E59: Julia Stewart Former CEO of IHOP | Blueprint for Rising to the Top

and I picked up the phone and I called the chair and CEO of Applebees and I said, "Just wanted to say hi," and he said, "I was expecting this call." And I said, "As you know, this morning we announced that we have purchased for 2.3 billion the company, and we don't need two of us, so I'm going to have to let you go." You're a stone cold killer. So that is the most insane hardcore mother f***ing thing I've ever heard like. [Music] Welcome to another episode of the Matthews mentality podcast. I'm your host Kyle Matthews, and today we're joined by a legendary leader whose career has shaped some of the most iconic brands in the restaurant industry. Julius Stewart, Julius Goodesia. Thank you. Her journey to the top started humbly at just 16 years old. She was waiting tables at the International House of Pancakes, IHOP. I love the International House of Pancakes. Over the next four decades, Julia Rose threw the ranks of major restaurant brands like Taco Bell, Applebees, and IHOPs, ultimately serving 20 years as the chair and CEO of IHOP and later Dine Brands Global. Under her leadership, she spearheaded IHOPs $2.3 billion acquisition of Applebees, creating the world's largest full-service restaurant company. Today, Julia is the founder and CEO of Allurex. Did I say that correctly? Allurex. Allurex incorporated a cutting-edge wellness company helping people live longer, healthier lives through science back tools and daily habit transformation. In 2020, she made a bold pivot from indulgent dining to proactive wellness, launching Allurex, a premium wellness brand and app designed to help users build better habits and sleep, stress and nutrition. I think I need to help in all three of those. Today, we're diving into a remarkable career journey and how she made the leap from leading restaurant giants to launching a wellness brand. But before we get started, make sure to like, subscribe and share this podcast with anyone who had benefit from today's conversation. Julia, welcome to the Matthews mentality podcast. Thank you. Thanks for coming to my little town in Nashville. It's lovely. Yeah, it's great. I'm happy with skyscrapers. Yeah, it's amazing. We got skyscrapers. It's like a real city. I was, we had breakfast this morning and I was laughing. You're kind of telling the story as you were, I'm coming up in your career, but really, you know, you're the CEO of let's I hop. And I think you said something that your kids, they were like, you know, it's kids are amazing in the sense they're like, yeah, my, you know, telling other kids or other people what what their mom does. Like she works at I hop. And like most people probably like, oh, she probably makes a mean pancake, but it was a lot more than that. Yes, but I think if you ask my kids, they said she makes pancakes because you do make you I do make a mean pancake, but it was funny. I was like, that's what you think I do. And then on weekends, she puts chocolate chips in them for us. Oh, yeah. So is that was that just on the weekends? Or was the chocolate chip pancake in every day thing? Oh, no, that was not it. Every day. Yeah, I was just thinking. Thank you for thinking that, but no, as I was talking to my wife, she makes a really good chocolate chip pancakes. And I feel like it's starting to bleed into the week. I was like, babe, we can't be giving the kids chocolate chip pancakes every day. It's got to be something like just a weekend specialty. So you had you had that on lock. And my son who's highly competitive would bring his friends over on the weekends. And they would try to see who could eat the most. And to this day, he believes his best friend, JD cheated because he didn't put butter on it. And therefore he could eat 12 of them. And so there's some concern about now eating 12 chocolate chip pancakes. Was there a rule like they had to hold it in their stomach for 30 minutes? Because I feel like I just throw that out. There was never an issue. And if you saw JD, you'd even be more impressed. But to this day, he's a very successful lawyer in Chicago. But to this day, they still talk about the fact that JD holds the record. Well, let's talk about to this day, Alorex. Walk me through what what is day in the life look like where you spend your time. Well, so it's really all about funding right now to get literally financial support to take it from what is a minimal viable product live on the Apple store and get it to where we can produce it on the iPhone, the Android, your computer, and it's all generated by AI. So I am in the midst of fundraising to take it from. Well, that's got to be fun. Proof of concept, which we've done now take it all the way to generating not only millions of pieces of content, but really helping millions of people. So we're in the midst of fundraising. I don't know if there's something you disclose, but how much capital you look into raise? No, it's three million. It's fine. It's not a lot of money relatively speaking, but I have been doing a lot of bootstrapping. It's time to get others involved. Sure. And so that's where we've taken it to this point. And so talk to the audience about raising capital and what your experience is it is it just traveling coast to coast, meeting with family office, meeting with institutional equity, like walk us through what is capital raising? It's very different in the startup world than what I did in my prior life. So raising $2.3 billion took about two phone calls in my prior life. This is very different. And it's meeting with family offices, VC offices, private equity offices, high net wealth individuals. It's the gamut, but it's a very different world. And it's also if you don't have somebody who either likes or understands health tech, you're probably not going to get very far. If you don't really think in your heart of hearts that you want to help people with their health, you're probably I can tell pretty quickly if you don't have an interest. So they want to meet me. They want to understand it, but within a very short period of time, it becomes either there's a lot of interest because it's health tech and you're making a difference. You asked me the other day, what was the, what's been the biggest, not disappointment, but what's been the biggest surprise in raising money? And I would tell you the stereotypes. I'm shocked that in this day and age, there's still stereotypes. They have this vision that a health tech professional, somebody who's 23 and working out of their garage. And I am neither of those things. So it's kind of been interesting about they make this. Yeah, I have to be the guy who wears T-shirts and I'm a little surprised by that. I'm a little surprised by that. I'm a, that is surprising that I'm a, I'm a trained professional. I've been an executive. I've certainly dealt with just about anything and everything. And yet here we are arguing about whether or not somebody like me could be scrappy. I just find the perceptions or the misperceptions. Yeah, I wouldn't even think about that. Maybe you bring in a partner, you give them 0.1% of the capital stack and it's some like 24 year old who wears fit bits and lots of, lots of thing, you know, like where's white sneakers everywhere and always his tail. I don't know. Let's see if he or she calls. Yeah. That's funny. So you're going from a career in in the restaurant space at which we're going to cover today. Okay, the Taco Bells, of course, Juniors, the obviously I hop Applebee's Dine. And now you're in the health and wellness of fitness. Was that part of the driver, the impetus that we spent a majority of your career in a space that isn't necessarily known for fitness and you're like, look, I want to do the total opposite. Yes. Yeah. That is really the case. I, this every day indulgence, I didn't specifically get up one day when I graduated from college and say, I want to be an everyday indulgence. But by the time I got to the brand, it really was everyday indulgence. And so you as a marketer, which is how I started out trying to change that is really, really hard because people are attracted to the brand or it's everyday indulgence. So for instance, when I got to Taco Bell and we created border lights, very unsuccessful people didn't want to get healthy eating at Taco Bell or they didn't want to eat for less than 500 calories at I hop or they didn't want weight watchers at Apple. When you think about all the things we did, there was not a lot of success for that because people already saw the everyday indulgence. And for me, somebody growing up being taught you work out every day, you eat right, you sleep right. I was shocked at what I saw and I thought someday I could actually do something different. That's how I ended up in health tech. Interesting. And what have been the, I guess what have been the common knowledge similarities in the industries and what has been totally different outside of the stereotype of like, sure, the fitness CEO, but what, what, where is your experience translates and translate and what skills have you been like, wow, this is a totally new skill for me. So if you think about my career, it's all been consumer facing businesses. This is no different. It's the same thing. I'm responsible in creating user experience every day. That is no different than being in the restaurant business and creating a user experience every day. The difference is at dying, it was 250,000 employees every day, getting up and serving two million people a day. Here, it's doing it all through an app and communicating and getting interactive with thousands and thousands of consumers, but doing it in a very different way. But still basic principle is consumer facing. So that is very much the same. In the restaurant business, we used to always complain, oh my gosh, you only have an hour to get to somebody. And here in the app world, you have about 30 seconds. I was going to say seconds, right? It's really very different and yet very much the same. So I would say, that's almost identical, just done differently. I think what's different is, dare say, in the app business, you really are changing people's lives. And I've had many a person send me an email saying, "Face me." Thank you for changing my life. I now get up every morning and I practice gratitude. I do box breathing. I'm making a huge, I'm better to my family. The things we're able to do with the app is very different. Yes, we made a lot of people happy. Yes, a lot of people had a livelihood. So I, it was all wonderful, but this is a very different. It's a different one. Because I was, I was thinking as you're talking like, you probably didn't get a lot of that, you know, as the CEO of IHOP, but then I was like, well, no, that's not true. I mean, certainly careers and livelihoods as a professional, absolutely. Not maybe the health and like the personal transformation as much. You will get the couple that's been married for 40 years that goes to its 40th anniversary at an IHOP. And it's a heart breaking letter of gratitude and thanks. And we've always been here and, or, you know, saving someone's life, you know, the number of food servers who would practice saving someone's life. They would have a heart attack. Those are great stories. But this is a day to day. With the app, it's, it's daily. Well, I was going to say, IHOP, you changed my wife's life. When we were, we met in college. She was, I was at USC, I played football. She was a cheerleader, but like that's not how we met. I just was walking by a Starbucks. I was, you know, good looking lady. So I went and talked her, which wasn't really something I was ever known to do. But, you know, hey, it's, yeah, it worked out. I was, I'm going to, you gotta go talk to this person. But anyway, so she, uh, I come from a huge football, everyone in my family played football, football, football. And I was playing football at USC. She was the, the exact opposite. You couldn't be further like only child from New York, academics, like never, she had never been to a football game until she would, she made it. It's not even a cheerleading team at USC. It's a dance team, the song girls. And so we started dating. It was like a third, fourth date. It was like Saturday morning. We went to IHOP and she goes, Hey, can you explain football? To me. And so I got 22 coffee creamers. I got the blue, like a French vanilla coffee creamer. That was the defense. And we only put six in a cup. So that must have had to go around and get them. So I, I got like 21, you know, uh, I got 11. Sorry, blue coffee creamers. That was the difference. And then