00:56 Hey, welcome back to the show today. I've got a really special guest, uh, especially a lot of ways, and you're about to find out why. Mark, thank you so much for being on today. Will you please tell us who you are and what do you do? 

01:09 Yeah, I'm so glad to be here with you, Todd, and, and, uh, your viewers and listeners and looking forward to a great conversation. I'm Mark Mears and I live in the Kansas city area. I have gone to the University of Kansas undergrad, Northwestern for grad school, and my career has taken me to Chicago twice, Dallas twice, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Austin, Texas, and now kind of in the Kansas City area, back home. I grew up in Wichita. 

01:33 Holy cow, that's a lot of bouncing.

01:36 It is a lot of bouncing around. It is. But, uh, and as you know, from your marketing background, you go where the opportunities are. And, uh, I've been blessed to have some tremendous opportunities working for companies such as, uh, Pizza Hut when it was owned by PepsiCo. McDonald's and Frito Lay from an agency perspective. And then JC Penney and Universal Studios Hollywood and the Cheesecake Factory among others. And so, uh, I've been blessed to have, um, a lot of what I call pinch me moments. Like, wow, I can't believe that's awesome. But I've also had my share of gut punches too. And I think that's helped character and helps me to stay humble. And, um, uh, you know, just learn how to navigate challenges in whatever season of life we may find ourself in. So now I have written a book. It's called the purposeful growth revolution, four ways to grow from leader to legacy builder. And this is based on not only my own experiences, um, but also my observations of those whom I admire and a kind of a cultivation of research that supports my thesis as well as Subject matter experts that can go deeper in certain areas than I can go. And my whole reason for doing it is to pay it backward. So Todd, most people say, well, Mark, isn't the phrase pay it forward? And I say, no, it's pay it backward. Let me tell you what I mean. I'm a big growth junkie. I love growth in all of its forms, spiritual, relational, professional, and personal, but I'm also a coffee junkie. I love coffee. I love me some coffee and I love me some Starbucks. So when I go through the drive thru, I will pay for the car behind me. I can't physically pay for the car in front of me. So I'm paying it backward, right? And when I get up to the window, I'll just simply tell the barista, just tell them, God bless you. Your debt has been paid and I'll drive away and I'll say a silent prayer for them. I don't know them. They don't know me, Todd, but in that moment, I'm like, I got to believe they feel, um, that someone is, is caring about them and that they matter to someone else. And there's something called a great habit and it is a habit because I'm, you know, I'll take the random act of kindness, but I believe in intentional acts of kindness. So I do it every time as one of my spiritual disciplines. It's not a major thing, but I've been blessed to be able to bless the other. So why would I not want to do that? So I do that because it's not, it not only is it a manifestation of me thinking about caring for another human being, but it also, you know, states there is this law of reciprocity that states when you do something nice for someone else, or they do something nice for you, you have a deep seated urge to do something nice for someone else and also in greater measure. So now imagine the impact of that one intentional act of kindness on not only whoever's in that car, but the people behind them, because oftentimes I'm told that it, they pay it backward as well. So the car behind them pays for the car behind them and so on and so forth. So, what I did was in writing this book, I went into my mind vault of my own experiences and I wrote a purpose statement for myself, you know, physician heal thyself, right?And it states, I don't want to just make money and retire. I want to make a difference and inspire. And that means making a difference in the lives of others. And inspiring them to want to do likewise and so on and so forth. So I finished the book a few years ago and it's serving now as the Foundation for Leaf Growth Ventures, L E A F, because all growth happens through the leaf of a tree or a plant.And sure, it serves as a metaphor. Nature serves as a metaphor for growth personally and professionally. And so we'll unpack that a little bit, but it now serves as again the foundation for coaching, speaking and consulting opportunities. And also I'm working on an online kind of training platform that will help people learn how to find and fulfill their purpose in both their life and their work. 

