Flip Your Mindset with Frank Kitchen
Watch/Listen here or on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts“I believe as the leadership team goes, so goes the rest of the company. So if you don't have that consistent and significant sustainable growth, you've got some work to do.” — Mike Goldman
Frank Kitchen is a Professional speaker with over 30 years of talent development experience. Renowned for using culinary-themed analogies to inspire growth. He holds the prestigious CSP (Certified Speaking Professional) designation, emphasizing professional excellence in speaking.
Key Leadership Insights
Caring as the Cornerstone of Leadership:
Leaders should focus on the growth and success of their team members.
Emphasized the role of mentorship and investing in people’s potential.
Leadership Mindset:
A successful leader blends care for individuals with organizational goals.
Training and valuing employees foster loyalty and outperforming results.
Performance Mindset
Definition:
Moving beyond a positive or growth mindset by setting and pursuing high standards.
Aimed at achieving extraordinary results through clarity, resources, and focus.
Application:
Focus on what you can control and commit before planning.
Build an internal locus of control, fostering proactive rather than reactive actions.
Living Fresh Framework
Principles:
Focused: Be clear and unapologetic about goals.
Resourceful: Utilize available resources and think creatively.
Enthusiastic: Maintain excitement about goals to motivate action.
Strong: Surround yourself with positive influences and nourishing practices.
Honest: Self-awareness and acknowledgment of strengths and areas for improvement.
Implementation:
Daily journaling and self-assessment help reinforce these values.
Encourages practical steps to align actions with long-term goals.
Gamification in the Workplace
Benefits:
Improves retention and application of training concepts (up to 94% retention with hands-on methods).
Makes learning engaging, interactive, and team-oriented.
Strategies:
Create activities tied to real-world challenges.
Allow for debriefs where participants can share learnings and apply insights.
Role-playing scenarios empower employees to solve problems collaboratively.
Networking and Growth
Advocates for a triad approach:
Connect with mentors (higher level).
Collaborate with peers (same level).
Support beginners (entry-level) to gain perspective and inspiration.
Speaking and Training Services
Focus Areas:
Leadership development, team building, and organizational culture.
Public speaking workshops and self-guided resources.
Target Audience:
Professional associations, educational institutions, government entities, and entrepreneurs.
Offerings:
Keynotes, interactive training sessions, books, and online courses.
Goal: Help individuals and teams "live fresh" and elevate their performance.
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I invite you to assess your team In all these areas by taking an online 30-question assessment for both you and your team at
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Frank Kitchen: Frank Kitchen works with people who want to flip their mindset and cook up the results they hunger for in their career, business, or organization. Frank has over 30 years of talent development experience as an award winning retail manager, trainer, and coach. College educator, performer, fundraising auctioneer, author, and motivational speaker, all that in just 30 years, all of Frank's kitchen inspired programs on performance mindset or interactive learning experiences that have been shared with audiences around the world.
Mike Goldman: Today, we're going to talk a lot about a leader's mindset and organizational culture, Frank, welcome to the show.
Frank Kitchen: Hey, thanks Mike. It's great to be here. So thanks for that intro there. let's get chatting.
Mike Goldman: Yeah. Yeah. And by the way, Frank and I know each other from the national speakers association, which is an awesome community. A lot of folks on my show have been from the NSA. and I mentioned that Frank, because you are, one of a small number of people that has something called a, CSP designation and to help people understand we're talking to a heavy hitter here, explain for us.
What,what CSP means.
Frank Kitchen: All right, so CSP means a certified speaking professional and the National Speakers Association was a group that created this back in 1980 and it was created to ensure that event planners, meeting professionals, they're getting a true professional speaker with high morals, ethics. And I've been doing this.
They're not, this isn't their part time gig. You know, they're actually putting the full effort into their speaking. So anyone who has their CSP, I joke around, you know, we've got people who have like PhD and doctor behind their name. I consider it a CSP, is like a CPA, you know, they've got it behind their name. We have to put in so many years of speaking five to 10 years. We have to make so much money. We have to speak so many times in order to qualify. But even once you qualify, you have to go through a whole process to find out, okay, do you meet those standards? So right now on the planet, there's roughly about 400 CSPs.
And I am one of the few who have, earned that CSP designation. So the cases I'm just showing that, you know, I really value and respect this industry. And I'm here not to quote, make a dollar, but I'm here to make an impact.
Mike Goldman: Awesome. Super impressive. And when that tells us is Frank not only knows what he's talking about, but he's actually talked to thousands and thousands of people about it. So, so that's awesome.
being the better leadership team show, Frank, you know, the first question I always ask is from all of your.
Experience, as an employee, as a leader, as a speaker, what do you believe is the one most important characteristic of a great leadership team?
Frank Kitchen: It's funny that you asked that question because I actually had a speech last night to a group of, soccer players. So the coaches and the boosters brought me into comes talking. They're getting ready for, you know, they want to have a championship season. And I explained to them as like, Hey, everybody, we have to show that we care, not only that we care about ourselves, cause when we're in the world right now, we just care about ourselves.
I was like, but we have to care about the team. I was like, this is a team as like, and we have to create a culture here where we care. It's like, so whether you're on the field or you're on the sideline, what are you doing to show that you care? So for me, my leadership journey started when I had one of my mentors and he goes, Hey, I was working at a toy store and he came to all of us as cashiers.
And he goes, my goal here is to not be recognized for the sales that I make, but the people I promote. And we all thought that he was crazy, but everybody in that meeting ended up getting their own store. So he was showing us that he cared about our growth and our potential versus just caring about himself. So when it comes to being a great leader, it's how much are you caring about the people that you are leading or working with?
Mike Goldman: Here's why that resonates with me. the book I'm in the process of writing, and I hope for some that listened to this later, the book may have already been written, but the whole message throughout the book is that the number one driver of. Profit growth is people growth.
