Latest / Legacy Living with Dr. Gloria Burgess / Let's Talk: Leadership with Ari Weinzweig | Episode #347

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Let's Talk: Leadership with Ari Weinzweig | Episode #347 · Legacy Living with Dr. Gloria Burgess

0:21
Hello, and welcome to today's show, Legacy Living, Make Your Life Count.
0:28
I'm your host, Doctor Gloria Gloria Burgess, international leadership expert and trusted
0:37
adviser. Welcome to Legacy Living, Make Your Life Count. I'm so delighted
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that you joined me today. I have a very special guest on our show.
0:51
His name is Ari Vinesfeig. Now. Just a few years ago,
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Ari was named one of the world's ten top CEOs by inc. Magazine.
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Ari is the CEO and co founding partner of Zingerman's Community of Businesses. Now,
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that's a mouthful. This community of businesses includes Zingerman's Delicatessen, Bakehouse,
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Creamery, catering, mail order, zing Train, the coffee Company, Roadhouse,
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Coffee Manufactory, events at Corman Farms, Miss Kim, and Zingerman's Food
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Tours. Wow, that is quite a community. Zingerman's is located in ann
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Arbor, Michigan. And you know, those of you who are regular listeners
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to this show, I'm just gonna say, go blue, that's one of
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my hometowns. Now. Ari was recognized as one of the Who's Who of
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food and beverage in America by the two thousand and six James Beard Foundation.
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He was also awarded a Bon Appetite Lifetime Achievement Award among his many recognitions.
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Ari is also a prolific author. He has written a number of articles and
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books, including Zingerman's Guide to Good Eating, Zingerman's Guide to Giving Great Service,
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Zingerman's Guide to Better Bacon, and Zingerman's Guide to Good Leading Part one,
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Part two, Part three, and Part four. And each of these
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books have a unique focus. In this four part series, there's building a
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great business, being a better leader, managing ourselves, and the power of
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beliefs in business. And all of Ari's books take the perspective of what he
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calls elapsed anarchist. Elapsed anarchist that's right now you will hear more about what
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that means during our conversation today. Today's topic is humility and leadership, a
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topic that is near and dear to my heart, and I can't think of
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a better person, a better leader, a better human being to address this
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topic than Ari Now. I met Ari in person just recently when I was
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in ann Arbor attending to family matters, but we actually met virtually before that
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through my sister Vera, who connected the two of us via email. Now
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when I met Ari through his amazing newsletters and very attentive emails, and then
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when we finally had an opportunity to meet face to face right outside of his
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Zingerman's Roadhouse restaurant, I heard him speak so so passionately about his business and
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his team, and he was just on fire about it. So I can't
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wait to host this incredible, humble human being, my friend and colleague Ari.
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Now, before I bring Arion, I want to take just a minute,
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just a moment, to connect the dots between today's topic on humility and
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leadership and legacy living. Now, there are many many ways that humility and
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leadership connect to legacy living, which you will hear more about later, But
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for now, let me say that legacy living is a way of being and
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a way of living and moving through the world so that we make the conscious
4:40
choice to be the difference we want to see in the world. We make
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the conscious choice now, right here, right now, not in some distant
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future. We make that conscious choice day in and day out, three sixty
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five, twenty four seven. Now, more about that a little bit later,
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Let me introduce you to my friend and colleague, Ari Finespike. Welcome
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to my podcast. Ari, thank you so much for joining us today.
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I just want to make sure that the listeners get a chance to hear your
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voice before I start launching into questions. Well, I'm honored to be here
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with you, Gloria, Thank you for having me on. Thank you so
5:25
Ari. We are talking about humility today, and I would love for you
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to just tell us a little bit about how you think about humility, what
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it means to you, and how you have come to this place around humility.
5:40
Okay, well that was I think that was. I'm going to be
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humble and say that was probably more questions than I can remember, but I'm
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going to try to start with the last one and then work my way back
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to the earlier one. So you guide me if I get off the rails.
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But sow how I got started on this. I mean, clearly the
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word. I've read a lot of books in my life and written a fairview,
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and humility is not a new human concept. But the way I really
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started to pay attention to it was the four years ago this coming spring,
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I got asked to speak at a little symposium on campus at University of Michigan
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that was about humility, and my initial reaction when the kind woman reached out
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to me to speak, and I speak pretty regularly, as do you.
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But my reaction was, I really don't know anything about humility. I mean,
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I clearly, like I said, no, what the word is,
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but I've never spoken on it. I've never written about it. We teach
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a lot of classes internally, we teach a whole we have a whole training
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program called zing Train, and we have I don't know twelve at the time,
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twelve two days seminars. None of it even deals with humility. And
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I am like, I'd love to help you, but I don't really know
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anything about it. But my challenge was the woman who had asked me used
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to work for us, and she's an awesomely wonderful, kind hearted, generous
7:04
human being. And her husband still works for us, and he is an
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equally kind and generous human being. And I just didn't have the heart to
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say no, so I said yes. And then I figured, Okay,
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I got five months or four months whatever it was, to figure out what
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I'm going to say. And so that's really what got me to start to
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study it. And like pretty much anything, and I'm given the diversity of
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your studies which is wonderful and inspiring. I'm sure I'm going to guess you've
7:32
had similar experience. But almost anything I believe that one starts to really pay
7:36
attention to it becomes very interesting. So whether you know, I've read a
7:42
book on the history of trains, which is completely not within my normal area
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of interest, but once one starts to study it, it becomes very interesting.
