Competition is for losers, be a forager

Battered and trodden roads winding and winding

Surrounded by a sinister-yet-scrumptiously-spooky forest….pine trees, like burnt skeletons kissing the sky.

The countryside; a melting oil painting of yellows and deep greens, light and bright.

Sun poured through the murky-blue sky like a white hot roaring incandescent angel, splashing like buttery milk across the hills, the grass sparkling a fizzing green!

Lambs dance and caroused.

Here it’s Narnia meets Northern Nana.

I slurped a Strawberry Kombucha out of copper trinkets - foraged from deep forests - where purple fairies, orange toad and pink wolves dance.

The Black Swan, Olstead by Tommy Banks.

HANDS. DOWN. THE. BEST. MEAL OF MY LIFE.

🥦 Tommy is the youngest chef in the UK to win a Michelin Star

🥦 Great British Menu Winner in 2016 and 2017.

🥦 Owner of 2 Michelin Star restaurants, Roots and The Black Swan, Oldstead

🥦 Founder of Banks Brothers Canned Wine.

Why I LOVE chatting to chefs? 

I often get asked: why do you love having chefs on the podcast?

Well, chefs teach us more about leadership and business than any Master of Total Bollocks Administration degree ever will!

David Ogilvy learnt all his leadership lessons working as a commi chef at Hotel Majest in Paris, he opens his book, paying homage to his time in Paris.

🍉 Parallels between challenger brand and restaurants are endless: Pressure. High Performance. Discipline. Creativity. Problem solving. Creating Magic. Understanding people. Margin. Empathy.

Was SO, SO lucky to interview Tommy Banks last week after a wonderful meal at The Black Swan, Olstead.

This week’s Newsletter is a TASTING MENU with all the learnings from my conversation with Tommy. Maybe my favourite conversation on leadership to date - full podcast going live in a couple of weeks!

One: Perfection is a curse.

Fuck Perfection. Perfection makes you go crazy.

Perfection is my silly-little-insecure-ego lambasting me with titanic-crippling self doubt.

Tommy taught me pursuing perfection is curse - it’s a mirage you’ll never reach.

Why?

Perfection = subjective. Alas, perfection is NEVER in your control. Instead, set standards because standards are ALWAYS in your control.

My minimum standards of every post or sales deck or podcast or pitch is 3 Drafts. Less than 3 = shitty work. More than 3 = becoming weirdly, neurotically obsessed.

Two: Be a Forager. Competition is for losers.

No one can beat YOU at being YOU

Tommy and his team forage unique, weird and wonderful herbs, plants and vegetables that NO ONE else in the world has access to like Umeboshi Strawberry, Royal Beluski Baron Bigod.

These are locked in a safe. No other chef has access to the Yorkshire Moors - meaning NO ONE can copy Tommy. 

In business and life, forage in places where no one else is looking. Forage your ideas and weirdness.

Protect them at all costs, as David Ogilvy says: “They copied all they could follow, but they couldn't copy my mind, and I left them sweating and stealing, a year and a half behind”

Weird + unique inputs = different outputs = differentiation = stand out from competition.

Three: Create Magic. Return on Emotional Investment is cheap

The Saturday before recording the interview with Tommy, I was fortunate to scoff my little face off at his restaurant.

It’s was 10/10. BANG. BANG. Pleeeeeeeaseee Sir Can I have some more.

Before our pork course.

Our waiter, came over and asked, “Please select your weapon of choice for this course? Each Knife is filled with unique flowers and petals directly from our garden”

This gorgeous yet simple REFRAME injected a bliss moment of story telling and magic.

Our role, as challengers brands is to find frugal-yet-forceful ways to create moments of magic for free.

SO many guests on the podcast talk about “Creating Magic”.

Wanna know how to create magic for your brand - gorge these down ya ear lobes- William Chase, Jamie Laing, Rory Sutherland, Perry Haydn Taylor.

Four: “The Effect of being Idle is to Spiral” (downwards)

Tommy has a quote on his wall, “The Effect of being Idle is to Spiral”. Reminds me deeply of a quote from Tim Ferris - Happiness is the opposite of boredom

Much of our “unhappiness” actually comes from boredom.To stay happy. Keep moving. Keep doing.

Five: The Craft of Burnout

I’ve been burning out recently.

The nefarious winds of self-doubt swim through my mind like ghosts in the night. My zeal for work is feeble like a crumpled and confabulated packet of Cheese Onion crisps-on a wet high street-in Hull-in February-in the rain.

BUT…

Tommy taught me burnout is normal and he burns out 3 -4 times a year.

Expect it, embrace it, but always keep moving on. When he’s teetering on the edge of burnout, Tommy’s best ideas blossoms.

Not sure what the answer is, but he’s taught me to keep on smashing forwards.

Don’t be frigid, be forward - the Call-to-Action bit

If you enjoy the podcast or Newsletter - don’t be frigid pleeeeeeeease forward to just ONE friend today -

Growing this bad boi is SO FUCKING HARD. Every Little Helps xx

p.s

No need to read this bit… but please feel free to check out our wonderful sponsors… they’ll help you scale your brand with less stress

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Of course, I’ve got you covered 😉 

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Mackenzie Jones

There’s salacious-yet-superfluous recruiters out there - proper Cowboys. Thank goodness for Billy and Paul. The Good guys.

Loved by brands like Lucky Saint, Candy Kittens, Hunter & Gather, FULFIL. Looking to build out your team?

If you need help building your team, let’s chat [email protected] 

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Check them out here or check out the poddy with Dommy