I got the white normal coffee creamers. I was the offense and I sat there for like two hours and explain football using coffee creamers at an IHOP. I love it. Didn't know that. Did you, Zach? Yeah. And so to this day, I hop, I mean, I, you know, well, you know, long CEO, you know, I can take offense. We don't eat there very often. But it's a special, it's a very special thing for my wife. So in case we'd, you remember that? Like, yeah, so I, it's a great story. It's a great story. And then unfortunately, she's had to deal with the football dynamic of our family, the rest of her life. She's like, I wish you never explained that stupid sport to me. You know, but I thought it was so cool. Your resume. Now there are a lot of stops in between. I'll do my best to cover it. You started as a waitress at IHOP when you're 16 and fast forward. You're the CEO. When you, your first day on the job and I, where you just like that killer is like, I'm going to be the boss of this one day or you just, it was just I need a job. No, it was, you know, wanted the job, but remember, and maybe you don't, but back then, and they were called waitresses today. It's a food server, but back then, oh my, has that changed? Oh, yeah. You should refer them as a food server. Well, I know they changed the name from stewardess to flight attendants. So I got that down. I didn't know we don't serve food server. And I wore the hat and the apron. We have the whole outfit. Yeah. Right? Yeah. With the shoes. I mean, I, people think I, I'm not telling the truth when I say I can't find a picture of me. There is someone. We get a picture of this. But I actually, what I did was for one year for the convention, we had a, obviously, every year we would have a franchise convention. I walked out on stage with the uniform on and the place went crazy. Over and back in the day. Yeah. That's a cool one. And some of it I had to find online, the cuffs, yeah, that were white that had you put the cuff over and, and we would complain every day because back then, the entire bar, pass bar, where we would get the food was all copper. And so by the end of the day, your white cut, so you have to go home and bleach him and we would complain. And the guy would be like, you know, the manager would be like, well, I'm sorry, that's what it is. Well, you had the coolest idea and we'll explore how you got it about serving veterans on Veterans Day. And it was one of the, if not the biggest decision you ever made. And it was so amazing on so many different levels. But you think it's possible to do like a one day year, bring back the I hop uniform day or is the culture move so far beyond there? Like, I'm not wearing this thing. Actually, I think it could be really cool. Right. Right. Shocked at the number of people who sell the I hop memorabilia. And now I'm going to relate to you. There was a promotion that was done long before I ever was involved of football helmets. You can collect all the NFL. I mean, it is, if you really go online, you have to look, but you cannot believe what you can find online. And that's how I found my cufflings. I couldn't. It's amazing. And it's still very much a genre because it's part of the American culture. It is the American. I do it to a time, whether it's real or imagined in their simpler time or better times and whether it was actually that or it's in their head. Yeah, it's there's a nostalgia. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. No, I meant, yeah, it's it's it's it's still get emails sent to my allurex email address. I got one last week of a guy saying, it's just not the same since you left that I'm like sir. And he's lives in Maine. And he couldn't have been nicer and I said, well, sir, I'm so sorry that your experience wasn't what I remember it to be. But, you know, here's a seven day free trial for a lorix and be well. Oh, you know, I mean, I, but anyway, yes, I still get that. Did what you need to do. So started as a waitress. I hop at 16, but I actually do want to kind of dive deeper. What was your mindset when you got your first job or first job at I hop? Like, were you just naturally? Did you already know that, hey, I'm going to be the boss one day or or. I mean, I'm looking at the nature question like were you just wired to take over or. So two things I don't think I ever at that point thought I'm going to be CEO of a major company. I think it was early on. I had think I told you I grew up with I was an only child to two high school school teachers who didn't talk to me about business, but they did talk to me about learning and growing and mentoring and coaching. So that part I got and I do believe that affected my leadership style. But in terms of business, no, I think it was in my wood. My dad used to tell the story. He came home from school in the third. I was in the third grade and I had organized the entire neighborhood. And he asked me why and I said, well, it just needed to be done. We were hooligans not doing anything substantial. And here I could bring us all together and we could put a lemonade stand together and we could help the less fortunate and we could do a I actually remember doing a entire we raised money and did an entire talent show in the garage and you know, all kinds of things. And it was just a small little neighborhood. We were all going to come together. There was it was all kids. And I remember telling my dad, you know, I really enjoyed doing it. It was like a privilege. It was just in your DNA. I think it was in my DNA. But I think the notion of learning and growing and experiencing and mentoring and coaching, that came from watching my parents. But they wouldn't say it. It wasn't like my dad would model behavior. Yeah. Well, dad would always say, you know, it's a, you know, there's only one profession, Julia. That's teaching. That's noble. You're making a difference in people's lives. You have to teach. And I have a story about him being very disappointed when I graduated from college and didn't go into teaching is he knew it. Well, let's talk about that. You went to school, San Diego State, right? The ass. San Diego State. And before we're going to jump into your career ladder, because again, it was just upward mobility, right? He was disappointed. Like what? Walk us through like was it you go home? You say, Hey, dad, I have to tell you graduation day. Yeah. Very excited for me. What do you look and add? Parents go to college. Yeah. Okay. They had to to become teachers. Yeah, good point. But they it was funny. On both sides of the family, only two people who ever went to college. I'm the only offspring of that that I mean, it's really kind of an interesting story. But I remember saying to him, you know, pop, I'm so proud and I can't wait to go out there and in the real world and get the job. And he was like, what are you thinking? And I said, well, I'm going to go in a marketing and he said, no, no, no, you, you're going to go into teaching. I'm like, I'm going to try my hand at marketing. What was your degree in? It was communications with a minor in business and marketing. Okay. And I really wanted to, you know, go out into the world and I ended up getting the job at Carl's Jr. And my dad called me up and said, you what? Carl's Jr., you're going to go in the restaurant business. You have a college degree and I'm like, no, dad, I'm actually going to work at marketing. And so this went off and on for multiple years. And I left Carl's Jr. and I ended up at Burger King. He was still very disappointed, although that was quite the career, which I can come back and tell you. But just because he liked the superstar, better than a wapper. I mean, the superstar or the double western bacon cheeseburgers is like, Carl's Jr. is good. I mean, after my own anyway, yes. So when I finally got to Taco Bell and by now my career has taken off, I'm no longer in marketing. I've gone into operations. He says, "I still got to be honest with you. It just breaks my heart that you didn't go into teaching." I tell a story. I said to my dad, "I want you to meet me at such and such a restaurant at Taco Bell." He drove up to LA and I said, "I'm going to show you what it's like to be an executive at Taco Bell in operations. I just want you to watch and then at the end of the day we'll go somewhere for dinner." We went to six Taco Bells, all in South Central LA, which was part of my territory, not easy, not an easy environment. At the end of the day, I took him out for drinks. We couldn't find a restaurant. We went out for a drink and I'll never forget my dad tears coming down his eyes saying, "You do teach. You do it every day. You just don't do it in a classroom." I'm like, "That's right, Pop. I do it every day. I'm here to mentor and coach." What do these kids want to do? They want to go somewhere. They want to make something of themselves. That's what this is all about. It had to be very meaningful, right? Oh my gosh. It was life-changing and obviously he passed, but I remember him saying, "I am proud of you. You do teach. You just don't do it in a classroom." That's so cool. Yeah. I probably went to some of those Taco Bells in South Central when I went to school. Yeah. Well, there was one right near USC. That's what I'm saying. Yeah. Yeah. I went to it too many times, unfortunately. You know, I started packing on some weight, but luckily I was burning a lot of calories. What years were you at Taco Bell? I got there in 1991 and I started as an advanced management recruit where I was going into operations, but I started as assistant restaurant general manager and I worked my way up. There were pictures somewhere of me. Then when I left, I was running all of franchise operations. So you're background, you know, it's kind of marketing, right? You said I'm going to go into marketing. It sounds like you were very much on the operation side. So when I started out in marketing, by the time I really started getting into different restaurant companies, I knew I wanted to run something. I wasn't sure where. I wasn't sure how. And look, I don't, this is not like a recipe for I just thought in my day and age and what I was going through. No one was going to make somebody that had a marketing, the CEO. And I made that decision. So at some point, I decided if I don't have P&L experience, no one's going to make me the CEO. I really want to leave my career in marketing and I want to go into operations. And I actually went to the then CEO of the company I was working for is vice president of marketing and said, listen, I'll go anywhere. I'll do anything, but I need to go in operations. And he said, no, you make too much money for us in marketing. You can't leave. And I'm like, no, no, no, I'll go anywhere anywhere in the country. You send me anywhere. I just want that operating experience. And he said, no, is this a Taco Bell? No, this was a black angus. Okay. Anderson's black angus cattle company restaurants, which was then based in California. And he said, no, I can't let you go. And so years later, I ran into him at an airport and he apologized and said, maybe I may have been promised. But at any rate, I guess so I can't leave me. But did you actually left? So actually, it's a, I don't think I told you the story. It's a great story. So I'm getting an award on behalf of Stuart Anderson's for great advertising. And it's a cowboy treading sideways through the Western front watching crab legs. It's a great, great commercial. 