90: How Heart Leadership Fuels Business and Brand Growth with Anthony Lambatos
This week, I’m talking with Anthony Lambatos, owner of Footers Catering and founder of MIBE (Make It Better Every Day), a leadership and culture organization helping people build heart-led, people-first businesses.
Anthony and his wife April have quadrupled their company’s revenue, achieved 50% higher employee retention than the industry average, and earned Best Places to Work honors eight years in a row. But the real story is how they did it, through heart leadership.
We unpack what heart-led leadership really looks like, why vulnerability and communication are the most powerful leadership tools, and how this philosophy applies whether you’re a CEO, a small business owner, or a team of one.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
[03:57] How Anthony went from family business to people-first CEO
[05:45] The secret behind Footers Catering’s long-term success and retention
[07:10] What heart leadership really means and why it matters now
[10:00] Why everyone is a leader—no matter your title or team size
[13:44] How emotional intelligence builds stronger businesses and cultures
[16:29] The link between leadership, authenticity, and social media presence
[20:45] The four convictions of heart leadership: Lead, Love, Mibe, and Vibe
[24:35] How communication can transform culture and client relationships
[27:58] Why small, 1% improvements lead to exponential growth
[30:23] How to protect your culture and surround yourself with the right people
[35:00] What to expect from the 2025 MIBE Summit for hospitality leaders
Key Takeaways:
Heart-led leadership starts with emotional intelligence, empathy, and authenticity.
You don’t need a big team to lead, leadership starts with how you show up daily.
Communication isn’t one-and-done. People need to hear your message repeatedly.
Small, consistent improvements compound into massive growth over time.
Vulnerability builds trust, connection, and stronger company culture.
Who you surround yourself with directly impacts your business energy and success.
Guest Bio:
Anthony Lambatos is the owner and CEO of Footers Catering, a Denver-based company known for its innovative, people-first culture, and the founder of MIBE (Make It Better Every Day), a leadership and culture development organization helping business owners and teams build workplaces people love to be part of.
Under Anthony and his wife April’s leadership, Footers has quadrupled its revenue, achieved employee retention rates 50% higher than the industry average, and been recognized as one of Denver’s Best Places to Work for eight consecutive years.
Through MIBE, Anthony helps leaders become what he calls “heart leaders” people who lead with empathy, authenticity, and accountability. His work inspires organizations across the country to prioritize culture, strengthen connection, and build success from the inside out.
Links Mentioned in This Episode:
Join the MIBE Summit: themibe.com/summit
Follow MIBE on Instagram
Connect with Anthony on LinkedIn
A Truth You Need to Hear:
“People don’t show up to work wanting to be bad leaders. They just don’t know a better way. Heart leadership starts with choosing to see people first and results second.”
— Anthony Lambatos
S3 Ep90 Transcript: How Heart Leadership Fuels Business and Brand Growth with Anthony Lambatos
00:00
Today we're diving into a conversation that goes beyond reals, content strategy, or marketing hacks, because how you lead your business directly impacts how you show up online. My guest today is Anthony Lambados, owner of Footers Catering and founder of MIBE, M-I-B-E, a leadership and culture building organization helping leaders grow people first businesses.
00:26
Anthony and his wife April have quadrupled Footers revenue, maintained employee retention 50 % higher than the industry average, and earned best places to work honors eight years running. He's built a thriving company and more importantly, a culture where people actually want to work. In this episode, we dive deep into heart leadership. What it really means, why it matters now more than ever.
00:53
and how it can completely transform the way you lead, connect, and grow your business. And don't worry, this isn't just for CEOs or people with big teams. Whether you're a solopreneur, a small business owner, or a team leader, this conversation will help you become the kind of leader people want to follow and the kind of brand people want to buy from. I hope you're excited. Let's do this. oh
01:23
Welcome to Strut It, a podcast about creating bold visibility on social media with zero apologies. I'm Elizabeth Marberry, your host and Instagram marketing coach. I help small business owners get seen on Instagram and monetize their offers so they can make more money doing their sole lead work. If you're tired of spinning your wheels on Instagram and you're seeking simple, proven Instagram marketing strategies that actually work, you're in the right place.
01:52
Let's dive in.