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And so that's what happened with Humility, and so I gave the talk.
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But then, of course I kept going and I started to study it
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more, and I started to realize how more and more how important it was
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to healthy leadership, to healthy organizations, to really to a healthy life.
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And then I started to look, and we'll get into it, but to
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the implications, both positive and then unfortunately negative, of what it can do
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to our communities and our societies when it's lacking. So that's really how I
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got going. So I'm gonna pause there and let you ask another question so
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we can hear your wonderful voice too. Yeah, that's great, Thank you,
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Thank you so much. Ari. So you basically followed an invitation from
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Speaking Opportunity at Michigan and followed that trail, and you became more and more
8:35
interested, and you have actually written on this topic. You published a slew
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of books and many, many, many pamphlets, and you have a pamphlet
8:46
on humility. Right, Can you tell us a little bit about that?
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I can. It came out last fall. This is the culminate. Well,
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actually I'm still learning, but at the time it was the culmination of
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the work that I had done. It started with that invitation to speak.
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It's called humility, a humble anarchistic inquiry. We can talk about anarchism later
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if you want. Turns out to be I mean, it's something I've been
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studying for a long time and working hard on its application to progressive business and
9:15
to a sustainable life. I guess was a way to say it, But
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this is really just a summation of my learnings and how, like I said,
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how I came to get focused on it, and then what it really
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means. How I realized in hindsight why Jamie Vanderbrook had asked me to speak,
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which is that although I had been completely unconscious about it, we were
9:35
actually doing it in a healthy way within the organization. And I started to
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understand how we had woven humility into so much of our existing training, we
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just didn't call out the word. And then also I started to realize how
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important it was for leadership skills and really an important piece of the hiring and
9:56
training and job expectations. And then lastly I ended up with some different perspectives
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on what humility is and how to frame it in a meaningful way. All
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right, Well, so you think about humility at the intersection of leadership,
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at the intersection of organizational effectiveness ecosystems. But I don't want to get ahead
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of you, so I want to just let our listeners know we're going to
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go there and talk about those different aspects of humility from your perspective. ARI,
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but for right now, can you just give like one or two examples
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of people that you would consider to be humble leaders in your own life?
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Well, well, one of the interesting things so Patrick Linconi, whose works
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I know you know, has a book out called The Ultimate Team Player,
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and he distills his research down to three characteristics that one ought to look for
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to find the ideal team player. Humble, hungry, either pursuit of mastery
11:07
or greatness, and what he calls smart, which doesn't mean intelligence but more
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emotional intelligence. Or the ability to work collaboratively with others, etc. And
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when I read those, I realized that actually those three characteristics were essentially true
11:22
of everyone I had really enjoyed working with over the years. And so some
11:28
of those include partners of mine. So Paul Saginaw, who I started Zingerman's
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with back March fifteenth, nineteen eighty two. We're going to have our thirty
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ninth anniversary next rook, congratulations yea. And a crazy Maggie Bayliss, who's
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the person with whom we started zing Train. She fits that. Bill Frank
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Carollo, who had worked with as a when I was a dishwasher in restaurants
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and he was a line cook and started the bakehouse with us, all the
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way on through to really most of the people I could think of that we
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work with as leaders in our organization. There's so many. And then also
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people who've inspired me through philosophical learnings and teachings around the world, many of
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whom That's how I connected with you is because we share a lot of those.
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So people like Peter Black, you know, Maya Angelou people. I
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just was quoting Tony Morrison and for the news I'm working on today, I
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mean all of these people. I got Bell Hook's book on Love at the
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top of my stack. I mean, they're all people who are coming in
12:30
their own imperfect ways, like all of us, from places of humility.
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And so I think, really, who's not humble? And I don't say
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this to plays blame, but I mean, it's the people who act full
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of themselves. And I have come to believe mostly that comes out of their
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own internal insecurities and anxieties, which we all have. Just that's how they
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deal with it. And in my experience, it's not the most wonderful way
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manifested in the world. But I do believe. I believe most of us
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have the same anxieties. It's really in the same self doubts. And I
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was just, I'm trying to remember her name. I was just listening to
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a wonderful scholar. GET did an interview with Burnet Brown, and she was
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sharing her own anxiety as a black woman who had achieved She's written a wonderful
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book and great achievement, and she was talking about her self doubt. And
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I'm thinking, I have the same self doubt. And I'm thirty nine years
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in business in a world renowned business with whatever. We have five hundred and
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fifty employees, you know, and I still feel that doubt every day.
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I fear like I feel like I'm falling short, and I don't know if
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it's legit. So I really believe it's a it's a universal truth, and
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then what we can learn to do is to manage that anxiety and in a
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healthy way. Yes, yes, thank you, thank you. Ari.