And it sounds like your, the leader, you, what you work for at the toy store understood that beautifully.
Frank Kitchen: Yeah. I mean, like, and the funny one was last year I was speaking at a conference and I hadn't seen him in 20 years. Like, you know, we text and talk, but he was actually there in the audience. So I was actually able to explain to the audience, you know, the story about it and explain that I took that philosophy and now I'm, you know, paying it forward and sharing it.
So I had groups where, you know, corporate would call me and go, Frank, you're training your people too much. And I go, what's training too much to go? We only do true trainings a year. You're doing one a month and I wanted to do more and you're like, well, why are you doing this? Like, well, I care about my team and I care about their performance because when we have to go do their yearly reviews or they've got their own personal goals, well, if I truly care about my team that I'm leading, then I'm going to provide them with every resource, every opportunity, every quote, last name's kitchen ingredient needed to produce those results that they want.
Mike Goldman: Yeah. And it's so easy and I'm sure we've both heard it. It's so easy to think there's a choice to be made. Am I going to focus on bottom line profits or am I going to focus on people and being a nice guy? It's like, well, no, those that, that, that's a false choice. Those aren't two different things.
Frank Kitchen: They're not. I mean, when we had our store, we were highest in retention of employees, highest in sales, highest in customer service scores. And when the company calls and goes, well, you're training your people too much. I go, well, Hey, here's the deal is like, I will stop my trainings when we stop beating the goals. Well, we never, you know, missed out on goals. And many times we're 50 percent above goals. So as you said, they've got their analytics, you know, back at the corporate office, but they didn't know what to do with my team and our store because we're blowing those numbers out. And it was because once again, Value the team, finding out what their work schedule, what works best for them.
I had people who worked on the bus line. So I'm like, Hey, if you do really good for me today, it's like, I'll drive you home. People are like, well, why are you going to go drive them home? It's like, well, they did their work. We got out earlier than expected. They're going to be on the bus line for 30 to 45 minutes, but it's a 15 minute drive for me. So when I drove them home, that created loyalty when they came into the work, they worked harder. So just, you know, people said, Hey, you're too nice to your team. It's not necessarily being nice. It's just valuing those people. And when we take time to train and care about people, we're showing that we value them.
Mike Goldman: Yeah, I love that. I love that.
I want to go, we'll come back to the team concept and culture, but going back to the starting, I guess, with the individual, you talk about,flipping our mindsets. You talk about a performance mindset. Define for me, what is a performance mindset? Is that the same as saying a positive mindset or those different things?
Frank Kitchen: Yeah. you've got positive mindset, you've got growth mindset, you've got performance mindset. So let me work to explain it. So I call our mindset, when I speak, you know, I tell people, I want people to elevate their performance so they can produce amazing results. Okay. And to keep it, you know, more fun, you know, I've got this crazy last name kitchen.
So I'm like, let's go ahead and add some culinary terms to it or, you know, ideas. So I was like, our mindset, quite simply, I say is our cookbook. Okay. And if you've got a cookbook with no recipes in it, then guess what? You're not going to go anywhere. So what we have to do is number one is like, when you say about a positive mindset means, okay, you're looking more at the positive than the negative, but that's just more of a thinking aspect. When you create a growth mindset. Now you're starting to talk about what is possible. So you've got the positive, the growth helps you go, but the growth is still saying, Hey, you know what? There are possibilities when it comes to a performance mindset is you're actually setting goals.
And many times some are attainable, but you're going for a high standard of going, Hey, you know what I want to produce. You know, when I say amazing, something that's above the standard, something that hasn't been seen before, something that people are going to talk about and work to replicate. So with a performance mindset is I want people to push their limits. I want people to be positive about what they're going for thinking that they can do it. But more importantly, if you thinking that, Hey, I'm going to shoot, let's talk about school. I'm shooting for you know what? Shoot for the a plus, you know, do something above what you think you can because what we have to do is we have to push our boundaries. So back to Jim, the guy at the toy store, when he goes, Hey, I'm going to make all of you store managers. That's a performance mindset. He set a high bar, a high goal, but then he also taught us to step by step on how to get there. So we say performance mindset is setting a high goal, but also providing the necessary resources to hit that goal or exceed it.
Mike Goldman: So let's make this real
for some of the obstacles that I've seen. And let's talk about how to get over them in one. One real quick story is I was, as this is being recorded, the, presidential election in the United States happened, I guess about a month ago now, and I was on election day.
I was about to speak to a Vistage group. And if you know, Vistage, it's these groups of CEOs andthe chair of the group.was telling a story that he asked one of his members just that day or the day before it asked one of his members, what's your plan for 2025? And the CEO said, well, I can't answer that right now.
I have to wait until the results of the election. And he's, and the chair said, what are you talking about? And he said, well, if Trump wins, you know, then I think business is going to be better. We're going to be able to invest as a, but if Kamala wins, you know, we're going to have to pull back.
And it's like, Man,I heard that and it just struck me as, you know, how much. People let outside factors impact who they are, how they think, what they believe in, what actions do they take. So I'll kind of use that as an entree to the question, you know, in these times, which are, you know, crazy around politics and everything else going on, how do we take the idea of performance mindset and make it real?
What, how should people be thinking about it? What actions should they be taking?
Frank Kitchen: Well, the first one comes to focus. We have to focus on what we can control. So in your example, as you said, they're focusing too much on outside factors and that's going into the subconscious. So now the subconscious is going, well, you know what? I'm dependent on everyone else. I mean, there's a study that talks about it to go with our brain.