02:02
Welcome back to the show. I'm so thrilled that you have joined me for this extra special episode of Strudit. You are in for a treat because today I'm bringing on Anthony Lombardo. He is the owner of multiple businesses here in Denver and we're going to get into exactly what he does. But one of the things I love about Anthony is I went to a conference this past summer and
02:31
I saw him speak. I was very blown away by how not only he just created spaces for people to learn, he's a brilliant educator and speaker, but I was really struck by his mission for heart leadership. I'm excited for this conversation today because whether you are a solopreneur or you are managing a big team or you're a CEO,
02:57
This conversation, I hope, is going to help you step into being an embodied, heart-led leader. And it's going to help you with all of the relationships, not only in your business, but your life. So rolling out the red carpet, Anthony, welcome to the show. That is way too kind of an introduction. I tell you how much I appreciate that, Elizabeth, just being here with you is an honor. I'm excited about the conversation and have so much respect for what you do and what you've built.
03:27
So thank you for having me. Thank you so much. For all of our listeners who haven't met you yet. So you are the owner of Footers Catering here in Denver, as well as some other companies, including MIBE, which you guys are doing this phenomenal summit coming up in January that I'm going to be attending. So already I'm going to tell my listeners, if you want to come hang out with me, you better sign up to come to this leadership summit in January so we can hang out. But Anthony, tell us who you are.
03:57
your background story, how did you even get to be the CEO of these companies? Give us the goods. Yeah, how long do we have, right? So my dad started footer skating in 1981. I literally grew up in the business and I grew up never wanting to be part of it. It was my dad's thing. He was there all the time. He did everything. He loves hospitality. And on top of that, he wanted to provide for his family. And so my sister and I would joke like, if you want to see dad, you got to go to work. We would. you know, we saw.
04:24
catering and said, that's dad's thing. That's not our thing. But you know, life has a funny way of taking a turn. And I ended up working for him. You know, we didn't work really well together. It led to us, my wife, April and I, purchased the business from him 15 years ago. When we purchased the business from him, it was really a transition to what it was going to be next. And for us, that was creating a place to work. We didn't care about being the biggest caterer. We didn't care about winning a bunch of awards. We just wanted to create a place where like when we came, we enjoyed it. And when our people came, they enjoyed it.
04:53
And that has manifested itself into something that's beyond my wildest dreams. Like if you would have painted the picture of like where we are today, it showed me that 15 years ago and been like, hey, look at where you're going to be. would been like, you're full of it. Like don't know what you're talking about. Our success as a business has all been a result of our focus on culture. Us, pouring into our people, especially in an industry that for so long has been serve the guests, serve the guests, serve the guests. We've kind of looked at it as no, we're going to serve our people and then they're going to serve the guests.
05:22
Through that, we are so fortunate. We've quadrupled the revenue, we've increased profitability, we have turnover that's 50 % better than the average in our industry. We have moved twice. We now are in a 40,000 square foot building, which you get to come see where we have our own venue. We have the footers headquarters. And so we've gotten a good reputation for what we've done on a national level with culture.
05:45
That's what prompted us to start MIBE because we realized as people were coming to us asking questions about culture and how we did this and how we got to where we were, we had something to share. so MIBE is the acronym for Make It Better Every Day. It's actually the middle part of the mission statement at Footers. And it's this idea that we can just make these small incremental improvements and over time that transforms. But MIBE as a company, our whole focus is how do we help people become better leaders, what we call heart leaders.
06:12
Because if they become better heart leaders and better leaders for their people, they create better places to work. And when we create better places to work, the people that work in those organizations all of a sudden have more fulfillment, not just at work, but in their lives. And that's what I'm so passionate about, that if we bring more joy and purpose into the work world, I think people are gonna be happier. I think people are gonna be more successful. I think it translates to just uh an overall better world.
06:41
That's what we're on a mission to do with MIBE and can't wait to have you at the summit. Yeah. As you were describing it and your whole philosophy and how it's led to success, it just sounds like a win-win for everyone involved. Like every key player, customers, your staff, you know, all boats rise together. So that's really beautiful. And I know that you really talk a lot about heart leadership. If someone's listening to this and they're like, what?
07:10
is heart leadership? Like how would you define that? Like what are we talking about when we say become a heart-led leader? Yeah, I think at the core it's rooted in emotional intelligence. When we think about leadership, there's a lot of different connotations people have when they think about a leader. When we talk about a heart leader, a heart leader is somebody who can be empathetic. A heart leader is somebody that can be firm, that can be fair.
