1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:07,800
Okay. So welcome to the meaningful jobs podcast. My name is Adrian. And today it's my great
2
00:00:07,800 --> 00:00:15,240
honor to welcome my guest, Peter, who runs a restaurant brand to my podcast to share
3
00:00:15,240 --> 00:00:21,920
about his views on career and how to find meaning in work. So first of all, how are
4
00:00:21,920 --> 00:00:23,420
you, Peter? Hope you're well.
5
00:00:23,420 --> 00:00:25,120
I'm doing great. How are you doing?
6
00:00:25,120 --> 00:00:33,360
Yeah, very good. Thank you. Before asking you maybe perhaps how you got how you managed
7
00:00:33,360 --> 00:00:40,600
to navigate through the COVID times during your business. Could you maybe tell us a little
8
00:00:40,600 --> 00:00:45,680
bit about your background, like how you went, got into the restaurant business?
9
00:00:45,680 --> 00:00:54,800
Yeah, so I'm actually fourth generation of restaurant tour. So I had, but my father started
10
00:00:54,800 --> 00:01:02,720
this particular restaurant, both my parents did actually, and they had, and then I kind
11
00:01:02,720 --> 00:01:07,680
of worked in it, but I've worked for my father. So I was 12 years old. I didn't want to have
12
00:01:07,680 --> 00:01:11,840
anything to do with restaurants. Like I wouldn't have nothing to do with it and became a lawyer
13
00:01:11,840 --> 00:01:20,240
when all school became a lawyer. And I was practicing law and one day I was in my office
14
00:01:20,240 --> 00:01:25,440
and there was a conversation being taken place next next door. And it wasn't a bad conversation.
15
00:01:25,440 --> 00:01:32,320
I don't remember what it was about. And it was just so boring. And I just remember thinking,
16
00:01:32,320 --> 00:01:37,120
I don't want to have that conversation in 10 years. And I was working even while I was
17
00:01:37,120 --> 00:01:41,760
working for the law firm, I'd still work part time at the restaurants at night just and
18
00:01:41,760 --> 00:01:45,200
those I'd get energized, et cetera. And so I said, you know what, I want to kind of come back.
19
00:01:45,200 --> 00:01:50,400
So I talked to my father about coming back. And what I didn't know was that he had,
20
00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:58,480
he was looking for somebody to buy the restaurant. And like he was wanting to retire.
21
00:01:58,480 --> 00:02:05,840
And so I agreed to come back and started it over, started from there, took over the operations in
22
00:02:05,840 --> 00:02:12,160
2001, and then eventually bought the restaurant from him in 2009. Right, right. I see. Well,
23
00:02:12,160 --> 00:02:17,600
so that's quite a big shift actually from the restaurant to the restaurant business.
24
00:02:18,480 --> 00:02:20,960
We get through it a lot. So it's really not that much of a shift.
25
00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:27,680
Right, right. So I think you've grown to quite a large scale already. I think you've got more than
26
00:02:28,320 --> 00:02:32,640
you have a few, is there a few dozen restaurants already? We have, we have, we have, we have six
27
00:02:32,640 --> 00:02:38,320
restaurants, but I do have, we have other businesses that we operate. So we have a, a seasoning company
28
00:02:38,320 --> 00:02:43,360
as well. We have a company that we have an e-commerce site where we ship our food everywhere.
29
00:02:44,480 --> 00:02:51,040
We do a little bit of real estate development. We got a couple of companies doing that. We have,
30
00:02:52,560 --> 00:03:01,040
I'm an author, I'm a speaker. I host my television show on Benevolent Faith TV called
31
00:03:01,040 --> 00:03:09,600
Constructive Christianity. So we, we do a whole lot of different stuff and that just,
32
00:03:10,400 --> 00:03:14,400
that just goes outside of restaurants, but restaurants is probably what I'm most known for
33
00:03:15,360 --> 00:03:18,960
because that's kind of really where I got our start. And that's kind of the more public face.
34
00:03:18,960 --> 00:03:25,120
It's kind of more of the front of mind of businesses that we have. Right. So what would
35
00:03:25,120 --> 00:03:29,120
you say is the most difficult aspect in running a restaurant business?
36
00:03:29,120 --> 00:03:35,920
You know, it's always been people regardless of whether it's your employees or whether it's your
37
00:03:35,920 --> 00:03:40,880
customers. Yeah, as long as I can remember, you know, you're always going to have,
38
00:03:41,600 --> 00:03:44,960
you're always going to have problem customers. You're always going to have problem employees.
