:27
  And at the time, this is still before computers were commonly
• 53:31
  used, you know, as ripping up paper and my perfectionism
• 53:35
  making it painful and, you know, yadda.
• 53:38
  But I plowed ahead and I started to get nice comments and, you
• 53:43
  know, I just like, well, whatever.
• 53:44
  And then I got more nice comments and then people started
• 53:47
  going, you need to do a book. And that's like, I don't know
• 53:49
  about doing a book. And more people were saying it
• 53:52
  and they naively said, oh, you already have the whole thing
• 53:56
  because you've written all these newsletters, which is completely
• 53:58
  not true, but sounds good when you're not the one doing it.
• 54:01
  But anyway, so then at some point, which is probably 20,
• 54:04
  almost 30 years ago now, you know, I was like, well, if I'm
• 54:06
  going to do this, I really, actually, I really don't know
• 54:09
  anything about writing. I better go learn some.
• 54:12
  So I got in a writing group that somebody told me about and I did
• 54:17
  that for, I don't know, 10 or 15 years, which was hugely helpful.
• 54:21
  And I started reading books about writing and I just kept
• 54:25
  working at it. And so here we are.
• 54:28
  Why do it? I, it's, it's kind of like
• 54:31
  running for my mind. It, it makes me get clarity on
• 54:36
  what I'm thinking. It pushes me.
• 54:39
  So now I do this e-news every week, which is not a small
• 54:42
  venture or adventure. It's a lot of work, but I like
• 54:45
  it a lot. It's like running a marathon
• 54:47
  every week. But every week I learn new
• 54:50
  things because I'm like studying new.
• 54:51
  You know, it's not a six line, you know, 2 paragraph, you know,
• 54:57
  here's what we, you know, come to our training session.
• 55:00
  That's not unhelpful, but this is really pushing myself to
• 55:03
  think about current events, talk about how I'm feeling, you know
• 55:07
  what? And then provide something
• 55:08
  useful for the reader that actually helps their life.
• 55:12
  So the writing and then, you know, as as we get older also
• 55:16
  it's, it's very good succession work because stuff is written
• 55:21
  down. It places us.
• 55:24
  I didn't do it to place us in the marketplace, but I think it
• 55:27
  does place us in the marketplace because we're not just one more
• 55:30
  company with superficial slick ads.
• 55:33
  No, was kind of judgment, but I didn't mean it anybody in
• 55:37
  particular, but I mean it's actually substantive in its in
• 55:42
  its thoughtfulness. Tell us more about the e-news,
• 55:45
  What kind of contents in there and how?
• 55:47
  Yeah. So it's, it's, I have 5 items
• 55:51
  every week. I started it.
• 55:53
  I've lost track seven years ago in part because I realized like
• 55:57
  as we grew organizationally in a good way, like each of our
• 56:00
  businesses had their own marketing going and that was
• 56:03
  great. But then one day I was like, you
• 56:05
  know, other than this print newsletter that has grown and
• 56:08
  that we've been doing for whatever at the time, you know,
• 56:11
  35 years, there wasn't really no single place that you would
• 56:16
  learn about our different businesses in one spot.
• 56:19
  You know, so if you knew about them, it was great.
• 56:22
  But you could easily be a customer at the deli for years
• 56:25
  and not know we had food tours or you could be a zinc train
• 56:29
  client for leadership training, but not realize that we had Miss
• 56:31
  Kim, this awesome regional Korean food restaurant.
• 56:35
  And so I thought, you know, I'm going to do one thing where I
• 56:38
  can mix it up. So when we, you know, 5 things,
• 56:41
  it could be something from Miss Kim, it could be an olive oil,
• 56:44
  it could be a book, it could be whatever.
• 56:47
  And then sometimes I would write about leadership as one of the
• 56:50
  five things. And then when the pandemic hit,
• 56:56
  I moved that leadership piece more to the top.
• 56:59
  And I started to get like, I'd already been writing business
• 57:02
  books, but people started to respond a lot more to it, that
• 57:08
  it was giving them hope and difficult times and etcetera.
• 57:11
  So I just sort of ran with that and the leadership piece got
• 57:15
  longer and became more evolved and it stayed at the top.
• 57:20
  So it's one piece about leadership this current week
• 57:23
  that we're in right now. I wrote about reflection as a
• 57:28
  way, as a tool, not it's not a new subject for me, but the sort
• 57:34
  of realization through other people's conversations about
• 57:37
  getting through the turbulent times that we're in and that how
• 57:42
  important it is to stay grounded through them.