30 seconds. And it won an award. So I go to Chicago to accept the award. And I'm there. And I'm kind of frustrated because I can't find anybody who wants to take me in operations that I'm thinking I've got to find this. I mean, this is my, you know, because I work my plan and that my plan was I have to go in operations. So I'm at this awards banquet and I walked in and this lovely actually reminds me of somebody who works here at your podcast. And I walked in and she said, well, welcome and whatever. And we're going to do a little informal, like get together and then we'll go to dinner. And then I said, thank you so much. And she said, by the way, you know, we've got some really, you know, famous people here. And I'm like, oh, famous, like who? And she said, well, John Martin is here. He's the CEO of Taco Bell. And that's what got me thinking. I couldn't get anybody to be interested in me, but I had read about the fact that Taco Bell was doing what they call back then an AMR program, advanced management recruit, which meant you would come from another industry. You would get the job and operations and you would work your way up or out, right? So anyway, I said to her, so where's dinner? And she said, well, dinner's in this other room. And it's a science eating. And I said, can you show me? So she takes me in there and I said, listen, I just need 30 seconds if you can guard the door. And she's like, sure. So you didn't move the name tags. I found his name tag. And I switched name tags and I sat next to him and I poor man never knew what hit him. And I spent two tell him years later. Oh, yeah. And I spent two hours for out dinner explaining why I was the perfect person. And the next thing I know, I got a call from the executive recruiter and the next thing you know, I went to work for Taco Bell. And honestly, he was an amazing, unfortunately, he died too young, but he was an amazing human being who had this incredible vision for Taco Bell. And I went ahead and started the advanced management recruit program actually in San Francisco. And then the rumor was they were moving me to Detroit. So I'm like, okay, I've never spent any time in Detroit. This is going to be fun. And at the ninth hour, the gentleman that was in San Francisco left and I ended up replacing him. And the rest goes on. The rest is history. Yeah. So I ended up working my way up. And I remember going to John maybe had to be a couple years in and saying, John, I've got this great idea. I want to start 24/7 at Taco Bell. And he's like, well, you can't ruin the company. You only run the West Coast. So go for it. And I'm like, really, that's okay. And so the rest just I kept coming up because part of my world from marketing was innovation. How do you get more consumers to come in more often? And so I brought that sort of mindset into operations. But if you really think about it, all those people who kept saying, no, you couldn't be successful, I ran an entire marketing department. How do you think I was going to run operations without those same basic principles? So I always thought that was a little odd that people thought you couldn't possibly be successful in operations if you'd already been successful. And anyway, rest is interesting. Interesting. The 24/7. So that was that you. We started it on the West Coast. So how do you just without taking too much of the time we have today, like walk me through, was there just a moment that you're sitting at your dining table, your driving? Like when does the idea come in? Is it like a flattened lightning bolt moment? And then like, give me the actual kind of brass tax. Is it you just look at, okay, let's run a model. If we open for an additional eight hours here, here are the incremental costs. But this is, I guess based on assumptions, here's the revenue we're going to bring in. So for me, it was because I spent so much time with the franchisees, they kept telling me, I'm running this restaurant and I'm paying the lease, right? I'm paying gas and electric. I'm paying for that. And I shut this thing down at midnight and then I open it back up at six. And here's what I have to do during that. You know, there was a lot of just general frustration that I had. The model was such that they had all these things they had to do. And I remember at the time, my, he didn't work for me, but he was part of the team. That's another thing. Get all the people on the team to go with you, even though that was a learning PepsiCo own Taco Bell at the time. That was probably one of the greatest learnings is all those people who worked for me didn't really work for me. They were just on the team. And I sat the team down and said, we've got, I've got this interesting idea, but I can't figure out how to make it work. And Eric, I still am friends with to this day, who was quote unquote my CFO said, well, how difficult can that be? We'll just model the numbers and we'll look at, let's get the real estate guys involved. And let's figure out what things you need to be successful in those hours. And we know that two, three o'clock in the morning, there's probably nothing, but from 12 to two, what they call the shoulder, right? And five to seven, the other shoulder, we probably can make this work. And so we put a model together back in those days, he made 250 DVDs and we took it out to the franchise community. We had a whole presentation. We told them what we would do and it worked. And it was a hit. And it's 20% increase. Please tell me you were the brains behind the double-decker taco. I'm not. Oh, I remember the commercial Shacken Hakim, Crunchy Soft, Crunchy Soft. No. And I'm really disappointed they got rid of that. I got to, again, I'm a little more disciplined in my, in my advanced age, but I really love that double-decker taco. But we, we, we did it. It became successful. And then it rolled out across, it took a long time to roll out across the country. And there are probably still, I probably think there's probably 10% of America's Taco Bells that maybe aren't 24/7, but the large majority are. That's awesome. And it makes money. Great story. No way. But I remember going to John saying, I've got this great idea who was then the CEO and he's like, I don't think you can screw up the company doing this. Go for it. I love it. And the rest is they probably had like a deeper consideration, but even just how he framed it, you know, I don't think you can screw it up. Yeah. That's really cool. And he, he was really a visionary about trying new things and innovation, which when you think about probably any business, yours, mine, anything, it is about to some degree innovation, which everyone was big on back then. Just trying to get the new creative idea. And today, you know, people look at me and say 24/7. I mean, you know, that's not really, but back then, big deal. Absolutely. I wanted to kind of take a step back. I had asked you earlier when you said, you know, I'm going to say, I'm going to say, I'm going start as a waitress that I hop for, like, I'm gonna be the CEO and it was, I'm paraphrasing you're like, nah, not necessarily. But you said something in describing being at Black Angus to Taco Bell and saying, I can't be the CEO if I'm in marketing. And it's not, that I have a plan. So somewhere between 16 year old waitress and I don't know what your age or where you're at in life, you did make a plan. And it was at a formal career life plan that you wrote out, or was it just kind of an abstract plan in your head? - I started writing plans there on a easel in my office, still to this day. And they usually were about usually-- - Like an art easel. - Small easel on my desk. And a framed easel. And I would say I started doing them at, before I graduated from college. So let's say late teens, early 20s, I did one for my 20s, I did one, I just kept doing them. And they would change and I saved them. So if you looked at my early ones, it was all about, I gotta make somebody. - Oh yeah. - I gotta have some kind of-- - You're why, you're motivation. - And then it began to change. And if you looked at it today, it's very different than it was. - Oh, so-- - But still a plan. It, I think there's much more about my philanthropic endeavors and giving back, which in my 20s, I would have loved to. But it wasn't much I could do. - Would you, would you, would you, would it be okay if our friend is like legacy? Much like I was more legacy. - Well, I don't create the legacy. You tell me what my legacy is, right? Everyone else will tell me what kind of legacy. But I guess for me, it was, I wanna work that plan and it's a vision, it's a goal. It's very important to me. And then when I got into senior leadership and even being CEO, you gotta take people with you. So if you're not crystal clear about that vision, I would start every executive team meeting with ladies and gentlemen, let's not forget the vision. - So that just, it became part of my personal life and my professional life about great that plan, work that plan. And when things didn't go my way, which would happen, then my job, like you said earlier, was to go sideways around, you know, whatever it took to get. - To move the name tags. - Move the name tag, which might be the name of the book. - Move the name tags. - That's a great, great name. Can I-- - It is the-- - Yeah, I do get the answer. - Yeah, do I get to write the forward if I come-- - No, I'm just saying. - Yeah, absolutely. - So you have this plan every 10 years, you're updating on an easel, you know, plus or minus. There's probably so much to dive deeper into, you know, kind of climbing that career ladder. Can you generalize like from going to Taco Bell and getting your first shot at operations to becoming the CEO of a company? What was that time period? Is it 10 years, 15 years? So the marketing part of my career was the first 14. And like I said, that last year I really had decided, I can't write another strap plan, I can't do another advertising commercial, I really, really wanted to go nops. So the marketing part of it was 14 years. And it was a great time, but even in those 14 years, I kept moving because, and I'll mind you. - You mean like literally moving. - Moving somewhere else, moving to another company, but back then people were very direct about, I'll never forget going to Birkeh, saying, you know, I'm ready for my next assignment. The guy's like, you're the highest ranking female at Birkeh. You're done. So it was like, okay, well, I've been, that I'm gonna have to leave because, so back then people were pretty honest about, you're going about as far as you're gonna go. - Specifically because you're a woman. - And they were pretty honest about it. So I just, I think part of it is, I mean, today they call it experience capital. Back then I didn't know any better. I just said I have to keep moving. I was single. I could move anywhere. And I kept moving because I wanted more responsibility, more accountability, and I wanted to learn more about the business of marketing. So by the time I finished my 14 year stent marketing, I did media, I did marketing, I did PR, I did strategy. I had done it all commercials advertising. Back then that's what we did largely TV. Markets, new markets, introducing, I mean, I had done it all. - You've done it all. - U.S. outside the U.S. I had done it all. - How many times had you moved companies? How many times had you moved geographies? First in the marketing, kind of segment of your career, and then in the operations leading up to being the CEO. - Ten times in marketing, 14 years. - Moved 10 times 10 companies. - You're a company or a city. - I'm a location, why? - I'm live out on the operations side. - Operations, I only moved twice, and then went into general management ship and CEO. - What are your-- - Well, no three. - What are your thoughts on the statement? This is my statement, but like, hey, I wanna be the CEO of the company, but I don't want the inconvenience of having my life to strive. I don't wanna move. I like where I live. I, you know, I don't wanna have to switch companies as clearly you do. - I think those are choices. I think it's slightly different today, maybe not too much different. I think there are, I can't tell you that a number of people said I want your job, and I'm like, great, let's talk about the sacrifices, let's talk about what you're gonna do, and oh, by the way, let's sit down in your performance and pray, so we'll talk about the things you don't know how to do yet. Let's talk about what experiences you need to be, and people would be like, well, I'm not gonna leave my job and go do something else. So part of it is about, it was sacrifice, and a very positive way for me, it was sacrifice, and I'm not suggesting everybody should do what I did. I started, I did everything backwards. I got married late, I had children late. Most people don't do what I did, but for me, it worked for me and it was necessary. - So that's an amazing segue for me, as the host, it necessary is a great word. I don't think I've heard someone use that on the show yet, but I wrote down sacrifice, which we talked about all the time, and then what I loved, you know, I definitely got told you at breakfast this morning, like the why, and you mentioned earlier, like in your 20s, I got to make money, right? But, - Yes, because I had none. - Because you had none, but if I may, let's fast forward 20 years, you're in operations, whatever your title is, senior vice president, - Sure, sure. - And because again, I'm gonna spend some serious time on the female dynamic of someone saying, hey, this is as high as you go. - Right. - That's a insane thing to say, but it's also probably so much of what, especially women in the workplace want to reach out to you and say, how do I do it? - And remember I told you at