39
00:03:44,960 --> 00:03:49,440
I mean, you have outstanding customers, outstanding employees too, but in reality, what
40
00:03:49,440 --> 00:03:54,560
would usually kind of sucks the most time is that. And then I would say probably really close second
41
00:03:54,560 --> 00:04:00,800
is the changing of government regulations. And, you know, because in the restaurant business,
42
00:04:00,800 --> 00:04:08,480
we are under so many different regulatory agencies, whether it's the Department of Labor, OSHA,
43
00:04:09,200 --> 00:04:12,240
you know, then you have everybody who has the IRS, Department of Revenue,
44
00:04:13,120 --> 00:04:18,560
Alcoholic Peverage Commission, I mean, I can go on and on and on. And so they change regulations on
45
00:04:18,560 --> 00:04:25,520
a regular basis. And so, and then also they show up with the new inspection and you're just like,
46
00:04:25,520 --> 00:04:30,800
okay, yeah, we'll fix that. We didn't know it was a problem. Yeah, no choice anyway.
47
00:04:31,520 --> 00:04:39,680
Yeah, exactly. Well, because I know a lot of people who'd like to actually maybe run a restaurant
48
00:04:39,680 --> 00:04:44,160
or maybe their dream is to maybe have their own cafe or small restaurant, but a lot of them might
49
00:04:44,160 --> 00:04:50,480
not know the amount of work that is required. So, you know, I missed all, you know, the busyness
50
00:04:51,280 --> 00:04:56,960
and the time and effort spent in maybe adhering to different regulations. How do you still find
51
00:04:56,960 --> 00:05:05,280
maybe enjoyment in what you do? You know, again, that kind of goes down to the people side of it
52
00:05:05,280 --> 00:05:12,960
as well. I got into the restaurant, I got I went to law because I wanted to help people. That was
53
00:05:12,960 --> 00:05:19,280
the main reason I went to law. And, you know, I would study, you know, famous civil rights attorneys
54
00:05:19,280 --> 00:05:27,040
and, yeah, and I would, you know, study people that just made a difference using their, as a lawyer
55
00:05:27,040 --> 00:05:33,440
to help, help different things. And I think that was one of the frustrating things that
56
00:05:33,440 --> 00:05:39,360
does not make a difference. And I mean, you might impact a person's life, but that's over a course
57
00:05:39,360 --> 00:05:43,600
of a year, two years. And even then, they're probably unhappy with you, even if you win,
58
00:05:43,600 --> 00:05:48,000
because they didn't get the feeling of satisfaction they thought they were going to get.
59
00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:52,080
We're in the restaurant, they're again, going back to the people we get to make a difference in
60
00:05:52,080 --> 00:05:59,120
people's lives that workforce, the people at workforce are a, many of them have, they made
61
00:05:59,120 --> 00:06:04,160
some bad decisions in their life, or maybe their first job ever, you know, and so that's generally
62
00:06:04,160 --> 00:06:08,080
the people that are there. So we have a lot of people that have gotten out of jail. We have a
63
00:06:08,080 --> 00:06:13,120
lot of people that are battling drug and alcohol problems. In fact, I just fired somebody actually
64
00:06:13,120 --> 00:06:19,920
at our office, which is really unusual if I fired someone two days ago due to being drunk at work.
65
00:06:20,880 --> 00:06:27,280
And, you know, but our main goal even then was, look, we need to get you help. I want to find
66
00:06:27,280 --> 00:06:32,400
this. We have a chaplain that we had the chaplain contact her the next day, because she was too out
67
00:06:32,400 --> 00:06:39,760
of it to be to listen to it the same day. But, but we had that chaplain to come and talk to her about
68
00:06:39,760 --> 00:06:44,240
and give her different options of places that she can go for outpatient rehab, etc. So even after
69
00:06:44,240 --> 00:06:49,120
we terminate people, we still make that impact. And then the customers, you know, realize people
70
00:06:49,120 --> 00:06:54,240
don't eat out because they're hungry. They eat out for the experience. I mean, a piece of bread and
71
00:06:54,240 --> 00:06:58,880
a piece of cheese can satisfy my hunger. I mean, I've made many meals out of trail mix, you know.
72
00:06:58,880 --> 00:07:06,160
And so, so, so it goes beyond that. And so we get to impact their lives because sometimes that's the
73
00:07:06,160 --> 00:07:11,200
only brightest spot in people's days. And we get to have that type of impact on them.
