Dan Simons, Co-Founder of Farmers Restaurant Group, Named Chief Influencer

Anthony Shop: "Well, I'm thrilled to introduce today's guest, Dan Simons, the co-founder and co-owner of Farmers Restaurant Group, best known for the iconic Founding Farmers restaurants across DC, Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. But what Dan has built is more than a restaurant group. It includes Founding Spirits, a major catering events business, and a mission-driven model designed to connect American family farmers more directly to the urban table. He's also the founder and host of one of my all-time favorite podcasts, Founding DC. Before we dive in, here are a few things I think you should know about our guest. First, Dan is proving that growth and values can go together. He's helped scale a major hospitality business across multiple states, but he's done it with a deep focus on culture, accountability, and people. He's an outspoken advocate for mental health in the workplace, and he's used his platform to support and mentor the next generation of female and minority entrepreneurs. Second, Dan is a leader who teaches the nitty-gritty. In addition to running restaurants, he teaches at his alma mater, the George Washington University, where we are today, where he has developed curriculum around time management and personal productivity. He believes leadership is not built by hiding mistakes; it is built by learning from them. That commitment to honesty and reflection has made him a leader known for radical transparency over polished perfection. And third, Dan is a lifelong learner who keeps turning conviction into action. Whether he's helping launch 'Our Last Straw' to tackle plastic waste, mentoring others, or chasing his kids down a mountain on a snowboard, Dan brings a relentless sense of purpose to everything he does. He's always looking for ways to listen better, lead better, and make sure the voices of his employees, students, and community do more than get heard—they get acted on. Dan, you have been called a hospitality trailblazer, a conscious capitalist, a mental health advocate, a podcast host, and a mentor for the modern entrepreneur. Today, we're thrilled to call you a Chief Influencer. Welcome back to GW."

Dan Simons: "Thank you. Thanks for having me on the show."

Anthony Shop: "First, I have to say, I'm a big fan of your podcast, Founding DC, and I hope our listeners will check it out because, um, you've just done such a great job bringing different leaders together, and then you had a great episode—I loved where one your mentor actually interviewed you and you got to be on the hot seat. So we'll talk more about that. Um, I'm also—been a fan of your business, Founding Farmers, since before I ever ate at the restaurant. About 15, maybe 16 years ago, in this building, when I was an MBA student here at the GW School of Business in Duquès Hall, you came and you spoke to one of my classes. We were trying to remember which—which class it was because you've spoken to so many, it's kind of hard to remember. But you talked about building a different type of business, one that isn't all just about profit, although that's one thing, but it's about people. So I want you to take us back and just tell us what makes Founding Farmers different—hear a little bit of the origin story of how you got to where you are."

Dan Simons: "Founding Farmers is a special business not because of me. It's a special business because of the stakeholders and the team that initially came together and that has stayed together and added more people to it to—to do something that was more about mission than profit, but that clearly was for profit. And that different approach—bringing stakeholders, American family farmers, restaurateurs like me and my partner Mike, bringing us to the table, Chef Joe who we've been with forever, and a lot of our team—the belief that we could do something for reasons in addition to profit, yeah, from day one, I think is what makes a business special. But if I can go back to something else, thank you for your intro. It sounds really nice, you know, to hear someone—you list those things off and—and I think let's set aside that you're talking about me. I'm just like listening to that list like, 'Wow, that sounds—that sounds really good.' Like, that's kind of a greatest hits. You know, there's a bunch of good things, and it's complimentary, and thank you for saying all that, but that's not the whole picture. I get that that's the polite thing to do or the appropriate thing to do or your listeners are thinking, you know, 'Why should we listen to this guy?' or 'What's up with this conversation about communication or influence or business or whatever it is?' And I think it's important that none of us get lost in the highlight reel of life, cuz you don't really learn anything when things go really well. And while it might feel good for people to say good things about you—sure, of course it does, and it's nice to say nice things about others—the—the magic is in the journey, the struggle, the failure. So, I'm also—you said, you know, 'I'm known as,' and then there was a bunch of nice words. Well, I'm also known as a failed restaurateur. My first restaurant failed. I'm known as a restaurateur that's gotten some terrible food reviews. Um, known and you know, like the list goes on, right, right. I'm known as an entrepreneur that lived in my mother's basement for 3 years struggling to, like, make ends meet and being broke and wondering, like, 'How is my wife up for this for the long term?' And she is and she was and she's amazing. So just know that each of us, we're known as a lot of things. And I think it's valuable for us to be known as all of the things. Like, how about we just be known for the truth, the whole picture, and find ways to draw power and influence from that?"

Anthony Shop: "Yeah, I mean, I think that's such a great reminder because we do always focus on those things, and then as leaders, those are the things that we, you know, often strive for, we want people to see, and there's an incentive to hide some of those things. When you came and spoke to, uh, our class, you know, I was sitting in the audience as an aspiring entrepreneur—haven't—hadn't started a business yet—and I looked and I went, 'Wow, this is a successful entrepreneur. I mean, this guy runs this amazing restaurant.' I was living on student loans, so it was, like, expensive restaurant to me at the time, although you're extremely affordable restaurant. One of the things you get in your reviews is people say, 'I can't believe I get all of this wonderful food for such a low amount.' But at the time, I was like, 'Man, that's, like, this really great place.' And then when I have learned more about you—you've spoken to Leadership Greater Washington and several groups I've been a part of—and then with your—within your own podcast what you share in that interview, you talk about a lot of those challenges that you just alluded to that I had no idea looking and seeing you at the front of the room. And hearing that I think is really important for people to see, 'Okay, this all looks great on the outside, but actually he's been through a lot to get there.' What are some of the things that you want people to know about that—about that journey, about how you, you know, ended up creating with your partners Founding Farmers?"