06:00 Love it. Love it. So, so having worked in, in the capacities that you have with the brands that you mentioned and, and obviously seeing a lot of growth, fast paced growth, uh, just really large growth across the country, across the world. And then you take it back into, into taking a leader and helping them define themselves in a way that they do leave a legacy. Talk to us about why, why is that important to you? And, and had, do you see a lot of leaders who don't leave legacy and what, what is the trigger for this book? 

06:36 Yeah, as I mentioned, I've had many pinch me moments and some punch in the gut moments, and I've had some tremendous, uh, leaders who served as mentors for me, and I've had some stinkers who were bosses. I believe words matter. And so when I say boss, I mean boss. And if you look up the entomology of the word, it's not pretty. And so we all probably know some of those people. And maybe at some point we've been like them, uh, because that was kind of the way it was when I was kind of a young buck growing up into the new world of work and we lived through this command and control management style. And some people say it was, you know, kind of started from GIs who came back from World War II. They were trained in the military and they use some of those same sense of training and hierarchy and, and salute and execute, um, kind of, uh, attitudes toward their fellow team members at work. And so, 

07:36 I can see that.

07:37 Yeah. And, and I know that when I had the mentors that I talked about, one of them was David Novak, who I worked for at Pizza Hut, uh, years and years ago. And then he later became the co founder and CEO of Yum Brands. When it was divested by PepsiCo. So Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC. ─ And he was one of the most inspirational leaders I've ever worked for myself and other of my peers, we would bust down a wall for that guy. And his big thing was about reward and recognition. And then another one was David Overton, who was the founder and CEO of the Cheesecake Factory. And what I learned from David was not only tremendous vision, his tireless execution. To perfect everything about the brand, the experience. And he would always say, is this the best it can be? And the answer was always no. He would carry with him these yellow pads, scribbled notes of all these areas of improvement he wanted to see in different areas of the company. And I thought, wow. And one time I As chief marketing officer, I was also head of communications and we were, uh, I was interviewing him for kind of a, um, article about our 35th anniversary at the time. And I said, do you ever look back with like just a sense of pride in that you created something that started as your mom's cheesecake in the basement in Detroit. And now here it is, this global enterprise that is arguably the top restaurant chain in the world. And he says, no, Mark, I don't really take time to think back. All I do is I wake up every single day and I try to get better. And it's stuck with me as a, this work ethic that here's a guy who could have retired years and years ago with made more money than we'll ever see. And certainly then I can count, but he does it because of his love for the concept, his love for his people, his love for his guests. And, and, and to me, all that resonated. And so I took away. Uh, those positive traits. But unfortunately, I've worked with some people that were in it for themselves and they were hierarchical. They were political and they were everything. I never wanted to be. And so I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly. And I've tried to mold my own personal leadership style. Now notice I didn't say management because I think that's the problem. I think, you know, the command and control management style, which came about based on that history that I mentioned, uh, I think about school business schools, oftentimes they're schools of management. We learn how to manage people, uh, resources, projects, timelines, budgets, metrics for performance. But that makes that manager transactional and it makes the person that works for them. And I've never said anyone works for me, Todd, I say they work with me. But in that case, you work for that person and they are a boss, they're a manager. And you say to yourself, um, I will obey you, right?  Because I have to, your title and where you are in the pecking order. But again, that style is transactional. Leadership is all about building relationships. And knowing that you've got my back, so I will willingly follow you. Legacy building takes it another level and says, not only will I follow you, but when it's my turn to lead, I will lead like you.And that creates a living legacy. So that's the difference between leadership and legacy. A leader could be just a great leader to one person, but if they don't really have what we used to call within PepsiCo was, you know, a leadership shadow, how long can you cast a leadership shadow to where it impacts other people? And John Maxwell once said, um, the goal of a leader is to grow other leaders, right? And that's where, you know, you have this idea of not just one to one, but one to many. And when it's their turn to lead exponentially. We'll get more and better leaders that will help us ultimately, um, obfuscate this old, tired command and control management style that no longer serves us.into a more humanistic relational leadership style that will benefit all stakeholders, our team members, our customers or clients or guests, as I call them in the restaurant industry, our business partners, anybody in our business ecosystem and our communities. And to me, that's the new world of work and where we need it to go. Because thinking about all the headwinds that are pushing against business, whether you're a new founder, um, or you're someone who's trying to scale, you feel those headwinds. You can't keep doing the same things over and over, right? You've got to create step function change within your business model, or you'll be going backwards. And you're working just as hard, but kind of like running on a treadmill, you're not getting anywhere other than just tired. So managers  have to learn how to be leaders and leaders need to grow into legacy builders. And the good news is, uh, it's not that hard. And, um, you know, we'll talk a little bit about that later on.

