Love Fort Wayne Podcast
The Love Fort Wayne podcast amplifies the stories of everyday people who are loving and leading in Northeast Indiana to spark imagination, root inspiration, and ignite transformation.
Love Fort Wayne Podcast
More than a Meal: Leading Restaurants with Faith, Flavor, and Purpose-filled Focus with Panos Bourounis & Jeremy McClain
Welcome to Season 5 of the Love Fort Wayne Podcast. The Love Fort Wayne Podcast amplifies the stories of everyday people who are loving and leading in Northeast Indiana to spark imagination, root inspiration and ignite transformation in our community and beyond. At Love Fort Wayne, we believe the pillars of a flourishing city are its leaders, pastors, schools, families and prayer community and in season five, we're excited to learn from and be encouraged by people who not only lead but love our city in these areas each day. Before we dive in, we want to say thank you for tuning in and we also want to extend a thank you to our partners at Remedy Live for making today's podcast possible. Welcome everybody to season five.
Speaker 1:Season five, mitch it's hard to believe it's flying by Crazy. Season five of the Love Fort Wayne podcast. We're so glad that you're tuned in, either watching us or listening to us wherever you are, and I just want to thank all the folks, mitch, that have stuck with us over these past four to five seasons of the podcast Folks listening in from our community here in greater Fort Wayne, but all over our region and the world we've seen. So thank you as we continue, just to take a moment and listen to stories from leaders right here in Fort Wayne that are making a difference in our community and our heart is really to amplify those stories as an encouragement to all of us who love this community that are living here and leading here. So thank you again for diving in. I'm excited because we've got two great friends of ours that are here today. We've got Panos and Jeremy and Mitch. Can you just do a edification and an introduction of these gentlemen before before we dive in?
Speaker 2:I'm excited Now. It might include a story and I want to warn the viewers and listeners you're going to be hungry by the time we're done. But I volunteered full time as a teaching pastor at Black Hawk Ministries and every Wednesday the whole group of pastors would have breakfast at Cosmos and I would walk in and this guy would say hey, man, and he'd hand me a diet Pepsi, and he said you want VIP seating, which was six inches higher in this one section in the back.
Speaker 2:And it was just incredible. And there was this immediate connection with Panos Baronis, and do you even remember that?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I mean it was a regular basis, gosh years and years, I mean yeah.
Speaker 2:It was.
Speaker 3:it was just awesome Always nice to see your presence there.
Speaker 2:And then you shared with me one day when you were thinking about partnering up with Jeremy McClain and I thought, man, that sounds like a home run. And I thought it'd be a good idea, jeremy, for you to give your background on how you got here today.
Speaker 4:Sure, yeah, thank you Really appreciate you having both of us here today. We're really excited to be here. So I'm a four-way native, grew, grew up here, went off to college uh, like many people and came back and so spent many years in the restaurant business and always knew of panos um, and he and his family had a great reputation uh in the hospitality industry and um, and so um got out of the restaurant business and worked for um, a convenience in the convenience store industry for Lassus Brothers Oil Fantastic family. They're doing great things in the convenience business in and around Northeast Indiana and so Panos and I have gotten to know each other over the last number of years and so we just became friends and now are business partners and growing the Salvatore's brand and some other restaurant brands. I'm really excited to partner with him and the rest of the team at Salvatore's and the other restaurant brands that we're growing.
Speaker 2:That's awesome. Panos, can you give your background? I mean you could do a whole movie.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll keep it short. My dad's always been in the restaurant business all his life. I started out, I guess, 12, 13 years old busboy, and then move up to cook, and then my dad would demote me. I started my own Cosmos when I was 21 years old and then had a steakhouse Hideout 125. And now we're up to 11 restaurants. Right now I'm no longer in Hideout or Cosmos. My brother took over the family business.
Speaker 2:Can you tell us, and the listeners, the viewers, what restaurants you'll have now?
Speaker 3:Yeah, of course. So we have Salvatore's. We have seven of those. We have Paula's Seafood, staple Seafood Place in Fort Wayne. Paula's Hamburgers been around since 1940. Actually this is an 85-year anniversary, so we'll be doing a lot of charity work this whole year. Dine the donates every month. We just got Azteca Mexican restaurant three months ago almost Yep, and then we actually were going to acquire Shorty's Steakhouse here Thursday man.