Dan Simons: "One I would say is don't look up to me. Um, I don't—I don't like the 'look up' structure. I want you to—to look at me, see me, but look across the table. And so you think back like you were describing 2008 or 2009, and you were looking up to me, which just means there's no way you're seeing the whole picture. I'm not saying that we can't admire the accomplishments that some people have, but we should remember that the minute you have to look—the minute you choose to look up at someone, they have no choice but to look down at you. And you've built a construct where you are presuming that, 'Wow, like to get there, yeah, takes X, Y, and Z.' And you're also presuming, 'Oh, that to be there where I'm looking up to is—if everything's great up there.' And these are just false constructs. So I can tell you about some of the struggles along the way. I can also tell you about the struggles today. And sure, I could say, you know, our team now 1,600 employees, you know, whatever, it's probably $100 million plus a year as a company. There's all of these things that you could think are, like, successful business metrics. Well, I could also say, especially—it's been a rough economic environment—I've had some—uh, we've missed, you know, targeted investment returns and goals like—you know, from COVID to just kind of what's happened in DC to the sort of recession that the hospitality industry is here in—in the DMV. So, you know, my personal struggles—um, I mean, I'm lucky, raised in a good family, like great relationships. That's one thing I've had through my whole life, great friendships, great relationships to—to lift me up and support me. But, you know, probably 2009, if that's when we first put eyes on each other, um, so maybe about the time—it wasn't when I had my first panic attacks. I had panic attacks before then. But so again, you're thinking like, 'Wow, look at this successful restaurateur,' and I'm thinking, you know, 'I hope I got my Zoloft today.' And so there's—there's mental health, which, you know, I wouldn't even put in the struggle category. I'd put it in—it's just normal. Yeah, like it's life. It's just life. Um, you know, I got a concussion, I guess six years ago at this point, so I dealt with like physical brain injury, which leads to mental brain injury. So I dealt with that struggle. Um, you know, the list goes on. I got all sorts of stuff. My back hurts. I mean, if you want all the list of the struggles, I'll tell you, but I think just the point is—and I say this in my—in my TED talk—we've all got a list. And so sometimes it's helpful to talk about the specifics that are on it, but I like just referencing from a leadership perspective, everyone's got a list. Great! Welcome to the party. It's normal. You're human. And sometimes you're in phases where your life's out of focus or, as Jim Collins says in his new book, like you're out of frame—and he calls it, like, being in the fog—and people are lost for a bit and then you got to, like, find your way when you're lost. You should remind yourself that's a normal part of the journey. Everybody gets a little lost sometimes."

Anthony Shop: "Why have you decided to be so public about that side of things and, like, your TED talk? You have over a 100,000 people who saw the one I looked at. I'm sure you know that's probably, say, shared in multiple places, so you probably added up more than that. Um, but it really resonated with people, the way that you showed up with candor and told your story and humanized yourself, and that's been part of your identity since I, you know, first connected with you, um, for our show. I want to know why do you feel like that's an effective way to influence, because it obviously has been, both internally in your organization and out in the community?"

Dan Simons: "My favorite kind of influence is genuine messages that have an effect that you—that's beneficial to you. And so I'm good with influence, uh, intentionally. I'm good with the word manipulation. I don't think these are bad words. What I don't like about those things is when you put disingenuous with the words and the message that you choose to put in there to get an outcome. So I—I'm an open book first because it makes me feel better. There's nothing more genuine than doing something for yourself, right? So it's on my list of how I put on my own oxygen mask first. I don't like to carry my struggles around in silence. Yeah. You know, I'm the youngest of four siblings. I always had the support from my siblings. I always wanted to be like, 'Well, this is what's hard for me,' or like I learned to complain to them because when you're the littlest, you're kind of allowed to complain like, 'Fucking you guys need to,' you know, whatever it is, 'Be nicer to me. Help me. I'm behind. I'm lost,' you know, as—as the little one. And I just learned: I feel better when I tell people what's wrong. And then if I feel better, I do better. And then I can be better for other people. So, you know, if my—one of my sisters would say, 'You know, what's wrong?' I learned at a really young age if I told her what was wrong, it kind of wasn't wrong. Like, it—I didn't feel bad about not, you know, anymore. So first—sorry, it's a long-winded answer. You asked me, you know, why do I put this out there? So, one, I put it out there for me. Two, I have seen and heard from others that when I put stuff out there, they feel seen, valued, or heard. They feel validated. They feel camaraderie with, 'Oh, it's not just me. Like, Dan feels that way too, or he has a struggle.' So it lifts people up. And I had always done that in business. I—I learned a long time ago early—I was probably a 22 or 23-year-old manager, and I had an employee, really good worker, struggled, you know, come to work, uh, clearly under the influence of alcohol. And the other managers, the older managers, like, 'Well, we just got to fire that guy.' I'm like, 'Well, why do we just have to fire him? He—he did a really good job.' 'Well, he's drunk. He's got an alcohol problem. Can't do the job. He's showing up to work drunk. You got to fire him.' I think I was just young enough that it was easy for me to say, 'Well, we don't have to fire him. What—he doesn't have to be drunk forever. You know, that's an illness. A lot of people cure it or learn to manage it. Why don't we just help him?' The managers sort of said to me, you know, 'We're not doing that.' They just didn't even know. So I just did it on my own. Helped the guy, got him into rehab, and—uh, he did great. You know, this was—I'm 55 now—this was over 30 years ago. That young fella's gone on to build a business, have a career. He's a dad, he's a husband. He's—you know, we sort of stay in touch loosely over Facebook. Hadn't heard from him in 25 years, maybe, and then I heard from him about 10 years ago, I think. Um, so I learned there's—as a business person, isn't that just a retention strategy? So, wait, you can keep your talent. You don't have to fire people. You can help people through the hard stuff. So we started to see the business—the—the business value of helping people. Business gets the payoff. Oh, so the business can invest in people, and the business gets ROI. I did that always inside my own companies. And then about 10 years ago, um, we start—I started to understand that businesses get criticized, but businesses get attacked, right? It's a competitive world out there. We got a terrible review in the Washington Post, and I didn't have a big voice outside the company. And so that was a catalyst for me to say, 'Wow, sharing my messages, whatever they are, is valuable for me. Sharing my messages are valuable for my people inside my company.' And then to protect my company and look out for people, hey, there's a value of taking this show on the road—value for, let's say, the external protection of the brand or elevation of the brand through those stories. So that's my motivation as to why I do it."