It goes roughly five to 10 percent is use our conscious brain. The other 80 to 90 percent is subconscious, but they have an impact on each other. So if you're constantly feeding your subconscious with negative thoughts, because the brain is interesting and obviously, you know, Owen Fitzpatrick, so he can go even deeper than this, but the brain doesn't understand, you know, if you say don't or do it just understands what you're focusing on. So if you're focusing in that situation was wait, wait, wait, then guess what? You're always going to wait. But if you focus on what you can control, it's like, okay, well, here's the goal we have for next year. What can I, what can we do to make that happen? so you can consider the fact of, okay, who's going to get elected. But you may create two plans It's like, okay, if this person gets into the office, then we have to do X, Y, and Z. If this person gets into office, we have to do A, B, and C. You're taking control versus waiting on somebody else. So that's the best way I can describe it there is focus on exactly what you want. So, and be unapologetic for it.
You know, I kid people about being hungry. If you to go to a restaurant right now and you go, you're hungry and I'm hungry, you're going to look through the menu. You're going to find what you want. I'm going to look through the menu and find what I want. Are we going to judge each other? No, we're setting our goal. And then we're going to order. It looks like, are you happy? Yes. Are you happy? Yes. But we have to figure out what we have to do step by step to get to that point. Talk to the waiter or the waitress. you know, make sure if we need any special changes made to it because of dietary restrictions, explain that piece there. Then when it shows up, okay, we have to really just be really detailed and focused on the exact result that we want. And when we have that focus, then we can put in the step by step. It's like I was sharing with my wife. We have to commit first, then put the plan too many people are trying to plan before they ever make the commitment.
Mike Goldman: You said two things that are important there that relate to each other around focus. One is focus on what you want versus what you don't want, which is so important. And I talk to leaders all the time who could rant for 20, 30 minutes on all the things that are pissing them off in the moment and frustrating them.
And then I stop and say, well, that sounds tough. What do you want? And it's like, I've asked them, like, you know, what Pythagorean's theorem is like that there have trends, like, because they don't think about it. So one is focused on what you want. The other thing you said, and you didn't say it in this way, but I'm going to twist it a little bit is you talked about focus on what you can control.
You did say that. And the way I like to talk about that, something I learned years ago was the idea of an internal locus of control versus an external. Locus of control. You could have an external locus of control, which is the world happens to me. what am I going to do with my business? Well, it depends who wins the election.
The world is happening to me versus an internal locus of control that says,no. I happen to the world.
Frank Kitchen: I love it. I mean, cause we'll be honest, you and I are both business owners, so elections and you know, that does affect our business and me and my wife, we're co owners of our business. We had the discussion like, okay, well guess what? This could affect our business in this way, depending on who wins. But then we go like, well, wait, if we bring in more business, let's make sure we make some phone calls.
Let's hire an assistant who can help us, you know, reach out to more prospects. Let's, you know, invest in this software. Here's going to allow us to touch more. Let's go shoot this video. We started doing more. It's like that will generate more income. And then we don't even have to worry about these outside factors.
It's like you said. What can we go do to the world? I mean, I used to help coach sports and it was like, Oh, what's that team going to go do? It's like, let's put, you know, enforce our style on them. Don't wait for their style. Let's go ahead and impose our will on that other team. And that's where it comes to.
As you said, if we start thinking about all the things that are negative, you said what we focus on, what we focus on is what we'll do. So if you and I having a conversation and I go, Hey, Mike, I don't want to forget my keys. All my brain is hearing is forget my keys. Versus I may go to you and Mike's gonna like, well, Frank, how about you?
Remember your keys? Like, Hey, Mike, remind me to grab my keys. So now all my brain is focusing on is grab my keys. So I don't even have to have you remind me because it's already in my subconscious to go grab my keys versus the other set is don't grab them.
Mike Goldman: Yeah.
think about, have you, have you ever been on the phone with a salesperson who says, look, I'm not trying to sell you anything. What are you thinking?
They're
trying to sell me something.
They're saying I'm not trying to, but the, as you said, the brain is symbolic. It doesn't know, no, or yes, I'm not trying to sell you something.
If you're a salesperson listening to this, don't ever say that. Cause if you say that what's in people's brain is, ah, they're trying to sell me something.
Frank Kitchen: so it doesn't work out. Like my buddy, like he was working in sales and he said he had to go talk to the new sales guy because he said he went to the lady and goes, you would be stupid not to get this. So all she heard was I'm stupid,
Mike Goldman: Yeah.
Frank Kitchen: you know, and he's like, this didn't understand her. As he said, I know we're not going into sales here, but I always tell people will use the word if like, Hey, if you want to be on Mike's podcast, you're not even thinking about it, but go, Hey Mike, when you need a guest. Then you're going to contact me because now it's like, I need to guess, Oh, wait, Frank programmed in my mind, you know, when, what, when is now? So just, as you said, the way we think, I always share with people where our mind goes, our body. And for us as speakers, our mind and our, you know, our bodies and our mouths will follow.
So where your mind goes, your body and your mouth will follow. I mean, so you've got to learn how to reprogram this. You know, brain to, you know, help you out. Don't let it hold you back. Have it point you in the right direction.
Mike Goldman: I've heard you talk before about, you know, this idea of live fresh. And I think we've probably already started going down the road of
explaining that without talking about live fresh. But I know it's a model you use and a good memorable one. And of course it's food related, which is always good for you.
What is live fresh? what does it mean and how do we use it?
Frank Kitchen: so live fresh. when I have, you know, talks with people, so this might be the first time I've done it on a podcast. It's essentially it's a diary entry from my journal was I had to go look and see why I, or the teams I used to work with, why we would fail. So I started to go do the look at him like, okay, well, if you live fresh is something that's new.