Speaker 2:Whoa, Come on. I told you you'd be hungry. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 3:So Shorty's would be number 11.
Speaker 1:Wow, man, wow, congratulations. Thank you very much. Yeah, it's so cool, jeremy, you and I were chatting and I think in the fall of 2024 and we chat from time to time, we connect and you know you were talking about you. All's heart to. You know, really care for the staple restaurants here in Fort Wayne. You talk about a Powers or a Paula's and an El Azteca and not letting those in my words, you know, die because the community just loves those places. So so much die because the community just loves those places, so so much. I kind of want to. I want to ask you know what goes into your mindset as you think about, you know, owning your businesses and running your restaurants. Like, what are some of those key principles into saying, yeah, we're going to, we're going to run our restaurants and lead our people this type of way and even acquire some of these restaurants with those principles in mind?
Speaker 4:Yeah, these are. These are landmark restaurants that have been around Fort Wayne. For you know, Pano said, you know, powers Hamburgers 85 years now in Fort Wayne, paula's you know almost 40 years, and so you know, when these restaurants came available, we knew we didn't want them to close, we didn't want them to be, we don't want them to fall into the wrong hands. And so we knew that we could help write the next chapter of these restaurants. We wanted to lead them.
Speaker 4:We have a heart for Fort Wayne, we have a heart for the restaurant business in Fort Wayne, and so we have a different vision for how, when you look at the historic sort of view of the restaurant business and you know, kind of gets a bad rap, if you will, you know you think about long hours and you think about an industry where you know people have been sort of, I guess, used, if you will, and we just have a different vision.
Speaker 4:We think we can do it different, we can do it better. We can take great care of our people, we can provide a great service and we can give back to the community in meaningful ways and we want to invite people to come on that journey with us. And so when we think about Powers and Paula's and El Azteca, 51 years old this past November. So we just want to be part of writing the next chapter of those iconic restaurants here in Fort Wayne, along with the Salvatore's brand and now also Shorty's Steakhouse, and so we've got almost 200, or, excuse me, 450 people on that team with us and so I think they're really excited. And one of the neat things, when you acquire a restaurant again, an industry where historically it's 300% turnover you know we've had no turnover in these restaurants at all when we acquire them.
Speaker 4:And so it's a testament to Panos first and foremost, you know, to our team. But we come in and we sit down with, you know, the new team of people. When we acquire a restaurant. We lay out what our vision is, we lay out what our plan is and we invite them to come on this journey with us. And they've accepted.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it goes pretty smooth. When you said 300% turnover, do you really mean that? We really mean that.
Speaker 4:So that means you know, three times a year you're training people that are brand new in the position, so think about how inefficient that is in the business world.
Speaker 2:It's gotta be so costly. Efficient, that is, in the business world, it's got to be so costly. You mentioned vision. Do you have a clearly stated vision that you try to share with your teams?
Speaker 4:We do. I mean, we want to be our customers' favorite choice. For now we have different segments, right? So you know, for Paula's, it's seafood, for Salvatore's, it's Italian, for Power's, it's a great hamburger. Right, you want a slider and some French fries and a chocolate shake, and so you know, we might not have the technically the best you know at whatever the position is, but we want to be the favorite.
Speaker 1:And you do that through connection right.
Speaker 4:You do it through the way you serve, the way you serve each other, our team members inside the restaurant, the way you serve the community, the way you serve the guest, and so we talk about you know, we want to be the best, we want to be perfect, but we want to be the favorite.
Speaker 2:How do you communicate that to the hundreds of people working with you? Like, how does that message get transferred so the customer experiences it?
Speaker 4:It's. That's an uphill battle. So I mean it's over and over and over, and we, you know. So we meet with our managers every other Tuesday morning, you know, and we talk about the fact that this isn't. You know, you don't just tell, you can't just tell people one time and then it's done. You know, we jokingly say, sort of tongue in cheek, that you're the chief repeating officer, because we often say, right, the vision leaks and discipline drifts. Right, that's, I think.