breakfast, it's still alive and well today, it's just subtle. - It's more subtle. - It's just not as obvious. - And so, but I think what I'm saying is, you probably financially were, you know, more is always better, right? But you were doing okay. Why did you need to become the CEO? Why didn't you put the female thing aside as I may? Why did you say, you know what, I have a nice job. I like where I'm at, I'm making good money. I don't know if your husband is making good, but like, you just use the word necessary. That's a big word. Like why was it necessary to you? - Let me break that down. - I know, it's a big question. - It's a lot of time packer. - It's a lot of time pack. So early on, absolutely, I didn't have a dime. So it was really about trying to get some financial, whatever, yes. So early on that was absolutely the case. And then I think it became, I knew I wanted to learn and grow. And once that stopped happening at a company and grow to me means more responsibility, more accountability, learning different things, challenging myself, I began to take the role nobody wanted. So by the time I got Burger King's a great example, we would get in the room and somebody would say, somebody's got to go to Boston. I'm like, I'll go, you're going to go to Boston. Yeah. Well, you know, the guy robbed the advertising fund and you're going to have to recreate that whole thing and you're going to have to start all over and you're going to have to convince those franchises. I'll go. So part of it was risk taking, I look at it as calculated risk taking. I, you know, people are like, oh my gosh, she's getting up and starting all over in a new, I don't know, maybe retrospectively. I guess I just didn't look at it that way, but I would go do the things nobody wanted to do. I would do the risk taking. I would push myself. I would learn a whole new thing. I would learn a whole new group of people or how to deal with it. And I would go to these different places and experience some really interesting, pretty angry. And Burger King had a lot of really disparate, interesting, hard-charging franchisees who had very strong opinions and my job was to go and do these different things. So by the time I had spent four years, moved four times for Burger King, I had done just about everything, including representing the single largest franchisee to the corporation who had more stores than the company. And they were very powerful. And I remember going back to Miami, where they were based, having the difficult conversation with a then CEO about what the franchisee told me to repeat to him about what he was and wasn't going to do. I was trying to sell salad bar, just happened to be the thing at the time. And I remember thinking there's a lesson learned here. So all along it was learning the lessons about getting better, learning more, experiencing more. But one thing we didn't talk about, I didn't have mentors back then, we didn't have them, we didn't know what they were called. And certainly nobody was gonna mentor a young woman. I will tell you, however, when people say, well, how'd you learn so much? My answer is I watched people make failures. I watched a lot. I watched it every company I was at, especially the senior executives. And at Burger King, these guys would surround themselves with people who told them exactly what they wanted to hear, which. didn't make any sense to me at all. So it was tracking all those learnings early on. And when I got to the most senior position, couldn't get anywhere else, I'm like, I got to go do something else. So it was finding the right career space, making those choices, and somewhere along the way to your point, it wasn't about money anymore. And every time I moved back then, they allowed you to, they paid your closing costs. They paid, so I kept buying a house because that was the one thing I could do, and a Ford and people kept paying for it. So I kept moving and buying a house. So by the time I finally got to be vice president, yeah, maybe there was a year there where it was, you know, eating noodles and whatever. But I started really putting my money into at the time real estate because I knew that was the one thing that could. So you're a real estate mogul. Yeah, well, I wouldn't go that far. But I would say it was a good opportunity to grow. And when I really, by that time, I have decided I really want to be the CEO, not because of the money, not because of the title, but because I thought I could impact and influence culture, people, and make a difference. And I really believe that. And I set out to do just that. Make a difference, impact and influence, and create a culture, which by then I had seen so many people fail at creating a powerful, supportive culture. And I was bound and determined to do that. And that really became important to me. So culture impact and ultimately making a difference. And being challenged. Okay, being challenged. That was really, really, really important to me. And then it became about how do I grow this business? How do I impact an influence? I think people think of it as employees. By the time I got to CEO, I'm impacting and influencing the board of directors, the equity holders, the shareholders, the debt holders, the employees, the franchise. That's easy. Yeah. My, my sphere of influence, the two million customers a day, my sphere becomes, and I loved the accountability. I liked the pressure. I liked this knowing that I had to get up every morning and help make a difference. And I, so yeah, I know that sounds like strange, but that really was the case. It was challenging myself. Being the best I could be. That really was important to me. You said you liked the pressure. Is that, was that a learned skill? Were you always like that? Because I had a lot of people don't like pressure. And in fact, pressure and really the fear comes along of failing at something that's big enough to create that pressure. It keeps many people from even doing what it is that their heart tells me that's in my wood because if you think about, I grew up with two teachers who minimized pressure. However, they would talk a lot about the noble profession, making a difference, impacting and influencing. Kids coming back and saying, I had you 10 years ago as a teacher, you changed my life, you made me care about you, a sister, you made me care about my mother was physical education, teaching, you know, physical education. She was teaching physical education. Oh, physical, I was like physical education, they need to teach that today. I was like, wow, I've never heard of this. We got away from that, but no physical education. So it was all about taking care of one's body, right? And she would just mingle in a little bit of mind body and soul. Just teeny, teeny, teeny, teeny, teeny, because it was, you know, public school system in California. Yeah, a little bit more. But it was all of that. And I took all that and made it into something that I think would be make a difference. And so you felt like you were having a positive, it was it was kind of the concept that too much is given, much is expected. It was like you felt you were given a certain set of skills. You know, like I need to use it's noble to use these skills because getting back to the teaching thing, whether it's in a traditional high school format or to your father's point, you're teaching people every day just in a different arena. You felt you felt a, well, I thought it was a gift and a privilege. Yes, it's a privilege to lead and it's a gift to give feedback. And by the time I'm CEO, I remember and it's not important who, but I was sitting in a room with someone I was going through his performance appraisal and I was giving him feedback and he said, well, you're picking on me. I said, picking on you. I'm trying to make you better. And you have to make a decision if you don't want to be better. If you don't want to grow long term, you probably won't be successful with me or here because this is all I can't tell you the number of people who would come to the interview and say, I want to be part of your high performing team. And I'm like, not so fast. Being part of a high performing team and you know this better than anybody is not easy. You got to want it bad because you're, you're being given constructive feedback every day from your supervisor, from your peers. It's not easy. Yeah. Football is not always super constructive. I always say, what's the difference between a coach and a critic? Yeah. I said, picking on me, that's fun. I haven't heard that in a long time. Yeah. It's, well, a coach criticizes you. Hey, like you're not, you're not hitting this whole right way or a coach in business. Like you're not doing enough in this or you stop doing that. But then they say, but here's how you fix it. And like you could look at it like being criticized or picking on, but a coach is like, look, I need to tell you what you're doing wrong, which ultimately is I need to tell you not perfect. But here's how you can become better. And by the way, when we fix that, when you solve that, I'll find something else. Yes. Because that's the reality of a high performing team. And that's the reality of business. And so it would, for me, if you said to me, where did I learn that? It just became a part of, how do you grow and get better? And so early on, well, no, I guess it was maybe, always talk about, I'll never forget I had a supervisor say to me, you know, Julie, your, your management style is exhausting. And I'm like, well, well, thank you very much. Yeah. I was so, I was so proud of myself. And he said, no, that's not a compliment. I said, it is to me. You're telling me I care too much, I give too much. I think that's a compliment. And so I remember him looking at me saying, what? And I said, it's a compliment. It's a compliment that you think my, my actual management style is, is, I'd argue it's a compliment that you were willing to exhaust, exhaust not only him, but yourself to manage it. My coach once told me like he was, he was on me. And I, you know, I didn't, I didn't have the right perspective. And I said, gosh, like, why don't you just tell me, don't like me? And he's like, no, no, no, he's like, don't worry when I'm coaching you hard. Or I'm, you know, I'm exhausting in my coaching, right? He's like, you should worry when I stop because that's when I've given up. And it's my, are you, would you say that's a safe way if you were willing to put in the time and energy development? It's because you saw something in him. Absolutely. But I would always say to people, when I care more than you do, I think note to self, we may have a problem. When I start caring more about your performance than you do. And, and I keep bringing these things to your attention. And you've decided you, you don't want to work on them. And I would say to people, what do you think you need? Well, I'm, I'm doing a great job. So you're a high performer and everybody who works for you is mediocre. How's that work? I had that conversation as well with someone. So you rank to everybody who works for you average in your superior. Do you understand the fundamental of how that doesn't really actually operate? And he's, well, everybody's doing their job. But I, I'm superior. I'm like, okay, let's stop this conversation. You go, you go home and think about it. Let's re-schedule tomorrow. Let's think about how that, you might want to think about that differently, about how you manage people up, not down. And that became part of my sort of philosophy. And again, where did I learn that? I watched all those people manage down. Speaking of watching people in your role as a boss on so many levels and the ultimate boss to CEO, there are certain people I'm sure you worked with who could, you could take coaching. I don't know if anyone ever is like, hey, please tell me how I'm imperfect and they always love it right away. But my experience is there's people who you say, hey, like you're not doing a good job here. And this needs to improve. And again, not that everybody loves it. But they're like, okay, okay. And that they'll, they'll really tell me how to do better. Tell me and they'll do their best. And then there's a lot of people like, can't handle it or just, you know, accept it, but they don't apply it. Why do you think certain people develop the ability to be coached, but then certain people don't? Wow. That's it. I don't know if I've ever been asked that question. Yeah. We write a book on that, right? That's a great question. And why I certainly saw my, well, ultimately I would say to people, I don't think it's a good fit. Because