Leadership Secrets from the Former Chipotle President Monty Moran | Digital Social Hour #51

Is it true you changed the flavor of the guacamole?

No,

I didn't change it.

No, the recipe was already there when I got there and it was a great recipe.

Although there's a little funny story that maybe you're alluding to.

We had someone knock off the chipotle concept.

The guy said, no, no, no, I got it off the internet.

The best leaders are the people who most effectively give their power away.

The worst leaders are the ones who most effectively keep power to themselves.

Welcome to the Digital Social Hour Podcast.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly.

I'm here with my co-host, Charlie Cavalier, and our guest today, Monty Moran.

How's it going, man?

Good.

Good to be here.

How are you guys doing?

Excellent.

Can't complain.

You flew here on the jet.

Well, I've got a single-engine turboprop.

So it's a jet engine, but with a propeller.

Okay.

So it's not like, you know, the snapping suspender twin-engine jet, you know?

It's

does it see six six feet but it's super fast flies at 31 000 feet and 330 knots which is about 380 miles an hour wow so that's quick and you said you went to maine earlier you were in europe flying it yeah well i i bought this one recently from the factory in france and i flew it back from france i flew northern switzerland and then iceland greenland and then skipped canada landed in banger maine and then over to colorado the next day so you literally flew to france and then bought it and flew it back yeah yeah yeah yeah

well technically i didn't own it till we got here okay you know what i mean so i had to fly it over here and then we closed on it here.

So it was cool.

When you want to fly somewhere, you have to contact the other airport, right, and let them know you're coming there.

Actually, oddly enough, you don't.

Oh, really?

If you want, you can just get in and go.

But if you're flying, there's two ways of flying, VFR and IFR.

So VFR is visual flight rules, and there's IFR, which is instrument rules.

So if you want to fly in clouds or above 18,000 feet, you got to be on an instrument flight plan.

And in that case, yes, you have to say, I'm going from here to that airport.

And then air traffic control tells you where to fly, and you're on with them the whole time doing what they say.

Right.

Those are like commercials.

They'll let you vary.

If you say, hey, look, I got a big thunderstorm.

Let me go around it.

They'll say, sure.

So it's very reasonable.

Those are like the commercial flights, right?

Well, or even my flight, just, yeah, I'm flying IFR almost all the time in my plane because I don't want to be below 18,000 feet because you go way slower and burn tons more fuel.

Wow.

And my plane burns a lot.

It burns 60 gallons an hour.

The jets that you, you know, the twin-engine jets, like even the small ones, they're burning three, four, five, six times that.

Cheat.

A lot.

A lot burn a lot of fuel.

So the airline industry must be low margin then?

It's usually historically been extremely low margin.

Yeah.

Really, really bad.

I think that, yeah, they're really, really tight.

Because there's so much competition, right?

Right.

Because especially Spirit, you could fly to Cali from here for like 30 bucks now.

Yeah, that's there.

I mean, they're definitely losing money on that.

There's no way they're not losing money on that.

30% chance you die also.

But that means 70%, you're totally fine.

Yeah, you'd be fine.

I want to dive into your story.

I know we got into flying right off the bat, but I'd love to hear your story from start to where you're at now.

Oh, gosh, that's too...

I mean, I'd be a minute.

Don't let me go too.

Don't let me.

SparkNotes summary.

Where's that?

SparkNotes summer.

Spark?

Have you heard of SparkNotes?

No.

Oh, is that like a super exciting thing?

Yeah, we had SparkNotes and Cliff Notes.

They were clipnotes when I was in college.

Clip notes.

They were actually red.

Stuff like that.

No, you know, I grew up,

born in Newport, Rhode Island, but moved to Colorado when I was pretty young

and grew up in Boulder, Colorado.

Went to, you know, went to school, even went to CU.

So I went all the way through college in Boulder, Colorado, then moved out to LA for 10 years.

Moved out there.

I was an insurance adjuster for a few years, you know, got into surfing,

ended up going to law school out there at Pepperdine,

became a lawyer in LA, sort of LA law thing for a few years, and then moved back to Colorado to have kids.

I figured it'd be a good place to raise kids since I'd grown up there.

It was kind of a nice place.

Moved back to Colorado, joined a firm there,

had three kids who are now most grown-ups.

My daughter's 18.

She's about to flee the coop, but my boys are 25 and 23.

So yeah, three kids had all of them in Boulder, raised them in Boulder,

and became a lawyer at a law firm in Denver

for about 10 years, became CEO of that law firm.

Most of that time I was running the law firm.

And then,

you know, long story short, I made the jump over to Chipotle as president and COO and then became co-CEO of Chipotle pretty quick.

And I spent

a little over 12 years there at Chipotle.

So there's the cliff notes.

Yeah.

I don't even know where to start.

Chipotle?

That's a big, yeah, Chipotle, right?

That's a big change from law firm to Chipotle.

What caused that change?

Well, yeah, you know, so I did, as a lawyer, I was a trial lawyer, you know, so I was doing mostly litigation, but I also did some transactional work, you know, like contracts, real estate, that kind of stuff.

But most of what I did was representing folks who are either in partnership disputes or corporate litigation, real estate litigation.

Did all very broad practice, did a whole bunch of stuff, but basically was a courtroom lawyer.

trial lawyer.

So I love that.

It was really fun.

I mean, it's super stressful.

The things that that I loved about it were exactly the same things I hated about it, right?

Like super high stress, but super high excitement.

Right.

Right.