Speaker 2:Andy Stanley. Yeah, that's Andy Stanley, can you say it?
Speaker 4:again, the vision leaks and discipline drifts.
Speaker 3:I haven't heard that one before. That's good, that's pretty good.
Speaker 4:He's got to listen up in the meeting some more. I'm dozing off most of the time. And so you got to cast the vision and you got to recast the vision and you got to have the conversation over and over, and we want to catch people doing things right and really compliment them Right. And then when we see people doing something that we got to coach on, we need to do that in real time, right, and we need to have a short leash. When it's like, if it's an ability issue, like we need to do that in real time, right, and we need to have a a short leash. When it's like, if it's an ability issue, like we need to coach that, so it's a I can do it, but I'm choosing not to, that's when we're going to have a short leash and really correct that right away. But if it's an ability issue and they're not sure how to do it, then we just need to coach them into how to do it.
Speaker 2:I'm sure. I'm sure there are innumerable similarities, uh, among the different styles of restaurants that you have. So, italian, mexican seafood steaks, what are the contrasts? What makes anything different from when you did scrambled eggs, bacon and pancakes with Cosmos? How are they different? Is preparing Mexican different than preparing Italian Sure?
Speaker 3:I would say the food's different, but hospitality stays the same in all of them, Okay. So if it's high-end, when we had high-end Paulers, the same service at Paulers we want you to have at Powers. I know, it seems crazy but when you open the door at Powers, we want you to say welcome to Powers, you know.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 3:Right away. Thank you for coming in. It's a pleasure serving you today. Yes, so that's the goal. Every restaurant, we're really in the hospitality business. Yeah, here's your diet pepsi, would you like? A bc, so I would walk them back with the diet pest before you even sat yeah, it's already in my hands. Yeah, it changes things yeah, I can.
Speaker 1:I can attest to that guys like I that it's where I live at. I'm either out west where my folks live out west in southwest fort wayne, and so i'm'm there to see guys, or I'm picking up gift cards, thank you, we're going to talk about a little bit, because you guys serve the community so much and you've served us. So you know I'm coming to say thank you for a gift card and there it's hi Welcome to Salvatore's. How can we help you? Well, sometimes I'm out in New Haven to get things from there, because of where I live too, and it is the exact same thing.
Speaker 1:I mean, it just mirrors the hospitality and you know that you're being cared for and I think, from a patron's perspective, you want to be able to talk to a couple of different people. As soon as I walk in, it's hi welcome. Yep, go to her. She's got you. Hi welcome it. Just it feels like you're being cared for and hospitality goes a long way. It will sometimes change your palate, as I heard somebody say that it will, it can, it can influence your palate by the way you're being cared for when you enter a restaurant, and that and that matters, I think, as you lead people, the way that you love them, you lead them, you care for them, can even change their perspective. It can change their outlook, it can change their attitude and I believe it can change your palate as well.
Speaker 2:So well done, you guys. That is great, it's really good.
Speaker 3:We need to be recording some of this stuff. We need to be in the restaurant business. Easy now, easy now.
Speaker 2:You are both men of faith. You both love your families. Both men of faith, you both love your families. Can you share how you live?
Speaker 4:out your faith with your families and in your business. Yeah, I think you know we look at work as worship. So I mean, I don't want to oversimplify it, right, but that's how we look at work, you know, and so we work as unto the Lord, you know, and so that's how we try to lead and know, and so we work as unto the Lord, you know, and so that's how we try to lead. And so I think you go back to the Bible as the best book on leadership and when we're not sure, on something we think about. So what's the spirit of what we're trying to accomplish? You know, panos challenges us a lot. I think we challenge him every once in a while, but we're trying to be excellent. We're trying to follow in what we believe Christ would have us do.
Speaker 4:And so are we always perfect? We're not always perfect. We make mistakes, but when we make mistakes, we acknowledge it, we own that and we'll tell our team hey, we made a mistake with this, we went left, we should have gone right, whatever that that looks like. But we're thoughtful, we're purposeful and we're always looking to improve. You know, we want to be better. You know we're in early 2025. We want to be better than we were in 2024.