• 57:45
  And that if you don't have a like I journal every morning,
• 57:48
  but if you don't have some method to stay grounded, it's
• 57:53
  hard enough anyway, let alone now.
• 57:56
  So it was just reflecting, you know, I really write it real
• 57:59
  time so it can quote people like Timothy Snyder, who's from
• 58:05
  southern Ohio, the historian of Ukraine, you know, but it can be
• 58:09
  from like somebody's podcast from Saturday might be in next
• 58:14
  week's e-news. And so it had that piece on
• 58:17
  reflection and then I'm going from memory.
• 58:19
  But it had we do a fundraiser every February in memory of my
• 58:25
  corgi Jelly Bean, who died 10 years ago this spring.
• 58:28
  And we do it for the women's shelter.
• 58:30
  It's called Jelly Bean Jump up. And the bake house makes corgi
• 58:33
  decorated cookies that look like corgis.
• 58:36
  So it was about the corgi cookies, and then I wrote about
• 58:40
  the fresh mullet, which is amazing fish that we get from
• 58:42
  North Carolina coast. That's at the Roadhouse.
• 58:45
  And then it was, let's see what else was in there.
• 58:48
  I'm drawing a blank. I don't know, two more foods.
• 58:51
  I can lick it up, but I'm already on to next week.
• 58:55
  I'm so glad that you mentioned Miss Kim.
• 58:57
  She was a guest on this show a few weeks back.
• 58:59
  Folks, listening to this one, you should go back and listen.
• 59:02
  It'll give you just a slightly different perspective on some of
• 59:05
  the same concepts and philosophies that Ari's been
• 59:07
  sharing with us here today. Is, is there a particular
• 59:11
  restaurant concept that you would be eager to do that You're
• 59:14
  like, man, I wish somebody would come to me with something in
• 59:17
  this. I'd love to do Calabrian food if
• 59:19
  you want to move up here or let's get going.
• 59:21
  I mean it. It's awesome, man.
• 59:25
  I mean, there's a lot of things I would like to do.
• 59:27
  But yeah, I guess maybe somebody's listening.
• 59:29
  But I've long wanted to do Tunisian food, a good regional
• 59:33
  Italian, really any region would be great.
• 59:38
  I'm a big fan of Italy and Italian cooking, you know,
• 59:43
  There's so many Catalan food, I mean, and then there's tons that
• 59:47
  I don't even know anything about, you know, that would be
• 59:50
  wonderful too. You, you talked a lot about sort
• 59:54
  of the quality of the book and the the paper and the pages and,
• 59:57
  and taking sort of that same meticulous approach to finding
• 1:00:01
  the quality food, say more about how you go about sourcing your
• 1:00:06
  food items. So in the early 90s, nineteen 91
• 1:00:11
  to be exact, so we were nine years into business.
• 1:00:14
  We, you know, had grown from 2 employees to, I don't know, 100
• 1:00:19
  and something. And we, you know, from reading
• 1:00:22
  leadership books. There were no podcasts.
• 1:00:24
  Then we realized we should really, you know, would benefit
• 1:00:29
  from writing down a mission, which I had been super skeptical
• 1:00:33
  about mission statements. They mostly seem like mediocre
• 1:00:36
  poetry that was honed by customer bathrooms and serve no
• 1:00:38
  practical purpose in the world. But something I read changed my
• 1:00:42
  beliefs. So we did the work to do that
• 1:00:43
  and at the same time we embarked on the work to write our guiding
• 1:00:46
  principles. So basically it was to try to
• 1:00:49
  take the unwritten values that Paul and I had held in our heads
• 1:00:54
  and our hearts from the beginning and then say like, OK,
• 1:00:57
  well, what are they like? As we grow, it's more and more
• 1:01:00
  important that it's not just, you know, when you have two
• 1:01:02
  employees, you're standing there all day, whatever you, you know,
• 1:01:05
  you're, you're managing almost everything.
• 1:01:07
  But when you have 120 employees, you're mostly not next to most
• 1:01:11
  of them most of the time. And if you don't have clear
• 1:01:17
  organizational values, they're just using the values that they
• 1:01:20
  came with, which may or may not be aligned.
• 1:01:23
  And so we started the work to do that.