It's exciting. It's one that it's needed. And I go, if you're living fresh, you are committing to "cooking up" the results you hunger for while inspiring others to do the same. So it's like a servant leadership model. And it goes like, well, in order to do this, in order to live it, you have to have the right mindset. I'm like, so what can we do to craft the mindset? So I started to go look, what are all the things that I didn't do? What were holding me back in the past? And I started to recognize, Oh, wait a second. Let's flip this around and think about what I needed to do. Taking that control. So we say fresh living means you don't think about it.
You don't talk about it. You live it and you have to live this way every day. So the first one is we have to live focused. That's the F for fresh. So what are you focused on? So, you know, are you very detailed with your focus? When I said earlier about being unapologetic, I mean, you and I went out to go grab a pizza there in Jersey. You're going to tell me exactly where you want to get that pizza from, what you want on it, when you want it. That's focus. And when you're focused, guess what? You're not distracted. So we have to live focused. From there, we gotta live resourceful. So the resourceful people are the people who succeed. So what are we doing to think about what we do have versus what we don't? If you can go, want to figure this out, go watch Little Kids. Little Kids, don't take no for an answer. I've got two kids. So they're always thinking about all the possibilities. So resourceful people are thinking about the possibilities versus I can't do this, I've never done that. They're already setting themselves up for failure.
So be resourceful. After that, we got to be enthusiastic. I said, whatever the dream or goal is, if you're not excited about it, enthusiastic about it, it's not going to go through. So the brain is designed to not want to be worked or pushed or threatened. So we have to trick our brain into quote, going on vacation mode when we're on vacation mode and we're like a few days out from vacation.
Guess what? All this work gets done because we want to go off the grid. We're not thinking about that work anymore. We're thinking about the end result. So what, you know, what excites you? What are you enthusiastic about now from there? We got to be strong. And when I say strong, it's mentally strong. What are you consuming on a day to day basis?
Who you're surrounding yourself with? What are you putting into your mind? So what are you watching on TV or social media? Who are the people you spend the most time around? What are the environments that you're placing yourself in? You've got control of that one. So let's make sure that we're feeding quote.
And, you know, instead of junk in junk out, let's put something nourishing into our minds to make sure we're doing. So for me, I wake up every morning, it's either a podcast or an audio book, you know, and I'm going to go exercise. So the first 30 minutes to an hour of a day is for me. And things are going to help point me into the direction of something that I'm focused on achieving. And from the last part, we got to be honest. And we got to be honest with ourselves and one of the biggest piece about honesty is, am I helping the process or hurting the process? Am I willing to go out and ask for help? But also the honest piece is we all have past successes and we're in a world is always telling us what we can't do and what we're not good at.
We have to be honest with ourselves to remind ourselves, okay, here's something that I've done in the past that I didn't think that I could do. Here's somebody where I've asked for help in the past. Here's a past success. Let me build off of that or quote, go out and rebuild what I've done in the past. So I've told people and you'll understand this one.
not sure how everybody goes. I'm like, if I can drive a stick shift, I learned a stick shift back when I was a kid in Pennsylvania, driving up and down the hills and stalling the car up. So if I can drive a stick shift and I can do anything, so I have to go back and look at that part there. But also part of that process of driving a stick shift was I had to go ask friends and family members had to go ask mom, can you teach me this?
Yeah. So instead of trying to do everything myself, I had to live honest with myself. So when we say living fresh, we're living focused, resourceful, enthusiastic, strong, and honest. And when you do that, you're starting to craft this mindset that's going to allow you to produce the results that you want versus pointing you away from those results.
Mike Goldman: And what I can see, and you mentioned journaling when you started this, I don't know if this is part of what you do or recommend, but I can see, and I journal every day is. Journaling this and actually scoring myself on a scale of one to five or one to seven or one to 10 every day. You know what, you know, was I focused today or am I focused today?
You know, have I been resourceful? All these things. It's, you know, it's simple and straightforward enough that we can actually score ourselves on these
Frank Kitchen: yeah, I mean, that's great. You're hired. I mean, so we're working
on new workbooks here, but you know, I have the affirmation, but that could be a case where you're asking the question. You know, how will I live focused today? How will I live resourceful today? So you've got your goals for the day.
Cause generally I've got a planner and a journal and my favorite number is four. So I'm like, okay, what are four things I want to accomplish today? So when I wake up, I'm looking at my goals for the day. So I have a deal. It's like, Hey, no, no ESPN, no, no news, no email, no cell phone, the first 30 minutes of the day. Because if I get into those, it's going to take me down the rabbit hole of, oh man, my team lost, or here's something negative in the news. here's an email where that's not really what my focus is for the day. So I love, like you said, we can start going like, okay, how am I going to be just as a daily reminder, those five pieces to kind of check off either, either what I'm going to do. So we'll let people know they heard it here first and you know, how am I going to go out and do it? I mean, I love that part there, but yeah, that's
the piece and all those areas when I've failed in my certain points of my career or my personal life was I lacked focus cause I got distracted by like chasing after four or five things. I lacked resourcefulness. I started talking about what I don't have all the time. I lacked enthusiasm. Some points I tried to chase after something just because it was money. and that didn't excite me. I was hanging around the wrong people. Like, oh, you should just be happy with where you are. And I wasn't living honest. I hid stuff from other people. I hid stuff from myself and I wasn't able to face up to the fact of, Hey, you need to change things around. So that's where this all live fresh came from. It's just, it's a personal entry into my diaries and my journal.
Mike Goldman: how do you mentioned being around the right people and community and there's something I have always kind of struggled with how to think about. And maybe you could help out here. So. And I forgot who said that. It may have been, it may have been Jim Rohn, who said this is, you know, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with.
And I love that. And I live that. And at each stage of my life, especially from a business standpoint, I have kind of changed the neighborhood. Of the people that I spend a lot of time with. And when I was just trying to make a few pennies in my business, I was, you know, around people that were also trying to make a few pennies in their business.