Speaker 4:And so we're looking at what do we do in 2024? And how can we be better and how can we better incorporate our faith Into what we're doing. And so just one simple element of that is you know I referenced earlier we get together with our managers every other week and it's not something that we force on them, but we open with a word of prayer and it's turned into, we take prayer requests and we just have some open discussion before we start the meeting. And for the first couple of months it was a little, I think, people felt a little awkward, or, but now they're very comfortable. They say I'd really like prayer for this or I'd really like prayer for that.
Speaker 4:And now we have a group thread with all of our managers, and so every once in a while somebody will reach out to like hey, you know anybody who's willing to pray about this? I've got this issue, I've got this praise that I'm really thankful for. Can everybody just, you know, pray for this issue or give praise for this? And so it's sort of blossomed into something that's really neat.
Speaker 2:God honors that. It's interesting how you phrase this. The Hebrew word all bad kind kind of sounds like, oh, bad kind of sounds like. That is translated both work and worship. God's design is that work would be worship, and there you are, saying it and living it. It's just incredible. How about you, panos? You do a lot of business, deals, a lot of real estate. How do you incorporate your faith?
Speaker 3:Oh gosh, I mean, I want to be the role model for my family and the role model for my employees, and I do have to lead with faith first, though. So we're really big on when we take over a restaurant. We can open seven days a week, we can add more hours, but we close a day so people can spend time with the family. Power's is Sundays, paula's is Sundays All, salvatore's is Mondays. Azteca Shorty's is going to be on Sundays, close. So they'll open seven days a week, but we want people to have a day with the family. I know how it is in the restaurant business you can work 80 hours and you can lose track of everything. We don't want to be known as that, so I want to make sure that people have time with their families, loved ones.
Speaker 2:Truett, cathy bought most of his collector cars from me at auctions. The founder of Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-a. Yeah, and he said that to me one time as well on giving everybody who's on your team a day a week. And then he also said you can give the customers a day a week to go eat somewhere else.
Speaker 3:That's a good way to look at it.
Speaker 4:That's why we close our restaurants on different days.
Speaker 2:So they can come to your-.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so they can go to a different brand, but he's really good with it.
Speaker 3:When we started doing the pray, the, the pray before every meeting and the beginning it was like I don't think anybody was involved in it. I mean, now the requests come in like as soon as we even start hey, can you pray for my neighbor, can you pray for my son? It's just like they really see that these people are really faith driven, you know, and they want the best for us. They want the best for our families. Yeah, that driven, you know, and they want the best for us.
Speaker 1:They want the best for our families. And, yeah, you know, we we've heard of this Mitch, you and I but I wonder if you guys have heard of there's been a cool movement of like faith and work. You know and you know. So we have a faith and work you know chapter here in Fort Wayne. There's lots of of different movements of faith at work and it's just a beautiful way to implement faith at work.
Speaker 1:And so for the folks that are watching or listening, sometimes it's the simple but hard saying we're going to do this, we're going to implement prayer, to start our meetings, and it might take a little bit of time, like you just said, panos, it might be a little sketchy at first but eventually being steadfast in like our faith beliefs and I think it's just hard sometimes for us to think about OK, how can I live my faith in a secular setting?
Speaker 1:But people are, I think they're open to prayer, they're open to faith more than we think Sometimes. It just takes some of us in leadership roles that are people of faith to say, yes, I'm going to do this, we're going to do that. You guys have obviously seen some, some growth and some changes in people you know as well. So you know, for me that kind of thinks, I think about a strategy, leadership strategy. That was a strategy. Hey, we're going to implement prayer into our principles. And I kind of want to ask you a question based on more strategy, as you think about your own leadership journeys, like type of leadership principles and leadership personal strategies have you said this is just key for me, like as I develop as a leader, I need to invest myself into these types of things, these types of rhythms, these types of readings, these types of people. I want to surround myself with these types of people.
Speaker 3:It's a good question. Global leadership is one of them. You know, just when we have something like that for the community to go to, it's a game changer, and now we want our staff to be. I think we sent two of our managers in the last couple of years something like that, so that's been really good to have something like that. But I think having a mentor like Mitch here has been a game changer for me in my life. I don't want to make his head any bigger than what it is, but we were talking about him before he came in. But somebody like that if you could reach out to somebody in the local community. But global leadership love Fort Wayne obviously is a game changer for Fort Wayne. People really need to know more about that. If we can get the word out there that this exists more, I think the sky's the limit for it. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Yeah, jeremy, you've gone to Global Leadership Summit for a long time, right?