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So I am wondering if you can paint a picture for our listeners. I
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read a quote and I don't know if this is your quote or somebody else
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writing about your your work, Ari, but it talks about Mozart and music,
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and Mozart once said that music is not in the notes, but in
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the silence in between, and that humility is analogous to that, in that
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humility is the space between the sounds. And I love that image, and
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so I'm wondering if you might talk about either yourself or one of your colleagues
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or somebody else that you mentioned, and how they manifest that space between the
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sounds. I mean, it sounds poetic and lyrical and lovely, but what
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does that really look like on the ground. Well, I think in a
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way it's it's a funny thing, but it actually doesn't look like anything.
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That's why. It's the space between the sounds. It's it's part of what
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has happened in the world. And I don't know that it's really new,
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but I guess it's probably been exaggerate and exasperated in recent years. It is
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those who make the loudest noise get the most attention. And I think humility
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by definition means that, of course there's times for us to speak, and
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of course there's times for us to quotes make noise through our actions, but
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sometimes, many times, oftentimes it's really through our silence and our ability to
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keep our mouths quiet and to let others step forward and lead, to ask
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better questions, and to watch as others develop and grow and learn to struggle
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and collaborate as we are, because we're all struggling. But I mean,
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I grew up in a loving family where they showed love and affection by cutting
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you off and telling you are wrong. And it wasn't no intended, it
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was not it wasn't ill will, it was just habit, routine, way
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every and so that's how I grew up. So I'm with all due respect
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to my family. I'm kind of in recovery from that, because I can
16:07
get triggered with the best of them and learn and start to just react and
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talk louder and faster, and it's not the end of the world, but
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it's not great. And so just learning to slow myself down and back up.
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And then as you describe to ass in a pamphlet, to live in
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the silence between the notes and just let things unfold. Not to be absent
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or to abdicate our responsibility, because as leaders are, the responsibility is the
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same whether we're listening or we're talking, but to really allow others to come
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forward and shine. And I was actually just while I was out running today
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listening to a podcast with Krista Tippett and a gentleman who I had not heard
16:48
of named Gordon Hempton HM T t o N who's it's about silence and he
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studies silence out in the world and goes out and listens to nature. And
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it's just I was thinking about I was going to getting ready to speak to
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you, and so I was thinking, this is a perfect segue for it.
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And with your musical background, of course, I'm honored that it resonated
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for you, because anybody who does what you do in the musical world as
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well as you do, and your husband does understand this really even better than
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I do. Well, thank you. As you were talking, I was
17:25
actually thinking about music and conducting, which is one of the things that my
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husband does. So thank you for that. And I will I will look
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up that podcast. Sounds wonderful, sounds very interesting. So are what have
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you learned since writing the pamphlet? I mean you kind of started out wondering
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about it, and as a learner, what have you now pulled in as
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a result of finishing that. Well, quite quite a few things, really,
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I'll start with a couple and we'll see where we go with that.
17:53
But so one big one was before I had started this work. I think
18:00
it was clear to me, of course, that people who were very full
18:03
of themselves and who were not able to ever sit in the silence, but
18:08
needed to be the noise in the notes, not the silence between the notes.
18:12
That clearly people when and we all have ego, when we get caught
18:17
up in that ego and we take it to an exaggerated state to dominate others,
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either emotionally or in some cases physically, or politically or spiritually, and
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in very bad cases, in an abusive way. Clearly that's not humility.
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I would not have said, though, that people with very low self esteem
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are unhumbled, because I would have thought, well, clearly they're not egotistical,
18:45
so they must be humble. But I came through my own readings to
18:48
change that belief and to really understand that humility is about neither being high nor
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low. And from that, a second learning that came to me was really
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starting to believe that humility is when we're at our our most human, is
19:07
when we're in a state of hump what I came to call humbleness. And
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I can I can talk about that too, Yeah, I would love to
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have you say more about that, at our most human. Yeah, So
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there's a number of pieces of that. So when we're neither overly full of
19:25
ourselves nor stuck in the state of self deprecation, and certainly I can run
19:30
my cycles on both ends of those extremes. Well, I think we all
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do that when we can stay centered, and it's not that easy. When
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we can stay centered, that that's when we're true to ourselves, and that
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is when we're at our most human. Imperfect, open to learning, rail
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and fragile yet resilient and and so a lot of it comes out of that.
19:56
And then I started to also look at the root of the word,
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which I do often. I'm sure you do also because it's always interesting and
20:07
and and then you mentioned ecosystems, and this connected with work I've been doing,
20:12
uh in a way a different subject. But of course everything in the
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ecosystem is related one way or the other. And this turned out to be
20:19
too. But so humility comes from from from humus, from the earth,
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and of course into Bible, Adam the first man, that his name in
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Hebrew Adama means earth. So and of course the story in the Bible is
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that he was created by God from the earth. So regardless of one's religious
20:44
beliefs, is not the point. But it's just that it comes from that
20:48
same place of groundedness and connection to nature and connection to the earth. So
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it really came out of that, uh. And and that the humans the
20:57
top soil. The most important piece of what plants grow in is the humist
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And in the same way, the most important thing, or one of the
21:07
most important things for growing healthy people in organizations is also humility. Because without
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the top soil, plants don't grow well. Without the humility, people don't
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grow well. Yeah, thank you. You must have been reading my mind
21:22
because I went to that written word too, So that's great. Yeah,
21:26
yeah, I love that. So A, can you talk a little bit
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about what humility has helped you understand about the state of our country right now?