you don't really want to make the effort. You really don't want to try to grow and learn. And I can give you all kinds of tools. But if you really don't want to grow and learn, you're probably what we refer to as you've hit the wall, because I really want a high performing team and people who want to grow and learn and get better. And dole by the way, help their peers do the same. And so if you really don't want to grow and get any better, you've probably, it isn't going to work long term. Maybe short term, it's fine, but long term, it's, it's going to be difficult. So I would have that conversation with people. Sometimes that would work as a little bit of jolt about, not so fast. Let me, let me, let me try that one again. Or sometimes it was like, it's just too hard. And I'm like, you know what? It, it doesn't mean you're a failure. It doesn't mean I'm a failure. It means it wasn't a good fit. And I would tell people that. And there are people who would, I would say goodbye to who still call me to this day and were good friends. And it was you were right, Julia. I didn't, it wasn't a good foot. It's ultimately not what I really wanted to do. Or I didn't want to work that hard. Or I didn't want to give that much. Or it wasn't a good fit. And I'm thinking very much in particular right now about somebody who really wanted the title and the position, big job. But what came with it was a ton of work. Sacrifice. And sacrifice. And having to learn new skills. Say they say they wanted all the upside and none of the downside. Yeah. And I don't know. I When you asked me earlier, where did that come from? I just think I never would ask you to do something. I wouldn't ask of myself. And I would never, ever ask you to do something that I didn't believe in my heart of heart. You could do or you could learn to do or had the inherent ability to do. Maybe it required you to pivot a little bit, which would be okay. And I would always tell people the same thing. You don't sell your soul for anybody. Certainly not to work for this company. So if you think I'm asking to sell your soul, you should not work here. Because this is a great company working on its culture to be even better, right? But we are a high performing team. We hold each other accountable. This is the way it's gonna be. Those kinds of things had to be non-negotiable. Those get set by the leader. But if you want to make it better, if you want, and I worked with a guy for like almost 15 years who were for me was my head of HR. And he once said to me, you're moving too fast. And I remember being mortified that he said that. And I went home and I said, okay, I have to think about what you said. He was very specific about what I was doing. And he was absolutely right. I was moving too fast and I wasn't taking people with me. And I came back the next day. I apologized to the team. And then I went to write a letter to the franchise community saying I'm moving too fast. My whole team said, don't you dare do that. Don't show your vulnerability. I'm like, are you kidding? I want to take them with me. And if they're chitter-chattering behind my back, saying this is ridiculous, we gotta fix it. Of all the things I ever did in my career, I got more response from that single email than anything I ever get ever. - Interesting. - I must have gotten 300 emails saying, I'll go with you anywhere because you have the guts to say you're moving too fast and admit that you made a mistake. - You think, you know, maybe not all the time, but you tell me, but certainly some vulnerability with your direct reports or in this case, your franchise. It actually, in their eyes, makes you a stronger leader and more likely to lead. - Yeah. - Not only do I absolutely, but I mean, I have chapter in verse one. - Die, but you gave me the great example of something. - You know, where you can use that and you say, that made all the difference. Or when I just, you know, as a CEO, you have to make decisions every day and sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong. They need to be right more than they're wrong or perhaps ultimately you're not the right. But I remember saying, when I made a mistake, I made a mistake. I made the decision based on what I knew at the time. And sometimes for the most part, it was right. But there is also that, you know, I call it the little voice, the little voice in your head that says, "Everyone told me not to write the letter and I wrote it anyway and I made them send it out." - You followed your gut, so to speak. - And it was the right thing to do. And I, for years when I was CEO, I kept a file in my desk, that was called, "I love me." And sometimes you need to be reminded that you like yourself 'cause it gets, you know, you're getting a lot of constructive feedback on a daily basis. And I-- - Yeah, you are. - And especially as a CEO, because it's just the way people are wired when they have a great experience. We're in the commercial real estate service business. You're in the customer service, right in the restaurant space. When you provide a great level of service, or even just you provide, it's kind of an expectation. And when you don't, it's, so, you know, I don't know if it's 10 to 1, 5 to 1, or it's 1 to 1, but I just read the bad ones. It's like, I feel like people are more apt to reach out when they're dissatisfied than not. And so-- - 20 times more likely. - Is it 20 times? Yeah. - 20 times more likely. - Yeah. - And by the way, not only were they 20 times more likely, and then they'll tell 20 people. - That's right. - They're not stopping there. So people used to say to me, so some guy would spend $20 on a long distance phone call to tell you his burrito wasn't made correctly. I'm like, absolutely. And then he would spend an hour on the phone. - I've been meaning to talk to you about those burrito. - No. - But that is the way it went. And by the way-- - But then I, yeah, go ahead. - No different in the app business, right? If there's a bug in a glitch, gonna pick up the phone. - Let me tell you all the things that are wrong. - They're gonna call me. - But I think that's what makes-- But again, if you don't think it's a gift, you inherently are, and I just viewed it as a, I think you said to me earlier, what makes the difference? I don't know if it made the difference, but I viewed it as a gift. I viewed getting better and learning as a gift. I mean, otherwise-- - I mean, I need a, I love me file, right? - And I put those 300 letters, I kept that to this day at somewhere in a box in my garage. I can't get rid of it. And it was, I'll follow you anywhere because you admitted you made a mistake, and you're gonna slow down, and you're gonna take us with you. And that became my mantra. - That's powerful not to digress, we're not talking politics, but I'm always like politicians like, why don't they just say, oh my gosh, I totally got that wrong, I've learned so much. Why doesn't a politician admit their wrong more often? I'm sure there's a reason. I just, I think-- - Do you have another hour? We could talk about-- - No, I did. I'm gonna talk religion and politics. No, no, but I always think like, gosh, like I would be more inclined to vote for someone like, hey, you voted for this bill eight years ago, and it led to this legislation that, you know, kind of unintended consequences, it wasn't the right thing. If someone's just like, oh my gosh, I got that so wrong. And I thought it was right, here's why, but yeah, oh, I've learned so, I'd be like, I like that person. I'm more inclined, but they're gonna die on the hill. You know, it's my team versus your team. But I wanna, I asked you a question about like, kind of, hey, what did you see in the people who really were coachable and could take that criticism? 'Cause again, I found, when I consider myself coachable at any time, Kyle, yeah, you don't, my first reaction, oh, and then I'd like to think because of, because of how I raise and sports and whatever, I'm like, okay, all right, let's go. A lot of people can't. I've found the mentality podcast. I love to talk about the victim mentality, you know, 'cause so much of what people wanna hear is like, show me how to get the good mentalities that leads all this success, like the ones you had. But I think half the time it's just not having the bad ones. And I think victim mentality is the worst. And I wanna touch on a time in your life where if anyone had any reason to be a victim, it was you, you've been moving, you've been shaking, you had moving your way up the corporate ladder. You had mentioned to me earlier, so hopefully you're okay if I bring this up, you had kids and you're married and you lost your husband. - Correct. - And if you just put a pen on the timing, where was this in your career? - I was, I had, I was CEO of IHOP, kids were very young. And I remember like taking a date and think through wasn't in the plan. - Not part of the plan. And I think really for a while, all I really cared about was where they were very young. - Five and seven. - Five and seven. And when I say unexpected, some people may think that's, oh, he got sick and over, no, it's like motor cycle accident. - No, motor cycle accident. - And I remember thinking, I'm not, this is out of my wheel. So I went to a specialist who was a psychologist who specialized in tragedy. And he talked about now, kids can be a victim or whatever. And he said, you know, we had long conversations about what that looked like, but I'll never forget he said to me, I'm just gonna talk to you alone. I don't know, this is, you know, and he said, as hard as this is for you, you have to still be the disciplinarian. You can't, you know, you can't just, you know, wipe this underneath you. They still need to, because discipline enfers the children that you love them. And so they have to be loved and be supported, but you can't just, you know, this has to be real and you have to get on with life and get to the other side. And one day he called and said, I just wanna talk to you alone. I'm like, oh no. And he said, your kids are gonna be just fine. But, you know, you've done everything right, but they still need to know that they're loved and cared for and everything goes on. And it's funny when I look back on that now, there was sort of a natural instinct of what you need to do, what has to be done. I didn't travel, or because I was traveling so much, I just stopped traveling for a little while and stayed close to home. And happy, healthy, you know, wonderful kids today. But I think if they look back on that, they would tell you, but we had a normal, they would call it a normal, yes, a normal life. We went on with the things that they've had. - 'Cause normal it can't be. - Absolutely. - That must have been so hard though. - It was not easy, but I look back on that now and then along came their stepfather, who I told you about. Niceest guy in the world who wanted to be part of their lives and make that difference. But again, how do you keep it, how do you keep it so that life goes on and be respectful and do the right thing? And that was an interesting time, but I also think about how do you put it all in its natural perspective? No, I'm not a victim. But again, the plan changed, the plan got modified and that's okay because that happens as well. So it went on to what am I gonna do and what am I gonna do differently? - It's amazing 'cause like, I really want to be a mentally tough person and not victim mentality. And I certainly talk about it enough, but if I get like a flat tire on the way to work, I'm like, this is so unfair. I mean, why does this happen to me? Right. And the in many ways, almost if not the worst thing in the world could happen to you. And it seems, and again, like, I just don't give up. I think part of it is, and I've taught the team, because this is a startup. So you get it's different as a startup. Nobody gets that more than you. So it's different than going to a corporation that's already very successful, has infrastructure people systems processes. This is a whole different thing when you're starting from scratch. And we would have stuff would happen. And I remember saying, we just don't give up. We just, we don't. I mean, yes, we're startup. We don't necessarily get the respect that you would if you were a major corporation, but no matter. And we were struggling. It just happened to be something with the tech firm, I think very large, right? Who wasn't responding to us. And so I couldn't get any help. And I couldn't get any help. And finally, I said, well, this is just unacceptable. And so I said to the team, we have to figure out