Speaker 4:Yes, I have.
Speaker 2:Almost close to the beginning, I would think.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:What have you gleaned from that? And you've also been an Ignite grad. Yeah, the Ignite program was fantastic, yeah.
Speaker 4:It allows you to connect with people who are, you know, similarly situated or positioned in their leadership journey, and I think you know, to anybody who's thinking about Ignite, I wish it's one of those things. I wish I would have done it sooner, you know, I know that life is busy and there's a lot going on, but I think you guys have done a great job with the Ignite program and you know, creating a program that fits into people's busy lifestyles. You know, creating a program that fits into people's busy lifestyles. You know, the Global Leadership Summit is just, it's phenomenal the thought leaders that come in every year. Again, it's what you do with it, though, right.
Speaker 4:So you can come in and listen, right. But if you don't just take so, every year I challenge myself, I say I'm going to take, you know I'm going to sit and listen, right, and then I'm going to take at least one idea or two ideas and agree I can take two or three. But if you just sit and listen and then close your notebook and jump right back into what I call the whirlwind of busyness of life, then all of a sudden it's a year and you open up your notebook and you go oh, that was a really good idea a year ago, I didn't do anything with it Right so where's the benefit we should?
Speaker 2:have Jeremy talk in front of everybody in August. Yeah, at the summit, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we need to. I think that's one of the biggest things for a lot of leaders. It's we've got our principles of this thing that we want to do, so it's going to the summit or an event like it, wherever you're located in or connecting with the mentor or whatever it may be. But to your point, jeremy, it's. I thought about it, I haven't wrote it down. What are the actionable steps for me actually following up and do it? But transformation doesn't happen when you're not moving. Transformation's about movement, so you have to.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we talk about it regularly. It's like we try to eliminate the word hope from our vocabulary. And we even to the point where we call each other out, like if I say I hope that happens, or if he says we'll verbally call each other out and say well, hope's not a strategy.
Speaker 4:So what action plan are we putting in place? And you know, with our managers, we talk about all the time, you know, the whirlwind of just running restaurants and that's true in any business, right? You know we talk about. So, outside of just the whirlwind of running a great operation, running a great restaurant, what's the one thing, or the two things that you're going to get done this week? Because if you try to get 10 things done, you're going to get nothing done. Yeah, right, so let's run a great operation. That's managing the whirlwind, right. And then what's the one thing or two things? And pretty soon you look back, you can get a lot of things accomplished if you just try to do it one or two things at a time.
Speaker 2:Would you say, that's the secret to why you are thriving in so many restaurants close. Is it that step at a time? Is it something else?
Speaker 4:Well, I don't want Panos' head to get too big, but I think, it's.
Speaker 3:Panos.
Speaker 4:He's a visionary leader. He's incredible. He's not afraid to take action, he's not afraid to take risks. I've worked with a lot of great leaders, a lot of great leaders. You know he's, you know a lot of times, great leaders. They're just wired differently and they just they see things before other people see things and they just they have a great instinct. And so you know a lot of the acquisitions that we've done over the last 12 to 24 months, the acquisitions that we've done over the last 12 to 24 months, um, he's orchestrated Um and so not that other operators aren't doing a good job out there, but it's um.
Speaker 4:You know our businesses and every business is tough. The restaurant business is is really tough Um, but it's it's relationship driven Um and and you guys have a great relationship. But so, and you guys have a great relationship, mitch. So you know this. Panos is great at developing really strong relationships and he is somebody I admire. So I thought when we met I considered myself as somebody who was really generous. And then I met Panos and I was like oh there's levels to this generosity thing right.
Speaker 4:I appreciate that. You know, his generosity has challenged me I don't know if I've ever told you this has challenged me to become even more generous, Um, and so I think one of the reasons that we're thriving, um, first and foremost, is we're pursuing excellence and we're trying to do a great job every day, right? Um, we're really focused on giving back to the communities, right, but we want to be a net contributor.