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Yeah. When I started this study, I didn't really realize at all
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how important it was going to be in the context of what you just said
21:51
of understanding the state of society, not like the society, and I'm a
21:55
part of it, so I'm not looking at it as outside critic. We're
21:57
all part of the problem and a potentially part of the solution. But I
22:03
didn't know when when the pamphlet was going to come out. It was not
22:07
planned as some sort of massive social statement and commentary. It was just work
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I had been doing for a long time. But a couple very current event
22:18
related subjects that are at hand. So one is if we're in a state
22:22
of what I now would refer to as humbleness, And we can come back
22:26
to that in a bit, but if we're in a state of humbleness,
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we're not better than anybody. We're not worse than anybody. And this is
22:33
going back to the ecosystem. In nature, there's really no hierarchy. Every
22:37
bun and everything is important. We're all different, we all play an important
22:41
role in the moment. One person's role might be different as the conductor of
22:45
the orchestra. If I'm in the in the audience and I go to the
22:51
bathroom, nothing's going to happen. If you do, We're the show's in
22:55
big trouble. Doesn't make you a better person or me a worse person.
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It just means in that moment, you have a particular importance. So it's
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not This is not to deny that important role that you play, but it
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just to not tie value as a human being to the role people are playing,
23:11
or of course to age, gender, race, religion, political beliefs.
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And to come back to the belief that I have long held, and
23:19
this goes into the anarchist stuff, that everybody is equitable, everybody is equal,
23:26
not the same. In fact, no two people are the same,
23:30
but everybody is equal, and that everybody is an important, creative, intelligent
23:33
human being, and that my job and I don't get it right every day
23:37
at my job is to treat them with dignity and honor them for who they
23:41
are. And that's a never ending challenge because I fall short. But that's
23:47
that work. So if we're all coming at our lives treating everyone as an
23:52
equal, then racism can exist because racism, anti Semitism, the belief women
24:00
can't be leaders, these things all come from hierarchical thinking, which is so
24:07
implicit embedded in our culture that all of us me included, grew up with
24:11
it and we don't even know what's happening. I tell the little anecdote in
24:17
the book, which in the pamphlet, which I didn't make up, but
24:19
are the two fish swimming along having a conversation and one fish says, yeah,
24:23
that guy, he's like a fish out of water, And the other
24:26
fish goes, what's water? And that's really what I've come to realize.
24:32
Hierarchical thinking is like, and it's so endemic that people, unwittingly, we
24:38
just fall into it. So people say, like, what's the most important
24:41
thing we need to know, what's the key element, what's the biggest mistake
24:45
you've ever made, what's your biggest success, what's your proudest moment of your
24:49
life, and I'm thinking, in hindsight, in a natural ecosystem model,
24:56
why do I have to pick there's no reason to rank them. The problem
25:03
is when we're thinking hierarchically, then either I need to be better than you
25:07
or you're better than me, because we can't really be on par If that
25:11
makes sense, I mean it doesn't make sense, but that's that's the way
25:15
we've been trained to think. And there's a second piece of this too,
25:18
which I think is antithetical to true humility, and that's that we've we've been
25:22
trained to hold the belief that we can assign an identity to a group of
25:27
people. Women do this, you know how men are. And then it
25:34
degenerates from there into this is how black people are, This is how Jews
25:38
are, this is how Catholics are. This, and it's just whether it's
25:45
ill intended or not, it creates what I would suggest as a dehumanization that's
25:51
antithetical to true humility or humbleness. And so when you combine that kind of
25:56
group assignment of identity with hierarchical thinking, it doesn't take you long to arrive
26:00
at the conclusion that either my group is going to be better than yours or
26:03
yours is going to be better than mine. In a hierarchically minded world,
26:07
who wants to be worse? Somebody has to be on the bottom. And
26:11
so this thinking manifests in the US a lot through racism, and manifested in
26:17
Nazi Germany and much of Europe for centuries in the treatment of Jews. There
26:22
has to be somebody who's pushed to the bottom, and maybe it was women
26:26
was traditionally women in the household. But the point is just to really come
26:30
at it alternatively from a place of humility, of humbleness, where we treat
26:36
everybody with dignity, where we're no better and no worse than anyone else.
26:41
Yes, thank you, thank you. I often think about birthright dignity,
26:45
that everyone has that, and you know, if we begin there, then
26:52
we create a whole different paradigm. Right, Absolutely, I have come.
26:57
I wrote a piece about dignity over the summer, and I started to realize
27:03
that's really one of the key metrics I would suggest of a healthy culture,
27:07
whether it's at our business or an anxiety at large. If if everyone's treated
27:12
with dignity, we're still going to make mistakes. Absolutely, if I forget
27:18
to call you back, but I treat you at dignity. Life's gonna You're
27:21
gonna forgive me, and life's gonna go on if I slip, but it
27:25
comes from a dignity based relationship, We're going to be okay. So that
27:30
that was That's one big piece of current events. And then the other big
27:33
piece is it's a pandemic which no one alive has been through, and so
27:42
humility would dictate that we would ask for help. Humility would dictate that we
27:49
acknowledge that we don't really know what to do. Humility dictates that we understand
27:56
our essential helplessness in the face of it, and then together there come up
28:00
with ways to start to address the issues at hand. Yes, but I
28:06
don't really per se, I want to get into politics. But if we
28:10
have leadership that is not humble, then we flail around intellectually and emotionally trying
28:18
to hide the problem, deny the problem, yell at the people who know
28:22
more than we do so that we feel better about ourselves, etc. Etc.