You know, super hard work, but you know, payoffs and feeling great about winning a case.

And it's like big highs.

You know, I wouldn't say big lows, but hard, you know, super stressful.

But anyway, I loved being a lawyer.

I started getting a number of clients that asked me to become like general counsel.

Like, hey, can you help us with this and help us with that?

And I'm like, those things aren't legal and you're paying me as a lawyer.

And they're like, I don't care.

You're good at this.

Help us.

So my practice basically started to become more broad than really a lawyer would normally be.

You know, I started handling, you know,

advising.

I started interviewing people for some of my clients, for jobs, you know, to see if I thought they'd be good, you know, because people found that I was pretty thorough at kind of vetting people.

Anyway, so at Chipotle, I

kind of took on more and more of a role.

They asked me to get involved in the leadership team, which is kind of the heads of all the departments.

They asked me to come be at all the board meetings.

I started doing all the notes, like as the secretary of the company, even though there was another guy who was officially the secretary, I would take the notes and help him produce them.

Anyway, so eventually the founder of Chipotle asked me to come on board and run the company.

And I said no for four and a half years because I said, no, I'm a lawyer.

I'm not a food guy.

Actually, I've always been a food guy.

I mean, I worked at Dairy Queen when I was 15.

And I've worked at restaurants, and I love food, and I love to cook, and I'm really, really into food.

But I hadn't had, other than Dairy Queen and being a waiter,

I was like, hey, I'm a lawyer.

But after about four and a half years, he said something to me that really challenged me.

He said, he said, Monty,

a lawyer is what you do, but a leader is who you are.

Because he had come into the law firm and he had seen that

we built a really great culture at that law firm.

I mean, we had the hardest working law firm, but people were really stoked.

It's kind of a long story, actually, but basically it was a culture of all top performing lawyers who were super, super empowered, who were really into what they were doing.

It was like a love festival, but also a really hardworking love festival.

So we were super profitable, super profitable,

but also having a great time.

And

all the lawyers wanted to work for us.

The firm was just really going off.

And I'd been made the CEO of the firm.

So he said, hey, man, how'd you make this culture?

This is awesome.

Like, I want Chipotle to be like this.

Can you come to Chipotle and do it?

And I'm like, nah, nah, nah, nah.

But after four and a half years, he said, yeah, you know,

you may be a lawyer is what you're doing, but a leader is who you are.

How about coming to Chipotle and you can affect a lot more lives and build a culture that's going to affect a lot more people?

And I said, you know, well,

and eventually I said, okay, you know what?

I'll try it.

So I made the jump over and became president and COO COO initially.

And then shortly thereafter, CEO of Chipotle.

Incredible.

I want to dive into the culture part because a lot of people struggle with building culture.

It's actually really hard to pull off.

So what's some advice you could give for leaders looking to build better culture?

Well, I mean, to be really blunt, and I'm only this blunt now.

I probably wouldn't have been as blunt back when I was CEO, but you need to love the people you need to love the people you lead.

Okay.

And so that sounds so groovy, right?

But love is actually substantive.

It has edge.

It's tough, you know?

It's like, so what do I mean by love?

Well, what I mean is of the people you lead, you've got to get to know them.

You got to care about them.

I don't mean care about them just for what they're doing for you.

Care about them, period, like as a human being.

So you have to get to know them.

You have to care about them.

You have to come to understand them.

You have to understand what they want for themselves as their personal vision in life.

Forget you.

What do they want?

What's going to make them?

happy what are their dreams that they you know that they want to achieve and you get to know that right and then what you do is you work with them to give them a vision that is something they want to do, you know, but that also will advance your cause.

You know, so you're working, it's kind of like a meeting of the minds, right?

The only source of a leader's power is that somebody chooses to follow that leader.

Okay, there's a huge difference between management and leadership.

To me, management and leadership are,

while both are methods by which to try to, you know, get something done in a company,

one's terrible and one's great.

Okay, management is about manipulation.

At the end of the day, what management is really about is manipulating people.

My definition of management is trying to get people to do what you want them to do, getting someone to do what you want them to do.

You do it somebody by carrots and sticks and performance reviews, you know, threatening to fire them or saying, Hey, I'll give you more money if you do better.

Hey, bonuses, you know, you know, hey, you got to hit this metric and contests and competitions to try to get people to motivate, right?

To motivate them.

But leadership isn't about getting someone to do what you want them to do, leadership's about getting someone to do something that they want to do,

which also furthers your mission.

You know, so for instance, at Chipotle, when I wanted to create a great culture at Chipotle, initially the company's,

you know, our sort of

vision statement was, you know, to change the way people think about and eat fast food, which is really cool.

Like, I understood that.

That sounded cool.

As a CEO, I understood that.

But as someone coming in at, you know, back then, you know, sort of a few bucks over minimum wage, maybe, do they really think they can come in and change the way people think about

is that something they even understand?

Is that something they care about on day one?

Probably not.

But if I tell them, hey, if you come to Chipotle, you're going to be a future leader of this company.

We're going to teach you how to lead, not manage.

We're going to help you become a part of a team of all top performers who are empowered to achieve really high standards.

You can learn to run a multi-million dollar business.

We want you to be the future of the company.

We're not just bringing you in for the hourly position, but we want you to be a future manager.

And the only reason we're hiring you, we're not hiring you just to come in here and slop around at 10 bucks an hour forever, or now, I suppose you'd say 15, 16 bucks an hour these days, right?