07:35
A heart leader is somebody that is going to respond to what their team needs in a way that their team feels cared about, but isn't at the expense of the success of business. That's one of the misconceptions. A lot of people say, oh, hard leadership, like how do I be hard leadership and discipline somebody? Well, like those two things are not separate. You can be a part leader and hold people accountable. And so it's just doing it in a way where maybe we're not yelling at people. Maybe we're not throwing pots and pans in the kitchen. Maybe we're not being passive aggressive. Maybe we're not.
08:04
using these things that get in the way of true and authentic connection. And so that's the big umbrella, but we also, you know, we can dive into it, but we've got our four convictions that we talk about of like, is a hard leader really doing in the behaviors that go along with it? Yeah. So a couple of years ago, I invested in a mastermind. It was called the embodied leader mastermind.
08:33
because I felt as a CEO of a company that had employees, there were so many things I was really good at, but being a boss and a good boss and a good leader, actually, I thought I was, but then, you know, I've been an entrepreneur now for 15 years, I was humbled, right? Like, oh, wow, this is actually a skill that good leaders invest in.
09:03
How do you manage this? Because I find that, as you were saying, like CEOs, leaders, bosses kind of get a bad rep, right? Like, oh, they're so self-consumed. They only care about themselves. They only care about the bottom line. This work is so important. I guess, how do you start to shift that for people? Like, does it start with the leader? Does it start with the employee? Where do we begin? Yes, good question. The thing that I want to highlight here, when we talk about leaders,
09:32
half the audience is thinking, I'm not a leader, right? My prompt to you and to everyone that's thinking, I'm not a leader, I don't care if you have zero people reporting to you, if you're a one person business, if you're just an employee at a company, there are people watching you every single day and paying attention to how you show up, how you work, how you behave, how you treat other people, all the things people are watching, whether you think you're a leader or not, there's people paying attention.
10:00
to how you are showing up and that is having an impact on other people. And so my thought behind this is that we're all leaders. We all can be intentional about the impact and the influence we have on other people and we get to decide what that impact is going to be. And the tough thing is that I don't think anybody shows up and says, I wanna have a really crappy impact on people or I wanna really be known as a bad leader. I wanna be known as that person that no one wanted to work for. Like no one does that, right?
10:29
But yet if you ask the audience of like, how many of you have had a bad leader? How many of you have had somebody that you hated working for? 100 % of the hands are going up. We've all had that person. So there's a disconnect there. And in some cases, people don't know. People don't know that they're showing up that way. They don't know better. They don't know a better path to do it because if you think about it, we get really good at something, right? We have success and we get promoted because we're good at that.
10:58
And so then all of a sudden, like, we're above other people. And then maybe we're in charge of other people. And we're in charge of other people because we were really good at whatever we were doing. But no one ever coached us on like, here's how we do it. So who do we learn from? We learn from who was in front of us. And at the end of the day, what I talk about is yelling at somebody can actually get some results in the short term, right? Like if I yell at somebody in a setting, they're probably going to be scared, do it out of fear, and it's going to get done.
11:27
And so it works and that's the problem. And then you just go over and over again because I got results like that. But what it doesn't factor in is in the long-term, the collateral damage that does, the trust that's lost between us. You know, I don't really want to help you in the future. I don't really want to do anything. I'm going to actually do something to undermine you because of how you treat me. I know it's a long-winded answer to your question, but it's a loaded question when we talk about where you start.
11:55
It's acknowledging that I can be better, that I have an opportunity to have a more positive impact. And when people are willing to come to the table and say that, that's where the work really starts. And that's what I love about what I get to do. Cause I have some of the most amazing leaders that I get to work with and they show up every time I see them wanting to learn more. that's a beautiful thing compared to the person that does, oh, I've already done the leadership stuff. Oh, I know how to be a leader, right? Yeah.