Anthony Shop: "When you've gotten—and we'll talk about maybe some of that criticism that you've gotten, but it seems like when you have gotten some, you know, let's say a bad review, it hasn't—it's looked at the business as one-dimensional, right? Like, 'Hey, here's the food you serve,' and it has missed the multifaceted aspect of your business. And one of the things you do so well as a spokesperson, ambassador for your business, is you explain that this is more than just serving food. This is more than just a restaurant. Um, but those values, they're easy to talk about. They're sort of harder to operationalize and build in, especially when you scale to the level that you've scaled your businesses. I want to ask, how do you hold on to your mission in the middle of the real-life chaos of running a restaurant? And I can remember something specifically you said again, 16-ish years ago, that, you know, you're in the middle of a dinner rush in your restaurant, and somebody who works for you who really cares about the values of the business and the fact that you compost, like, so much stuff and you recycle so much—which is harder to do and more expensive to do, by the way—they, you know, tap you on the shoulder and say, 'You know, Dan, that person didn't put the straw in the right container.' And in that moment, you know, it's like, 'Well, okay, that matters, but, like, we have to get this food out because we have all of these people waiting for their meals.' So there's this natural tension when you have a values, purpose-driven business like yours, but then you just have the real-life chaos. How do you manage that? And I don't know, has that evolved since that moment that I can remem—I mean, obviously it made an impact on me. I remember that story from a guest speaker 16 years ago. Um, how has that evolved?"

Dan Simons: "We have never lost sight of the core relationship with the customer in the restaurant is about delicious food, service that feels great, and hospitality that makes that guest want to come back tomorrow. There's no amount of mission, there's no amount of other stuff that comes anywhere close to why the customer could—people come to restaurants cuz they're hungry. They want to gather with friends or for business. They want to satisfy that hunger. They want it to taste good. They want it to be efficient. So that is the core mission. The core mission: run a great restaurant as defined by the customer. And then the next layer is we have a true mission side by side with that—certainly not more important, and to the guest less important, at least initially. Yeah. So this is sort of the dose of reality that I always have to give myself. I would love to preach to every guest that comes in like, 'Hey, welcome to Founding Farmers. Can we talk about the share the food dollar that American family farmers get? Can we talk about how the loss of American family farms—' Like, that's what I want to talk about. People—their eyes would just glaze over. I assure you listeners, I'm not going to go into that spiel. People are like, 'Oh, great. Yeah, take me to my table. Give me the menu, and then bring me my burger and make sure it's delicious.' Do they want to know we have our own bakery? Do they want to know where we get the flour? Maybe. Maybe some guests do. None of them want to know it if we don't execute well. So we—we preach when we see eye contact and interest and engagement. We preach in response to questions. And I think that has helped us not lose our way. And at times business-wise—uh, composting is a great topic. We've started that from day one. Really, it—it's a great program. I'm so proud of it for so many reasons. Over the past couple of years, it's gotten so expensive that I've stopped doing it in some of the restaurants. And my team was at—we were discussing, 'Oh, Dan, isn't this core to who we are?' I said, 'No, it's one—it's one of many, many tactics that show that we walk our talk, that what we care about, but we can't take mission to the bank.' And if we go out of business because we're so obsessed with the—like, it's really—it's Maslow's hierarchy of needs for the business. Yeah. And some of the, um, mission that feels good, it's upper on the—it's higher on the pyramid. You can't focus on it unless you keep that foundation really solid."

Anthony Shop: "That's so right. You know, I remember I was at a conference many years ago for the National Association of Convenience Stores, believe it or not. And many convenience stores over the last couple decades have added more food service in as a way to make money because they don't sell, you know, some of the products they used to like—not a lot of cigarette sales, and, you know, gas is low margin. And for some of them, it was very effective and they were doing really great financially. And for some of them, it wasn't. So they paid some company consulting to do this huge analysis, and they came back with this thing that was so simple but that I've never forgotten, and it's along the lines of the Maslow's hierarchy you just said. Um, putting the customer's needs first obviously is part of what you just described. Customers at convenience stores want clean bathrooms. It's one of the most important things, and it's—you'll drive farther, you'll go to the next stop for the clean bathroom. And some convenience stores nationally are known for that. And if you don't have a clean bathroom, people don't want to buy your food. So they had these convenience store companies that were shifting all their resources to have a really great sandwich bar, and customers would go, 'The bathroom wasn't clean.' Nobody would buy the sandwich. And they said, 'Well, why is it not working for my business?' So they had to pay a consulting company to figure this out, and they put it in a Maslow's hierarchy of needs. And I think that's such a good reminder. There are all these things we can accomplish in our business, but if the foundational piece isn't there—in your case, what the customers want in terms of they have to have the right experience, they want the good, you know, good food, and they—it needs to be at a certain price—and if the composting becomes too expensive, that tactic takes away from your core mission. But we can easily get distracted because that mission stuff is sort of more interesting."

Dan Simons: "Sure. It's fun. It's, uh, you know, for me, it's sexy. It's interesting. It's nerdy in, like, the best ways. And—and I'd love to work on the top spin all the time. But if you can't just hit the ball back straight, then working on the top spin—as fun and cool and exciting as whatever is in the top spin category is—you—you lose your way. And I think this is easy to do in—in business. Yeah. And in life—is to lose your way and forget about the foundation. We deal with this with the marketing topic all the time. On one hand, we have a lot of conversations about marketing and what works. And as you know, the world of marketing changes. It's, you know, nowadays social media, all of it—it's just so different. Very hard to get noticed at anything. And I find myself often saying, 'I'm not sure it matters.' You know what matters? What matters is that looking at the data, 3% of our to-go orders have a missing item or an error. And that error rate should be .3 or 0.1. So you can do all the marketing in the world, but if the product doesn't work or you miss the ball, it's not about the messaging. It's not about the marketing. And operations probably just doesn't get enough attention and discussion, especially in the world of maybe shows like ours, these—these business-related shows. And even if you're scrolling through LinkedIn, you know, how often are you really reading a tactical post just about operational excellence, error rate, you know, product quality, quality assurance? That's what matters, but it's not sexy, apparently."