• 1:01:26
  And then the first one on the list was about food.
• 1:01:29
  And then we realized that we needed to get clarity back to,
• 1:01:32
  you know, what you're asking about dignity, what is quality?
• 1:01:35
  So everybody says they have quality.
• 1:01:37
  And I'm just a history major, not an English major.
• 1:01:40
  But I learned, we learned that quality is what is known as a
• 1:01:43
  subjective word, not an objective word.
• 1:01:46
  And hence, if you don't define it, it doesn't really mean
• 1:01:49
  anything. So it's fair to say that
• 1:01:51
  everybody has high quality if they're working to their own
• 1:01:54
  standard. But our standard is not the same
• 1:01:56
  as a fast food chain. Not that one's better and one's
• 1:01:59
  worse. It's just they're defining it in
• 1:02:02
  a different way. So after many conversations, we
• 1:02:05
  settled on full flavor, which we defined further to mean
• 1:02:09
  complexity, balance and finish. And then we decided as the
• 1:02:13
  second thing is traditional food is always what what we do.
• 1:02:17
  I mean, there's a few exceptions, but almost
• 1:02:20
  everything we work on is to go back to the old ways of doing
• 1:02:23
  it. Certainly there's areas like
• 1:02:25
  coffee, olive oil, wine, where technology has been hugely
• 1:02:29
  helpful. But in the 20th century, most
• 1:02:32
  technology and food was used to make it cheaper, more
• 1:02:36
  consistent, and eliminate the variability which was inherent
• 1:02:40
  in the old way of doing it. So it's not like we're, you
• 1:02:44
  know, Luddites that are opposed to technology, but it's just
• 1:02:47
  going back to the old way. Often using technology to do
• 1:02:51
  that is what we're always pushing.
• 1:02:53
  So how do we find products? We look for full flavor
• 1:02:57
  traditional foods. And because we also believe that
• 1:03:01
  everything can be made better, we're we're never done.
• 1:03:03
  So no matter how good something is today, we know we can work on
• 1:03:08
  making it better, and we're just always pushing ourselves.
• 1:03:10
  Can we find a better raw material?
• 1:03:12
  Can we improve the technique? Can we change the timing?
• 1:03:16
  You know, what can we do to make it even better still?
• 1:03:18
  So those two things are what we're doing.
• 1:03:20
  So it's just studying. So at your scale, does it make
• 1:03:24
  sense for you guys? Are you traveling
• 1:03:26
  internationally to visit, you know, sort of the the birth
• 1:03:30
  place of some of these foods to try?
• 1:03:31
  To find out new supplies. Yeah, we are.
• 1:03:34
  I mean, in the beginning it was me, but now it's lots of people.
• 1:03:37
  And we don't have, you know, people from the outside often
• 1:03:41
  fantasize that there's this job where that's all you do.
• 1:03:43
  But it's not, it's, it's you have a job.
• 1:03:46
  And then you also might do some of that.
• 1:03:48
  And then it's, it's food, not, you know, something, whatever.
• 1:03:54
  There's food everywhere. So if you go on vacation with
• 1:03:57
  your kids, there's food. So you're always learning.
• 1:04:00
  But yeah, I, I still have the strong belief that it's really
• 1:04:03
  hard to understand a product until we really, you go to where
• 1:04:07
  it came from. Because usually in training,
• 1:04:11
  Maggie would say the people who live in the community where the
• 1:04:14
  food dish or whatever came from are unconsciously competent than
• 1:04:19
  how to eat it. In other words, they don't pay a
• 1:04:21
  lot of it. Like the way your grandmother
• 1:04:23
  makes it, Like you don't even think about it.
• 1:04:25
  It's just you go over there until she gets older and maybe
• 1:04:28
  she's gone and then you're like, wow, what did she do, right?
• 1:04:32
  But when you come from the outside, then, you know, we're
• 1:04:35
  paying a lot more attention. And so the things that people,
• 1:04:39
  you know, in Calabria or whatever would assume Americans
• 1:04:43
  didn't care about, we cared about.
• 1:04:44
  So, you know, they'd be like, well, you won't like this.
• 1:04:47
  It's too blah. And we go, no, what are you
• 1:04:49
  eating? They're like, well, we eat this,
• 1:04:51
  but you won't like it. And I was like, no, that's what
• 1:04:53
  we want. And so it was really just
• 1:04:55
  getting into it in a way that gives a much deeper
• 1:04:59
  understanding of the food, how it matters, You know, So like
• 1:05:04
  we're in the upper Midwest where wild rice is a huge piece of the
• 1:05:09
  Ojibwe tradition in this part of the world.