28:26
And none of that goes to finding quicker solutions that are more holistically sound.
28:33
So I didn't think about either of those per se. When I took
28:36
on the challenge of learning about humility. But as you know and I know,
28:41
I mean the horrible killings over the course of the spring and summer,
28:45
which of course are not really new. I mean, as horrible as they
28:48
are, we know it's been going on for centuries, and certainly this is
28:53
not the first time a leader acted unhumble in the face of a crisis.
28:57
But we know that humility and humbleness leads to better outcomes, will help more
29:03
people. So yeah, thank you, Arie. I want to just pause
29:07
here just a moment, because you know what you have been addressing are complex.
29:18
I'm not going to say complicated, but complex. I actually think that
29:22
there's also simplicity in what you are talking about as well, because I think
29:27
human beings at our best, we know, you know, we know how
29:33
to we know how to collaborate, we know how to pull together. Yea,
29:37
we know how to be humble. And yet because of whatever whatever,
29:41
whatever power system's hierarchy, whatever is in the air, we tend sometimes not
29:48
to not to go into that place of humility, to deep humility. Um,
29:55
I just have to tell you, I know you probably would not say
29:57
this about yourself. Maybe I'm maybe to pick up an assumption. But you
30:03
strike me as a humble leader, and from the moment that I met you
30:10
over email, and then when we had a COVID conversation, not a conversation
30:15
about COVID, but you know, outside with social distancing, etc. Etc.
30:21
And I'm just wondering how you do what you do managing a very sizeable
30:26
enterprise, a profitable enterprise, sustaining it over four decades. And you talked
30:33
a little bit about an ecosystem, and I wonder if you can just tell
30:37
us about man and how it connects to humility for you. Yeah, well,
30:42
thank you. I spent a lot of years in therapy to learn to
30:45
take a compliment, So I'm just going to leave it at that. There's
30:53
no one thing to answer your question. I mean, really, I guess
30:59
it's fun. But because we're here in an academic community, I get interview
31:04
requests from students weekly. I try to actually talk to all of them,
31:11
although I have come to suggest that they do some reading from what I've written
31:15
before they interview me, so I don't need to repeat all of the same
31:18
stuff from scratchy. But it's funny because the law ask me what's the most
31:22
important thing? Right the hierarchical thinking. So the best answer I could give
31:27
them now is the most important thing, or the best advice is to stop
31:32
looking for the most important thing. There's many reasons why I have arrived at
31:38
this ecosystem model, and I'm still it's still evolving. I started thinking about
31:47
it back when I was working on part four the Guide the Good Leading series,
31:49
which I mentioned is about beliefs. As I studied beliefs, and it
31:53
became ever clear to me that all really all of our conscious all of our
31:57
behaviors other than some instinctive reaction if somebody throws a rock at you or whatever.
32:05
Other than that, every action we take, including you and me being
32:07
on his podcast together, the work that we do, how we relate to
32:12
our significant others, the way we treat our colleagues or the person at the
32:15
drug store, all of that is based on our beliefs. And I started
32:21
to realize that although no one really talks about those beliefs or rarely talks about
32:25
them, they are what underlies the actions. And so the image came into
32:30
my head that the beliefs were very much akin to the root system of our
32:34
lives, and that you couldn't see them like I said, but what was
32:40
happening above ground was always correlated. Alexander Berkman, the anarchist, once very
32:46
helpfully for me, said you can't grow a rose from a cactus seed.
32:51
So I came to realize you can't. Negative beliefs will always lead to negative
32:55
outcomes. You can make action and noise, as we've experienced nationally, but
33:01
you can't really create healthy positive outcomes except from positive beliefs. And that doesn't
33:07
mean there's no problems. But you can have a negative belief about a problem,
33:09
like we're victims, or you can have a positive belief, which is
33:13
this is horrible. It's a tragedy. It's terrible. Let's get to work
33:15
and try to do something about it. And then from there I grew and
33:20
I started to realize the culture was like the soil because anybody who does agricultural
33:24
work, and I'm a city kid, but I've been learning and my girlfriend's
33:28
a farmer, the soil is always what holistic farmers, sustainable farmers, organic
33:34
farmers always talk about feeding the soil because when the soil is healthy, the
33:37
plants are going to do better. And it's the same in organization. So
33:40
if you put you and me, with all due respect, on a five
33:44
year tenure at a fast food franchise, within that super great franchise, E,
33:50
we're just going to be two more cynical people count in the minutes till
33:54
we can get out of work. And it's not said disrespect you are to
34:00
me. It's just if you're in an unhealthy soil, it's very difficult to
34:04
sustain. And then it kept going, and hope started to appear as the
34:07
sun because we all go towards hope. I think you can see that.