12:24
sad thing is those are the people that probably need it the most. Totally. Yeah. The people who are just like oblivious to like, Oh, I just got promoted and now I'm your boss to deal with it. Right? I know what I'm doing. I love that you highlighted that everyone is a leader in their own life. Everyone has responsibility over how they show up in relationship to others and their level of
12:50
impact and influence on the people they surround themselves with. I love that so much. You mentioned in our pre-interview that youth feel that we're in a leadership crisis. Yeah. I would love for you to unpack that. Like, what does that mean to you? Well, it's twofold. It's building on what I said that I don't think we're getting a lot of training. We get a lot of training in school with, you know, our intellect and knowledge, and that's what kids, you know, have young kids, so I get to see what they're learning. And that's important, right? And then
13:19
Maybe you get into high school, college, just out of those stairs where you start getting into a trade or a profession and you learn how to be a lawyer, you learn how to be a chef, you learn how to be a planner, whatever it is you start learning the technical skills. But what makes the difference of great leaders and bad leaders is that emotional intelligence. And that's what we don't spend enough time training on. And so the result of that is, you
13:44
We've got an overemphasis on short term. And I talked about that in the short term, what gets results in the short term. Think about corporate earnings and like, we've to this mark, we've got to hit this mark. So all of sudden decisions are made for the short term and not for the long term. Our political system, I don't care what side you're on, it's constant back and forth. That side's wrong, we're right. And it's not a collaborative effort. We don't have great displays of like, here's what great leadership should look like. We won't get who we celebrate on reality TV like.
14:11
I love a good reality TV show, but at the end of the day, if we're all trying to be like the Kardashians, I'm not sure that's the pinnacle of leadership, right? Those are the things that we look at. And I believe that true heart leadership and great leadership examples have to be a grassroots effort. It has to start at a level of every day, how are we showing up that we inspire somebody else to behave in that same way. And this goes from people who lead huge teams to people that are a team of one, right? Like I've got...
14:40
planners that we work with and I love working with them because of how they treat my team, of how they appreciate what we bring to the table, how they communicate with us. And we have planners that like usually will say we're booked on the days that like events because of the way they treat our team of the processes, what it's like to work with their attitude when they show up. And who do you think we're telling our clients they should work with? Yeah. So even people that don't have teams that have to think about
15:09
Who are the people that are watching them and what is the potential impact that has on their business? Yes, and this totally correlates with Instagram marketing and I want to tie this heart leadership piece into how does this show up when we start to promote our business publicly online. The authenticity piece is so important and it's interesting when you were talking just now, one of the things that I always say
15:37
over and over again is that people buy people, not products or services. And you just described that in the most beautiful way. Did you guys hear how he was like, there's multiple wedding planners that we could work with, but I'm gonna choose this person because of the relationship with them, right? Because of who they are at the core, right? Like how they're showing up, their professionalism.
16:04
Are they kind to the staff or is it just like, you're here, your staff, I'm not even looking at you? That's what I mean when I say people by people. And so what I love about Instagram and social media marketing, I know Anthony, you do a lot of stuff on LinkedIn, is that it is such a beautiful way to build a bridge with your audience through your content.
16:29
And so I'm just curious like how that shows up for you, like the vulnerability, authenticity piece and how your marketing and how you're showing up for your people online. A hundred percent. I mean, I think that authenticity is the biggest part because we've talked about this before of presence on Instagram and gaining people and trying to start building their trust. Okay, so like now I know you online, right? But if my interaction all of a sudden with you online is different from what it is when I buy from you, there's a huge disconnect there.
16:59
that actually does more of a disservice to you than had you not done anything at all, right? Because if you're saying you're this over here, but really you're this, you know, we're just missing on that. I all of a sudden am like, now I don't believe anything you say. And so there has to be this continuity in terms of, you know, being willing to share some of the things that, you know, not just the beautiful things that we're doing. I wrote a post the other day and it was like,
17:26
I think I had over 50 windows open, fat tabs open, and I was embarrassed. Like, I was like, oh my God, but like, I felt the need to share that. I talk about leadership, I preach leadership, I think I'm a pretty good leader, but there's times I was like, that's not good leadership, that's not good for me. Like, I need to share that with the audience. I need to be authentic in the fact of like, this is dragging me away from this, and here's what I'm gonna do about it. Here's how I'm going to change. And so I think, you know, in the times where you can just...
17:53
be authentic to like, here's some of the challenges I'm going through. I think you earn even more trust in those moments. Yeah. Vulnerability is a strength, not a weakness. Good leaders know that. Good leaders know that vulnerability actually builds a bridge with the other person, right? And it's so cool. I saw that post that you did on LinkedIn and I loved it because I can totally relate. It's like, oh my gosh, I have.
18:20
all these tabs open, I keep task switching, I know this is absolutely not productive and I can't stop doing it. Anytime we can share that imperfect side of us, it just makes us more approachable and it's powerful because so many people feel lonely and isolated, everyone's so hard on themselves. And then for you as this successful CEO to say, look, I'm totally imperfect too. Anthony, the other thing I've heard you say is,
18:49
hey, that's not my zone of brilliance, right? I have the privilege to delegate that to someone else who that's what they're good at. And I'm gonna give that to them. I also was able to support Anthony and his team a little bit in the Instagram marketing session. Which was amazing. Yes, yes, they got to do a private 90 minute Instagram audit with me. And we got so much done in those 90 minutes, right? Yes. It was crazy.