We're not hiring you just to come in and be a worker.

We're hiring you as a future leader.

We want you to come help us grow this company, which by which we're trying to do some really important things in this world.

So, people, when people saw that,

you know, they were like, wow, yeah, wow, cool.

And so, basically, what you're showing someone is you know them, like, even at the interview stage, you're interviewing someone, like they can tell the difference whether you just want to, whether you actually care about them as a person or whether you just want them to come in and do something for you.

A huge difference, right?

So, you come in and say to someone, look, man, you know, hey, I'm really glad you're here.

Tell me about you, what's going on?

You know, and you just get to know them, and they know, hey, this, this person really wants to get to know me.

So, you get to know someone, you come to understand them, you bring vulnerability to the conversation.

These are the ways that you empower a person.

So I've got a definition of empowerment that I'm really proud of, actually.

It took me a while to write this back in the day when I was trying to sort of,

when I was, when I was trying to institutionalize this kind of leadership at Chipotle for the 75,000 people who worked for us there.

So empowerment means feeling confident in your ability and encouraged by your circumstances such that you feel motivated and at liberty to fully devote your talents to a purpose.

So let's just dissect that for a second.

First of all, it's a feeling.

That's the first word.

Feeling, confident in your ability.

So just like love, empowerment's a feeling.

You can't give someone empowerment by saying, you're empowered.

Hey, you're empowered now.

It's like, that doesn't make any difference.

It's like me saying, hey, love me.

Love me right now.

It's like you're going to be like, okay, you know, whatever, dude.

What do you mean?

Right?

So if, so if, if you want someone to love you, what do you do?

You behave, right, in a way that causes you to deserve their love, right?

Well, likewise, if you want to empower someone, what do you do?

You create an environment in which they will become empowered, where they will have that feeling.

What is that environment?

One where they're confident in their ability.

And that part's the part that almost everyone spends all their time on.

And it's the easiest part and it's the least important, but it's still important.

Confident in their ability just means training.

They know what they're doing.

They got the tools to do it.

They can be successful.

Confident in your ability, okay?

The first time you did this podcast, you probably weren't that confident in your ability.

You're probably a little shaky.

Is this right?

And people think I'm a dork, you know, right?

There's nervousness.

But after a while, you're like, hey, I know how to do it.

I know where to put the mic.

I know how to set it up.

People are kind of digging what I'm doing.

I'm confident in my ability.

But what does it take for you to be encouraged by your circumstances as an employee?

Your boss has to give you their attention, know you, care about you, be willing to challenge you, want you to be at your best.

And they have to have a vision that you believe in.

You have to believe they're going to take you to a better place.

So if you're in an environment like that, and what's the place that all of us, hopefully, growing up, had that feeling of empowerment?

Hopefully.

Hopefully with our parents.

Hopefully our parents give us an environment where we're confident in our ability, but also encouraged, like, hey, man, whatever I do, they love me.

Whatever I do, they're going to feed me.

Whatever I do, they're going to help point me in the right direction.

And if I'm, you know, come home at 13 with a glass of scotch in one hand and a joint in the other, they'll probably point me in a different direction.

You know what I mean?

If they care about me.

Now, a lot of parents aren't good parents.

Let's be, let's be clear about that.

But the best parents are the parents that teach a child,

that...

cause a child to feel confident in their ability and encouraged by their circumstances such that that child feels motivated and at liberty to fully devote his talents to his life, to grow, to blossom, to be something wonderful.

That's what a great parent does.

That's exactly what a great CEO does.

It's great what a great supervisor does.

It's what a great boss, quote unquote, does.

It's the same.

It's no different.

It's what a great coach does.

You know, we were just talking about new coach at CU.

Well, what's the goal of that coach?

You know, to put a team on the field that's confident in their ability, that's excellent, that has top performers on it, and that feels encouraged by their circumstances such that they want for themselves to go win football games.

Not just to win for the coach.

but to win for themselves, you know, because it's their vision.

Yeah.

You'll fight way harder for, I mean, right now, this is, you know, you guys do this podcast.

It's yours, right?

It's a little different.

It's your vision.

You're doing what you want to do.

But if you're doing this for a boss right now, and the boss was superb, like a leader, and you, and they gave you a vision, you'd probably feel just as much a sense of ownership over it.

But if you did it for a boss who was like, look, do it.

Get the ratings up.

We need more money out of this.

You'd kind of be like,

that's your vision, dude.

That's not what makes me thrive every day.

That doesn't light me up.

To make you money, it's not working for me.

Do you know what I mean?

So it has to be like, as as your leader, if I was your leader, I have to find out, you know, what's John about?

Like, what's his deal?

What makes him click?

What does he want with his life?

Is there something you want badly that we that you can do along with me that will help both of us achieve something great?

Well, that's what we that's what we did at Chipotle.

We showed the 75,000 people that, hey, you know, this place can be is going to be a beautiful place for you to grow, to blossom, to develop, and to become the best version of yourself.

Right.

That's a lot of people to manage.

Yeah, that's and it's funny you just said that.

It's too many people to manage

because to manage them means to manipulate them, and that's a lot of manipulation okay

but it's not too many people to lead okay because leadership's way more powerful leadership is about giving away your power and management is about retaining power so you don't like the word manage i don't like i don't like it at all but the word doesn't bother me as much i mean at chipotle we had general managers right that's that was the title yeah although long story we created the restaurateur program which was a much more

which was a more prestigious position, but at the same position, but the restaurateur was someone who led instead of managing.