Speaker 3:We don't want to just consume.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 4:You know, in business a lot of times, people start a business and they, you know, it's like they want to get rich.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Not that they necessarily want to get rich right, but we're looking to. We want to be a be rich business right, so we want to enrich the lives of the people who come work for us. We want to enrich the communities where we do business. We want them to be better off because we're there.
Speaker 1:So and Panos that starts with him and flows all the way down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, panos, we are blessed to have on our Love Fort Wayne board some of the most incredible business and ministry leaders, I think, in the history of Fort Wayne. We go back to Matt Anthony Wayne, one of those you remind me a lot of, and that's Chuck Surak. You have incredible instincts, incredible vision, incredibly, and instantly connect with someone and then you'll take a risk and you'll get something done. You'll probably get more done by being decisive in a few minutes than many of us would ever get done in a whole year, and I just I think those qualities are God-given and I love how you use them to advance the kingdom.
Speaker 3:I appreciate you saying that and Jeremy, thank you. But it's really the team we want to be able to expand. Without the team we have and the team is developed by Jeremy and Alex they're pretty much the leaders of the whole brand. I'm more kind of behind the scenes so without them and the places they are and developing these leaders, we wouldn't be able to even expand to one restaurant. So obviously I want to take a lot of credit, but it's not, it's our team. It's 400 plus employees now. Yeah, we're in a great position and I'm very happy for everybody we have employed by us.
Speaker 2:So your wife Stephanie has been a huge part of it too.
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah, she has too. Yeah, of course, yeah, yeah, you do bring up a great point.
Speaker 4:I want to make sure that, so we get to be sitting here with you today, the two of us right, but we have 444 today 444 people who show up every day, right yeah.
Speaker 2:My heart's skipping a beat on that payroll.
Speaker 4:Well, not only the payroll right, but we don't take that lightly. That's 444 people and a lot of them have. They have a significant other. Yes, they have a family. I mean, they're counting on us, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:To be wise, to be good stewards. They're counting on us to be wise, to be good stewards. They're counting on us right, and so when we lay our, then they're leading the folks that do eventually touch those lives, and so I just want to say kudos again to that. And it also makes I want to ask you a question, panos, about you were sharing at top of our time together just growing up in the restaurant business. But being a young man, you know 17, 18, 19 restaurants and I would assume, from the outside perspective and restaurant business there are younger people that start. You know a lot of their careers there. They might be right out of high school, right out of trade school, in college and they're there. I mean, how has that experience of being a young person in?
Speaker 3:leadership but still having to grind because your dad would demote you and I know we laughed about it, but I'm sure I mean there's some principles to it.
Speaker 1:In regards to I just didn't shoot up the ladder. I had to work at it too. Has that helped, especially as young people on board at your restaurants?
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I think 100%. We want to see people start out, obviously, leadership right away, but it's just not possible. But you got to go through all the positions, so you start out busboy and you start dishwasher. But I love watching people grow with us. It's just amazing. If you have the worth ethic, the sky's the limit with our company Personality, obviously we want them to be some kind of faith in them too. Um yeah, it's just, it's very eye-opening and pleasing for us to see people grow, growing our company so I'd love that, yeah, are you hiring all the time 24 7?
Speaker 2:so you know somebody's listening and they're intrigued by what we're-.
Speaker 3:Never take the sign down. We do. It's 24-7. We're always hiring man. We're looking for that one person that can make a difference. Yeah, that's cool, that's good.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think in hospitality, right when we're interviewing and hiring people, I always tell people if your heart doesn't beat a little bit, faster.
Speaker 1:when you think about serving your neighbor, you know then we're probably not the right place for you. So we're always looking for people who love to serve. It's beautiful, beautiful story. So we asked this question as we get close to the end of our time together and it's a look back kind of where we are now but where we're going. And we asked our guest if you were younger, if you were your younger self as an emerging leader, you know, what leadership principles would you tell yourself now, going backwards? So think about it for a moment. If you had to think about Panos, think about Jeremy starting out in this journey, what would you tell yourself?