And, you know, so, so I learned early on, get in front of people that I, that inspire me, that I aspire to, which has been great for me.
but the other thing it does is I'm, if I'm not careful, it can cause, a It could hurt my mindset from a comparison standpoint. I am making four times the amount of money right now than I dreamed about making 10 years ago just to try to pay the bills and you would think I would look and go and I would be thrilled with that because I'm making more money than I thought I could make.
But of course now I'm hanging around with people that are making 50 percent more than I'm making and it causes me on the one hand to. Compare myself and say, well, crap, I really haven't done anything yet. And it could be negative, but I also look at it very positive. Like it drives me to do more and be more and add more value.
How do you think about that?
Frank Kitchen: So when I think about that, there's a great question is I think about it in a sense of, you know, I've met with people who are, you know, pastors and chaplains. And with, in many church religious groups, they'll talk about a triad. And with the triad, you've got somebody at a high level, somebody at a mid level, somebody at a low level. So for me as a speaker and a business owner, I call it having one conversation a week. Every week I try to meet somebody who's new, somebody who's either a business owner or another speaker. And I'll find like some high level speakers who are where I want to go and be. I've got my accountability partners who are speakers pretty much at the same level as me, or I watch these entry level speakers who just get into the industry and we will have conversations. And with the high level speakers, I'm like, Oh, what did you do to get here? And like you said, you do start to feel bad because like, man, there's so high, so much above me. But also because they are talking to you and sharing, you're like, okay, wait, they're real people.
So you start to get that part, but then you'll find your people in the same level as you and you're like, Hey, here's what I just learned. And you'll compare back and forth and you'll share some ideas and resources and they re you know, venerate you. But then, you know, as you said, Frank, I'm making four times. More than I ever used to make, but then when you get these, so you can kind of get those standards, like, you know what, I'm just happy with where I am. But when you get these new speakers and you watch their energy, and they're trying to work two and three jobs to get to where you are and to go, you know, you, when you start to feel down on yourself, cause you're not this level, this group saying, I want to be where you are. So every week, like I said, it's at least one, but usually I'm having two or three conversations and like, you're part of the conversation this week because you're on the podcast.
Those help center you. They make sure that you're not getting too high or too low. So if there's a day where I'm going, man, I suck. My people are on the same level. You're like, Hey, Frank, who's known me for a while, Frank, remember back when you're just trying to like, you know, work out of the garage and go and do, remember that part there?
Oh yeah, cool. Then I'm like, well, I'm just happy with where I am right now. I don't need to push myself more than you watch these new speakers where I've had a couple of people where they got jobs that I was going for. I'm like, Oh, what did I do? I'm like, okay, I got lazy. I gotta, you know. You know, reinvigorate myself.
But then these higher level speakers, sometimes we focus, as I said, about being resourceful, we focus on what we don't have, but they're the ones going, Hey, I see potential in you. You can be up here too. So they're up there to kind of lift it up. So being able to meet with those three different levels will keep you from getting too high or too low.
I think if you're only speaking to people who are below you. You're going to get full of yourself.
Mike Goldman:
Frank Kitchen: yeah,
people who are above you.
Mike Goldman: sorry. that's so helpful to me because I do that, but I have not been doing it consciously and doing it consciously is going to help me do more of it and do it the right way. Cause as you're talking, you know, there, there are the, you know, the coaches and speakers that are bringing in just, you know, I have a way bigger business than I have, and they teach me something, but I also come away sometimes feeling a little smaller and I'm only five, four, so I can't get much smaller, but I feel a little smaller, but there are times and I do make time for this where I talk to.
Coaches that are where I was 10 years ago or five years ago and I absolutely love to help them and I love to talk to them and I always make time for them and I always come away feeling great and you're helping me realize why I come away feeling so great because you do need those three different levels you talk about.
Frank Kitchen: And as you start to either volunteer or give back, there's points where one is like, you feel good because like, okay, I'm giving back, I'm pulling people up. But there's other points where it allows you to. You know, go back to past successes and like, Oh, let me go back and do that again. Or wait, I am getting a little bit lazy.
Or I don't know if you've had these points where I'll share ideas with people and like, Oh man, this is great. And then they go apply that deal. And then you're driving home in the car. You're like, Oh, because I'm like, I'm not doing this. So it goes back to like, my wife is always joking around. She's like, Hey Frank, can you follow the advice that you give?
And the toughest advice to take is our own advice. So, so, I mean, as you said, hanging out with these different groups just allows you to stay more centered and balanced and recognize, you know, what the truth is. But as I said, if we surround ourselves with too much of one or the other, that's when we'll start having issues.
Mike Goldman: How do we, so, so go back to this idea of live fresh. And by the way, if you're watching this on video, Frank's actually got his shirt that says live fresh on it. So we can't, we can't forget it. But going back to this idea of live fresh, we talked about, you know, focus, resourceful, enthusiastic, you know, strong, honest, how I want to come back to the team concept now.
Frank Kitchen: So. For the listener that is leading a team or leading a company, how should they think about taking that idea and impacting the mindset of the members of their team? Okay, yeah, let's go with it.
So I'm gonna think about either points where I've been a leadership position or I've had great leaders and the ones that are most successful are, we clearly state either what the dream, the vision, the goal is. So I worked for a company years ago and the CEO had a means like I want to make more money. So everybody's just kind of like looking at her. She's like, I want to make more money. And so I raised my hand up and go, what does that mean? She goes, we're going to make more money than last year. I'm like, but what does that mean? And she's getting upset at me now, but I'm asking the question, like, so what does that mean?
So he goes, we're going to make more money. It's like, so if we make 1 more, then that's good. And she goes, no, we want to make 10 percent more. And I was like, that's the focus. So as a leader, we got to come in and clearly state what the goal is. I mean, I had a president worked with same thing. He's like, Hey, he's like, I'm gonna let you guys go pick your own goals.