So management leadership, yeah, I don't like the word management.

I don't like, it's not that I don't like the word, right?

Like, you can say, like, hey, I managed to change my tire today.

I don't mind the word, okay?

But the word management, as used when people say, like, hey, you know, I want to, I got to manage, you got to manage people well, you got to hold them accountable.

I hate that.

Hold them accountable?

Why would you ever have to hold someone accountable?

Why would you have to hold someone accountable?

Because they don't want to do it.

Right.

Right?

Yeah.

Like, I don't have to, what's your favorite food?

Ooh, ice cream.

Okay.

I do not have to hold you accountable to eat a bowl of ice cream.

You have to hold me accountable to not eat a bowl of ice cream.

Yeah, right.

You know, it's like, you know, you get a 10-year-old kid and he's got a birthday cake in front of him and he blows out the candles.

You don't have to hold him accountable to eat a piece.

Right?

He wants T2Ps.

So

why can't you also, in the context of a business, cause, you know, give your people a vision that is sexy and wonderful and exciting such that they want to do it.

Right.

If you can't do that, then you're stuck managing your whole life, which means you're stuck trying to manipulate people.

And guess what?

Long-term manipulation, it doesn't work.

People resent it.

It ultimately backfires.

It doesn't work.

Wow.

So it's about making your employees feel free.

Yes.

It's about it's about offering, it's about putting your employees in an environment, in a situation where they will do that, they want to do something for themselves,

which also happens to advance the business.

For themselves, because humans are naturally selfish.

Well, yeah, of course.

I mean, I mean, yeah, I don't think selfish is bad, right?

Selfish, if you have the right, if you're selfish for the right reasons.

I think selfishness is great if you look at it in this context.

You know, I think it is

in everyone's best interest to be the best person they can to other people.

I think if you are selfish and intelligent, you will try to do the best you can for other people in this world.

Because I have a saying that I said at Chipotle and I said it at my law firm.

And this is my foundational principle for my life.

And I think it should be everyone's financial, I mean financial.

I think it should be, it's funny.

I think it should be everyone's foundational principle for their lives because I think it's the most important thing for any of us.

And that is this.

Here's my kind of rule of life.

Each of us in this lifetime will be rewarded based on our effectiveness in making the people around us better.

Okay?

That's what's going to cause you to be rewarded, you to be rewarded, anyone to be rewarded in a way that really matters.

So each of us will be rewarded based on our effectiveness in making the people around us better.

And if you look at anyone in the world who's been highly admired over the years, you know, you could pick Jesus or Buddha or Mahatma Gandhi or Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King or whoever comes to your mind.

What are all those people so highly, why are they so highly regarded?

Because they spent the bulk of the thrust of their lives, the bulk of their time trying to make others do something good for humanity or

others.

You know, that's what they were primarily occupied with was the act of making other people better.

And guess what?

They're heroes, right?

You can decide a hero or not, but they're very admired people.

Right.

You know?

And so

that which is most

admirable for anyone is to help other people.

Right.

Yeah.

And also, it happens to be what makes people wealthy is to help other people.

What makes people happy is to help other people.

What makes people find contentment in life is to help other people.

And there is nothing else that makes you happy in life, in my opinion, not long term.

Wow.

I mean, the day you buy a Ferrari, you're stoked for a few days, right?

Cool, I've got a Ferrari.

You know,

maybe a woman buys a piece of jewelry she loves.

It makes her a guy for that matter, you know, makes him happy for a few days.

But all those little accomplishments, all those things that we do for ourselves, just for ourselves, those are, the pleasure we get from that is fleeting.

It goes away.

It's kind of like climbing Everest, even.

If you're a mountain climber and you wanted to climb Everest and you trained for it for two years, you go up there and you plant the flag and you're like, yes.

But what do you feel 20 seconds, 30 seconds, or at least 20 minutes or 30 minutes besides, well, let's say you get down forever.

Okay, now you're two days later.

How do you feel?

Now what?

Now what?

That's exactly what you're thinking because that achievement, even though it's cool and I'm not knocking it, that's super cool.

I'm not climbing Everest.

I admire someone going up Everest.

That's cool, right?

I I like that.

But let's just say, does that cause them to be happy for life?

They're just going to glow and bask in that accomplishment for life.

It doesn't work that way.

You know, it doesn't work that way.

Wow.

But if you go do something for someone else that by which you help someone else have a better life, there's a lasting glow that comes from that.

And when you keep, when you, you know, when you keep doing that.

So that's why I say leaders.

The best leaders are the people who most effectively give their power away.

The worst leaders are the ones who most effectively keep power to themselves.

The best leaders give their power away such that the people around them get better.

Wow.

And as those people around them get better and rise up and accomplish more and more and more,

they go, ah, this is nice.

This reflects, you know, I feel good that I've been able to empower all those people to rise up.

And also, guess what happens to those people?

You know, I used to always say at Chipotle, if you want to be really successful here, make the people around you better.

Because that was our definition of top performer.

I gave you the definition of empowerment.

My definition of top performer there was a top performer is someone who has the desire and ability to perform excellent work

and through their constant effort to do so elevates themselves the people around them and the company

okay so you're there's this concept of not only so if you boil it down it means does great work and makes others better two things does great work makes others better so I just let it be known at Chipotle at my law firm and anywhere else I work that hey if you do something really really really well personally you're a great doer that's cool that's awesome that means you're a great doer doesn't mean you're a top performer to be a top performer you have to be a great doer do great work but also have a positive influence on those people around you.