74
00:07:13,280 --> 00:07:18,240
Well, I think it's a good point you made that when you talked about being a solicitor, where
75
00:07:18,240 --> 00:07:24,720
it's pretty hard to quantify how much help you can actually give people, do you think it's a bit
76
00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:32,000
easier to do that, you know, in a restaurant business? I think it's, I think yes, but you have to be
77
00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:37,440
a little bit, your expectations have to be low with it. And the reason why I say that,
78
00:07:38,240 --> 00:07:43,120
in the business world, you know, we, we expect to make an investment and we expect, you know,
79
00:07:43,120 --> 00:07:48,400
great returns. I mean, you don't go into business to, to, to try to make little returns off of your
80
00:07:48,400 --> 00:07:52,000
investment. That's not what you're doing. It doesn't matter what business you're in. Yeah.
81
00:07:52,000 --> 00:07:59,120
But, but because we're a high turnover industry, because, you know, we see a lot of people again,
82
00:07:59,120 --> 00:08:04,800
that are making bad decisions that were raised, you know, raised in homes that,
83
00:08:05,440 --> 00:08:12,400
that were really rough and hard homes. You know, my goal is, is we're there to make an impact in
84
00:08:12,400 --> 00:08:22,960
their lives and just enough so that if we see it all the way through, that's great. Yeah.
85
00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:32,880
What we're trying to, trying to add to it so that hopefully someone else can take it to the next level.
86
00:08:33,440 --> 00:08:40,240
Right. So I look at it as like a big bucket and my job is to add water into that bucket. And sometimes
87
00:08:40,240 --> 00:08:45,600
I get to add a tablespoon, sometimes I add, you know, gallon into the bucket. You know, I might be
88
00:08:45,600 --> 00:08:50,400
the last one to get the water overflow, but most of the time I'm not, but if I can keep adding water
89
00:08:50,400 --> 00:08:54,960
to that bucket and then if they leave us and go somewhere else, someone else might not have that
90
00:08:54,960 --> 00:09:00,400
opportunity. But if someone else is going to add that gallon to it, it could overflow. But if I did
91
00:09:00,400 --> 00:09:05,840
nothing, then all they did was just fill the bucket halfway. And so that's, that's a big part of how
92
00:09:05,840 --> 00:09:13,760
we kind of look at it and how we kind of look at what we do as success. So in this podcast,
93
00:09:13,760 --> 00:09:17,840
there's quite a lot of people who actually, you know, have a stable job and some of them might
94
00:09:17,840 --> 00:09:24,960
actually want to venture out, you know, to join a business or start their own business. How difficult
95
00:09:24,960 --> 00:09:30,960
would you say is, is it to maybe forget about your stable income and just go into business? Because
96
00:09:30,960 --> 00:09:36,480
it's very easy to think about, oh, I want to help other people, but then you also need to make ends
97
00:09:36,480 --> 00:09:41,120
meet. So like what kind of advice can you give in this respect? Right.
98
00:09:44,400 --> 00:09:51,440
You know, to that point, you know, I've heard, you know, no margin, there's no mission. You know,
99
00:09:51,440 --> 00:09:58,240
so you got to, you got to have money coming to there. You have to be focused on that. But regardless
100
00:09:58,240 --> 00:10:05,600
of that, yeah, I heard that there was a group of nuns that operated a hospital. That's where it
101
00:10:05,600 --> 00:10:11,600
came from is at least where I heard it from was from that. But the, but at the end of the day,
102
00:10:12,640 --> 00:10:18,080
yeah, it's scary, you know, every, you know, because I'll be honest, I probably have failed in more
103
00:10:18,080 --> 00:10:23,680
businesses and I've succeeded, you know, and but each time we do it, we say, you know, okay, this is,
104
00:10:23,680 --> 00:10:28,880
this is what it is. We kind of weigh out the cost ahead of time and say, okay, is this going to be
105
00:10:28,880 --> 00:10:34,160
worth it or not worth it? And we try. But you have to kind of go in with an expectation that
106
00:10:34,160 --> 00:10:39,600
you're going to exceed your, your, your plans. You got to go into the expectation that you might
107
00:10:39,600 --> 00:10:44,960
fall short of your plans. And you have to kind of be prepared for both. But the preparation for
108
00:10:44,960 --> 00:10:51,120
both is not as much of the physical side as more of the emotional side. It's the, you know, when
109
00:10:51,120 --> 00:10:54,640
you're lying at two o'clock in the morning and you're like, I got so much business that I'm,
110
00:10:54,640 --> 00:11:00,800
I'm, I can't handle it. What am I going to do? Or I'm about to fail. And what am I going to do?