Anthony Shop: "Yeah. I mean, there's some an element of influence that we have to operationalize it in a business like yours, right, and building that operational excellence. So, I'll tell you—I was telling you this before we started, but I have to repeat it because this will make you feel really good about the operational excellence. Last night, I ran into, um, a friend of mine who runs a foundation in the Midwest, and she was in DC. And I said, 'Oh, what are you doing this week?' She said, 'I'm taking my niece out to dinner tomorrow.' I said, 'Where are you going?' And I promise this is not one of those, like, literary moments where I'm combining stories or changing. This was last night. This was, like, 12, 13 hours ago. And she said, 'We're going to, um, Founding Farmers.' Well, actually, we're going to, uh, Founders & Distillers, so that's one of your locations in DC. I said, 'You are never going to guess who I'm going to be with tomorrow morning.' And I said, 'Well, how did you choose it?' And she said, 'Last time we were in town, we went to Founding Farmers—so the—the original location in Foggy Bottom—and we had breakfast and we had the pancakes.' And she said, 'The pancakes were so good, we went back a second time two days later.' And I thought, 'Wow.' I mean, what an endorsement cuz, you know, when you travel, you don't really go to the same restaurant very often, and so that was a pretty cool thing to hear. I feel like the universe presented that to us for this interview. I loved it. But it really shows exactly what you're talking about—that operational excellence of, you know, she didn't necessarily know—I mean, maybe she read the back of the menu or learned something from a server—but she didn't necessarily know that, you know, you're owned by farmers. You know, she didn't necessarily know that whole story about, you know, how you compost your straws. What she knew was that they had this incredible experience and they had the best pancakes that they'd ever had. You get these stories all the time. You have wonderful online reviews. You hear positive things from people. But I know as somebody who's out there, I know as a business owner, the one time you get criticism, it, like, you know—one shit cancels out a 100 'Attaboys,' as my stepdad used to always tell me. It—it just stings. It gets—it breaks through. How have you dealt with that? You mentioned, you know, an example of that earlier. How do you with your team try to focus on those positive things? And you—how do you let those sink in and not kind of have that criticism take you down when it's out there and you've faced it in a way that a lot of other people haven't because you're so public?"

Dan Simons: "I have a few tactics, methods. I have to say, though, the criticism—it cuts deep. It hurts me. It bothers me. After all these years of being in the business, it bothers me. Um, and it bothers me on behalf of my team and my people. Look, I get it. It doesn't mean that the criticism is wrong, and I don't begrudge anyone from saying it. Say what you want, write what you want. You're entitled to. And generally, when we get criticized, there is almost always some amount of accuracy and legitimacy in that criticism. Now, oftentimes you annoy someone at the front desk, they now just kind of are annoyed, and so they say everything else was terrible. And while they may not even realize that they're annoyed because of what happened at the front desk, we realize that. So one of our methods, I guess, it starts with believing criticism is valuable. Yeah. So we start there. And then one method is to—I call it just 'filtering,' and I've built a whole visual for the team on this—I probably have it posted on my blog somewhere—um, where we take the review, what's written, and we filter out—we filter out the adjectives, and we filter out the things that we know are downstream annoyances. Now the customer is just complaining cuz we pissed them off, and we look for what was the trigger. What—what did we get wrong, or what didn't we do? You know, there's all this research out there that if you just greet people incredibly warmly right away and you look them in the eye and you engage them upon arrival, that will influence how they feel about everything else that happens, including your mistakes. First impression. But don't connect with them immediately and then be a couple minutes late with their drink, and now they think you're incompetent. So one is we have to be able to deal with criticism in an effective way to protect our own emotions. And this is—I, you know, sometimes I have to step away from the keyboard. Sometimes I have to pause before I engage with someone. The place it really hurts me at this point is when people use words that just indict the humans doing the work. Like, 'You know, what kind of idiots are running this place?' or, 'You know, the grill cooks are terrible.' Because what I know is, like, 'Well, actually, the grill cook has a name, and I know them, and they—they just come to work. They care. They tried really hard.' Yeah, they got your thing wrong, and you should criticize that, and you can even say it's not acceptable. But I mean, pro basketball players don't shoot 100% from the free-throw line. There should be nothing easier to do in business than make a free throw. It's literally called a free throw. No one shoots 100%. No one. And so people are going to make mistakes. So I try to protect our team. Um, I try to teach how we—hey, filter out the stuff that bothers and let's get to the core because then we're good operationally. 'Hey, you know what, something did go wrong. Why? Let's get it better.' And while nobody shoots 100% from the free-throw line and working the grill is harder than making free throws—I can say that even though probably I can't really make a free throw anymore, um, certainly not in front of 30,000 people or 80,000 people, but that's a separate issue—mistakes will happen. But that doesn't mean that we should tolerate them or make excuses by saying mistakes will happen. No, we should strive to be error-free. We should strive to be 100%. And when we fall short, we should diagnose why. We should train better, practice harder, work better, provide more support, etc. So those are some of the things that I do to deal with the criticism, along with trying to—when I need to protect our business or protect our people and stand up for it, I've tried to build a reputation that's true and real and so that when I need to back someone down, I can do it more effectively."

Anthony Shop: "I want to—I want to get to that and kind of how that leads to building a platform. But just something you said in one of the episodes—I think it was the episode where you were interviewed by your mentor on the podcast—I've listened to so many, they've run together. But you talked about when you go into one of your restaurants and you have an experience. You know, you are attuned to notice anything that does not—that isn't perfect. And that—that's kind of a challenging balance because, one, in one case, that's a superpower for the business, right? You're building a great business; you're scaling it. You want to identify those things that can be fixed and build a process. On the other hand, it can cause you to, you know, if you do it in the wrong way, be sort of nitpicky and not really motivate team members. And I—I thought that was, as a business owner, that's something I think many of us have struggled with. It's kind of like knowing the quality that needs to be there is something that makes us effective in our work. But at the same time, if that's the only facet of our personality that team members see, it's not so fun to be around us. You know, they're going to avoid us. So I just love to hear you talk about that a little bit because that came up in—in this conversation and in your other episode."