And if you're at a growing business and you don't do that, then how are you going to grow?

How are you going to train new people?

And at Chipotle, we needed to train tens of hundreds of thousands a year of new people.

You know, we need to bring them in and train them and move them into management positions.

Yeah, you're constantly dealing with new people.

One of the skills you developed was reading body language and nonverbal cues.

Big time, yeah.

What can you learn about someone from that?

Whew, so much.

You know, communication to me, when people think of communication, they usually think of the spoken word, right?

Like someone's listening to to the podcast and we're speaking and they're hearing it and that's the communication, right?

But the reality is, to me,

I think if you really want to understand somebody, you have to be careful not to listen too carefully to their words, not to listen too carefully to their words, because words, we are all sociologically designed to be, at least in some regards, a bit deceptive.

How are you doing today, Sean?

If you're having a crappy day right now, you're going to say, pretty good.

Because you're not, you know, it's not socially normal for you to say actually i'm having a terrible day stuck how are you though no no everyone goes good how are you good how are you good how are you good how are you that's what i say right no one goes shitty even unless you're good good friend maybe yeah you might say i'm shitty but whatever you know but we're all we all learn to deceive with our words in thousands of little ways um you know and but we're not as good at deceiving with our posture, with our pace of speech, with our body language, with our eye contact, with 30 other.

I wrote about all this in my first book but in my last towards the very end the second last chapter is about communication so I think if you want to be a really good communicator and really understand someone do not pay too much attention to the words they're saying I'll give you an example so I used to do I did like 25,000 interviews of crew people at Chipotle to understand how the leadership was going and to and to promote or not promote their boss to restaurateur

and and you know so a lot of times I would say hey so how is it working with you know say bill let's say the manager's name is Bill and I want to find out how effective Bill is in terms of being a leader.

Well,

how is it working for Bill?

A lot of times I'd be like, oh, it's pretty good.

Now, if they said it just like that, oh, it's pretty good.

I would say, oh, so why don't you like it?

And they'd be like, no, no, no, I know.

I said it's pretty good.

I said, nah, I know that's what you said, but that's not what you meant.

You meant that it's just okay.

There's something missing.

You're saying you don't like.

I'd love to hear about what you don't like.

And they'd be like, okay, well, I'll tell you what.

Here's what I don't like.

And I was never wrong.

Wow.

Because the tone is so much more important.

I mean, think about saying, I love you.

Let's just say, I want to tell you I love you.

Listen to the difference in these two tones, you know, I love you

or I love you.

I mean, those are hugely different meanings, you know, right?

Just by tone.

Well, so, and it's just the way it is.

The way we speak to people, the way, whether we speak fast or slow, excitedly or not excitedly, those things are conveying so much information.

And they are very difficult.

It's very difficult to lie with those things.

That's why actors and actresses are paid so much money.

They learn to bring all of it together to play a role, role, right?

That's a fictitious role.

That's not really who they are, right?

You could get an actor, for instance, who's an introvert, but who plays an extrovert very, very well.

But in order to do that, they can't just say lots of words.

They have to have a body tone.

To be a great actor or a great actress, I guess

that term is passe.

Now they're all actors, aren't they?

But

if you want to be a great actor,

you need to be able to match.

your words with the body language and intonation and pace and so forth that conveys a convincing character.

Well, the rest of us who aren't Academy Award-winning actors,

we're pretty easy to understand.

That's why the best poker players in the world are watching people like a hawk.

If you go raise you 5,000, right?

You're looking all bold, you have to ask, what's that person trying to convey?

They're trying to convey they're strong.

Why would they try to convey their strong?

If they're that strong, do they really want me to think they're strong?

I love poker.

I love it.

I love it.

It's such a wonderful, like, it's such a wonderful way to understand people better.

You'd probably be good at it.

Yeah, I mean, I'm a pretty good poker player.

I mean, I've been around some of the best in the world, and so I say it carefully, but yeah, I'm a pretty good player.

But if I am a good player, it's because I'm really good at reading people.

And I can,

you know,

it's based on all those things that aren't.

It certainly isn't based on what they say.

Okay.

It's like what they say is probably going to be deceptive.

Right.

Although sometimes they'll say something absolutely true with the hope that you'll double get, you'll second-guess it and think, you know what I mean?

So it's a game.

It's funny that way.

Nice.

So much of your guiding philosophy is based around one-on-one relationships, relationships, empowering individuals, creating culture.

What roadblocks has remote working created to sort of implementing a lot of the things that you firmly believe in?

No, I think a lot.

I feel lucky that that wasn't really an issue when I was still a CEO of 12 years, CEO of my law firm.

I think it's really tough.

And a lot of people are coming to me, you know, just in my consulting capacity and saying, hey, what can we do?

And I think the answer is you actually have to get out and get with people.

Like I say, if you just listen to someone's words, now a Zoom call is a little better because you get to see some, right?

You get to see their face and you get to hear their tone and there's more than, there's a little more you can pick up.

But also just being in person, there's just a million things.

I mean, there's literally just so many little micro bits of information that are being transmitted that might cause me to be able to say in person to you,

hey, Sean, you know, are you okay?

You know, it seems like something's bothering you today.

Now, what's really cool about this is let's say I don't even know you that well, which I don't know you that well.

I met you today.

Okay, so, but let's say that I got the sense you were kind of bummed out when I walked in the door today.

I said, I said, hey, Sean, and you said, hey, how are you doing?