111
00:11:01,760 --> 00:11:08,240
It's, you have to have that type of, of strength and, and you have to be able to trust that, that,
112
00:11:08,240 --> 00:11:12,320
that people are going to, that you're going to make it through to the other side, no matter
113
00:11:12,320 --> 00:11:16,400
what. But that is a extremely difficult part. And I would think that's probably the hardest part
114
00:11:16,400 --> 00:11:21,680
about starting your own business. The other parts of it, just you're going to mess up the end of
115
00:11:21,680 --> 00:11:26,960
the day, you're going to mess up the question isn't when the question or question isn't if the question
116
00:11:26,960 --> 00:11:32,160
is when and the question is, is this, is it a type of mess up that you can recover from? And,
117
00:11:32,160 --> 00:11:35,680
and that's the part you can't, you can't sit there and think you're going to have it perfect.
118
00:11:35,680 --> 00:11:41,040
The perfect plan in my first book, I have a chapter called the perfect plan. And, and we see how it
119
00:11:41,040 --> 00:11:46,160
just goes wiped away, gets destroyed in that perfect plan. It just doesn't happen. Yeah.
120
00:11:46,160 --> 00:11:54,720
Yeah. So, well, our listeners can maybe purchase your book, I guess, to further understand how to
121
00:11:55,680 --> 00:12:01,280
start, you know, a business without, you know, going to go, going into a business with a wrong
122
00:12:01,280 --> 00:12:07,680
mindset, I guess. So you also mentioned in one of your previous interviews, I believe, about how
123
00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:15,200
bad, perhaps you were affected by COVID. Yes. Could you maybe talk us through how, you know,
124
00:12:15,200 --> 00:12:23,840
what happened and how you managed to, you know, navigate through it? So the, I was, I was at a
125
00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:29,680
speech, I was given a speech one time and I was talking about COVID and the problems with it.
126
00:12:29,680 --> 00:12:34,000
And there was a guy that came out, real country guy was giving a speech right after me and he got
127
00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:38,160
up there and he looked at me and he said, we're on a restaurant during COVID is like a three-legged
128
00:12:38,160 --> 00:12:44,160
lizard with half a tail. And, and somebody gave me this as a reminder, it's a little three-legged
129
00:12:44,160 --> 00:12:54,000
lizard with half a tail. And I keep it on my desk. Because that, I mean, it was in Tennessee,
130
00:12:54,560 --> 00:12:59,200
the restrictions weren't too tough, like they were in many other parts of the country or the world.
131
00:13:00,640 --> 00:13:06,800
But, but, but the problem in Tennessee was, is our governor said every little county
132
00:13:06,800 --> 00:13:10,880
could make their own rules. So since we're, we were in four different counties,
133
00:13:10,880 --> 00:13:17,120
you know, so what I did in this store, I couldn't do in another one. So that was one part of it.
134
00:13:17,120 --> 00:13:22,480
But originally, when it started, it started with, you're not allowed to go to restaurants,
135
00:13:22,480 --> 00:13:26,160
because if you go eat out at restaurants, you're all going to die. So I had to lay off like all
136
00:13:26,160 --> 00:13:32,640
my employees, you know, I had to lay off every one of them. Pretty much. Yeah, we were able to
137
00:13:32,640 --> 00:13:38,080
consider, we were still essential. We were able to keep, you know, some of our cooks.