another way because they're holding on to significant money and responsibility and tech work that we needed. And so I wrote a letter to the general council. And I said, you don't know me from Adam. I sent it registered and certified. And I got a response within about 48 hours. And they were like, how's that work? I'm like, because I'm not going to give up. I'm just, I'm not going to normal channels. And so I think that was the day that my small mighty team at Alurek said, oh, yeah, we don't give up. We just, we try a different way. We keep trying until we get success. And that became like a stronghold for we're the mighty team that just doesn't give up. And it, but it taught them, you know, yeah, we tried the normal channels and it wasn't working. And I'm like, you don't know me, but I want you to hear my story. And I want you to help us. And the next day, I know we got help. Speaking of not giving up. And you said to this day, it could be challenging for women in the workplace. It's more subtle or more, you know, I see hidden, but it was more, it was less discrete back then. Hey, you're a woman. You're not going to get promoted, which again, in today's, you're the highest ranking woman we have, Julia. What else could you ask for? Oh, my gosh. It's like a bad, it's like a bad TV show. It was like a bad, it's like white lotus on steroids. There's a there. You know, there's these stereotypes to cliches of women in the workplace in the, you know, the eighties, 90s. And you're like, well, that didn't really happen, right? And you're like, no, like verbatim. No, no, woman, why, why would you want more that I'm not laughing? No, no, I know. But yeah. Yeah. So you said not giving up. Even though you say it still happens today, I, is it safe to say today, there's, there's a lot more awareness. And I guess let me frame this in the opposite is coming up. There wasn't necessarily this women empowerment movement that there probably is today when you were coming up. And so you really had to metaphorically like smash through that, not even that glassy ceiling, that concrete rebar reinforced ceiling to become a female CEO, right? I would say that's correct. Yeah. I would also tell you that oftentimes my peers who were all men, I never had a woman boss. Ever. And 99% of my peers were men. I remember many of them saying to me, well, you're the lucky est woman in the world. You don't have to go home to a family and a spouse. You can do whatever. You can, you can take the risky job. And I always remember thinking, and I would always say the same thing. Do you want me to apologize for that? I'm sorry. I missed the point. You could do that. You made choices. Yeah. And it's going to say that, well, no, if they have kids, those are choices. Yeah. I mean, you made a choice. I made a different choice. I'm the one going to Boston and deal with the different, you know, I mean, I don't, I don't know what you want me to do with that. I'm not going to apologize. I always thought that was sort of interesting. But I do think when I look back on all of that today, yes, it was much more prevalent. It isn't gone. But I think when you said, people are much more aware, people looking for a job or much more aware, just as much as anybody. And so what I coach and mentor today, whether it's a man or a woman, if someone can't answer, what's the vision of this company? What's the culture of this company? And how decisions are made, you're probably working for the wrong company. So people are much more likely to run away from a company that doesn't have a culture that develops people, that cares about people, right? Whether you have DE and I or not, that's not the point. The point is that you have a culture that develops and cares about all people. If you don't, you should run as fast as you can because today, anybody wants a job, probably has a job. So let's go somewhere where you have a culture that matters. And when I talk that way, people are like, well, I have to really think about that. And so I told you the story. It was recently speaking at a conference and this very successful woman came up to me, very big company, huge and said, you know, I'm miserable and here's why. And I said, well, you decide, do you want to stay or go? Because if you want to stay, I'll give you one piece of coaching. If you want to go, I'll give you another. And it wasn't a bad company. She was in the wrong department working for the wrong person. And we had this lengthy conversation about, you know what it's going to take. Just like I do. And I'm like, absolutely, but those decisions are easy. I think starting out, it's more difficult. Like, I'm afraid to say anything because I don't want to leave that job. But I think people are much more willing to make and COVID helped this too to ask the difficult questions in the interview process. Right. And I coach my, even my young kids when they went to do their first job, these are the kinds of things you have to ask about. Ask about the culture. Do you really want to work for culture where no one cares about your development? Probably not. Now you have to bring forward your own development. But I mean, there are still a lot of companies today. It's subtle because it's more about just in general. I, you know, either you really do the hard charge and you're out of here. But let's talk about the culture and who creates that culture starts at the top. A good board of directors for a public or private company holds first and foremost the CEO accountable for the culture and then it goes from there. What's your, and cultures kind of wrapped into the bigger question here of getting back to your motivations was part of your motivation. Like, you know, I, I'm convinced motivation, there's layers. It's not anyone. There might be one that's big. And in, in, on most days, it'll get you up in the morning. But some days, you're like, okay, well, that motivation for whatever reason today is as big of a driver. But I have multiple was part of your motivation with all the success, all the moves, all the upward mobility and also be becoming the boss. Was it the, the female like, I'm going to prove to you guys that not only not not only good enough, I'm going to be better. And then again, within that a subset, I'm going to, I'm going to pave the way a trailblazer for women behind me and, and give them someone to aspire to. I sort of had done that throughout my career. I mean, I got letters underneath my door when I was at Taco Bell because I was the highest right female. And people said, good for you for getting a bathroom on the floor for women. Did you put that in the eye? Love me file. Yeah. Good for you for being pregnant. Yeah. And all that goes with being pregnant, even back then. No, I don't think it was that I think it was more, I think I can make a difference. I think I can make this a better company. I think I can show people that you can have heart and still make money. That EBITDA is not somehow just, you know, disparate from having a culture where we care about people, we respect people, we want to grow people. You'd argue you can make more money. Well, and there you have it. Yeah. So I I would say it was all about how to make a difference. But um, and adding things where I'll never forget that that first month that I happen. I remember going to HR saying, okay, so where's our zero tolerance policy or what? So we talk about this stuff today, like it's always been around. It wasn't. No. And by the way, I talk about the restaurant business because I spent so many years there before I went to health tech, but name any company. It's not unique. We're not unique. And still to this day, I'll be challenged about sexual harassment or I'll be challenged about, you know, Kuddlewood, a shudder, or what went on back then. That was not unique. And I, you know, because a lot of my friends are not from the restaurant business and they'll tell you it wasn't necessarily unique. It was what's different today. Um, and it's why myself and nine other women started a women's food service forum, which was for the career advancement of women and minorities, which is still the largest organization nonprofit of its kind in the United States, which really helps people provide career advancement, teach them the tools that they never got either at their existing company or whatever about how we think about. And one of the things they still to this day teaches, got to ask that question when you're going for the interview about the culture, because if it's a culture where the person sitting across from you can't answer the basic questions, I probably don't want to work there. Yeah. And I know that sounds simple, but, hmm, my own kids, I've had to coach about what do you mean they couldn't answer the question, what's the vision of the company? What's the culture of the company? Can you list the values of the company? This is in brain surgery. So it's basic understanding of whether you're big, small, So we have values and we're a very small company at Elurix. How would you share with the audience two ways? One in a very traditional business sense, like maybe something you did as a CEO that you're really proud of, just from an execution of operating the business, putting a better place. But then a second way that again benefit the business, but perhaps was driven more by you touched on EBITDA doesn't have to be just cold blooded like finance. Maybe a decision that was driven more by compassion or feeling or emotion that proved out this concept of like, hey, this was driven by compassion and it's still led to the company being even more profitable or better. So from a business perspective, that one's kind of easy. It took a good five years to really do the full turnaround for IHOP. When I got there, it had had comparable growth, really struggling. Cashé wasn't there, brand image wasn't there. So it took a good five years to simultaneously improve the marketing, improve the operations, improve the four wall economics, etc. But we finally got there and it was incredibly successful. Now we're printing money. We were negative cash flow. I mean, I could go on for an hour. I won't. And it was a great time. And I remember renting out the Ritz and Maui to the entire team, maybe 2600 people went to really say 2600 franchisees, their spouses, the team to congratulate ourselves for becoming one in the country. That's an expensive. Family dining. Now they paid for a lot of it. We paid for some of the vendor partners. I got you, but it was quite the experience. We have like 150 come to our sales trip. The Ritz are four seasons. But vendor partners helped. Vinder partners helped. I need to get some vendor partners. We celebrated in a large way. And we came back and I said, okay, now Houston, we have a bit of a problem. Remember that famous line? Oh, yeah. Houston, we have a problem. And that is we were doing so well. We were going to be ripe for a takeover because we didn't really have debt. We had turned the company around. It was cash flow and like crazy. It was amazing. So, I went to the board of directors and said, we probably need to look for an acquisition because if we don't find one, we're going to be ripe for takeover. But I promise you, I will be thorough and thoughtful myself and the team about looking for something that's going to be a while. And that will be a creative and do all the right things and enough of the business. That was Applebee's. So we went looking and I remember saying to the street, I remember where and how it was the beginning of January of 2027. Here's all the reasons that we need to do an acquisition. And I know a lot of you just want me to do a one time dividend. But I think there's a better way. And here's what it is. And I remember the street saying, well, Julia, I mean, don't be ridiculous. You'll never find that. I'm like, well, let's give it a shot. So we began looking. And in those days, you read the Wall Street Journal. It came to your office. Oh, yeah. Okay. So anyway, I'm reading the Wall Street Journal, sitting at my desk. It's the, and I don't know. There's something about that Chris smell of it. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I know. Anyway. So the sound of the paper crinkling when you turn the page. So see, you see you. I'm on my way. So anyway, I'm reading the paper. And they're on the front page of the Wall Street Journal is this article that says Apple bee's thinking about strategic alternatives up to and including in the subhead, the sale of the company. And I'm like, that's interesting. I know that company better. And I started thinking about what I could have shudder. And we were in family dining. Applebee's is in casual dining. So those are two different segments. But of course, at the end of the day, could it make sense? Could you put a shared service model together? I feel like it'd be pretty complimentary. Yeah. I think so, but how to do the work. So I did some preliminary. Called the private equity. I mean, called the the banker and said, listen, I don't know if I'll even have an audience but love to have the conversation. And I need to step back and tell you why. So when I took the job at IHOP, I had been the president of Applebees. And when I got that job, the then chair and CEO said, when you and the team turn this company around, we'll make you CEO. I said, you know, that's certainly, that's a perfect, that's just perfect for me. So did I have any sacred cows? Because I'm a big believer and please don't give me any sacred cows. And they said, none. So I went out and pretty much started with a new team. The best that I could possibly find and to this day, most of them are good friends. And but what we did was pretty remarkable. And so they hadn't had any comparable same-store sales growth in years. There was a sort of a negative cachet. We weren't doing the growth. So simultaneously, somewhat of the same playbook, some things new, we put it together. That did not take five. That took closer to three. Couldn't be more proud of the team. So I went in one day to the, now the chair and CEO, the same person that chair is retired. Now it's the chair and the CEO. I go in with my little graph, right? And I've got the chart going in the right direction. Stock has doubled. Life is good. Everything is going very well. I couldn't be more proud of the chair. And I said, so I'm thinking it's about time to be CEO. And he's very reflective. He stops for a minute. I'm sure it was 10 seconds. It felt like a minute and a half. And he says, no. And I thought he met no, not today. And I laughed and said, well, no, I'm not suggesting today. But perhaps for something you want me to showcase, perhaps you want me to demonstrate something more than I have already or the board wants to see something. And he said, no, not ever. And I remember thinking why? I asked that question within just as quickly as you did. And he said, I don't have to have an answer. I don't have to have a reason. Why do you think it was? So we all have our own knowledge. But I think where I come from when I'm angry, the best thing to do is just stop for a minute. So I said, I'm going to excuse myself. I'm going to go home early and I'm going to reflect on this conversation, which is the only thing I can think of. And I came back the next day and I said, you know, I've thought about it. And I think you're holding me accountable for everything, but you're not giving me the title. So I'm going to go ahead and leave. And he said, well, no, you can't leave if you leave the stock will tank. So if you think about that for a nanosecond, yeah. So I'm like, what did you just say? So anyway, we agreed that I would stay for a couple months and we would figure out a plan. So when I finally left, great story actually. I was interviewing in different places across the country and I actually was at a Marriott Courtyard in Southern California, the phone rang my cell phone. 911 had just happened. The tragedy had just occurred and literally 250 of us left our hotel rooms and went and sat in the lobby because we're not going anywhere. And we're all like in devastation and the phone rings and it's the chairman of I hop and he says, are you safe? I'm like, I beg your pardon. He says, are you safe? I'm like, who is this? And he tells me it's the chairman of I hop. We're calling on over our teammates just to make sure they're safe because many of them were on a plane. And I remember thinking to myself, if I'm lucky enough, this is where I'm going to work because he called me part of the family. And it met more in me than you could possibly imagine. And he said, where are you? And I said, well, I'm in a Marriott Courtyard in Calabases and I'll never forget his response. Before I could even do anything, he said, there's only one company in that Calabases and you don't want to go to work there. You want to work for us. And I said, well, sir, I actually haven't been offered a job yet. And he said, you will be. And the rest is they say it's history. So when I went to I hop, I had in my head that we were going to turn this business around. I didn't realize we were so successful, probably exceeded our wireless expectations. We needed to do the acquisition. I didn't know whether and I don't believe in falling in love when you do M&A. I just don't, I learned early on, don't fall in love. It's a mistake. So I didn't. And I went to the board and said, look, we're going to look at a whole bunch of things. And we did. I don't think I've ever talked about where we looked, but we looked in fast food. We looked in. We didn't look in family dining because you can't really have a direct, you know, you can't really, it doesn't work that way. But casual dining, a lot of fast food, a lot of fast casual, we looked at a lot of different things. And as I started getting into it, I realized the Applebee's could be really interesting. So as the story goes, we went looking and I went to the board and said, look, we're going to start doing due diligence. This is going to cost money. You have to agree to this because I don't want to go down this path. They said, sure. And I remember assigning someone to each of the major pieces of the business. So someone took legal, someone took finance, someone took supply chain, anything where we needed to look at due diligence. And we were probably four months in, we were sitting around a meeting and I even remember the guy's name who stood up and said, I'm so and so and I represent supply chain. And did you know the little known fact that I'm like, this ought to be good. And he said 75% of all the products we buy at IHOP are from the same manufacturers, Apple bee's users. And I did not know that. And I'm like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, to your point earlier. I'll start a supply chain. I'll start a co-op. We'll have it combined. Think about the savings. So the single best thing I ever did was create the co-op, which took a while to do, but ultimately put the accountability and the income on the balance sheet for the franchisees, which probably to this day has probably been worth a half a billion in the middle of the panel. That's not nothing. So I would say day one when we first went live, probably 300 basis points. I mean, it was a lot. It was an amazing answer. So it was, yeah. I'm more proud of that. Now, obviously, ultimately, you don't borrow $2.3 billion for revenge. You just don't do that. Well, you know, no, you know, that's a very nice thing to say, but we did buy at the end. I just I'm going to frame in a very simple way you did within, you know what, six, seven years acquire the company of the guy who said you're never going to be the CEO. That is correct, but, but I don't, you don't do that because of, but when I called him to say after you should run for office, you are a great politician. So after we announced it, I know you're a human being and there had to be just the smallest degree. Okay. So I went to the street and told the street that we had made the acquisition and I'd never sat in a room where the guy goes, okay, why are transferring 2.3 billion? I mean, it's kind of a strange, anyway, so we had just told the street, we had lots of questions from the by side and the cell side and so forth. And then when we left, I said to the CFO, I need to go make a phone call and he said, okay, so we were in the attorney's offices. I left one office, I went to a private office and I picked up the phone and I called the chair and CEO of Applebees. And I said, how you like them apples? Nope. I said, I always wanted to do that. Just wanted to say hi and he said, I was expecting this call and I said, as you know, this morning, we announced that we have purchased for 2.3 billion the company and we don't need two of us. So I'm going to have to let you go. You're a stone cold killer. So I've, this is the 60th episode. Jack, what episode is this? That is the most insane hardcore beep this out mother thing that I've ever heard like and you do it so well. But it was, it was sort of short but the best part of that story is so I walked out of the office. The meeting is done and the CFO and I are going to go. I don't know where we were going, but we get on fifth that I remember this like it was yesterday. I think the world of them, we get on fifth avenue and he throws up on the side of the fifth avenue and I'm like, buck up, buck up. This is big doings. We are going to make this work and he's like, Julia, we just borrowed. He's like, this is a lot of like we're going to be highly successful. Stop working. He's in the middle of like puked on the street. And then we went to lunch at that famous restaurant in New York City where it overlooks the skating rink at Rockefeller Center and then he was fine and we had like a moment and he said, you know, Julia, you're right. We got this. I said, we got this. We got this. And then started the most, the thing I'm most proud of is making the deal and obviously all that went with it and obviously it was a great deal. But the thing that was toughest and you asked that was bringing the two cultures together because the Applebee's culture was very different than the IHOP culture. And what I said is we're not going to have either. We're going to have one culture and then because the franchisees at Applebees didn't like being owned by IHOP, I changed the name to Dine because it was, you know, what it did, it created the opportunity to we're all going to formulate around Dine and that's going to be the new. So we took the best of Applebees because they had some really great values and sort of infrastructure and we took the best of IHOP and we combined it into one culture that became bigger and better. And clearly the supply chain idea was a good idea. I mean, if you really think about it, IHOP was the largest buyer of bacon in food service in the US and Applebees was the largest buyer of ribs in the US. So if you go to the bacon, if you go to the pork manufacturer, you say, here's our contract. I went the best deal. Suddenly, I have the best deal. Yeah, you know, it's such a, I mean, it's a rate down the middle of the fairway. Yeah. M&A reason like it's efficiency economies of scale a greater leverage with your you know suppliers your vendors your contractors But yeah, that's such a cool story, but it but it makes for I know people I gave the Graduation speech at USC for the business department and I got a standing. No, and people were like, you know I would have given you one they let me into the school but they didn't it wasn't for revenge It really was the right business decision and the part that never gets written as the board had given me a range And I went to the lowest possible part of the range Apple bees board accepted it. It was the right thing to do And as I as I've always said I give credit or credit is due it goes to the franchisees It goes to the team that I had in play it goes to the franchisees Willing to put aside whatever to do what was right and at first they were like well Why would you start a purchasing co-op you don't benefit? I'm like sure I do you make more money and you're more likely to invest and build more restaurants Everybody wins, but I had to repeat that several times But I those are the sort of the and then I would say the thing I'm most proud of would be starting this Ultaq company that's making a real difference in people There's no such thing like it in America today And I I don't think anywhere in the world. So it's the ultimately will be the eight dimensions of wellness You get daily coaching prompt engineering on your iPhone your Android or your computer it talks to you You talk to it and it's what they call prompt engineering, but it's also closed So I have doctors experts clinicians institutions telling it where it can go search for data and only that published Scientific data is used in giving you daily Yeah, and I think the hardest thing for for again, I health and wellness is the self-motivating but really the self-discipline and if an app or technology And people pay a lot of money to have a human do it You know, it's called a personal trainer, but where it's like just tell me what to do and hold me accountable all of the way I'll do the running but like I don't have to think about