I'm like, good, how are you?

And you said, I'm pretty good.

You know, I might say, hey, what's wrong?

Are you okay?

Now, if I, in other words, I didn't really listen to what you said because you said, you're okay.

And I said, are you, are you sure?

Seems like something's wrong.

Let's say I'm right, that something is wrong.

So let's say basically I called you,

right?

You tried to say you're okay.

I didn't believe you.

That's what's really going on, isn't it?

Like if I say, hey, how are you doing, Sean?

And you go, pretty good.

And I go, oh, you're not good.

What's wrong?

Even if I've never met you before.

You might say it's being a bit nosy, it's being a bit bold, but also, isn't it being a bit loving for me to actually give a shit?

So, what happens is when I challenge someone or overrule their words in favor of what I know they're really saying, it actually is highly complimentary.

It shows that I'm going deeper, that I care, that I'm looking, that I want to know what they're really thinking.

You know what I mean?

So, again, back to the manager example: hey, Charlie, hey, what do you think of your manager, Betsy?

You know, and if you go,

yeah, she's, you know, she's pretty good.

I mean, that answer for sure means you do not think she's very.

Because what it sounds like when you think she's awesome is you'll say, oh, Betsy's awesome, man.

She's so cool.

Like, she brought me in here.

She taught me a lot.

She helps me.

It'll sound like that.

And it just will, right?

If someone's really making you better, empowering you, cares about you, helping lift you up, wants you to be at your best, is challenging you to be the best version of yourself, it's going to come out, boom, like a cannonball out of your answer.

It just will.

And I've done it, you know, 25,000 times and I've seen what great looks like.

So if someone goes, and they might even say, they might even say, oh, she's so great.

She's great.

And I'll be like,

wow, that tone doesn't sound like she's great at all.

So tell me what's not so great.

No, I said she's great.

Yeah, no, you didn't.

That's not, that's what your words said.

That's not what your body said.

So tell me what's going on.

So I got this reputation at Chipotle, and I think I have a reputation with everyone who knows me.

Don't bother bullshitting me.

Right.

You know, right?

Because I'm going to see through it.

Yeah.

And I'm not saying that as like I'm some great guy.

I'm just, I care a lot about this stuff.

I notice stuff like that.

I look at body language, intonation, tone.

I care about people and I, and I want to know what's really going on.

Like, I'm a total, like the term, what, ferreting out?

I want to ferret out what's really going on with you, even if I don't know you well.

Maybe especially if I don't know you well, because I'll be like, hey, wait, there's something with this dude.

I don't quite understand.

I'll be like, I want to get to know you.

I want to understand what makes you tick.

It's just, that's my passion, is understanding people.

Wow.

So, since that's my passion, I dig.

I dig early.

I dig deep.

And you might think that's offensive, but actually, most people really like when someone digs because what does it mean?

It means you care.

Yeah.

Right?

If I'm curious about you, like if I just go, wow, you know, Charlie, good to know you.

So now I'm asking you questions about you.

It feels like, hey, this guy kind of wants to get to know me.

That's flattering.

Yeah.

Right?

It's just it.

You're taking the time.

Right?

Yeah.

If someone walks by you on a street and doesn't look you in the eye, you know, if it's just two of you on a street in a small town in America, to walk by each other without looking each other in the eye would be kind of weird, right?

It'd be like an intentional snub.

You know, maybe not in New York, but a thousand people, you just go, okay, I can't look at all these people.

It's crazy, right?

Or in LA, whatever, Chicago.

But if you're the only two people in a you know tumbleweed town and you're walking 100 yards towards me and 100 towards you we we're gonna say like hey dude hey how you doing hey pretty good right because otherwise it's offensive yeah right you're it's a statement to not look at you right i'm not gonna look at this guy like i'm really not gonna you know and so anyway that's what i that's what turns me on is really understanding people and getting to know them and when you do that the nice thing about it it really turns it turns everyone on to get to be No,

because everyone in this world wants the same thing.

Everyone wants to be seen, valued, understood, and loved.

Like, everyone wants that.

There's no one in the world who doesn't want that.

Everyone wants to be seen, valued, understood, and loved.

Even some introverts home and not wanting to be outside, they really do want to be seen, valued, loved, understood, but they have fear that maybe makes them not go outside because they don't want to be, what don't they want?

They don't want to be rejected, judged, misunderstood, not, you know,

devalued, right?

But everyone wants to be seen, valued, loved, understood.

Absolutely.

And so how do you go about that?

Well, the answer is people are going about it in four, you know, in four, in 8 billion different ways, some which are very effective, some which are very ineffective right and so um and i think you know as as a really good leader i think you you want to help people go about that in a way that is effective is it true you changed the flavor of the guacamole

no i no i i i didn't change it no the recipe was already there when i got there and it was a great recipe although there's a little funny story that maybe you're alluding to

we had someone knock off the chipotle concept yeah it was actually here in vegas oh it resulted in a lawsuit it was a long time ago um but somebody basically basically knocked off our concept.

And so we Chipotle filed a lawsuit saying, hey, you know, you stole our trade secrets and so forth, which you like our recipe and stuff.

And the guy said, no, no, no, I got it off the internet.

So we did discovery.

And we said, well, show us where you got it off the internet.

And he showed us a recipe from the internet.

And

the recipe from the internet showed that the guacamole contained garlic.

Chipotle's guacamole does not contain garlic.

In fact, one of the secret ingredients of Chipotle's guacamole, you know, was the absence of garlic.