138
00:13:38,080 --> 00:13:43,520
And I converted our servers into delivery drivers, and we try to do a delivery business. And we were
139
00:13:43,520 --> 00:13:48,960
doing setting up different things that we, that we had to do. Yeah, you know, but like one of our
140
00:13:48,960 --> 00:13:53,920
locations that had normally around 100 employees, I mean, they were operating with, with a team of
141
00:13:53,920 --> 00:14:01,200
six, you know, you know, our busiest volume store had the most and we were operating with a team of
142
00:14:01,200 --> 00:14:09,040
25. And normally we had 150 employees. And, and so, and some, you know, and, you know, when you're
143
00:14:09,040 --> 00:14:14,320
having to do that, it is not only difficult, but then you just don't know if you're going to make it
144
00:14:14,320 --> 00:14:20,880
or not. I remember I wrote in my, my journal, you know, I talked with our GMs and said, Hey,
145
00:14:20,880 --> 00:14:25,840
there's this thing called COVID and it's hit the United States. And it might impact us, you know,
146
00:14:25,840 --> 00:14:32,400
so just kind of be prepared. We might have to close for a couple of weeks, you know, just be
147
00:14:32,400 --> 00:14:40,240
prepared because that's what they were telling us. And then, then about a week after that, I remember,
148
00:14:40,240 --> 00:14:44,560
I remember writing my journal, they're shutting down everything. We need to hang on. This is about
149
00:14:44,560 --> 00:14:50,880
to be a bumpy ride. And two days after that, I was on the phone with a bankruptcy attorney saying,
150
00:14:50,880 --> 00:14:56,880
um, and I need, you know, I need to make certain that whatever I do that I don't screw up our
151
00:14:56,880 --> 00:15:02,720
bankruptcy if we have to file bankruptcy. Now we never did. You know, but I had a call, we had a
152
00:15:02,720 --> 00:15:07,440
call of our vendors and be like, Hey, I don't have any cash. You know, I'm getting a little bit in
153
00:15:07,440 --> 00:15:12,480
through carryout. I will pay you eventually. But I'm just going to tell you right now, I'm going
154
00:15:12,480 --> 00:15:19,600
to be late. And I divided our checks up into three piles. The A pile was, was, was my, my food,
155
00:15:19,600 --> 00:15:27,040
food, government and money. Those had to be paid first or money, people, food and, and, and, and
156
00:15:27,040 --> 00:15:33,200
government. The C pile was everybody who was going to be hateful and said, well, you got to pay us
157
00:15:33,200 --> 00:15:39,600
right away. And I'm like, no, no, actually I'm not. And then you move over to this pile because
158
00:15:39,600 --> 00:15:42,720
what are you going to do? The courts are closed. It's not like you could sue me for it anyway.
159
00:15:42,720 --> 00:15:46,960
And again, I knew eventually I was going to pay them. Then there was the B pile. That was everybody
160
00:15:46,960 --> 00:15:51,600
else. So every day I'd kind of go through the checks and be like, okay, we add a few Bs into the
161
00:15:51,600 --> 00:15:56,400
pile, I'd look at my cash and knock out all my cash, send those checks out. I imagine our stress
162
00:15:56,400 --> 00:16:02,800
or that might, that must be, you know, the thing about it is, is, is again, when I, when I'd gone
163
00:16:02,800 --> 00:16:12,880
through the failed business before and, and recognized that, that God has you and my placing
164
00:16:12,880 --> 00:16:21,200
trust in God and recognize that, that any fear that you have is all you're saying is, hey, God,
165
00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:28,320
I don't trust you in this moment. I mean, even David says in the Bible, he says, you know, when I,
166
00:16:28,320 --> 00:16:35,440
when I, if I'm afraid, I'll put my trust in you. And so that was it. So every time we kind of start
167
00:16:35,440 --> 00:16:38,080
getting a little nervous, the same fears are everybody else, you know, are you going to die if
168
00:16:38,080 --> 00:16:41,840
you get COVID or you know, is your friends and loved ones going to die? We had those same fears
169
00:16:41,840 --> 00:16:47,440
too. But I recognize, you know, everything that was happening, the speed at which it came,
170
00:16:47,440 --> 00:16:51,920
it had to have been a spiritually based component, there's no way that anything like this could
171
00:16:51,920 --> 00:17:00,080
happen. They're just out of randomness of nature. And so we knew that's where it had to be. So we
172
00:17:00,080 --> 00:17:04,160
end up spending most of our time being thankful. So we put a blessing boards in our, in our
173
00:17:04,160 --> 00:17:09,120
restaurants for those that are working. And, you know, we, we, you know, and every day when we pray,
174
00:17:09,120 --> 00:17:14,240
we made certain that we were being thankful and we would list the things that we were thankful for
175
00:17:14,240 --> 00:17:20,080
in order to be able to kind of get through that season. And, but it's not because I wanted to
176
00:17:20,080 --> 00:17:25,760
be, it's not like I was like, Oh, this is just so awesome. It's because I chose to be. And that's
177
00:17:25,760 --> 00:17:29,520
the part when you're going through these problems, that's the part you have to be, you have to choose
178
00:17:29,520 --> 00:17:33,760
your attitude. You can't control the circumstances, but you can't control your effort and your
179
00:17:33,760 --> 00:17:39,600
attitude. Those are the only two things in life you can ever control. So I guess, perhaps, you
180
00:17:39,600 --> 00:17:45,520
know, your way of trying to manage stress is to categorize between things where you can control
181
00:17:46,240 --> 00:17:50,400
and things where you can't and just focus on, you know, the things that you can, I guess.