Speaker 3:I would tell myself to even work harder than I did, Work harder than I did. I would wish I would have had a mentor like Mitch and younger, Listen to my dad more. He was the leader in the household, leader in the business. For some reason I always thought I knew a little creative way to outdo him, but he always proved me wrong. Yeah, I just work and it will pay off in the end and have good values in life and integrity and respect and it's going to lead you in a great path. That's good.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I would say very similar, I think don't be afraid to put the work in early, because it pays dividends down the road and, like Panos mentioned, to get a mentor early. I think you know, when I was younger I felt like, oh, I have something to prove. You know, I'm going to blaze my own path and do it on my own. And not that I didn't listen, but I didn't think that I knew better, but I had something to prove, I think. And so I think I would listen more and talk less if I could go back and have a conversation with my younger self more and talk less. If I could go back and have a conversation with my younger self. You know, I get plugged in with a group of peers sooner, rather than trying to be the one who would say, oh, I can do it better than everybody else. I would give myself probably a larger dose of humility sooner. And getting a mentor, I think key um to really kind of accelerate the growth.
Speaker 3:So going to things like Ignite, finding these groups when I was I just started going to them three years ago Wow, I wish, I wish I would've went to them before. You know. Um, you go to these groups. You don't need to be a leader, even if you're just employee and and a company you just cause it says a leadership summit. I think it's still valuable for anybody younger, older. If you just get one thing out of that seminar, it's a game changer and I always get more than a handful of things. But it's like Jeremy said, I got to do little by little. I can't incorporate all at one time, but-.
Speaker 2:Jesus said if you want to lead, serve. So I feel like anyone can lead and I feel like everyone does lead in some fashion. There are people that have this supercharged leadership gift. You know, and we're looking. I'm looking at three of them right now. But yeah, if you're listening today and you want to lead, serve and then see what happens, that's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really good, yeah. And when I heard from these guys and I heard from you guys too, as you're emerging in your leadership, a posture of humility is huge, because to be able to go back to my younger selves, our younger selves, and say, yeah, I would have listened to someone older than me, more seasoned than me, but yeah, I can still do it now, I mean that's humility. To say I would surround myself with other folks and not try to forge my own path. Listen to my dad more.
Speaker 1:I like that. Yeah, you know I think that that is. Service and humility are key principles of Jesus that I think are rooted in our leadership. You guys gave us some great examples of that in your story.
Speaker 4:Yeah, If I could just throw one more thing into it. I think I would have not been so timid to incorporate faith sooner. I think that's something that we talked about for a while and we thought how do we do it, how do we do it? And then finally we just kind of just ripped the bandaid and just did it.
Speaker 3:I felt like we were walking on eggshells for a little bit like I don't know how to do it.
Speaker 4:I'm like we just got to do it. Yeah, we didn't want to offend people, it's in us.
Speaker 3:Yeah, offend people, like you said, and so we just did it.
Speaker 4:So if I can go back and have a conversation with my younger self, I said I would think, just be authentic, be who you are, and if your faith is part of who you are, then just express that.
Speaker 2:That's really good. Yeah, that really is. 2,000 years ago, humility was considered a negative word. It was kind of like equated with slavery and things like that kind of like equated with slavery and things like that. And Jesus and Paul made it a positive word, and I was thinking about what you said, jeff, and what you two have said. That really is the key to getting to the next step.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right, guys you have any final words that you want to share? I appreciate you having us here. It's my first time doing something like this, so I enjoyed joining you guys' company and, obviously, being here with Jeremy too. So, thank you, I'm glad you joined us yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 4:Yeah, thank you, it's been a blast. Thanks for having us here today, it's been fun.
Speaker 1:We have to do it again, Jeremy, you're you're a little stiff.
Speaker 1:We appreciate it, guys. And for all of you that have tuned in and watched everybody that's listening we hope you enjoyed it. Again, our heart is to amplify stories of folks that are leading in our community but loving this community in a firm-rooted foundation of faith, and that episode, this episode, was that and more, and so, again, we hope that you enjoyed it. Go back, rewind it, take some notes if there's something that captured your heart, and we hope to see you again and have you listening in to the next podcast here in March. Until then, be great, do your best, love the Lord, serve the Lord with all that you got, and we'll talk to you next time.