34:12
Unfortunately through behaviors of the last year on a political level, even when the
34:15
hope is negative or destructive, in the long run, people still go hopeless.
34:20
People will still when hope comes for them, will go towards it.
34:24
The spirit of generosity, I start to see like water, because nothing grows
34:29
without a purpose. I started to see his air because I was reading Rebecca
34:32
soln At, whose books I love, and she asked what I know.
34:36
She didn't invent, but I saw it in her books, so I give
34:38
her credit. Which is what goes faster uphill than downhill? And I had
34:43
no clue, And the answer is wind. So I realized that if wind
34:46
or air is purpose. Of course, when we're purpose driven, as you
34:50
know from your own books and you're teaching, we go we'll go work way
34:53
harder at something difficult that we believe in, and we will at something we
34:58
don't believe in, even if it's easy. Anyway, the concept continue has
35:02
continued to evolve, and now it's becoming clear that it's a whole book unto
35:06
itself. So it's probably going to be part five in the series. But
35:10
I like it for many reasons. I think I have like twenty on my
35:14
list, but just to give you one or two. It's not hierarchical,
35:19
which we talked about earlier. Another thing is that everything impacts everything else,
35:23
and so hierarchical thinking leads us to wipe things out and to say, hey,
35:28
the elephant is clearly way more important than to be because look how big
35:31
the elephant is. And but of course we start to learn that seemingly infinitesimal,
35:37
statistically present things like bees have this enormous impact on the ecosystem, and
35:44
when they're absent, you don't even notice if you're not a farmer or somebody
35:49
who keeps bees. But all of a sudden we're not able to grow the
35:53
fruit and grow the food that we need to grow. So in the ecosystem,
35:58
the greeting that the host give at the front door as Zingerman's Roadhouse could
36:01
gain or lose us one of our most loyal customers. Yes, and who
36:07
cares what I say that that smile or lack there of, that energy,
36:12
that lack thereof, So all of that, and then and then also it's
36:15
very important to understand that everything is impacting everything else. And so we had
36:21
some guests last night at the roadhouse who had never been there before. Their
36:24
friend brought him. They're from New York. They were blown away by their
36:29
meal. Well, I'm gonna bet you they're going to end up spending way
36:32
more money at our mail order over the next ten years. And they and
36:37
they went home with a coffee cake, and the guy's favored food in his
36:40
life as coffeecake. So our bakery is going to do well. So although
36:45
they entered through the roadhouse, the long term impact might be really show up
36:50
even more prominently in other parts of our organizations. So when we understand that
36:54
we're all related and that how the dignity with which I treat you is impacting
37:00
my own life. Because if I treat you badly, it's going to manifest
37:05
in a way I greet Tammy when she comes home from the farm tonight,
37:08
etc. So all of those things are part of the ecosystem. And then
37:12
the humbleness, as we talked about as the humist, it's the top soil
37:17
and out of that, as I wrote, you probably saw the piece a
37:21
couple of weeks ago, as somebody asked me, and I didn't know the
37:23
answer, what is humiliation mean? You've been right about it in the pamphlet,
37:28
and I'm like, you know what, You're right. I didn't,
37:29
but she's like, well, did you do that on purpose? I'm like,
37:31
not really, I just didn't think about it. So her question got
37:35
me thinking and I realized that humiliation and it makes sense. I mean,
37:38
in essence, it's taking the other person's top soil. We're making it hard
37:44
for you to be human by pushing you to be lower than us. And
37:52
not shockingly, this is what human beings are doing to the planet top soil
37:57
as youre wroting, disappearing in a rate to the point that it's going to
38:02
threaten our existence on the planet. And this comes also from humans, which
38:07
includes all of us to some degree treating nature as if we're better than nature
38:14
rather than what's true. And I've come to understand, which I never understood
38:16
as a kid growing up in Chicago, where asphalt was a comforting phenomenon,
38:23
that we're part of nature and that we have a responsibility, but we aren't
38:28
better than anything in nature. We're just part of it. Well, thank
38:32
you, thank you, And I love your system's view and making it an
38:37
ecosystem, which is pretty You know, it's hard for some people to understand,
38:43
like you said, you come from an asphalt arena, and for those
38:45
of us who are blessed to live in a world with old growth trees as
38:52
a as a natural way of being and breathing, it's a little bit easier
38:55
to understand. So thank you for writing, Ari, thank you for thinking,
39:00
thank you for being, and thank you for breathing life into these ideas,
39:06
these big ideas, and bringing them down to earth in a way that
39:09
people can hold on too. And I want to ask you just a couple
39:14
more questions. First of all, where do you find time to write?
39:16
I mean, mercy. It seems like you have just so many, you
39:21
know, things going on in your embraces so wide, Where do you find
39:23
the time to write? I wrote an essay on time management in part three
39:30
of the book, which is I'm managing Ourselves. It's a whole You can
39:34
have me back and we can talk about time. But I came to realize
39:38
that most of us have relatively unhealthy relationships with time, and that the way
39:45
most Americans talk about time not consciously. If they were to speak about their
39:52
significant other like that all day, it wouldn't go it wouldn't go well because
39:59
they're always mad, they're always frustrated, they never appreciate it or rarely.