19:19
One of the things that I really loved is that, Anthony, I got to witness, it's one thing as a leader to say, I value what other people think and say. A lot of leaders say that. There's a feeling where you actually do care other people's thoughts, right? The best leaders know that they're not always the smartest one in the room. You are such a great embodiment of leading by example and that a leader doesn't
19:47
have to be perfect or have all the answers. And again, my beloved listener, as you're listening to this, remember, if you are a team of one, this is you too, right? Like being open to the relationships or being open to knowing that, oh my gosh, spending 20 hours a week in Canva designing carousel posts, that's not my zone of brilliance. I'm going to go find an incredible virtual assistant to help me do that so I can be more in my zone of genius.
20:17
This conversation, I hope you feel really applies to you and anyone that you would find would benefit from this, please, please share this conversation with them. So Anthony, I want to transition into the four convictions of heart leadership. And this is really the how, right? Because it's one thing to be like, let's be heart leaders. So teach us about these four convictions. Let's break it down so we can understand how we can walk away from this episode.
20:45
and have at least one tangible, actionable thing that we can go do this week. Yeah. All right. So their lead love, Mibin Vibe. So we have fun kind of whimsical. You've called us out on that. You're a fun brand. You need to show that. So lead is value people for more than the job they do. And what I talk about with this is like when I open the door to come in to work, it's not like personal Anthony all of a sudden stays outside and professional Anthony is like ready to go for the day. If my personal life is in shambles,
21:14
probably going to impact how I show up at work. And if I'm struggling at work, I'm probably going to go home and unload all of that yuckiness on the people I love the most. So this whole idea that work and personal are separate, I don't buy into it. I think we need to start inviting the whole person to work and appreciating that all of these things factor into who they are and how they're going to be able to work. Now, this always has to be in balance with what the company needs and the person needs. If it gets too far either way, either direction, it doesn't work. This to me looks like
21:44
Are we taking time to get to know who our people are? I make it a point like, can I learn one new thing about one of my team members every day? Like just one. Let's keep it easy. Let's keep it straightforward. Every day, if I can learn one thing about one of my people, and it may be something random, fact, like they crochet at home. They, you know, have a eight year old that is, you know, struggling at school. may be, you know, whatever it is, like filing all that away that I can deploy it at some point in the future and circle back and ask about that or.
22:13
When I see this, tying it in, like that all of a sudden, I'm showing a genuine interest in people. And that's my little hack for like, right down at the end of the day, what's one thing you learned? And like, you'll have this whole library of amazing things about people in your life. doesn't have to be about your team. It could be about people you, you know, friends. It could be about partners, all of those things that are gonna make you a better partner. So value people for more than the job they do. There's a little tip there. Should we go to the next one? Yeah, let's keep it rolling. I like it. So the second one is love.
22:42
Open your heart to be authentic, genuine and vulnerable. And this ties into what we had just talked about. This whole idea that the leader has all the answers and it's like they're all knowing, wisdom dispensing. We go to the person and here's the answer is not leadership that is going to be conventional moving forward. And I talk about like during the pandemic, right? It was my first pandemic. So I didn't know what I was doing. If I would have been like, oh, team, let's hold on. Now let me pull out playbook and let me turn to page 43. This is what we do now.
23:12
No, there would be more thrust built among that. And so being willing to say, I don't have all the answers and transparent about what you know and what you don't know is so powerful. so we touched on that. One takeaway here that people can think about is communicating throughout the process. A lot of times we only want to communicate at the end when we finished a project. I'll give hiring an example. If we have an open position at Footers, we need to hire.
23:37
And I'm going to announce to everyone who wasn't involved in the hiring process at the end, we've hired this person, welcome them to the team, right? Yes. Well, we have an extensive hiring process at Footers and years ago, it was going on four or five months that we hadn't filled this position. And the story the team told themselves was we weren't hiring for that position anymore because we had stopped communicating what we were doing. We were busting our ass, having interviews, talking to people, looking at resumes, doing recruiting. We were doing all this activity, but we weren't communicating it.