14:34 Yeah, yeah, no, I'm, I'm eager to jump in because you know, a lot of the people listening to the show are, are founders of companies and, and CEOs of companies who are in the throes of trying to transition out of a launch mode into a growth and scaling mode and you know, the brands that you've mentioned, this is something that they see and deal with every day with their operators, because you've got hundreds of thousands of stores and you've got people who are, are you're trying to train to plug into the system, but also to be that leader. And I think that a lot of people are trying to figure it out on their own. They don't have those guidelines. They don't have those, those guide rails and the advice and the community. That you probably built within these organizations to train their leadership. How did these founders and, and independent operators  take their company to the next level of growth without those things? And I'm assuming these are some principles you've got in your book. 

15:34 Yes, Todd. They are. And so, um, the idea is, um, leadership, engagement, accountability, and fulfillment. Think of it as a four circle Venn diagram, all revolving around purposeful growth at the epicenter. So I don't care what your business is, how big it is currently, or how much it is. ───You know, you want to grow it into the future. You have to have strong leadership, like the seed and root system, um, that had my backyard. When I got the epiphany to write this book, it was a fig tree and it was barren from a few weeks of winter. We got in Southern California. And right after a significant life event, I take the dog out the next morning and there are on the fig tree. As the sun was coming up over this wall in our backyard, Todd, was, um, it shone on this fig tree, and on one of the barren branches was a little tiny green sprig of a leaf just starting to emerge. It was there I got this epiphany that a leaf is not only a symbol of growth and rebirth, I went back inside and I started banging out a treatment for this and I realized that I had been leading with the rule of threes. I'm sure you've heard of it. It's a thing. And it basically says if you focus on three things, you will have more clarity, more productivity and better results. My three things when I was in this turnaround situation, uh, were leadership, engagement and accountability. I would use it in all of my communications and recognition and reward. I'd say Todd's doing a wonderful job of leading his team. Look at the results they're getting or he's, um, you know, creating a deeper sense of engagement among his team. And now look what they're accomplishing or he's holding his team accountable for results. And look where they are month over month or year over year. And that was my mantra. Everybody knew it. It happened every week. It happened in almost every email and back in the day when we had broadcast voicemails, leadership, engagement and accountability. Well, I still believe in that. But I now believe in the higher power of force because it was that morning that I had that epiphany after the significant life event where I was let go from half a billion dollar casual dining restaurant chain after I was recruited from the Cheesecake Factory to kind of lead the turnaround.And we were down double digit negative sales and growth. We were told we needed a fresh new brand positioning. Uh, and we were told to create an extension of the concept that could earn the right to capital because we were owned by a publicly traded company. Well, long story short, uh, instead of after two years of doing all that, accomplishing our goal, the parent company's board said, we've decided to move in a different direction. We're going to put the brand up for sales. And then we went through a wholesale process and we found a strategic play. And we thought, this is great. This may be our rightful owner. Well, the deal closed on a Friday and we're drinking champagne, uh, celebrating over the weekend. And Monday morning I had a meeting set with the new CEO to plot our new future together at 805. I'm out the door. We've decided to move in a different direction. I'm like, what over the weekend? So that was, uh, what started that and after a fitful night of sleep and I got up that next morning and I had that epiphany experience that led me to see something through, you know, you've heard the term, it's always darkest before the dawn I can't tell you what a gut punched that was with all the sacrifice my team and I made. And we were going to be part of this noble turnaround. And this was going to be a crowding achievement in our career. And that's when I said over and above leadership, engagement and accountability, which I still believe in what's missing. And it got me thinking fulfillment. We weren't feeling fulfilled. We were chasing numbers to chase numbers. We were burning the candle at both ends. And yet we were feeling like we were doing this noble thing only to have the rug just taken right up underneath this, not just myself, my whole team. And within six months, they closed the Orange County office in California and moved it to their US headquarters in Dallas. So everything they said they wouldn't do, they did. And I thought, well, I got to figure out how to combine this. And so I thought of this higher power of fours, which is, think about it, you know, there are four seasons. ─ Not three. There are four directions, not three. There are four chambers to the human heart, not three.There are four elements to an atom, the source of life, not three. And so I could go on and on with this foreplay, but you get the idea, right? And so I, in my mind's eye, I'm thinking four circle, then diagram, leadership, engagement, accountability, and fulfillment, all revolving around purposeful growth. That fig tree in my backyard only knows how to be a fig tree and its purpose is to grow fig leaves. And as we all probably learned in middle school science, all growth through a tree or a plant comes through the leaf through the magic of photosynthesis. But then it doesn't stop there. Not only is that where the growth of the tree happens, but But it yields fig fruit and the fruit is what is not only sustenance for people and animals But it has seeds inside that can be scattered for future growth. And so that's really this idea of this revolutionary model this leaf growth model that has served as the foundation And your listeners and viewers who are in those positions It serves as a bit of a playbook and it will literally take you step by step, uh, and, and, and serve as a platform for growth in whatever season you are in your life or where you are in your business, uh, cycle. 