And I'm going like, well, you're asking us to train for a race, but we don't know exactly how much, how we're going to train for it. I was like, is this a 10 K a marathon? So with the focus that actually helps gives people clear guidelines. On what can, you know, what we're going for. Everybody wants to know, where are we going?
Like, we get in the car, we type in the GPS, and know exactly where we're going. From the resourceful standpoint, now what happens is, we're gonna have two groups. Some groups are already gonna think about what is possible, and they're gonna kinda go run off or whatever, but, you know, other people are like, I don't know what to go and do. That's where the training comes in. People become resourceful when you start setting up a clear and consistent training program. And you have to understand the people that you're leading. So you're going to find out like, okay, what are their skill levels? What are their ability levels? What are their strengths?
And I say, what are their opportunities? Because a lot of our people that we lead have strengths and I don't want to call it weaknesses for the other. It's like, what are their opportunities? So do we need to go implement some type of training program to give them the resources they need? Because once they have this knowledge in their training, it takes time.
It's an investment. But then guess what? Later on, it makes the process easy because they know what's going on. I just got an email from my assistant this morning. I've spent a lot of time training her. But now today, she's like, Hey, Frank, I went through the computer system, went through the database and I saw these things are here.
So I went ahead and deleted that. And I did, it's taken me three months to train her to get to, but now she's going off and doing it on her own. She's being resourceful. She knows what the goal is. I'm like, Hey, I want the system organized. So let me just teach you how the system works. Let me just go ahead and let you play with it for a little bit.
It's like when you start to see areas where we can improve, go for it. So I've given her that ability. The enthusiastic piece is Well, what's the result? We're in a world right now where people are going to know, why are we doing this work? It's like, cause they were like, just go do the work. Do as I say, don't worry about it. They're not going to be doing the work, but if you can share some excitement of what that results going to produce, Hey, it could be a pay raise. It could be a party. It could be a chance to get a promotion. We have to explain, you know, what's going to make it enthusiastic for those people. We have people who are either internally motivated or externally motivated.
You have to understand their motivations and that's a way for you to, you know, explain, Hey. Here's what you got to get excited about. We talk about the strength again. The strength is, who are the people who are there? I mean, once again, what are we exposing them to? You know, there's outside factors. So, once again, this kind of goes back to the training or the caring that we talked about earlier. Are you showing that you care? Are you telling people what to do? Because that's a boss. Or you've been a leader and sometimes going and working side by side and mentoring them and showing them where it's going to go. Do you see people are showing, seeing potential in creating maybe a small like leadership, you know, team?
And I say leadership team, it's future leaders. I mean, I loved with the soccer team I was working with last night. They have varsity, future varsity, and upcoming varsity. So there's no freshmen JV, anything like that. It's a case of, Hey, the varsity is a top level team, future varsity. They're going to be varsity in the future and upcoming varsity.
You're gonna learn how to be varsity people. So with our companies, what are we doing to promote people up from within? I mean, that's something that really affects people's mindset. I've watched too many groups where they'll bring in people from outside, but they have these rock stars inside and go, why is our culture falling apart? And I've told people to their face and like, cause guess what? I was like, you've got all these rock stars here who aren't being promoted. The people who are lower level, like, well, if the rock stars can't get promoted, why should I give more? Cause you just bring in people from the outside. So that's the strength piece. And then the honesty piece is as a leader, leaders don't know everything. And I had issues with, some corporate employees I worked with because I would rate employees, you know, we do employee reviews and I get ranked them high in a certain category and it'd come back and go, Frank, you can't rank them that high because that's higher than your score. But guess what? Someone's going to have a better customer service score than me. Someone's going to have a better product knowledge score than me. Someone's going to have a better, you know, financing and business. A leader is supposed to surround themselves with great people. It doesn't mean the leader is the greatest person.
The leader is just there to clearly communicate what the goal is and how to hit that goal. But then you have to have these groups of experts, specialists all come together. So essentially the leader is there to stir the pot, to put, you know, all the right ingredients together, but they don't know, have to know how to do it all. So for the leaders, the big piece is to be honest in the sense of, if you don't know how this works, go and ask the people with you, it's like, who's got the expertise to teach you. Explains like, Hey, you know what? I need your help.explain to your groups. Like, Hey, this is why I feel we can hit this goal. Don't lie to your people because people can read, you know, through your body language, your actions, your tone, if you're lying to them. So be honest with those groups. So that's how I would apply it in a team format is let everybody know what the focus is, teach them how to be resourceful. So provide proper training. You got to let them know what the result of this work is, provide them the necessary environment to keep them mentally strong. And then be honest with them why you're making your decisions, why somebody may be getting promoted, not getting promoted, but be honest and treat them and I want to say, quote, equal, but the way you lead, keep that consistent and equal.
Mike Goldman: Frank, I know you also talk a lot about gamification
in the workplace and we've all sat through training and there's good training and there's most training, which is not very good, but frankly, even the good training,we kind of learn it and then we go back to work and six months later we say, yeah, that guy came in and he was really good.
But I'm not sure I've implemented anything, or I don't remember what he talked about. Talk about how you use gamification in the work you do and how as leaders, we ought to think about the idea of gamification.
Frank Kitchen: Okay, so when it comes to gamification, and it's great that you called me in today because I've been, it's the end of the year. So a lot of the groups have been working with, we've been actually doing, I have a program is called it's okay to play. And we talk about how we can game our way to a culture that values our people and fires up their performance. And I explain to people like we do ice breakers and games and energizers. And I'll ask the audience, I'm like, what do you think about it? And they're like, uh, and I explained to him, I was like, the reason people don't enjoy these is number one is they're forced. So we force it upon people like, Hey, everybody, we're gonna start our morning meeting and we're going to do this.