40:07
And then I realized, like it's people like I think about food all the
40:14
time because I love it and I work with it. But I don't have
40:17
eating disorders. I just like food and appreciate its beauty. And I'm fortunate
40:22
that I can afford to eat good food. And I I mean, I'm
40:27
super wealthy, but I'm doing fine, and I am around good food all
40:30
day, and I feel really fortunate for that. Many people don't have access
40:35
to the health, healthful, wonderful, nutritious food that I do. But
40:38
in the same way, I think it's true at time, and I guess
40:42
I realized that Sam Teene, who's work you probably also knows another wonderful,
40:47
humble human being. He said, we always make time for what we truly
40:52
want to do. And I know this is true. Like I don't play
40:54
golf at all, but I listen to, you know, when we do
40:59
ZINC train work, and I listened to whatever I'm stereotyping. So I apologize,
41:02
but whatever bankers and they're like, I can't get it sold behind and
41:07
what are you doing this weekend? Oh, I got two games of golf.
41:09
I'm like, okay, so you got time to golf. I'm not
41:13
judging it, but if you got time to golf, then you got time
41:15
to write. So I think for me, it's it's just a conscious choice
41:21
to put time into certain places. And the writing is not something I really
41:24
ever set out to do. I just came to it really out of frustration,
41:30
to be honest with the way other people were writing our newsletter. And
41:32
in hindsight, it wasn't their fall, it was mine. But so I
41:37
the more I did it, the more I learned. The more I learned,
41:38
the more I put that to work in the organization, the more it
41:42
helped us as an organization, the more energy I felt because I was learning,
41:45
and so it got me on a good cycle. So I just try
41:50
to be mindful of my time and type fast and keep moving. Get over
41:55
the perfectionism with which I grew up. Yes, yes, that's it's really
42:00
important when you when you're write. So thank you, Thank you Ari.
42:05
So my last question for now is you know you've you've spoken a little bit
42:09
about anarchism, and I would love to hear again in your own words,
42:15
what is the relationship between what you do anarchism and who you are as well?
42:21
Well? I talk about anarchism because it's so misunderstood. Anarchism is about
42:29
respect for every individual. It's about freely choosing collaboration and generosity and positive beliefs.
42:37
It's it's really a way of being. And anarchism is perceived to be
42:44
chaos, but it's actually all about order. It's just that we freely choose
42:49
order. And in hindsight, studying ecosystems in perma culture, I would actually
42:53
say that perma culture is anarchism in nature and anarchism is permaical for people because
43:00
all the same principles show up in both philosophies about interconnectivity, about getting out
43:07
of hierarchy, about treating everything and everybody with dignity and respect, about seeing
43:12
the beauty and benefit that each person brings in their own unique way. So
43:17
what I This is a longer story, but as I started to restudy it
43:22
ten or twelve years ago, because I got asked to speak somewhere else at
43:27
the Jewish Studies Department and Deborah Dashmore titled to talk ry, bread and Anarchism
43:32
because I had just written a ten thousand word essay on the history of Jewish
43:36
rye Bread. I had studied the anarchists, and I was getting it once
43:40
again. I took the agreement to speak, but then I didn't. I'm
43:44
like, man, I haven't looked at my books in twenty years. I
43:46
mean, I'm going to look like an idiot in front of Like, these
43:50
are professors who study this stuff, and I don't know. I'm way out
43:53
of touch. So I got all my old books out and I started to
43:55
restudy and it totally blew me away in a quick sense. For two reasons.
44:01
A, I had not realized how much what Paul and I and everyone
44:07
around us had created was aligned with a lot of those anarchists beliefs that I
44:10
hadn't consciously done, but it was happening anyway. And then be more,
44:15
even more importantly, it just totally hit me upside ahead is how much what's
44:21
now called progressive business was aligned with anarchists thinking. So getting out of hierarchy,
44:28
self organizing, work, team flattening, organizations, engagement, these are
44:36
all take away the business seek It's all anarchists stuff that was being written about
44:40
one hundred years ago, because anarchism came as a reaction to the dehumanization of
44:45
the Industrial Revolution. It's the same, although many of them did not deal
44:51
with race very well at the time, but it's the same dehumanization that was
44:55
done that justified racism and hierarchical thinking around the made up concept of race,
45:01
which of course is a whole other subject that you know and teach very beautifully
45:06
about. So it really I started to realize that all of this stuff you
45:10
and I have been talking about for the last hour, treating everyone with dignity,
45:15
positive beliefs, including everybody actively, these are all the themes of progressive
45:21
life and organizations and all themes that are embedded in anarchism. And interestingly,
45:27
Gustav Landauer who's an anarchist whose work I never read in school because at the
45:30
time it was only in German, which I am afraid I'm not able to
45:34
read. But it was translated about fifteen years ago by a guy named Gabriel
45:37
Kon, which allowed me to read it, and it's wonderfully inspiring stuff.