Dan Simons: "Well, last night, since you had a last night's story, I'll have a last night's story. Uh, I walked into Distillers, our—our restaurant in DC at 6th and Mass, and it was probably 9:15. And right after—like the dinner rush had just sort of—we would say a lot of tables just 'broke,' you know, guests just got up and leave, and that happens, um, sort of simultaneously sometimes. So I walked in at a moment that the restaurant was not organized and tight the way we want it to be. And notice I say 'the way we want it to be,' because if it's just the way I want it to be, well, then it's not going to happen. Like, the team is clear: we want the same thing. And I'm clear that the managers running the shift, they want what I want. It's not that I want something different; it's that they actually have the hard job to have to do it. I have the easy job where I just get to look at it and criticize. So I walked in, and there was just a few things. You know, like a—a napkin on the ground, a skewer from a bacon lolly that was, like, in a corner, there was some silverware out that shouldn't have been. There was just a few—you know, when you're in, like, anybody in their company, you know when things are a little wobbly. So the first thing I do is help. Like, I can pick stuff up off the floor. And then I saw the manager, name's Hope. Um, and she was pretty busy, and I could see that. And then I thought, 'You know, I just have to coach this right now.' We believe in coaching in the moment. Give the feedback. So the first thing that I have to do is say, 'Hey, how are you? How's the night?' Cuz if she says to me, 'Don't even talk to me right now. You know, I'm in the middle of it,' then I should just either leave her alone or leave her alone and help her. But critic—it's the wrong time to criticize. But she was okay. So she was like, 'I'm all right. We just—we kind of just got our butts kicked, but we're coming out of it.' I said, 'Let me just—let's—we call it walking the restaurant.' I said, 'Let's just walk it. Let me just show you what I'm seeing, and let me see what you're seeing. Are we seeing the same things?' So we walked it. We pointed out a few things. Um, and I had some criticism, like we weren't achieving the standard. She agreed. She wasn't offensive. She could have been. She could have said to me, like, 'Oh god, really? Like, you just show up at this moment. All these tables just left. Like, give me a minute.' But she didn't. But then she did say, 'You know what, I want to talk more to you, but I need to help at the desk. Like, there's still—you know, there's still work to be done.' So I'm like, 'Great. Do that. And then I'll be hanging out over here.' So I, like, walked around, cleaned up a few things, did some stuff, and then we chatted more. And by that point, the team—and I do not think it was cuz I just walked in—they had, like, recovered from that wave, and really fast they were on it. And then Hope and I chatted some more, and we were pointing out where we'd fallen short, why, what we could have done proactively to help avoid that—that dip. And then I was able to compliment how quickly the team recovered. So for me, there's a lot in that story from coaching in the moment, giving the feedback. But really, the reason that conversation worked is because I know her. Yeah. I was part of her interview. She was an hourly employee for us when she graduated from college. We made her a job to go into management. I've talked to her about her career path. I know what she's trying to accomplish in life. And so our belief is that if you really know the people and the business's mission lines up—at least overlaps—with the employee's personal mission—what are they trying to accomplish in life?—then when stuff gets hard or something's wrong or you need to correct it, you can do it. You can coach it, you can criticize, and you can be supportive. You can remember to seek first to understand before just dropping the hammer. And that, I think, is how you bring it all together to—to focus on lifting up the operational excellence while as a result of lifting up the people. Yeah. And so when I think about communication and influence, I guess even just reflecting on what I'm saying, it—it just comes for me—it comes back to: what's the foundation of the relationship? What's it built on top of? And if it's really shallow, I don't think the message lands."

Anthony Shop: "This episode is brought to you by the George Washington University's College of Professional Studies. With in-person and online programs ranging from master's degrees in public relations strategy to certificate programs in digital communications, GW offers more than just the credentials to help working professionals get ahead. It prepares them to be leaders in their field. Check out cps.gwu.edu for more information. That story from just last night—I mean, I'm sure you've had these types of things happen a lot. It feels like it could be a chapter in a Stephen Covey book. You even use that 'seek to understand'—you know, first just how you walked through. There's that—the long-term stuff, the building the relationship that you talked about. Um, what we want, what you want, and what the management wants—they're aligned, right? Like, you've gotten everybody on the same page. But then just how you approached that person, because if you had just approached Hope asking—not asking that question, asking a different question, going right in—it would have changed the entire dynamic for the rest. And then it resolved after, you know, you saw what she saw, what you saw, you saw the same thing. You did that together. That's really powerful. That takes time. And then at the end, you were able to compliment the team, so they, you know, I would hope all felt kind of good at the end of the day, at the end of that experience, knowing that, yeah, you came in, there was some criticism, we can be better, but then they recovered really quickly. And so you're not just coming in as somebody once told me, you know, 'Seagull Management.' Have you ever heard that phrase? You know, you know, the boss flies in, shits on everything, and then flies away, you know? And I think the story, the way you tell it, is, um, really helpful because that influence on the inside, how you connect with your team, is so important. How can you influence people on the outside, how can you have champions for your brand on the outside, if you haven't built that on the inside? And that's one of the things I think about your leadership that I've learned and observed so much just from hearing you speak to different groups, listening to your podcast, observing how your businesses have been successful, is you've connected that influence on the inside with the influence on the outside. And you said something earlier that I want to ask you to speak a little bit more about. Dan said, 'Getting that criticism, you realized if you built up more of a presence and a platform, um, it gave you the ability to defend your team and to play a role.' And if you hadn't done that, you know, if you hadn't built that personal brand, you hadn't done that, you wouldn't be in as strong of a position. So, you know, you referenced you had this bad review 10 years ago, and over the last 10 years you've done a lot to really build up your influence in the community. People know you as much more than a restaurateur, but people know your business because they've heard and that 'why' of the business, not just the food. People are so much more aware of it because you've been out speaking to so many groups and you've built a presence and doing that. So say a little bit more about that because I think that's really powerful that people may not know that that was part of the motivation of why you spend so much time and energy doing that—waking up early to do a podcast interview when you could have just not been here. You could have just been at one of your restaurants or stayed home."