We're going to do a game. Uh, so back to the part about the focus, we didn't explain to people why we're playing the game. We just go and do it. So we have to explain why we're playing the game. But then the other part is told people like the reason most games or trainings fail is it becomes a lecture and a lecture.
If you look up in a dictionary means to either be scolded. Or to have a one sided conversation. So nobody wants to be just listening to somebody lecture, and nobody wants to be scolded. So when we do gamification, if you think about games, when we play games, people are constantly communicating back and forth, verbally and non verbally, on either how to do something, how to accomplish something, or what they've learned. Or, in the case that if they learn something wrong, the other group's going to teach them how to do it the proper way. So many times in gamification, we'll do this training or learning exercise. And we do it, but we don't explain why we're doing it. And because learning is individualized, we never make time to debrief and have a conversation of what the people there learned from it and how it applies to their current position or job. So if you really want gamification to work, what happens is the activities you do, number one, have to relate to the position. It just can't be a thing like, Hey, everybody, we're going to go ahead and guess the number one to 10. Okay, we got a winner. Okay, boom into the meeting. What does that mean? Nothing we have a group last night working with and it's like, okay, everybody, here's the challenge right now.
We've got 100 people in the room and you know what? We're quick to criticize people, but slow to recognize. So give everybody a high five next to you. Like, so what are we doing to recognize people when they do something good? So give a high five. So people start high fiving everybody. I'm like, how long do you think it would take for all of us to high five each other? You know, at least five people in the room to make them feel good. So stand up and then sit down. So people start throwing numbers out to me. So they throw the numbers. I'm like, okay, here's 15 seconds. Let's see if everybody can do it in 15 seconds. So everybody's got to go high five, five people and sit down. The team hits 20 seconds. Now they can visually see what's going on. So now we stopped. It's like, what did you learn? Oh, if we would have talked, if we would have converse, we could hit the results. So are you saying that we need to talk and converse? You know, in between things before we go for a result or go for a challenge.
Yeah. Okay, cool. What else can we, so now they're giving feedback as like, and why do you want to go do this again? Well, we want to hit the goal. I'm like, okay, let's go for it for a second chance. I'm like, so now you're leading the group. Not me. It's like, Hey, so guess what, everybody? It's not just up to the leader to tell you what to do.
You have to take some personal responsibility to hit the goal. So now to get together to converse, we go again and they hit 10. But then all of a sudden you got somebody who's more challenged, like, Oh, we can do better than that. I'm like, Oh, so are you saying it's good to push each other? So can we take this attitude into the workplace? So games are also visual learning, because when we have the employee handbook, or bullets, that means nothing. Humans are visual learners. I mean, since the day of time we're tactile, we have to see. So if people can actually see what is going on, and how to go and do it, that's when the learning goes in. I mean, there's a study that says if we do standard learning practices, read the book, take a test, the highest level you can achieve is 79%. When you make it more hands on, experiential, gamify it, you have a 94 percent retention rate and application rate of the information that came in. So when we gamify stuff, I've gone to military boot camp, they call it war games. Now they can't die while they're doing it, but they're learning visually and hands on how to react in a certain situation. And that's how we make these trainings and team developments. I mean, like I said, I've been doing this for 30 years. We've always been, I've trained people through games and it's been fun where people like, Oh my God, it's fun. It's engaging. And you're almost tricking them that they're being trained. But then later on, when you come and ask them the question, it's already in their deals, like, Oh, wait a second.
I forgot that. I mean, I've had employees before where someone goes, Frank, your employees are so knowledgeable, but they answer everything in the form of a question, because we did training through play in jeopardy. You're like, okay. And they go like, what is like, okay, what's our top sales item for this week? You know, who, how does the board president get, you know, elected, they have more fun, more activities with it, and they can relate it now back into a real world sense. So don't make it a lecture, explain why we're doing the activity and then give time to do debrief, but allow the employees or the team or the staff to throw information back to you. Because many times you're going to see something from a different angle or paradigm that you didn't think about. You're going to be like, here's what I thought you should have learned, but they're going to explain to you what they did learn.
Mike Goldman: Now, most leaders are not. They're not necessarily great public speakers. they haven't been doing training for the last 20, 25, 30 years. So, so for the listener, for the leader that likes the idea of gamification, but they're like, I, yeah, I guess I could bring Frank in and I hope they do. But if they're thinking, how do I do this myself?
Is there a book with a button? Like how should leaders be thinking about, you know, Turning what they're trying to teach their people into a game when they don't really have that experience or that skill yet
Frank Kitchen: Okay. So first one is leaders need to be observant. Is there somebody already within your team who shows a great ability or, you know, aptitude of training and teaching people. And when I say this, I go, leadership is about action, not title. So is there somebody in your team where anytime there's a problem, People go to them because that's who the true leader is.
The person who can solve the problem. So you have to be open to like, Oh, guess what? Seem like every time something needs to be fixed here or is going wrong. Everybody goes to Mike. Okay. So you need to pull Mike aside. It's like, Hey, Mike, why is everybody come to you? He's like, well, you know, the copy machine always breaks and you know, people don't want to get, you know, messed up or whatever.
So I sit there and teach them how to go and do it. And you know, this group here gets the blue screen of death all the time. And they come to me cause I've been here for a few years and I know how to work around the situation. Maybe Mike should be the person who runs the training because as a leader, it's not up to you to do all the work. It's you to you just to make sure the work gets done to achieve the result. That's also going to empower people because everything's coming from you. It's like, okay, that's just up there. Idea as a leader is to give away and delegate power to build a cohesive team. So now if it goes like, Hey, Mike's going to come and train in. I'm the new person. Like, well, wait, Mike's not the leader, but he's a trainer and maybe I can get into Mike's position. So now we're starting to inspire people to where it goes back to your question about the games and the leader themselves. You need to write a list of what are the opportunities for growth?