21:24  That's a beautiful story. And I love that you were able to, uh, To see the lesson God was showing you in that leaf budding out of the tree, uh, right as the tree was coming out of its darkest moments of, of winter into that spring. And I, I love that. What a beautiful analogy and what a beautiful connection between your, your framework. I think this is really awesome. 

21:47 It was, it was given to me, Todd. And so I know that God saw me in my darkest moment. I know he loves me. I know he wants me to grow and thrive into my full potential and not let this be, you know, instead of a temporary setback, one that could really, you know, impact the rest of my life. And it was in that moment, I, I got this inspiration And I was wanting to run her up and down the street, just yelling and praising. And so I shared it. Ironically, the first person I shared it with was my pastor at church. Um, cause, cause there are some, uh, spiritual overtones and as part of it,  and I wanted to make sure that I could partner with him. And, and at that point he said, Mark, I'll help you, but you've got to help me. So I had some time off  and he said, Will you come in and help us build a world class communications? Uh, team here in our church in Southern California and, uh, be kind of a, a, a member of our executive team and, and give us guidance on our own growth. And I said, well, sure. So I spent a year, uh, first kind of doing it as pro bono consulting, and then they brought me on as full time executive pastor of communications and God used me in that way as well. To grow personally and spiritually while helping this church grow from a startup to what is now, I don't know, it may have 10,000, parishioners each weekend. So the point is just that I had to get the FUD out and there's a chapter in the book and it's stands for fear. Uncertainty, doubt, and delay. And I'm sure everybody listening and watching, if you've started a business, you've gone through this. If you're in a position where you're wondering if there's a next, you know, plateau of growth, you may be having fear, fear of failure, fear of what will they think? You know, I, I left a, you know, a well paying C level position to give all that up. To write this book and start this new act in my life to fulfill my purpose. I don't want to just make money and retire. I want to make a difference and inspire. And I want to leave a legacy while I'm living and not till, you know, not bequeathing something after I'm dead and buried. So the fear of failure, uh, uncertainty, am I willing to give up, uh, this unsatisfying status quo that's comfortable? To risk it for some new calling that I feel like I've been given and then it's the the doubt like, you know The the background voices like wet cement that start to harden if we give them power That's like, you know Mark. No one knows who you are. You're not some rockstar CEO or a media personality. Who cares what you have to think and say? And, and maybe success is for other people. And so then you've put all that together. It's easy to feel that way, isn't it? Yeah. And you delay, right? Because if I have fear and certainty and doubt and all of that weight on me, I'm not going to want to move forward. Because I'm paralyzed, right? The good news is, Todd, I had written that chapter just like I said. I left it where there was no answer. When I went through some pretty dark times recently in my life, um, I went through that thud and for me to write this book, the fear of what if it's not any good? You know, what if it tarnishes the reputation that I worked so many years to build in the workplace? Right. Um, am I uncertain that I want to give up, uh, this, you know, comfortable C level position and all the benefits and perks to go to, to, to be a solopreneur where I don't know what I'm doing. Cause I've always been a corporate America team guy to, again, those doubts creep in. And so the cool thing is there is an antidote, and it is