• 1:05:11
  Well, I didn't grow up on wild rice.
• 1:05:13
  I mean, I wouldn't have known anything about it.
• 1:05:15
  But then by going to the Ojibwe communities and starting to
• 1:05:19
  study in and understand, like in those communities, wild rice is
• 1:05:23
  religion, it's economics, it's spirituality, it's every, it's
• 1:05:27
  huge. And then understanding from
• 1:05:29
  studying that like 90% of what's sold in the US is not really
• 1:05:32
  wild rice anymore. It's it's cultivated wild rice.
• 1:05:38
  They taste completely different. You can guess that the
• 1:05:42
  cultivated 1 is not better and and then doing the work.
• 1:05:46
  So to honor the tradition from whence it came, honor why it
• 1:05:50
  matters in Ojibwa culture and then to source it in ways that
• 1:05:54
  get us this really amazing wild rice that we can treat with
• 1:05:57
  dignity and respect. It costs way more.
• 1:06:01
  It tastes way better and then teach people what it is.
• 1:06:05
  Ari, I've just got one more question for you, but before I
• 1:06:07
  ask it, I want to do 2 things. Everyone listening today, I know
• 1:06:10
  that you love today's episode because Ari has been a very
• 1:06:13
  insightful and philosophical guest.
• 1:06:16
  Please hit the follow button on your favorite podcast app so you
• 1:06:18
  get more of this great content. Ari, I also want to let people
• 1:06:22
  know the best way either to get in touch with you or to continue
• 1:06:25
  to follow your story. Yeah, the best way is super
• 1:06:28
  simple. Just e-mail me
• 1:06:29
  ari@zingermans.com, Ari, and I'll answer you.
• 1:06:35
  That's the question. Yeah.
• 1:06:36
  Great. Last question for you.
• 1:06:38
  As you look to the future of Zingermans, what's one thing
• 1:06:41
  that you're most excited about that's coming up?
• 1:06:44
  Well, there's a lot. I mean, because we have
• 1:06:46
  visioning work that we do. We have a vision for 2032.
• 1:06:49
  So it actually describes what our organization will be like,
• 1:06:53
  whatever we're in now, 7 years from now.
• 1:06:57
  You know, I think for me, it's just making the organization
• 1:07:00
  continue to be healthy. We'll always be imperfect.
• 1:07:03
  We mess up daily. But you know, if we can get 80%
• 1:07:07
  of what we wrote in that vision to happen and we're still here
• 1:07:10
  and we're still functioning and creating great meals and great
• 1:07:14
  food and great service and a great place for people to work,
• 1:07:17
  which is also where we started in 82, that'd be awesome.
• 1:07:21
  Is there a specific thing on that 2032 vision that?
• 1:07:25
  There's a lot that I like. I mean, it's, you know, 11 is
• 1:07:29
  the idea of working with young people, so not hiring young
• 1:07:33
  people, which we also do. But this is work that we've now
• 1:07:37
  begun because this was written in 2020.
• 1:07:40
  But it's like teaching what I'm talking about here to 8 year,
• 1:07:43
  you know, teaching beliefs to 9 year olds, teaching visioning to
• 1:07:46
  10 year olds because they're really life skills and they're
• 1:07:50
  not taught in schools. They're not taught in most
• 1:07:52
  families. And yet, dude, I mean, I wish I
• 1:07:56
  would have known it at 9. It would have saved me a lot of
• 1:07:58
  stress and a lot of therapy and my life would have been less
• 1:08:01
  challenging. We still have problems.
• 1:08:03
  But anyway, so that's in there. You know, certainly the work
• 1:08:09
  that the last section is about love and actively putting love
• 1:08:14
  into everything we do and actually saying it overtly.
• 1:08:18
  Also super important. So, you know, and then just
• 1:08:21
  making the food better, the service better, the succession
• 1:08:24
  work that we're doing, which is in part the perpetual purpose
• 1:08:27
  trust that I talked about, like just seeing, you know, to pull
• 1:08:30
  off succession in a healthy way is no small thing.
• 1:08:34
  Is there something that you can hand to me today to help teach
• 1:08:37
  some of those skills to my 8 and 10 year old boys?