Where are you having challenges within your organization? And then you can say, okay, what can we do to create a role play for that area? So in the case of working for an HR company, I came in to do their employee trainings. What does it go? Frank, we have an issue with communication in the office. Okay, then we need to go create a communications game. Now, a communications game, we can go back to like when we were kids and played camp. You know, you have camp games. There's websites, there's stuff on YouTube, you can go find different pieces. You can hire somebody in, like me. Then you just kind of go find, you know, the right resource for you. Or if you've got a mic in your place, hey, mic. We got communications issues. Could you put something together for me? Sure. So, I mean, I know I gave several options there, but the first piece is to identify what the issue or problem is and then go. So, I mean, you even talked about public speaking. When I coach speakers, I don't coach them on how to go write their speech or how to go, I don't do that first. What I coach them is like, okay, what's the barrier. I was like, what's the problem. You know, what is like, Oh, I don't feel comfortable myself and the environment. I don't feel I'm knowledgeable. Well, we got to go remove the barrier first before we can do everything else. So we have to identify what's holding us back, then find a solution, then implement that solution.
Mike Goldman: And these days I would imagine it's easier. I don't have to imagine. I'm just going to say it. It's easier than ever to find the solution potentially in the form of a game, just by going out and searching YouTube or chat GPT or whatever.
there's so much out there where it's like, You know, we're having a problem with, you know, communicating, as we cascade down through the organization, what our plans are, what are five different, you know, role playing games we could play.
Like it's more, it's easier than it's ever been to find those kinds of things.
Frank Kitchen: Right.
And like you said, you can role play. I mean, even like if you go watch, go to a sports practice, I love going on field trips and studying how different groups train and go and do, but usually like in a game, they're like, okay, we're going to role play this, you know, over and over again to say, if this situation happens, two minute drill, goal line drill, they're doing so we can role play in the office of which I love when we role play, because sometimes you don't want to criticize somebody and throw people under the bus. So there may be a situation you saw to happen a couple of weeks ago that caused some issues. So instead of you coming like, you did this wrong, you did this wrong. You allow people to take ownership. You create a role play based off of that situation and go, Hey, everybody, you know, we had a situation, you know, you know, last week or better yet, you say, here's a situation that could arise, even though you're smart enough, know that this situation has happened before you say this situation could arrive and you have people, you give them cards and like having played different roles. Then you play the sequence out, but then you ask the team, Okay, how could or how should we solve this? And many times, when I've done this, New solution that I didn't even think about as a leader will arise. But now the team has witnessed this. They've seen this, but they've been empowered because they actually gave ideas on how to solve the problem. So one of the easiest games to do is just quite simply, just act it out and role play.
Mike Goldman: Love it.
Love it at Frank, as we start to, to wrap up, talk a little bit more about, the types of organizations you work for. What do you do? Is it, does it go beyond just, you know, keynoting and training? Talk a little bit about what you do and who you do it for.
Frank Kitchen: Well, when it comes to speaking and you understand this speaking as a lifestyle business, it's not only the lifestyle you create for yourself, but the lifestyle you create for your clients that you work with. My happy spot right now is keynoting because I've got two kids. They're, you know, 12 and nine, and I've worked 80 to a hundred hour weeks before, and I don't want to, you know, jeopardize my family by, Hey, I'm a speaker.
And I, I coach it. Like it's just, it's too much. So for me, I keynote, but then I provide either coursework on leadership or public speaking, how to become a speaker or books on how to, you know, transform your professional dreams into reality or how to value yourself. So that's the piece there. See Frank speak, and then you have self guided, you know, information, whether it be courses or books to help you out. As far as the groups that I work with is the people who are trying to, one is elevate their careers. So I'll speak to professional associations because people go to those conferences and To get better at their career. And maybe they just don't have that development available at their employer. Then I've got other groups are like, well, Hey, we're worried about our organization or our team.
Can you come in and do, you know, instead of individualized, how are you going to, can you help us create a great team or great culture? So we do that. And then the final one is there's entrepreneurs. There are people who want to get better at their business. I'm a business owner. You're a business owner.
Mike, I've been doing this now for about 18 years. So I'm sharing. What I've learned during this 18 year journey of being a business owner, which means I own a professional speaking business with my expertise and performance mindset and team motivation. And I do it by speaking as a professional speaker.
So that's essentially my setup is I like professional associations, tends to be a lot of education, government, and service groups. And those will lead me into professional development days at corporate groups and education school government groups to come in and do their, you know, yearly kickoff or their development day or retreat. And then to get them more to make more of an impact because I can't deliver it in one hour, half a day, then there's books and courses to actually go deeper dive into that content.
Mike Goldman: So for these associations, teams, companies, entrepreneurs that are interested in finding out more about how you can help them, where should they go?
Frank Kitchen: So where they should go is it's pretty simple. I'm very creative, frankkitchen.com
so they just go to my website, frankkitchen.com
you're going to find videos and information. we're about to put up a new book list where it's like, Hey, here's books that I recommend for you. I've made this transition, really my business where it's not just about the income I make, But the impact that I make.
So when you go to that site, it'll direct you to other places like LinkedIn or my YouTube channel, where you can actually get free content to make, you know, a deeper impact so people can go to YouTube, just type in Frank kitchen. And I think there's like about 150 videos on there right now. That's going to provide full length speeches or just snippets of it to allow you to just become a better person and allow you to live fresh.
Mike Goldman: Beautiful. Well, I always say, if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team, Frank, thanks so much for helping us get there today.
Frank Kitchen: Hey, you're welcome. Thanks for having me out, Mike.