And so the fact that they, and so we went and took their guacamole from their restaurant

and did it, put it through your sample, you know, put it through a test to find out what it contained.

And guess what?

No garlic.

So they said, here's the recipe, which contained garlic.

And they said, that's how we make our guacamole.

And then we went and got their guac and said, no, it isn't how you make your guacamole.

So they did have our real recipe.

Wow.

And so that's how we proved that they had stolen it from us.

Anyways, kind of funny story.

Wow.

Interesting.

What do you think about seed oils?

Because Chipotle is one of the first fast food brands to announce they're removing it.

Are you a fan of seed oils?

I mean, you know, I don't want to say much about that.

I've got opinions about it, but I just, I want to be careful because I don't want to denounce something unless I really, really understand it well.

I think they're generally, there's some thoughts that they're inflammatory, and I think it's probably better to go away from them.

But that's my personal opinion.

I don't know enough to be, you know, I don't know enough to proclaim something that I'm confident about.

Do you have a diet you stick to then out of curiosity?

I mean, I have a way that I eat.

The only reason I correct the diet thing is, you know, like if I really want a Hot Foot Sunday,

actually, I eat a lot of those.

I just pretended that that was an occasional thing, and that's a lie.

You know, that's just not true.

But, you know, I tend to not eat grain, really.

Not much grain at all.

So I eat meat and vegetables.

So you don't eat Chipotle anymore?

Oh, no, I do.

Chipotle is, I mean, Chipotle is a good place because you just say no rice.

Oh, no rice.

You know what I mean?

Or get a salad.

I tend to get a salad with chicken and peppers and, you know, sometimes beans, salsa.

Chipotle is a great place to not eat grain.

Right.

Yeah.

So you left corporate America in 2016, decided to get your pilot's license, travel the world.

Why did you decide to do that?

Because that's a big change in lifestyle.

Yeah, I mean, I just think, you know, we had such a great run at Chipotle.

It was awesome.

It was really fun.

And I think there was just,

it's kind of, it boils down to like life is short, kind of wanted to go out and do some, you know, have some more time.

I spent, you know, I was, I worked very, very, very hard at Chipotle.

It was, it occupied all of my time.

I loved that it did.

It was, it was really fun.

I, it was almost like on any given day, I'd feel like I would do it for free because I loved it.

It was great, great, great fun.

But, you know,

when I left, I wrote my book, you know, and I've written another book now, which is coming out on June 6th.

And that one's called No One is a Stranger.

It took me forever to come up with the title.

And finally, I read it again, and that sentence was in it.

And I said, yeah, that's the title for the book.

Interesting.

And this No One is a Stranger thing, by the way, gets back to kind of what I was saying about my love for understanding people.

I think the most important thing you can do in the world is, you know, connect with people.

I mean, in terms of your own personal happiness, right?

I already said that I think everyone will be rewarded based on their effectiveness and making others better, but how can you make others better without connecting with them?

You can't.

But if you connect with people really effectively, it's a really satisfying thing because there's a lot of love flowing right there's you know and so my second book is really about you know how to make those connections it i talk about the things that get in the way of those connections and i talk a lot about um uh you know how you live a much more fulfilling life when you get really good at connecting with people and having relationships and it doesn't have to be even long-term relationships it can be you know that guy walking down the street in the tumbleweed town walking by for one second you can have a really pleasant really loving really deep lastingly warm interaction in two seconds.

Wow.

Absolutely.

Just eye contact.

I mean, have you ever gone to a grocery store

and someone kind of, like someone behind at the checkout counter sort of said, like, hey, how are you doing?

You said, good.

I hope you have a good day.

And they kind of meant it.

You kind of be like, oh, cool.

It kind of felt good.

Yeah, that's happened to me, actually.

Yeah, right.

Or you've had the opposite, right?

Yeah.

Or some guy's like, hey, next.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Okay.

Here you go.

Here's your change.

You want a receipt?

No.

Okay, next.

And you kind of feel like, ooh, that didn't feel very good.

Like, you might not think it because we're used to it, but I always realize it, like, because I'm looking.

It's just, that's, it's a passion of mine, right?

So

I'm always going, oh, that was a, that, I'm always feeling what it feels like.

I mean, being with you two guys in the room right now could feel great.

It could feel somewhere in the middle.

It could feel terrible.

How does it feel?

It feels good.

No, it feels really nice.

No, I think it's, it's, I mean, I, I think of you guys both as like genuine and curious guys.

And curiosity is.

Like I say, it's flattering because it's like, you're interested in something I have to say.

Cool.

I'm glad to talk, you know?

But it could be really weird if you were really cold and you know like really judgmental or like I'm saying saying and you're like over there going oh god I don't agree I don't agree at all right it's not even about that you have to agree it's about do you respect what I'm saying and are you curious about it if you disagree in a way where you're curious like hey you know you said something I'm not sure what you mean let me you know but if there's curiosity in it then it feels good right if there's judgment it feels bad so curiosity is always loving curiosity is always loving Curiosity is loving.

Judgment is always not loving, right?

And judgment isn't, I mean, unless you're going, yeah, I judged that it's going to be a thunderstorm today.

I don't mean that.

I mean, but judging a human being negatively, right, that's never feels good, you know?

And so

when I, you know, I'm kind of famous for asking a lot of questions, you know,

but I've never had someone be offended by my questions because I'm only asking them to understand someone better.

And that is flattering.

Why?

If I ask you questions, what have I just done?