it You know and so this notion of the daily The daily is Working and obviously it's golden and it's turned out to be something that we can Not only have fun with but grow and it prospers. I didn't do I didn't know how to do meditation I didn't know how to do box breathing. I do all of those things today I mean certainly certainly I care about my physical well-being But what I've been learning from my own app is sort of amazing sure and so we're taking gender to the eye to it's powered by gender to the eye But it's really taking it to a A whole level of it's just not push a button and it talks to anything in the universe it only talks to those places whether it's Stanford longevity institute male clinic and why you it goes only to places where the data is been vetted by this group of doctors and experts that I am using and I'm attracting a Finer and finer finer group of people so what started happening is insurance companies and then people started calling me saying Wait a minute. This is kind of interesting. I could be using this to all of our employees I could be using it to different folks. I had a surgeon called me the other day and I'm thinking I don't know how this is going to No, no, no, I work on children and they're largely obese Mm-hmm. If I had an app that would give them daily routines to change their habits, I'm in so suddenly it started taking on a Bigger better life and now I feel like I'm finally able to make the impact. I could never really People just don't want to go to a place a restaurant that That um teaches you how to it. It's just it's it's in congruence So this provides that unique opportunity. A lorex a lorex. Yeah, a l l you are A l you are x and the generative AI the code name is A lora and she talks to you. Oh, that's cool. If I get to pick the voice you can eventually So it might be your voice. I mean we we actually know on my voice. Oh, I actually think you you could you you actually could do a very good job of that Mm-hmm. I mean it could be we would duplicate it in Gen AI and then it would be Um, it would be your voice. You have a very um You can be hard but you can be soothing and we kind of like that for the male voice and well did I A voiceover. I got a new career here could be I don't I don't want to go on a limb or say it's a done deal I want to say it's a work in progress. The lorex out next is Disney movies Tom hangs watch out last question for you Uh, and it my parents, you know, I'm one of five and I'm 42 But my parents say you never stop being a parent you know we talk about all the you know the kids are out of the house Like they're never stopped being a parent. I think one of the coolest things about Sitting down with you and hearing your story and getting to ask questions Isn't just the insane career accomplishments or the most gangster business move I've ever heard by the way They're gonna make a movie you know they made the devil wears Prada Um, then they make you know, it's like Wall Street they make movies about these big business people and business moves They need they need barbarians at the gate. They need barbarians are in casual dining You know the fact like hey We bought your company and we don't need two of you you're fired like that's so cool But um The cool I think just I got four little kids and so um, this is from a dad's perspective I think being a working mom hits even harder yeah Respectfully then a working dad and a working dad. I'm constantly every day doing my best to just give it everything I have at the company for for both individual personal reasons and and my teammates and giving him the best of me but then fulfilling Not just my commitments as as a parent as a father for me and mother for you But just I love my children. So I want to just be there how What advice would you have for for working parents working dads, but especially working moms as someone who I mean you did it all with work and I and there's a lot of sacrifice that happens at home, but yet you you You know, you're a mom too. - Yeah, now I've been asked this question a lot. - Okay, good. - And I would tell you, at the time I didn't do this intentionally, but I had my kids in my 40s. So that automatically makes me somewhat unique. Everybody's fine, everything is well, but when you have kids in your 40s and you're successful, you can have financial support to help you and make no mistake about it, that was certainly part of it. - The infrastructure. - The infrastructure, but in both cases, I picked a partner who was willing to do just like I was whatever it took. So I have often told people who asked me that question, better find the right partner. Better find somebody who's willing to go the distance because having kids means you usually need help. Now it may not be in the traditional sense, it may be in the untraditional sense. I've got friends who are a dad that raised their kids. I've got it all, right? But you need that help in one way, shape, or another. And it comes in lots of varieties, lots of traditional and untraditional. In my case, for a while, untraditional, more traditional. But if you ask my kids, the greatest lesson I learned there were two of them. One day early on, I went into the house and I was still on the phone. And my daughter said, "There's mom talking on the phone." And I overheard that. And that was the last time I ever walked into the house on the phone. 'Cause when I walked in that house, that was their sanctuary. Maybe after they went to bed, I might have to make phone calls, but I learned a very valuable lesson. There's mom talking on the phone. So we come in second. It was implied and that broke my heart that I didn't mean to. I didn't do it with or thought, but people knew I can still get Julia and my thing became, I wrote an email that night saying, going forward, unless it's something, unless it's a dire emergency, please don't call. And believe it or not, there are unfortunately emergencies that happen, right? Not often, but they do happen in your business. So I tried to limit that and that became my mantra. I might talk to you after about a business issue after the kids went to bed. So that became number one. Number two, I guarded that time with my life. I would do just about anything. Now, I gave up a lot. So when you're raising kids and you're a working parent as you are, you do give up a lot of things, but I didn't care. It didn't matter to me. It wasn't important. So dinner's out with friends, going, those kinds of things. So there is that part of my life. You called it a season of your life. I love that. It's a season of my life. And the way I remember it is, this past holiday, my stepdaughter gave us this, it's a small screen. It's on the kitchen counter and she loaded up, I don't know, five, six hundred pictures. And they rotate. And we don't ever turn it off. I'm like, oh my God, I remember that. Oh my God. And it's all of that season of raising those kids. And I remember it was like, and there isn't anything in the five, six hundred pictures, except us and the kids. That's all it is. It's a kids at school, the kids in sports, my son played football, not at USC. He's like, Mom, I didn't go to a division in one high school. Let's not be silly. So it's smarter than me. Two plus hits to the head. But all of it, also, and by the way, we're not done. We found out we probably have another thousand pictures. So we're going to load all that up. Because if you think about when I started having kids, we didn't have digital. No, I know. So now I'm transforming all those picture sitting in the box and transforming all that. But what am I most proud of? Was all those memories. And not one of it is me at work. Not one of it is him at work. Not one of it is. No pictures of your guy throwing up on Fifth Avenue. Yeah, I don't, I don't think he appreciates him bringing that up. I would tell you it's what our memories are that we create as a family. And at the time, I thought, oh my God, that thing's, it's going to be on all the time. And now it's become like, sometimes I'll find myself just sitting there. Oh my God. Now where are we? Well, we're, you know, whatever. And what it taught me, and I, as I reflect on it, that it was turn off the phone, but it was also be there, and when the kids were really young, and I know this sounds corny, and we didn't call them podcasts back then, but I actually was on a radio show, and this woman was like, well, I don't know what to think of you. I mean, you're a CEO, so you're never home with your kids. And I'm like, she said, well, how do you make it work? And I would tape record my voice, and I would read books to them. And then the nanny would put them on at night, or whatever. So they would hear me reading to them. They barely remember it, right? But I think I can. I think, you know, and I would, it would be my voice. And you do whatever you need to do to be successful. But I look back on that, and I don't, someone said, did you get defensive or angry, or were you like, people make fun of you, and I said sometimes, but I made it work for me and my family. So I can't speak, you know, people always want to say, how did you do that? And I'm like, well, it worked for me. But the advice is better find an infrastructure that works for you. And then there are those who don't have a voice, or didn't have a choice, and they have a different set of circumstances. So when I talk about giving back, that's me, find a way to help those folks who don't have a choice like you and I. And so life has been different for them. And so there's where I'm spending my time, in my years where I can donate both my time and my hard-earned money. How do I help people who are less fortunate and don't have those choices? Oh, what a great way to finish the question. Yeah, it's such a big question. And, you know, it's the right spouse, but I agree. Sometimes people will ask me that question. And again, I'm not a working mom, which again, I think it hits harder. But I just said, I think God gives us enough time to be really great at work and really great at home. But he doesn't give us enough time to be great at work, great at home, have a great social life and a great golf game. And so you got to start cutting some of those out. Which ones do you want to cut out? I think for me, the choice is very easy, very simple, right? I don't need to be at the bar and I don't need to play golf. I talk very openly about I have some really dear women friends. And I talk very honestly about the. I'm going to start using the season. Those years where I wasn't there very much. I would stay in touch, but I wasn't there because I was busy. And all of those women, many of whom didn't have children understood and respected me or making choices. You make choices. And I made choices. So. Well, you made a lot of good choices, both personally and professionally. And another great choice in coming here and sitting down with us. I can't thank you enough. This has been awesome. Julia, last thing, is there any resources, any place you would direct listeners who are looking to achieve the success you've had in your life, personally, professionally any books, any classes, anything that has been a big impact for you that we could direct the audience towards? So I would absolutely go to our app that's on the app store, alluricswellness.com because it really does help you with sort of what I'll call finding that every day, center, if you will. But I would say nowadays there are so many people that you can rely upon to either be your mentor or your coach or a class that you can take. But also, if you're working in a company bigger small, watch the mistakes people make and learn from them, because you can decide to be whatever you want to be. You make those decisions. Okay. Thank you so much. This has been great. It's crazy. And again, I'll, I don't think I'll ever forget that story. You told me, but so many cool things. We didn't, we didn't spend enough time talking about, but make sure to go to IHOP and Apple Bees on a Veterans Day in addition to many things. Yeah, that's, that's a very, it's still the number one day for Apple Bees. Because again, it's your chance to say thank you. And as, you know, there's some great stories there about what the, what it means to veterans or active military to have somebody in a restaurant. Either salute them or just go by and say thank you for your service. Thank you for thinking of the veterans as it's amazing. There's many amazing business idea and execution on your behalf and thank you for coming here. This has been great. I really appreciate it. It was one of great questions. Thank you.