24:05
The transparency of like, anytime you're working on a project to update people on where you're at is so critical. I mean, even in, we talk about small business owners or solopreneurs, you know, if you're supposed to get back to somebody on something, let's say you're working on a proposal. Hey, I'm one third of the way through the proposal. I've got this, this, and this done. I'm missing this piece because I don't know how much this floral is going to cost. And I've got to get that to have your whole proposal. All of a sudden, as the other side, I'm going to give you a lot of grace.
24:35
as opposed to I'm making up the story of this florist doesn't care about me, I'm not a priority for them, they're not working on my proposal, right? But if I update them along the way, all of a sudden there's communication there. And so I think the same thing goes throughout that being vulnerable and authentic is updating people along the way. oh I love that because communication is such a skill that honestly we all struggle with, right? We all make assumptions like, our team already knows this about what we're doing.
25:04
That was one of the things that I had learned is that the importance of a consistent meeting cadence with my team. Because sometimes I'd be like, well, nothing really changed or whatever, so we don't need to meet. And when we started to meet more consistently, that's when they were able to share things with me that maybe they wouldn't have before. Or I was able to share with them, like let's say our leads were down, so our sales were down, they weren't getting booked for as many lessons.
25:33
I'm able to say to them, you know what? We are actively trying this. We just did this email marketing campaign. They don't know what we're doing, right? Whereas it's easy to assume, of course they're seeing it. And you know what's funny about this? This totally correlates with what I teach about Instagram marketing because people will go and post something about their business or their paid offer a couple times. And then they'll be like, nobody wanted it.
26:01
And I said, nobody saw it. Like nobody knows what you do. I mean, I always joke that I am so consistent on social media. I'm talking about the work I do, Instagram marketing, you know, strategy and coaching and speaking. And I will still meet people in person and they're like, are you still teaching dance and yoga? And I'm like, I haven't been doing that in years. Like what the heck? And I know they're seeing me on social media. And it's just a great reminder that people are in their own little worlds.
26:30
And it's really important to develop your communication skills. It will up-level everything. Everyone will feel better. They'll feel less in the dark. Less assumptions and stories are made up. I had a friend who's like, my mom told me, if you want people to know what you care about, you gotta tell them. And if you want people to remember what you care about, you gotta tell them over and over and over and over and over and over again. And I was like, that is so good. Yes, that's brilliant.
26:59
Okay, so we have, we're gonna value our people, we're gonna be authentic, we're gonna be vulnerable, genuine. What's our next step? Next one, there's always more to learn and room to improve. And this is the idea that we're never done on our journey, that there's always an opportunity for us to continue to evolve. My goal is if I make small improvements every single day, over the course of a week, I will see no progress. You know, I look back and like, and not much happened, right? But if I look back over the course of a year,
27:29
all of a sudden I might be embarrassed of who I was a year ago. And that is the goal. Like, can we be embarrassed? Can we make so much progress that we're embarrassed of who we are? And that doesn't happen overnight. We don't do something overnight that all of a sudden like, oh, I can't believe I made so much progress from yesterday. Like, no, that happens over time. It's why MIBE is so central to everything we do. Make it better every day. Just do something. Do one thing, small thing. Like holistic, huge wholesale changes. Yeah, you can do that once in a while, but by and large,
27:58
These things start slowly and then you build up. And so with this, it's the idea of how do we keep growing? How do we keep evolving and how do we keep being open to new possibilities? I was just doing a recording and talking to a group. said, are you trying to solve today's problems with yesterday's solutions? And we get really caught in the fact of like, this worked for us in the past. This worked yesterday. This worked last year. This worked last month. It may work still, but it may not. And sometimes we need to question whether it's
28:27
It's still working for us and it still is applicable. And if it's not, we have to be willing to move on and adapt something new. And that's scary. Change is scary for people. But when we do it in small doses, admit to learning one thing about AI every single day, all of a sudden, know, a week, maybe we don't know much, maybe a couple of weeks, we start to learn a little bit, but over the course of a year, if we'd learned one new thing every single day about a certain topic, we start to become pretty proficient in it.
28:56
I love this. One of my business coaches taught it to me this way. She said, it's just 1 % upgrades every day. And that really helped me. And I was just on with a private client before I hopped on this interview with you. She's a very high achieving, very successful female entrepreneur. She said, gosh, sometimes I get really stuck in this all or nothing mindset. First of all, how beautiful is it when you can have that realization within yourself, right?