45:43
He was a good friend of Martin Bouber's. He was a pacifist, very
45:46
spiritual guy. He said many interesting things, but one that totally blew me
45:52
away. As he said, I'm paraphrasing, but he said, the people
45:57
who pursue the destruction of the state, which is a common theme and anarchist
46:01
conversations. He said, it's misguided because when you're trying to destroy the state,
46:08
you're locked in a relationship with it, in the same way that I
46:12
was locked in a relationship with my mother while arguing with her, refusing to
46:16
do what she wanted. But in hindsight it was completely reactive, and although
46:21
it felt like I was freeing myself, it's really freedom from which is a
46:24
very unfree way to be. Dauer said, the answer is not to destroy
46:30
anything, is to go and create free communities where people can learn to treat
46:36
each other, with dignity to think freely, etc. And when I read
46:38
that, I was like, oh man, that's what we're doing. And
46:43
the last quote and I'll leave you alone as Landauer said, which really helped
46:46
me understand. He said, we have no political beliefs. We have beliefs
46:52
against politics. And that made me realize that anarchism is not a political program.
47:00
It's not about taking power. It's the opposite. It's a way of
47:02
life. It's and it starts with how I treat you, how I treat
47:07
Tammy, how I treat myself, so that it's not about gaining power,
47:12
it's about being powerful in a humble way within ourselves. So it starts with
47:17
us, and it starts with me, absolutely, absolutely, So thank you
47:22
so much Ari again for being my guest on this podcast. For who you
47:28
are, because that's where your leadership comes from, and all that you do
47:31
in the world, at Zingerman's and in the community. I just have such
47:37
high regard and respect for who you are and just all that you bring.
47:42
So thank you again. Well, thank you. I feel the same way,
47:45
and one day I'm going to get out to Seattle or hear you on
47:47
stage and see you at work. You got to see a tiny bit of
47:52
what I do, but I look forward to more conversations to come. And
47:58
thank you so much for the honor of the Anna Show so inspiring. Clearly,
48:07
Ari is a leader's leader. He makes a difference in his own life
48:12
and in the lives of so many others, in his own family and throughout
48:15
the world in his work as the CEO of Zingerman's Community of Businesses. And
48:21
as I mentioned earlier, Arius voted one of the world's top ten CEOs by
48:28
inc Magazine. Now you know why they lead differently, all of them,
48:34
including Ari. They lead in a totally unique way. To learn more about
48:40
Ari's work with the Zingerman's Community of Businesses, you can go to this website
48:46
that's www dot Zingerman's dot com. Www dot Zingerman's dot com. And when
48:54
you go to that site, just be sure to scroll all the way down
48:58
to the bottom and click on about us, and you can learn all about
49:02
Zingerman's vast community of businesses and you can take a peek at their array of
49:08
offerings. And hey, why don't you just shop while you're online? Right
49:14
just shop right there while you're there. If you're just joining us. I'm
49:19
doctor Gloria and this is Legacy Living. Make your life count. We just
49:23
heard from my very special guest, Ari Weinzweig, CEO of Zingerman's Community of
49:30
Businesses. Now, if you want to make your life count, if you
49:34
want to be the change you seek, be sure to listen to this episode
49:37
again and again, and be sure to tell somebody. You can find me
49:44
right here on iTunes, Audible, Alexa, SoundCloud, iHeart, tune in,
49:51
spriger dot com, Talk Network Radio, and so many other places.
49:57
Now, before I close, I just want to give a shout out to
50:00
all the women, men and young people all around the world, because you
50:05
know what we are. We are the ones. We are the ones that
50:10
we have been waiting for. That means that you don't want to wait for
50:15
somebody else to step up and make things happen right, You want to be
50:19
able to do that for yourself. You can be the one. In fact,
50:24
you are the one. You are the one who can make a difference
50:29
in your own life so that you can make a difference in the lives of
50:34
others. Now, if you happen to miss any part of this week's episode
50:39
or last week's, you can simply download the recording and listen to it at
50:44
your convenience. At Talknetwork Radio dot com Forward Slash hosts Forward Slash Legacy Living.
50:52
You can learn more about my work and Legacy Living make your life count
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by visiting the Gloria Burgess website. And as I've mentioned before, if you
51:02
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It's that simple. Each week you get a lovely photograph and a short
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51:37
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51:40
Just type in my name to find me there. Before I close today,
51:46
I want to thank each one of you for tuning in for allowing me
51:51
to share a bit about my journey with what Legacy Living is all about,
51:55
not just living and learning, but living, learning and serving so that you
52:00
make a difference in your own life and in the lives of others. It's
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about being on purpose every single day. Three sixty five, twenty four seven.
52:10
Legacy Living is a powerful way to make your life count. Once again,
52:17
thank you for joining me for today's show. I'm your host, doctor
52:22
Gloria Gloria Burgess, and this is Legacy Living. Make your life count.
52:30
Please join me again next time right here for another episode of Legacy Living.
52:37
Make your life count. Don't just count the days in your life. Make
52:43
the days in your life count. That's what Legacy living is all about.
52:50
Have a fantastic day and remember, make the days in your life count.
52:58
God bless that's our show today. I'm your host, doctor Gloria Gloria Burgess.
53:17
I hope you'll join me again next time. Until then, don't just
53:22
count the days in your life. Make the days in your life count.
53:28
That's what legacy living is all about. Here's to you. Have a fantastic
53:34
day and be sure to make it a yes kind of day. Remember to
53:39
celebrate the music of your life. Make the days in your life count.