182
00:17:51,520 --> 00:17:57,200
Well, there's some of that, but control to me is kind of funny. I, I, I look at the way we think
183
00:17:57,200 --> 00:18:02,080
we control our lives in a similar way that when my son, we took our son horseback riding one time.
184
00:18:02,080 --> 00:18:06,240
Right. Yeah. Right. It was his first time when he was a little kid, first time when he was by
185
00:18:06,240 --> 00:18:10,880
himself on a horse. Right. And we told him, you know, on this horse, you got to let that animal
186
00:18:10,880 --> 00:18:14,960
know you're in control. I mean, it's a big, big animal and a little bitty boy, you know, sitting
187
00:18:14,960 --> 00:18:19,840
on top of it. And he was like, you're in control of this animal, no matter what. And so the horse,
188
00:18:19,840 --> 00:18:25,440
at one point in time, takes off in a trot and, and his legs come out of the stirrups and his arms
189
00:18:25,440 --> 00:18:29,440
are, hold on to the reins and he's just flapping. I mean, everything's just flapping and you hear
190
00:18:29,440 --> 00:18:35,600
him screaming, I'm in control. I'm in control. And, and that's how we are in our lives when we
191
00:18:35,600 --> 00:18:42,160
think we have control and reality is we don't have control, but we do get to choose and control
192
00:18:42,160 --> 00:18:45,760
our attitude about it. We do get to control, control whether we're going to be thankful
193
00:18:45,760 --> 00:18:50,640
during those times. And some days it's hard. Some days it's really difficult when everything's
194
00:18:50,640 --> 00:18:55,440
crashing around you. It's just hard to sit there and say, wow, you know, I need to be thankful
195
00:18:55,440 --> 00:18:59,360
during this time. And that applies in my, in my married life too, with my wife and I are fighting
196
00:19:00,080 --> 00:19:03,600
at journal every day and every day I write something positive, but I'll focus on her.
197
00:19:04,320 --> 00:19:08,640
And within three days of me writing something positive, it's amazing that she always gets
198
00:19:08,640 --> 00:19:12,720
better. It's not because she really gets better, it's because my attitude toward her changed.
199
00:19:12,720 --> 00:19:21,280
And so we, we, we have a, and I just find that that by changing your attitude towards life,
200
00:19:21,280 --> 00:19:28,480
it, it just, the Bible is correct. It gives you a piece that goes beyond understanding. And I
201
00:19:28,480 --> 00:19:33,760
can't necessarily explain it. So during COVID, we had already learned how to process that.
202
00:19:33,760 --> 00:19:38,160
And so yes, it was stressful, but I also knew that no matter what, God's going to put me somewhere
203
00:19:38,160 --> 00:19:42,880
else. And if COVID closed me, God, God has me. It's not going to be the end of anything. And
204
00:19:42,880 --> 00:19:46,880
yeah, I may not be able to take the vacation I want, or I may not be able to buy the car that I
205
00:19:46,880 --> 00:19:51,520
want. So what, if I died, I couldn't take the car with me and I'm not, those memories of the vacation
206
00:19:51,520 --> 00:20:00,480
are gone anyway. So, you know, it doesn't matter to me at all. Well, so, so now that COVID has ended,
207
00:20:00,480 --> 00:20:05,040
would you say you guys are doing a lot better? Like how, how did you guys get out of like the
208
00:20:05,040 --> 00:20:11,120
whole mess? No, actually, I would argue that it's worse, but, but our sales wise is better or, or,
209
00:20:11,120 --> 00:20:18,480
or cash or financial, financials thing is better. I mean, you know, we, we actually now have cash,
210
00:20:18,480 --> 00:20:24,560
we have cash reserves, we, we created better systems for it. So in that sense, things got a
211
00:20:24,560 --> 00:20:31,760
lot better. Right. Where it got worse was after COVID ended in 21, you had to battle the supply
212
00:20:31,760 --> 00:20:36,640
chain problem. And you had to buy a legal shortage. And, and the government didn't want to talk about
213
00:20:36,640 --> 00:20:41,840
the fact that the supply chain was a result of the labor shortage. Yeah. You know, everyone kept,
214
00:20:41,840 --> 00:20:47,920
you know, even like the, the news kept pointing to all the barges on California. And reality was,
215
00:20:47,920 --> 00:20:52,160
as we were short supplies of things were manufactured right here in the United States. In fact,
216
00:20:52,160 --> 00:20:57,360
one of our major things that I could not get anymore is literally a 45 minute drive south of me,
217
00:20:57,360 --> 00:21:01,040
and I could not get it. So it had nothing to do with barges, anything like it. They didn't have
218
00:21:01,040 --> 00:21:09,040
the labor to manufacture the size of the cups I needed for it. And so, and again, I get all the
219
00:21:09,040 --> 00:21:13,280
answers in the Bible, just sometimes you don't always know it's there. But I was reading in
220
00:21:13,280 --> 00:21:18,560
there and I was reading in Genesis and I got to Genesis 41 and the Genesis 41 Joseph tells Pharaoh,
221
00:21:18,560 --> 00:21:26,000
Hey, you got seven years of great times and seven years of famine. So start stockpiling.