Dan Simons: "Originally, I believe, you know, Mike and I didn't put our names on the front door of Founding Farmers. We didn't make the brand about us as the restaurateurs because we believed that it should be about the brand. It should be about the business, not about the person. And when we opened the first Founding Farmers in 2008, I think that that was true in the business world. Um, that changed, you know, o—over the last 18 years. And if your business doesn't have a voice, then by definition it can't be in a conversation. Um, and nowadays, people want the voice of the business to be the voice of the person running the business or the people running the business. And so that—you know, what is the voice of the business like? Like, when we would talk about, um, the tone of how a brand communicates, people just want it to be a person. And so even the big public companies, you know, like Wendy's or McDonald's or those guys in the food service business, you—you look at them on social media and they go to sort of like humor and snark and informality to sort of prove their point that this isn't McDonald's Corporate talking to you; it feels like your buddy Mickey D's chatting with you. So when it really was a shift for me—I didn't think that you should have to do that. Why should I have to make it about me? It's not about me. So I had to let go of that and reframe it for myself in the present day and the evolving day. You know, you get a really negative, uh, food review or criticism from a food critic at the Washington Post. You—you got to be able to engage in the conversation. Now we had some good fortune, I think, or maybe we made that fortune. We had a lot of people come to our def—defense, which felt really good. Um, and that, you know, harnessing or having the voice of your customer or the voice of your employee—that's really powerful. I mean, that's probably the most authentic and effective thing. It's always better what people say about you than what you say about yourself. And so I think I took all of these things, and I was just motivated to be able to speak about the stuff that matters to me. Like, you notice that what I'm not spending my time publicly on is the grind in the burger ratio and talking about the gluten activity in the bread and why that dough structure works the way it works, and you know, the bio versus the baguette. I could—I love food; I could talk about it all the time. But I—I just decided that that wasn't the—you know, I'm not a chef. Um, I'm comfortable with the food and with the kitchen, but that wouldn't have been genuine for me to be out there spreading just the food message. If you look at what I post online, it's generally not photos of food because I'm more interested in the photo of who made the food, where'd the food come from, why, what does it take to get there. So these things just came together for me as this recipe, yeah, of—and I think I do go a lot to wanting to protect the business. And maybe that's just from the scars of being criticized. But I look at some of the criticism I get, and I'm just—I guess part of me also says, 'Look, haters going to hate.' Yeah. And you know, there are people who post nasty things about my restaurants. They're not my customer anyways. So what—what does it—what does it matter? And the world isn't actually social media. It's not a real place. It's a digital place. Bots, keyboard warriors—like, if you wouldn't say it in person, is it really—is it even a thing? And algorithms of what shows up, right? Because we know that negative things are more likely to show up on many of these platforms too. So I think not getting lost in—in all of the noise of criticism, but sometimes there are powerful forces out there that can sort of take a business down or overwhelm a business, etc. And it is important to nowadays have humanized the business. Again, I don't think it is a 'must-do'; I just think it's important. I know some folks out there that just refuse to do it. I have friends like, 'Dan, why do you put yourself out there?' You know, I want to talk about, like, mental health in the workplace. I don't really just talk about the restaurant industry. I just talk about business because I believe that capitalism can be the most powerful force for good, and it can elevate humanity. Just in my life experience, what are we going to do? We're going to wait for the government to do it? We're going to wait for religion to do it? We're going to wait for the nonprofits to do it? I'm not criticizing government effort, religious effort, or nonprofits, but we have the evidence: if we're waiting for them, it's a long wait. And who kind of touches almost everyone? Business. And so we have a chance, if we run business consciously, mindfully, we're willing to humanize business, which means, oh, humanize the employees. Why don't we just call them humans, people? People that come and do this thing. Then I think we can lift up all of society, and that, to me, feels like a much better place to want to live."

Anthony Shop: "I love that language around 'humanize business.' One of the things—and—and you talk about kind of a few elements of that, right? Putting people at the center of your business and thinking about that, but also how you have to bring that human face to it. And something I've learned from so many of these interviews is, you know, faces are the new logos. People are less likely to trust brands; they're more likely to trust other people. And so if you want to get a certain message out, if you want your business to have a voice—which you said so beautifully—you have to decide, well, how do we elevate those voices? How do we—those voices out there? And there's a lot of ways you can do it. Different businesses have found different ways to do it. They don't all have the same strategy. But you've chosen to say, 'You know, I'm going to leverage my personal brand, my personal power of influence, to advance this business, to advance these goals, but also to advance beliefs and missions greater than just my business.' Your belief that we need to look at mental health as part of life, just like, you know, you say in your TED talk, can talk about our back pain at work. Why can't we talk about our mental health challenges at work? Right? Or talk about menopause at work, for example. And I think people hearing that from a business owner, it obviously sets a tone inside of your organization. You said something else in one of your interviews that I really liked. One of the episodes, you said, 'Bland is terrible. You have to have a strong flavor.' And you—a lot of leaders, I think, are trying so hard in today's environment to avoid controversy or criticism. They're either scared to put themselves out there the way you describe some other business owners, or they do it in a way where they don't want to say anything. You know, they say, 'I'm going to be a thought leader,' and there's no thought there, right? So, well, that's kind of hard to connect. Um, have you found that when you try to have that flavor and not be bland and you're memorable, that that just inevitably means you have to say, 'I'm not going to be for everybody. Some people are going to criticize and dislike me'?"

Dan Simons: "But that's it. I'm not everyone's cup of tea, which means at least I'm a cup of tea, right? And so, um, I like that quote. You know, bland is—it's not only terrible, it's useless. So if you're going to play it so safe with your comms, you might as well just lay off the comms person and not say anything. You're not accomplishing anything when you just—when all of your business communications are innocuous. Like, we can—just—we can put whatever words we want, but when we start to realize like, 'Hey, it's safe, it's the middle of the road, it doesn't piss anyone off,' I get why there's a lot of professional communicators in business environments; they're using those descriptors. I hear those and I think, 'Okay, so it doesn't land. No one will notice it, and it's ineffective.' And I have to discuss this with my team, too. I'm glad that I have a team and they want to protect me from myself; they want to make sure that they protect the company from me if I could, you know, bring ill on us. It's not uncommon where I say, 'Hey, thanks for the feedback, duly noted on the caution. I'm saying it anyways.' Yeah. And if it creates conversation—I mean, I get criticism for wanting to talk about mental health in the workplace. I get criticism for wanting to talk about women's health. I get criticized—people say like, 'Man, that's weird. Why are you talking about menopause in the workplace?' I have this list, a whole list of things I get criticized for talking about. And my response is, 'Hey, what's the alternative? What's your plan? So you don't want to talk about that?' And you know, I invest in and support—through microloans, through grants, through just things just myself personally—um, minority usually entrepreneurs. And it's just my way of—you know, I'm small, I don't have a ton of money, but I can help individuals and I can do some things. Sometimes, you know, I'll get messages through my website and people like, 'You know, this bullshit. You're helping minorities. Like, what about the white guy?' And my response is just, uh, 'Okay, what are you doing? I see you're spending your time criticizing me. What—what are you doing? You want to help white guys? What are you doing to help white guys? Criticizing me?' So usually the criticisms are pretty empty, or they're just fueled by ignorance, or they're fueled by a habit, or they're fueled by simply—sometimes what I'm talking about is just different. Different feels foreign. Foreign feels alien. Aliens aren't welcome. And so I also have to, um, let people have their reaction. You know, if you're not comfortable talking about what I'm talking about, no problem. I—maybe I'll just talk less to you about that, or I'll adjust a bit what I'm saying. Other things, I'm not going to change. I'm not going to back off of. I don't get wrapped up in the culture wars of politics and the silliness. You know, I'm a first-floor guy, right? This is a blue-collar industry. Like, we're on the first floor. We're on street level. I'm not in some office building on the 25th floor thinking about strategy. I'm at street level thinking about service workers, the staff, the business. And so I have never heard anyone in one of our restaurants arguing or criticizing in the way that people write shit online, right? I just have never heard that in person. I have people with red hats that say, 'Make America Great Again' eating in the restaurant. I have people who are sort of diametrically opposed to that. People are fine. Like, people are absolutely fine. Now, home alone on your couch, just immersed in the one news channel that you choose to live in—that echo chamber—that's a different thing. That—that's not really the real world. The real world is still people talking to people. So I stay away from the real hot potatoes. But, you know, look, I'm a Jew. Uh, that's a—it's been complicated for thousands of years to be a Jew. Uh, the Jew hate's never going away. I won't hide from being Jewish, and nor do I stuff it down anyone's throat. You want to talk to me about Israel and Gaza and religion and politics and whatever, I'll have that conversation. My views are probably pretty complex and nuanced on that topic, because most topics require nuance. So I stay away from the hot potatoes. I stay away from the stuff that's just all black or white. Even the things I feel strongly about, I try to say like, 'Hm, there's another side to this. What's another perspective?' And I think the business—as you can stay away from hot potatoes, that doesn't mean you should stay away from all potatoes. Talk about things. So that's the balance I try to find."