I've just promoted you to the position of my teacher, at least momentarily, right?

Even if I'm walking down the street and I go, hey, do you, you know, again, back to the town with just two of us, and I stop you.

Hey, dude, how are you doing?

My name's Monty.

Oh, my name's Sean.

Cool.

Good to meet you.

Do you know what the weather is going to be like this afternoon?

Because I'm going to be flying out this afternoon.

You know what the weather is like?

Let's say you happen to have just watched TV and you know the weather.

Don't you feel kind of good that you can tell me?

Yeah.

You know, like, hey, yeah, you know what?

I just saw it on TV.

There's going to be a thunderstorm.

You feel helpful.

I mean, you feel helpful.

Yeah.

Right.

And while you, so it feels good to you to help me.

Yeah.

It always feels good to help someone, right?

And it also feels good to be helped.

It's a win-win.

And these win-wins are available everywhere in the world, every day between everybody.

But people don't realize it.

So you have too many people living from ego where they think that they're trying to extract something from someone to give them what they want, right?

But the reality is you don't need to do that.

You don't need to extract from someone because what you can instead do is by asking someone a question, for example, you promote them to the position of being your teacher.

You give them an opportunity, like my silly example about the weather, to be of help to me, which feels good to you.

And also helps me, which was nice because I needed the help.

Yeah.

Win-win.

Boom.

Yeah, I love that.

It could be 10 seconds long and it could be really feel nice.

Hey, I had the neatest, you'd be, it would sound silly, you know, if you went and told your friend, you know, I had the neatest relationship today for four seconds with a guy in the street.

But you could just say, like, God, I had this real quick interaction with someone on the street.

It just felt really nice.

It was cool.

And if you have six of those a day, let's just say.

six of those really nice interactions with someone that go deep, that have some meaning, that have some help or some back and forth or some connection or some some need that's fulfilled, that brightens your whole day.

It brightens your whole life, you know?

Yeah.

And that's why, you know,

I was just giving a speech yesterday to

a company and I was saying how powerful the words, I need you, are.

It's the most powerful words in the world for so many reasons.

Number one, if I say, God, Sean, I really need you.

First of all, even if you're a dead stranger, you're probably not just going to go, I don't even know you.

You probably won't say that.

You know, you probably say like, oh, what do you need?

Now, if I say, I need a million bucks in cash, small unmarked bills, you're going to be like, okay, dude, you know, know, I'm not gonna give you that.

But if I say, you know, I just need to hold this door for a minute because I'm gonna move this, you know, cart through.

You're like, oh, cool, right?

You want to help me.

Why?

Because

humans generally are inherently good and want to help one another.

And they feel good helping one another.

So the words, I need you, say, they promote you, again, to someone who can help me.

Therefore,

you are in a superior position to me.

As soon as I say, I need you, I've made you my superior.

That doesn't matter.

If I'm CEO and you're a guy who started at my company yesterday and I say, I need you, I just promoted you to my superior.

you are now superior for that moment to the CEO okay that feels good yeah okay but also what is it what does it mean for me to say I need you for me to say I need you means I have just called I've just made myself vulnerable I've just told you I'm not an impervious dude who has all the answers who has all the skills who has all the strength who can do it all himself I just said I don't have all the skill all the strength I need you Right.

That busts me wide open to be an actual, real human being.

That shows that, and that vulnerability, okay, allows room for a real connection.

It allows room for value, for love to

flow between us.

It's powerful.

Yeah, and that love can flow between any two people, anywhere in the world, at any time, if they allow it.

Problem is, most of us don't allow it.

What gets in the way of allowing it?

Defensiveness.

Defensiveness.

Fear systems, yeah.

It's like fear.

It's like, God, if I become vulnerable to you and I say, God, I really need you, you might say, oh, piss off.

Fear of rejection.

Yeah, yeah.

Whoa, you just said piss off.

Ouch.

I put myself out there and he said piss off.

That hurts.

we've got to risk being hurt to make a connection so if you could go back in time and whisper something in your own ear to when you took over at chipotle what would it be

it's gonna work okay i believed it would work anyway though and when i say it would work i mean this style of leadership that i'm alluding to here right which there's a lot to it it's all in my book and stuff but you could have used some extra reassurance i mean it would have been i mean

There were people who doubted it at the beginning a lot, and those doubts faded quickly as it began to work really, really, really well.

But, you know, I mean, I think, yeah, if I had some gray, bearded, you know, godly figure who could somehow say on my shoulder, my son, excellent, this will work.

Yeah,

maybe my blood pressure would have gone down 10 points.

That wouldn't have been the worst thing over the world.

Monte.

It's been a blast, man.

You learned a lot.

Any closing thoughts where people can find out more about you?

Well, my website is loveisfree.com.

I've got a book coming out June 6th called No One is a Stranger.

The point of that book is really, it's more of the soft, gooey, philosophical underpinnings of why I led the way I did at Chipotle.

So, I wrote Love is Free, Guacas Extra.

That's about the leadership and exactly how to do it, sort of.

And then, this book is sort of like how I think and how I think about things like love, and God, and truth, and authenticity, and ego, and those things.

And so, yeah, it was really fun to write the second book.

And so, maybe people, hopefully, people will enjoy that.

Um, and uh,

yeah, you know, no, it's been a pleasure being here with you guys, and I appreciate your interest.

Absolutely, I'll definitely check that book out.

Thanks for tuning in, guys.

Digital Social Hour.

I'll see you next time.