222
00:21:26,000 --> 00:21:32,000
And I realized then that's what we needed to do. So I rented a bunch of storage units and
223
00:21:32,000 --> 00:21:37,840
stockpiled four weeks worth of supplies, all of our non perishables and stored all of that. And,
224
00:21:37,840 --> 00:21:42,000
and it got us through our busy season. And we, we didn't run out of trash bags when many of our
225
00:21:42,000 --> 00:21:48,560
competitors did. I mean, you know, we didn't run out of saran wrap and, and, and soup cups. And,
226
00:21:48,560 --> 00:21:53,360
so we were able to get through that season. And, but the labor market, again, we were having to
227
00:21:53,360 --> 00:21:59,280
shut down certain days because we didn't have the people. And it's still a problem today. It's not
228
00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:06,000
near as a problem as in 21 22 is slightly better this year, slightly better than that. So we're
229
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:15,200
seeing some change in it. But it's, it's still a battle. I spoke, I gave a speech in Cookville,
230
00:22:15,200 --> 00:22:19,520
Tennessee the other day, it was about 250 people and asked the question, I said, you know, how many
231
00:22:19,520 --> 00:22:23,920
of your experiencing labor problems. And if not every hand went up, it was really close to it.
232
00:22:23,920 --> 00:22:30,400
Like I didn't see anyone's hand not go up. So it is still a, it is still a massive problem. And
233
00:22:30,400 --> 00:22:33,440
from the friends that I have internationally, I think it's a worldwide problem too.
234
00:22:34,240 --> 00:22:39,360
It's funny, because it seems like we are in sort of a recession, but the unemployment level is
235
00:22:39,360 --> 00:22:46,400
still pretty low. There's not enough, enough labor, you know, like, as you said, even in other
236
00:22:46,400 --> 00:22:54,320
parts of the country. Yeah, yeah, I don't understand. I don't always understand why on that. To me,
237
00:22:55,920 --> 00:23:00,240
there has to be something the way they've changed the definition of it. You know,
238
00:23:00,240 --> 00:23:04,720
the government's notorious for changing definitions to make things fit. You know,
239
00:23:05,600 --> 00:23:09,040
you know, they've changed the definition of vaccine to get the COVID vaccine passed. And I'm
240
00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:14,080
not like some conspiracy theorist with it or whatever. This is what happened. Yeah. And, you
241
00:23:14,080 --> 00:23:21,440
know, but they've changed the definition of, you know, they've changed the definition of autism
242
00:23:21,440 --> 00:23:24,720
a while back. And then all of a sudden you get this outbreak of autism among people.
243
00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:27,440
They even changed the definition of recession, I think.