Anthony Shop: "We talked about—I mean, something that really strikes me about you and your approach to influence is allowing yourself to be influenced by taking feedback, right? You talked about anytime you get criticism, there might be some accuracy there that you and your team need to look at. Uh, you talked about when you're out, you know, sharing your public thoughts, people submitting, you know, posting stuff on your website and giving you feedback. I want to have you share a little bit about how you get feedback from your team, because that's one of the things—I think it was in your TED talk that I learned about it. And, um, I think that's a really valuable thing for people to hear about how you've built a mechanism to scale that feedback. When you're really small and you're working with everybody side-by-side every day, you know, they can—you can make it a comfortable environment for them to speak to you, and that's part of it. But you've used technology to scale how your employees can give you feedback, too. So there's the cultural aspects of feedback—creating safe environments, uh, role modeling that people's voices matter and they're heard and there's no punishment for speaking up. So there's a whole bunch of cultural aspects."

Dan Simons: "Tactically, we use a piece of software called Stop It. Just an app. Every employee downloads it at orientation, and it allows the employees to communicate anonymously—two-way comms. Those Stop It messages come to a couple people on our HR team and directly to me. We don't know who sent it. They can say whatever they want. And it's interesting—the app's called Stop It, and the assumption is that people would use this to sort of report behavior that was inappropriate that they wanted stopped. And indeed that's true. We get some of those. Someone says, you know, 'Feel like I'm being harassed at work,' or, 'I'm uncomfortable with this,' or, 'I want to complain about this manager because they do X.' We get some of that. As much or more, we also get people just raising their hand: 'I'm worried about this. I'm concerned about this. Hey, there's a—I have a colleague in—in my restaurant, and I'm—I'm a little worried about them, and I don't know what to do.' We get comments from the staff of, you know, 'We think—I feel like things are slipping here with our execution on X, and I wanted you to know about it.' So it's—there's some stuff is 'stop it,' some stuff is 'fix it,' some stuff is 'help me with it,' some stuff is 'help the team with it.' And then in those two-way comms, the person can unmask themselves if they want to. I have a lot of those conversations that start off anonymously, then there's dialogue, and then the person—and we always—I always—if it's appropriate, I say like, 'Hey, if you ever want to meet in person or talk directly about this, great. We can. No pressure.' And some percentage of the time, you know, people do. Yeah. So that's just a tactical example. I am a fan that that culture should be, you know, built both strategically and tactically, and that it really needs to be operationalized so that it lives that way. It's not about any one of us at work; it's really about all of us. I mean, we can have someone who's been here for 15 years, and you can have someone who's been here for 15 days, and they will engage if the—the group is culture. I say, like, it lives and dies in these 'moments of truth' every single day. So I'm actually even sensitive talking about it because right now we're on the sixth floor of a building. I'm not in the restaurant. I'm not on the first floor. And it's risky when leaders preach about their culture without acknowledging the risk of—well, you know, how is it for every single employee in every single one of our restaurants right now, this instant? It worries me. I'm not always sure how it is. So I think you also have to stay, you know, humble and apprehensive that there's intention and vision, and then there's reality. And there's often a gap for employees and workers between those things. My job is to live in that gap: measure it, understand it, and try to—try to bring that as close together as possible."

Anthony Shop: "And the key thing I hear is that, you know, allowing yourself to be influenced is so important on the inside. And you've created those mechanisms. You get great story about last night going into a restaurant—what that looked like—but then you've scaled that through technology and, um, thanks for breaking that down a little bit more, too, about how they can unmask themselves and how you offer to meet with them, and how having that feedback—that app is designed for one specific use case, and it can be used in so many other ways because people now have a mechanism to send their feedback in when they have it. I think leaders finding ways to take that feedback is—is so important. To flip back just for a moment before we close on the influence on the outside: you brought up this, you know, review from 10 years ago—zero-star review from this prominent, you know, reviewer from the Post before he retired. About 10 years later, he did another review—very favorable review, actually. Didn't say—didn't necessarily apologize for what he did 10 years ago, but I mean, he talked about some of the same dishes and he had a really good experience. What did that feel like for you and your team to have that sort of close circle?"