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Anytime we can acknowledge, oh wow, I'm in this pattern, this old pattern. So many of us get stuck in those patterns. It's easy to go on autopilot. As you said, like, this is what I've always done. When this happens, we do this. And I always say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, right? That's not my quote. What is that? Nichi or I don't know. Yes, someone. So I just love that what you just described.
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is it's not all or nothing. It's not that you have to completely change your entire organization overnight because that would be paralyzing. It is these tiny little shifts each day. So that's just such a beautiful mindset, whether it's business, leadership, marketing, personal life. I love that. Okay. Let's move on to the fourth one. right. Fourth one, vibe. Work doesn't have to suck. Surround yourself with a kick-ass team.
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Yes, in the context of somebody who's got a large organization, they have a team that is all part of that company. But even if you don't have a team, you get to decide who you work with, who are you surrounding yourself with, who are the vendors you're going to partner with, who are the clients you choose to take on. Everybody that's part of that, you actually have a lot of say in that. And my big push is that leaders have to own that.
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I talk to a lot of people that don't have any hiring and firing responsibility within their organizations. And they say, Anthony, like, I don't do hiring firing. They're like, how do I control who's on that team? And my response to them is that they have a choice to protect the culture within that organization every single day. And every day they come in, if they don't like the culture that they're working in, every day they step foot into that environment and sit down at their desk and do their work. Essentially what they're doing is putting their stamp of approval on the fact that I don't like it, but I'm okay with it.
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And until you're willing to do something about it, I don't have a lot of sympathy for you in terms of where you're at because you either need to be bringing this to the attention of somebody. And I'm not talking about petty things of not liking somebody. I'm talking about when there's egregious things where people are not living by the core values, where they're making work more difficult for everybody else involved. If you're not bringing that to the attention of somebody who can do something about it, then you are just as at fault. And then it's up to them and it's in their court. And if they don't do anything with it,
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then you again are essentially saying, I'm gonna live with it. I'm gonna be okay with it. And at that point, you're settling with culture. And the same thing happens with clients. The same thing happens with vendors. The same thing happens with partners on events. Do we always have a choice? No, but 90 % of the time, I do believe we get to make the choice. And sometimes we make sacrifices. And the more we make sacrifices in the name of, I have to bring revenue in or I have to do it for the business.
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The less we're prioritizing culture, the less we're prioritizing our wellbeing, that to me is a sacrifice we're not willing to make as leaders. And I think true heart leaders can lean into the hard and messy of this actually will help beyond. If I talk about this J curve, right? And so if we think about productivity and time being on two axes and we've got a point, then we point A and we want to get to point B, which is up and to the right. So many people think you just go from like draw a line, point A to point B. That's how we get there.
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That's not how get there. You get there with a J where you actually go down before you go up. And so when you have a new system you're putting in, if you're getting rid of a team member, that's a key team member. If any of these changes, major changes you're making in a business, you're actually going to see productivity decrease. And when productivity decreases, that's when all of the naysayers jump on board and tell you like, we shouldn't have adopted this project. We shouldn't be doing this. It's hard. We were better off where we used to be.
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and most companies stop there and go back and they just go back to where they were. The companies that acknowledge this is going to be hard for six months, this is going to be hard for one month, this is going to be hard for a certain period of time and I need your help getting through it so that we can get up here. And they get through that trough to the other side.
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But that's what prevents people from making that change is they see it and they start to see down that cliff of like, oh, it's going to get harder. I better not go that way. I'll just stick here. And they never get to this point because they're not willing to make that turn. So I love that J curve analogy because I always say business growth, marketing growth. It's not linear. It's not like you do this and then you go up a step. Like if it was, I feel like everyone would do it. Right. Just like, okay, I'll just keep doing the things then it's all going to work out. Right.
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What I love about how you taught us that concept just now is that it normalizes it, you know, because you might think something's wrong when nothing is wrong. One of my favorite business coaches said that to me. She said, whenever I would kind of go into a spin cycle about a concern of revenue or my offer or my whatever, you know, was top of mind, she'd say, Elizabeth, what if nothing's wrong here? And that just blew my mind, right? Because I'm so used to having to, oh my gosh, I'm going to panic.
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And it was the J curve, right? Anytime we're implementing a big change, it's normal for things to get a little off kilter. And frankly, your nervous system is gonna say, this is not safe. I'm being chased by a bear. I'm about to be eaten. I'm out. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I love it. Okay, well, I want to close by you telling us about the MIBE Summit coming up in January, because like I said to everyone,
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I am going to be attending. I'm so excited to be a participant. I'm always eager to learn new things. I'm definitely a personal development junkie. I'm a business growth junkie, but truly excited to connect with other people. And you always throw just really fun events too, and I'm all about the fun. So tell us about this summit and then anything else you want to share and how people can grab a ticket and find you and all those things.