244
00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:31,680
Yes, they did. Absolutely. You're absolutely right. I forgot about that one. That's even the
245
00:23:31,680 --> 00:23:37,040
best example there. They did that. You know, so you can change the definition, but in reality,
246
00:23:37,040 --> 00:23:42,480
is we're still suffering the effects of it. So I do agree with you that we have some of these
247
00:23:42,480 --> 00:23:48,160
issues. But the other problem is, is we're now seeing, because when COVID happened, baby boomers
248
00:23:48,160 --> 00:23:53,760
were right at retirement age. So so many of them retired, which then gave the opportunities to
249
00:23:53,760 --> 00:23:58,640
rise up from other people below. And then that's when the population started to drop. And I think
250
00:23:58,640 --> 00:24:03,920
that's a big part of it. I think the government programs from COVID didn't help matters, because
251
00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:11,280
it was real easy to kind of ride that wave for a little bit. And truthfully, when you're seeing,
252
00:24:11,280 --> 00:24:17,600
you know, people that have massive amounts of drug addiction and homelessness, they're not
253
00:24:17,600 --> 00:24:22,800
being counted in that unemployment rolls, you know, but they're also not working either. So it's not
254
00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:28,720
like so. So that I'm not really quite sure. And then lastly, and I haven't looked at this number
255
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:36,960
in a while, but about three or four months ago, there was 10 million 10.6 million job openings.
256
00:24:36,960 --> 00:24:44,000
And there was 9.6 million unemployed. Yeah. And so, yeah, so even if you fill every,
257
00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:50,320
every one that employed, you still were short jobs. So, but I'm not quite sure how all that's
258
00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:56,400
got contributed with it. I know at 18, we were struggling a little bit with labor, but but nothing
259
00:24:56,400 --> 00:25:03,200
like we're doing right now. So, you know, lastly, before we end, I'm just wondering if you can
260
00:25:03,200 --> 00:25:08,880
maybe give our viewers some advice in terms of, you know, how they can find, you know, meaning
261
00:25:09,440 --> 00:25:17,360
in work aside from maybe just monetary compensations. You know, work is never work is service.
262
00:25:18,720 --> 00:25:24,800
And work is worship. When you when you actually read the word worship in ancient Hebrew, it
263
00:25:24,800 --> 00:25:33,680
would actually meant work. And if we're working for money, and not for service and not for worship,
264
00:25:34,480 --> 00:25:40,800
then it will be always be meaningless. No matter what. And if you're only in it for the paycheck,
265
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:50,080
you'll never be fulfilled. Yeah. And Hagi, I the in there, the God says, Hey, you know what,
266
00:25:50,080 --> 00:25:54,960
you're not fulfilled, you work, but your your your your purses have holes in it. In other words,
267
00:25:54,960 --> 00:26:00,160
you got money and it's just going away. You can eat, but you're not full. He kind of references
268
00:26:00,160 --> 00:26:05,360
fulfillment. He says, because you're not working on God's house. And nowadays, God's house is in
269
00:26:05,360 --> 00:26:11,120
us. It's the temple within us. And so from that, you know, we have to realize that we got to work
270
00:26:11,120 --> 00:26:16,160
on that first. And that's where it starts. And then from there, everything else will seem to
271
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:20,480
take place from it from that point in time. But there are many people out there who, you know,
272
00:26:21,120 --> 00:26:25,040
who are satisfied with other things. So the question I would have, and it's more of a,
273
00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:28,880
not really advice, but it's a question you need to challenge for everybody listening can challenge
274
00:26:28,880 --> 00:26:36,640
themselves on, which is this, what are you going to be accomplished? If you died today,
275
00:26:36,640 --> 00:26:40,800
what are you going to be remembered for? Because it's not going to be money that you have, what
276
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:44,960
are you going to be remembered for? And, and whatever you want to be remembered for, start
277
00:26:44,960 --> 00:26:49,200
focusing on it and start doing everything you possibly can for it. And you can do it in your
278
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:53,920
existing job. You can say, wow, my job is just meaningless. I don't like it. I want to find a
279
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:59,440
new job that has meaning. But whatever it is, but ask yourself that question, because if you're not
280
00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:04,800
making an impact in other people's lives around you, I don't mean to be rude or hateful when I
281
00:27:04,800 --> 00:27:10,560
say this, but you're just taking up space. And, and, but, but everybody has influence over somebody
282
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:16,000
around them. So what are you going to be known for on that circle of influence you have and focus on
283
00:27:16,000 --> 00:27:20,880
it? But you have to start with that question there, because most people don't think I actually
284
00:27:20,880 --> 00:27:26,480
understand and know that about themselves. Well, thanks so much for your, for your time today.
285
00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:31,680
Appreciate it. Thank you. I look forward to having you in our, you know, future podcast, maybe.
286
00:27:31,680 --> 00:27:40,320
It'd be great. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. All right. Thank you, Peter. Thanks. Thank you.
Comments