Dan Simons: "I was happy for that food writer. My view is that the review 10 years ago was maybe more about him than it was about us. And I think this review he wrote when he was retiring may have been more about him than about us. Um, that's not—I have no defensiveness or pushback about the criticism 10 years ago, or the criticism and some of the compliments that were in what he wrote. Um, but you know, journalists have a job. Their job is to get people to read what they write. And simultaneous of that, people have their own arc of their own life. And there may be—I don't know him personally; we've had several conversations on the phone over the years. Um, my take was that maybe the arc of his life and how he experienced all the influence and power that he wielded—that maybe he saw that differently at the end of his career than 10 years prior. We're just fortunate. My team is strong. We have built a business. Um, there is no one food critic that can take us down, and there is no one food critic that can build us up. And so I—I didn't have much of a reaction. Uh, but I was certainly glad that, you know, when that second review came out 10 years later, that, um, at least there wasn't anything in it that hurt my feelings like—like the first time. And I just thought, 'Hey, you know what, um, we're still here. And by the way, we're going to be here in another 10 years.' And you want to know the careers that we've built, and the people that are growing, and how much family-farmed product that we're buying. And we're opening new restaurants and we're evolving and learning and growing as people and in the restaurant. There's just more to it than what's on the plate; there's more to it than what's in the glass. Those things have to be excellent. When I see this—this recent news about the best restaurant in the world, Noma Copenhagen, and the executive chef, owner, founder, or whatever, um, you know, has finally been 'outed' for just, you know, being a toxic asshole. This is something that lots of us in the business have known. That reputation has been out there, and I've just watched the media and guests and, you know, diners and foodies celebrate that restaurant. And you know, it's not my place to call people out or say they should think this way or that way, but I would like it if reviews of restaurants—frankly, reviews of businesses—were holistic, you know? And if the worst guy in the world is—has excellent operations, are you good spending your money there? Uh, okay. If you're good spending your money there and you're okay with the abuse in the kitchen and the way people—the literal trauma, and you're still good supporting that business, whether it's buying that car or eating that restaurant—if you're okay and you say, 'You know what, I vote with my dollars, and my dollars is just about the product,' you know, 'The ethics of the business owner are not my issue,' fine. You're making that decision. I would like a world where the consumers are aware, and the media, and the reviews, etc. Not as a tolerance for poor execution, but as an expectation that to be known as great, it's a pretty comprehensive word. Shouldn't it matter how you treat people? And I'm not super judgy, like, what you do in your personal life. Everybody's got their—people got whatever. You know, that people aren't faithful in their marriage, or they do this, or—everybody's got their issues and whatever. I don't think you have to be perfect. You can be human. But, boy, when you're an abusive asshole and your business gets celebrated and the media holds you up, yeah, as you can see because I'm still going on about it, I have a little problem with it. But Pete Wells, you know, the really probably the most highly regarded food writer in the country for the New York Times for a decade—he recently stopped for his own health, which is—I'm so glad for—he did that. He stopped the life of being a food reviewer, and now he's a food writer, but he's not a restaurant critic. Yeah."

Anthony Shop: "He did an article recently in the Times, maybe two weeks ago."

Dan Simons: "Yeah."

Anthony Shop: "And you were in it."

Dan Simons: "I was in it."

Anthony Shop: "I was—must have felt great."

Dan Simons: "It—it was real—it was validating. You know, I say I care about criticism; there are some types of—it wasn't so much praise that I appreciated, it was just being included in the conversation that the New York Times was writing about work culture. Yeah. And I was able—you know, Pete and I spent an hour on the phone together and had a really interesting conversation, and I—and we really talked about culture and business and restaurants and what's acceptable and what isn't. And so that was a—that was a really nice moment."

Anthony Shop: "And what you shared there—I mean, it's almost kind of like a bookend is consistent. Exactly what you said 16 years ago speaking to a group of MBA students, who you may or may not ever see again, that a business—yes, the product is one of the things that define a business—but you said to all of us aspiring business people and entrepreneurs, we need to think about our businesses more than that. We need to think about what we stand for, how we treat people, what type of culture we're building. And for me, it's amazing to see how that has been completely consistent over the last nearly two decades, but at the same time it's blossomed to be so much more, right? Because your business has grown so much and your presence has grown so much, and that message has resonated with so many people since then. And so that, you know, probably felt good to have that reviewer come back and write, you know, a good review after writing such a bad review, but even more powerful to have what just happened with, you know, you being, uh, featured in that New York Times article talking about how—how we should show up as business people."

Dan Simons: "I—I appreciate that, and I like your framing of it. You know, I hadn't thought—you've just framed it nicely. I hadn't thought about it in that way. It's even nicer for me. I just have to tell you for the story that you shared, you know, the fact that you heard me talk, you know, in 2009 in a class or whenever that was, and that some of that message was valuable to you. And now look at what you've built, and look at what you're doing, and look at the people that you influence, and the people that you're lifting up, and the way you're role modeling, and the way that you're living your life and the things that you're doing. You know, if I planted even one-tenth of a tenth of a teeny little idea that was helpful to you in your journey, and you now go on to accomplish all these amazing things that you're doing for your people, in your life, in your business, that's awesome. That's what I mean: that we can lift each other up. And you want anyone you're lifting up to bloom well beyond you, you know? Like, go. Like, influence more, do more good while making money. Cuz the more you can consistently make money, you can stay in the game and consistently do the things that matter. You need a business model. You know, without a business model you can't continue. There's no top spin without hitting the ball straight as well."

Anthony Shop: "Just last very quick question. Thinking about the arc of your career, how do you define influence now and how has that changed over the course of your career?"

Dan Simons: "I'm still most interested in one-to-one influence, mentoring relationships, like this, conversations where—and so I do a lot of this now. I have three boys—22, 20, and 17. And so they and their friends are all at stages now where mentors and guidance is valuable. So I do a lot of connecting with my kids' friends. My kids often don't want to hear it from their dad, but their friends want to, you know, engage, and I'm learning from them. It—they—I'm learning to see the world through the eyes of a 20-year-old. Super important for me as a dad, as just a person in society, and as a business owner. So for me, it's about—I—I need the influence and I want to take the message out there to a broader audience. You know, like you said, the TED talk, it's—I don't know—100 whatever thousand views. That's cool because I think that message really matters, and if some amount of that TED talk plants seeds for mental health in the workplace, that's good. I can—I'll sleep a little better at night. Like, cuz I don't see—I don't believe in a higher power. I—I think for me, I'm here, I live, and then I'm dead. That's it. I'm not doing it for legacy; I'm doing it for now. What can I affect? So when I think about influence and—and what matters to me, it's just helping as many people as I can and allowing people to help me."

Anthony Shop: "What I take away from this conversation—so many things—but, um, that influence on the inside is so important if you want to have influence on the outside. But also, influence on the inside is valuable in and of itself, particularly if you're trying to build a business that's more than just the product you sell—the food you serve, in your case, but something much more. And you've shared some great lessons about how listening and allowing yourself to be influenced is so important. Give several examples of that. But also the consistency—I mean, for me, that consistent sustained influence is something that comes out in your story because I've seen it for nearly two decades. And while a lot has changed, the core hasn't changed at all. It's stayed completely consistent. Dan, great conversation, and I just so appreciate you coming back here to Duquès Hall to do this discussion today with me on Chief Influencer, and please keep up all the amazing work that you're doing."

Dan Simons: "Thank you. Thanks for having me."

Anthony Shop: "Chief Influencer is a production of Social Driver. We help clients transform complexity into clarity with people-centered strategies. Whether you're looking to elevate the influence of your brand or of your leaders, check out socialdriver.com to learn more. For show notes or to nominate a guest, visit us at chiefinfluencer.org or follow Chief Influencer on LinkedIn."