• 1:08:40
  Yeah, and all those books, man, you don't.
• 1:08:44
  I mean, they're not going to read the book as it is, but you
• 1:08:47
  could teach it to them. And people who work here do.
• 1:08:49
  I mean, you know, I still remember one of our she's been
• 1:08:53
  she left for another job probably 8 or 10 years ago, but
• 1:08:56
  I'm one of our designers. One day when the police book
• 1:08:58
  came out and you know, the next year she's like, yeah, I taught.
• 1:09:03
  There's a beliefs, a self fulfilling cycle that's sort of
• 1:09:05
  the core of the book, which I learned from Bob and Judith
• 1:09:08
  Wright's book Transform. But anyway, she goes last night
• 1:09:12
  I taught my the belief cycle to my son who's like the age of
• 1:09:16
  your kids. And you know, it's like, what's
• 1:09:18
  what happened? She goes, well, he came home
• 1:09:19
  from school and he's like, I suck at math.
• 1:09:22
  I'm terrible at math. And she, you know, she goes, I
• 1:09:25
  showed him like, if you start with that negative belief, it's
• 1:09:28
  not, it's it's self fulfilling, you know, because you'll freak
• 1:09:32
  out every time you have to do math, you'll freeze, you'll
• 1:09:34
  never really do the homework. And then you'll find a way to
• 1:09:37
  get through life being bad at math.
• 1:09:39
  But if you believe that it's just a little harder for you
• 1:09:42
  than some of the other kids, but you can do it, you'll completely
• 1:09:45
  alter your course. People teach visioning.
• 1:09:49
  We end every meeting with appreciations, which is a
• 1:09:51
  wonderful technique that I learned from my friend Lex
• 1:09:54
  Alexander in North Carolina 35 years ago.
• 1:09:58
  People do it at the dining room table, you know, So it really,
• 1:10:01
  this is the thing that people, one of the things that I think
• 1:10:04
  few people understand about business or organizations or
• 1:10:08
  work is it's not like the work stops when you leave, you know,
• 1:10:12
  and so many people leave work angry.
• 1:10:16
  Right now in the country, we got a lot of people terrified about
• 1:10:19
  their future or whether they'll have a job.
• 1:10:24
  Like there's no way that's not causing severe mental damage to
• 1:10:28
  the children at home. Like unless the parent is
• 1:10:30
  incredibly grounded. And even then, like, how can
• 1:10:33
  that stress not pass through? Conversely, if you feel good
• 1:10:37
  about yourself because you've been treated with dignity, you
• 1:10:40
  understand that negative beliefs about your child are unhelpful,
• 1:10:45
  you've learned energy management, which we teach to
• 1:10:47
  everybody, etcetera. It's going to change your kids
• 1:10:51
  life too, you know, and there's no guarantees.
• 1:10:53
  But once you write, you know, I wish I would have learned how to
• 1:10:56
  write a vision. I don't know how they let me
• 1:10:58
  into University of Michigan without writing one.
• 1:11:02
  Ari, I want to be the first one to thank you for sharing both
• 1:11:04
  your time and your story with us today.
• 1:11:06
  I really. Honored man, we could do it
• 1:11:07
  again. Happy to help.
• 1:11:08
  And again, if people want to reach out, arizingermans.com,
• 1:11:13
  the books are Zingerman's Press or Zing Train is also our
• 1:11:16
  training business. So we do seminars on all this
• 1:11:18
  stuff. And if they want to go eat food,
• 1:11:21
  they could come visit. And Zingerman's Food Tours, we
• 1:11:24
  take them to the producing places.
• 1:11:27
  There's one going on this week in Oaxaca, Mexico.
• 1:11:30
  And where do they find out about the food tours?
• 1:11:32
  Zingermansfoodtours.com. There you go, he makes it easy.
• 1:11:36
  All the URLs are easy to remember or just anybody you.
• 1:11:39
  Lost. E-mail me and I'll help you.
• 1:11:41
  There you go. And if anybody missed them,
• 1:11:43
  we'll have them in the show notes.
• 1:11:44
  Yeah, and if they want to get on the e-news, just e-mail me, I'll
• 1:11:46
  send it back and they can sign up.
• 1:11:48
  Perfect. Well, folks, that's a wrap on
• 1:11:51
  another episode of the Inspired Stories podcast.
• 1:11:53
  Thanks for learning with us today.