35:28
Oh, thank you. Yes. I'm passionate about it because I feel like there's a lot of conferences out there. There's a lot of great things. We wanted to build the premier conference for hospitality event professionals where you can come and focus on leadership and focus on your culture. We don't want to teach people how to cater. We're not teaching people how to serve. We're teaching people how do we be better leaders? How do we show up better for the people in our lives and our teams so that we can create those better places to work? Because
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Our whole belief is that if you do that, that's what translates to business success, where we really focus on this. You have the people working in the right direction. And so we created the MIPES Summit as our annual event where we have tremendous speakers. mean, just phenomenal, some from hospitality, but like Sean Acker, who did over 12 years of research at Harvard on positive psychology is going to be one of our speakers. And we've got Ryan Leake, who wrote a book called How to Work with Complicated People. And he is a nominal up and coming speaker who's going to just blow your socks off.
36:26
But we don't just have great speakers. It's the curation of the whole event that is personal to me. So there are curated breakout sessions where you're with people that are doing a similar role that you're doing, where we get to digest, what did we just hear from the speaker? How are you applying it within your business? How can you help me apply it? It is deep dive. How are we taking what we just heard and putting it into action? And then we're parlaying that with a lot of fun too. We'd like to say, you know.
36:52
We're going to throw some activities, some challenges, some like curve balls at you that you aren't going to see coming, that you're going to be a little leery about coming in. And then you're going to be like, that was so fun and awesome. And I'm so glad I did that. So you put all that together with some amazing food and incredible community. I mean, we had people from over 30 different states last year that came to the summit and it is a collection of true heart leaders who care about doing good and having a positive impact on the people in their lives. So.
37:18
If that sounds like your gym, then we would love to have you there. It's going to be three days of just awesomeness. my gosh. I'm even more excited to come to the summit now. Like you had me at awesome food. I'm so excited. So I'm sure everyone's listening and they're like, first of all, it sounds incredible. Second of all, I need to come meet Elizabeth in person. Yes, you do. Just kidding. I know it's not about me. Where can people find.
37:46
ticket. What's the best place for them to find all the details? Go to the website themibe.com slash summit is where you can find all the information about the summit and buy your tickets there. Cool and that is the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the the
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Any other places where you want people to connect with you? LinkedIn, maybe follow MIBE on Instagram. That'd be great. You can follow us on Instagram at MIBE leadership. And you can also find me on LinkedIn. That is where I personally am most active. If you would like, I write a leadership message every single week. I try to keep it short, like 400 words or so. So you can read it in just a couple minutes. It's an uplifting thing. Every Wednesday it comes out. And so you can sign up for that on our website too.
38:40
The weekly M.I.B.E. message is what we call that. So phenomenal. And we will be sure to link all of Anthony's stuff in the show notes so you can easily access that. Anthony, thank you so much for your time today. I learned so much and thank you for creating spaces where people can lead with their heart and create workplaces that people actually want to go to.
39:07
Well, thank you so much. It's an honor to be with you. I appreciate you having me on the show and this was a lot of fun. Thank you so much for listening to my interview with Anthony. I hope something here really resonated and landed in your heart. If you got anything out of today's episode, do me a favor, send me a direct message on Instagram. Make sure you're already following me at Elizabeth Marberry, M-A-R-B-E-R-R-Y, send me a voice note, send me a text message, I don't care how you share it, but I wanna know what part of this conversation resonated with you. Was there one thing that you needed to hear today? Because whether you have a team or you are a team of one, my hope for you is that you will lead with heart, that you will show up authentically as you.
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bold and bright on social media so your people can find you. And as always, I will be rooting with you. Thank you so much for listening and I cannot wait to strut it with you next week. Thank you for listening to strut it. If you're ready to start leveraging Instagram to grow your business, then you're gonna wanna grab my free monetize your IG guide where you'll learn seven simple and proven ways
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to finally make money on Instagram. You can grab your guide at ElizabethMarberry.com slash freebies. That's ElizabethMarberry.com slash freebies to get my monetize your IG guide. If you got some incredible value from today's episode, be sure to leave a review and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform. And I cannot wait to start it with you again next week.