faith. Can overcome fear. Hope can overcome uncertainty. Belief can overcome doubt and action. Indeed, purposeful action, not just action, because you could be busy and not really getting anywhere, but purposeful action can overcome the paralysis of delay. So whether it's faith in a higher power or faith in yourself, If it's, you know, hope in this richly imagined future that you have for you, your team members and your family, because of this business you're building, is it belief in your idea that's so powerful that you are not going to stop until you can accomplish your objective?And then is it taking purposeful action to get there? You know, dreams are free, you know, and, uh, it was attributed to, I think Thomas Edison, but I love this quote and I've used it often, which is vision. without execution is nothing more than hallucination. So you got to take action. Right. And when I was going through some of those dark moments, I remember someone said, Mark, when it feels like you're walking through hell, keep walking.You got to just keep moving forward. And so I want to inspire your, uh, your listeners and, and, and viewers that, uh, I've been where you probably are. And I know there can be frustrations that things aren't moving at a certain pace, but I can also tell you that ─ God's plan is bigger than my plan. His timing is better than my timing and you got to have faith. You got to keep a sense of hope. You got to have belief in not only a higher power, but yourself. Because you were given unique gifts to give to the world and they're waiting on you to give them, right? And then you got to take purposeful action to help get you where you want to go.

27:42 Mark, I love that. I love, I love the whole lesson you've given today. And, and I feel like it is a great blessing for entrepreneurs and founders and CEOs. To really consider the balance and the consistency between growing personally, spiritually in your business. Like they're, they all align. And they all take the same steps to growth. And yes, you can grow and scale as a person, go and scale as a business. You can grow and scale as a family. And as you start to identify the consistencies and the trigger points within growth, which, which your, your Venn diagram and the, the imagery of these four elements of a leaf. Um, I love it. It's a beautiful thing. I appreciate you sharing that with us today. 

28:30 My pleasure, Todd. I appreciate you having me come on and, uh, God bless you and your, uh, your, your viewers and listeners. 

28:38 Thank you so much. And for those that haven't done so already, look up the book, go, go find out what Mark's up to. And I challenge each of you to, to really identify where the crossover is for you in each of those four quadrants and, and hone in on it, lean into it and make sure that you're balancing all your growth, With all that all aspects of your life and that's truly how we all can find happiness in this life Even when it feels like we're in that that dark path you mentioned.

29:07 Yeah, and i'll also invite your viewers and listeners to go to my website at markamears.com and there You'll see a purposeful growth self assessment And it takes only about five or six, seven minutes to fill out. And then I'll send you back, you know, four color PDF with your scores as well as some helpful tips or what I call seeds for growth to help you along your journey. And also speaking of journeys, hit me up on LinkedIn, you know, follow me. I'll follow you. Let's get connected. Cause I would love to learn from you. I don't have all the answers. And as a growth junkie, I love to learn. So let's make sure that we stay connected. And uh, the book is available on Amazon and all platforms, including audio book for those of you are so inclined. 

29:54 Thank you so much, Mark. And go check it out, everybody. Thanks so much for being part of the show today, Mark. And we'll catch you all later. Thank you.

29:58  Sounds good, Todd. Thank you.